Fifth Day
"Grace, you and I are invited out to exercise our art to-day," said Mrs. King, one morning. "Your Aunt Carroll has sent over to say that she expects company to lunch; her cook is sick, and the other girl very busy ironing, and as it will be all she can do herself to entertain her friends and see to the table, she would like to have us get the lunch ready, with Rose and Jessie's help, and then I am to be company, and you three girls are to wait on table." "That will be glorious!" said Grace. "May I write down the recipes now?" "Yes, and Rose can copy them from your book. We will begin with" No. 46-CHOCOLATE.
Take two oz. (or two squares) of Baker's chocolate, break it into a little boiling water and stir over the fire until it becomes a smooth paste. If unsweetened chocolate is used, add eight even tablespoonfuls granulated sugar, then add, little by little, a pint of boiling water and a pint of scalded milk. Stir it thoroughly, and allow it to simmer (not boil) for ten minutes; then serve. No. 47-SARATOGA POTATOES.
Pare raw potatoes; slice them as thin as possible with a potato-cutter (when this is not at hand, they must be shaved with a knife); lay them in cold water for an hour or more, then dry them in a towel. Have melted lard at least two inches deep in a kettle; when it is hot cover the surface with the dried slices, sprinkle a little salt over them, turn them with a skimmer, and when done lay them on a doubled brown paper in the open oven. Fry them all in this way, piling them up on the paper as fast as they are taken out of the kettle.
No. 48-CHICKEN CROQUETTES. 14 oz. boiled chicken, chopped fine, one-half pint milk, a quarter of a Ib. butter, one teaspoonful salt, two even tablespoonfuls flour, a pinch of Cayenne pepper (very small). Mix the flour smooth in a little milk, put the rest of the milk to heat over a saucepan of boiling water, and when scalded pour in the flour, with the salt, pepper and butter; when like thick cream, mix thoroughly with the chicken and put it aside to become cold and stiff; then make it into twelve long shaped balls, press them perfectly smooth, roll them in beaten yolk of egg, afterward in bread crumbs; fry in lard deep enough for them to swim in.
No. 49-VEAL BALLS.
One and a half lbs. veal, chopped very fine, three oz. salt pork do., one teaspoonful summer savory, one and a half do. salt, one-half do. sage, two-thirds do pepper; mix thoroughly and make into flat balls. Let them fry slowly in lard or drippings for half an hour.
No. 50-MIXED CROQUETTES.
One chicken, two lbs. veal; boil separately, putting them on in cold water, just enough to cover them. Chop fine with one-third of a loaf bread, season with salt, pepper and a very little mace, beat three eggs light and mix with the above, together with the broth of the chicken; make up in oblong balls and fry in hot lard and butter, equal parts. "We're not going to make all these to-day, are we, Aunt Jane?" inquired Grace, at this stage of her writing. "By no means," said her aunt, "but I thought I might as well give you several croquette receipts at once. We can select from among them when we find what materials Aunt Carroll has on hand." "How can we tell whether a tablespoonful is meant to be heaping or not, mamma, if it isn't water or some such thing?" asked Amy. "Salt is always to be measured even; also soda, cream tartar and any kind of spice. Of such things as sugar or flour, it is understood that they are to be a little heapedabout as much as the depth of the spoon-bowl, unless it is expressly stated 'even." "What else are we to make for lunch, Aunt Jane?" "We must have some salad, and for that I will give you recipe" No. 51-MAYONNAISE DRESSING.
Take the yolk of one egg in a large bowl, and stir it with the right hand, pouring in with the left, not more than a teaspoonful at a time of olive oil, until you have used half a tumblerful; this will make a thick batter. Into the tumbler which contained the oil put half a wine glass of vinegar, a small half teaspoonful of mustard and an even teaspoonful salt; also a dusting of Cayenne pepper, very small; mix these thoroughly, and add slowly to the oil batter, stirring all the time. When much salad is used in a family, it is well to make double or treble this quantity, which, if closely covered and kept in a cool place, will keep for weeks.
No. 52-DRESDEN DRESSING.
Rub the yolks of three hard boiled eggs quite smooth; add halfa small onion, grated, two tablespoonfuls chopped parsley, one teaspoonful salt, one do. sugar, one small do. dry mustard; mix well, and while stirring fast add a wineglassful (or a quarter of a tumblerful) of sweet oil; when quite thick, stir in the same quantity of vinegar. This may be used for cold beef, mutton or veal. The meat should be cut into small bits and mixed with the dressing before serving. A palatable lunch-dish. "I'm sorry you haven't learned to make pastry yet," said Mrs. King, "for some kind of pudding baked in a paste, is an elegant addition to a lunch table. I think your next lesson must be on paste, and then I have some beautiful recipes for you. There is no time for jelly or blanc-mange; we must substitute some sort of meringue or custard, according to what materials we find ready." "We shall have to have somebody else's bread, shan't we?" "Yes, we must have a plate of plain bread, but we ought to have some biscuits or rolls of some kind. Rolls have to be made with yeast, and that is rather beyond our powers, but we can have popovers or soda-biscuit, or better still, Mrs. Miller's breakfast puffs." No. 53-BREAKFAST PUFFS.
Three-quarters of a pound flour, one oz. butter, one pint milk, two eggs, one-half teaspoonful salt. Beat the eggs together and stir them into the milk, pour about two-thirds of the milk on the flour, stirring gradually, that it may be perfectly smooth; melt, and add the butter, and beat very hard for three minutes, then add the remainder of the milk, pour the batter into gem-pans and bake in a very quick oven.
