To Keep Game from Tainting.
Draw so soon as they come into your possession; rinse with soda and water, then with pure cold water; wipe dry, and rub them lightly with a mixture of fine salt and black pepper. If you must keep them some time, put in the cavity of each fowl a piece of charcoal; hang them in a cool, dark place, with a cloth thrown over them. Small birds, unless there are too many of them, may be kept in a refrigerator after you have drawn, washed, and wiped them.
The charcoal is an admirable preventive of decomposition.
SAUCES FOR MEAT AND FISH.
These are no longer the appendages of the rich man’s bill of fare only. A general knowledge of made sauces, as well as the more expensive ones imported from abroad and sold here at high prices, is a part of every intelligent housekeeper’s culinary education. Few are so ignorant as to serve a fish sauce with game, or vice versâ. From the immense number of receipts which I have collected and examined, I have selected comparatively few but such as I consider “representative” articles. The ingenious housewife is at liberty, as I said before, elsewhere, to modify and improve upon them.
First, par excellence, as the most important, and because it is the groundwork of many others, I place
Melted or Drawn Butter.
No. 1.
- 2 teaspoonfuls flour.
- 1½ ounce butter.
- 1 teacupful hot water or milk.
- A little salt.
Put the flour and salt in a bowl, and add a little at a time of the water or milk, working it very smooth as you go on. Put into a tin cup or saucepan, and set in a vessel of boiling water. As it warms, stir, and when it has boiled a minute or more, add the butter by degrees, stirring all the time until it is entirely melted and incorporated with the flour and water. Boil one minute.