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Culture and Cooking; Or, Art in the Kitchen

<h3>CHAPTER XIV.</h3> <h4>a chapter for people of very small means.</h4> I am sorry to say in these days this chapter may appeal to many, who are yet not to be called "poor people," who may have been well-to-do and only suffering from the pressure of the times, and for whose cultivated appetites the coarse, substantial food of the laboring man (even if they could buy it) would not be eatable, who must have what they do have good, or starve. But, as some of the things for which I give recipes will seem over-economical for people who can afford to buy meat at least once a day, I advise those who have even fifty dollars a month income to skip it; reminding them, if they do not, "that necessity knows no law." A bone of soup meat can be got at a good butcher's for ten or fifteen cents, and is about the best investment, for that sum I know of, as two nourishing and savory meals, at least, for four or five persons can be got from it. Carefully make a nice soup, with plenty of vegetables, rice, or any other thickening you like. Your bone will weigh from four to six pounds, perhaps; put it on with water according to size, and let it boil down slowly until nice and strong. If you have had any scraps of meat or bones, put them also to your soup. When you serve it, keep back a cup of soup and a few97 of the vegetables, and save the meat, from which you can make a very appetizing hash in the following way: Take the meat from the bone, chop it with some cold potatoes and the vegetables you saved from the soup. Cold stewed onions, boiled carrots or turnips, all help to make the dish savory. Chop an onion very fine, unless you have cold ones, a little parsley and thyme, if liked, and sometimes, for variety's sake, if you have it, a pinch of curry powder, not enough to make it hot or yellow, yet to impart piquancy. If you have a tiny bit of fried bacon or cold ham or cold pork, chop it with the other ingredients, mix all well, moisten with the cold soup, and, when nicely seasoned, put the hash into an iron frying-pan, in which you have a little fat made hot; pack it smoothly in, cover it with a pot-lid, and either set it in a hot oven, or leave it to brown on the stove. If there was more soup than enough to moisten the hash, put it on in a tiny saucepan, with a little brown flour made into a paste with butter, add a drop of tomato catsup, or a little stewed tomato, or anything you have for flavoring, and stir till it boils. Then turn the hash out whole on a dish, it should be brown and crisp, pour the gravy you have made round it, and serve. For a change make a pie of the hash, pouring the gravy in through a hole in the top when done. It is not generally known that a very nice plain paste can be made with a piece of bread dough, to which you have added an egg, and some lard, dripping, or butter. The dripping is particularly nice for the hash pie, and, as you need only a piece of dough as large as an orange, you will probably have enough from the soup, if you skimmed off all the fat before putting the vegetables in (see pot-au-feu); work your dripping into the dough,98 and let it rise well, then roll as ordinary pie-crust. Potato crust is also very good for plain pies of any sort, but as there are plenty of recipes for it, I will not give one here. One of the very best hashes I ever ate was prepared by a lady who, in better times, kept a very fine table. And she told me there were a good many cold beans in it, well mashed; and often since, when taking "travelers' hash" in an hotel, I have thought of that savory dish with regret. Instead of making your chopped meat into hash, vary it, by rolling the same mixture into egg-shaped pieces, or flat cakes, flouring them, and frying them nicely in very hot fat; pieces of pork or bacon fried and laid round will help out the dish, and be an improvement to what is already very good. To return once more to the soup bone. If any one of your family is fond of marrow, seal up each end of the bone with a paste made of flour and water. When done, take off the paste, and remove the marrow. Made very hot, and spread on toast, with pepper and salt, it will be a relish for some one's tea or breakfast. In this country there is a prejudice against sheep's liver; while in England, where beef liver is looked upon as too coarse to eat (and falls to the lot of the "cats-meat man," or cat butcher), sheep's is esteemed next to calf's, and it is, in fact, more delicate than beef liver. The nicest way to cook it is in very thin slices (not the inch-thick pieces one often sees), each slice dipped in flour and fried in pork or bacon fat, and pork or bacon served with it. But the more economical way is to put it in a pan, dredge it with flour, pin some fat pork over it, and set it in a hot oven; when very brown take it out;99 