Culture and Cooking; Or, Art in the Kitchen

by Catherine Owen

A nice little breakfast dish is made thus: Cut two long slices of cold meat and three of bread, buttered thickly, about the same shape and size; season the meat with pepper, salt, and a little finely chopped parsley; or, if it is veal, a little chopped ham; then lay one slice of bread between two of meat, and have the other two slices outside; fasten together with short wooden skewers. If you have a quick oven, put it in; and take care to baste with butter thoroughly, that the bread may be all over crisp and brown. If you can't depend on your oven, fry it in very hot fat as you would crullers; garnish with sprigs of parsley, and serve very hot.

To Warm a Good-sized Piece of Beef.—Trim it as much like a thick fillet as you can; cut it horizontally half way through, then scoop out as much as you can of the meat from the inside of each piece. Chop the meat fine that you have thus scooped out, season with a little finely chopped parsley and thyme, a shred of onion, if you like it; or if you have celery boil a little of the coarser part till tender, chop it and add as much bread finely crumbled as you have meat, and a good piece of butter; add pepper and salt, and make all into a paste with an egg, mixed with an equal quantity of gravy or milk; fill up the hollow in the meat and tie, or still better, sew it together. You may either put this in a pot with a slice of pork or bacon, and a cup of gravy; or you may brush it over with beaten egg, cover it with crumbs, and pour over these a cup of butter, melted, so that it moistens every part; and bake it, taking care to baste well while baking; serve with nice gravy.

Beef Olives are no novelty to the ear, but it is a novel thing to find them satisfactory to the palate.

Take some stale bread-crumbs, an equal quantity of beef finely chopped, some parsley, and thyme; a little scraped ham if you have it, a few chives, or a slice of onion, all chopped small as possible; put some butter in a pan, and let this force-meat just simmer, not fry, in it for ten minutes. While this is cooking, cut some underdone oblong slices of beef about half an inch thick, hack it with a sharp knife on both sides; then mix the cooked force-meat with the yolk of an egg and a tablespoonful of gravy; put a spoonful of this paste in the center of each slice of meat and tie it up carefully in the shape of an egg. Then if you have some nice gravy, thicken it with a piece of butter rolled in flour, roll each olive slightly in flour and lay it in the gravy and let it very gently simmer for half an hour. A few chopped oysters added to the gravy will be a great addition. Or you may lay each olive on a thin slice of fat pork, roll it up, tie it, dip it in flour, and bake in a quick oven until beautifully brown.

To Warm over Cold Mutton.—An excellent and simple way is to cut it, if loin, into chops, or leg, into thick collops, and dip each into egg well beaten with a tablespoonful of milk, then in fine bread-crumbs and fry in plenty of very hot fat.

If your crumbs are not very fine and even, the larger crumbs will fall off, and the appearance be spoilt. These chops will be almost as nice, if quickly fried, as fresh cooked ones. They will also be excellent if, instead of being breaded, they are dipped into thick batter (see recipe) and fried brown in the same way. This method answers for any kind of meat, chicken thus warmed over being especially good. The batter, or egg and bread-crumbs form a sort of crust which keeps it tender and juicy. Any attempt to fry cold meat without either results in a hard, stringy, uneatable dish.

White Meat of any kind is excellent warmed over in a little milk, in which you have cut a large onion, and, if you like it, a slice of salt pork or ham, and a little sliced cucumber, if it is summer; thicken with the yolks of one or two eggs, added after the whole has simmered twenty minutes; take care the egg thickens in the gravy, but does not boil, or it will curdle. If it is in winter, chop a teaspoonful of pickled cucumber or capers and add just on going to table. In summer when you have the sliced cucumber, squeeze half a lemon into the gravy, the last thing, to give the requisite dash of acid. You may vary the above by adding sometimes a few chopped oysters; at others, mushrooms, or celery. The last must be put in with the onion and before the meat.

Deviled Meat.—Our better halves are usually fond of this, especially for breakfast or lunch.

For this dish take a pair of turkey or chicken drumsticks or some nice thick wedges of underdone beef or mutton, score them deeply with a knife and rub them over with a sauce made thus: A teaspoonful of vinegar, the same of Harvey or Worcestershire sauce, the same of mustard, a little cayenne, and a tablespoonful of salad oil, or butter melted; mix all till like cream, and take care your meat is thoroughly moistened all over with the mixture, then rub your gridiron with butter. See that the fire is clear, and while the gridiron is getting hot, chop a teaspoonful of parsley very fine, mix it up with a piece of butter the size of a walnut, and lay this in a dish which you will put to get hot. Then put the meat to be grilled on the fire and turn often, so that it will not burn; when hot through and brown, lay it in the hot dish, lay another hot dish over it, and serve as quickly as possible with hot plates.

Or the grill may be served with what Soyer calls his Mephistophelian sauce, which he especially designed for serving with deviled meats. Chop six shallots or small onions, wash and press them in the corner of a clean cloth, put them in a stew-pan with half a wineglass of chili vinegar (pepper sauce), a chopped clove, a tiny bit of garlic, two bay leaves, an ounce of glaze; boil all together ten minutes; then add four tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce, a little sugar, and ten of broth thickened with roux (or water will do if you have no broth).