FOR THE USE OF THE MISTRESS OF A FAMILY

The mistress of a family should always remember that the welfare and good management of the house depend on the eye of the superior, and, consequently, that nothing is too trifling for her notice, whereby waste may be avoided.

Many families have owed their prosperity full as much to the conduct and propriety of female arrangement, as to the knowledge and activity of the father.

All things likely to be wanted should be in readiness, sugars of different qualities should be broken; currants washed, picked and dry in a jar; spice pounded, &c. Every article should be kept in that place best suited to it, as much waste may thereby be avoided. Vegetables will keep best on a stone floor if the air be excluded. Dried meats, hams, &c., the same. All sorts of seeds for puddings, rice, &c., should be close-covered, to preserve from insects. Flour should be kept in a cool, perfectly dry room, and the bag being tied should be changed upside down and back every week, and well shaken. Carrots, parsnips, and beet-roots should be kept in sand for winter use, and neither they nor potatoes be cleared from the earth. Store onions preserve best hung up in a dry room. Straw to lay apples on should be quite dry, to prevent a musty taste. Tarragon gives the flavor of French cookery, and in high gravies should be added only a short time before serving.

Basil, savory, and knotted marjoram, or London thyme, to be used when herbs are ordered; but with discretion, as they are very pungent.

Celery seeds give the flavor of the plant to soups. Parsley should be cut close to the stalks, and dried on tins in a very cool oven; it preserves its flavor and color, and is very useful in winter. Artichoke bottoms, which have been slowly dried, should be kept in paper bags, and truffles, lemon-peel, &c., in a very dry place, ticketed.

Pickles and sweetmeats should be preserved from air: where the former are much used, small jars of each should be taken from the stock-jar, to prevent frequent opening.

Some of the lemons and oranges used for juice should be pared first, to preserve the peel dry; some should be halved, and, when squeezed, the pulp cut out, and the outsides dried for grating.

If for boiling any liquid, the first way is best. When whites of eggs are used for jelly, or other purposes, contrive to have pudding, custards, &c., to employ the yolks also.

Gravies or soups put by, should be daily changed into fresh scalded pans.

If chocolate, coffee, jelly, gruel, bark, &c., be suffered to boil over, the strength is lost.

The cook should be charged to take care of jelly bags, tapes for the collared things, &c., which, if not perfectly scalded and kept dry, give an unpleasant flavor when next used.

Hard water spoils the color of vegetables; a pinch of pearlash or salt of wormwood will prevent that effect.

When sirloins of beef, loins of veal or mutton come in, part of the suet may be cut off for puddings, or to clarify; dripping will baste everything as well as butter, fowls and game excepted; and for kitchen pies nothing else should be used.

Meat and vegetables that the frost has touched should be soaked in cold water two or three hours before they are used, or more if much iced; when put into hot water, or to the fire until thawed, no heat will dress them properly.

Meat should be well examined when it comes in, in warm weather. In the height of the summer it is a very safe way to let meat that is to be salted lie an hour in cold water; then wipe it perfectly dry, and have ready salt, and rub it thoroughly into every part, leaving a handful over it besides. Turn it every day and rub the pickle in, which will make it ready for the table in three or four days; if it is desired to be very much corned, wrap it in a well-floured cloth, having rubbed it previously with salt. The latter method will corn fresh beef fit for table the day it comes in; but it must be put into the pot when the water boils.

If the weather permits, meat eats much better for hanging two or three days before it be salted.

The water in which meat has been boiled makes an excellent soup for the poor, when vegetables, oatmeal, or peas are added, and should not be cleared from the fat. Roast beef bones, or shank bones of ham, make fine peas soup, and should be boiled with the peas the day before eaten, that the fat may be removed. The mistress of the house will find many great advantages in visiting her larder daily before she orders the bill of fare; she will see what things require dressing, and thereby guard against their being spoiled. Many articles may be redressed in a different form from that in which they are first served, an improve the appearance of the table without increasing the expense.

In every sort of provisions, the best of the kind goes farthest; cutting out most advantageously, and affording most nourishment.

Round of beef, fillet of veal, and leg of mutton, bear a higher price; but having more solid meat, deserve the preference. It is worth notice, however, that those joints which are inferior may be dressed as palatably, and being cheaper ought to be bought in turn; and when weighed with the prime pieces, the price of the latter is reduced.

In loins of meat, the long pipe which runs by the bone should be taken out, being apt to taint, as likewise the kernels of beef.

Rumps and aitch bones of beef are often bruised by the blows the drovers give, and that part always taints: avoid purchasing such.

The shank bones of mutton should be saved, and after soaking and bruising may be added to give richness to gravies and soups, and they are particularly nourishing for the sick.

Calves’ tongues, salted, make a more useful dish than when dressed with the brains, which may be served without.

Some people like neats’ tongues cured with the root, in which case they look much larger; but should the contrary be approved, the root must be cut off close to the gullet, next to the tongue, but without taking away the fat under the tongue. The root must be soaked in salt and water, and extremely well cleaned before it be dressed; and the tongue laid in salt for a night and day before pickled.

Great attention is requisite in salting meat, and in the country, where great quantities are cured, it is of still more importance. Beef and pork should be well sprinkled, and a few hours after hung to drain, before it be rubbed with the preserving salts; which mode, by cleansing the meat from the blood, tends to keep it from tasting strong; it should be turned daily, and, if wanted soon, rubbed. A salting tub may be used, and a cover should fit close. Those who use a good deal of salt will find it well to boil up the pickle, skim, and when cold pour it over meat that has been sprinkled and drained. In some families great loss is sustained by the spoiling of meat. If meat is brought from a distance in warm weather, the butcher should be charged to cover it close, and bring it early in the morning.

Mutton will keep long, by washing with vinegar the broad end of the leg; if any damp appears, wipe it immediately. If rubbed with salt lightly, it will not eat the worse. Game is brought in when not likely to keep a day, in the cook’s apprehension, yet may be preserved two or three days if wanted, by the following method:

If birds (woodcocks and snipes excepted, which must not be drawn), draw them, pick and take out the crop, wash them in two or three waters, and rub them with a little salt. Have ready a large saucepan of boiling water, put the birds in it, and let them remain five minutes, moving it, that it may go through them. When all are finished, hang them by the heads in a cold place; when drained, pepper the inside and necks; when to be roasted, wash, to take off the pepper. The most delicate birds, even grouse, may be kept this way, if not putrid.

Birds that live by suction, &c., bear being high: it is probable that the heat might cause them to taint more, as a free passage for the scalding water could not be obtained.

Fresh-water fish has often a muddy taste, to take off which, soak it in strong salt and water; or, if of a size to bear it, give it a scald in the same, after extremely good cleaning and washing.

In the following, and indeed all other receipts, though the quantities may be as accurately set down as possible, yet much must be left to the discretion of the persons who use them.

The different taste of people requires more or less of the flavor of spices, garlic, butter, &c., which can never be directed by general rules, and if the cook has not a good taste, and attention to that of her employers, not all the ingredients with which nature or art can furnish her will give an exquisite relish to her dishes.

The proper articles should be at hand, and she must proportion them until the true zest be obtained.

March, 1864.

Poetical Cook-Book.