Breadcrumbs, softened in milk, can be used instead of potato, but are not so good.
FISH HASH.
Use either fresh fish or salt. If the former, double the measure of salt will be needed. Prepare and mix as in fish balls, allowing always double the amount of fresh mashed potato that you have of fish. Melt a large spoonful of butter or drippings in a frying-pan. When hot, put in the fish. Let it stand till brown on the bottom, and then stir. Do this two or three times, letting it brown at the last, pressing it into omelet form, and turning out on a hot platter, or piling it lightly.
FISH WITH CREAM.
One pint of cold minced fish, either salt cod or fresh fish; always doubling the amount of seasoning given if fresh is used. Melt in a frying-pan a tablespoonful of butter; stir in a heaping one of flour, and cook a minute; then add a pint of milk and a saltspoonful each of salt and pepper. When it boils, stir in the fish, and add two well-beaten eggs.
Cook for a minute, and serve very hot.
Cold salmon, or that put up unspiced, is nice done in this way. The eggs can be omitted, but it is not as good. If cream is plenty, use part cream.
Any cold boiled fresh fish can be used in this way.
SALT MACKEREL OR ROE HERRING.
Soak over-night, the skin-side up. In the morning wipe dry, and either broil, as in general directions for broiling fish, page 133, or fry brown in pork fat or drippings.
Salted shad are treated in the same way. All are better broiled.
FRIED SAUSAGES.
If in skins, prick them all over with a large darning-needle or fork; throw them into a saucepan of boiling water and boil for one minute. Take out, wipe dry, and lay in a hot frying-pan, in which has been melted a tablespoonful of hot lard or drippings. Turn often. As soon as brown they are done. If gravy is wanted, stir a tablespoonful of flour into the fat in the pan; add a cup of boiling water, and salt to taste,--about a saltspoonful,--and pour, not _over_, but around the sausages. Serve hot.
FRIZZLED BEEF.
Half a pound of smoked beef cut very thin. This can be just heated in a tablespoonful of hot butter, and then served, or prepared as follows:--
Pour boiling water on the beef, and let it stand five minutes. In the meantime melt in a frying-pan one tablespoonful of butter; stir in a tablespoonful of flour, and add slowly half a pint of milk or water. Put in the beef which has been taken from the water; cook a few minutes, and add two or three well-beaten eggs, cooking only a minute longer. It can be prepared without eggs, or they may be added to the beef just heated in butter; but the last method is best.
VEAL LOAF.
Three pounds of lean veal and quarter of a pound of salt pork chopped very fine. Mince an onion as fine as possible. Grate a nutmeg, or use half a teaspoonful of powdered mace, mixing it with an even tablespoonful of salt, and an even saltspoonful of cayenne pepper. Add three well-beaten eggs, a teacupful of milk, and a large spoonful of melted butter. Mix the ingredients very thoroughly; form into a loaf; cover thickly with sifted bread or cracker crumbs, and bake three hours, basting now and then with a little butter and water. When cold, cut in thin slices, and use for breakfast or tea. It is good for breakfast with baked potatoes, and slices of it are sometimes served around a salad. A glass of wine is sometimes added before baking.
MEAT HASH.
The English hash is meat cut either in slices or mouthfuls, and warmed in the gravy; and the Southern hash is the same. A genuine hash, however, requires potato, and may be made of any sort of meat; cold roast beef being excellent, and cold corned beef best of all. Mutton is good; but veal should always be used as a mince, and served on toast as in the rule to be given.
Chop the meat fine, and allow one-third meat to two-thirds potato. For corned-beef hash the potatoes should be freshly boiled and mashed. For other cold meats finely-chopped cold potatoes will answer. To a quart of the mixture allow a teaspoonful of salt and half a teaspoonful of pepper mixed together, and sprinkled on the meat before chopping. Heat a tablespoonful of butter or nice drippings in a frying-pan; moisten the hash with a little cold gravy or water; and heat slowly, stirring often.
It may be served on buttered toast when hot, without browning, but is better browned. To accomplish this, first heat through, then set on the back of the stove, and let it stand twenty minutes. Fold like an omelet, or turn out in a round, and serve hot.
MINCED VEAL.
Chop cold veal fine, picking out all bits of gristle. To a pint-bowlful allow a large cup of boiling water; a tablespoonful of butter and one of flour; a teaspoonful of salt; and a saltspoonful each of pepper and mace.
Make a _roux_ with the butter and flour, and add the seasoning; put in the veal, and cook five minutes, serving it on buttered toast, made as in directions given for water toast.
TOAST, DRY OR BUTTERED.
Not one person in a hundred makes good toast; yet nothing can be simpler.
