Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book Part 23

TARRAGON VINEGAR.--The fresh leaves of the tarragon plant are in perfection in July and August, and impart a new and pleasant taste to soups, hashes, gravies, &c. To use it fresh, wash a bunch of tarragon in cold water. Afterwards strip off the green leaves, chop or mince them, and boil a tea-spoonful or more in the dish you intend to flavor. The best way of keeping tarragon is to strip off as many fresh leaves as will half fill a gla.s.s jar that holds a quart. Pour on as much _real_ cider vinegar as will fill up the jar. Cover it closely, and let the tarragon infuse in it for a week, shaking the jar every day. Then pour off that vinegar carefully, and throw away the tarragon leaves that have been steeping in it. Wash that jar, or take another clean one, put into it the same quant.i.ty of fresh tarragon leaves, and fill up with the same vinegar in which you have infused the first supply. Let the second leaves remain in the jar of vinegar. A tarragon bush is well worth planting; even in a small city garden.

Tarragon is the chief ingredient of French mustard.

FINE FRENCH MUSTARD.--Take a jill or two large wine-gla.s.ses of tarragon vinegar, (strained from the leaves,) and mix with it an equal quant.i.ty of salad oil, stirring them well together. Pound in a mortar, two ounces of mustard seed till it becomes a fine smooth powder, and mix it thoroughly. Add to it one clove of garlic (not more) peeled, minced and pounded. Make the mixture in a deep white-ware dish. If the mustard affects your eyes, put on gla.s.ses till you have finished the mixture.

When done, put it up in white bottles, or gallipots. Cork them tightly, and seal the corks. Send it to table in those bottles.

This mustard is far superior to any other, the tarragon imparting a peculiar and pleasant flavor.

It is excellent to eat with any sort of roast meat, particularly beef or mutton, and an improvement to almost all plain sauces, stews, soups, &c.

French mustard is to be purchased very good, at all the best grocery stores.

SAUCE ROBERT.--Peel five large onions, and parboil them to take off some of the strength. Cut them into small dice, and put them into a stew-pan with a quarter of a pound of fresh b.u.t.ter, divided into four, and dredged with flour. When they are well browned, pour on them half a pint of beef or veal gravy, and let it simmer for a quarter of an hour.

Season it slightly with cayenne. Just before it goes to table, stir in a table-spoonful of French mustard.

This is a good sauce for any sort of roast meat, or poultry.

GREEN MAYONNAISE.--This is a fine accompaniment to cold poultry, which must be cut into small pieces as for chicken salad, using only the white meat. To begin the mayonnaise. Put into a shallow pan the yolks only of three fresh eggs, having strained out the specks. Having beaten them till light and thick, add, by degrees, a half pint of salad oil, stirring it in gradually, so that no oil whatever is to be seen on the surface. Then add two table-spoonfuls of tarragon vinegar. Next a few drops of shalot vinegar, or a _very small_ onion minced as finely as possible. If you have at hand any clear meat gravy (for instance, veal,) stir in two or three table-spoonsful. Add the grated yellow rind, and the juice of a lemon. Pound as much spinach as will yield a small tea-cupful of green juice. Give it a short boil up, to take off the rawness, and mix it with the mayonnaise. When cool, pour it over the dish of cold poultry.

EPICUREAN SAUCE.--Pound in a mortar five or six anchovies; a heaped table-spoonful of minced tarragon leaves; a shalot, or very small onion, two or three pickled gherkins, finely minced; the yolks of four hard-boiled eggs, a quarter of a pound of fresh b.u.t.ter, and a large table-spoonful of French mustard. If you have no good b.u.t.ter, mix a sufficient portion of olive oil to moisten it well. Let the whole be thoroughly mixed. Put it into a bowl, and set it on ice till wanted.

Then mould it into pats of equal size. Arrange them on small gla.s.s or china plates, and send them to table for dinner company, to eat with the cheese.

EAST INDIA SAUCE FOR FISH.--Mix well together a jill of India soy; a jill of chili vinegar; half a pint of walnut catchup, and a pint of mushroom-catchup. Shake the whole hard, and transfer it to small green bottles, putting a tea-spoonful of sweet oil at the top of each, and keep the sauce in a cool dry place. If you have not a fish castor, bring the store sauces to table in the small bottles they are kept in. When eating fish, mix a little of this with the melted b.u.t.ter on your plate.

