Purée of Peas.
- 1 pint of split peas, soaked overnight in soft water.
- 3 onions—small.
- 3 stalks of celery.
- 2 carrots—small.
- 1 bunch of sweet herbs.
- 1 pint of tomatoes.
- Season to taste.
- 3 tablespoonfuls of butter rolled in flour.
- 3 quarts of water.
Put all on to cook together, except the tomatoes and butter. The vegetables must be chopped fine. Stew steadily and gently three hours. Rub to a purée through a sieve, and put in the tomatoes, freed of bits of skin and cores, and cut into bits. Season, and return to the fire to stew for twenty minutes longer, closely covered. Stir in the butter—divided into teaspoonfuls, each rolled in flour. Boil up and serve. Dice of fried bread should be put into the tureen.
Fried Bass.
Clean, wipe dry, inside and out, dredge with flour, and season with salt. Fry in hot butter, beef-dripping, or sweet lard. Half butter, half lard is a good mixture for frying fish. The moment the fish are done to a good brown, take them from the fat and drain in a hot colander. Garnish with parsley.
Mashed Potatoes
Must accompany the fish.
Roast Chicken.
Wash well in three waters, adding a little soda to the second. Stuff with a mixture of bread-crumbs, butter, pepper, and salt. Fill the crops and bodies of the fowls; sew them up with strong, not coarse thread, and tie up the necks. Pour a cupful of boiling water over the pair, and roast an hour—or more, if they are large. Baste three times with butter and water, four or five times with their own gravy.
Stew the giblets, necks, and feet in water, enough to cover them well. When you take up the fowls, add this liquor to the gravy left in the dripping-pan, boil up once, thicken with browned flour; add the giblets chopped fine; boil again, and send up in a gravy-boat.