BROTH HERBS, SOUP ROOTS, AND SEASONINGS.

The above materials, wine, and mushroom catchup ([No. 439]), combined in various proportions, will make an endless variety[93-*] of excellent broths and soups, quite as pleasant to the palate, and as useful and agreeable to the stomach, as consuming pheasants and partridges, and the long list of inflammatory, piquante, and rare and costly articles, recommended by former cookery-book makers, whose elaborately compounded soups are like their made dishes; in which, though variety is aimed at, every thing has the same taste, and nothing its own.

The general fault of our soups seems to be the employment of an excess of spice, and too small a portion of roots and herbs.[93-†]

Besides the ingredients I have enumerated, many culinary scribes indiscriminately cram into almost every dish (in such inordinate quantities, one would suppose they were working for the asbestos palate of an Indian fire-eater) anchovies, garlic,[93-‡] bay-leaves, and that hot, fiery spice, Cayenne[93-§] pepper; this, which the French call (not undeservedly) piment enragé ([No. 404]), has, somehow or other, unaccountably acquired a character for being very wholesome; while the milder peppers and spices are cried down, as destroying the sensibility of the palate and stomach, &c., and being the source of a thousand mischiefs. We should just as soon recommend alcohol as being less intoxicating than wine.

The best thing that has been said in praise of peppers is, “that with all kinds of vegetables, as also with soups (especially vegetable soups) and fish, either black or Cayenne pepper may be taken freely: they are the most useful stimulants to old stomachs, and often supersede the cravings for strong drinks; or diminish the quantity otherwise required.” See Sir A. Carlisle on Old Age, London, 1817. A certain portion of condiment is occasionally serviceable to excite and keep up the languid action of feeble and advanced life: we must increase the stimulus of our aliment as the inirritability of our system increases. We leave those who love these things to use them as they like; their flavours can be very extemporaneously produced by chilly-juice, or essence of Cayenne ([No. 405]), eschalot wine ([No. 402]), and essence of anchovy ([No. 433]).

There is no French dinner without soup, which is regarded as an indispensable overture; it is commonly followed by “le coup d’Après,” a glass of pure wine, which they consider so wholesome after soup, that their proverb says, the physician thereby loses a fee. Whether the glass of wine be so much more advantageous for the patient than it is for his doctor, we know not, but believe it an excellent plan to begin the banquet with a basin of good soup, which, by moderating the appetite for solid animal food, is certainly a salutiferous custom. Between the roasts and the entremets they introduce “le coup du Milieu” or a small glass of Jamaica rum, or essence of punch (see [No. 471]), or Curacao ([No. 474]).

The introduction of liqueurs is by no means a modern custom: our ancestors were very fond of a highly spiced stimulus of this sort, commonly called Ipocrasse, which generally made a part of the last course, or was taken immediately after dinner.

The crafte to make ypocras.

“Take a quarte of red wyne, an ounce of synamon, and halfe an ounce of gynger; a quarter of an ounce of greynes (probably of paradise) and long pepper, and halfe a pounde of sugar; and brose (bruise) all this (not too small), and then put them in a bage (bag) of wullen clothe, made, therefore, with the wynee; and lete it hange over a vessel, till the wynee be run thorowe.”—An extract from Arnold’s Chronicle.

It is a custom which almost universally prevails in the northern parts of Europe, to present a dram or glass of liqueur, before sitting down to dinner: this answers the double purpose of a whet to the appetite, and an announcement that dinner is on the point of being served up. Along with the dram, are presented on a waiter, little square pieces of cheese, slices of cold tongue, dried tongue, and dried toast, accompanied with fresh caviar.

We again caution the cook to avoid over-seasoning, especially with predominant flavours, which, however agreeable they may be to some, are extremely disagreeable to others. See [page 50].

Zest ([No. 255]), soy ([No. 436]), cavice, coratch, anchovy ([No. 433]), curry powder ([No. 455]), savoury ragoût powder ([No. 457]), soup herb powder ([No. 459] and [460]), browning ([No. 322]), catchups ([No. 432]), pickle liquor, beer, wine, and sweet herbs, and savoury spice ([No. 460]), are very convenient auxiliaries to finish soups, &c.

