484. To broil it, No. 487, &c.

_A Chine or Saddle_,--(No. 26.) (_i. e._ the two loins) of ten or eleven pounds, two hours and a half: it is the business of the butcher to take off the skin and skewer it on again, to defend the meat from extreme heat, and preserve its succulence; if this is neglected, tie a sheet of paper over it (baste the strings you tie it on with directly, or they will burn): about a quarter of an hour before you think it will be done, take off the skin or paper, that it may get a pale brown colour, then baste it and flour it lightly to froth it. We like No. 346 for sauce. N.B. Desire the butcher to cut off the flaps and the tail and chump end, and trim away every part that has not indisputable pretensions to be eaten. This will reduce a saddle of eleven pounds weight to about six or seven pounds. _A Shoulder_,--(No. 27.) Of seven pounds, an hour and a half. Put the spit in close to the shank-bone, and run it along the blade-bone. N.B. The blade-bone is a favourite luncheon or supper relish, scored, peppered and salted, and broiled, or done in a Dutch oven. _A Loin_,[125-*]--(No. 28.) Of mutton, from an hour and a half to an hour and three quarters. The most elegant way of carving this, is to cut it lengthwise, as you do a saddle: read No. 26. N.B. Spit it on a skewer or lark spit, and tie that on the common spit, and do not spoil the meat by running the spit through the prime part of it. _A Neck_,--(No. 29.) About the same time as a loin. It must be carefully jointed, or it is very difficult to carve. The neck and breast are, in small families, commonly roasted together; the cook will then crack the bones across the middle before they are put down to roast: if this is not done carefully, they are very troublesome to carve. Tell the cook, when she takes it from the spit, to separate them before she sends them to table. _Obs._--If there is more fat than you think will be eaten with the lean, cut it off, and it will make an excellent suet pudding (No. 551, or No. 554). N.B. The best way to spit this is to run iron skewers across it, and put the spit between them. _A Breast_,--(No. 30.) An hour and a quarter. To grill a breast of mutton, see _Obs._ to No. 38. _A Haunch_,--(No. 31.) (_i. e._ the leg and part of the loin) of mutton: send up two sauce-boats with it; one of rich mutton gravy, made without spice or herbs (No. 347), and the other of sweet sauce (No. 346). It generally weighs about 15 pounds, and requires about three hours and a half to roast it. _Mutton, venison fashion._--(No. 32.) Take a neck of good four or five years old Southdown wether mutton, cut long in the bones; let it hang (in temperate weather) at least a week: two days before you dress it, take allspice and black pepper, ground and pounded fine, a quarter of an ounce each; rub them together, and then rub your mutton well with this mixture twice a day. When you dress it, wash off the spice with warm water, and roast in paste, as we have ordered the haunch of venison. (No. 63). _Obs._--Persevering and ingenious epicures have invented many methods to give mutton the flavour of venison. Some say that mutton, prepared as above, may be mistaken for venison; others, that it is full as good. The refined palate of a grand gourmand (in spite of the spice and wine the meat has been fuddled and rubbed with) will perhaps still protest against "Welch venison;" and indeed we do not understand by what conjuration allspice and claret can communicate the flavour of venison to mutton. We confess our fears that the flavour of venison (especially of its fat) is inimitable; but believe you may procure prime eight-toothed wether mutton, keep it the proper time, and send it to table with the accompaniments (Nos. 346 and 347, &c.) usually given to venison, and a rational epicure will eat it with as much satisfaction as he would "feed on the king's fallow deer." _VEAL._--(No. 33.) VEAL requires particular care to roast it a nice brown. Let the fire be the same as for beef; a sound large fire for a large joint, and a brisker for a smaller; put it at some distance from the fire to soak thoroughly, and then draw it near to finish it brown. When first laid down, it is to be basted; baste it again occasionally. When the veal is on the dish, pour over it half a pint of melted butter (No. 256): if you have a little brown gravy by you, add that to the butter (No. 326). With those joints which are not stuffed, send up forcemeat (No. 374, or No. 375) in balls, or rolled into sausages, as garnish to the dish, or fried pork sausages (No. 87); bacon (No. 13, or No. 526, or No. 527), and greens, are also always expected with veal. _Fillet of Veal_,--(No. 34.) Of from twelve to sixteen pounds, will require from four to five hours at a good fire; make some stuffing or forcemeat (No. 374 or 5), and put it in under the flap, that there may be some left to eat cold, or to season a hash;[127-*] brown it, and pour good melted butter (No. 266) over it, as directed in No. 33. Garnish with thin slices of lemon and cakes or balls of stuffing, or No. 374, or No. 375, or duck stuffing (No. 61), or fried pork sausages (No. 87), curry sauce (No. 348), bacon (No. 13), and greens, &c. N.B. Potted veal (No. 533). _Obs._--A bit of the brown outside is a favourite with the epicure in roasts. The kidney, cut out, sliced, and broiled (No. 358), is a high relish, which some _bons vivants_ are fond of. _A Loin_,--(No. 35.) Is the best part of the calf, and will take about three hours roasting. Paper the kidney fat, and the back: some cooks send it up on a toast, which is eaten with the kidney and the fat of this part, which is as delicate as any marrow. If there is more of it than you think will be eaten with the veal, before you roast it cut it out; it will make an excellent suet pudding: take care to have your fire long enough to brown the ends; same accompaniments as No. 34. _A Shoulder_,--(No. 36.) From three hours to three hours and a half; stuff it with the forcemeat ordered for the fillet of veal, in the under side, or balls made of No. 374. _Neck, best end_,--(No. 37.) Will take two hours; same accompaniments as No. 34. The scrag part is best made into a pie, or broth. _Breast_,--(No. 38.) From an hour and a half to two hours. Let the caul remain till it is almost done, then take it off to brown it; baste, flour, and froth it. _Obs._--This makes a savoury relish for a luncheon or supper: or, instead of roasting, boil it enough; put it in a cloth between two pewter dishes, with a weight on the upper one, and let it remain so till cold; then pare and trim, egg, and crumb it, and broil, or warm it in a Dutch oven; serve with it capers (No. 274), or wow wow sauce (No. 328). Breast of mutton may be dressed the same way. _Veal Sweetbread._--(No. 39.) Trim a fine sweetbread (it cannot be too fresh); parboil it for five minutes, and throw it into a basin of cold water. Roast it plain, or Beat up the yelk of an egg, and prepare some fine bread-crumbs: when the sweetbread is cold, dry it thoroughly in a cloth; run a lark-spit or a skewer through it, and tie it on the ordinary spit; egg it with a paste-brush; powder it well with bread-crumbs, and roast it. For sauce, fried bread-crumbs round it, and melted butter, with a little mushroom catchup (No. 439), and lemon-juice (Nos. 307, 354, or 356), or serve them on buttered toast, garnished with egg sauce (No. 267), or with gravy (No. 329). _Obs._--Instead of spitting them, you may put them into a tin Dutch oven, or fry them (Nos. 88, 89, or 513). _LAMB_,--(No. 40.) Is a delicate, and commonly considered tender meat; but those who talk of tender lamb, while they are thinking of the age of the animal, forget that even a chicken must be kept a proper time after it has been killed, or it will be tough picking. Woful experience has warned us to beware of accepting an invitation to dinner on Easter Sunday, unless commanded by a thorough-bred _gourmand_; our _incisores_, _molares_, and _principal viscera_ have protested against the imprudence of encountering young, tough, stringy mutton, under the _misnomen_ of grass lamb. The proper name for "Easter grass lamb" is "hay mutton." To the usual accompaniments of roasted meat, green mint sauce (No. 303), a salad (Nos. 372 and 138*), is commonly added; and some cooks, about five minutes before it is done, sprinkle it with a little fresh gathered and finely minced parsley, or No. 318: lamb, and all young meats, ought to be thoroughly done; therefore do not take either lamb or veal off the spit till you see it drop white gravy. Grass lamb is in season from Easter to Michaelmas. House lamb from Christmas to Lady-day. Sham lamb, see _Obs._ to following receipt. N.B. When green mint cannot be got, mint vinegar (No. 398) is an acceptable substitute for it; and crisp parsley (No. 318), on a side plate, is an admirable accompaniment. _Hind-Quarter_,--(No. 41). Of eight pounds, will take from an hour and three-quarters to two hours: baste and froth it in the same way as directed in No. 19. _Obs._--A quarter of a porkling is sometimes skinned, cut, and dressed lamb-fashion, and sent up as a substitute for it. The leg and the loin of lamb, when little, should be roasted together; the former being lean, the latter fat, and the gravy is better preserved. _Fore-Quarter_,--(No. 42.) Of ten pounds, about two hours. N.B. It is a pretty general custom, when you take off the shoulder from the ribs, to squeeze a Seville orange over them, and sprinkle them with a little pepper and salt. _Obs._--This may as well be done by the cook before it comes to table; some people are not remarkably expert at dividing these joints nicely. _Leg_,--(No. 43.) Of five pounds, from an hour to an hour and a half. _Shoulder_,--(No. 44.) With a quick fire, an hour. See _Obs._ to No. 27. _Ribs_,--(No. 45.) About an hour to an hour and a quarter: joint it nicely, crack the ribs across, and divide them from the brisket after it is roasted. _Loin_,--(No. 46.) An hour and a quarter. _Neck_,--(No. 47.) An hour. _Breast_,--(No. 48.) Three-quarters of an hour. _PORK._--(No. 49.) The prime season for pork is from Michaelmas to March. Take particular care it be done enough: other meats under-done are unpleasant, but pork is absolutely uneatable; the sight of it is enough to appal the sharpest appetite, if its gravy has the least tint of redness. Be careful of the crackling; if this be not crisp, or if it be burned, you will be scolded. For sauces, No. 300, No. 304, and No. 342. _Obs._--Pease pudding (No. 555) is as good an accompaniment to roasted, as it is to boiled pork; and most palates are pleased with the savoury powder set down in No. 51, or bread-crumbs, mixed with sage and onion, minced very fine, or zest (No. 255) sprinkled over it. N.B. "The western pigs, from Berks, Oxford, and Bucks, possess a decided superiority over the eastern, of Essex, Sussex, and Norfolk; not to forget another qualification of the former, at which some readers may smile, a thickness of the skin; whence the crackling of the roasted pork is a fine gelatinous substance, which may be easily masticated; while the crackling of the thin-skinned breeds is roasted into good block tin, the reduction of which would almost require teeth of iron."