Miss Leslie's Lady's New Receipt-Book Part 46

Then add to it gradually the mixture of pumpkin and corn meal, and stir the whole very hard. It will be much improved by adding the grated yellow rind of a large orange or lemon. Have ready over the fire a large pot of boiling water. Dip your pudding-cloth into it; shake it out; spread out the cloth in a broad pan: dredge it with flour; pour the mixture into it, and tie it fast, leaving about one-third of the s.p.a.ce for the pudding to swell. Boil it three hours or more--four hours will not be too long. Turn it several times while boiling. Replenish the pot as it boils, with hot water from a kettle kept boiling for the purpose.

Take up the pudding immediately before it is wanted for table--dip it a moment in cold water, and turn it out into a dish. Eat it with b.u.t.ter and mola.s.ses.

This pudding requires no eggs in the mixture. The mola.s.ses, if West India, will make it sufficiently light.

What is left may be tied in a cloth, and re-boiled next day.

A BACKWOODS POT-PIE.--Put a large portion of yellow Indian meal, (with a very little salt,) into a deep pan, and pour on scalding water, (stirring it in as you proceed,) till you have a soft dough. Beat and stir it long and hard, adding more corn meal, till the dough becomes stiff. It will be improved by mixing in a little wheat flour. When it is cool enough to handle, knead it a while with your hands. Take off portions of the dough or paste, and form them into flat, square cakes.

Take a large pot; grease the sides with a little good dripping or lard, and line them with the cakes of corn meal. Have ready some fresh venison cut into pieces, and seasoned with a little salt and pepper. Put some of it into the pot, (adding some water to a.s.sist in the gravy,) and cover it with a layer of corn cakes. Then more venison, and then more cakes, till the pot is nearly full. The last layer must be a large cake with a slit in the middle. Set it over the fire, and let it boil steadily till the whole is thoroughly done. Then take it up, and dish it together, meat and paste.

The paste that is to line the sides of the pot should be thinner than that which is to be laid among the meat. Put no paste at the bottom.

If you have any cold drippings of roast venison, you may mix some of it with the corn meal, as shortening.

Sweet potatoes sliced, and laid among the meat, will improve this pie.

TO BOIL INDIAN CORN.--Corn for boiling should be full grown, but young and tender, and the grains soft and milky. If its grains are becoming hard and yellow, it is too old for boiling. Strip the ears of their leaves and the silk. Put them into a large pot of boiling water, and boil it rather fast for half an hour or more, in proportion to its size and age. When done, take it up, drain it, dish it under a cover, or napkin, and serve it up hot. Before eating it, rub each ear with salt and pepper, and then spread it with b.u.t.ter. Epicures in corn consider it sweetest when eaten off the cob. And so it is; but _before company_ few persons like to hold an ear of Indian corn in their hands, and bite the grains off the cob with their teeth. Therefore, it is more frequently cut off the cob into a dish; mixed with salt, pepper, and b.u.t.ter, and helped with a spoon.

It is said that young green corn will boil sufficiently in ten minutes, (putting it _of course_ into a pot of boiling water.) Try it.

_Another way._--Having pulled off the silk, boil the corn, without removing the leaves that enclose the cob. With the leaves or husk on, it will require a longer time to cook, but is sweeter and more nutritious.

GREEN CORN DUMPLINGS.--A quart of young corn grated from the cob.--Half a pint of wheat flour, sifted.--Half a pint of milk.--Six table-spoonfuls of b.u.t.ter.--Two eggs.--A salt-spoonful of salt.--A salt-spoonful of pepper.--b.u.t.ter for frying. Having grated as fine as possible, sufficient young fresh corn to make a quart, mix with it the wheat flour, and add the salt and pepper. Warm the milk in a small saucepan, and soften the b.u.t.ter in it. Then add them gradually to the pan of corn, stirring very hard; and set it away to cool. Beat the eggs light, and stir them into the mixture when it has cooled. Flour your hands and make it into little dumplings. Put into a frying-pan a sufficiency of fresh b.u.t.ter, (or lard and b.u.t.ter in equal proportions,) and when it is boiling hot, and has been skimmed, put in the dumplings; and fry them ten minutes or more, in proportion to their thickness. Then drain them, and send them hot to the dinner-table.