The proportion of wine (formerly sack, then claret, now Madeira or port) should not exceed a large wine-glassful to a quart of soup. This is as much as can be admitted, without the vinous flavour becoming remarkably predominant; though not only much larger quantities of wine (of which claret is incomparably the best, because it contains less spirit and more flavour, and English palates are less acquainted with it), but even véritable eau de vie is ordered in many books, and used by many (especially tavern cooks). So much are their soups overloaded with relish, that if you will eat enough of them they will certainly make you drunk, if they don’t make you sick: all this frequently arises from an old cook measuring the excitability of the eater’s palates by his own, which may be so blunted by incessant tasting, that to awaken it, requires wine instead of water, and Cayenne and garlic for black pepper and onion.

Old cooks are as fond of spice, as children are of sugar, and season soup, which is intended to constitute a principal part of a meal, as highly as sauce, of which only a spoonful may be relish enough for a plate of insipid viands. (See [obs.] to [No. 355].) However, we fancy these large quantities of wine, &c. are oftener ordered in cookery books than used in the kitchen: practical cooks have the health of their employers too much at heart, and love “sauce à la langue” too well to overwine their soup, &c.

Truffles and morels[95-*] are also set down as a part of most receipts. These, in their green state, have a very rich high flavour, and are delicious additions to some dishes, or sent up as a stew by themselves when they are fresh and fine; but in this state they are not served up half a dozen times in a year at the first tables in the kingdom: when dried they become mere “chips in pottage,” and serve only to soak up good gravy, from which they take more taste than they give.

The art of composing a rich soup is so to proportion the several ingredients one to another, that no particular taste be stronger than the rest, but to produce such a fine harmonious relish that the whole is delightful. This requires that judicious combination of the materials which constitutes the “chef d’œuvre” of culinary science.

In the first place, take care that the roots and herbs be perfectly well cleaned; proportion the water to the quantity of meat and other ingredients, generally a pound of meat to a quart of water for soups, and double that quantity for gravies. If they stew gently, little more water need be put in at first than is expected at the end; for when the pot is covered quite close, and the fire gentle, very little is wasted.

Gentle stewing is incomparably the best; the meat is more tender, and the soup better flavoured.

It is of the first importance that the cover of a soup-kettle should fit very close, or the broth will evaporate before you are aware of it. The most essential parts are soon evaporated by quick boiling, without any benefit, except to fatten the fortunate cook who inhales them. An evident proof that these exhalations[96-*] possess the most restorative qualities is, that THE COOK, who is in general the least eater, is, as generally, the fattest person in the family, from continually being surrounded by the quintessence of all the food she dresses; whereof she sends to HER MASTER only the fibres and calcinations, who is consequently thin, gouty, and the victim of diseases arising from insufficient nourishment.

It is not only the fibres of the meat which nourish us, but the juices they contain, and these are not only extracted but exhaled, if it be boiled fast in an open vessel. A succulent soup can never be made but in a well-closed vessel, which preserves the nutritive parts by preventing their dissipation. This is a fact of which every intelligent person will soon perceive the importance.

Place your soup-pot over a moderate fire, which will make the water hot without causing it to boil for at least half an hour; if the water boils immediately, it will not penetrate the meat, and cleanse it from the clotted blood, and other matters which ought to go off in scum; the meat will be hardened all over by violent heat; will shrink up as if it was scorched, and give hardly any gravy: on the contrary, by keeping the water a certain time heating without boiling, the meat swells, becomes tender, its fibres are dilated, and it yields a quantity of scum, which must be taken off as soon as it appears.

It is not till after a good half hour’s hot infusion that we may mend the fire, and make the pot boil: still continue to remove the scum; and when no more appears, put in the vegetables, &c. and a little salt. These will cause more scum to rise, which must be taken off immediately; then cover the pot very closely, and place it at a proper distance from the fire, where it will boil very gently, and equally, and by no means fast.

By quick and strong boiling the volatile and finest parts of the ingredients are evaporated, and fly off with the steam, and the coarser parts are rendered soluble; so you lose the good, and get the bad.

Soups will generally take from three to six hours.

Prepare your broths and soups the evening before you want them. This will give you more time to attend to the rest of your dinner the next day; and when the soup is cold, the fat may be much more easily and completely removed from the surface of it. When you decant it, take care not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a sieve, or even through a TAMIS, which is the best strainer, the soups appear smoother and finer, and it is much easier cleaned than any sieve. If you strain it while it is hot, pass it through a clean tamis or napkin, previously soaked in cold water; the coldness of this will coagulate the fat, and only suffer the pure broth to pass through.

