The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual Part 45

Those who are fond of forcemeat may slip the skin off the neck, and fill it with No. 378; tie up the other end tight; put it into the soup about half an hour before you take it up, or make some nice savoury b.a.l.l.s of the duck stuffing, No. 61.

_Obs._ Bespeak the giblets a couple of days before you desire to have them: this is a favourite soup when the giblets are done till nicely tender, but yet not overboiled. Giblets may be had from July to January; the fresher they are the better.

N.B. This is rather a family-dish than a company one; the bones cannot be well picked without the help of alive pincers.

Since Tom Coryat introduced forks, A. D. 1642, it has not been the fashion to put "pickers and stealers" into soup.

_Mock Mock Turtle_,--(No. 245.)

_As made by_ Elizabeth Lister (_late cook to Dr. Kitchiner_), _bread and biscuit baker, No. 6 Salcombe Place, York Terrace, Regent's Park._ _Goes out to dress dinners on reasonable terms._

Line the bottom of a stew-pan that will hold five pints, with an ounce of nice lean bacon or ham, a pound and a half of lean gravy beef, a cow-heel, the inner rind of a carrot, a sprig of lemons-thyme, winter savoury, three times the quant.i.ty of parsley, a few green leaves of sweet basil,[218-*] and two eschalots; put in a large onion, with four cloves stuck in it, eighteen corns of allspice, the same of black pepper; pour on these a quarter of a pint of cold water, cover the stew-pan, and set it on a slow fire, to boil gently for a quarter of an hour; then, for fear the meat should catch, take off the cover, and watch it; and when it has got a good brown colour, fill up the stew-pan with boiling water, and let it simmer very gently for two hours: if you wish to have the full benefit of the meat, only stew it till it is just tender, cut it into mouthfuls, and put it into the soup. To thicken it, pour two or three table-spoonfuls of flour, a ladleful of the gravy, and stir it quick till it is well mixed; pour it back into the stew-pan where the gravy is, and let it simmer gently for half an hour longer; skim it, and then strain it through a tamis into the stew-pan: cut the cow-heel into pieces about an inch square, squeeze through a sieve the juice of a lemon, a table-spoonful of mushroom catchup, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of ground black pepper, as much grated nutmeg as will lie on a sixpence, and a gla.s.s of Madeira or sherry wine; let it all simmer together for five minutes longer.

Forcemeat or egg b.a.l.l.s may be added if you please; you will find a receipt for these, No. 380, &c.

? A pound of veal cutlets, or the belly part of pickled pork, or nice double tripe cut into pieces about an inch square, and half an inch thick, and rounded and trimmed neatly from all skin, gristle, &c. and stewed till they are tender, will be a great addition.

_Mock Turtle_,--(No. 247.)

Is the "_bonne bouche_" which "the officers of the mouth" of old England[219-*] prepare, when they choose to rival "_les grands cuisiniers de France_" in a "_ragout sans pareil_."

The following receipt is an attempt (and the committee of taste p.r.o.nounced it a successful one), to imitate the excellent and generally approved mock turtle made by Messrs. Birch, Cornhill.

Endeavour to have the head and the broth ready for the soup,[219-+] the day before it is to be eaten.

It will take eight hours to prepare it properly.

_hours._ Cleaning and soaking the head 1 To parboil it to cut up 1 Cooling, nearly 1 Making the broth and finishing the soup 5 --- 8

Get a calf's head with the skin on (the fresher the better); take out the brains, wash the head several times in cold water, let it soak for about an hour in spring-water, then lay it in a stew-pan, and cover it with cold water, and half a gallon over; as it becomes warm, a great deal of sc.u.m will rise, which must be immediately removed; let it boil gently for one hour, take it up, and when almost cold, cut the head into pieces about an inch and a half by an inch and a quarter, and the tongue into mouthfuls, or rather make a side-dish of the tongue and brains, as in No. 10.

When the head is taken out, put in the stock meat,[219-++] about five pounds of knuckle of veal, and as much beef; add to the stock all the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and bones of the head, skim it well, and then cover it close, and let it boil five hours (reserve a couple of quarts of this to make gravy sauces, &c. see No. 307); then strain it off, and let it stand till the next morning; then take off the fat, set a large stew-pan on the fire with half a pound of good fresh b.u.t.ter, twelve ounces of onions sliced, and four ounces of green sage; chop it a little; let these fry one hour; then rub in half a pound of flour, and by degrees add your broth till it is the thickness of cream; season it with a quarter of an ounce of ground allspice and half an ounce of black pepper ground very fine, salt to your taste, and the rind of one lemon peeled very thin; let it simmer very gently for one hour and a half, then strain it through a hair-sieve; do not rub your soup to get it through the sieve, or it will make it grouty; if it does not run through easily, knock your wooden-spoon against the side of your sieve; put it in a clean stew-pan with the head, and season it by adding to each gallon of soup half a pint of wine; this should be Madeira, or, if you wish to darken the colour of your soup, claret, and two table-spoonfuls of lemon-juice, see No. 407*; let it simmer gently till the meat is tender; this may take from half an hour to an hour: take care it is not over-done; stir it frequently to prevent the meat sticking to the bottom of the stew-pan, and when the meat is quite tender the soup is ready.

