Heat the milk to boiling, stir in the sugar, then the gelatine. Cook about five minutes, and strain through thin muslin. Divide the blanc-mange into four equal portions. Beat the chocolate well into one; heat for one minute, and put by in a cup or bowl. Do the same with the egg to a second, and the currant jelly for the third. This last must be heated carefully, and a little sugar added, that the milk may not curdle. Leave the fourth white, and flavor with rose-water. When cold and a little stiff, pour into a wet mould—the white first; when this is so firm as to bear the weight of the next without mixing, the pink; then, the yellow; lastly, the brown. Do this on Saturday. On Sunday dip the mould in warm water, work the surface free with your fingers, and turn out upon a flat dish. Eat with cream and sugar, or brandied fruit.
Third Week. Monday.
Clam Soup.
Early in the morning crack your mutton-bone, and put on in a quart of cold water, at the back of the range. When little more than a large cupful of liquor remains, take it off and strain into a bowl to cool. When perfectly cold take off the fat, put in a quart of clam liquor and the hard parts of fifty clams. Season with a teaspoonful of minced onion, as much chopped parsley, a pinch of mace, pepper and salt to taste, and cook, covered, half an hour after the boil begins. Heat in another vessel two cups of milk; when hot, stir in two tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled in a heaping tablespoonful of flour, and set in boiling water to keep hot, after it has boiled two minutes. Strain the soup back into the pot, put in the soft parts of the clams—the only digestible portions—and simmer five minutes. Pour the thickened milk into the tureen, stir in the soup, and serve.
This is a delightful and nutritious soup, and since you are to have cold meat for dinner, you need not grudge the care of preparing it, even on Job’s birthday.
Cold Mutton.
Your stuffed shoulder will be nearly as nice cold as hot. Garnish it tastefully with curled parsley and bleached lettuce-leaves.
Brussels Sprouts.
Cook in boiling, salted water twenty-five minutes; drain well; add a liberal lump of butter, with pepper and salt to taste, and put into a deep dish.