Chicken or turkey left from a former dinner, bones and scraps from roast veal, lamb or mutton, four quarts of water, four stalks of celery, four table-spoonfuls of butter, four of flour, one of curry, two onions, two slices of carrot, salt, pepper, half a small cupful of barley. Put on the bones of the poultry and meat with the water. Have the vegetables cut very fine, and cook gently twenty minutes in the butter; then skim them into the soup pot, being careful to press out all the butter. Into the butter remaining in the pan put the flour, and when that is brown, add the curry powder, and stir all into the soup. Cook gently four hours; then season with salt and pepper, and strain. Return to the pot and add bits of chicken or turkey, as the case may be, and the barley, which has been simmering two hours and a half in clear water to cover. Simmer half an hour and serve.
The giblets from two or three fowl or chickens, any kind of stock, or if there are remains of the roast chickens, use these; one large onion, two slices of carrot, one of turnip, two stalks of celery, two quarts of water, one of stock, two large table-spoonfuls of butter, two of flour, salt, pepper. Put the giblets on to boil in the two quarts of water, and boil gently until reduced to one quart (it will take about two hours); then take out the giblets. Cut all the hard, tough parts from the gizzards, and put hearts, livers and gizzards together and chop rather coarse. Return them to the liquor in which they were boiled, and add the quart of stock. Have the vegetables cut fine, and fry them in the butter until they are very tender (about fifteen minutes), but be careful they do not burn; then add the dry flour to them and stir until the flour browns. Turn this mixture into the soup, and season with pepper and salt. Cook gently half an hour and serve with toasted bread. If the chicken bones are used, put them on to boil in three quarts of water, and boil the giblets with them. When you take out the giblets, strain the stock through a sieve and return to the pot; then proceed as before.
Take a cold roast-beef bone, pieces of beefsteak, the rack of a cold turkey or chicken. Put them into a pot with three or four quarts of water, two carrots, three turnips, one onion, a few cloves, pepper and salt. Boil the whole gently four hours; then strain it through a colander, mashing the vegetables so that they will all pass through. Skim off the fat, and return the soup to the pot. Mix one tablespoonful of flour with two of water, stir it into the soup and boil the whole ten minutes. Serve this soup with sippits of toast. Sippits are bits of dry toast cut into a triangular form. A seasonable dish about the holidays.
Always use soft water for making soup, and be careful to proportion the quantity of water to that of the meat. Somewhat less than a quart of water to a pound of meat, is a good rule for common soups. Rich soups, intended for company, may have a still smaller allowance of water. Soup should always be made entirely of fresh meat that has not been previously cooked. An exception to this rule may sometimes be made in favour of the remains of a piece of roast beef that has been very much under-done in roasting. This may be added to a good piece of raw meat. Cold ham, also, may be occasionally put into white soups. Soup made of cold meat has always a vapid, disagreeable taste, very perceptible through all the seasoning, and which nothing indeed can disguise. Also, it will be of a bad, dingy colour. The juices of the meat having been exhausted by the first cooking, the undue proportion of watery liquid renders it, for soup, indigestible and unwholesome, as well as unpalatable. As there is little or no nutriment to be derived from soup made with cold meat, it is better to refrain from using it for this purpose, and to devote the leavings of the table to some other object. No person accustomed to really good soup, made from fresh meat, can ever be deceived in the taste, even when flavoured with wine and spices. It is not true that French cooks have the art of producing excellent soups from cold scraps. There is much bad soup to be found in France, at inferior houses; but good French cooks are not, as is generally supposed, really in the practice of concocting any dishes out of the refuse of the table. And we repeat, that cold meat, even when perfectly good, and used in a large quantity, has not sufficient substance to flavour soup, or to render it wholesome. Soup, however, that has been originally made of raw meat entirely, is frequently better the second day than the first; provided that it is re-boiled only for a very short time, and that no additional water is added to it. Unless it has been allowed to boil too hard, so as to exhaust the water, the soup-pot will not require replenishing. When it is found absolutely necessary to do so, the additional water must be boiling hot when poured in; if lukewarm or cold, it will entirely spoil the soup. Every particle of fat should be carefully skimmed from the surface. Greasy soup is disgusting and unwholesome. The lean of meat is much better for soup than the fat. Long and slow boiling is necessary to extract the strength from the meat. If boiled fast over a large fire, the meat becomes hard and tough, and will not give out its juices. Potatoes, if boiled in the soup, are thought by some to render it unwholesome, from the opinion that the water in which potatoes have been cooked is almost a poison. As potatoes are a part of every dinner, it is very easy to take a few out of the pot in which they have been boiled by themselves, and to cut them up and add them to the soup just before it goes to table. The cook should season the soup but very slightly with salt and pepper. If she puts in too much, it may spoil it for the taste of most of those that are to eat it; but if too little, it is easy to add more to your own plate. The practice of thickening soup by stirring flour into it is not a good one, as it spoils both the appearance and the taste. If made with a sufficient quantity of good fresh meat, and not too much water, and if boiled long and slowly, it will have substance enough without flour.