A head weighing twenty pounds, and ten pounds of stock meat, will make ten quarts of excellent soup, besides the two quarts of stock you have put by for made dishes, &c.

_Obs._ If there is more meat on the head than you wish to put in the soup, prepare it for a pie, and, with the addition of a calf's foot boiled tender, it will make an excellent ragout pie; season it with zest, and a little minced onion, put in half a tea-cupful of stock, cover it with puff paste, and bake it one hour: when the soup comes from table, if there is a deal of meat and no soup, put it into a pie-dish, season it a little, and add some little stock to it; then cover it with paste, bake it one hour, and you have a good mock turtle pie.

This soup was eaten by the committee of taste with unanimous applause, and they p.r.o.nounced it a very satisfactory subst.i.tute[220-*] for "the far-fetch'd and dear-bought" turtle; which is entirely indebted for its t.i.tle of "sovereign of savouriness," to the rich soup with which it is surrounded.

Without its paraphernalia of subtle double relishes, a "starved turtle,"

has not more intrinsic sapidity than a "fatted calf." Friendly reader, it is really neither half so wholesome, nor half so toothsome. See Essence of Turtle, No. 343*, and _Obs._ to No. 493. To warm this soup, see No. 485.

To season it, to each gallon of soup put two table-spoonfuls of lemon-juice, see No. 407*, same of mushroom catchup (No. 439), and one of essence of anchovy (No. 433), half a pint of wine (this should be Madeira, or, if you wish to darken the colour of your soup, claret), a tea-spoonful of curry powder (No. 455), or a quarter of a drachm of Cayenne, and the peel of a lemon pared as thin as possible; let it simmer five minutes more, take out the lemon-peel, and the soup is ready for the tureen.

While the soup is doing, prepare for each tureen a dozen and a half of mock turtle forcemeat b.a.l.l.s (to make these, see No. 375 or No. 376, No.

390 to No. 396); we prefer the stuffing ordered in No. 61, and a dozen egg b.a.l.l.s; and put them into the tureen. Brain b.a.l.l.s, or cakes, are a very elegant addition, and are made by boiling the brains for ten minutes, then putting them in cold water, and cutting them into pieces about as big as a large nutmeg; take savoury, or lemon-thyme dried and finely-powdered, nutmeg grated, and pepper and salt, and pound them all together; beat up an egg, dip the brains in it, and then roll them in this mixture, and make as much of it as possible stick to them; dip them in the egg again, and then in finely-grated and sifted bread-crumbs; fry them in hot fat, and send them up as a side-dish.

A veal sweetbread, prepared as in No. 89, not too much done or it will break, cut into pieces the same size as you cut the calf's head, and put in the soup, just to get warm before it goes to table, is a superb "_bonne bouche_;" and pickled tongue, stewed till very tender, and cut into mouthfuls, is a favourite addition. We order the meat to be cut into mouthfuls, that it may be eaten with a spoon: the knife and fork have no business in a soup-plate.

? Some of our culinary contemporaries order the haut gout of this (as above directed, sufficiently relishing) soup to be combustibled and bedevilled with a copious addition of anchovies, mushrooms, truffles, morelles, curry-powder, artichoke bottoms, salmon's head and liver, or the soft part of oysters or lobsters, soles cut in mouthfuls, a bottle of Madeira, a pint of brandy, &c.; and to complete their surfeiting and burn-gullet olio, they put in such a tremendous quant.i.ty of Cayenne pepper, that only a fire-proof palate, lined with asbestos, or indurated by Indian diet, can endure it. See note under No. 493.

N.B. In helping this soup, the distributer of it should serve out the meat, forcemeat, and gravy, in equal parts; however trifling or needless this remark may appear, the writer has often suffered from the want of such a hint being given to the soup-server, who has sometimes sent a plate of mere gravy without meat, at others, of meat without gravy, and sometimes scarcely any thing but forcemeat b.a.l.l.s.

_Obs._ This is a delicious soup, within the reach of those who "eat to live;" but if it had been composed expressly for those who only "live to eat," I do not know how it could have been made more agreeable: as it is, the lover of good eating will "wish his throat a mile long, and every inch of it palate."

N.B. Cuc.u.mber in a side-plate is a laudable vegetable accompaniment.

_English Turtle._--(No. 248.)

See No. 502. "A-la-mode beef."

_Curry, or Mullaga-tawny[222-*] Soup._--(No. 249.)

