The complete servant / Being a practical guide to the peculiar duties and business of all descriptions of servants, from the housekeeper to the servant of all-work, and from the land steward to the foot-boy. With useful receipts and tables

by servant Samuel Adams; Sarah Adams

Frying is, in fact, boiling in fat. Before you begin to fry, rub the inside of the Frying-pan with a little fat, warm it and wipe it out with a cloth, quite clean.—To fry fish, half fill the pan with fat, olive oil, nice fresh lard, clarified drippings, or beef or mutton suet;—but whatever fat be used let it be perfectly sweet, free from salt, and nice and clean. Keep a brisk fire, and make the fat very hot, which may be known by its having done hissing. When ready, carefully drain it quite dry before the fire.

We give the following as an example of the best method of Frying soles, and most other kinds of fish:

Let them be quite fresh, and some time before you dress them, wash them thoroughly, and wipe them with a clean cloth, quite dry.—If to be fried with bread-crumbs, beat up an egg, the white and yolk together, quite well, dip the fish in the egg, and cover them completely with grated crumbs, and if you wish the fish to look still better, do them twice over with egg. The fish, if large, may be cut into pieces, the proper size for the table, otherwise they may be fried whole; when cut they must be dished up as if whole. Let the fat in the pan be sufficient to cover the fish, and when it quite boils, and begins to smoke, put in the fish; it will be nicely browned in about five minutes, when it should be turned, and fried just as long on the other side. When done lay them on a soft cloth, before the fire, and turn them every two or three minutes, till they are perfectly dry on both sides.

The fat in which any thing is fried will serve to fry the same kind of thing several times.

Broths, Soups, Stock, &c.

Cleanliness in this, as in every department of kitchen business, must ever be held as the leading principle, and will contribute most to the satisfaction of all parties.

An economical Cook, when she boils animal food, will make a rule to convert the liquor, or broth, into some sort of soup or stock, which may be done at her leisure, and by which means she will always have a rich kitchen, as it is technically called, and will be able to make an extra dish, or an additional tureen of soup, at a short notice, and at a trifling expense. The fragments of meat left after dinner, with the trimmings of undressed meat and game, the heads, necks, gizzards, and feet of fowls, &c. when picked and washed clean, will help to enrich soups, or make stock, and save much expense in gravy meat. The broths, if saved in separate pans, will assist in making white or brown soups, and the gravies left in the dishes after dinner, will be good in hashes, or, with some trifling ingredients added, will make sauce for fish, goose, &c.

The liquor of a knuckle of veal may be converted into glaze, if boiled with a knuckle of ham, till reduced to a fourth or a third part, with the necessary herbs and spices added.

To prepare Soups, &c.—the first care of the Cook will be to see that the stew-pan to be used is well tinned, scalded, and wiped out perfectly clean and dry. She will put some butter or marrow into the bottom of the pan, then lay in a leg or shin of beef with the bones well broken, and the meat cut to pieces; or the skirts of beef, the kidney or melt, or the shank bones of mutton, well cleaned, with the fragments and trimmings of meat and other articles, as above mentioned;—these she will cover close and keep over a slow fire an hour, stirring it up, occasionally, from the bottom, and taking great care that it does not burn.—When all the virtues of the meats are extracted, and the juices are again absorbed by them, she will add water enough to cover them, which will be in the proportion of about a quart of water to a pound of meat, for soup, and to two pounds, for gravies; the scum must then be carefully taken off, quite clean, as it rises, after it has boiled; for the more soups and broths are skimmed, the better, and more transparent they will be: and this transparency, combined with their uniformity of taste, constitutes their chief excellence. It is important that the soup be kept gently simmering five or six or more hours, and that then be added a scraped carrot, a head of celery, a couple of onions, two turnips, and a few sweet herbs;—when ready, let it be strained carefully through a clean tamis, previously dipped in cold water, into stone or unglazed earthen pans, and let the fat remain upon it, to preserve it, till wanted.

Soups and broths when done, ought not to be covered, nor put away with vegetables in them.