Common Sense in the Household 26

Common Sense in the Household 26

We make this matter of company too hard a business in America; are

too apt to treat our friends as the Strasburgers do their geese; shut

them up in overheated quarters, and stuff them to repletion. Our rooms

would be better for more air, our guests happier had they more liberty,

and our hostess would be prettier and more sprightly were she not

overworked before the arrivals begin, and full of trepidation after

they come,—a woman cumbered with many thoughts of serving, while she

is supposed to be enjoying the society of her chosen associates. It is

so well understood that company is weariness, that inquiries as to how

the principal agent in bringing about an assembly has “borne it,” have

passed into a custom. The tender sympathies manifested in such queries,

the martyr-like air with which they are answered, cannot fail to bring

to the satirical mind the Chinaman’s comment upon the British officers’

dancing on shipboard in warm weather.

 

“Why you no make your servants do so hard work, and you look at dem?”

 

We pervert the very name and meaning of hospitality when we pinch our

families, wear away our patience, and waste our nervous forces with

our husbands’ money in getting up to order expensive entertainments

for comparative strangers, whose utmost acknowledgment of our efforts

in their behalf will consist in an invitation, a year hence it may be,

to a party constructed on the same plan, managed a little better or a

little worse than ours. This is not hospitality without grudging, but

a vulgar system of barter and gluttony more worthy of Abyssinians than

Christian gentlefolk.

 

 

 

GAME.

 

 

 

VENISON.

 

I ONCE received a letter from the wife of an Eastern man who had

removed to the Great West, in which bitter complaints were made of

the scarcity of certain comforts—ice-cream and candy among them—to

which she had been accustomed in other days. “My husband shot a fine

deer this morning,” she wrote, “but I could never endure _venzon_.

Can you tell me of any way of cooking it so as to make it tolerably

eatible?” I did not think it very singular that one whose chief craving

in the goodly land in which she had found a home was for cocoanut

cakes and chocolate caramels, should not like the viand the name of

which she could not spell. Nor did I wonder that she failed to make

it “eatible,” or doubt that her cooking matched her orthography. But

I am amazed often at hearing really skilful housewives pronounce

it an undesirable dish. In the hope of in some measure correcting

this impression among Eastern cooks, who, it must be allowed, rarely

taste really fresh venison, I have written out, with great care and

particularity, the following receipts, most of which I have used in my

own family with success and satisfaction.

 

The dark color of the meat,—I mean now not the black, but rich

reddish-brown flesh,—so objectionable to the uninitiated, is to the

gourmand one of its chief recommendations to his favor. It should also

be fine of grain and well coated with fat.

 

Keep it hung up in a cool, dark cellar, covered with a cloth, and use

as soon as you can conveniently.

 

 

HAUNCH OF VENISON. ✠

 

If the outside be hard, wash off with lukewarm water; then rub all over

with fresh butter or lard. Cover it on the top and sides with a thick

paste of flour and water, nearly half an inch thick. Lay upon this a

large sheet of thin white wrapping-paper well buttered, and above this

thick foolscap. Keep all in place by greased pack-thread, then put

down to roast with a little water in the dripping-pan. Let the fire be

steady and strong. Pour a few ladlefuls of butter and water over the

meat now and then, to prevent the paper from scorching. If the haunch

is large, it will take at least five hours to roast. About half an hour

before you take it up, remove the papers and paste, and test with a

skewer to see if it is done. If this passes easily to the bone through

the thickest part, set it down to a more moderate fire and baste every

few minutes with Claret and melted butter. At the last, baste with

butter, dredge with flour to make a light froth, and dish. It should be

a fine brown by this time. Twist a frill of fringed paper around the

knuckle.

 

For gravy, put into a saucepan a pound or so of scraps of raw venison

left from trimming the haunch, a quart of water, a pinch of cloves,

a few blades of mace, half a nutmeg, cayenne and salt to taste. Stew

slowly to one-half the original quantity. Skim, strain, and return

to the saucepan when you have rinsed it with hot water. Add three

tablespoonfuls of currant jelly, a glass of claret, two tablespoonfuls

of butter, and thicken with browned flour. Send to table in a tureen.