CORN PORRIDGE.--Take young corn, and cut the grains from the cob.

Measure it, and to each heaping pint of corn, allow not quite a quart of milk. Put the corn and milk into a pot; stir them well together: and boil them till the corn is perfectly soft. Then add some bits of fresh b.u.t.ter dredged with flour, and let it boil five minutes longer. Stir in at the last, some beaten yolk of egg; and in three minutes remove it from the fire. Take up the porridge, and send it to table hot, and stir some fresh b.u.t.ter into it. You may add sugar and nutmeg.

CORN OYSTERS.--Three dozen ears of large young Indian corn.--Six eggs.--Lard and b.u.t.ter in equal portions for frying. The corn must be young and soft. Grate it from the cob as fine as possible, and dredge it with wheat flour. Beat very light the six eggs, and mix them gradually with the corn. Then let the whole be well incorporated by hard beating.

Add a salt-spoon of salt.

Have ready, in a frying pan, a sufficient quant.i.ty of lard and fresh b.u.t.ter mixed together. Set it over the fire till it is boiling hot, and then put in portions of the corn-mixture, so as to form oval cakes about three inches long, and nearly an inch thick. Fry them brown, and send them to table hot. In taste they will be found to have a singular resemblance to fried oysters, and are universally liked if properly done. They make nice side-dishes at dinner, and are very good at breakfast.

SUMMER SACCATASH.--String a quarter of a peck of young green beans, and cut each bean into three pieces (not more) and do not split them. Have by you a pan of cold water, and throw the beans into it as you cut them.

Have ready over the fire a pot or saucepan of boiling water, put in the beans, and boil them hard near twenty minutes. Afterwards take them up, and drain them well through a cullender. Take half a dozen ears of young but full-grown Indian corn (or eight or nine if they are not all large) and cut the grains down from the cob. Mix together the corn and the beans, adding a very small tea-spoonful of salt, and boil them about twenty minutes. Then take up the saccatash, drain it well through a sieve, put it into a deep dish, and while hot mix in a large piece of b.u.t.ter, (at least the size of an egg,) add some pepper, and send it to table. It is generally eaten with salted or smoked meat.

Fresh Lima beans are excellent cooked in this manner, with green corn.

They must be boiled for half an hour or more before they are cooked with the corn.

Dried beans and dried corn will do very well for saccatash, but they must be soaked all night before boiling. The water poured on them for soaking should be hot.

WINTER SACCATASH.--This is made of dried sh.e.l.led beans, and hard corn.

Take equal quant.i.ties of sh.e.l.led beans and corn; put them over night into separate pans, and pour boiling water over them. Let them soak till morning. Then pour off that water, and scald them again. First boil the beans by themselves. When they are soft, add the corn, and let them boil together till the corn is quite soft, which will require at least an hour. Take them up, drain them in a sieve; then put them into a deep dish, and mix in a large piece of fresh b.u.t.ter, and a little pepper and salt.

This is an excellent accompaniment to pickled pork, bacon; or corned beef. The meat must be boiled by itself in a separate pot.

HOMINY.--Hominy is Indian Corn sh.e.l.led from the cob, divested of the yellow or outer skin by scalding in hot lye, and then winnowed and dried. It is perfectly white. Having washed it through two or three waters, pour boiling water on it, cover it, and let it soak all night, or for several hours. Then put it into a pot or saucepan, allow two quarts of water to each quart of hominy, and boil it till perfectly soft. Then drain it, put it into a deep dish, add some b.u.t.ter to it, and send it to table hot, (and _uncovered_,) to eat with any sort of meat; but particularly with corned beef or pork. What is left may be made next day into thick cakes, and fried in b.u.t.ter. To be _very good_, hominy should boil four or five hours.

CAROLINA GRITS, or SMALL HOMINY.--The small-grained hominy must be washed and boiled in the same manner as the large, only allow rather less water for boiling. For instance, put a pint and a half of water to a quart of small hominy. Drain it well, send it to table in a deep dish _without a cover_, and eat it with b.u.t.ter and sugar, or mola.s.ses. If covered after boiling, the vapour will condense within the lid, and make the hominy thin and watery.