The full flavour of the ingredients can only be extracted by very long and slow simmering; during which take care to prevent evaporation, by covering the pot as close as possible: the best stew-pot is a digester.

Clear soups must be perfectly transparent; thickened soups, about the consistence of rich cream; and remember that thickened soups require nearly double the quantity of seasoning. The piquance of spice, &c. is as much blunted by the flour and butter, as the spirit of rum is by the addition of sugar and acid: so they are less salubrious, without being more savoury, from the additional quantity of spice, &c. that is smuggled into the stomach.

To thicken and give body to soups and sauces, the following materials are used: they must be gradually mixed with the soup till thoroughly incorporated with it; and it should have at least half an hour’s gentle simmering after: if it is at all lumpy, pass it through a tamis or a fine sieve. Bread raspings, bread, isinglass, potato mucilage ([No. 448]), flour, or fat skimmings and flour (see [No. 248]), or flour and butter, barley (see [No. 204]), rice, or oatmeal and water rubbed well together, (see [No. 257], in which this subject is fully explained.)

To give that glutinous quality so much admired in mock turtle, see [No. 198], and [note] under [No. 247], [No. 252], and [N.B.] to [No. 481].

To their very rich gravies, &c. the French add the white meat of partridges, pigeons, or fowls, pounded to a pulp, and rubbed through a sieve. A piece of beef, which has been boiled to make broth, pounded in the like manner with a bit of butter and flour, see [obs.] to [No. 485*] and [No. 503], and gradually incorporated with the gravy or soup, will be found a satisfactory substitute for these more expensive articles.

Meat from which broth has been made ([No. 185], and [No. 252]), and all its juice has been extracted, is then excellently well prepared for POTTING, (see [No. 503]), and is quite as good, or better, than that which has been baked till it is dry;[98-*] indeed, if it be pounded, and seasoned in the usual manner, it will be an elegant and savoury luncheon, or supper, and costs nothing but the trouble of preparing it, which is very little, and a relish is procured for sandwiches, &c. ([No. 504]) of what heretofore has been by the poorest housekeeper considered the perquisite of the CAT.

Keep some spare broth lest your soup-liquor waste in boiling, and get too thick, and for gravy for your made dishes, various sauces, &c.; for many of which it is a much better basis than melted butter.

The soup of mock turtle, and the other thickened soups, ([No. 247]), will supply you with a thick gravy sauce for poultry, fish, ragoûts, &c.; and by a little management of this sort, you may generally contrive to have plenty of good gravies and good sauces with very little trouble or expense. See also Portable Soup ([No. 252]).

If soup is too thin or too weak, take off the cover of your soup-pot, and let it boil till some of the watery part of it has evaporated, or else add some of the thickening materials we have before mentioned; and have at hand some plain browning: see [No. 322], and the [obs.] thereon. This simple preparation is much better than any of the compounds bearing that name; as it colours sauce or soup without much interfering with its flavour, and is a much better way of colouring them than burning the surface of the meat.

When soups and gravies are kept from day to day, in hot weather, they should be warmed up every day, and put into fresh-scalded tureens or pans, and placed in a cool cellar; in temperate weather every other day may be enough.

We hope we have now put the common cook into possession of the whole arcana of soup-making, without much trouble to herself, or expense to her employers. It need not be said in future that an Englishman only knows how to make soup in his stomach, by swilling down a large quantity of ale or porter, to quench the thirst occasioned by the meat he eats. John Bull may now make his soup “secundùm artem,” and save his principal viscera a great deal of trouble.

*** In the following receipts we have directed the spices[99-*] and flavouring to be added at the usual time; but it would greatly diminish the expense, and improve the soups, if the agents employed to give them a zest were not put in above fifteen minutes before the finish, and half the quantity of spice, &c. would do. A strong heat soon dissipates the spirit of the wine, and evaporates the aroma and flavour of the spices and herbs, which are volatile in the heat of boiling water.

In ordering the proportions of meat, butter, wine, &c. the proper quantity is set down, and less will not do: we have carried economy quite as far as possible without “spoiling the broth for a halfpenny worth of salt.”

I conclude these remarks with observing, that some persons imagine that soup tends to relax the stomach. So far from being prejudicial, we consider the moderate use of such liquid nourishment to be highly salutary. Does not our food and drink, even though cold, become in a few minutes a kind of warm soup in the stomach? and therefore soup, if not eaten too hot, or in too great a quantity, and of proper quality, is attended with great advantages, especially to those who drink but little.

