Note 339-* — MADE DISHES, &C. (continued 2)

300-* This may be still longer preserved by the process directed in No. 252.

303-* Hashes and meats dressed a second time, should only simmer gently till just warm through; it is supposed they have been done very nearly, if not quite enough, already; select those parts of the joint that have been least done.

In making a hash from a leg of mutton, do not destroy the marrow-bone to help the gravy of your hash, to which it will make no perceptible addition; but saw it in two, twist writing-paper round the ends, and send it up on a plate as a side dish, garnished with sprigs of parsley: if it is a roast leg, preserve the end bone, and send it up between the marrow-bones. This is a very pretty luncheon, or supper dish.

303-† See “The Court and Kitchen of Elizabeth, commonly called Joan Cromwell,” 16mo. London, 1664, page 106.

304-* The “bain-marie,” or water-bath (see note to No. 529*), is the best utensil to warm up made dishes, and things that have been already sufficiently dressed, as it neither consumes the sauce, nor hardens the meat. If you have not a water-bath a Dutch oven will sometimes supply the place of it.

“Bain-marie is a flat vessel containing boiling water; you put all your stew-pans into the water, and keep that water always very hot, but it must not boil: the effect of this bain-marie is to keep every thing warm without altering either the quantity or the quality, particularly the quality. When I had the honour of serving a nobleman, who kept a very extensive hunting establishment, and the hour of dinner was consequently uncertain, I was in the habit of using bain-marie, as a certain means of preserving the flavour of all my dishes. If you keep your sauce, or broth, or soup, by the fireside, the soup reduces, and becomes too strong, and the sauce thickens as well as reduces. This is the best way of warming turtle, or mock turtle soup, as the thick part is always at the bottom, and this method prevents it from burning, and keeps it always good.”—Ude’s Cookery, page 18.

306-* Probably a contraction of “haut ragoût.”

308-* The proverb says, “Of all the fowls of the air, commend me to the shin of beef; for there’s marrow for the master, meat for the mistress, gristles for the servants, and bones for the dogs.”

309-* The remotest parts of the world were visited, and earth, air, and ocean ransacked, to furnish the complicated delicacies of a Roman supper.

“Suidas tells us, that Pityllus, who had a hot tongue and a cold stomach, in order to gratify the latter without offending the former, made a sheath for his tongue, so that he could swallow his pottage scalding hot; yea, I myself have known a Shropshire gentleman of the like quality!!”—See Dr. Moffat on Food, 4to. 1655.

“In the refined extravagance of the tables of the great, where the culinary arts are pushed to excess, luxury becomes false to itself, and things are valued, not as they are nutritious, or agreeable to the appetite, but in proportion as they are rare, out of season, or costly.”—Cadogan on Gout, 8vo. 1771, p. 48.

309-† “Cookery is an art, appreciated by only a very few individuals, and which requires, in addition to a most studious and diligent application, no small share of intellect, and the strictest sobriety and punctuality.”—Preface to Ude’s Cookery, p. 6.

310-* This suet is not to be wasted: when it comes from the oven, take out the beef, and strain the contents of the pan through a sieve; let it stand till it is cold; then clarify the fat as directed in No. 83, and it will do for frying, &c.

312-* If you have no broth, put in half a pint of water, thicken it as in the above receipt, and just before you give it the last boil up, add to it a large spoonful of mushroom catchup, and, if you like, the same quantity of port wine.

313-* “It must be allowed to muse gently for several hours, inaccessible to the ambient air, and on the even and persevering heat of charcoal in the furnace or stove. After having lulled itself in its own exudations, and the dissolution of its auxiliaries, it may appear at table with a powerful claim to approbation.”—Tabella Cibaria, p. 47.

313-† “‘C’est la soupe,’ says one of the best of proverbs, ‘qui fait le soldat.’ ‘It is the soup that makes the soldier.’ Excellent as our troops are in the field, there cannot be a more unquestionable fact, than their immense inferiority to the French in the business of cookery. The English soldier lays his piece of ration beef at once on the coals, by which means the one and the better half is lost, and the other burned to a cinder. Whereas, six French troopers fling their messes into the same pot, and extract a delicious soup, ten times more nutritious than the simple rôti could ever be.”—Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, vol. vii. p. 668.

314-* The less gravy or butter, and the more beating, the better will be your potted beef, if you wish it to keep: if for immediate eating, you may put in a larger proportion of gravy or butter, as the meat will pound easier and look and taste more mellow.