--MOUBRAY _on Poultry_, 1816, page 242. _A Leg_,--(No. 50.) Of eight pounds, will require about three hours: score the skin across in narrow stripes (some score it in diamonds), about a quarter of an inch apart; stuff the knuckle with sage and onion, minced fine, and a little grated bread, seasoned with pepper, salt, and the yelk of an egg. See Duck Stuffing, (No. 61.) Do not put it too near the fire: rub a little sweet oil on the skin with a paste-brush, or a goose-feather: this makes the crackling crisper and browner than basting it with dripping; and it will be a better colour than all the art of cookery can make it in any other way; and this is the best way of preventing the skin from blistering, which is principally occasioned by its being put too near the fire. _Leg of Pork roasted without the Skin, commonly called_ MOCK GOOSE.[131-*]--(No. 51.) Parboil it; take off the skin, and then put it down to roast; baste it with butter, and make a savoury powder of finely minced, or dried and powdered sage, ground black pepper, salt, and some bread-crumbs, rubbed together through a colander; you may add to this a little very finely minced onion: sprinkle it with this when it is almost roasted. Put half a pint of made gravy into the dish, and goose stuffing (No. 378) under the knuckle skin; or garnish the dish with balls of it fried or boiled. _The Griskin_,--(No. 52.) Of seven or eight pounds, may be dressed in the same manner. It will take an hour and a half roasting. _A Bacon Spare-Rib_,--(No. 53.) Usually weighs about eight or nine pounds, and will take from two to three hours to roast it thoroughly; not exactly according to its weight, but the thickness of the meat upon it, which varies very much. Lay the thick end nearest to the fire. A proper bald spare-rib of eight pounds weight (so called because almost all the meat is pared off), with a steady fire, will be done in an hour and a quarter. There is so little meat on a bald spare-rib, that if you have a large, fierce fire, it will be burned before it is warm through. Joint it nicely, and crack the ribs across as you do ribs of lamb. When you put it down to roast, dust on some flour, and baste it with a little butter; dry a dozen sage leaves, and rub them through a hair-sieve, and put them into the top of a pepper-box; and about a quarter of an hour before the meat is done, baste it with butter; dust the pulverized sage, or the savoury powder in No. 51; or sprinkle with duck stuffing (No. 61). _Obs._--Make it a general rule never to pour gravy over any thing that is roasted; by so doing, the dredging, &c. is washed off, and it eats insipid. Some people carve a spare-rib by cutting out in slices the thick part at the bottom of the bones. When this meat is cut away, the bones may be easily separated, and are esteemed very sweet picking. Apple sauce (No. 304), mashed potatoes (No. 106), and good mustard (No. 370,) are indispensable. _Loin_,--(No. 54.) Of five pounds, must be kept at a good distance from the fire on account of the crackling, and will take about two hours; if very fat, half an hour longer. Stuff it with duck stuffing (No. 378). Score the skin in stripes, about a quarter of an inch apart, and rub it with salad oil, as directed in No. 50. You may sprinkle over it some of the savoury powder recommended for the mock goose (No. 51). _A Chine._--(No. 55.) If parted down the back-bone so as to have but one side, a good fire will roast it in two hours; if not parted, three hours. N.B. Chines are generally salted and boiled. _A Sucking-Pig_,[133-*]--(No. 56.) Is in prime order for the spit when about three weeks old. It loses part of its goodness every hour after it is killed; if not quite fresh, no art can make the crackling crisp. To be in perfection, it should be killed in the morning to be eaten at dinner: it requires very careful roasting. A sucking-pig, like a young child, must not be left for an instant. The ends must have much more fire than the middle: for this purpose is contrived an iron to hang before the middle part, called a pig-iron. If you have not this, use a common flat iron, or keep the fire fiercest at the two ends. For the stuffing, take of the crumb of a stale loaf about five ounces; rub it through a colander; mince fine a handful of sage (_i. e._ about two ounces), and a large onion (about an ounce and a half[133-+]). Mix these together with an egg, some pepper and salt, and a bit of butter as big as an egg. Fill the belly of the pig with this, and sew it up: lay it to the fire, and baste it with salad oil till it is quite done. Do not leave it a moment: it requires the most vigilant attendance. Roast it at a clear, brisk fire at some distance. To gain the praise of epicurean pig-eaters, the crackling must be nicely crisped and delicately lightly browned, without being either blistered or burnt. A small, three weeks old pig will be done enough[133-++] in about an hour and a half. Before you take it from the fire, cut off the head, and part that and the body down the middle: chop the brains very fine, with some boiled sage leaves, and mix them with good veal gravy, made as directed in No. 192, or beef gravy (No. 329), or what runs from the pig when you cut its head off. Send up a tureenful of gravy (No. 329) besides. Currant sauce is still a favourite with some of the old school. Lay your pig back to back in the dish, with one half of the head on each side, and the ears one at each end, which you must take care to make nice and crisp; or you will get scolded, and deservedly, as the silly fellow was who bought his wife a pig with only one ear. When you cut off the pettitoes, leave the skin long round the ends of the legs. When you first lay the pig before the fire, rub it all over with fresh butter or salad oil: ten minutes after, and the skin looks dry; dredge it well with flour all over, let it remain on an hour, then rub it off with a soft cloth. N. B. A pig is a very troublesome subject to roast; most persons have them baked. Send a quarter of a pound of butter, and beg the baker to baste it well. _Turkey, Turkey Poults, and other Poultry._--(No. 57.) A fowl and a turkey require the same management at the fire, only the latter will take longer time. Many a Christmas dinner has been spoiled by the turkey having been hung up in a cold larder, and becoming thoroughly frozen; _Jack Frost_ has ruined the reputation of many a turkey-roaster: therefore, in very cold weather, remember the note in the 5th page of the 3d chapter of the Rudiments of Cookery. Let them be carefully picked, &c. and break the breast-bone (to make them look plump), twist up a sheet of clean writing-paper, light it, and thoroughly singe the turkey all over, turning it about over the flame. Turkeys, fowls, and capons have a much better appearance, if, instead of trussing them with the legs close together, and the feet cut off, the legs are extended on each side of the bird, and the toes only cut off with a skewer through each foot, to keep them at a proper distance. Be careful, when you draw it, to preserve the liver, and not to break the gall-bag, as no washing will take off the bitter taste it gives, where it once touches. Prepare a nice, clear, brisk fire for it. Make stuffing according to No. 374, or 376; stuff it under the breast, where the craw was taken out, and make some into balls, and boil or fry them, and lay them round the dish; they are handy to help, and you can then reserve some of the inside stuffing to eat with the cold turkey, or to enrich a hash (No. 533). Score the gizzard, dip it into the yelk of an egg or melted butter, and sprinkle it with salt and a few grains of Cayenne; put it under one pinion and the liver under the other; cover the liver with buttered paper, to prevent it from getting hardened or burnt. When you first put a turkey down to roast, dredge it with flour; then put about an ounce of butter into a basting-ladle, and as it melts, baste the bird therewith. Keep it at a distance from the fire for the first half hour, that it may warm gradually; then put it nearer, and when it is plumped up, and the steam draws in towards the fire, it is nearly enough; then dredge it lightly with flour, and put a bit of butter into your basting-ladle, and as it melts, baste the turkey with it; this will raise a finer froth than can be produced by using the fat out of the pan. A very large turkey will require about three hours to roast it thoroughly; a middling-sized one, of eight or ten pounds (which is far nicer eating than the very large one), about two hours; a small one may be done in an hour and a half. Turkey poults are of various sizes, and will take about an hour and a half; they should be trussed, with their legs twisted under like a duck, and the head under the wing like a pheasant. Fried pork sausages (No. 87) are a very savoury and favourite accompaniment to either roasted or boiled poultry. A turkey thus garnished is called "an alderman in chains." Sausage-meat is sometimes used as stuffing, instead of the ordinary forcemeat. (No. 376, &c.) MEM. If you wish a turkey, especially a very large one, to be tender, never dress it till at least four or five days (in cold weather, eight or ten) after it has been killed. "No man who understands good living will say, on such a day I will eat that turkey; but will hang it up by four