She organizes the menus into categories by meal, breakfast and dinner. Then the dinner category is organized by type of diner into economical dinners for small families, very nice dinners for families, and company dinners. She includes in most sections a special menu or two.
I will start the series with a special Christmas or New Year's Menu from the category Very Nice Dinners for Families, found on page 382.
- Roast Turkey with Cranberry Sauce
- Boiled Fowls with Celery Sauce
- Boiled Ham
- Goose Pie
- Turnips
- Winter Squash
- Salsify
- Cold Slaw
- Beets
- Boiled Mice Pudding
- Baked Lemon Pudding
- Pumpkin Pudding
Make a
force-meat of grated bread-crumbs, minced suet, sweet marjoram, grated
lemon-peel, nutmeg, pepper, salt, and beaten yolk of egg. You may add some
grated cold ham. Light some writing paper, and singe the hairs from the skin of
the turkey. Reserve the neck, liver, and gizzard for the
gravy. Stuff the craw of the turkey with the force-meat, of which there should
be enough made to form into balls for frying,
laying them round the turkey when it is dished Dredge it with flour, and roast
it before a clear brisk fire, basting it with cold lard. Towards the last, set
the turkey nearer to the fire, dredge it again very lightly with flour, and baste it with butter. It will require, according to its size,
from two to three hours roasting.
Make the gravy of the giblets cut in pieces,
seasoned, and stewed for two hours in a very little water; thicken it with a spoonful of
browned flour, and stir into it the gravy from the dripping-pan, having first
skimmed off the fat.
A turkey should be accompanied by
ham or tongue. Serve up with it mushroom-sauce. Have stewed cranberries on the
table to eat with it. Do not help any one to the legs, or drum-sticks as they
are called.
Turkeys are sometimes stuffed entirely with sausage-meat.
Small cakes of this meat should then be fried, and laid round it.
To bone a turkey, you must begin
with a very sharp knife at the top of the wings, and scrape the flesh loose
from the bone without dividing or cutting it to pieces. If done carefully and
dexterously, the whole mass of flesh may be separated from the bone, so that
you can take hold of the head and draw out the entire skeleton at once. A large
quantity of force-meat having been prepared, stuff it hard into the turkey,
restoring it by doing so to its natural form, filling out the body, breast,
wings and legs, so as to resemble their original shape when the bones .were in. Roast or bake it; pouring a glass of port wine into
The gravy. A boned turkey is frequently served up cold, covered with lumps of
currant jelly; slices of which are laid round the dish.
Any sort of poultry or game may be boned and stuffed in the same manner.
A cold turkey that has not been
boned is sometimes sent to table larded all over the breast with slips of fat
bacon, drawn through the flesh with a larding needle, and arranged in regular form.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 154)
(From Directions for Cookery. page 154)
Wash a quart of ripe cranberries, and put them into a pan with about a
wine-glass of water. Stew them slowly, and stir them frequently, particularly
after they begin to burst. They require a great deal of stewing, and should be
like a marmalade when done. Just before you take them from the fire, stir in a pound of brown sugar.
When they are thoroughly done, put them into a deep dish, and
set them away to get cold.
You may strain the pulp through a cullender or sieve into a
mould, and when it is in a firm shape send it to
table on a glass dish. Taste it when it is cold, and if not sweet enough, add
more sugar. Cranberries require more sugar than any other fruit, except plums.
Cranberry sauce is eaten with roast turkey, roast fowls, and
roast ducks.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 169)
(From Directions for Cookery. page 169)
Maee a
force-meat in the usual manner, of grated
breadcrumbs, chopped sweet herbs, butter, pepper, salt, and yolk of egg. Fill
the bodies of the fowls with the stuffing, and tie a string firmly round them.
Skewer the livers and gizzards to the sides, under the wings. Dredge them with
flour, and put them into a pot with just enough of water to cook them; cover it
closely, and put it over a moderate fire. As soon as the scum rises, take off
the pot and skim it. Then cover it again, and boil it slowly half an hour.
Afterwards diminish the fire, and let them stew slowly till quite tender. An
hour altogether is generally sufficient to boil a pair of fowls, unless they
are quite old. By doing them slowly (rather stewing than boiling) the skin will
not break, and they will be whiter and more tender than if boiled fast.
Serve them up with egg-sauce in a
boat.
Young chickens are better for being
soaked two hours in skim milk, previous to boiling.
You need not stuff them. Boil or stew them slowly in the
same manner as large fowls. Three quarters of an hour will cook them.
Serve them up with parsley-sauce, and garnish with parsley.
Boiled fowls should be accompanied by ham or smoked
(From Directions for Cookery. page 141)
—Take a large bunch of young celery. Wash and pare it very clean. Cut it
into pieces, and boil it gently in a small quantity
of water, till it is quite tender. Then add a little powdered mace and nutmeg,
and a very little pepper and salt. Take a tolerably large piece of butter, roll
it well in flour, and stir it into the sauce. Boil
it up again, and it is ready to send to table.
You may make it with cream, thus:—Prepare and boil your
celery as above, adding some mace, nutmeg, a piece of butter the size of a
walnut, rolled in flour; and half a pint of cream.