Warm fluids, in the form of soup, unite with our juices much sooner and better than those that are cold and raw: on this account, RESTORATIVE SOUP is the best food for those who are enfeebled by disease or dissipation, and for old people, whose teeth and digestive organs are impaired.

“Half subtilized to chyle, the liquid food
Readiest obeys th’ assimilating powers.”

After catching cold, in nervous headaches, cholics, indigestions, and different kinds of cramp and spasms in the stomach, warm broth is of excellent service.

After intemperate feasting, to give the stomach a holyday for a day or two by a diet on mutton broth ([No. 564], or [No. 572]), or vegetable soup ([No. 218]), &c. is the best way to restore its tone. “The stretching any power to its utmost extent weakens it. If the stomach be every day obliged to do as much as it can, it will every day be able to do less. A wise traveller will never force his horse to perform as much as he can in one day upon a long journey.”—Father Feyjoo’s Rules, p. 85.

To WARM SOUPS, &c. ([No. 485].)

N.B. With the PORTABLE SOUP ([No. 252]), a pint of broth may be made in five minutes for threepence.

[89-*] We prefer the form of a stew-pan to the soup-pot; the former is more convenient to skim: the most useful size is 12 inches diameter by 6 inches deep: this we would have of silver, or iron, or copper, lined (not plated) with silver.

[89-†] This may be always avoided by browning your meat in the frying-pan; it is the browning of the meat that destroys the stew-pan.

[90-*] In general, it has been considered the best economy to use the cheapest and most inferior meats for soup, &c., and to boil it down till it is entirely destroyed, and hardly worth putting into the hog-tub. This is a false frugality: buy good pieces of meat, and only stew them till they are done enough to be eaten.

[91-*] Mushroom catchup, made as [No. 439], or [No. 440], will answer all the purposes of mushrooms in soup or sauce, and no store-room should be without a stock of it.

[91-†]

All cooks agree in this opinion,
No savoury dish without an ONION.

Sliced onions fried, (see [No. 299], and [note] under [No. 517]), with some butter and flour, till they are browned (and rubbed through a sieve), are excellent to heighten the colour and flavour of brown soups and sauces, and form the basis of most of the relishes furnished by the “Restaurateurs”—as we guess from the odour which ascends from their kitchens, and salutes our olfactory nerves “en passant.”

The older and drier the onion, the stronger its flavour; and the cook will regulate the quantity she uses accordingly.

[92-*] Burnet has exactly the same flavour as cucumber. See Burnet vinegar ([No. 399]).

[92-†] The concentration of flavour in CELERY and CRESS SEED is such, that half a drachm of it (finely pounded), or double the quantity if not ground or pounded, costing only one-third of a farthing, will impregnate half a gallon of soup with almost as much relish as two or three heads of the fresh vegetable, weighing seven ounces, and costing twopence. This valuable acquisition to the soup-pot deserves to be universally known. See also [No. 409], essence of CELERY. This is the most frugal relish we have to introduce to the economist: but that our judgment in palates may not be called in question by our fellow-mortals, who, as the Craniologists say, happen to have the organ of taste stronger than the organ of accumulativeness, we must confess, that, with the flavour it does not impart the delicate sweetness, &c. of the fresh vegetable; and when used, a bit of sugar should accompany it.

[92-‡] See [No. 419], [No. 420], and [No. 459]. Fresh green BASIL is seldom to be procured. When dried, much of its fine flavour is lost, which is fully extracted by pouring wine on the fresh leaves (see [No. 397]).

To procure and preserve the flavour of SWEET AND SAVOURY HERBS, celery, &c. these must be dried, &c. at home (see [No. 417*] and [No. 461]).

[92-§] See [No. 421] and [No. 457]. Sir Hans Sloane, in the Phil. Trans. Abr. vol. xi. p. 667, says, “Pimento, the spice of Jamaica, or ALLSPICE, so called, from having a flavour composed as it were of cloves, cinnamon, nutmegs, and pepper, may deservedly be counted the best and most temperate, mild, and innocent of common spices, almost all of which it far surpasses, by promoting the digestion of meat, and moderately heating and strengthening the stomach, and doing those friendly offices to the bowels, we generally expect from spices.” We have always been of the same opinion as Sir Hans, and believe the only reason why it is the least esteemed spice is, because it is the cheapest. “What folks get easy they never enjoy.”

[92-‖] If you have not fresh orange or lemon-juice, or Coxwell’s crystallized lemon acid, the artificial lemon juice ([No. 407]) is a good substitute for it.