of the large tail-feathers, and when, on paying his morning visit to the larder, he finds it lying upon a cloth prepared to receive it when it falls, that day let it be cooked." Hen turkeys are preferable to cocks for whiteness and tenderness, and the small fleshy ones with black legs are most esteemed. Send up with them oyster (No. 278), egg (No. 267), bread (No. 221), and plenty of gravy sauce (No. 329). To hash turkey, No. 533. MEM. Some epicures are very fond of the gizzard and rump, peppered and salted, and broiled. (See No. 538, "how to dress a devil with _véritable sauce d'enfer_!!") _Capons or Fowls_,--(No. 58.) Must be killed a couple of days in moderate, and more in cold weather, before they are dressed, or they will eat tough: a good criterion of the ripeness of poultry for the spit, is the ease with which you can then pull out the feathers; when a fowl is plucked, leave a few to help you to ascertain this. They are managed exactly in the same manner, and sent up with the same sauces as a turkey, only they require proportionably less time at the fire. A full-grown five-toed fowl, about an hour and a quarter. A moderate-sized one, an hour. A chicken, from thirty to forty minutes. Here, also, pork sausages fried (No. 87) are in general a favourite accompaniment, or turkey stuffing; see forcemeats (Nos. 374, 5, 6, and 7); put in plenty of it, so as to plump out the fowl, which must be tied closely (both at the neck and rump), to keep in the stuffing. Some cooks put the liver of the fowl into this forcemeat, and others mince it and pound it, and rub it up with flour and melted butter (No. 287). When the bird is stuffed and trussed, score the gizzard nicely, dip it into melted butter, let it drain, and then season it with Cayenne and salt; put it under one pinion, and the liver under the other; to prevent their getting hardened or scorched, cover them with double paper buttered. Take care that your roasted poultry be well browned; it is as indispensable that roasted poultry should have a rich brown complexion, as boiled poultry should have a delicate white one. _Obs._ "The art of fattening poultry for the market is a considerable branch of rural economy in some convenient situations, and consists in supplying them with plenty of healthy food, and confining them; and ducks and geese must be prevented from going into water, which prevents them from becoming fat, and they also thereby acquire a rancid, fishy taste. They are put into a dark place, and crammed with a paste made of barley meal, mutton-suet, and some treacle or coarse sugar mixed with milk, and are found to be completely ripe in a fortnight. If kept longer, the fever that is induced by this continued state of repletion renders them red and unsaleable, and frequently kills them." But exercise is as indispensable to the health of poultry as other creatures; without it, the fat will be all accumulated in the cellular membrane, instead of being dispersed through its system. See MOUBRAY _on breeding and fattening domestic Poultry_, 12mo. 1819. Fowls which are fattened artificially are by some epicures preferred to those called barn-door fowls; whom we have heard say, that they should as soon think of ordering a barn-door for dinner as a barn-door fowl. The age of poultry makes all the difference: nothing is tenderer than a young chicken; few things are tougher than an old cock or hen, which is only fit to make broth. The meridian of perfection of poultry is just before they have come to their full growth, before they have begun to harden. For sauces, see No. 305, or liver and parsley, No. 287, and those ordered in the last receipt. To hash it, No. 533. _Goose._--(No. 59.) When a goose is well picked, singed, and cleaned, make the stuffing with about two ounces of onion,[137-*] and half as much green sage, chop them very fine, adding four ounces, _i. e._ about a large breakfast-cupful of stale bread-crumbs, a bit of butter about as big as a walnut, and a very little pepper and salt (to this some cooks add half the liver,[137-+] parboiling it first), the yelk of an egg or two, and incorporating the whole well together, stuff the goose; do not quite fill it, but leave a little room for the stuffing to swell; spit it, tie it on the spit at both ends, to prevent its swinging round, and to keep the stuffing from coming out. From an hour and a half to an hour and three-quarters, will roast a fine full-grown goose. Send up gravy and apple sauce with it (see Nos. 300, 304, 329, and 341). To hash it, see No. 530. For another stuffing for geese, see No. 378. _Obs._ "Goose-feeding in the vicinity of the metropolis is so large a concern, that one person annually feeds for market upwards of 5000." "A goose on a farm in Scotland, two years since, of the clearly ascertained age of 89 years, healthy and vigorous, was killed by a sow while sitting over her eggs; it was supposed she might have lived many years, and her fecundity appeared to be permanent. Other geese have been proved to reach the age of 70 years." MOUBRAY _on Poultry_, p. 40. It appears in Dr. STARK'S _Experiments on Diet_, p. 110, that "when he fed upon roasted goose, he was more vigorous both in body and mind than with any other diet." The goose at Michaelmas is as famous in the mouths of the million, as the minced-pie at Christmas; but for those who eat with delicacy, it is by that time too full-grown. The true period when the goose is in its highest perfection, is when it has just acquired its full growth, and not begun to harden. If the March goose is insipid, the Michaelmas goose is rank; the fine time is between both, from the second week in June to the first in September: the leg is not the most tender part of a goose. See Mock Goose (No. 51). _Green Goose._--(No. 60.) Geese are called green till they are about four months old. The only difference between roasting these and a full-grown goose, consists in seasoning it with pepper and salt instead of sage and onion, and roasting it for forty or fifty minutes only. _Obs._ This is one of the least desirable of those insipid premature productions, which are esteemed dainties. _Duck._--(No. 61.) Mind your duck is well cleaned, and wiped out with a clean cloth: for the stuffing, take an ounce of onion and half an ounce of green sage; chop them very fine, and mix them with two ounces, _i. e._ about a breakfast-cupful, of bread-crumbs, a bit of butter about as big as a walnut, a very little black pepper and salt, (some obtuse palates may require warming with a little Cayenne, No. 404,) and the yelk of an egg to bind it; mix these thoroughly together, and put into the duck. For another stuffing, see No. 378. From half to three-quarters of an hour will be enough to roast it, according to the size: contrive to have the feet delicately crisp, as some people are very fond of them; to do this nicely you must have a sharp fire. For sauce, green pease (No. 134), bonne bouche (No. 341), gravy sauce (No. 329), and sage and onion sauce (No. 300). To hash or stew ducks, see No. 530. N.B. If you think the raw onion will make too strong an impression upon the palate, parboil it. Read _Obs._ to No. 59. To ensure ducks being tender, in moderate weather kill them a few days before you dress them. _Haunch of Venison._--(No. 63.) To preserve the fat, make a paste of flour and water, as much as will cover the haunch; wipe it with a dry cloth in every part; rub a large sheet of paper all over with butter, and cover the venison with it; then roll out the paste about three-quarters of an inch thick; lay this all over the fat side, and cover it well with three or four sheets of strong white paper, and tie it securely on with packthread: have a strong, close fire, and baste your venison as soon as you lay it down to roast (to prevent the paper and string from burning); it must be well basted all the time. A buck haunch generally weighs from 20 to 25 pounds; will take about four hours and a half roasting in warm, and longer in cold weather: a haunch of from 19 to 18 pounds will be done in about three or three and a half. A quarter of an hour before it is done, the string must be cut, and the paste carefully taken off; now baste it with butter, dredge it lightly with flour, and when the froth rises, and it has got a very light brown colour, garnish the knuckle-bone with a ruffle of cut writing-paper, and send it up, with good, strong (but unseasoned) gravy (No. 347) in one boat, and currant-jelly sauce in the other, or currant-jelly in a side plate (not melted): see for sauces, Nos. 344, 5, 6, and 7. MEM. "_the alderman's walk_" is the favourite part. _Obs._ Buck venison is in greatest perfection from midsummer to Michaelmas, and doe from November to January. _Neck and Shoulder of Venison_,--(No. 64.) Are to be managed in the same way as the haunch; only they do not require the coat or paste, and will not take so much time. The best way to spit a neck is to put three skewers through it, and put the spit between the skewers and the bones. _A Fawn_,--(No. 65.) Like a sucking-pig, should be dressed almost as soon as killed. When very young, it is trussed, stuffed, and spitted the same way as a hare: but they are better eating when of the size of a house lamb, and are then roasted in quarters; the hind-quarter is most esteemed. They must be put down to a very quick fire, and either basted all the time they are roasting, or be covered with sheets of fat bacon; when done, baste it with butter, and dredge it with a little salt and flour, till you make a nice froth on it. N.B. We advise our friends to half roast a fawn as soon as they receive it, and then make a hash of it like No. 528. Send up venison sauce with it. See the preceding receipt, or No. 344, &c. _A Kid._--(No. 65*.) A young sucking-kid is very good eating; to have it in prime condition, the dam should be kept up, and well fed, &c. Roast it like a fawn or hare. _Hare._--(No. 66.) "_Inter quadrupedes gloria prima lepus._"--MARTIAL. The first points of consideration are, how old is the hare? and how long has it been killed? When young, it is easy of digestion, and very nourishing; when old, the contrary in every respect. To ascertain the age, examine the first joint of the forefoot; you will find a small knob, if it is a leveret, which disappears as it