SAMP.--This is Indian corn skinned, and then pounded or ground till it is still smaller and finer than the Carolina grits. It must be cooked and used in the same manner. It is very nice eaten with cream and sugar.

For invalids it may be made thin, and eaten as gruel.

HOMINY CAKES.--A pint of small hominy, or Carolina grits.--A pint of white Indian meal, sifted.--A salt-spoonful of salt.--Three large table-spoonfuls of fresh b.u.t.ter.--Three eggs, or three table-spoonfuls of strong yeast.--A quart of milk. Having washed the small hominy, and left it soaking all night, boil it soft, drain it, and while hot, mix it with the Indian meal; adding the salt, and the b.u.t.ter. Then mix it gradually with the milk, and set it away to cool. Beat the eggs very light, and add them, gradually, to the mixture. The whole should make a thick batter. Then bake them on a griddle, in the manner of buckwheat cakes, greasing or sc.r.a.ping the griddle, always before you put on a fresh cake. Trim off their edges nicely, and send them to table hot. Eat them with b.u.t.ter.

Or you may bake them in m.u.f.fin rings.

If you prefer making these cakes with yeast, you must begin them earlier, as they will require time to rise. The yeast should be strong and fresh. If _not_ very strong, use four table-spoonfuls instead of two. Cover the pan, set it in a warm place; and do not begin to bake till it is well risen, and the surface of the mixture is covered with bubbles.

TO KEEP INDIAN CORN FOR COOKING.--Take the corn when it is young and tender, and barely full-grown. Let it remain on the cob till you have boiled it ten or fifteen minutes (not more) in a large pot of slightly-salted water that must be boiling hard when the corn is put in.

When thus parboiled, take it out, and when cool enough to handle, cut down the grains from the cob, into a deep pan, with a knife. Then spread out the grains in large flat dishes or shallow pans, and set them in an oven, after the bread, pies, &c., are done, and have been taken out. Let the corn remain in the oven till it is all well dried. If your oven is heated every day, you may put the corn into it a second time. When quite dry, and after it has cooled, put it into a large thick bag; tie the bag tightly, and hang it up in a cool store-room. When wanted for use, corn thus prepared will be found excellent for boiling in winter soup; or boiled by itself and drained, and sent to table in a vegetable-dish to eat with meat; first mixing with it some b.u.t.ter, and a little pepper and salt. It will boil as soft, and taste as well as when fresh from the garden. It will be better for soaking all night in water, before cooking.

Bakers who heat their ovens every day, would find it profitable to buy Indian corn in large quant.i.ties, and prepare it as above, to sell afterwards for table use. If the corn is not young and fresh, it will require half an hour's boiling before it is dried in the oven.

What is called sweet corn is excellent for this purpose.

EXCELLENT RECEIPT FOR PORK AND BEANS.--Take a good piece of pickled pork (not very fat) and to each pound of pork allow a quart of dried white beans. The bone should be removed from the pork, and the beans well picked and washed. The evening before they are wanted for cooking, put the beans and pork to soak in _separate pans_; and just before bed-time, drain off the water, and replace it with fresh. Let them soak all night.

Early in the morning, drain them well from the water, and wash first the beans, and then the pork in a cullender. Having scored the skin in stripes or diamonds, put the pork into a pot with fresh cold water, and the beans into another pot with sufficient cold water to cook them well.

Season the pork with a little pepper, but of course no salt. Boil them separately and slowly till the pork is thoroughly done (skimming it well) and till the beans have all burst open. Afterwards take them out, and drain them well from the water. Then lay the pork in the middle of a tin pan, (there must be no liquid fat about it) and the beans round it; and over it, so as nearly to bury it from sight. Pour in a very little water, and set the dish into a hot oven, to bake or brown for half an hour. If kept too long in the oven the beans will become dry and hard.

If sufficiently boiled when separate, half an hour will be long enough for the pork and beans to bake together. Carefully skim off any liquid fat that may rise to the surface. Cover the dish, and send it to table hot.

For a small dish, two quarts of beans and two pounds of pork will be enough. To this quant.i.ty when put to bake in the oven you may allow half a pint of water.

This is a good plain dish, very popular in New England, and generally liked in other parts of the country.