 

Send around currant jelly with venison _always_.

 

 

NECK.

 

This is roasted precisely as is the haunch, allowing a quarter of an

hour to a pound.

 

 

SHOULDER.

 

This is also a roasting-piece, but may be cooked without the paste and

paper. Baste often with butter and water, and toward the last, with

Claret and butter. Do not let it get dry for an instant.

 

 

TO STEW A SHOULDER,

 

Extract the bones through the under-side. Make a stuffing of several

slices of fat mutton, minced fine and seasoned smartly with cayenne,

salt, allspice, and wine, and fill the holes from which the bones were

taken. Bind firmly in shape with broad tape. Put in a large saucepan

with a pint of gravy made from the refuse bits of venison; add a glass

of Madeira or Port wine, and a little black pepper. Cover tightly, and

stew very slowly three or four hours, according to the size. It should

be very tender. Remove the tapes with care; dish, and when you have

strained the gravy, pour over the meat.

 

This is a most savory dish.

 

 

VENISON STEAKS. ✠

 

These are taken from the neck or haunch. Have your gridiron well

buttered, and fire clear and hot. Lay the steaks on the bars and broil

rapidly, turning often, not to lose a drop of juice. They will take

three or four minutes longer to broil than beef-steaks. Have ready

in a hot chafing-dish a piece of butter the size of an egg for each

pound of venison, a pinch of salt, a little pepper, a tablespoonful

currant-jelly for each pound, and a glass of wine for every four

pounds. This should be liquid, and warmed by the boiling water under

the dish by the time the steaks are done to a turn. If you have no

chafing-dish, heat in a saucepan. Lay each steak in the mixture singly,

and turn over twice. Cover closely and let all heat together, with

fresh hot water beneath—unless your lamp is burning—for five minutes

before serving. If you serve in an ordinary dish, cover and set in the

oven for the same time.

 

 

_Or,_

 

If you wish a plainer dish, omit the wine and jelly; pepper and salt

the steaks when broiled, and lay butter upon them in the proportion I

have stated, letting them stand between hot dishes five minutes before

they go to table, turning them three times in the gravy that runs from

them to mingle with the melted butter. Delicious steaks corresponding

to the shape of mutton chops are cut from the loin and rack.

 

 

VENISON CUTLETS. ✠

 

Trim the cutlets nicely, and make gravy of the refuse bits in the

proportion of a cup of cold water to half a pound of venison. Put in

bones, scraps of fat, etc., and set on in a saucepan to stew while you

make ready the cutlets. Lard with slips of fat salt pork a quarter

of an inch apart, and projecting slightly on either side. When the

gravy has stewed an hour, strain and let it cool. Lay the cutlets in

a saucepan, with a few pieces of young onion on each. Allow one onion

to four or five pounds. It should not be flavored strongly with this.

Scatter also a little minced parsley and thyme between the layers of

meat, with pepper, and a very little nutmeg. The pork lardoons will

salt sufficiently. When you have put in all your meat, pour in the

gravy, which should be warm—not hot. Stew steadily twenty minutes,

take up the cutlets and lay in a frying-pan in which you have heated

just enough butter to prevent them from burning. Fry five minutes very

quickly, turning the cutlets over and over to brown, without drying

them. Lay in order in a chafing-dish, and have ready the gravy to pour

over them without delay. This should be done by straining the liquor

left in the saucepan and returning to the fire, with the addition of a

tablespoonful of currant jelly, a teaspoonful Worcestershire or other

piquant sauce, and half a glass of wine. Thicken with browned flour,

boil up well and pour over the cutlets. Let all stand together in a hot

dish five minutes before serving. Venison which is not fat or juicy

enough for roasting makes a relishable dish cooked after this receipt.