grows older; then examine the ears, if they tear easily, it will eat tender; if they are tough, so will be the hare, which we advise you to make into soup (No. 241), or stew or jug it (No. 523). When newly killed, the body is stiff; as it grows stale, it becomes limp. As soon as you receive a hare, take out the liver, parboil it, and keep it for the stuffing; some are very fond of it. Do not use it if it be not quite fresh and good. Some mince it, and send it up as a garnish in little hillocks round the dish. Wipe the hare quite dry, rub the inside with pepper, and hang it up in a dry, cool place. Paunch and skin[141-*] your hare, wash it, and lay it in a large pan of cold water four or five hours, changing the water two or three times; lay it in a clean cloth, and dry it well, then truss it. To make the stuffing, see No. 379. Do not make it too thin; it should be of cohesive consistence: if it is not sufficiently stiff, it is good for nothing. Put this into the belly, and sew it up tight. Cut the neck-skin to let the blood out, or it will never appear to be done enough; spit it, and baste it with drippings,[141-+] (or the juices of the back will be dried up before the upper joints of the legs are half done,) till you think it is nearly done, which a middling-sized hare will be in about an hour and a quarter. When it is almost roasted enough, put a little bit of butter into your basting-ladle, and baste it with this, and flour it, and froth it nicely. Serve it with good gravy (No. 329, or No. 347), and currant-jelly. For another stuffing, see receipt No. 379. Some cooks cut off the head and divide it, and lay one half on each side the hare. Cold roast hare will make excellent soup (No. 241), chopped to pieces, and stewed in three quarts of water for a couple of hours; the stuffing will be a very agreeable substitute for sweet herbs and seasoning. See receipt for hare soup (No. 241), hashed hare (No. 529), and mock hare, next receipt. _Mock Hare._--(No. 66.*) Cut out the fillet (_i. e._ the inside lean) of a sirloin of beef, leaving the fat to roast with the joint. Prepare some nice stuffing, as directed for a hare in No. 66, or 379; put this on the beef, and roll it up with tape, put a skewer through it, and tie that on a spit. _Obs._ If the beef is of prime quality, has been kept till thoroughly tender, and you serve with it the accompaniments that usually attend roast hare (Nos. 329, 344, &c.), or stew it, and serve it with a rich thickened sauce garnished with forcemeat balls (No. 379), the most fastidious palate will have no reason to regret that the game season is over. To make this into hare soup, see No. 241. _Rabbit._--(No. 67.) If your fire is clear and sharp, thirty minutes will roast a young, and forty a full-grown rabbit. When you lay it down, baste it with butter, and dredge it lightly and carefully with flour, that you may have it frothy, and of a fine light brown. While the rabbit is roasting, boil its liver[142-*] with some parsley; when tender, chop them together, and put half the mixture into some melted butter, reserving the other half for garnish, divided into little hillocks. Cut off the head, and lay half on each side of the dish. _Obs._ A fine, well-grown (but young) warren rabbit, kept some time after it has been killed, and roasted with a stuffing in its belly, eats very like a hare, to the nature of which it approaches. It is nice, nourishing food when young, but hard and unwholesome when old. For sauces, Nos. 287, 298, and 329. _Pheasant._--(No. 68.) Requires a smart fire, but not a fierce one. Thirty minutes will roast a young bird, and forty or fifty a full-grown pheasant. Pick and draw it, cut a slit in the back of the neck, and take out the craw, but don't cut the head off; wipe the inside of the bird with a clean cloth, twist the legs close to the body, leave the feet on, but cut the toes off; don't turn the head under the wing, but truss it like a fowl, it is much easier to carve; baste it, butter and froth it, and prepare sauce for it (Nos. 321 and 329). See the instructions in receipts to roast fowls and turkeys, Nos. 57 and 58. _Obs._ We believe the rarity of this bird is its best recommendation; and the character given it by an ingenious French author is just as good as it deserves. "Its flesh is naturally tough, and owes all its tenderness and succulence to the long time it is kept before it is cooked;" until it is "_bien mortifiée_," it is uneatable[142-+]. Therefore, instead of "_sus per col_," suspend it by one of the long tail-feathers, and the pheasant's falling from it is the criterion of its ripeness and readiness for the spit. Our president of the committee of taste (who is indefatigable in his endeavours to improve the health, as well as promote the enjoyment, of his fellow-students in the school of good living, and to whom the epicure, the economist, and the valetudinarian are equally indebted for his careful revision of this work, and especially for introducing that salutary maxim into the kitchen, that "the salubrious is ever a superior consideration to the savoury," and indeed, the rational epicure only relishes the latter when entirely subordinate to the former), has suggested to us, that the detachment of the feather cannot take place until the body of the bird has advanced more than one degree beyond the state of wholesome _haut-goût_, and become "_trop mortifiée_;" and that to enjoy this game in perfection, you must have a brace of birds killed the same day; these are to be put in suspense as above directed, and when one of them _drops_, the hour is come that the spit should be introduced to his companion:-- "_Ultra citraque nequit consistere rectum._" _Mock Pheasant._--(No. 69.) If you have only one pheasant, and wish for a companion for it, get a fine young fowl, of as near as may be the same size as the bird to be matched, and make game of it by trussing it like a pheasant, and dressing it according to the above directions. Few persons will discover the pheasant from the fowl, especially if the latter has been kept four or five days. The peculiar flavour of the pheasant (like that of other game) is principally acquired by long keeping. _Guinea and Pea Fowls_,--(No. 69*.) Are dressed in the same way as pheasants. _Partridges_,--(No. 70.) Are cleaned and trussed in the same manner as a pheasant (but the ridiculous custom of tucking the legs into each other makes them very troublesome to carve); the breast is so plump, it will require almost as much roasting; send up with them rich sauce (No. 321*), or bread sauce (No. 321), and good gravy (No. 329). *.* If you wish to preserve them longer than you think they will keep good undressed, half roast them, they will then keep two or three days longer; or make a pie of them. _Black Cock_ (No. 71), _Moor Game_ (No. 72), _and Grouse_, (No. 73.) Are all to be dressed like partridges; the black cock will take as much as a pheasant, and moor game and grouse as the partridge. Send up with them currant-jelly and fried bread-crumbs (No. 320). _Wild Ducks._--(No. 74.) For roasting a wild duck, you must have a clear, brisk fire, and a hot spit; it must be browned upon the outside, without being sodden within. To have it well frothed and full of gravy is the nicety. Prepare the fire by stirring and raking it just before the bird is laid down, and fifteen or twenty minutes will do it in the fashionable way; but if you like it a little more done, allow it a few minutes longer; if it is too much, it will lose its flavour. For the sauce, see No. 338 and No. 62. _Widgeons and Teal_,--(No. 75.) Are dressed exactly as the wild duck; only that less time is requisite for a widgeon, and still less for a teal. _Woodcock._--(No. 76.) Woodcocks should not be drawn, as the trail is by the lovers of "_haut goût_" considered a "_bonne bouche_;" truss their legs close to the body, and run an iron skewer through each thigh, close to the body, and tie them on a small bird spit; put them to roast at a clear fire; cut as many slices of bread as you have birds, toast or fry them a delicate brown, and lay them in the dripping-pan under the birds to catch the trail;[144-*] baste them with butter, and froth them with flour; lay the toast on a hot dish, and the birds on the toast; pour some good beef gravy into the dish, and send some up in a boat, see _Obs._ to No. 329: twenty or thirty minutes will roast them. Garnish with slices of lemon. _Obs._--Some epicures like this bird very much under-done, and direct that a woodcock should be just introduced to the cook, for her to show it the fire, and then send it up to table. _Snipes_,--(No. 77.) Differ little from woodcocks, unless in size; they are to be dressed in the same way, but require about five minutes less time to roast them. For sauce, see No. 338. _Pigeons._--(No. 78.) When the pigeons are ready for roasting, if you are desired to stuff them, chop some green parsley very fine, the liver, and a bit of butter together, with a little pepper and salt, or with the stuffing ordered for a fillet of veal (No. 374 or No. 375), and fill the belly of each bird with it. They will be done enough in about twenty or thirty minutes; send up parsley and butter (No. 261,) in the dish under them, and some in a boat, and garnish with crisp parsley (No. 318), or fried bread crumbs (No. 320), or bread sauce (No. 321), or gravy (No. 329). _Obs._--When pigeons are fresh they have their full relish; but it goes entirely off with a very little keeping; nor is it in any way so well preserved as by roasting them: when they are put into a pie they are generally baked to rags, and taste more of pepper and salt than of any thing else. A little melted butter may be put into the dish with them, and the gravy that runs from them will mix with it into fine sauce. Pigeons are in the greatest perfection from midsummer to Michaelmas; there is then the most plentiful and best food for them; and their finest growth is just when they are full feathered. When they are in the pen-feathers, they are flabby; when they are full grown, and have flown some time, they are tough. Game and poultry are best when they have just done growing, _i. e._ as soon as nature has perfected her work. This was the secret of Solomon, the famous pigeon-feeder of Turnham Green, who is