Common Sense in the Household 7

Common Sense in the Household 7

Serve with sliced lemon and oyster or cream crackers. Some use mace

and nutmeg in seasoning. The crowning excellence in oyster soup is to

have it cooked just enough. Too much stewing ruins the bivalves, while

an underdone oyster is a flabby abomination. The plumpness of the main

body and ruffled edge are good indices of their right condition.

 

 

OYSTER SOUP (No. 2).

 

2 qts. of oysters.

2 eggs.

1 qt. of milk.

1 teacupful of water.

 

Strain the liquor from the oysters into a saucepan, pour in with it

the water. Season with cayenne pepper and a little salt, a teaspoonful

of mingled nutmeg, mace, and cloves. When the liquor is almost

boiling, add half the oysters chopped finely and boil five minutes

quite briskly. Strain the soup and return to saucepan. Have ready some

force-meat balls, not larger than marbles, made of the yolks of the

eggs boiled hard and rubbed to a smooth paste with a little butter,

then mix with six raw oysters chopped very finely, a little salt, and

a raw egg well beaten, to bind the ingredients together. Flour your

hands well and roll the force-meat into pellets, laying them upon a

cold plate, so as not to touch one another until needed. Then put the

reserved whole oysters into the hot soup, and when it begins to boil

again, drop in the force-meat marbles. Boil until the oysters “ruffle,”

by which time the balls will also be done. Add the hot milk.

 

Serve with sliced lemon and crackers. A liberal tablespoonful of butter

stirred in gently at the last is an improvement.

 

 

CLAM SOUP.

 

50 clams.

1 qt. milk.

1 pint water.

2 tablespoonfuls butter.

 

Drain off the liquor from the clams and put it over the fire with a

dozen whole peppers, a few bits of cayenne pods, half a dozen blades

of mace, and salt to taste. Let it boil for ten minutes, then put in

the clams and boil half an hour quite fast, keeping the pot closely

covered. If you dislike to see the whole spices in the tureen, strain

them out before the clams are added. At the end of the half hour add

the milk, which has been heated to scalding, not boiling, in another

vessel. Boil up again, taking care the soup does not burn, and put in

the butter. Then serve without delay. If you desire a thicker soup stir

a heaping tablespoonful of rice-flour into a little cold milk, and put

in with the quart of hot.

 

 

CAT-FISH SOUP. ✠

 

Those who have only seen the bloated, unsightly “hornpouts” that play

the scavengers about city wharves, are excusable for entertaining a

prejudice against them as an article of food. But the small cat-fish

of our inland lakes and streams are altogether respectable, except in

their unfortunate name.

 

6 cat-fish, in average weight half a pound apiece.

½ lb. salt pork.

1 pint milk.

2 eggs.

1 head of celery, or a small bag of celery seed.

 

Skin and clean the fish and cut them up. Chop the pork into small

pieces. Put these together into the pot, with two quarts of water,

chopped sweet herbs, and the celery seasoning. Boil for an hour, or

until fish and pork are in rags, and strain, if you desire a regular

soup for a first course. Return to the saucepan and add the milk, which

should be already hot. Next the eggs, beaten to a froth, and a lump

of butter the size of a walnut. Boil up once, and serve with dice of

toasted bread on the top. Pass sliced lemon, or walnut or butternut

pickles with it.

 

 

EEL SOUP.

 

Eel soup is made in precisely the same manner as cat-fish, only boiled

longer. A chopped onion is no detriment to the flavor of either, and

will remove the muddy taste which these fish sometimes acquire from

turbid streams.

 

 

LOBSTER SOUP.

 

2 qts. veal or chicken broth, well strained.

1 large lobster.

2 eggs—boiled hard.

 

Boil the lobster and extract the meat, setting aside the coral in a

cool place. Cut or chop up the meat found in the claws. Rub the yolks

of the eggs to a paste with a teaspoonful of butter. Pound and rub the

claw-meat in the same manner, and mix with the yolks. Beat up a raw

egg, and stir into the paste; season with pepper, salt, and, if you

like, mace; make into force-meat balls, and set away with the coral to

cool and harden. By this time the stock should be well heated, when,

put in the rest of the lobster-meat cut into square bits. Boil fifteen

minutes, which time employ in pounding the coral in a Wedgewood mortar,

or earthenware bowl, rubbing it into a fine, even paste, with the

addition of a few spoonfuls of the broth, gradually worked in until it

is about the consistency of boiled starch. Stir _very_ carefully into

the hot soup, which should, in the process, blush into a roseate hue.

