Cut a knuckle of veal, or a neck of mutton into small pieces, and put them, with the bones broken up, into a large stew-pan. Add the meat sliced from a hock or shank of ham, a quarter of a pound of butter, two large onions sliced, a bunch of sweet herbs, and a head of celery cut small. Cover the pan closely, and set it without any water over a slow fire for an hour or more, to extract the essence from the meat. Then skim it well, and pour in four quarts of boiling water, and let it boil gently till all the meat is reduced to rags. Strain it, set it again on the fire, and add a quarter of a pound of vermicelli, which has first been scalded in boiling water. Season it to your taste with salt and cayenne pepper, and let it boil five minutes. Lay a large slice of bread in the bottom of your tureen, and pour the soup upon it. For the veal or mutton you may substitute a pair of large fowls cut into pieces; always adding the ham or a few slices of bacon, without which it will be insipid. Old fowls that are fit for no other purpose will do very well for soup.
The goose should not be more than eight months old, and the fatter the more tender and juicy the meat. Stuff with the following mixture: Three pints of bread crumbs, six ounces of butter, or part butter and part salt pork, one teaspoonful each of sage, black pepper and salt, one chopped onion. Do not stuff very full, and stitch openings firmly together to keep flavor in and fat out. Place in a baking pan with a little water, and baste frequently with salt and water (some add vinegar); turn often so that the sides and back may be nicely browned. Bake two hours or more; when done take from the pan, pour off the fat, and to the brown gravy left add the chopped giblets which have previously been stewed until tender, together with the water they were boiled in; thicken with a little flour and butter rubbed together, bring to a boil and serve, English style.
Keep on the head and fins. Make a force-meat or stuffing of grated bread crumbs, cold boiled ham or bacon minced fine, sweet marjoram, pepper, salt, and a little powdered mace or cloves. Moisten it with beaten yolk of egg. Stuff the inside of the fish with it, reserving a little to rub over the outside, having first rubbed the fish all over with yolk of egg. Lay the fish in a deep pan, putting its tail to its mouth. Pour into the bottom of the pan a little water, and add a jill of port wine, and a piece of butter rolled in flour. Bake it well, and when it is done, send it to table with the gravy poured round it. Garnish with slices of lemon. Any fish may be baked in the same manner. A large fish of ten or twelve pounds weight, will require about two hours baking.
To a 14 or 16 pound round of beef, put one ounce salt-petre, 48 hours after stuff it with the following: one and half pound beef, one pound salt pork, two pound grated bread, chop all fine and rub in half pound butter, salt, pepper and cayenne, summer savory, thyme; lay it on scewers in a large pot, over 3 pints hot water (which it must occasionally be supplied with,) the steam of which in 4 or 5 hours will render the round tender if over a moderate fire; when tender, take away the gravy and thicken with flour and butter, and boil, brown the round with butter and flour, adding ketchup and wine to your taste.
Take a calf's head, wash it well, lay it in an earthen dish, and cut out the tongue lay it loose under the head in the dish with the brains, and a little sage and parsley; rub the head over with the yolk of an egg, then strew over them a few bread-crumbs and shred parsley, lay all over it lumps of butter and a little salt, then set it in the oven; it will take about an hour and a half baking; when it is enough take the brains, sage and parsley; and chop them together, put to them the gravy that is in the dish, a little butter and a spoonful of vinegar, so boil it up and put it in cups, and set them round the head upon the dish, take the tongue and blanch it, cut it in two, and lay it on each side the head, and some slices of crisp bacon over the head, so serve it up.
Take a pint of split peas and put them in soak overnight in some cold water, and throw away those that float, as this shows that there is a hole in them which would be mildewy. Take two onions, a carrot, a small head of celery, and boil them with the peas in from three pints to two quarts of water till they are tender. This will be from four to five hours. When the peas are old and stale even longer time should be allowed. Then rub the whole through a wire sieve, put the soup back into the saucepan, and stir it while you make it hot or it will burn. In ordinary cookery, pea soup is invariably made from some kind of greasy stock, more especially the water in which pickled pork has been boiled. In the present instance we have no kind of fat to counteract the natural dryness of the pea-flour. We must therefore add, before sending to table, two or three ounces of butter. It will be found best to dissolve the butter in the saucepan before adding the soup to be warmed up, as it is then much less likely to stick to the bottom of the saucepan and burn. Fried or toasted bread should be served with the soup separately, as well as dried and powdered mint. The general mistake people make is, they do not have sufficient mint.