celebrated by the poet Gay, when he says, "That Turnham Green, which dainty pigeons fed, But feeds no more, for _Solomon_ is dead." _Larks and other small Birds._--(No. 80.) These delicate little birds are in high season in November. When they are picked, gutted, and cleaned, truss them; brush them with the yelk of an egg, and then roll them in bread-crumbs: spit them on a lark-spit, and tie that on to a larger spit; ten or fifteen minutes at a quick fire will do them enough; baste them with fresh butter while they are roasting, and sprinkle them with bread-crumbs till they are well covered with them. For the sauce, fry some grated bread in clarified butter, see No. 259, and set it to drain before the fire, that it may harden: serve the crumbs under the larks when you dish them, and garnish them with slices of lemon. _Wheatears_,--(No. 81.) Are dressed in the same way as larks. _Lobster._--(No. 82.) See receipt for boiling (No. 176). We give no receipt for roasting lobster, tongue, &c. being of opinion with Dr. King, who says, "By roasting that which our forefathers boiled, And boiling what they roasted, much is spoiled." FOOTNOTES: [122-*] This joint is said to owe its _name_ to king Charles the Second, who, dining upon a loin of beef, and being particularly pleased with it, asked the name of the joint; said for its merit it should be _knighted_, and henceforth called _Sir-Loin_. [123-*] "In the present _fashion_ of FATTENING CATTLE, it is more desirable to roast away the fat than to preserve it. If the honourable societies of agriculturists, at the time they consulted a learned professor about the composition of manures, had consulted some competent authority on the nature of animal substances, the public might have escaped the overgrown corpulency of the animal flesh, which every where fills the markets."--_Domestic Management_, 12mo. 1813, p. 182. "Game, and other wild animals proper for food, are of very superior qualities to the tame, from the total contrast of the circumstances attending them. They have a free range of exercise in the open air, and choose their own food, the good effects of which are very evident in a short, delicate texture of flesh, found only in them. Their juices and flavour are more pure, and their _fat_, when it is in any degree, as in venison, and some other instances, differs as much from that of our _fatted_ animals, as silver and gold from the grosser metals. The superiority of WELCH MUTTON and SCOTCH BEEF is owing to a similar cause."--_Ibid._, p. 150. If there is more FAT than you think will be eaten with the meat; cut it off; it will make an excellent PUDDING (No. 554); or clarify it, (No. 84) and use it for frying: for those who like their meat done thoroughly, and use a moderate fire for roasting, the fat need not be covered with paper. _If your beef is large_, and your family small, cut off the thin end and salt it, and cut out and dress the fillet (_i. e._ commonly called the inside) next day as MOCK HARE (No. 66*): thus you get _three good hot dinners_. See also No. 483, on made dishes. For SAUCE _for cold beef_, see No. 359, cucumber vinegar, No. 399, and horseradish vinegar, Nos. 399* and 458. [123-+] "This joint is often spoiled for the next day's use, by an injudicious mode of carving. If you object to the outside, take the brown off, and help the next: by the cutting it only on one side, you preserve the gravy in the meat, and the goodly appearance also; by cutting it, on the contrary, down the middle of this joint, all the gravy runs out, it becomes dry, and exhibits a most unseemly aspect when brought to table a second time."--From UDE'S _Cookery_, 8vo. 1818, p. 109. [124-*] DEAN SWIFT'S _receipt to roast mutton_. To GEMINIANI'S beautiful air--"_Gently touch the warbling lyre_." "Gently stir and blow the fire, Lay the mutton down to roast, Dress it quickly, I desire, In the dripping put a toast, That I hunger may remove;-- Mutton is the meat I love. "On the dresser see it lie; Oh! the charming white and red! Finer meat ne'er met the eye, On the sweetest grass it fed; Let the jack go swiftly round, Let me have it nicely brown'd. "On the table spread the cloth, Let the knives be sharp and clean, Pickles get and salad both, Let them each be fresh and green. With small beer, good ale, and wine, O, ye gods! how I shall dine!" [124-+] See the chapter of ADVICE TO COOKS. [125-*] _Common cooks very seldom brown the ends of necks and loins_; to have this done nicely, let the fire be a few inches longer at each end than the joint that is roasting, and occasionally place the spit slanting, so that each end may get sufficient fire; otherwise, after the meat is done, you must take it up, and put the ends before the fire. [127-*] To MINCE or HASH VEAL see No. 511, or 511*, and to make a RAGOUT of cold veal, No. 512. [131-*] _Priscilla Haslehurst_, in her _Housekeeper's Instructor_, 8vo. Sheffield, 1819, p. 19, gives us a receipt "to goosify a shoulder of lamb." "Un grand Cuisinier," informed me that "_to lambify_" the leg of a porkling is a favourite metamorphosis in the French kitchen, when house lamb is very dear. [133-*] MONS. GRIMOD designates this "_Animal modeste, ennemi du faste, et le roi des animaux immondes_." Maitland, in p. 758, of vol. ii. of his _History of London_, reckons that the number of _sucking-pigs_ consumed in the city of London in the year 1725, amounted to 52,000. [133-+] Some _delicately sensitive_ palates desire the cook to _parboil_ the sage and onions (before they are cut), to soften and take off the rawness of their flavour; the older and drier the onion, the stronger will be its flavour; and the learned EVELYN orders these to be _edulcorated_ by gentle maceration. [133-++] An ancient culinary sage says, "When you see a pig's eyes drop out, you may be satisfied he has had enough of the fire!" This is no criterion that the body of the pig is done enough, but arises merely from the briskness of the fire before the head of it. [137-*] If you think the flavour of raw onions too strong, cut them in slices, and lay them in cold water for a couple of hours, or add as much apple or potato as you have of onion. [137-+] Although the whole is rather too luscious for the lingual nerves of the good folks of Great Britain, the livers of poultry are considered a very high relish by our continental neighbours; and the following directions how to procure them in perfection, we copy from the recipe of "_un Vieil Amateur de Bonne Chère_." "The liver of a duck, or a goose, which has submitted to the rules and orders that men of taste have invented for the amusement of his sebaceous glands, is a superlative exquisite to the palate of a Parisian epicure; but, alas! the poor goose, to produce this darling dainty, must endure sad torments. He must be crammed with meat, deprived of drink, and kept constantly before a hot fire: a miserable martyrdom indeed! and would be truly intolerable if his reflections on the consequences of his sufferings did not afford him some consolation; but the glorious prospect of the delightful growth of his liver gives him courage and support; and when he thinks how speedily it will become almost as big as his body, how high it will rank on the list of double relishes, and with what ecstasies it will be eaten by the fanciers "_des Foies gras_," he submits to his destiny without a sigh. The famous _Strasburg pies_ are made with livers thus prepared, and sell for an enormous price." However incredible this _ordonnance_ for the obesitation of a goose's liver may appear at first sight, will it not seem equally so to after-ages, that in this enlightened country, in 1821, we encouraged a folly as much greater, as its operation was more universal? Will it be believed, that it was then considered the _acme_ of perfection in beef and mutton, that it should be so _over_-fattened, that a poor man, to obtain one pound of meat that he could eat, must purchase another which he could not, unless converted into a suet pudding: moreover, that the highest premiums were annually awarded to those who produced sheep and oxen in the most extreme stale of _morbid obesity_?!! ----"expensive plans For deluging of dripping-pans." [141-*] This, in culinary technicals, is called _casing_ it upon the same principle that "eating, drinking, and sleeping," are termed _non-naturals_. [141-+] Mrs. Charlotte Mason, in her "_Complete System of Cookery_," page 283, says, she has "tried all the different things recommended to baste a hare with, and never found any thing so good as _small beer_;" others order _milk_; drippings we believe is better than any thing. To roast a hare nicely, so as to preserve the meat on the back, &c. juicy and nutritive, requires as much attention as a sucking-pig. Instead of washing, a "_grand Cuisinier_" says, it is much better to wipe a hare with a thin, dry cloth, as so much washing, or indeed washing at all, takes away the flavour. [142-*] Liver sauce, Nos. 287 and 288. [142-+] "They are only fit to be eaten when the blood runs from the bill, which is commonly about 6 or 7 days after they have been killed, otherwise it will have no more savour than a common fowl."--_Ude's Cookery_, 8vo. 1819, page 216. "Gastronomers, who have any sort of aversion to a peculiar taste in game, properly kept, had better abstain from this bird, since it is worse than a common fowl, if not waited for till it acquires the _fumet_ it ought to have. Whole republics of maggots have often been found rioting under the wings of pheasants; but being _radically_ dispersed, and the birds properly washed with vinegar, every thing went right, and every guest, unconscious of the culinary ablutions, enjoyed the excellent flavour of the Phasian birds."--_Tabella Cibaria_, p. 55. [144-*] "This bird has so insinuated itself into the favour of _refined gourmands_, that they pay it the same honours as the grand Lama, making a ragoût of its excrements, and devouring them with ecstasy."