Back Aa

Culture and Cooking; Or, Art in the Kitchen

<h3>CHAPTER VI.</h3> <h4>a chapter on general management in very small families.</h4> A very small family, "a young ménage," for instance, is very much more difficult to cater for without waste than a larger one; two people are so apt to get tired of anything, be it ever so good eating, when it has been on the table once or twice; therefore it would be useless to make galantine or the large pies I have indicated, except for occasions when guests are expected; but, as I hope to aid young housekeepers to have nice dishes when alone, I will devote this chapter to their needs. The chapter on "Warming Over" will be very useful also to this large class. In the first place it is well to have regard, when part of a dish leaves the table, as to whether it, or any particular part of it, will make a nice little cold dish, or a rechauffé; in that case have it saved, unless it is required for the servants' dinner (it is well to manage so that it is not needed for that purpose); for instance, if there is the wing and a slice or two of the breast of a chicken left, it will make a dainty little breakfast dish, or cold, in jelly, be nice for lunch. There is always jelly if you have roast chicken, if you manage properly, and this is how you do it: Carefully save the feet, throat, gizzard, and liver of your chickens; scald the feet by pouring boiling water48 over them; leave them just a minute, and pull off the outer skin and nails; they come away very readily, leaving the feet delicately white; put these with the other giblets, properly cleansed, into a small saucepan with an onion, a slice of carrot, a sprig of parsley, and a pint of water (if you have the giblets of one chicken), if of two, put a quart; let this slowly simmer for two hours and a half; it will be reduced to about half, and form a stiff jelly when cold; a glass of sherry, and squeeze of lemon, or teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar, makes this into a delicious aspic, and should be added if to be eaten cold. The jelly must of course be strained. In roasting chickens, if you follow the rule for meat, that is, put no water in the pan, but a piece of butter, and dredge a very little flour over the chicken, you will have a nice brown glaze at the bottom of the pan, provided it has been cooked in a quick oven; if in a cool oven there will be nothing brown at all; but we will suppose the bird is browned to a turn; pour your gravy from the giblets into the pan, take off every bit of the glaze or osma-zone that adheres, and let it dissolve, rubbing it with the back of the spoon; then, if you are likely to have any chicken left cold, pour off a little gravy in a cup through a fine strainer, leaving in your pan sufficient for the dinner; in this mash up the liver till it is a smooth paste which thickens the gravy, and serve. Some object to liver, therefore the use of it is a matter of taste. If you dress the chickens English fashion, you will need the liver and gizzard to tuck under the wings; in this case, stew only the feet and throat, using a little meat of any kind, if you have it, to take their place; but on no account fail to use the feet, as they are as rich in jelly as calves' feet in proportion to their size. 49The jelly laid aside will be enough to ornament and give relish to a little dish of cold chicken, and changes it from a dry and commonplace thing to a recherché one. If two chickens are cooked it is more economical than one; there is, then, double the amount of gravy, generally sufficient, if you lay some very nice pieces of cold chicken in a bowl, to pour over it and leave it enveloped in jelly; you still then, if from dinner for two people, have perhaps joints enough to make a dish of curry or fricassee, or any of the many ways in which cold chicken may be used, for which see chapter on "Warming Over." For small households large joints are to be avoided, but even a small roast is a large joint when there are but two or three to eat it. For this reason it is a good plan to buy such joints as divide well. A sirloin of beef is better made into two fine dishes than into one roast, and then warmed over twice. Every one knows that "Filet de b&oelig;uf Chateaubriand" is one of the classical dishes of the French table, that to a Frenchman luxury can go no further; but every one does not know how entirely within his power it is to have that dish as often as he has roast beef; how convenient it would be to so have it. Here it is: When your sirloin roast comes from the butcher, take out the tenderloin or fillets, which you must always choose thick; cut it across into steaks an inch thick, trim them, cover them with a coat of butter (or oil, which is much better), and broil them ten minutes, turning them often; garnish with fried potatoes, and serve with sauce Chateaubriand, as follows: Put a gill of white wine (or claret will do if you have no white) into a saucepan, with a piece of glaze, weighing an ounce and a half; add three quarters of a pint of espagnole, and simmer fifteen minutes; when ready to50 serve, thicken with two ounces of maître d'hôtel butter in which a dessert-spoonful of flour has been worked. That is how Jules Gouffé's recipe runs; but, as no small family will keep espagnole ready made, allow a little more glaze (of course the recipe as given may be divided to half or quarter, provided the correct proportions are retained), and use a tablespoonful of roux and the maître d'hôtel butter, both of which you have probably in your store-room; if not, brown a little flour, chop some parsley, and add to two ounces of butter; work them together, then let them dissolve in the sauce, for which purpose let it go off the boil; let the sauce simmer a minute, skim, and serve. The sirloin of beef, denuded of its fillet, is still a good roast; and as you can't have your cake and eat it too, and hot fresh roast beef is better than the same warmed over, warm ye never so wisely, I think this plan may commend itself to those who like nice little dinners. A nice little dinner of a soup, an entrée, or made dish, salad, and dessert, really costs no more than frequent roast meat, or even steak and pudding, by following some such plan as this: Sunday.—Pot-au-feu and roast lamb, leg of mutton or other good joint, etc. Monday.