Lastly, drop in the force-meat balls, after which do not stir, lest

they should break. Simmer a few minutes to cook the raw egg; but, if

allowed to boil, the soup will darken.

 

Crab soup may be made in the same way, excepting the coralline process,

crabs being destitute of that dainty.

 

 

GREEN TURTLE SOUP.

 

A glass of Madeira.

2 onions.

Bunch of sweet herbs.

Juice of one lemon.

5 qts of water.

 

Chop up the coarser parts of the turtle-meat, with the entrails and

bones. Add to them four quarts of water, and stew four hours with the

herbs, onions, pepper, and salt. Stew very slowly, but do not let it

cease to boil during this time. At the end of four hours strain the

soup, and add the finer parts of the turtle and the green fat, which

has been simmered for one hour in two quarts of water. Thicken with

browned flour; return to the soup-pot, and simmer gently an hour

longer. If there are eggs in the turtle, boil them in a separate

vessel for four hours, and throw into the soup before taking it up.

If not, put in force-meat balls; then the juice of the lemon and the

wine; beat up once and pour out. Some cooks add the finer meat before

straining, boiling all together five hours; then strain, thicken,

and put in the green fat, cut into lumps an inch long. This makes a

handsomer soup than if the meat is left in.

 

For the mock eggs, take the yolks of three hard-boiled eggs, and

one raw egg well beaten. Rub the boiled eggs into a paste with a

teaspoonful of butter, bind with the raw egg, roll into pellets the

size and shape of turtle-eggs, and lay in boiling water for two minutes

before dropping into the soup.

 

_Force-meat balls for the above._

 

Six tablespoonfuls turtle-meat chopped very fine. Rub to a paste with

the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs; tablespoonful of butter, and, if

convenient, a little oyster-liquor. Season with cayenne, mace, and half

a teaspoonful of white sugar. Bind with a well-beaten egg; shape into

balls; dip in egg, then powdered cracker, fry in butter, and drop into

the soup when it is served.

 

Green turtle for soups is now within the reach of every private family,

being well preserved in air-tight cans.

 

 

 

FISH.

 

 

BOILED CODFISH. (_Fresh._) ✠

 

Lay the fish in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour before it

is time to cook it. When it has been wiped free of the salt and water,

wrap it in a clean linen cloth kept for such purposes. The cloth should

be dredged with flour, to prevent sticking. Sew up the edges in such

a manner as to envelop the fish entirely, yet have but one thickness

of the cloth over any part. The wrapping should be fitted neatly to

the shape of the piece to be cooked. Put into the fish-kettle, pour on

plenty of hot water, and boil briskly—fifteen minutes for each pound.

 

Have ready a sauce prepared thus:—

 

To one gill boiling water add as much milk, and when it is

scalding-hot, stir in—leaving the sauce-pan on the fire—two

tablespoonfuls of butter, rolled thickly in flour; as this thickens,

two beaten eggs. Season with salt and chopped parsley, and when, after

one good boil, you withdraw it from the fire, add a dozen capers, or

pickled nasturtium seeds, or, if you prefer, a spoonful of vinegar in

which celery-seeds have been steeped. Put the fish into a hot dish,

and pour the sauce over it. Some serve in a butter-boat; but I fancy

that the boiling sauce applied to the steaming fish imparts a richness

it cannot gain later. Garnish with sprigs of parsley and circles of

hard-boiled eggs, laid around the edge of the dish.

 

 

ROCK-FISH.

 

Rock-fish and river-bass are very nice, cooked as above, but do not

need to be boiled so long as codfish.

 

 

BOILED CODFISH. (_Salt._)

 

Put the fish to soak over night in lukewarm water—as early as eight

o’clock in the evening. Change this for more warm water at bed-time and

cover closely. Change again in the morning and wash off the salt. Two

hours before dinner plunge into _very_ cold water. This makes it firm.

Finally, set over the fire with enough lukewarm water to cover it, and

boil for half an hour. Drain well; lay it on a hot dish, and pour over

it egg-sauce prepared as in the foregoing receipt, only substituting

the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, rubbed to a paste with butter, for

the beaten raw egg.

 

This is a useful receipt for country housekeepers who can seldom

procure fresh cod. Salt mackerel, prepared in the same way, will repay

the care and time required, so superior is it to the Friday’s dish of

salt fish, as usually served.

 

Should the cold fish left over be used for fish-balls—as it should

be—it will be found that the sauce which has soaked into it while hot has greatly improved it.