CURRY POWDER.--Curry powder originates in India, where it is much used as a peculiar flavoring for soups, stews, and hashes. With curry dishes, boiled rice is always served up, not only in a separate dish, but also heaped round the stew in a thick even border. To make curry powder, pound in a marble mortar three ounces of turmeric, three ounces of coriander seed, and a quarter of an ounce of cayenne; one ounce of mustard, one ounce of cardamoms, a half ounce of c.u.mmin seed, and half an ounce of mace. Let all these ingredients be thoroughly mixed in the mortar, and then sift it through a fine sieve, dry it for an hour before the fire, and put it into clean bottles, securing the corks well. Use from two to three table-spoonfuls at a time, in proportion to the size of the dish you intend to curry.

It may be mixed into the gravy of any of the preceding receipts for stews. Two ounces of finely grated cocoa-nut is a pleasant improvement to curried dishes, and is universally liked.

The curry powder you buy is frequently much adulterated with inferior articles. The best curry powder imported from India is of a dark green color, and not yellow or red. It has among its ingredients, tamarinds, _not_ preserved, as we always get them--but raw in the sh.e.l.l. These tamarinds impart a pleasant acid to the mixture. For want of them use a lemon.

MADRAS CURRY POWDER.--Pound separately, and sift, six ounces of coriander seed, three of turmeric, one of black pepper, two of c.u.mmin, one of fennel seed, and half an ounce of cayenne. Mix all together, put them into a gla.s.s jar or bottle, and seal the cover.

With less turmeric, you may use ginger or sa.s.safras.

Curry powder may be added to any stew of meat, poultry, or game. Boiled rice must always accompany a dish of curry.

The ingredients indispensable to all curries (and you may make a curry of any nice meat, or poultry, or even of oysters) is a very pungent powder, prepared for the purpose with turmeric. Also onions and boiled rice. In India there is always something acid in the mixture, as lemons, sour apple juice, or green tamarinds. The turmeric has a peculiar flavor of its own.

STORE SAUCES.--The celebrated English sauces, for fish and game, Harvey's sauce, (which is the best,) Quin's, Reading's, Kitchener's, Soyer's, &c., are all very good, and keep well, if genuine. They are imported in small sealed bottles, and are to be had of all the best grocers. To make them at home, is so troublesome and expensive, that it is better to buy them. They are, however, very nice, and are generally introduced at dinner parties; a little being mixed on your plate with the melted b.u.t.ter. If you have no fish castors, bring these sauces to table in their own bottles, to be carried round by a servant.

FINE PINK SAUCE.--Take a pint of excellent port wine, the juice and grated yellow rinds of four large lemons, two dozen blades of mace and a large nutmeg, broken up; with a quarter of an ounce of prepared cochineal, or a small tea-spoonful of alkanet chips. Add a table-spoonful of fresh salad oil. Mix the whole well in a wide-mouthed gla.s.s jar with a lid. Let the ingredients infuse a fortnight; stirring it several times a day. Then strain it, pour it through a funnel into small bottles, and seal the corks. It will give a fine pink color to drawn b.u.t.ter. Eat it with any sort of fish or game.

Alkanet produces a much finer color than cochineal, but it must unite with some substance of an oily nature to give out its color to advantage. It is very cheap, and very beautiful, and to be had at the druggist's. Infuse it tied in a thin muslin bag.

WINE SAUCE FOR VENISON OR GAME.--Take the half of a sixpenny loaf of bread. Cut off all the crust. Put the crumb (or soft part) into a bowl, and pour on sufficient good port wine to steep it. Soak the bread in the wine till dissolved. Then add two heaped table-spoonsful of fresh b.u.t.ter, and two heaped spoonsful of sugar; seasoning with powdered mace and nutmeg, and the grated yellow rind and juice of a lemon. Beat all together till very smooth. Put it into a sauce-pan, and give it one boil up; taking it off as soon as it comes to a boil. Send it to table hot.

It is a fine company sauce for venison, or hare, or any sort of game.

FINE PUDDING SAUCE.--Take a large half-pint cup of the best fresh b.u.t.ter, and the same quant.i.ty of powdered loaf-sugar. Put them together in an earthen pan, and beat them to a light thick cream. Then mix a jill or wine-gla.s.s of boiling water, and a large wine-gla.s.s of the best brandy, with the grated yellow rind and juice of a large lemon or orange; and a small nutmeg, grated. Mix these ingredients, gradually, with the beaten b.u.t.ter and sugar; and transfer the sauce to a small tureen, putting a spoon or ladle into it.

If designed for sauce to a plum-pudding or any other large one, you will require a pint of b.u.t.ter, a pint of sugar, half a pint of boiling water with half a pint of brandy, two lemons or oranges, and a _large_ nutmeg, or two small ones. Divide the sauce in two tureens. A boiled pudding for company requires no finer sauce than this.