No. 54-GRAHAM POPOVERS.
One pint graham flour, one do. white flour, one quart milk, two even teaspoonfuls salt, three eggs. Put together exactly like breakfast puffs. "Then, of course, we must have some cake," said Aunt Jane, "and it musn't be in loaves, for they wouldn't cut nicely so soon after baking. I think Susan's cake is the nicest in the world to eat fresh, but you have made that already, so I will give you some other recipes, and we will select from them afterward."
No. 55-DROP CAKE.
Weigh one lb. flour, from which take out three even tablespoonfuls, one lb. sugar, a quarter of a pound butter, one-half pint sweet milk, two-thirds of a teaspoonful soda, two of cream tartar, or one and a half tablespoonfuls baking-powder, five eggs. Butter a drippingpan, and drop on the batter in separate spoonfuls. Bake in a quick oven.
No. 56-JELLY CAKE.
Make drop-cake batter; have ready three well buttered jelly-cake tins, spread them a quarter of an inch deep with the batter and place them in the oven; watch them closely, as they require only a few minutes to bake; have ready three pieces of brown paper on the kitchen table, on which to turn them out, upside down; wipe the pans perfectly smooth, butter and refill them, and while the second set is in the oven spread those on the table with jelly; when the second trio is ready, turn the cakes upside down on the first and proceed as before; the third trio completes the loaves.
A lesson-chapter built around a borrowed luncheon: hot chocolate, fried potatoes, croquettes, two dressings, quick breads and cake. The measurements assume a scale, a coal range and household vessels that need translating.
- Spoon measures, per the book's own ruleMrs. King states it outright: salt, soda, cream of tartar and spices are level; sugar and flour are rounded, "about as much as the depth of the spoon-bowl," unless the recipe says even. Follow that rule and the cake and croquette proportions come out right.
- Glasses and tumblersA tumbler is usually reckoned at about 8 fl oz, though the vessels varied, so half a tumbler of oil is roughly 1/2 cup. A wineglass in American books of this period is generally taken as about 2 fl oz, which is consistent with the recipe's own gloss of "a quarter of a tumblerful." A gill, if you meet it elsewhere in the book, is 1/2 cup.
- Oven heat"A very quick oven" for the breakfast puffs and popovers is conventionally read as roughly 425-450F; they need that initial blast of steam to climb. "Quick" for drop cake is usually taken a little lower, nearer 400-425F, and the jelly-cake layers, spread a quarter inch deep, will be done in only a few minutes -- watch them from about five.
- Baker's chocolateThe squares referred to are 1 oz each of unsweetened chocolate, still sold in that form, which matches the recipe's "two oz. (or two squares)." Eight even tablespoons of sugar to 2 oz chocolate and a pint each of water and milk is sweet by current taste; start with half. The instruction not to boil matters: the milk mixture scalds and skins over quickly.
- Gem-pans and dripping-pansGem-pans are cast-iron muffin pans; any muffin tin or popover pan works, heated and greased before the batter goes in. A dripping-pan is a shallow rimmed baking sheet.
- Saratoga potatoesThese are potato chips. A mandoline gives the paper-thin slices the "potato-cutter" was for, and the hour-long soak removes surface starch so they crisp rather than stick together. Fry at 350-360F in small batches and drain on a rack or paper towel rather than brown paper in a warm oven.
- Veal balls, and the half hourThirty minutes of slow frying will leave flat cakes of ground veal and salt pork dry. Cook them until the centre reaches 160F, which for patties of ordinary thickness is a fraction of that time, and let the pork fat do the seasoning.
- CroquettesThe chicken mixture is a very thick bechamel bound with meat; it must be thoroughly cold and stiff before shaping, ideally several hours refrigerated, or the croquettes burst in the fat. Egg yolk alone gives a thin coat, so a full beaten egg and a second pass through crumbs is more reliable. Fry at 360-375F.
- The mayonnaise keeping "for weeks"Do not follow that line. This is an uncooked yolk emulsion with only a couple of tablespoons of vinegar, and a cool larder is not refrigeration; salmonella risk aside, it separates. Make it in the quantity you will use that day, and keep it cold. The Dresden dressing, built on hard-boiled yolks, is the safer of the two.
- YieldThe chicken croquette recipe specifies twelve, enough for four to six at a luncheon. Breakfast puffs at 3/4 lb flour (about 3 cups) and a pint of milk should fill about a dozen large muffin cups; the graham popovers, at a quart of milk and twice the flour, will make roughly twice as many.
Six Little Cooks belongs to a genre that flourished after the Civil War: the cooking school in story form, in which children are taught by a competent aunt and the reader learns alongside them. The menu here is a period portrait of the ladies' luncheon at its most fashionable moment, and every element signals it. Saratoga potatoes take their name from Saratoga Springs, New York, where their invention is traditionally credited to a cook at Moon's Lake House in the 1850s; by the 1870s they had become a restaurant flourish grand enough for a home cook to attempt. Croquettes, made from boiled chicken or veal bound with a thick white sauce and fried, were the standard genteel way to serve leftover meat without appearing to. Mayonnaise, still unusual enough to need instruction on which hand holds the oil, marks the French influence then arriving in American middle-class kitchens, alongside the Dresden dressing with its hard-boiled yolks and grated onion. Note too the domestic crisis that sets the chapter in motion: the cook is sick and the second girl is ironing, so the mistress must borrow help. The girls' reward for cooking the luncheon is to wait at table.