The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual Part 55

N.B. In Mons. Maille et Aclocque's catalogue of Parisian "_Bono Bons_,"

there is a list of twenty-eight differently flavoured mustards.

_Salt_,--(No. 371.)

Is ("_aliorum condimentorum condimentum_," as Plutarch calls it,) sauce for sauce.

Common salt is more relishing than basket salt; it should be prepared for the table by drying it in a Dutch oven before the fire; then put it on a clean paper, and roll it with a rolling pin; if you pound it in a mortar till it is quite fine, it will look as well as basket salt.

Malden salt is still more _piquante_.

? Select for table-use the lumps of salt.

_Obs._ Your salt-box must have a close cover, and be kept in a dry place.

_Salad mixture._--(No. 372. See also Nos. 138* and 453.)

Endeavour to have your salad herbs as fresh as possible; if you suspect they are not "morning gathered," they will be much refreshed by lying an hour or two in spring-water; then carefully wash and pick them, and trim off all the worm-eaten, slimy, cankered, dry leaves; and, after washing, let them remain a while in the colander to drain: lastly, swing them gently in a clean napkin: when properly picked and cut, arrange them in the salad dish, mix the sauce in a soup plate, and put it into an ingredient bottle,[260-*] or pour it down the side of the salad dish, and don't stir it up till the mouths are ready for it.

If the herbs be young, fresh gathered, trimmed neatly, and drained dry, and the sauce-maker ponders patiently over the following directions, he cannot fail obtaining the fame of being a very accomplished salad-dresser.

Boil a couple of eggs for twelve minutes, and put them in a basin of cold water for a few minutes; the yelks must be quite cold and hard, or they will not incorporate with the ingredients. Rub them through a sieve with a wooden spoon, and mix them with a table-spoonful of water, or fine double cream; then add two table-spoonfuls of oil or melted b.u.t.ter; when these are well mixed, add, by degrees, a tea-spoonful of salt, or powdered lump sugar, and the same of made mustard: when these are smoothly united, add very gradually three table-spoonfuls of vinegar; rub it with the other ingredients till thoroughly incorporated with them; cut up the white of the egg, and garnish the top of the salad with it. Let the sauce remain at the bottom of the bowl, and do not stir up the salad till it is to be eaten: we recommend the eaters to be mindful of the duty of mastication, without the due performance of which, all undressed vegetables are troublesome company for the princ.i.p.al viscera, and some are even dangerously indigestible.

_Boiled Salad._

This is best compounded of boiled or baked onions (if Portugal the better), some baked beet-root, cauliflower, or broccoli, and boiled celery and French beans, or any of these articles, with the common salad dressing; added to this, to give it an enticing appearance, and to give some of the crispness and freshness so pleasant in salad, a small quant.i.ty of raw endive, or lettuce and chervil, or burnet, strewed on the top: this is by far more wholesome than the raw salad, and is much eaten when put on the table.

N.B. The above sauce is equally good with cold meat, cold fish, or for cuc.u.mbers, celery, radishes, &c. and all the other vegetables that are sent to table undressed: to the above, a little minced onion is generally an acceptable addition.

_Obs._ Salad is a very compound dish with our neighbours the French, who always add to the mixture above, black pepper, and sometimes savoury spice.

The Italians mince the white meat of chickens into this sauce.

The Dutch, cold boiled turbot or lobster; or add to it a spoonful of grated parmesan or old Cheshire cheese, or mince very fine a little tarragon, or chervil, burnet, or young onion, celery, or pickled gherkins, &c.

Joan Cromwell's grand salad was composed of equal parts of almonds, raisins, capers, pickled cuc.u.mbers, shrimps, and boiled turnips.

This mixture is sometimes made with cream, oiled b.u.t.ter (see No. 260*), or some good jelly of meat (which many prefer to the finest Florence oil), and flavoured with salad mixture (No. 453), basil (No. 397), or cress or celery vinegar (No. 397*), horseradish vinegar (No. 399*), cuc.u.mber vinegar (No. 399), and _Obs._ to No. 116 of the Appendix; tarragon, or elder vinegar, essence of celery (No. 409), walnut or lemon pickle, or a slice of lemon cut into dice, and essence of anchovy (No.

433).

_Forcemeat Stuffings._--(No. 373.)

Forcemeat is now considered an indispensable accompaniment to most made dishes, and when composed with good taste, gives additional spirit and relish to even that "sovereign of savouriness," turtle soup.

It is also sent up in patties, and for stuffing of veal, game, poultry, &c.

The ingredients should be so proportioned, that no one flavour predominates.

To give the same stuffing for veal, hare, &c. argues a poverty of invention; with a little contrivance, you may make as great a variety as you have dishes.

I have given receipts for some of the most favourite compositions, and a table of materials, a glance at which will enable the ingenious cook to make an infinite variety of combinations: the first column containing the spirit, the second the substance of them.

The poignancy of forcemeat should be proportioned to the savouriness of the viands, to which it is intended to give an additional zest. Some dishes require a very delicately flavoured forcemeat, for others, it must be full and high seasoned. What would be _piquante_ in a turkey, would be insipid with turtle.

Tastes are so different, and the praise the cook receives will depend so much on her pleasing the palate of those she works for, that all her sagacity must be on the alert, to produce the flavours to which her employers are partial. See pages 45 and 46.

Most people have an acquired and peculiar taste in stuffings, &c., and what exactly pleases one, seldom is precisely what another considers the most agreeable: and after all the contrivance of a pains-taking palatician, to combine her "_hauts gouts_" in the most harmonious proportions,

"The very dish one likes the best, Is acid, or insipid, to the rest."

Custom is all in all in matters of taste: it is not that one person is naturally fond of this or that, and another naturally averse to it; but that one is used to it, and another is not.

The consistency of forcemeats is rather a difficult thing to manage; they are almost always either too light or too heavy.

Take care to pound it till perfectly smooth, and that all the ingredients are thoroughly incorporated.

Forcemeat-b.a.l.l.s must not be larger than a small nutmeg. If they are for brown sauce, flour and fry them; if for white, put them into boiling water, and boil them for three minutes: the latter are by far the most delicate.

N.B. If not of sufficient stiffness, it falls to pieces, and makes soup, &c. grouty and very unsightly.

Sweetbreads and tongues are the favourite materials for forcemeat.

MATERIALS USED FOR FORCEMEAT, STUFFINGS, &C.

SPIRIT.

Common thyme. } Lemon-thyme. } Orange-thyme. } Sweet marjoram. } Summer and } Winter savoury. } Fresh and green, Sage. } or in dried Tarragon (No. 396). } powder (No. 461).

Chervil. } Burnet (No. 399). } Basil (No. 397). } Bay-leaf. } Truffles and } Morells. } Mushroom powder (No. 439).

Leeks.

Onions.

Eschalot (No. 402).

Garlic.

Lemon-peel (see Nos. 407 and 408).

Shrimps (No. 175) Prawns.

Crabs.

Lobsters (Nos. 176 and 178).

Oysters.

Anchovy (No. 433).

Dressed TONGUE (see N.B. to No. 373).

Ham.

Bacon.

Black or white pepper.

Allspice.

Mace.

Cinnamon Ginger.

Nutmegs.