Cut the meat from the bones of yesterday’s ducks, dividing the joints neatly, and slicing the breast, etc. Crack the skeleton to pieces, and put it, with the skin, stuffing, and gristly bits, into a saucepan. Cover with cold water, and stew until a cupful of good gravy is extracted. Strain and season this; put in the sliced duck. Set within a pot of hot water and bring the contents of the inner saucepan almost to a boil. Add a couple of beaten eggs; stir up well and set aside in the hot water, covered, for five minutes. The meat must not actually boil once.
Stewed Corn.
Open a can of corn, an hour before cooking it. Put it into a saucepan when you are ready for it; cover with boiling water, and let it stand without cooking, for ten minutes. Drain off the water; cover the corn with hot milk, a little salted; set within a vessel of hot water, and cook for half an hour, or until tender. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter, cut into thirds, each rolled in flour; simmer ten minutes, pepper, and turn into a deep covered dish.
Glazed Potatoes.
Parboil them in their skins; peel quickly and lay in the dripping-pan within a hot oven. As soon as they begin to “crust” over, baste with good dripping or butter. Repeat this three times until they are of a glossy brown. Eat hot.
Queen’s Pudding.
- 10 fine pippins, pared and cored.
- ½ lb. macaroons, pounded fine.
- 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
- ½ teaspoonful cinnamon.
- ½ cup crab-apple or quince jelly.
- 1 tablespoonful of brandy.
- 1 pint of milk.
- 1 tablespoonful corn-starch.
- Whites of 3 eggs.
- A little salt.
Put the apples into a buttered pudding-dish. Fill this half full of cold water; cover closely and bake until a straw will pierce them. Let them stand, covered, until cold. (Do this on Saturday.) Drain off the water the day you mean to use them. Put a spoonful of jelly and a few drops of brandy into each apple. Strew with cinnamon and sugar. Cover and let them stand while you scald the milk, and stir in the macaroons, the salt and the corn-starch wet up in cold milk. Boil for one minute. Take from the fire, beat up well, and let it cool before whipping in the frothed whites. Pour this mixture over the apples and bake half an hour in a brisk oven. Eat warm with a sauce made of the water in which the apples were stewed, well sweetened and spiced, a tablespoonful of butter, rolled in flour and the beaten yolk of an egg. Heat the liquor, sweeten and season; thicken with butter and flour; boil up; pour gradually over the egg, and set in hot water until it is needed.
First Week. Tuesday.