make nice brown gravy by pouring water in the pan and letting it boil on the stove, stirring it well to dissolve the glaze; pour into the dish, and serve. The heart should be stuffed with bread-crumbs, parsley, thyme, and a little onion, and baked separately. Or, for a change, you may chop the liver up with a few sweet herbs and a little pork (onion, or not, as you like), and some bread-crumbs. Put all together in a crock, dredge with flour, cover, and set in a slow oven for an hour and a half; then serve, with toasted bread around the dish. It is very poor economy to buy inferior meat. One pound of fine beef has more nourishment than two of poor quality. But there is a great difference in prices of different parts of meat, and it is better management to choose the cheap part of fine beef than to buy the sirloin of a poor ox even at the same price; and, by good cooking many parts not usually chosen, and therefore sold cheaply, can be made very good. Yet you must remember, that a piece of meat at seven cents a pound, in which there is at least half fat and bone, such as brisket, etc., is less economical than solid meat at ten or twelve. Pot roasts are very good for parts of meat not tender enough for roasting, the "cross-rib," as some butchers term it, being very good for this purpose; it is all solid meat, and being very lean, requires a little fat pork, which may be laid at the bottom of the pot; or better still, holes made in the meat and pieces of the fat drawn through, larding in a rough way, so that they cut together. A pot roast is best put on in an iron pot, without water, allowed to get finely brown on one side, then turned, and when thoroughly brown on the other a little water may be added for gravy; chop parsley or any100 seasoning that is preferred. Give your roast at least three hours to cook. Ox cheek, as the head is called, is very good, and should be very cheap; prepare it thus: Clean the cheek, soak it in water six hours, and cut the meat from the bones, which break up for soup; then take the meat, cut into neat pieces, put it in an earthen crock, a layer of beef, some thin pieces of pork or bacon, some onions, carrots, and turnips, cut thin, or chopped fine, and sprinkled over the meat; also, some chopped parsley, a little thyme, and bay leaf, pepper and salt, and a clove to each layer; then more beef and a little pork, vegetables, and seasoning, as before. When all your meat is in pour over it, if you have it, a tumbler of hard cider and one of water, or else two of water, in which put a half gill of vinegar. If you have no tight-fitting cover to your crock, put a paste of flour and water over it to keep the steam in. Place the crock in a slow oven five or six hours, and when it is taken out remove the crust and skim. Any piece of beef cooked in this way is excellent. Ox heart is one of the cheapest of dishes, and really remarkably nice, and it is much used by economical people abroad. The heart should be soaked in vinegar and water three or four hours, then cut off the lobes and gristle, and stuff it with fat pork chopped, bread-crumbs, parsley, thyme, pepper, and salt; then tie it in a cloth and very slowly simmer it (large end up) for two hours; take it up, remove the cloth, and flour it, and roast it a nice brown. Lay in the pan in which it is to be roasted some fat pork to baste it. Any of this left over is excellent hashed, or, warmed in slices with a rich brown gravy, cannot be told from game. Another way is to stuff it with101 sage and onions. It must always be served very hot with hot plates and on a very hot dish. Fore quarter of mutton is another very economical part of meat, if you get your butcher to cut it so that it may not only be economical, but really afford a choice joint. Do not then let him hack the shoulder across, but, before he does a thing to it, get him to take the shoulder out in a round plate-shaped joint, with knuckle attached; if he does this well, that is, cuts it close to the bone of the ribs, you will have a nice joint; then do not have it chopped at all; this should be roasted in the oven very nicely, and served with onion sauce or stewed onions. If onions are not liked, mashed turnips are the appropriate vegetable. This joint, to be enjoyed, must be properly carved, and that is, across the middle from the edge to the bone, the same as a leg of mutton; and like the leg, you must learn, as I cannot describe it in words, where the bone lies, then have that side nearest you and cut from the opposite side. You have, besides this joint, another roast from the ribs, or else cut it up into chops till you come to the part under the shoulder; from this the breast should be separated and both either made into a good Irish stew, or the breast prepared alone in a way I shall describe, the neck and thin ribs being stewed or boiled. The neck of mutton is very tender boiled and served