--Vide _Almanach des Gourmands_, vol. i. p. 56. That exercise produces strength and firmness of fibre is excellently well exemplified in the _woodcock_ and the _partridge_. The former flies most--the latter walks; the wing of the woodcock is always very tough,--of the partridge very tender hence the old doggerel distich,-- "If the _partridge_ had but the _woodcock's_ thigh, He'd be the best bird that e'er doth fly." The _breast_ of all birds is the most juicy and nutritious part. FRYING. _To clarify Drippings._--(No. 83.) PUT your dripping into a clean sauce-pan over a stove or slow fire; when it is just going to boil, skim it well, let it boil, and then let it stand till it is a little cooled; then pour it through a sieve into a pan. _Obs._--Well-cleansed drippings,[147-*] and the fat skimmings[147-+] of the broth-pot, when fresh and sweet, will baste every thing as well as butter, except game and poultry, and should supply the place of butter for common fries, &c.; for which they are equal to lard, especially if you repeat the clarifying twice over. N.B. If you keep it in a cool place, you may preserve it a fortnight in summer, and longer in winter. When you have done frying, let the dripping stand a few minutes to settle, and then pour it through a sieve into a clean basin or stone pan, and it will do a second and a third time as well as it did the first; only the fat you have fried fish in must not be used for any other purpose. _To clarify Suet to fry with._--(No. 84.) Cut beef or mutton suet into thin slices, pick out all the veins and skins, &c., put it into a thick and well-tinned sauce-pan, and set it over a very slow stove, or in an oven, till it is melted; you must not hurry it; if not done very slowly it will acquire a burnt taste, which you cannot get rid of; then strain it through a hair-sieve into a clean brown pan: when quite cold, tie a paper over it, and keep it for use. Hog's lard is prepared in the same way. _Obs._--The waste occasioned by the present absurd fashion of over-feeding cattle till the fat is nearly equal to the lean, may, by good management, be in some measure prevented, by cutting off the superfluous part, and preparing it as above, or by making it into puddings; see Nos. 551 and 554, or soup, No. 229. _Steaks._--(No. 85.) Cut the steaks rather thinner than for broiling. Put some butter, or No. 83, into an iron frying-pan, and when it is hot, lay in the steaks, and keep turning them till they are done enough. For sauce, see No. 356, and for the accompaniments, No. 94. _Obs._ Unless the fire be prepared on purpose, we like this way of cooking them; the gravy is preserved, and the meat is more equally dressed, and more evenly browned; which makes it more relishing, and invites the eye to encourage the appetite. _Beef-steaks and Onions._--(No. 86. See also No. 501.) Fry the steaks according to the directions given in the preceding receipt; and have ready for them some onions prepared as directed in No. 299. For stewed rump-steaks, see Nos. 500 and 501. _Sausages_,--(No. 87.) Are best when quite fresh made. Put a bit of butter, or dripping (No. 83), into a clean frying-pan; as soon as it is melted (before it gets hot) put in the sausages, and shake the pan for a minute, and keep turning them (be careful not to break or prick them in so doing); fry them over a very slow fire till they are nicely browned on all sides; when they are done, lay them on a hair-sieve, placed before the fire for a couple of minutes to drain the fat from them. The secret of frying sausages is, to let them get hot very gradually; they then will not burst, if they are not stale. The common practice to prevent their bursting, is to prick them with a fork; but this lets the gravy out. You may froth them by rubbing them with cold fresh butter, and lightly dredge them with flour, and put them in a cheese-toaster or Dutch oven for a minute. Some over-economical cooks insist that no butter or lard, &c. is required, their own fat being sufficient to fry them: we have tried it; the sausages were partially scorched, and had that piebald appearance that all fried things have when sufficient fat is not allowed. _Obs._ Poached eggs (No. 548), pease-pudding (No. 555), and mashed potatoes (No. 106) are agreeable accompaniments to sausages; and sausages are as welcome with boiled or roasted poultry or veal, or boiled tripe (No. 18); so are ready-dressed German sausages (see _Mem._ to No. 13); and a convenient, easily digestible, and invigorating food for the aged, and those whose teeth are defective; as is also No. 503. For sauce No. 356; to make mustard, Nos. 369 and 370. N.B. Sausages, when finely chopped, are a delicate "_bonne bouche_;" and require very little assistance from the teeth to render them quite ready for the stomach. _Sweetbreads full-dressed._--(No. 88.) Parboil them, and let them get cold; then cut them in pieces, about three-quarters of an inch thick; dip them in the yelk of an egg, then in fine bread-crumbs (some add spice, lemon-peel, and sweet herbs); put some clean dripping (No. 83) into a frying-pan: when it boils, put in the sweetbreads, and fry them a fine brown. For garnish, crisp parsley; and for sauce, mushroom catchup and melted butter, or anchovy sauce, or Nos. 356, 343, or 343*, or bacon or ham, as Nos. 526 and 527. _Sweetbreads plain._--(No. 89.) Parboil and slice them as before, dry them on a clean cloth, flour them, and fry them a delicate brown; take care to drain the fat well from them, and garnish them with slices of lemon, and sprigs of chervil or parsley, or crisp parsley (No. 318). For sauce, No. 356, or No. 307, and slices of ham or bacon, as No. 526, or No. 527, or forcemeat balls made as Nos. 375 and 378. *.* Take care to have a fresh sweetbread; it spoils sooner than almost any thing, therefore should be parboiled as soon as it comes in. This is called blanching, or setting it; mutton kidneys (No. 95) are sometimes broiled and sent up with sweetbreads. _Veal Cutlets._--(No. 90 and No. 521.) Let your cutlets be about half an inch thick; trim them, and flatten them with a cleaver; you may fry them in fresh butter, or good drippings (No. 83); when brown on one side, turn them and do the other; if the fire is very fierce, they must change sides oftener. The time they will take depends on the thickness of the cutlet and the heat of the fire; half an inch thick will take about fifteen minutes. Make some gravy, by putting the trimmings into a stew-pan with a little soft water, an onion, a roll of lemon-peel, a blade of mace, a sprig of thyme and parsley, and a bay leaf; stew over a slow fire an hour, then strain it; put an ounce of butter into a stew-pan; as soon as it is melted, mix with it as much flour as will dry it up, stir it over the fire for a few minutes, then add the gravy by degrees till it is all mixed, boil it for five minutes, and strain it through a tamis sieve, and put it to the cutlets; you may add some browning (No. 322), mushroom (No. 439), or walnut catchup, or lemon pickle, &c.: see also sauces, Nos. 343 and 348. _Or_, Cut the veal into pieces about as big as a crown-piece, beat them with a cleaver, dip them in eggs beat up with a little salt, and then in fine bread-crumbs; fry them a light brown in boiling lard; serve under them some good gravy or mushroom sauce (No. 307), which may be made in five minutes. Garnish with slices of ham or rashers of bacon (Nos. 526 and 527), or pork sausages (No. 87). _Obs._ Veal forcemeat or stuffing (Nos. 374, 375, and 378), pork sausages (No. 87), rashers of bacon (Nos. 526 and 527), are very relishing accompaniments, fried and sent up in the form of balls or cakes, and laid round as a garnish. _Lamb, or Mutton Chops_,--(No. 92.) Are dressed in the same way, and garnished with crisp parsley (No. 318) and slices of lemon. If they are bread-crumbed and covered with buttered writing-paper, and then broiled, they are called "maintenon cutlets." _Pork Chops._--(No. 93.) Cut the chops about half an inch thick; trim them neatly (few cooks have any idea how much credit they get by this); put a frying-pan on the fire, with a bit of butter; as soon as it is hot, put in your chops, turning them often till brown all over, they will be done enough in about fifteen minutes; take one upon a plate and try it; if done, season it with a little finely-minced onion, powdered sage, and pepper and salt. For gravy and sauce, see Nos. 300, 304, 341, and 356. _Obs._ A little powdered sage, &c. strewed over them, will give them a nice relish, or the savoury powder in No. 51, or forcemeat sausages like No. 378. Do not have them cut too thick, about three chops to an inch and a quarter; trim them neatly, beat them flat, have ready some sweet herbs, or sage and onion chopped fine, put them in a stew-pan with a bit of butter about as big as a walnut, let them have one fry, beat two eggs on a plate with a little salt, add to them the herbs, mix it all well together, dip the chops in one at a time all over, and then with bread-crumbs fry them in hot lard or drippings till they are a light brown. _Obs._ Veal, lamb, or mutton chops, are very good dressed in like manner. To fry fish, see No. 145. N.B. To fry eggs and omelets, and other things, see No. 545, and the Index. FOOTNOTES: [147-*] MRS. MELROE, in her _Economical Cookery_, page 7, tells us, she has ascertained from actual experiments, that "the _drippings_ of roast meat, combined with wheat flour, oatmeal, barley, pease, or potato-starch, will make delicious soup, agreeable and savoury to the palate, and nutritive and serviceable to the stomach; and that while a joint is roasting, good soup may be made from the drippings of the FAT, which is the _essence of meat_, as seeds are of vegetables, and impregnates SOUP _with the identical taste of meat_." "Writers on cookery give strict directions to carefully _skim off the fat_, and in the next sentence order butter (a much more expensive article) to be added: instead of this, when any fat appears at the top of your soup or stew, _do not skim it_ off, but unite it with the broth by means of the vegetable mucilages, flour, oatmeal, ground barley, or potato-starch; when suspended the soup is equally agreeable to the palate nutritive to the stomach," &c. "Cooks bestow a great deal of pains to make gravies; they stew and boil lean meat for hours, and, after all, their cookery tastes more of pepper and salt than any thing else. If they would add the bulk of a chesnut of solid fat to a common-sized sauce-boatful of gravy, it will give it more sapidity than twenty hours' stewing lean meat would, unless a larger quantity was used than is warranted by the rules of frugality." See Nos. 205 and 229. "The experiments of _Dr. Stark_ on the nourishing powers of different substances, go very far to prove that three ounces of the fat of boiled beef are equal to a pound of the lean. _Dr. Pages_, the traveller, confirms this opinion: 'Being obliged,' says he, 'during the journey from North to South America by land, to live solely on animal food, I experienced the truth of what is observed by hunters, who live solely on animal food, viz. that besides their receiving little nourishment from the leaner parts of it, it soon becomes offensive to the taste; whereas the fat is both more nutritive, and continues to be agreeable to the palate. To many stomachs fat is unpleasant and indigestible, especially when converted into oil by heat; this may be easily prevented, by the simple process of combining the fat completely with water, by the intervention of vegetable mucilage, as in melting butter, by means of flour, the butter and water are united into a homogeneous fluid.'"