“How fortunate I came out, Marta; red as this fire is, in half an hour it would have been near out. Put a little coal on; when it is lighted well, not before, you can rake out the ashes and put on more coal, but not too much.” As she spoke she opened all the drafts.
She meant to have a ragout of the rougher part of the lamb—the neck piece—as a second dish; if Harry did not care for it at dinner, it would make a very savory one for breakfast. She cut it up into neat pieces; there was about a pound and a half of meat, very lean, and, properly treated, the tenderest in the whole sheep.
“If I had to pay the same for this part of the lamb as for the loin, I should still prefer it for boiling and stewing,” she said to Marta, “but so few people will believe it. Get me one onion and a carrot, and prepare them. I wish I had some canned peas, they would be such an addition; but I have not half the little things in store yet that I need.”
Molly was making this ragout, not that it was needed for dinner so much, although it made variety and a better-seeming table, but her chief thought was for the breakfast. Having the vegetables prepared, and the range being by this time hot on the top, she put a spider, containing a table-spoonful of butter and one of flour, on the stove, and told Marta to stir slowly till the flour and butter were pale brown, while she tied six sprigs of parsley and half a bay leaf together. When the flour and butter formed a smooth brownish paste, or roux, as the cooking-books call it, the carrots and onions, cut small, and the meat were added, with a half salt-spoonful of pepper, three level salt-spoonfuls of salt, and a tea-spoonful of vinegar. These were all stirred round, and a close cover put on.
“Now these have to be stirred every minute or so, to prevent burning, till brown, and while the ragout is cooking I will make a lemon pie. I have written the recipe, Marta, as I shall do all for the future, and you will keep the book in the kitchen. I will read it over to you.”
The recipe was, of course, written in German. Molly had not been able to do it without help from the dictionary, but she remembered that she was improving her German, which, indeed, was one of her reasons for taking a German girl, the compulsory practice would be so good for herself.
“Half a cup of fine bread crumbs, just enough milk to swell them, two eggs, three table-spoonfuls of sugar, two of butter, the juice of one lemon, the grated rinds of two. Beat sugar and butter to a cream, then the eggs and lemon juice, and last the bread and milk. You can make the mixture while I roll the paste and get the pie ready, but first I’m going to knock a few holes in this tin pie-plate, so that the crust may be light at the bottom.”
She took a small nail and hammer, and with it perforated the pie-plate till it looked like a colander. The paste was firm and hard, and Molly rolled it out with perfect ease, the third of an inch thick, without its once sticking to the board, which was lightly floured. She laid the pie-plate on it, and cut a circle a little larger than the tin to allow for the depth. Every touch she made was quick and light, just as if the paste were tulle or white satin. She turned the plate over, laid the paste on it, and pressed it only on the bottom, never touching the edges. She cut a little piece and put it in the oven to try it. Then she cut two long strips of paste, about an inch wide, and laid them lightly around the pie, so as to make the edge twice the thickness of the bottom; she gently pressed the lower edge of this strip to make it adhere to the pie, and then poured in the lemon mixture.
“Mr. Bishop doesn’t like meringue, or I would have kept out the two whites of eggs, to make it,” said Molly, as she took out the little “trier” she had in the oven.
It had risen a full inch, and “the separate flakes could be counted!” Marta exclaimed, as she saw it. Her intelligence only seemed to rouse when she saw something out of the ordinary routine of cooking, because, as Molly afterwards found, her ideal of cooking was what the man cook at the restaurant in Germany could do; she never expected to see a lady do them, and he had made puff paste just like this, and it seemed magic to her.