Delmonico allows one and a half pounds of coffee to one gallon of water. The coffee-pot, with a double base, is placed on the range in a vessel of hot water (bain-marie). The boiling water is poured over the coffee, which is contained in a felt strainer in the coffee-pot. It is not boiled.
Of course, much depends upon the care in preparing the coffee to insure a delicious beverage; but equally as much depends upon serving with it good thick cream. Milk, or even boiled milk, is not to be compared with cream. In cities, a gill, at least, might be purchased each morning for coffee, or a few table-spoonfuls might be saved from the evening’s milk for at least one cup. Fill the cup two-thirds full, then, with hot, clear coffee, pour in one or two table-spoonfuls of cream, and use loaf-sugar.
Professor Blot, in his lectures, was very emphatic as to the impropriety of boiling coffee. He said by this means the aroma and flavor were carried into the attic, and a bitter decoction was left to be drunk. He preferred decidedly the coffee made in the French filter coffee-pot.
I have experimented upon coffee, and prefer it boiled for one minute in the ordinary coffee-pot. That made in the French filter is also most excellent. It is not boiled, and requires a greater proportion of coffee. But to be explicit, put the coffee in the filter. At the first boil of the water, pour one or two coffee-cupfuls of it on the coffee. Put back the water on the fire. When boiling again, pour on as much more, and repeat the process until the desired quantity is made.
CHOCOLATE (Miss Sallie Schenck).
Allow two sticks of chocolate to one pint of new milk. After the chocolate is scraped, either let it soak an hour or so, with a table-spoonful of milk to soften it, or boil it a few moments in two or three table-spoonfuls of water. Then, in either case, mash it to a smooth paste. When the milk, sweetened to taste with loaf-sugar, is boiling, stir in the chocolate-paste, adding a little of the boiling milk to it first, to dilute it evenly. Let it boil half a minute. Stir it well, or mill it, and serve immediately.
Maillard’s chocolate is flavored with a little vanilla. The commoner brands, such as Baker’s, will be nearly as good by adding a little vanilla when making. Miss Schenck (noted for her chocolate) adds a very little flavoring of brandy.
A very good addition, and one universally seen, when chocolate is served at lunch parties, is a heaping table-spoonful of whipped-cream, sweetened and flavored with a little vanilla before it is whipped, placed on the top of the chocolate in each cup, the cup being only three-quarters filled with the chocolate.