--From _Practical Economy, by a Physician_. Callow, 1801. [147-+] See note at the foot of No. 201. BROILING. _Chops or Steaks._[151-*]--(No. 94.) To stew them, see No. 500, ditto with onions, No. 501. Those who are nice about steaks, never attempt to have them, except in weather which permits the meat to be hung till it is tender, and give the butcher some days' notice of their wish for them. If, friendly reader, you wish to entertain your mouth with a superlative beef-steak, you must have the inside of the sirloin cut into steaks. The next best steaks are those cut from the middle of a rump, that has been killed at least four days in moderate weather, and much longer in cold weather, when they can be cut about six inches long, four inches wide, and half an inch thick: do not beat them, which vulgar trick breaks the cells in which the gravy of the meat is contained, and it becomes dry and tasteless. N.B. If your butcher sends steaks which are not tender, we do not insist that you should object to let him be beaten. Desire the butcher to cut them of even thickness; if he does not, divide the thicker from the thinner pieces, and give them time accordingly. Take care to have a very clear, brisk fire; throw a little salt on it; make the gridiron hot, and set it slanting, to prevent the fat from dropping into the fire, and making a smoke. It requires more practice and care than is generally supposed to do steaks to a nicety; and for want of these little attentions, this very common dish, which every body is supposed capable of dressing, seldom comes to table in perfection. Ask those you cook for, if they like it under, or thoroughly done; and what accompaniments they like best; it is usual to put a table-spoonful of catchup (No. 439), or a little minced eschalot, or No. 402, into a dish before the fire; while you are broiling, turn the steak, &c. with a pair of steak-tongs, it will be done in about ten or fifteen minutes; rub a bit of butter over it, and send it up garnished with pickles and finely-scraped horse-radish. Nos. 135, 278, 299, 255, 402, 423, 439, and 356, are the sauces usually composed for chops and steaks. N.B. Macbeth's receipt for beef-steaks is the best-- ----"_when 't is done, 't were well If 't were done quickly._" _Obs._ "_Le véritable_ BIFTECK, _comme il se fait en Angleterre_," as Mons. Beauvilliers calls (in his _l'Art du Cuisinier_, tom. i. 8vo. Paris, 1814, p. 122) what he says we call "_romesteck_," is as highly esteemed by our French neighbours, as their "_ragoûts_" are by our countrymen, who ----"post to Paris go, Merely to taste their soups, and mushrooms know." KING'S _Art of Cookery_, p. 79. These lines were written before the establishment of Albion house, Aldersgate Street, where every luxury that nature and art produce is served of the primest quality, and in the most scientific manner, in a style of princely magnificence and perfect comfort: the wines, liqueurs, &c. are superlative, and every department of the business of the banquet is conducted in the most liberal manner. The French author whom we have before so often quoted, assures _les amateurs de bonne chère_ on the other side of the water, it is well worth their while to cross the channel to taste this favourite English dish, which, when "_mortifiée à son point_" and well dressed, he says, is superior to most of the subtle double relishes of the Parisian kitchen. _Almanach des Gourmands_, vol. i. p. 27. Beef is justly accounted the most nutritious animal food, and is entitled to the same rank among solid, that brandy is among liquid stimuli. The celebrated TRAINER, Sir Thomas Parkyns, of Bunny Park, Bart., in his book on _Wrestling_, 4to. 3d edit. 1727, p. 10, &c., greatly prefers beef-eaters to sheep-biters, as he called those who ate mutton. When Humphries the pugilist was trained by Ripsham, the keeper of Ipswich jail, he was at first fed on beef, but got so much flesh, it was changed for mutton, roasted or broiled: when broiled, great part of the nutritive juices of the meat is extracted. The principles upon which training[153-*] is conducted, resolve themselves into temperance without abstemiousness, and exercise without fatigue. _Kidneys._--(No. 95.) Cut them through the long way, score them, sprinkle a little pepper and salt on them, and run a wire skewer through them to keep them from curling on the gridiron, so that they may be evenly broiled. Broil them over a very clear fire, turning them often till they are done; they will take about ten or twelve minutes, if the fire is brisk: or fry them in butter, and make gravy for them in the pan (after you have taken out the kidneys), by putting in a tea-spoonful of flour; as soon as it looks brown, put in as much water as will make gravy; they will take five minutes more to fry than to broil. For sauce, Nos. 318, 355, and 356. _Obs._ Some cooks chop a few parsley-leaves very fine, and mix them with a bit of fresh butter and a little pepper and salt, and put a little of this mixture on each kidney. _A Fowl or Rabbit, &c._--(No. 97.) We can only recommend this method of dressing when the fire is not good enough for roasting. Pick and truss it the same as for boiling, cut it open down the back, wipe the inside clean with a cloth, season it with a little pepper and salt, have a clear fire, and set the gridiron at a good distance over it, lay the chicken on with the inside towards the fire (you may egg it and strew some grated bread over it), and broil it till it is a fine brown: take care the fleshy side is not burned. Lay it on a hot dish; pickled mushrooms, or mushroom sauce (No. 305), thrown over it, or parsley and butter (No. 261), or melted butter flavoured with mushroom catchup (No. 307). Garnish it with slices of lemon; and the liver and gizzard slit and notched, seasoned with pepper and salt, and broiled nicely brown, with some slices of lemon. For grill sauce, see No. 355. N.B. "It was a great mode, and taken up by the court party in Oliver Cromwell's time, to roast half capons, pretending they had a more exquisite taste and nutriment than when dressed whole." See JOAN CROMWELL'S _Kitchen_, London, 1664, page 39. _Pigeons_,--(No. 98.) To be worth the trouble of picking, must be well grown, and well fed. Clean them well, and pepper and salt them; broil them over a clear, slow fire; turn them often, and put a little butter on them: when they are done, pour over them, either stewed (No. 305) or pickled mushrooms, or catchup and melted butter (No. 307, or No. 348 or 355). Garnish with fried bread-crumbs or sippets (No. 319): or, when the pigeons are trussed as for boiling, flat them with a cleaver, taking care not to break the skin of the backs or breasts. Season them with pepper and salt, a little bit of butter, and a tea-spoonful of water, and tie them close at both ends; so that when they are brought to table, they bring their sauce with them. Egg and dredge them well with grated bread (mixed with spice and sweet herbs, if you please); then lay them on the gridiron, and turn them frequently: if your fire is not very clear, lay them on a sheet of paper well buttered, to keep them from getting smoked. They are much better broiled whole. The same sauce as in the preceding receipt, or No. 343 or 348. VEAL CUTLETS (No. 521 and No. 90). PORK CHOPS (No. 93). FOOTNOTES: [151-*] The season for these is from the 29th of _September_ to the 25th of _March_; to ensure their being tender when out of season, STEW THEM as in receipt No. 500. TO WARM UP COLD RUMP-STEAKS. Lay them in a stew-pan, with one large onion cut in quarters, six berries of allspice, the same of black pepper, cover the steaks with boiling water, let them stew gently one hour, thicken the liquor with flour and butter rubbed together on a plate; if a pint of gravy, about one ounce of flour, and the like weight of butter, will do; put it into the stew-pan, shake it well over the fire for five minutes, and it is ready; lay the steaks and onions on a dish and pour the gravy through a sieve over them. [153-*] See "THE ART OF INVIGORATING AND PROLONGING LIFE," by the editor of "THE COOK'S ORACLE." Published by G. B. Whittaker, No. 13, Ave-Maria Lane. VEGETABLES. _Sixteen Ways of dressing Potatoes._[155-*]--(No. 102.) The vegetable kingdom affords no food more wholesome, more easily procured, easily prepared, or less expensive, than the potato: yet, although this most useful vegetable is dressed almost every day, in almost every family, for one plate of potatoes that comes to table as it should, ten are spoiled. Be careful in your choice of potatoes: no vegetable varies so much in colour, size, shape, consistence, and flavour. The reddish-coloured are better than the white, but the yellowish-looking ones are the best. Choose those of a moderate size, free from blemishes, and fresh, and buy them in the mould. They must not be wetted till they are cleaned to be cooked. Protect them from the air and frost, by laying them in heaps in a cellar, covering them with mats, or burying them in sand or in earth. The action of frost is most destructive: if it be considerable, the life of the vegetable is destroyed, and the potato speedily rots. Wash them, but do not pare or cut them, unless they are very large. Fill a sauce-pan half