Take the bone out of a round of fresh beef, and beat the meat well all over to make it tender. Chop and mix together equal quantities of sweet marjoram and sweet basil, the leaves picked from the stalks and rubbed fine. Chop also some small onions or shalots, and some parsley; the marrow from the bone of the beef; and a quarter of a pound, or more of suet. Add two penny rolls of stale bread grated; and pepper, salt, and nutmeg to your taste. Mix all these ingredients well, and bind them together with the beaten yolks of four eggs. Fill with this seasoning the place from whence you took out the bone; and rub what is left of it all over the outside of the meat. You must, of course, proportion the quantity of stuffing to the size of the round of beef. Fasten it well with skewers, and tie it round firmly with a piece of tape, so as to keep it compact and in good shape. It is best to prepare the meat the day before it is to be cooked. Cover the bottom of a stew-pan with slices of bacon. Lay the beef upon them, and cover the top of the meat with more slices of bacon. Place round it four large onions, four carrots, and four turnips, all cut in thick slices. Pour in from half a pint to a pint of water, and if convenient, add two calves' feet cut in half. Cover the pan closely, set it in an oven and let it bake for at least six hours; or seven or eight, according to the size. When it is thoroughly done, take out the beef and lay it on a dish with the vegetables round it. Remove the bacon and calves' feet, and (having skimmed the fat from the gravy carefully) strain it into a small sauce-pan; set it on hot coals, and stir into it a tea-cupful of port wine, and the same quantity of pickled mushrooms. Let it just come to a boil, and then send it to table in a sauce-tureen. If the beef is to be eaten cold, you may ornament it as follows:-- Glaze it all over with beaten white of egg. Then cover it with a coat of boiled potato grated finely. Have ready some slices of cold boiled carrot, and also of beet-root. Cut them into the form of stars or flowers, and arrange them handsomely over the top of the meat by sticking them on the grated potato. In the centre place a large bunch of double parsley, interspersed with flowers cut out of raw turnips, beets, and carrots, somewhat in imitation of white and red roses, and marygolds. Fix the flowers on wooden skewers concealed with parsley. Cold à-la-mode beef prepared in this manner will at a little distance look like a large iced cake decorated with sugar flowers. You may dress a fillet of veal according to this receipt. Of course it will require less time to stew.
Cut up a slice of a fillet of veal, about half an inch thick, into squares of three inches. Mix up a little salt pork, chopped with bread crumbs, one onion, a little pepper, salt, sweet marjoram, and one egg well beaten; put this mixture upon the pieces of veal, fastening the four corners together with little bird skewers; lay them in a pan with sufficient veal gravy or light stock to cover the bottom of the pan, dredge with flour and set in a hot oven. When browned on top, put a small bit of butter on each, and let them remain until quite tender, which will take twenty minutes. Serve with horse-radish.
Soak two quarts of dried or split peas overnight. In the morning take three pounds of the lean of fresh beef, and a pound of bacon or pickled pork. Cut them into pieces, and put them into a large soup-pot with the peas, (which must first be well drained,) and a table-spoonful of dried mint rubbed to powder. Add five quarts of water, and boil the soup gently for three hours, skimming it well, and then put in four heads of celery cut small, or two table-spoonfuls of pounded celery seed. It must be boiled till the peas are entirely dissolved, so as to be no longer distinguishable, and the celery quite soft. Then strain it into a tureen, and serve it up with toasted bread cut in dice. Omit the crust of the bread. Stir it up immediately before it goes to table, as it is apt to settle, and be thick at the bottom and thin at the top.
Parboil three or four of the largest sweet-breads you can get. This should be done as soon as they are brought in, as few things spoil more rapidly if not cooked at once. When half boiled, lay them in cold water. Prepare a force-meat of grated bread, lemon-peel, butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg mixed with beaten yolk of egg. Cut open the sweet-breads and stuff them with it, fastening them afterwards with a skewer, or tying them round with packthread. Have ready some slips of bacon-fat, and some slips of lemon-peel cut about the thickness of very small straws. Lard the sweet-breads with them in alternate rows of bacon and lemon-peel, drawing them through with a larding-needle. Do it regularly and handsomely. Then put the sweet-breads into a Dutch oven, and bake them brown. Serve them up with veal gravy flavoured with a glass of Madeira, and enriched with beaten yolk of egg stirred in at the last.