No. 1. Leg, used for roasts and for boiling. No. 2. Shoulder, used for baked dishes and roasts. No. 3. Loin, best end used for roasts, chops. No. 4. Loin, chump-end used for roasts and chops. No. 5. Rack, or rib chops, used for French chops, rib chops, either for frying or broiling; also used for choice stews. No. 6. Breast, used for roast, baked dishes, stews, chops. No. 7. Neck or scrag-end, used for cutlets, stews and meat-pies. NOTE.--A saddle of muton or double loin is two loins cut off before the carcass is split open down the back. French chops are a small rib chop, the end of the bone trimmed off and the meat and fat cut away from the thin end, leaving the round piece of meat attached to the larger end, which leaves the small rib-bone bare. Very tender and sweet. Mutton is prime when cut from a carcass which has been fed out of doors, and allowed to run upon the hillside; they are best when about three years old. The fat will then be abundant, white and hard, the flesh juicy and firm, and of a clear red color. For mutton roasts, choose the shoulder, the saddle, or the loin or haunch. The leg should be boiled. Almost any part will do for broth. Lamb born in the middle of the winter, reared under shelter, and fed in a great measure upon milk, then killed in the spring, is considered a great delicacy, though lamb is good at a year old. Like all young animals, lamb ought to be thoroughly cooked, or it is most unwholesome.
One cold roast chicken, two quarts of stock (any kind), one of water, quarter of a pound of salt pork, one quart of green okra, an onion, salt, pepper, three table-spoonfuls of flour. Cut the okra pods into small pieces. Slice the pork and onion. Fry the pork, and then add the onion and okra. Cover closely, and fry half an hour. Cut all the meat from the chicken. Put the bones on with the water. Add the okra and onion, first being careful to press out all the pork fat possible. Into the fat remaining put the flour, and stir until it becomes a rich brown; add this to the other ingredients. Cover the pot, and simmer three hours; then rub through a sieve, and add the stock, salt and pepper and the meat of the chicken, cut into small pieces. Simmer gently twenty minutes. Serve with a dish of boiled rice.
Cut four onions, one carrot, two turnips, and one head of celery into three quarts of liquor, in which one or two fowls have been boiled; keep it over a brisk fire till it boils, then place it on a corner of the fire, and let it simmer twenty minutes; add one tablespoonful of currie powder, and one tablespoonful of flour; mix the whole well together, and let it boil three minutes; pass it through a colander; serve with pieces of roast chicken in it; add boiled rice in a separate dish. It must be of good yellow color, and not too thick. If you find it too thick, add a little boiling water and a teaspoonful of sugar. Half veal and half chicken answers as well. A dish of rice, to be served separately with this soup, must be thus prepared: put three pints of water in a saucepan and one tablespoonful of salt; let this boil. Wash well, in three waters, half a pound of rice; strain it, and put it into the boiling water in saucepan. After it has come to the boil--which it will do in about two minutes--let it boil twenty minutes; strain it through a colander, and pour over it two quarts of cold water. This will separate the grains of rice. Put it back in the saucepan, and place it near the fire until hot enough to send to the table. This is also the proper way to boil rice for curries. If these directions are strictly carried out every grain of the rice will separate, and be thoroughly cooked.
Take prime rib roast. Cut up a small onion, a celery root and part of a carrot into rather small pieces and add to these two or three sprigs of parsley and one bay leaf. Sprinkle these over the bottom of the dripping-pan and place your roast on this bed. The oven should be very hot when the roast is first put in, but when the roast is browned sufficiently to retain its juices, moderate the heat and roast more slowly until the meat is done. Do not season until the roast is browned, and then add salt and pepper. Enough juice and fat will drop from the roast to give the necessary broth for basting. Baste frequently and turn occasionally, being very careful, however, not to stick a fork into the roast.
Take some roast beef that has been very much under-done, and having cut off the fat and skin, put the trimmings with the bones broken up into a stew-pan with two large onions sliced, a few sliced potatoes, and a bunch of sweet herbs. Add about a pint of warm water, or broth if you have it. This is to make the gravy. Cover it closely, and let it simmer for about an hour. Then skim and strain it, carefully removing every particle of fat. Take another stew-pot, and melt in it a piece of butter, about the size of a large walnut. When it has melted, shake in a spoonful of flour. Stir it a few minutes, and then add to it the strained gravy. Let it come to a boil, and then put to it a table-spoonful of catchup, and the beef cut either in thin small slices or in mouthfuls. Let it simmer from five to ten minutes, but do not allow it to boil, lest (having been cooked already) it should become tasteless and insipid. Serve it up in a deep dish with thin slices of toast cut into triangular or pointed pieces, the crust omitted. Dip the toast in the gravy, and lay the pieces in regular order round the sides of the dish. You may hash mutton or veal in the same manner, adding sliced carrots, turnips, potatoes, or any vegetables you please. Tomatas are an improvement. To hash cold meat is an economical way of using it; but there is little or no nutriment in it after being twice cooked, and the natural flavour is much impaired by the process. Hashed meat would always be much better if the slices were cut from the joint or large piece as soon as it leaves the table, and soaked in the gravy till next day.
First make a stuffing of a pound of veal and a quarter of a pound of pork, simmered two hours in water to cover; four crackers, rolled fine; a table-spoonful of salt, a scant teaspoonful of pepper, a teaspoonful of summer savory, a large table-spoonful of butter and one and a quarter cupfuls of the broth in which the veal and pork were cooked. Chop the meat fine, add the other ingredients, and put on the fire to heat. Cut off the rabbit's head, open the vent, and draw. Wash clean, and season with salt and pepper. Stuff while the dressing is hot, and sew up the opening. Put the rabbit on its knees, and skewer in that position. Rub thickly with butter, dredge with flour, and put in the baking pan, the bottom of which should be covered with hot water. Bake half an hour in a quick oven, basting frequently. Serve with a border of mashed potatoes, and pour the gravy over the rabbit.