[92-¶] The juice of the SEVILLE ORANGE is to be preferred to that of the LEMON, the flavour is finer, and the acid milder.

[93-*] The erudite editor of the “Almanach des Gourmands,” vol. ii. p. 30, tells us, that ten folio volumes would not contain the receipts of all the soups that have been invented in that grand school of good eating,—the Parisian kitchen.

[93-†] “Point de Légumes, point de Cuisinière,” is a favourite culinary adage of the French kitchen, and deserves to be so: a better soup may be made with a couple of pounds of meat and plenty of vegetables, than our common cooks will make you with four times that quantity of meat; all for want of knowing the uses of soup roots, and sweet and savoury herbs.

[93-‡] Many a good dish is spoiled, by the cook not knowing the proper use of this, which is to give a flavour, and not to be predominant over the other ingredients: a morsel mashed with the point of a knife, and stirred in, is enough. See [No. 402].

[93-§] Foreigners have strange notions of English taste, on which one of their culinary professors has made the following comment: “the organ of taste in these ISLANDERS is very different from our delicate palates; and sauce that would excoriate the palate of a Frenchman, would be hardly piquante enough to make any impression on that of an Englishman; thus they prefer port to claret,” &c. As far as concerns our drinking, we wish there was not quite so much truth in Monsieur’s remarks, but the characteristic of the French and English kitchen is sauce without substance, and substance without sauce.

To make Cayenne of English chillies, of infinitely finer flavour than the Indian, see [No. 404].

[95-*] We tried to make catchup of these by treating them like mushrooms ([No. 439]), but did not succeed.

[96-*] “A poor man, being very hungry, staid so long in a cook’s shop, who was dishing up meat, that his stomach was satisfied with only the smell thereof. The choleric cook demanded of him to pay for his breakfast; the poor man denied having had any, and the controversy was referred to the deciding of the next man that should pass by, who chanced to be the most notorious idiot in the whole city: he, on the relation of the matter, determined that the poor man’s money should be put between two empty dishes, and the cook should be recompensed with the jingling of the poor man’s money, as he was satisfied with the smell of the cook’s meat.” This is affirmed by credible writers as no fable, but an undoubted truth.—Fuller’s Holy State, lib. iii. c. 12, p. 20.

[98-*] If the gravy be not completely drained from it, the article potted will very soon turn sour.

[99-*] Economists recommend these to be pounded; they certainly go farther, as they call it; but we think they go too far, for they go through the sieve, and make the soup grouty.

CHAPTER VIII.
GRAVIES AND SAUCES.

“The spirit of each dish, and ZEST of all,
Is what ingenious cooks the relish call;
For though the market sends in loads of food,
They are all tasteless, till that makes them good.”
King’s Art of Cookery.

“Ex parvis componere magna.”

It is of as much importance that the cook should know how to make a boat of good gravy for her poultry, &c. as that it should be sent up of proper complexion, and nicely frothed.

In this chapter, we shall endeavour to introduce to her all the materials[101-*] which give flavour in sauce, which is the essence of soup, and intended to contain more relish in a tea-spoonful than the former does in a table-spoonful.

We hope to deserve as much praise from the economist as we do from the bon vivant; as we have taken great pains to introduce to him the methods of making substitutes for those ingredients, which are always expensive, and often not to be had at all. Many of these cheap articles are as savoury and as salutary as the dearer ones, and those who have large families and limited incomes, will, no doubt, be glad to avail themselves of them.

The reader may rest assured, that whether he consults this book to diminish the expense or increase the pleasures of hospitality, he will find all the information that was to be obtained up to 1826, communicated in the most unreserved and intelligible manner.

A great deal of the elegance of cookery depends upon the accompaniments to each dish being appropriate and well adapted to it.

We can assure our readers, no attention has been wanting on our part to render this department of the work worthy of their perusal; each receipt is the faithful narrative of actual and repeated experiments, and has received the most deliberate consideration before it was here presented to them. It is given in the most circumstantial manner, and not in the technical and mysterious language former writers on these subjects seem to have preferred; by which their directions are useless and unintelligible to all who have not regularly served an apprenticeship at the stove.

Thus, instead of accurately enumerating the quantities, and explaining the process of each composition, they order a ladleful of stock, a pint of consommé, and a spoonful of cullis; as if a private-family cook had always at hand a soup-kettle full of stock, a store of consommé, and the larder of Albion house, and the spoons and pennyworths were the same in all ages.

