Take two or three French-Rowles, or white penny bread, cut them in slices, and put to the bread as much Cream as wil cover it, put it on the fire till your Cream and bread be very warm, then take a ladle or spoon and beat it very well together, put to this twelve Eggs, but not above foure whites, put in Beef Suet, or Marrow, according to your discretion, put a pretty quantity of Currans and Raisins, season the Pudding with Nutmeg, Mace, Salt, and Sugar, but very little flower for it will make it sad and heavy; make a piece of puff past as much as will cover your dish, so cut it very handsomely what fashion you please; Butter the bottome of your Dish, put the pudding into the Dish, set it in a quick Oven, not too hot as to burne it, let it bake till you think it be enough, scrape on Sugar and serve it up.
The first thing required for making wholesome bread is the utmost cleanliness; the next is the soundness and sweetness of all the ingredients used for it; and, in addition to these, there must be attention and care through the whole process. Salt is always used in bread-making, not only on account of its flavor, which destroys the insipid raw state of the flour, but because it makes the dough rise better. In mixing with milk, the milk should be boiled--not simply scalded, but heated to boiling over hot water--then set aside to cool before mixing. Simple heating will not prevent bread from turning sour in the rising, while boiling will act as a preventative. So the milk should be thoroughly scalded, and should be used when it is just blood warm. Too small a proportion of yeast, or insufficient time allowed for the dough to rise, will cause the bread to be heavy. The yeast must be good and fresh if the bread is to be digestible and nice. Stale yeast produces, instead of vinous fermentation, an acetous fermentation, which flavors the bread and makes it disagreeable. A poor, thin yeast produces an imperfect fermentation, the result being a heavy, unwholesome loaf. If either the sponge or the dough be permitted to overwork itself--that is to say, if the mixing and kneading be neglected when it has reached the proper point for either--sour bread will probably be the consequence in warm weather, and bad bread in any. The goodness will also be endangered by placing it so near a fire as to make any part of it hot, instead of maintaining the gentle and equal degree of heat required for its due fermentation. Heavy bread will also most likely be the result of making the dough very hard and letting it become quite cold, particularly in winter. An almost certain way of spoiling dough is to leave it half made, and to allow it to become cold before it is finished. The other most common causes of failure are using yeast which is no longer sweet, or which has been frozen, or has had hot liquid poured over it. As a general rule, the oven for baking bread should be rather quick and the heat so regulated as to penetrate the dough without hardening the outside. The oven door should not be opened after the bread is put in until the dough is set or has become firm, as the cool air admitted will have an unfavorable effect upon it. The dough should rise and the bread begin to brown after about fifteen minutes, but only slightly. Bake from fifty to sixty minutes and have it brown, not black or whitey brown, but brown all over when well baked. When the bread is baked, remove the loaves immediately from the pans and place them where the air will circulate freely around them, and thus carry off the gas which has been formed, but is no longer needed. Never leave the bread in the pan or on a pin table to absorb the odor of the wood. If you like crusts that are crisp do not cover the loaves; but to give the soft, tender, wafer-like consistency which many prefer, wrap them while still hot in several thicknesses of bread-cloth. When cold put them in a stone jar, removing the cloth, as that absorbs the moisture and gives the bread an unpleasant taste and odor. Keep the jar well covered and carefully cleansed from crumbs and stale pieces. Scald and dry it thoroughly every two or three days. A yard and a half square of coarse table linen makes the best bread-cloth. Keep in good supply; use them for no other purpose. Some people use scalding water in making wheat bread; in that case the flour must be scalded and allowed to cool before the yeast is added--then proceed as above. Bread made in this manner keeps moist in summer much longer than when made in the usual mode. Home-made yeast is generally preferred to any other. Compressed yeast, as now sold in most grocery stores, makes fine light, sweet bread, and is a much quicker process, and can always be had fresh, being made fresh every day.
Clean and wash the grouse. Lard the breast and legs. Run a small skewer into the legs and through the tail. Tie firmly with twine. Dredge with salt, and rub the breast with soft butter; then dredge thickly with flour. Put into a quick oven. If to be very rare, cook twenty minutes; if wished better done, thirty minutes. The former time, as a general thing, suits gentlemen better, but thirty minutes is preferred by ladies. If the birds are cooked in a tin-kitchen, it should be for thirty or thirty-five minutes. When done, place on a hot dish, on which has been spread bread sauce. Sprinkle fried crumbs over both grouse and sauce. Garnish with parsley. The grouse may, instead, be served on a hot dish, with the parsley garnish, and the sauce and crumbs served in separate dishes. The first method is the better, however, as you get in the sauce all the gravy that comes from the birds.