Cut the slices of bread evenly, and rather thin. If a wire toaster is used, several can be done at once. Hold just far enough from the fire to brown nicely; and turn often, that there may be no scorching. Toast to an even, golden brown. No rule will secure this, and only experience and care will teach one just what degree of heat will do it. If to be buttered dry, butter each slice evenly as taken from the fire, and pile on a hot plate.
If served without butter, either send to table in a toast-rack, or, if on a plate, do not pile together, but let the slices touch as little as possible, that they may not steam and lose crispness.
WATER TOAST.
Have a pan of boiling hot, well-salted water; a teaspoonful to a quart being the invariable rule. Dip each slice of toast quickly into this. It must not be _wet_, but only moistened. Butter, and pile on a hot plate.
Poached eggs and minces are served on this form of toast, which is also nice with fricasseed chicken.
MILK TOAST.
Scald a quart of milk in a double boiler, and thicken it with two even tablespoonfuls of corn-starch dissolved in a little cold water, or the same amount of flour. Add a teaspoonful of salt, and a heaping tablespoonful of butter. Have ready a dozen slices of water toast, which, unless wanted quite rich, needs no butter. Pour the thickened milk into a pan, that each slice may be easily dipped into it, and pile them when dipped in a deep dish, pouring the rest of the milk over them. Serve very hot. Cream is sometimes used instead of milk, in which case no thickening is put in, and only a pint heated with a saltspoonful of salt.
TEA, COFFEE, ETC.
For these a cardinal rule has already been given in Part I., but can not be enforced too often; viz., the necessity of fresh water boiled, and used as soon as it boils, that the gases which give it character and sparkle may not have had time to escape. Tea and coffee both should be kept from the air, but the former even more carefully than the latter, as the delicate flavor evaporates more quickly.
TEA.
To begin with, never use a tin teapot if an earthen one is obtainable. An even teaspoonful of dry tea is the usual allowance for a person. Scald the teapot with a little _boiling water_, and pour it off. Put in the tea, and pour on not over a cup of boiling water, letting it stand a minute or two for the leaves to swell. Then fill with the needed amount of _water still boiling_, this being about a small cupful to a person. Cover closely, and let it stand five minutes. Ten will be required for English breakfast tea, but _never boil_ either, above all in a tin pot. Boiling liberates the tannic acid of the tea, which acts upon the tin, making a compound bitter and metallic in taste, and unfit for human stomachs.
COFFEE.
The best coffee is made from a mixture of two-thirds Java and one-third Mocha; the Java giving strength, and the Mocha flavor and aroma. The roasting must be very perfectly done. If done at home, constant stirring is necessary to prevent burning; but all good grocers use now rotary roasters, which brown each grain perfectly. Buy in small quantities _unground_; keep closely covered; and if the highest flavor is wanted, heat hot before grinding.
A noted German chemist claims to have discovered an effectual antidote to the harmful effects of coffee,--an antidote for which he had searched for years. In his experiments he discovered that the fibre of cotton, in its natural state before bleaching, neutralizes the harmful principle of the caffein. To make absolutely harmless coffee which yet has no loss of flavor, it is to be boiled in a bag of unbleached cheese-cloth or something equally porous. In the coffee-pot of his invention, the rounds of cotton are slipped between two cylinders of tin, and the boiling water is poured through once or twice, on the same principle as French filtered coffee. The cloths must be rinsed in hot and then cold water daily and carefully dried; and none are to be used longer than one week, as at the end of that time, even with careful washing, the fibre is saturated with the harmful principle. The same proportions of coffee as those given below are used, and the pot must stand in a hot place while the water filters through.
For a quart of coffee allow four heaping tablespoonfuls of coffee when ground. Scald the coffee-pot; mix the ground coffee with a little cold water and two or three egg-shells, which can be dried and kept for this purpose. Part of a fresh egg with the shell is still better. Put into the hot coffee-pot, and pour on one quart of _boiling water_. Cover tightly, and boil five minutes; then pour out a cupful to free the spout from grounds, and return this to the pot. Let it stand a few minutes to settle, and serve with boiled milk, and cream if it is to be had. Never for appearance's sake decant coffee. Much of the flavor is lost by turning from one pot into another, and the shapes are now sufficiently pretty to make the block tin ones not at all unpresentable at table.
Where coffee is required for a large company, allow a pound and a half to a gallon of water.
Coffee made in a French filter or biggin is considered better by many; but I have preferred to give a rule that may be used with certainty where French cooking utensils are unknown.
COCOA, BROMA, AND SHELLS.
The directions found on packages of these articles are always reliable.