Third Week. Wednesday.
Mock-Turtle Soup.
- 1 calf’s head, well-cleaned, with the skin on.
- 2 onions.
- Bunch of sweet herbs.
- 5 tablespoonfuls of butter.
- 5 tablespoonfuls of browned flour.
- 1 tablespoonful of allspice.
- ½ teaspoonful of mace.
- 1 teaspoonful of pepper.
- 2 teaspoonfuls, at least, of salt.
- 2 raw eggs.
- A little flour.
- 2 glasses of brown sherry.
- 1 tablespoonful mushroom, or walnut catsup.
- 5 quarts of water, cold, of course.
- 1 sliced lemon.
Soak the calf’s head an hour in cold water, and boil in the five quarts of water until the bones will slip easily from the flesh. Take out the head, leaving the bones and broth in the pot. Take out the tongue and brains, and put them in separate plates. Set aside, also, the cheeks and the fleshy parts of the scalp to cool. Chop the rest, including the ears, very fine. Reserve four spoonfuls of this for force-meat balls. Season the rest with pepper, salt, onion, allspice, herbs, and mace, and put back into the pot. Cover closely, and cook four hours. Should the liquor sink to less than four quarts, replenish with boiling water. Just before straining the soup, take out half a cupful; put into a frying-pan; heat, and stir in the browned flour, wet up in cold water, also the butter. Simmer these together ten minutes, stirring almost constantly. Strain the soup; scald the pot and return the broth to the fire. Have ready the tongue and fleshy parts of the head cut, after cooling, into small squares; also, about fifteen balls made of the chopped meat, highly seasoned, worked into the proper consistency with a little flour and bound with the raw eggs, beaten into the paste. They should be as soft as can be handled. Grease a pie-plate, flour the balls and set in a quick oven until a crust forms upon them, then cool. Now, thicken the strained broth with the mixture in the frying-pan, stirred in well. Should there not be enough to make it almost like custard, add more flour. Then drop in the dice of tongue and fat meat. Cook slowly five minutes. Put the force-meat balls and thin slices of a peeled lemon into the tureen. Pour the soup upon them, add catsup and wine; cover five minutes and serve.
This king of soups having, of right, received such a long and minute notice, I shall not repeat the receipt in full in this work, but take the liberty of referring you, from time to time, to that just given.
Veal Cutlets and Brains.
Flatten the cutlets with the broad side of a hatchet; dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-dust, and fry rather slowly in ham-dripping, if you have it; if not, in salted lard. Drain off the fat; put into a hot-water dish, pepper, and cover while you fry, in the same fat, after straining it, the brains from the head of which your soup was made. They should first have been boiled for ten minutes, drained, and cooled; then beaten to a paste with egg, seasoned with pepper and salt, and dropped by the spoonful into the scalding fat. Drain, and lay about the cutlets as a garnish.
Potatoes au Gratin.
Mash as usual; put into a shallow pie-plate well greased; strew thickly with dry crumbs, and brown upon the upper grating of the oven. Glaze with butter, when the gratin begins to brown well. Slip dexterously to a flat dish.