2 Tb. fat 2 Tb. sugar 1 Tb. salt 2 cakes compressed yeast 1 qt. lukewarm liquid 3 qt. flour 1 c. flour additional for kneading
Put the fat, the sugar, and the salt into the mixing bowl, and then to them add the yeast dissolved in a few tablespoonfuls of the lukewarm liquid. Add the remaining liquid and stir in half or all of the flour, according to whether the process is to be completed by the sponge or the straight-dough method. One yeast cake may be used instead of two. However, if the smaller quantity of yeast is used, the process will require more time, but the results will be equally as good. After the dough has been allowed to rise the required number of times and has been kneaded properly for the method selected, place it in greased pans, let it rise sufficiently, and proceed with the baking.
Two quarts of oysters, half a cupful of butter, half a cupful of cream or milk, four teaspoonfuls of salt, half a teaspoonful of pepper, two quarts of stale bread crumbs, and spice, if you choose. Butter the escalop dishes, and put in a layer of crumbs and then one of oysters. Dredge with the salt and pepper, and put small pieces of butter here and there in the dish. Now have another layer of oysters, seasoning as before; then add the milk, and, finally, a thick layer of crumbs, which dot with butter. Bake twenty minutes in a rather quick oven. The crumbs must be light and flakey. The quantity given above is enough to fill two dishes.
1 cup mashed lightly packed potato 2 tablespoons fat 1 cup whole wheat flour 1 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon salt About 1/2 cup milk or water in which potatoes were cooked
Add melted fat to mashed potato. Mix and sift flour, baking powder and salt and add to potato mixture, add enough of the milk to make a soft dough. Roll out 1/2 inch thick, cut with a biscuit cutter and bake in a quick oven for 15 minutes. (If bread flour is used in place of whole wheat, the biscuits are slightly lighter and flakier in texture.)
Any kind of light fish--that is, cod, cusk, flounder, etc. Skin the fish by starting at the head and drawing down towards the tail; then take out the bones. Cut the fish into pieces about three inches square, and salt and pepper well. Butter such a dish, as you would use for escolloped oysters. Put in one layer of fish, then moisten well with sauce; add more fish and sauce, and finally cover with fine bread crumbs. Bake half an hour. The dish should be rather shallow, allowing only two layers of fish. Sauce for au gratin: One pint of stock, three table-spoonfuls of butter, two of flour, juice of half a lemon, half a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a slice of onion, the size of half a dollar, and about as thick--chopped very fine, (one table-spoonful of onion juice is better); one table-spoonful of vinegar, salt, pepper. Heat the butter in a small frying-pan, and when hot, add the dry flour. Stir constantly until a rich brown; then add, gradually, the cold stock, stirring all the time. As soon as it boils, season well with salt and pepper, and then add the other seasoning. This quantity is enough for three pounds of fish, weighed after being skinned and boned, and will serve six persons if it is the only solid dish for dinner, or ten if served in a course. Another way to serve fish au gratin, is to skin it, cut off the head, and take out the back-bone; and there are then two large pieces of fish. Season the fish, and prepare the sauce as before. Butter a tin sheet that will fit loosely into a large baking-pan. Lay the fish on this, and moisten well with the sauce. Cover thickly with bread crumbs, and cook twenty-five minutes in a rather quick oven. Then slip on a hot dish, and serve with tomato, Tartare or Hollandaise sauce poured around the fish.
Boil four calf's feet in six quarts of water 'till it is reduced to three pints, tale off the feet and let the stock cool, then melt it, and have ready in a stew-pan, a spoonful of butter hot, add to it a spoonful of fine flour, stir it with a wood spoon over a stove-fire, 'till it is very brown, but not burnt, then put the jelly out, and let it boil; when cold take off the fat, melt the jelly again and put to it half a pint of red port, the juice and peel of half a lemon, white pepper, mace, a little Jamaica pepper, and a little salt; then have ready the whites of four eggs, well froth'd, and put them into the jelly, (take care the jelly be not too hot when the whites are put in) stir it well together, and boil it over a quick fire one minute, run it thro' a flannel bag and turn it back till it is clear, and what form you would have it, have that ready, pour a little of the jelly in the bottom, it will soon starken; then place what you please in it, either pigeon or small chicken, sweet-bread larded, or pickled smelt or trout, place them in order, and pour on the remainder of the jelly. You may send it up in this form, or turn it into another dish, with holding it over hot water; but not till it is thoroughly hardened.
Take some dry, hard cheese and some dry crusts of bread. Pour a little boiling milk over the bread, cover it down till quite soft, then beat it with a fork; grate up the cheese and beat it in with the yolk of an egg and some pepper and salt. Beat the white of the egg to a stiff froth and stir it lightly in, pour into a buttered pie-dish and bake in a quick oven for twenty minutes. Serve hot.
Boil the macaroni in the oyster liquor or in weak stock till quite soft. Rub a little butter on a dish, cut the macaroni into pieces two inches long and lay it at the bottom. On this place the oysters, and season them with cayenne, salt, and a little lemon juice or nutmeg. Pour over the milk or sauce, cover with bread crumbs, and brown it in a quick oven. A few little pieces of butter laid on top of the crumbs make a richer dish. It must be served very hot.