It will be to very little purpose that I have taken so much pains to teach how to manage roasts and boils, if a cook cannot or will not make the several sauces that are usually sent up with them.

The most homely fare may be made relishing, and the most excellent and independent improved by a well-made sauce;[102-*] as the most perfect picture may, by being well varnished.

We have, therefore, endeavoured to give the plainest directions how to produce, with the least trouble and expense[102-†] possible, all the various compositions the English kitchen affords; and hope to present such a wholesome and palatable variety as will suit all tastes and all pockets, so that a cook may give satisfaction in all families. The more combinations of this sort she is acquainted with, the better she will comprehend the management of every one of them.

We have rejected some outlandish farragoes, from a conviction that they were by no means adapted to an English palate. If they have been received into some English books, for the sake of swelling the volume, we believe they will never be received by an Englishman’s stomach, unless for the reason they were admitted into the cookery book, i. e. because he has nothing else to put into it.

However “les pompeuses bagatelles de la Cuisine Masquée” may tickle the fancy of demi-connoisseurs, who, leaving the substance to pursue the shadow, prefer wonderful and whimsical metamorphoses, and things extravagantly expensive to those which are intrinsically excellent; in whose mouth mutton can hardly hope for a welcome, unless accompanied by venison sauce; or a rabbit, any chance for a race down the red lane, without assuming the form of a frog or a spider; or pork, without being either “goosified” or “lambified” (see [No. 51]); and game and poultry in the shape of crawfish or hedgehogs; these travesties rather show the patience than the science of the cook, and the bad taste of those who prefer such baby-tricks to nourishing and substantial plain cookery.

I could have made this the biggest book with half the trouble it has taken me to make it the best: concentration and perspicuity have been my aim.

As much pains have been taken in describing, in the most intelligible manner, how to make, in the easiest, most agreeable, and economical way, those common sauces that daily contribute to the comfort of the middle ranks of society; as in directing the preparation of those extravagant and elaborate double relishes, the most ingenious and accomplished “officers of the mouth” have invented for the amusement of profound palaticians, and thorough-bred grands gourmands of the first magnitude: these we have so reduced the trouble and expense of making, as to bring them within the reach of moderate fortunes; still preserving all that is valuable of their taste and qualities; so ordering them, that they may delight the palate, without disordering the stomach, by leaving out those inflammatory ingredients which are only fit for an “iron throat and adamantine bowels,” and those costly materials which no rational being would destroy, for the wanton purpose of merely giving a fine name to the compositions they enter into, to whose excellence they contribute nothing else. For instance, consuming two partridges to make sauce for one: half a pint of game gravy ([No. 329],) will be infinitely more acceptable to the unsophisticated appetite of Englishmen, for whose proper and rational recreation we sat down to compose these receipts; whose approbation we have done our utmost to deserve, by devoting much time to the business of the kitchen; and by repeating the various processes that we thought admitted of the smallest improvement.

We shall be fully gratified, if our book is not bought up with quite so much avidity by those high-bred epicures, who are unhappily so much more nice than wise, that they cannot eat any thing dressed by an English cook; and vote it barbarously unrefined and intolerably ungenteel, to endure the sight of the best bill of fare that can be contrived, if written in the vulgar tongue of old England.[103-*]

Let your sauces each display a decided character; send up your plain sauces (oyster, lobster, &c.) as pure as possible: they should only taste of the materials from which they take their name.

The imagination of most cooks is so incessantly on the hunt for a relish, that they seem to think they cannot make sauce sufficiently savoury without putting into it every thing that ever was eaten; and supposing every addition must be an improvement, they frequently overpower the natural flavour of their PLAIN SAUCES, by overloading them with salt and spices, &c.: but, remember, these will be deteriorated by any addition, save only just salt enough to awaken the palate. The lover of “piquance” and compound flavours, may have recourse to “the Magazine of Taste,” [No. 462].

On the contrary, of COMPOUND SAUCES; the ingredients should be so nicely proportioned, that no one be predominant; so that from the equal union of the combined flavours such a fine mellow mixture is produced, whose very novelty cannot fail of being acceptable to the persevering gourmand, if it has not pretensions to a permanent place at his table.

An ingenious cook will form as endless a variety of these compositions as a musician with his seven[104-*] notes, or a painter with his colours; no part of her business offers so fair and frequent an opportunity to display her abilities: SPICES, HERBS, &c. are often very absurdly and injudiciously jumbled together.

