Therefore, as these are undoubtedly hard times, and many people are not ‘entertaining’ at all because they cannot now afford to outdo their neighbours, let me beg any young beginner to start well and simply, confining herself to those friends she really wishes to see, and to giving parties that are not above her modest means, and that do not entail hiring extra help, who smash her crockery and cost a month’s wages for a few hours’ work, and agitate her so by their vagaries that she cannot talk sensibly to her neighbour; and let her furthermore ask people sometimes who cannot ask her again, but who can talk amusingly, and she will, I am sure, have much more out of her little dinners than most people do out of a whole London season’s fatigue and expense, both of which often ruin the health and the future of many a girl, who traces back to the severe ‘pleasures’ of town the lassitude and suffering that render the latter half of a woman’s life all too often hours of suffering and sorrow; for she has used up in the year or two of her girlhood all the strength and health that should have sustained her all through her days, and repents at leisure the stupidity and culpable weakness of the mother who allowed her to sacrifice the possessions for a lifetime in a few months.
To enable our young housekeeper to manage so that her housekeeping bills will not overwhelm her after one of her little dinners, I have appended to each of the menus the exact cost of each, and I strongly advise any one to whom economy is an object to use New Zealand lamb or mutton. If properly warmed through and gently thawed close to the fire before putting it down to roast, the meat is simply delicious and as good as the best English; but it must be treated carefully, or else it will not be nice, but when properly thawed no one can tell it from English meat, and I think housekeepers would be a little astonished if they knew how often the ‘best English’ meat of the butcher’s book was really and truly the New Zealand meat they speak of with such horror.
Menu No. I.
White Soup.
Soles, Sauce Maître d’hôtel.
Stuffed Pigeons.
Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding.
Wild Duck.
Mince Pies.
French Pancakes.
Cauliflower au gratin.
Dessert.
White Soup.—A quart and a pint of milk, a dozen fine potatoes, piece of butter size of a walnut, two onions, salt and pepper to taste. Simmer all together for two hours, then rub through fine hair sieve, add two tablespoonfuls of sago, and bring all gradually to a boil. Serve very hot, with dice of bread fried. Cost of soup for six persons, 1s.
Fried Soles.—A fine pair at 3s. Garnish with lemon and parsley, fry in lard; serve with melted butter, with fine chopped parsley in, flavoured with lemon. Cost, 3s. 6d.
Stuffed Pigeons.—Three pigeons at 10d. each. Bone them; make a stuffing of thyme, parsley, crumbs of bread, small piece of ham, a couple of mushrooms, one egg, salt and pepper to taste; chop altogether and mix with egg; stuff pigeons and sew them up; put them into a saucepan, with a small piece of bacon and any stock that may be in the digester. Stew for half an hour, take them out, divide them into neat portions, and put them in a hot dish ready for serving. Add a teaspoonful of flour mixed with water to thicken the gravy they are stewed in, and strain it through a sieve on the pigeons; then serve. Outside cost, 3s. 6d.
Rolled Ribs of Beef.—Six pounds, the bones from which can be used for stock for the gravy for the pigeons. The beef is rolled by the butcher ready for roasting. Serve with horse-radish neatly arranged about it, mashed potatoes, stewed celery; and Yorkshire pudding—half a pint of milk, six large tablespoonfuls of flour, three eggs, and a tablespoonful of salt. Put the flour into a basin with the salt, and stir gradually to this enough milk to make it into a stiff batter; when quite smooth add the rest of the milk, and the eggs well beaten; beat well together, and then pour into a shallow tin which has been rubbed with beef dripping; bake an hour in the oven, and then put under the meat for half an hour. Meat, 6 lbs. of New Zealand at 10d., 5s.; pudding, 6d.; vegetables, 1s.—6s. 6d.
Wild Duck, 4s. 6d.—Plainly roasted; served with cayenne pepper, lemons cut in halves, and fried potatoes. 5s.
Mince Pies.—Make some good puff paste by allowing one pound of butter to each pound of flour; line small patty pans and bake; fill with mincemeat (which can be bought ready-made and excellent for 10d. a jar, which is sufficient for a dozen pies), cover with thin paste, and put into a brisk oven for twenty-five minutes; serve with sifted sugar over them.
French Pancakes.—Take two eggs, and their weight in sugar, flour, and butter; mix well together; add quarter of a teacupful of milk; mix well together; bake in saucer for twenty minutes, filling each saucer only half full; take out; spread small quantity of jam, then fold over; dust sifted sugar over the top, and serve very hot. Cost, 8d.