What is left may be tied in a cloth, and re-boiled next day.
A BACKWOODS POT-PIE.—Put a large portion of yellow Indian meal, (with a very little salt,) into a deep pan, and pour on scalding water, (stirring it in as you proceed,) till you have a soft dough. Beat and stir it long and hard, adding more corn meal, till the dough becomes stiff. It will be improved by mixing in a little wheat flour. When it is cool enough to handle, knead it a while with your hands. Take off portions of the dough or paste, and form them into flat, square cakes. Take a large pot; grease the sides with a little good dripping or lard, and line them with the cakes of corn meal. Have ready some fresh venison cut into pieces, and seasoned with a little salt and pepper. Put some of it into the pot, (adding some water to assist in the gravy,) and cover it with a layer of corn cakes. Then more venison, and then more cakes, till the pot is nearly full. The last layer must be a large cake with a slit in the middle. Set it over the fire, and let it boil steadily till the whole is thoroughly done. Then take it up, and dish it together, meat and paste.
The paste that is to line the sides of the pot should be thinner than that which is to be laid among the meat. Put no paste at the bottom.
If you have any cold drippings of roast venison, you may mix some of it with the corn meal, as shortening.
Sweet potatoes sliced, and laid among the meat, will improve this pie.
TO BOIL INDIAN CORN.—Corn for boiling should be full grown, but young and tender, and the grains soft and milky. If its grains are becoming hard and yellow, it is too old for boiling. Strip the ears of their leaves and the silk. Put them into a large pot of boiling water, and boil it rather fast for half an hour or more, in proportion to its size and age. When done, take it up, drain it, dish it under a cover, or napkin, and serve it up hot. Before eating it, rub each ear with salt and pepper, and then spread it with butter. Epicures in corn consider it sweetest when eaten off the cob. And so it is; but before company few persons like to hold an ear of Indian corn in their hands, and bite the grains off the cob with their teeth. Therefore, it is more frequently cut off the cob into a dish; mixed with salt, pepper, and butter, and helped with a spoon.
It is said that young green corn will boil sufficiently in ten minutes, (putting it of course into a pot of boiling water.) Try it.
Another way.—Having pulled off the silk, boil the corn, without removing the leaves that enclose the cob. With the leaves or husk on, it will require a longer time to cook, but is sweeter and more nutritious.