Why have clove and allspice, or mace and nutmeg, in the same sauce; or marjoram, thyme, and savoury; or onions, leeks, eschalots, and garlic? one will very well supply the place of the other, and the frugal cook may save something considerable by attending to this, to the advantage of her employers, and her own time and trouble. You might as well, to make soup, order one quart of water from the Thames, another from the New River, a third from Hampstead, and a fourth from Chelsea, with a certain portion of spring and rain water.

In many of our receipts we have fallen in with the fashion of ordering a mixture of spices, &c., which the above hint will enable the culinary student to correct.

“Pharmacy is now much more simple; COOKERY may be made so too. A prescription which is now compounded with five ingredients, had formerly fifty in it: people begin to understand that the materia medica is little more than a collection of evacuants and stimuli.”—Boswell’s Life of Johnson.

The ragoûts of the last century had infinitely more ingredients than we use now; the praise given to Will. Rabisha for his Cookery, 12mo. 1673, is

“To fry and fricassee, his way’s most neat,
For he compounds a thousand sorts of meat.”

To become a perfect mistress of the art of cleverly extracting and combining flavours,[105-*] besides the gift of a good taste, requires all the experience and skill of the most accomplished professor, and, especially, an intimate acquaintance with the palate she is working for.

Send your sauces to table as hot as possible.

Nothing can be more unsightly than the surface of a sauce in a frozen state, or garnished with grease on the top. The best way to get rid of this, is to pass it through a tamis or napkin previously soaked in cold water; the coldness of the napkin will coagulate the fat, and only suffer the pure gravy to pass through: if any particles of fat remain, take them off by applying filtering paper, as blotting paper is applied to writing.

Let your sauces boil up after you put in wine, anchovy, or thickening, that their flavours may be well blended with the other ingredients;[105-†] and keep in mind that the “chef-d’œuvre” of COOKERY is, to entertain the mouth without offending the stomach.

N.B. Although I have endeavoured to give the particular quantity of each ingredient used in the following sauces, as they are generally made; still the cook’s judgment must direct her to lessen or increase either of the ingredients, according to the taste of those she works for, and will always be on the alert to ascertain what are the favourite accompaniments desired with each dish. See Advice to Cooks, [page 50].

When you open a bottle of catchup ([No. 439]), essence of anchovy ([No. 433]), &c., throw away the old cork, and stop it closely with a new cork that will fit it very tight. Use only the best superfine velvet taper-corks.

Economy in corks is extremely unwise: in order to save a mere trifle in the price of the cork, you run the risk of losing the valuable article it is intended to preserve.

It is a vulgar error that a bottle must be well stopped, when the cork is forced down even with the mouth of it; it is rather a sign that the cork is too small, and it should be redrawn and a larger one put in.

To make bottle-cement.

Half a pound of black resin, same quantity of red sealing-wax, quarter oz. bees’ wax, melted in an earthen or iron pot; when it froths up, before all is melted and likely to boil over, stir it with a tallow candle, which will settle the froth till all is melted and fit for use. Red wax, 10d. per lb. may be bought at Mr. Dew’s Blackmore-street, Clare-market.

N.B. This cement is of very great use in preserving things that you wish to keep a long time, which without its help would soon spoil, from the clumsy and ineffectual manner in which the bottles are corked.

[101-*] See, in pages [91], [92], A CATALOGUE OF THE INGREDIENTS now used in soups, sauces, &c.

[102-*] “It is the duty of a good sauce,” says the editor of the Almanach des Gourmands (vol. v. page 6), “to insinuate itself all round and about the maxillary gland, and imperceptibly awaken into activity each ramification of the organs of taste: if not sufficiently savoury, it cannot produce this effect, and if too piquante, it will paralyze, instead of exciting, those delicious titillations of tongue and vibrations of palate, that only the most accomplished philosophers of the mouth can produce on the highly-educated palates of thrice happy grands gourmands.”

[102-†] To save time and trouble is the most valuable frugality: and if the mistress of a family will condescend to devote a little time to the profitable and pleasant employment of preparing some of the STORE SAUCES, especially Nos. [322]. [402]. [404]. [413]. [429]. [433]. [439]. [454]; these, both epicures and economists will avail themselves of the advantage now given them, of preparing at home.

By the help of these, many dishes may be dressed in half the usual time, and with half the trouble and expense, and flavoured and finished with much more certainty than by the common methods.

