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Hotch-Potch
(Meg Dod's Recipe.) Make the stock of sweet fresh mutton. Grate the zest of 2 or 3 large carrots, slice down also young turnips, young onions, lettuce and parsley.
Have a full quart of these things when sliced, and sauce on the fire until it boils, and after having | another of green peas, and sprays of cauliflower. kept it boiling for about twenty minutes, pass it through the tammy, as for a purée; then remove the sauce into a bain-marie or stewpan, to be used when required. This economical method of making curry sauce should only be resorted to in cases of emergency or necessity, otherwise it is desirable to follow the directions contained in Indian Curry Sauce.
Caper Sauce for Boiled Mutton.
To about half a pint of good butter sauce add a Put in the vegetables, withholding half the peas till near the end of the process. Cut down 4 pounds of ribs of lamb into small chops, trimming off superfluous fat, and put them into the soup.
Boil well and skim carefully; add the remaining peas, white pepper and salt, and when thick enough serve the chops in the tureen with the hotch-potch.
Winter Soup.
Make a good brown stock of a small shin of beef, with vegetables, carrots, turnips, onions and celery; when sufficiently boiled the vegetables must be taken out whole, and the soup seasoned with pepper and salt and a little Cayenne to taste, also a little Harvey sauce and catsup; then fry some mutton cutlets, the quantity required for the number, a pale brown, add them to the soup with the vegetables cut up small.
Vermicelli and Vegetable Soup.
Five pounds of lean beef, 2 heads of celery, 2 carrots, 2 turnips, 4 onions, 1 bunch of sweet herbs (in a muslin bag), an ounce of white pepper, an ounce of allspice, a little salt, 5 pints of water. To be boiled six hours, well skimmed and strained from the vegetables, etc. Next day 1 carrot, 1 turnip, the hearts of the 2 heads of celery, to be boiled in water after being cut into dice, and added to the soup with of a pound of vermicelli.
Liebig's Broth.
Cut a pound of freshly-killed beef or chicken into small pieces. Add to it 13 pounds of water, in which are dissolved 4 drops of muriatic acid and of a drachm of salt. Mix all well together, and let them stand for an hour. Then strain through a hair sieve, but without pressing or squeezing. Pour it again and again through the sieve until clear. Pour a pound of pure water over what is left on the sieve. This broth is to be given cold to the sick.
Curry.
Take the skin off 2 chickens; carve, wash and dry them; put them in a stewpan with a teacupful of water, salt, and a few onions, and stew them with a few green peas, or the egg-plant, till tender; then take a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, a little mace, Cayenne pepper to taste, a teaspoonful each of fresh turmeric and eardamoms, pounded with a shallot in a marble mortar; roll these ingredients with a little flour in the butter, and dissolve them in the stew. If the curry is to be brown, it must be fried a little before the curry-ball is added to the gravy.
Another. Carve a pair of fat young fowls with a sharp knife, precisely as if at table; dust them with flour, fry them in butter till they are well browned, lay them in a stewpan, with slips of 4 large onions; add boiling water to the browning, etc., left in the pan, give it a boil, and pour the whole over your chicken; if not liquor enough to rather more than cover it, add hot water; put on the lid of your pan and set it on hot coals. In half an hour take out a cup of the gravy, mix it well with a tablespoonful of curry powder, and throw it again into the pan; stir it well round; taste and see if your gravy is warm, if not add Cayenne; bubble the whole quietly till the fowls are tender, serve in a deep dish with boiled rice.
Malay's Curry.
Proceed as above; fry the onions, pieces of fowls, and a couple of egg-plants in slices: put the whole in your stewpan with the milk of 2 cocoa-nuts; grate the flesh, put it into a linen bag and squeeze out the juice, which put in the saucepan likewise; add the curry and finish as above.
Curry Powder.
Coriander seed, 3 ounces; turmeric, 5 ounces; black pepper, mustard and ginger, each 1 ounce; lesser cardamom seeds, an ounce; Cayenne pepper, an ounce; cinnamon and cummin seed, of an ounce each. Dry them well; reduce them separately to a powder; pass them through a fine sieve, and mix them well. It should be kept in a closely-stopped bottle in a dry place.
White Soup.
Stew a knuckle of veal and a scrag of mutton three or four hours, with spice; strain it; blanch a pound of sweet almonds; beat them with a spoonful or two of cream to prevent their oiling; put them with a pint of cream into the soup, stir it and give it a boil; strain it through a cloth, squeeze the almonds as dry as possible, heat it again, and thicken it as a custard with eggs; put a toasted roll in the tureen, and pour the soup over it. If there is a breast of cold fowl or veal, less almonds will do. If the meat be stewed and strained the day before, it does much better.
To make Jelly Broth.
Put into the stewpan slices of beef, veal fillet, a fowl, and one or two partridges, according to the quantity required. Put it on the fire without liquid until it catches a little, and add the meat now and then. To give it a proper color, add some good clear boiling broth and scalded roots, as carrots, turnips, parsnips, parsley roots, celery, large onions, two or three cloves, a small bit of nutmeg and whole pepper. Boil it on a slow fire about four or five hours with attention, and add a few cloves of garlic or eschalots, and a small fagot or bunch of parsley and thyme tied together. When it is of a good yellow color, sift it; it serves for sauces, and adds strength to the soups.
Preparation of Calf's Udder.
The udder is an elongated piece of fat-looking substance attached to the inner part of a leg of veal. It is easily separated from the meat by a knife, and should then be bound round with twine in the shape of a sausage, so as to prevent it from falling to pieces on taking it out of the stockpot; the udder so tied up is then put into the stockpot to boil. Having allowed the dressed udder time to cool and get firm, either on the ice or otherwise, pare off the outside with a knife, cut it into small pieces, and pound it in a mortar; then rub it through a wire sieve with a wooden spoon, and put it on a plate upon the ice to cool, in order that it may be quite firm when required for use.
Note. The two foregoing preparations being the basis of a great variety of forcemeats, it is essential that they should be well understood before attempting the following more complicated amalgamations. It should also be observed, that all meat and fish intended for quenelles must be forced through a wire sieve by rubbing it vigor ously with the back of a wooden spoon, and then be kept on ice till used.
Forcemeat of Liver and Ham, for Raised Pies.
Take the whole or part of a light-colored calf's liver, or several fat livers of any kind of poultry, if to be obtained. If calf's liver be used, cut it into rather small square pieces, and, if time permit, steep them in cold spring-water, in order to extract the blood, so that the forcemeat may be whiter. Take the pieces of liver out of the water, and place them upon a clean rubber, to drain the water from them. Meanwhile cut some fat ham or bacon (in equal proportion to the liver) into square pieces, put them into a sauce-pan on a brisk fire to fry; after which add the pieces of liver, and fry the whole of a light-brown color; season with Cayenne pepper and salt, and a little prepared aromatic spice, some chopped mushrooms, parsley, and three shallots. After this take the pieces of liver and ham out of the pan, lay them on a chopping-board, and chop them fine; then put them into a mortar with the remaining contents of the pan; pound the whole thoroughly, and rub it through a wire sieve on to an earthen dish. This kind of forcemeat, or farco, is an excellent ingre dient in making raised pies.
Spring Soup.