with parsley or caper sauce; the liquor it is boiled in served as broth, with vegetables and rice, or prepared as directed in a former chapter for the broth from leg of mutton. The mode I am about to give of preparing breast of mutton was told me by a Welsh lady of rank, at whose table I ate it (it appeared as a side dish), and who said,102 half laughingly, "Will you take some 'fluff'? We are very fond of it, but breast of mutton is such a despised dish I never expect any one else to like it." I took it, on my principle of trying everything, and did find it very good. This lady told me that, having of course a good deal of mutton killed on her father's estate, and the breast being always despised by the servants, she had invented a way of using it to avoid waste. Her way was this: Set the breast of mutton on the fire whole, just covered with water in which is a little salt. When it comes to the boil draw it back and let it simmer three hours; then take it up and draw out the bones, and lay a forc=emeat of bread-crumbs, parsley, thyme, chopped suet, salt and pepper all over it; double or roll it, skewer it, and coat it thickly with egg and bread-crumbs; then bake in a moderate oven, basting it often with nice dripping or butter; when nicely brown it is done, and eats like the tenderest lamb. It was, when I saw it, served on a bed of spinach. I like it better on a bed of stewed onions. I now give some dishes made without meat. Ragout of Cucumber and Onions.—Fry equal quantities of large cucumbers and onions in slices until they are a nice brown. The cucumber will brown more easily if cut up and put to drain some time before using; then flour each slice. When both are brown, pour on them a cup of water, and let them stew for half an hour; then take a good piece of butter in which you have worked a dessert-spoonful of flour (browned); add pepper, salt, and a little tomato catsup or stewed tomato. This is a rich-eating dish if nicely made, and will help out cold meat or a scant quantity of it very well. A little cold meat may be added if you have it.103 Onion Soup.—Fry six large onions cut into slices with a quarter of a pound of butter till they are of a bright brown, then well mix in a tablespoonful of flour, and pour on them rather more than a quart of water. Stew gently until the onions are quite tender, season with a spoonful of salt and a little sugar; stir in quickly a liaison made with the yolks of two eggs mixed with a gill of milk or cream (do not let it boil afterwards), put some toast in a tureen, and serve very hot. Pea Soup.—Steep some yellow split peas all night, next morning set them on to boil with two quarts of water to a pint of peas; in the water put a tiny bit of soda. In another pot put a large carrot, a turnip, an onion, and a large head of celery, all cut small and covered with water. When both peas and vegetables are tender, put them together, season with salt, pepper, and a little sugar, and let them gently stew till thick enough; then strain through a colander, rubbing the vegetables well, and return to the pot while you fry some sippets of bread a crisp brown; then stir into the soup two ounces of butter in which you have rolled a little flour. This soup is simply delicious, and the fact of it being maigre will not be remembered. Potato Soup is another of this good kind, for meat is scarcely required, so good is it without. Boil some potatoes, then rub them through a colander into two quarts of hot milk (skimmed does quite well); have some fine-chopped parsley and onion, add both with salt and pepper, stew three quarters of an hour; then stir in a large piece of butter, and beat two eggs with a little cold milk, stir in quickly, and serve with fried bread. There should be potatoes enough to make the soup as thick as cream.104 Do not be prejudiced against a dish because there is no meat in it, and you think it cannot be nourishing. This chapter is not written for those with whom meat, or money, is plentiful; and if it be true that man is nourished "not by what he eats, but by what he assimilates," and, according to an American medical authority, "what is eaten with distaste is not assimilated" (Dr. Hall), it follows that an enjoyable dinner, even without meat, will be more nourishing than one forced down because it lacks savor; that potato soup will be more nourishing than potatoes and butter, with a cup of milk to drink, because more enjoyable. Yet it costs no more, for the soup can be made without the eggs if they are scarce. Or say bread and butter and onions. They will not be very appetizing, especially if they had to be a frequent meal, yet onion soup is made from the same materials, and in France is a very favorite dish, even with those well able to put meat in it if they wished. <hr /> 105 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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