318-* See receipt to hash mutton, Nos. 360 and 361, and No. 484.

320-* Some cooks make the gravy, &c. in the following manner:—Slice a large onion; fry it brown; drain all fat from it, and put it into a stew-pan with a bunch of sweet herbs, a couple of dozen berries of allspice, same of black pepper, three blades of mace, and a pint and a half of water; cover down close, and boil gently, for half an hour; then strain it through a sieve over the veal, and let it simmer gently for about three hours: about half an hour before it is done, mix two table-spoonfuls of flour in a tea-cupful of cold water; mix some of the gravy with it, and then put it into the stew-pan.

N.B. Three pints of full-grown green pease are sometimes added when the veal is put in.

323-* Vulgo, salary.

324-* Supposed sorrel.

324-† This is by Dr. Bentley thought to be time, or thyme.

324-‡ Parsley. Vide Chamberlayne.

324-§ Of this composition, see the works of the copper-farthing dean.

324-‖ Which we suppose to be near four hours.

325-* To boil bacon, see No. 13.

325-† Meat dressed by the heat of boiling water, without being immediately exposed to it, is a mode of cookery that deserves to be more generally employed: it becomes delicately tender, without being over-done, and the whole of the nourishment and gravy is preserved. This, in chemical technicals, is called balneum maris, a water-bath; in culinary, bain-marie; which A. Chapelle, in his “Modern Cook,” 8vo. page 25, London, 1744, translates “Mary’s bath.” See note to No. 485.

Mary Smith, in her “Complete Housekeeper,” 1772, 8vo. pages 105 and 247, translates “Sauce Robert,” ROE-BOAT-SAUCE; an “omelette,” a Hamlet; and gives you a receipt how to make “Soupe à la RAIN!”

331-* Rotten cheese toasted is the ne plus ultra of haut goût, and only eatable by the thorough-bred gourmand in the most inverted state of his jaded appetite.

331-† The nursery name for bread toasted on one side only.

337-* Straining the water is an indispensable precaution, unless you use spring-water.

338-* “A couple of poached eggs, with a few fine, dry, fried collops of pure bacon, are not bad for breakfast, or to begin a meal,” says Sir Kenelm Digby, M.D. in his Closet of Cookery, London, 1669, page 167.

338-† “The lightest mode of preparing eggs for the table, is to boil them only as long as is necessary to coagulate slightly the greater part of the white, without depriving the yelk of its fluidity.”—Dr. Pearson’s Mat. Alim. 8vo. 1808, p. 36.

339-*

VARIOUS WAYS OF MAKING TEA.

1.

“The Japanese reduce their tea to a fine powder by pounding it; they put certain portions of this into a tea-cup, pour boiling water upon it, stir it up, and drink it as soon as it is cool enough.”

2. “DUBUISSON’S MANNER OF MAKING TEA.

“Put the tea into a kettle with cold water; cover it close, set it on the fire, and make it all but boil; when you see a sort of white scum on the surface, take it from the fire; when the leaves sink it is ready.”

3.

“The night before you wish to have tea ready for drinking, pour on it as much cold water as you wish to make tea; next morning pour off the clear liquor, and when you wish to drink it, make it warm.”

The above are from “L’Art du Limonadier” de Dubuisson, Paris, p. 267, 268. Or,

4.

“A great saving may be made by making a tincture of tea, thus: pour boiling water upon it, and let it stand twenty minutes, putting into each cup no more than is necessary to fill it about one-third full: fill each cup up with hot water from an urn or kettle; thus the tea will be always hot and equally strong to the end, and one tea-spoonful will be found enough for three cups for each person: according to the present mode of making it, three times the quantity is often used.”—See Dr. Trusler’s Way to be Rich and Respectable, 8vo. 1796, page 27.

[Tea should only be made as an infusion,—that is, pouring boiling hot water upon it, and letting it stand a few minutes to draw. A.]

340-* See Dr. Houghton on Coffee, in vol. xxi. of the Phil. Trans. page 311.

[The best of coffee is imported into this country, and can be had cheap and good. A.]

343-* To increase the bulk and diminish the expense of this pudding, the economical housekeeper, who has a large family to feed, may now add two pounds of potatoes that have been boiled and well mashed. To many this mixture is more agreeable than pease pudding alone. See also No. 107.

350-* Ground barley, or barley-meal, is sold in this city; with which barley-water gruel or a panada may be readily made, for the sick, or for soups. A.