Where _real_ cream is plenty, a bowl of it well sweetened with sugar, and flavored with nutmeg, is nice for any boiled pudding. If you add wine or lemon juice to cream sauce, previously mix the acid with the sugar, and make it very sweet before you put them to the cream, lest it should curdle.

VANILLA SAUCE.--Split and break up a small stick of vanilla, and boil it in a very little milk, till all the vanilla flavor is extracted. Then strain it through very fine muslin, and stir it into the cream. Give it one boil up in a small porcelain sauce-pan; and sweeten it well with white sugar.

PLAIN SAUCE FOR PUDDING.--Stir together (as in making pound cake) equal quant.i.ties of fresh b.u.t.ter and white sugar. This is the usual proportion; but if you can stir or beat it easily, try a little less b.u.t.ter, and a little more of the sugar. Grate in some nutmeg, and the yellow rind of a fresh lemon, and send it to table heaped on a small plate, with a tea-spoon near it.[E]

[E] The b.u.t.ter and sugar sauce is very nice flavored and colored with the juice of strawberries or raspberries.

Many persons prefer, with plain puddings, cold b.u.t.ter on a b.u.t.ter plate, and sugar from the sugar-bowl; mixing it for themselves on their own plate. This is best for boiled fruit pudding or dumplings; and for egg or batter puddings, mola.s.ses or syrup is very good; and costs but little.

CRANBERRY SAUCE.--Pick the cranberries clean, seeing that no stems, sticks, or dead leaves are left among them. Put them into a cullender, or sieve, and wash them through two waters. Cook them in a porcelain-lined, or enameled stew-pan, without any additional water. The water that remains about them after washing is quite sufficient for stewing them properly. No stewed fruit should be too thin or liquid.

Keep a steady heat under the cranberries, stirring them up from the bottom frequently: and when they are soft, mash them with the back of the spoon. When they are quite shapeless, take them off the fire, and while they are very hot, stir in, gradually, an ample quant.i.ty of nice _brown_ sugar. They require much sweetening. Season them with nothing else. Their natural flavor is sufficient (if well sweetened) and cannot be improved by spice, lemon, or any of the usual condiments. Always buy the largest and ripest cranberries. The best things are cheapest in the end.

In stewing any sort of fruit, do not add the sugar till the fruit is done, and taken from the fire. If sweetened at the beginning, much of the strength of the sugar evaporates in cooking; besides rendering the fruit tough and hard, and r.e.t.a.r.ding the progress of the stew.

In America, sweet sauce is eaten with any sort of roast meat. Send it to table cold. For company, put it into a blanc-mange mould, and turn it out in a shape, first dipping the mould, for a minute, in warm water to loosen it.

APPLE SAUCE.--Get fine juicy apples--bellflowers are the best for cooking. Sweet apples cook very badly--becoming tough, dry and tasteless. Green apples, if full grown, cook well, and have a pleasant acid.

For sauce, pare, core, and quarter or slice the apples. Wash the pieces in a cullender, and put them to stew, with only water enough to wet them a little. Apple stews that are thin and watery are disgraceful to the cook, or to the cook's mistress. Let them stew till you can mash them easily all through. Then take them off the fire, and sweeten them, adding the seasoning while the apples are warm. Season with rose-water, lemon juice, nutmeg; or with all these if for company. If you can get fresh lemon-peel, cut it into very thin slips, and put it in to stew with the apples at first. It is still better, and little more trouble, to grate the lemon-peel.

Fruit for pies should be stewed in the same manner as for sauce, and not sweetened till taken from the fire. Let the paste be baked empty in large deep plates, and when cool, filled to the brim with stewed fruit.

A pie, (as we have seen them,) only half or one third full, looks very meanly--and tastes so.

All these fruit-sauces are good receipts for stewing fruit for pies or any other purpose.

We advise all families to have, among their kitchen utensils, _bain maries_, or double-kettles, putting the article to be stewed in the inner kettle, and the boiling water in the outside one. They are to be had of all sizes at the furnishing stores. They are also excellent for custards and boiled puddings.

BAKED APPLE SAUCE.--Core very nicely as many fine juicy apples as will fill a large baking-pan. All coring of apples should be done with a tin cover. This you can buy at a tinman's for a quarter dollar, and it is invaluable for the purpose. After coring the apples, pare them smooth and evenly. Put a large table-spoonful of cold water in the bottom of the baking-pan, and then put in the apples first, filling, with fine brown sugar, the hole from whence the core was taken out. To have them very nice, add some grated lemon-peel, or some rose-water. Set the pan into an oven, (not too hot,) close the oven, and bake till the apples are all broken and can be easily mashed. This way of making apple sauce, by baking in a close oven, will be found far superior to boiling or stewing them. They require no more water than is barely sufficient to give them a start at the bottom.