- 5 lbs. brisket of beef.
- 2 lbs. mutton-bones.
- 2 onions, sliced and fried.
- 2 carrots.
- 2 turnips.
- 4 stalks of celery.
- Bones of chicken or duck, if you have them.
- 6 cloves.
- ½ cup of sago or barley.
- 6 quarts of cold water.
- Sweet herbs.
- Pepper and salt.
Slice the meat, crack the bones, chop the vegetables, and put all on over the fire with the water. Boil slowly five or six hours; strain; pick out the meat as well as you can, and set aside. Then, rub the vegetables through a colander, prior to straining all through your soup-sieve. Set aside half the stock for Monday. Do this much on Saturday. Or, if you choose, do not strain the soup at all until Sunday morning. It will be the richer for cooling with meat, etc., in it. In either case, season before setting it away, or it may sour. Put Sunday’s stock back into the pot; boil up and skim, before adding the half cup of pearl sago, previously soaked for two hours in a very little cold water. Simmer twenty minutes and pour out.
Beef à la Mode de Rome.
Cut a quarter of a pound of streaked salt pork, and the same quantity of lean beef into strips, and fry, with a sliced onion, in good dripping. Put them in the bottom of a pot and lay a rib roast of beef, rolled round, upon them. Add a pint of boiling water, cover, and cook ten minutes to the pound, turning the beef three times meanwhile. Transfer the meat to a dripping-pan, dredge the top with flour, then baste with its own gravy, once. Keep hot, without cooking, while you strain the gravy left in the pot, thicken it with browned flour (always after taking the fat from the top), season with pepper, and stir in a teaspoonful of sugar, a handful of Sultana raisins, picked and washed, and the same quantity of blanched almonds, cut into tiny strips. Boil gently three minutes, dish the beef, and pour the sauce over it.
Odd as this receipt may seem to an American housewife, the result is extremely palatable, and a good change of fare at this season.
Potato Puff.
Mash the potatoes soft with milk and butter, season and beat very light with two raw eggs. Smooth and bake to a light brown in a greased pudding-dish, in which, also, serve it.
Hominy Croquettes.
- 2 cups of fine-grained hominy, boiled and cold.
- 2 beaten eggs.
- 2 tablespoonfuls of melted butter.
- Salt to taste.
- ¾ cup of finely chopped beef, left over from your soup, after straining the latter.
- Pepper.
Work hominy, butter, and salt to a smooth paste; beat in the eggs, finally the chopped meat, after peppering and salting it. Stir up in a farina-kettle until hot, and pour out to cool. When cold, make into long rolls with floured hands, flour each well by rolling upon a dish, and fry to a yellow-brown in sweet lard. Drain off the fat and pile upon a hot dish.