—Rice or vermicelli soup made with remains of the bouillon from pot-au-feu. If the Sunday joint was a fore or hindquarter of lamb it should have been divided, say the leg from the loin, thus providing choice roasts for two days, and yet having enough cold lamb—that favorite dish with so many—for luncheon with a salad; and, surprising to say, after hot roast lamb for dinner Sunday, cold lunch for Monday, another roast Monday, and cold or warmed up for lunch Tuesday, there will51 still be (supposing as I do, in preparing this chapter, that the family consists only of gentleman, lady, and servant) remains enough from the two cold joints to make cromesquis of lamb (see recipe), a little dish of mince, or a delicate sauté of lamb for breakfast. It is surprising what may be done with odds and ends in a small family; a tiny plate of pieces, far too small to make an appearance on the table, and which, if special directions are not given, will seem to Bridget not worth saving, will, with each piece dipped into the batter à la Carême, and fried in hot fat, make a tempting dish for breakfast, or an entrée for dinner or luncheon. Two tablespoonfuls only of chopped meat of any kind will make croquettes for two or three people; hence, 'save the pieces.' But to return to our bills of fare: I have given the two roasts of lamb for consecutive days, because the weather in lamb season is usually too warm to keep it; when this can be done, however, it is pleasanter to leave the second joint of lamb till Tuesday. Should a forequarter (abroad held in greater esteem than the hindquarter) have been chosen, get the butcher to take out the shoulder in one round thick joint, English fashion; this crisply roasted is far more delicious than the leg; you then have the chops to be breaded, and an excellent dish of the neck and breast, either broiled, curried, stewed with peas, or roast. Yet how often we see a whole quarter of lamb put in the oven for two or three people who get tired of the sight of it cold, yet feel in economy bound to eat it. Should sirloin of beef have been the Sunday dinner, you will know what to do with it, from directions already given; and as a sirloin of beef, even with the fillet out, will be more than required for one dinner, it may52 serve for a third day, dressed in one of the various ways I shall give in chapter on "Warming Over." You have still at your disposal the bouilli or beef from which you have made your pot-au-feu, which, if it has been carefully boiled, not galloped, nor allowed to fall to rags, is very good eating. Cut thin with lettuce, or in winter celery, in about equal quantities, and a good salad dressing, it is excellent; or, made into hash, fritadella, or even rissoles, is savory and delicious; only bear in mind with this, as all cooked meats, the gravy drawn out must be replaced by stock or glaze; it is very easy to warm over bouilli satisfactorily, as a cup of the soup made from it can always be kept for gravy. A leg of mutton makes two excellent joints, and is seldom liked cold—as beef and lamb often are. Select a large fine leg, have it cut across, that each part may weigh about equally; roast the thick or fillet end and serve with or without onion sauce (à la soubise); boil the knuckle in a small quantity of water, just enough to cover it, with a carrot, turnip, onion, and bunch of parsley, and salt in the water, serve with caper sauce and mashed turnips. The broth from this is excellent soup served thus: Skim it carefully, take out the vegetables, and chop a small quantity of parsley very fine, then beat up in a bowl two eggs, pour into them a little of the broth—not boiling—beating all the time, then draw your soup back till it is off the boil, and pour in the eggs, stirring continually till it is on the boiling point again (but it must not boil, or the eggs will curdle and spoil the soup), and then turn it into a hot tureen and serve. Use remains of the cold roast and boiled mutton together, to make made dishes; between the days of having the roast and boiled mutton you may have had a53 fowl, and the remains from that will make you a second dish to go with your joint. The remains from the first cooked mutton, in form of curry, mince, salmi, or sauté, will be a second dish with your fowl. Veal is one of the most convenient things to have for a small family, as it warms over in a variety of ways, and in some is actually better than when put on the table as a joint. By having a little fish one day, instead of soup, and a little game another, and remembering when you have an especially dainty thing, to have one with it a little more substantial and less costly, you may have variety at little expense. For instance, if you find it convenient to have for dinner fritadella (see "Warming Over") or miroton of beef, or cold mutton curried, you might have broiled birds, or roast pigeon, or game. In this consists good management, to live so that the expenses of one day balance those of the other—unless you are so happily situated that expense is a small matter, in which case these remarks will not apply to you at all. Then, never mind warming over, or making one joint into two; let your poor neighbors and Bridget's friends enjoy your superfluity. To the woman with a moderate income it usually is a matter of importance, or ought to be, that her weekly expenditure should not exceed a certain amount, and for this she must arrange that any extra expense is balanced by a subsequent economy. Salads add much to the health and elegance of a dinner; it is in early spring an expensive item if lettuce is used; but no salad can be more delicious or more healthful than dressed celery; and by buying when cheap, arranging with a man to lay in your cellar, covered with54 soil, enough for the winter's use, it need cost but moderately. Celeriac, or turnip-rooted celery is another salad that is very popular with our German friends; it is a bulbous celery, the root being the part eaten; these are cooked like potatoes, cut in slices, and dressed with oil and vinegar, or mayonnaise, it is exceedingly good. Potato salad is always procurable, and in summer at lunch, instead of the hot vegetable, or in winter when green salad is dear, is very valuable. It may be varied by the addition, one day, of a few chopped pickles, another, a little onion, or celery, or parsley, or tarragon, a little ravigotte butter beaten to cream with the vinegar, or with meat, as follows: Boil the potatoes in their skins, peel them, cut them into pieces twice the thickness of a fifty-cent piece, and put them into a salad bowl with cold meat (bouilli from soup is excellent); put to them a teaspoonful of salt, half that quantity of pepper, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, three or even four of oil, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley. You can vary this by putting at different times some chopped celery or pickles, olives, or anchovies. <hr /> 55 <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

1 of 2

2 of 2

Update Required To play the media you will need to either update your browser to a recent version or update your Flash plugin.