Boil all together.
Celery sauce is eaten with boiled poultry.
When celery is out of season, you may use celery seed, boiled
in the water which you afterwards use for the melted butter, but strained out after boiling.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 165)
Hams should always be soaked in water
previous to boiling, to draw out a portion of the salt, and to make them
tender. They will soften more easily if soaked in lukewarm
water. If it is a new ham, and not very salt or hard, you need not put it in water till the evening before you intend to cook it.
An older one will require twenty-four hours' soaking; and one that is very old
and hard should be kept in soak two or three days,
frequently changing the water, which must be soft. Soak it in a tub, and keep it well covered. When you take it out
of the water to prepare it for boiling, scrape and
trim it nicely, and pare off all the bad looking parts.
Early in the morning put it into
a large pot or kettle with plenty of cold water. Place it
over a slow fire that it may heat gradually; it should not come to a boil in less than an hour and a half, or
two hours. When it boils, quicken the fire, and skim the pot carefully. Then
simmer it gently four or five hours or more, according to its size. A ham
weighing fifteen pounds should simmer five hours after it has come to a boil.
Keep the pot well skimmed.
When it is done, take it up, carefully strip off the skin,
and reserve it to cover the ham when it is put away cold. Rub the ham all over
with some beaten egg, and strew on it fine bread-raspings shaken through the
lid of a dredging box. Then place it in an oven to
brown and crisp, or on a hot dish set over the pot before the fire. Cut some
writing paper into a handsome fringe, and twist it round the shank-bone before
you send the ham to table. Garnish the edge of the dish with little piles or
spots of rasped crust of bread.
In carving
a ham, begin not quite in the centre, but a little
nearer to the hock. Cut the slices very thin. It is not only a most ungenteel
practice to cut ham in thick slices, but it much
impairs the flavour.
When you put it away after dinner, skewer on again the skin.
This will make it keep the better.
Ham should always be accompanied by green vegetables, such as
asparagus, peas, beans, spinach, cauliflower, brocoli, &c.
Bacon also should be Well soaked before it is cooked; and it
should be boiled very slowly, and for a long time.
The greens may be boiled with the meat. Take care to skim the pot carefully,
and to drain and squeeze the greens very well before you send them to table. If
there are yellow streaks in the lean of the bacon,
it is rusty, and unfit to eat.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 124)
These pies are
always made with a standing crust. Put into a sauce-pan one pound of butter cut
up, and a pint and a half of water; stir it while it is melting, and let it
come to a boil. Then skim off whatever milk or impurity may rise to the top. Have
ready four pounds of flour sifted into a pan. Make a hole in
the middle of it, and pour in the melted
butter while hot. Mix it with a spoon to a stiff paste, (adding the beaten
yolks of three or four eggs,) and then knead it very well with your hands, on
the pasteboard, keeping it dredged with flour till it ceases to be sticky. Then
set it away to cool.
Split a large goose, and a fowl down the back, loosen the
flesh all over with a sharp knife, and take out all the bones. Parboil a smoked
tongue; peel it and cut off the root. Mix together a powdered nutmeg, a quarter
of 'an ounce of powdered mace, a tea-spoonful of pepper, and a tea-spoonful of
salt, and season with them the fowl and the goose.
Roll out the paste near an inch thick, and divide it into three
pieces. Cut out two of them of an oval form for the
top and bottom; and the other into a long straight piece for
die sides or walls of the pie. Brush the paste all over with beaten
white of egg, and set on the bottom the piece that is to form the wall, pinching
the edges together, and cementing them with white of egg. The bottom piece must
be large enough to turn up a little round the lower edge of the wall piece, to
which it must be firmly joined all round. When you have the crust properly
fixed, so as to be baked standing alone without a dish, put in first the goose, then the fowl, and then the tongue.
Fill up what space is left with pieces of the flesh of pigeons, or of
partridges, quails, or any game that is convenient. There must be no bones in the pie. You may add also some bits of ham, or some
force-meat balls. Lastly, cover the other ingredients with half a pound of
butter, and put on the top crust, which, of course, must be also of an oval
form to correspond with the bottom. The lid must be placed not quite on the top
edge of the wall, but an inch and a half below it. Close it very well, and
ornament the sides and top with festoons and leaves cut out of paste. Notch the
edges handsomely, and put a paste flower in the
centre. Glaze the whole with beaten yolk of egg, and bind the pie all round
with a double fold of white paper. Set it in a
regular oven, and bake it four hours.
This is one way of making the celebrated goose pies that it
is customary in England to send as presents at
Christmas. They are eaten at luncheon, and if the weather is cold, and they are
kept carefully covered up from the air, they will be good for
two or three weeks; the standing crust assisting to preserve them.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 153)
Take off a thick
paring from the outside, and boil the turnips gently for an
hour and a half. Try them with a fork, and when quite tender, take them up,
drain them on a sieve, and either send them to table whole with melted butter,
or mash them in a cullender, (pressing and
squeezing them well;) season with a little pepper and salt, and mix with them a
very small quantity of butter. Setting in the sun
after they are cooked, or on a part of the table upon which the Sun may happen to shine, will give to
turnips a singularly unpleasant taste, and should therefore be avoided.
