Part 2 (1/2)
Glaze also adds much to the beauty of many dishes. If roast beef is not quite brown enough on any one spot set your jar of glaze--for this purpose it is well to have some put in a jar as well as in the skin--in boiling water. Keep a small stiff brush; such as are sold for the purpose at house-furnis.h.i.+ng stores, called a glazing brush, are best; but you may manage with any other or even a stiff feather. When the glaze softens, as glue would do, brush over your meat with it, it will give the lacking brown; or, if you have a ham or tongue you wish to decorate you may ”varnish” it, as it were, with the melted glaze; then when cold beat some fresh b.u.t.ter to a white cream, and with a kitchen syringe, if you have one, a stiff paper funnel if you have not, trace any design you please on the glazed surface; this makes a very handsome dish, and if your ham has been properly boiled will be very satisfactory to the palate. Of the boiling of ham I will speak in another chapter.
I have a few more articles to recommend for your store-room, and then I think you will find yourself equal to the emergency of providing an elegant little meal if called upon unexpectedly, provided you have any cold sc.r.a.ps at all in the house, and _maitre d'hotel_ b.u.t.ter.
To make the latter, take half a pound of fine b.u.t.ter, one tablespoonful of very fresh parsley, chopped not too fine, salt, pepper, and a small tablespoonful of lemon juice; mix together, but do not work more than sufficient for that purpose, and pack in a jar, keeping it in a cool place. A tablespoonful of this laid in a hot dish on which you serve beefsteak, chops, or any kind of fish, is a great addition, and turns plain boiled potatoes into _pomme de terre a la maitre d'hotel_. It is excellent with stewed potatoes, or added to anything for which parsley is needed, and not always at hand; a spoonful with half the quant.i.ty of flour stirred into a gill of milk or water makes the renowned _maitre d'hotel_ sauce (or English parsley b.u.t.ter) for boiled fish, mutton, or veal. In short, it is one of the most valuable things to have in the house. Equally valuable, even, and more elegant is the preparation known as ”Ravigotte” or Montpellier b.u.t.ter.
Take one pound in equal quant.i.ties of chervil, tarragon, burnet (pimpernel), chives, and garden cress (peppergra.s.s); scald _two_ minutes, drain quite dry; pound in a mortar three hard eggs, three anchovies, and one scant ounce of pickled cuc.u.mbers, and same quant.i.ty of capers well pressed to extract the vinegar; add salt, pepper, and a bit of garlic half as large as a pea, rub all through a sieve; then put a pound of fine b.u.t.ter into the mortar, which must be well cleansed from the herbs, add the herbs, with two tablespoonfuls of oil and one of tarragon vinegar, mix perfectly, and if not of a fine green, add the juice of some pounded spinach.
This is the celebrated ”_beurre de Montpellier_” sold in Paris in tiny jars at a high price. Ravigotte is the same thing, only in place of the eggs, anchovies, pickles, and capers, put half a pound more b.u.t.ter; it is good, but less piquant.
Pack in a jar, and keep cool. This b.u.t.ter is excellent for many purposes. For salad, beaten with oil, vinegar, and yolks of eggs, as for mayonnaise, it makes a delicious dressing. For cold meat or fish it is excellent, and also for chops.
Two or three other articles serve to simplify the art of cooking in its especially difficult branches, and in the branches a lady finds difficult to attend to herself without remaining in the kitchen until the last minute before dinner; but with the aid of blanc and roux a fairly intelligent girl can make excellent sauces.
For roux melt slowly half a pound of b.u.t.ter over the fire, skim it, let it settle, then dredge in eight ounces of fine flour, stir it till it is of a bright brown, then put away in a jar for use.
Blanc is the same thing, only it is not allowed to brown; it should be stirred only enough to make all hot through, then put away in a jar.
If you need thickening for a white sauce and do not wish to stand over it yourself, having taught your cook the simple fact that a piece of blanc put into the milk _before it boils_ (or it will harden instead of melt) and allowed to dissolve, stirring constantly, will make the sauce you wish, she will be able at all times to produce a white sauce that you need not be ashamed of. When the sauce is nearly ready to serve, stir in a good piece of b.u.t.ter--a large spoonful to half a pint; when mixed, the sauce is ready. Brown sauce can always be made by taking a cup of broth or soup and dissolving in the same way a piece of the roux; and also, if desired, a piece of Montpellier b.u.t.ter. If there is no soup of course you make it with a piece of glaze.
Brown flour is also a convenient thing to have ready; it is simply cooking flour in the oven until it is a _pale_ brown; if it is allowed to get dark it will be bitter, and, that it may brown evenly, it requires to be laid on a large flat baking pan and stirred often. Useful for thickening stews, hash, etc.
CHAPTER V.
LUNCHEON.
LUNCHEON is usually, in this country, either a forlorn meal of cold meat or hash, or else a sort of early dinner, both of which are a mistake. If it is veritably _luncheon_, and not early dinner, it should be as unlike that later meal as possible for variety's sake, and, in any but very small families, there are so many dishes more suitable for luncheon than any other meal, that it is easy to have great variety with very little trouble.