Cut four pounds of a breast of veal into pieces, about two inches by one; put the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs into a stew-pan with two quarts of water, with twelve corns of black pepper, and the same of allspice; when it boils, skim it clean, and let it boil an hour and a half, then strain it off; while it is boiling, fry of a nice brown in b.u.t.ter the bits of veal and four onions; when they are done, put the broth to them; put it on the fire; when it boils, skim it clean; let it simmer half an hour; then mix two spoonfuls of curry, and the same of flour, with a little cold water and a tea-spoonful of salt; add these to the soup, and simmer it gently till the veal is quite tender, and it is ready; or bone a couple of fowls or rabbits, and stew them in the manner directed above for the veal, and you may put in a bruised eschalot, and some mace and ginger, instead of black pepper and allspice.

_Obs._ Read No. 497.

_Turtle[223-*] Soup._--(No. 250.)

As it is our wish that this work should be given to the public at the lowest possible price, the receipt for dressing a turtle is taken out, as a professed cook is always hired for the purpose of dressing it. The s.p.a.ce this long receipt occupied is now filled with directions for making useful pickles. See No. 462.

_Portable[223-+] Soup, or Glaze._--(No. 252.)

Desire the butcher to break the bones of a leg or a shin of beef, of ten pounds weight (the fresher killed the better); put it into a soup-pot (a digester[223-++] is the best utensil for this purpose) that will well hold it; just cover it with cold water, and set it on the fire to heat gradually till it nearly boils (this should be at least an hour); skim it attentively while any sc.u.m rises; pour in a little cold water, to throw up the sc.u.m that may remain; let it come to a boil again, and again skim it carefully: when no more sc.u.m rises, and the broth appears clear (put in neither roots, nor herbs, nor salt), let it boil for eight or ten hours, and then strain it through a hair-sieve into a brown stone pan; set the broth where it will cool quickly; put the meat into a sieve, let it drain, make potted beef (No. 503), or it will be very acceptable to many poor families. Next day remove every particle of fat from the top of it, and pour it through a tamis, or fine sieve, as quietly as possible, into a stew-pan, taking care not to let any of the settlings at the bottom of the stone pan go into the stew-pan, which should be of thick copper, perfectly well tinned; add a quarter of an ounce of whole black pepper to it; let it boil briskly, with the stew-pan uncovered, on a quick fire; if any sc.u.m rises, take it off with a skimmer: when it begins to thicken, and is reduced to about a quart, put it into a smaller stew-pan; set it over a gentler fire, till it is reduced to the thickness of a very thick syrup; take care that it does not burn, a moment's inattention now will lose you all your labour, and the soup will be spoiled: take a little of it out in a spoon and let it cool; if it sets into a strong jelly, it is done enough; if it does not, boil it a little longer till it does; have ready some little pots, such as are used for potted meats, about an inch and a half deep, taking care that they are quite dry; we recommend it to be kept in these pots, if it is for home consumption (the less it is reduced, the better is the flavour of the soup), if it be sufficiently concentrated to keep for six months; if you wish to preserve it longer, put it into such bladders as are used for German sausages, or if you prefer it in the form of cakes, pour it into a dish about a quarter of an inch deep; when it is cold, turn it out and weigh the cake, and divide it with a paste-cutter into pieces of half an ounce and an ounce each; place them in a warm room, and turn them frequently till they are thoroughly dried; this will take a week or ten days; turn them twice a day; when well hardened, and kept in a dry place, they may be preserved for several years in any climate.

This extract of meat makes excellent "_tablettes de Bouillon_," for those who are obliged to endure long fasting.

If the surface becomes mouldy, wipe it with a little warm water; the mouldy taste does not penetrate the ma.s.s.

If, after several days' drying, it does not become so hard as you wish, put it into a bainmarie stew-pan, or milk-boiler, till it is evaporated to the consistence you wish; or, set the pots in a cool oven, or in a cheese-toaster, at a considerable distance from the fire: this is the only safe way of reducing it very much, without the risk of its burning, and acquiring an extremely disagreeable, acrid flavour, &c.

_Obs._ The uses of this concentrated essence of meat are numerous. It is equally economical and convenient for making extempore broths enumerated in the _Obs._ to No. 200, sauces and gravies for hashed or stewed meat, game, or poultry, &c.

You may thicken it and flavour it as directed in No. 329; to make gravy, sauces, &c. take double the quant.i.ty ordered for broth.

If you have time and opportunity, as there is no seasoning in the soup, either of roots, herbs, or spice, boil an onion with or without a bit of parsley and sweet herbs, and a few corns of allspice, or other spice, in the water you melt the soup in, which may be flavoured with mushroom catchup (No. 439), or eschalot wine (No. 402), essence of sweet herbs (No. 417), savoury spice (No. 421, or No. 457), essence of celery (No.

409), &c. or zest (No. 255); these may be combined in the proportions most agreeable to the palate of the eater, and are as portable as portable soup, for a very small portion will flavour a pint.

The editor adds nothing to the solution of this soup, but a very little ground black pepper and some salt.

N.B. If you are a careful manager, you need not always purchase meat on purpose to make this; when you dress a large dinner, you can make glaze at very small cost, by taking care of the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and parings of the meat, game, and poultry, you use: wash them well, put them into a stew-pan, cover them with the liquor you have boiled meat in, and proceed as in the above receipt; and see _Obs._ on No. 185.