A small portion of the time which young ladies sacrifice to torturing the strings of their piano-forte, employed in obtaining domestic accomplishments, might not make them worse wives, or less agreeable companions to their husbands. This was the opinion 200 years ago.

“To speak, then, of the knowledge which belongs unto our British housewife, I hold the most principal to be a perfect skill in COOKERY: she that is utterly ignorant therein, may not, by the lawes of strict justice, challenge the freedom of marriage, because indeede she can perform but half her vow: she may love and obey, but she cannot cherish and keepe her husband.”—G. Markham’s English Housewife, 4to. 1637, p. 62.

We hope our fair readers will forgive us, for telling them that economy in a wife, is the most certain charm to ensure the affection and industry of a husband.

[103-*] Though some of these people seem at last to have found out, that an Englishman’s head may be as full of gravy as a Frenchman’s, and willing to give the preference to native talent, retain an Englishman or woman as prime minister of their kitchen; still they seem ashamed to confess it, and commonly insist as a “sine quâ non,” that their English domestics should understand the “parlez vous;” and notwithstanding they are perfectly initiated in all the minutiæ of the philosophy of the mouth, consider them uneligible, if they cannot scribble a bill of fare in pretty good bad French.

[104-*] The principal agents now employed to flavour soups and sauces are, MUSHROOMS ([No. 439]), ONIONS ([No. 420]), ANCHOVY ([No. 433]), LEMON-JUICE and PEEL, or VINEGAR, WINE, (especially good CLARET), SWEET HERBS, and SAVOURY SPICES.—Nos. [420]-[422], and [457]. [459], [460].

[105-*] If your palate becomes dull by repeatedly tasting, the best way to refresh it is to wash your mouth well with milk.

[105-†] Before you put eggs or cream into a sauce, have all your other ingredients well boiled, and the sauce or soup of proper thickness; because neither eggs nor cream will contribute to thicken it.—After you have put them in, do not set the stew-pan on the stove again, but hold it over the fire, and shake it round one way till the sauce is ready.

CHAPTER IX.
MADE DISHES.

Under this general head we range our receipts for HASHES, STEWS, and RAGOUTS,[106-*] &c. Of these there are a great multitude, affording the ingenious cook an inexhaustible store of variety: in the French kitchen they count upwards of 600, and are daily inventing new ones.

We have very few general observations to make, after what we have already said in the two preceding chapters on [sauces], [soups], &c., which apply to the present chapter, as they form the principal part of the accompaniment of most of these dishes. In fact, MADE DISHES are nothing more than meat, poultry ([No. 530]), or fish (Nos. [146], [158], or [164]), stewed very gently till they are tender, with a thickened sauce poured over them.

Be careful to trim off all the skin, gristle, &c. that will not be eaten; and shape handsomely, and of even thickness, the various articles which compose your made dishes: this is sadly neglected by common cooks. Only stew them till they are just tender, and do not stew them to rags; therefore, what you prepare the day before it is to be eaten, do not dress quite enough the first day.

We have given receipts for the most easy and simple way to make HASHES, &c. Those who are well skilled in culinary arts can dress up things in this way, so as to be as agreeable as they were the first time they were cooked. But hashing is a very bad mode of cookery: if meat has been done enough the first time it is dressed, a second dressing will divest it of all its nutritive juices; and if it can be smuggled into the stomach by bribing the palate with piquante sauce, it is at the hazard of an indigestion, &c.

I promise those who do me the honour to put my receipts into practice, that they will find that the most nutritious and truly elegant dishes are neither the most difficult to dress, the most expensive, nor the most indigestible. In these compositions experience will go far to diminish expense: meat that is too old or too tough for roasting, &c., may by gentle stewing be rendered savoury and tender. If some of our receipts do differ a little from those in former cookery books, let it be remembered we have advanced nothing in this work that has not been tried, and experience has proved correct.

N.B. See [No. 483], an ingenious and economical system of French cookery, written at the request of the editor by an accomplished English lady, which will teach you how to supply your table with elegant little made dishes, &c. at as little expense as plain cookery.

[106-*] Sauce for ragoûts, &c., should be thickened till it is of the consistence of good rich cream, that it may adhere to whatever it is poured over. When you have a large dinner to dress, keep ready-mixed some fine-sifted flour and water well rubbed together till quite smooth, and about as thick as butter. See [No. 257].

THE
COOK’S ORACLE.