I wish it were more the fas.h.i.+on here to have many of the cold dishes which are popular on the other side the Atlantic; and, in spite of the fact that table prejudices are very difficult to get over, I will append a few recipes in the hope that some lady, more progressive than prejudiced, may give them a trial, convinced that their excellence, appearance, and convenience will win them favor.
By having most dishes cold at luncheon, it makes it a distinct meal from the hot breakfast and dinner. In summer, the cold food and a salad is especially refres.h.i.+ng; in winter, a nice hot soup or puree--thick soup is preferable at luncheon to clear, which is well fitted to precede a heavy meal--and some savory _entree_ are very desirable, while cold raised pie, galantine, jellied fish, and potted meats may ever, at that season, find their appropriate place on the luncheon table. The potatoes, which are the only vegetable introduced at strict lunch, should be prepared in some fancy manner, as croquettes, mashed and browned, _a la maitre d'hotel_, or in snow. The latter mode is pretty and novel; I will, therefore, include it in my recipes for luncheon dishes. Omelets, too, are excellent at luncheon.
In these remarks I am thinking especially of large families, whose luncheon table might be provided with a dish of galantine, one of collared fish, and a meat pie, besides the steak, cutlets, or warmed-over meat, without anything going to waste. In winter most cold jellied articles will keep a fortnight, and in summer three or four days.
WINDSOR PIE.--Take slices of veal cutlet, half an inch thick, and very thin slices of lean boiled ham; put at the bottom of one of these veal-pie dishes or ”bakers,” about two to three inches deep, a layer of the veal, seasoned, then one of ham, then one of force-meat, made as follows: Take a little veal, or if you have sausage-meat ready-made, it will do, as much fine dry bread-crumbs, a dessert-spoonful of _finely_ chopped parsley, in which is a salt-spoonful of powdered thyme, savory, and marjoram, if you have them, with salt and pepper, and mix with enough b.u.t.ter to make it a crumbling paste; lay a _thin_ layer of this on the ham, then another of veal, then ham and force-meat again, until the dish is quite full. Lay something flat upon it, and then a weight for an hour. You must have prepared, from bones and sc.r.a.ps of veal, about a pint of stiff veal jelly; pour this over the meat, and then take strips of rich puff paste (the _brioche_ paste would be excellent in hot weather), wet the edge of the dish, and lay the strips round, pressing them lightly to the dish; roll the cover a little larger than the top of the dish, and lay it on, first wetting the surface, _not the edge_, of the strips round the lips of the dish; press the two together, then make a hole in the center and ornament as you please; but I never ornament the _edge_ of a pie, as it is apt to prevent the paste from rising. An appropriate and simple ornament for meat pies is to roll a piece of paste very thin, cut it in four diamond-shaped pieces, put one point of each to the hole in the center so that you have one on each end, and one each side, then roll another little piece of paste as thin as possible, flour it and double it, then double it again, bring all the corners together in your hand, like a little bundle, then with a sharp knife give a quick cut over the top of the ball of paste, cutting quite deeply, then another across; if your cut has been clean and quick, you will now be able to turn half back the leaves of paste as if it were a half-blown rose. The ends which you have gathered together in your hand are to be inserted in the hole in the center of the pie. Then brush over with yolk of egg beaten very well in a little milk or water, and bake an hour and a half.
This way of covering and ornamenting a pie is appropriate for all meat pies; pigeon pie should, however, have the little red feet skinned by dipping in boiling water, then rubbed in a cloth, when skin and nails peel off; if allowed to lie in the water, the flesh comes too; then one pair is put at each end of the pie, a hole being cut to insert them, or four are put in the center instead of the rose.
The Windsor pie is intended to be eaten cold, as are all veal and ham pies, the beauty of the jelly being lost in a hot pie. Do not fail to try it on that account, for cold pies are excellent things.
ANOTHER VEAL AND HAM PIE, more usual, and probably the ”weal and hammer”
that ”mellered the organ” of Silas Wegg, was manufactured by Mrs. Boffin from this recipe; it is as follows:
Take the thick part of breast of veal, removing all the bones, which put on for gravy, stewing them long and slowly; put a layer of veal, pepper and salt, then a thin sprinkling of ham; if boiled, cut in slices; if raw, cut a slice in dice, which scald before using, then more veal and again ham. If force-meat b.a.l.l.s are liked, make some force-meat as for Windsor pie, using if you prefer it chopped hard-boiled eggs in place of chopped meat, and binding into a paste with a raw egg; then make into b.a.l.l.s, which drop into the crevices of the pie; boil two or three eggs quite hard, cut each in four and lay them round the sides and over the top, pour in about a gill of gravy, and cover the same as the Windsor pie. In either of these pies the force-meat may be left out, a sweetbread cut up, or mushrooms put in.
A chicken pie to eat cold is very fine made in this way.
RAISED PORK PIES are so familiar to every one who has visited England, and, in spite of the greasy idea, are so very good, that I introduce a well-tried recipe, feeling sure any one who eats pork at all will find it worth while to give them a trial; they will follow it with many another.
The paste for them is made as follows: