Marion Harland

“ Issue your declaration of independence to the effect that you choose to dispense charity in your own way, and that, as an intelligent Christian woman, you can better judge by what methods to relieve want and aid the really worthy poor, than can the ignorant, irresponsible creature who lavishes what costs her nothing upon every chance speculator whose lying whine excites her pity. ”

“ Green corn, even in city markets, is both indifferent and dear at this season. We do better, therefore, to fall back upon the invaluable canned vegetables that have made American housewives almost independent of changing seasons. Open a can of corn one hour before it is to be cooked. When ready for it turn into a farina-kettle; pour on just enough hot water to cover it, and cook half [574] an hour. Then, add a little milk, a good lump of butter cut up in flour, pepper and salt to taste, and cook fifteen minutes longer. ”

“ Get your butcher to save you a fresh, large beef’s tongue, the finest he can get. Soak, in cold water, a little salt, six hours—overnight, if you choose—changing the water before you go to bed. Wipe it, trim and scrape it, and plunging into boiling water, keep it at a slow boil for an hour and a half. Take it up, pepper and salt; brush [90] over with beaten egg and coat thickly with bread-crumbs; lay in your dripping-pan and bake, basting often with butter melted in a little water. Half an hour in a good oven should suffice. Put on a hot dish and cover while you prepare the sauce. ”

“ Chop fine a half cupful of the veal left after straining off the soup. Add half as much chopped ham, and one-third the quantity of bread-crumbs. Pepper (and salt, if needed) . Put a few spoonfuls of gravy into a saucepan; stir in this force-meat, with a very little onion, and the pulp and seeds you have scraped carefully from six or eight fine smooth tomatoes. When all are smoking hot, add a [391] tablespoonful of butter, and when this has melted, take from the fire. Set the tomatoes you have hollowed out in a pudding-dish. ”

“ Cook until the meat slips easily from the bones. Take out the head, remove the bones, and throw back into the soup. Set aside three-quarters of the meat—the best portions—for to-morrow’s dinner. Chop the ears and other refuse parts fine; season with salt, pepper, onion, sweet marjoram, a teaspoonful of ground cloves, and as much allspice—even spoonfuls. Mix all up well, return to the soup and boil down to three quarts. Mash the brains and make into force-meat balls with raw egg, seasoning and enough flour to hold them together; roll in flour and set in a cool place until wanted. ”

“ Stew steadily, never fast, for an hour and a half after the water in the outer kettle begins to boil. Then open the pail and test with a fork to see if the chicken be tender. If not, re-cover at once, and stew for half or three-quarters of an hour longer. When the chicken is tender throughout, take it out and lay upon a hot dish, covering immediately. Turn the juices left in the pail into a saucepan, thicken with the corn-starch, which should first be wet up with a little cold milk, then the chopped parsley, butter, pepper and salt, and the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs chopped fine. ”

“ By the time the rice is soft, the water should have been soaked up entirely, and each grain stand out whole in the mass. Never stir boiling rice, but shake up the saucepan instead. Stir into the rice, at this point, three tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, salt and pepper to taste. Toss up with a fork until the cheese is dissolved, and pour into a deep dish.
Potato Puff.
Mash the potatoes while hot. Beat in butter, milk, and two whipped eggs, with salt to your liking, until you have a light, soft paste. Bake in a buttered pudding-dish in a quick oven. ”

“ The best part for boiling is the leg. Put on in boiling water and cook, allowing fifteen minutes to the pound. Make a sauce by taking out a cupful of liquor when it is nearly done, cooling it until you can take off the fat, then heating again in a saucepan and stirring into it one [140] tablespoonful of butter, two teaspoonfuls of flour, wet up with cold water. Stir for five minutes, putting in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and after another boil, take from the fire before you put in the juice of a lemon. ”

“ Cook a cauliflower—tied up in a net—in boiling salt water, fifteen minutes. Drain, clip into small clusters, and lay in a stone-china or block-tin dish. Pour a cup of drawn butter over it; strew thickly with fine crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of a brisk oven.
Syllabub and May’s Cake.
Whip a pint of cream to a stiff froth in your syllabub-churn, sweetening as you go on, with half a cup of powdered sugar. When it is a snowy mass upon the sieve upon which you have laid it as it rises, beat in a glass of wine. Set upon ice until wanted, then fill into glasses. ”

“ Holland will always find a congenial audience in the homes of culture and refinement. He does not affect the play of the darker and fiercer passions, but delights in the sweet images that cluster around the domestic hearth. ”

“ Soak the gelatine one hour in a teacupful of cold water, then stir in two-thirds of the sugar, the lemon-juice and the boiling water. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth, and when the strained gelatine is quite cold, whip it into the whites, a spoonful at a time for half an hour, if you use the Dover egg-beater (at least one hour with any other) . When all is white and stiff, pour into a wet mould, and set in a cold place. Make this on Saturday, and on Sunday dip the mould into hot water, and turn out into a glass dish. ”

“ The meat should cook steadily, never fast, five hours, keeping the pot-lid on. Strain into a great bowl; let it cool to throw the fat to the surface; skim and return to the fire. Season with pepper and salt, boil up, take off the scum; add the vegetables with their liquor. Heat together ten minutes, strain again, and bring to a slow boil before the tapioca goes in. This should have been soaked one hour in cold water, then cooked in the same within another vessel of boiling water until each grain is clear. It is necessary to stir up often from the [44] bottom while cooking. ”

“ Drain the liquor from the oysters through a colander. Put the liquor over the fire with half as much water, salt, pepper, and a large tablespoonful of butter for each quart of soup. Let it boil up well, and put in the oysters. Heat slowly, and as soon as they “ruffle,” which should be about five minutes after they reach the boil, strain off the soup. Have in another vessel as much boiling milk as there was oyster liquor. Pour the oysters into a hot tureen, put a large spoonful of butter upon them; when it melts entirely, turn in the milk. ”

“ Cut a pound of salt pork into strips long enough to reach from top to bottom of the beef—make incisions in it with a thin, long-bladed knife, and thrust these in closely together. Fill the hole from which the bone was taken with a force-meat of minced pork and crumbs, highly spiced. Put the meat thus prepared in a deep earthenware dish, and rub well into it a mixture of one cup of vinegar, a teaspoonful of mixed cloves and allspice, a teaspoonful of salt, and the same of made mustard; a tablespoonful of sugar and a bunch of sweet herbs minced, with as much pepper as salt. ”

“ Enough milk to make the rice into stiff paste. Sweet lard for frying.
Work rice, butter, egg, etc., into an adhesive paste, beating each ingredient thoroughly into the mixture. Flour your hands and make the rice into oval balls. Dip each in beaten egg, then in flour, or cracker-dust, and fry [32] in boiling lard, a few at a time, turning each with great care. When the croquettes are of a fine yellow-brown, take out with a wire spoon and lay within a heated colander to drain off every drop of fat. Serve hot, with sprigs of parsley laid about them, in an uncovered dish. ”

“ Cut the meat from the bone of your cold roast. Salt the bone and put by for another day’s soup. Mince the meat fine, season highly; put the gravy left from yesterday (or a cup of your Sunday’s soup would be even better) in a saucepan, when you have taken off the fat, heat it, and stir in the mince. Make it very hot; thicken with a little browned flour if it is too thin, and pile up in a flat dish, with poached eggs and toast about it. ”