When turnips are very young, it is customary to serve them up
with about two inches of the green top left on them.
If stewed with meat, they should
be sliced or quartered."
Mutton, either boiled or roasted, should always be
accompanied by turnips.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 189)
This is much
finer than the summer squash. It is fit to eat in August,
and, in a dry warm place, can be kept well al.
winter. The colour is a very bright yellow. Pare it, take out the seeds, cut it
in pieces, and stew it slowly till quite soft, in a very little water. Afterwards drain, squeeze, and
press it well, and mash it with a very little butter, pepper and salt.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 191)
Having scraped
the salsify roots, and washed them in cold water,
parboil them. Then take them out, drain them, cut them into large pieces and
fry them in butter.Salsify is frequently stewed
slowly till quite tender, and then served up with melted butter. Or it may bo
first boiled, then grated, and made into cakes to be fried in butter. Salsify must not be left exposed
to the air, or it will turn blackish.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 195)
Take a nice
fresh white cabbage, wash, and drain it, and cut off the stalk. Shave down the
head evenly and nicely into very small shreds, with a cabbage-cutter, or a
sharp knife. Put it into a deep china dish, and prepare for
it the following dressing. Take a jillsor a half-tumblerful of the best
cider vinegar, and mix with it a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, divided
into four bits, and rolled in flour; a small
salt-spoon of salt, and the same quantity of cayenne. Stir all this well
together, and boil it in a small saucepan. Have
ready the yolks of three eggs well beaten. As soon as the mixture has come to a
hard boil, take it off the fire, and stir in the
beaten egg. Then pour it boiling hot over the shred cabbage, and mix it well,
all through, with a spoon. Set it to cool, on ice or
snow, or in the open
air. It must be quite cold before it goes to table.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 226)
Wash the beets,
but do not scrape or cut them while they are raw; for if
a knife enters them before they are boiled they will lose their colour. Boil
them from two to three hours, according to their size. When they are tender all
through, take them up, and scrape off all the outside. If they are young beets
they are best split down and cut into long pieces, seasoned with pepper, and
sent to table with melted butter. Otherwise you may slice them thin, after they
are quite cold, and pour vinegar over them.
TO STEW BEETS.—Boil them first,
and then scrape and slice them. Put them into a stew-pan with a piece of butter
rolled in flour, some boiled onion and parsley
chopped fine, and a little vinegar, salt and pepper. Set the pan on hot coals,
and let the beets stew for a quarter of an hour.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 196)
—Take a pound and a half of mince-meat, and sift three-quarters of a
pound of flour. Beat six eggs very light, and stir into them, alternately, the
mince-meat and the flour, a little at a time of each. Stir the whole very hard.
Have ready a pudding-cloth dipped into a pot of boiling water, then shook out,
and dredged with flour. Spread out the cloth in a large pan, and pour into it
the pudding. Tie it tightly, leaving room for the pudding to swell; and stop up
the tying place with a small bit of dough made of flour and water. Put it
immediately into a large pot of boiling water, having an old plate at the bottom
to keep the pudding from scorching. Boil it steadily five or six hours, turning
it in the pot every hour. As the water boils away, replenish it from a kettle
of water that is kept boiling hard. Do not turn out the pudding till
immediately before it is sent to table. Eat it with wine-sauce.
This pudding is excellent. The mince-meat is the same that is
prepared for mince-pies.
(From the Lady's Receipt Book. page 121)
(From the Lady's Receipt Book. page 121)
LEMON PUDDING
—May be made precisely in the same manner as the above; substituting lemons for oranges.
(the "above" ORANGE PUDDING.)
—May be made precisely in the same manner as the above; substituting lemons for oranges.
(the "above" ORANGE PUDDING.)
Grate the yellow part of the rind, and squeeze the juice of
two large, smooth, deep-coloured oranges. Stir together to a cream, half a
pound of butter, and half a pound of powdered white sugar, and add a wine-glass
of mixed wine and brandy Beat very light six eggs, and stir them gradually into
the mixtare. Put it into a buttered dish with a broad edge, round which lay a
border of puff-paste neatly notched. Bake it half an hour, and when cool grate
white sugar over it.
Send it to table quite cold.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 285)
Take a pint of pumpkin that has been stewed soft, and pressed through a cullender. Melt in half a pint of warm milk, a quarter of a pound of
butter, and the same quantity of sugar, stirring them well together. If you can
conveniently procure a pint of rich cream it will be better than the milk and
butter. Beat eight eggs very light, and add them gradually to the other
ingredients, alternately with the pumpkin. Then stir in a
wine glass of rose water and a glass of wine mixed together; a large
tea-spoonful of powdered mace and cinnamon mixed, and a grated nutmeg. Having
stirred the whole very hard, put it into a buttered dish and bake it three
quarters of an hour. Eat it cold.
(From Directions for Cookery. page 288)
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Tomorrow I'll share a few things about this menu I'd like to explore further.
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Tomorrow I'll share a few things about this menu I'd like to explore further.
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