full of potatoes of equal size[155-+] (or make them so by dividing the larger ones), put to them as much cold water as will cover them about an inch: they are sooner boiled, and more savoury, than when drowned in water. Most boiled things are spoiled by having too little water, but potatoes are often spoiled by too much: they must merely be covered, and a little allowed for waste in boiling, so that they may be just covered at the finish. Set them on a moderate fire till they boil; then take them off, and put them by the side of the fire to simmer slowly till they are soft enough to admit a fork (place no dependence on the usual test of their skins' cracking, which, if they are boiled fast, will happen to some potatoes when they are not half done, and the insides quite hard). Then pour the water off (if you let the potatoes remain in the water a moment after they are done enough, they will become waxy and watery), uncover the sauce-pan, and set it at such a distance from the fire as will secure it from burning; their superfluous moisture will evaporate, and the potatoes will be perfectly dry and mealy. You may afterward place a napkin, folded up to the size of the sauce-pan's diameter, over the potatoes, to keep them hot and mealy till wanted. _Obs._--This method of managing potatoes is in every respect equal to steaming them; and they are dressed in half the time. There is such an infinite variety of sorts and sizes of potatoes, that it is impossible to say how long they will take doing: the best way is to try them with a fork. Moderate-sized potatoes will generally be done enough in fifteen or twenty minutes. See _Obs._ to No. 106. _Cold Potatoes fried._--(No. 102*.) Put a bit of clean dripping into a frying-pan: when it is melted, slice in your potatoes with a little pepper and salt; put them on the fire; keep stirring them: when they are quite hot, they are ready. _Obs._--This is a very good way of re-dressing potatoes, or see No. 106. _Potatoes boiled and broiled._--(No. 103.) Dress your potatoes as before directed, and put them on a gridiron over a very clear and brisk fire: turn them till they are brown all over, and send them up dry, with melted butter in a cup. _Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings._--(No. 104.) Peel large potatoes; slice them about a quarter of an inch thick, or cut them in shavings round and round, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping. Take care that your fat and frying-pan are quite clean; put it on a quick fire, watch it, and as soon as the lard boils, and is still, put in the slices of potato, and keep moving them till they are crisp. Take them up, and lay them to drain on a sieve: send them up with a very little salt sprinkled over them. _Potatoes fried whole._--(No. 105.) When nearly boiled enough, as directed in No. 102, put them into a stew-pan with a bit of butter, or some nice clean beef-drippings; shake them about often (for fear of burning them), till they are brown and crisp; drain them from the fat. _Obs._--It will be an elegant improvement to the last three receipts, previous to frying or broiling the potatoes, to flour them and dip them in the yelk of an egg, and then roll them in fine-sifted bread-crumbs; they will then deserve to be called POTATOES FULL DRESSED. _Potatoes mashed._--(No. 106. See also No. 112.) When your potatoes are thoroughly boiled, drain them quite dry, pick out every speck, &c., and while hot, rub them through a colander into a clean stew-pan. To a pound of potatoes put about half an ounce of butter, and a table-spoonful of milk: do not make them too moist; mix them well together. _Obs._--After Lady-day, when the potatoes are getting old and specky, and in frosty weather, this is the best way of dressing them. You may put them into shapes or small tea-cups; egg them with yelk of egg, and brown them very slightly before a slow fire. See No. 108. _Potatoes mashed with Onions._--(No. 107.) Prepare some boiled onions by putting them through a sieve, and mix them with potatoes. In proportioning the onions to the potatoes, you will be guided by your wish to have more or less of their flavour. _Obs._--See note under No. 555. _Potatoes escalloped._--(No. 108.) Mash potatoes as directed in No. 106; then butter some nice clean scollop-shells, patty-pans, or tea-cups or saucers; put in your potatoes; make them smooth at the top; cross a knife over them; strew a few fine bread-crumbs on them; sprinkle them with a paste-brush with a few drops of melted butter, and then set them in a Dutch oven; when they are browned on the top, take them carefully out of the shells and brown the other side. _Colcannon._--(No. 108*.) Boil potatoes and greens, or spinage, separately; mash the potatoes; squeeze the greens dry; chop them quite fine, and mix them with the potatoes, with a little butter, pepper, and salt; put it into a mould, buttering it well first; let it stand in a hot oven for ten minutes. _Potatoes roasted._--(No. 109.) Wash and dry your potatoes (all of a size), and put them in a tin Dutch oven, or cheese-toaster: take care not to put them too near the fire, or they will get burned on the outside before they are warmed through. Large potatoes will require two hours to roast them. N.B. To save time and trouble, some cooks half boil them first. This is one of the best opportunities the BAKER has to rival the cook. _Potatoes roasted under Meat._--(No. 110.) Half boil large potatoes, drain the water from them, and put them into an earthen dish, or small tin pan, under meat that is roasting, and baste them with some of the dripping: when they are browned on one side, turn them and brown the other; send them up round the meat, or in a small dish. _Potato Balls._--(No. 111.) Mix mashed potatoes with the yelk of an egg; roll them into balls; flour them, or egg and bread-crumb them; and fry them in clean drippings, or brown them in a Dutch oven. _Potato Balls Ragoût_,--(No. 112.) Are made by adding to a pound of potatoes a quarter of a pound of grated ham, or some sweet herbs, or chopped parsley, an onion or eschalot, salt, pepper, and a little grated nutmeg, or other spice, with the yelk of a couple of eggs: they are then to be dressed as No. 111. _Obs._--An agreeable vegetable relish, and a good supper-dish. _Potato Snow._--(No. 114.) The potatoes must be free from spots, and the whitest you can pick out; put them on in cold water; when they begin to crack strain the water from them, and put them into a clean stew-pan by the side of the fire till they are quite dry, and fall to pieces; rub them through a wire sieve on the dish they are to be sent up in, and do not disturb them afterward. _Potato Pie._--(No. 115.) Peel and slice your potatoes very thin into a pie-dish; between each layer of potatoes put a little chopped onion (three-quarters of an ounce of onion is sufficient for a pound of potatoes); between each layer sprinkle a little pepper and salt; put in a little water, and cut about two ounces of fresh butter into little bits, and lay them on the top: cover it close with puff paste. It will take about an hour and a half to bake it. N.B. The yelks of four eggs (boiled hard) may be added; and when baked, a table-spoonful of good mushroom catchup poured in through a funnel. _Obs._--Cauliflowers divided into mouthfuls, and button onions, seasoned with curry powder, &c. make a favourite vegetable pie. _New Potatoes._--(No. 116.) The best way to clean new potatoes is to rub them with a coarse cloth or flannel, a or scrubbing-brush, and proceed as in No. 102. N.B. New potatoes are poor, watery, and insipid, till they are full two inches in diameter: they are not worth the trouble of boiling before midsummer day. _Obs._--Some cooks prepare sauces to pour over potatoes, made with butter, salt, and pepper, or gravy, or melted butter and catchup; or stew the potatoes in ale, or water seasoned with pepper and salt; or bake them with herrings or sprats, mixed with layers of potatoes, seasoned with pepper, salt, sweet herbs, vinegar, and water; or cut mutton or beef into slices, and lay them in a stew-pan, and on them potatoes and spices, then another layer of the meat alternately, pouring in a little water, covering it up very close, and slewing slowly. Potato mucilage (a good substitute for arrow-root), No. 448.[159-*] _Jerusalem Artichokes_,--(No. 117.) Are boiled and dressed in the various ways we have just before directed for potatoes. N.B. They should be covered with thick melted butter, or a nice white or brown sauce. _Cabbage._--(No. 118.) Pick cabbages very clean, and wash them thoroughly; then look them over carefully again; quarter them if they are very large. Put them into a sauce-pan with plenty of boiling water; if any scum rises, take it off; put a large spoonful of salt into the sauce-pan, and boil them till the stalks feel tender. A young cabbage will take about twenty minutes or half an hour; when full grown, near an hour: see that they are well covered with water all the time, and that no smoke or dirt arises from stirring the fire. With careful management, they will look as beautiful when dressed as they did when growing. _Obs._--Some cooks say, that it will much ameliorate the flavour of strong old cabbages to boil them in two waters; _i. e._ when they are half done, to take them out, and put them directly into another sauce-pan of boiling water, instead of continuing them in the water into which they were first put. _Boiled Cabbage fried._--(No. 119.) See receipt for Bubble and Squeak. _Savoys_,--(No. 120.) Are boiled in the same manner; quarter them when you send them to table. _Sprouts and young Greens._--(No. 121.) The receipt we have written for cabbages will answer as well for sprouts, only they will be boiled enough in fifteen or twenty minutes. _Spinage._--(No. 122.) Spinage should be picked a leaf at a time, and washed in three or four waters; when perfectly clean, lay it on a sieve or colander, to drain the water from it. Put a sauce-pan on the fire three parts filled with water, and large enough for the spinage to float in it; put a small handful of salt in it; let it boil; skim it, and then put in the spinage; make it boil as quick as possible till quite tender, pressing the spinage down frequently that it may be done equally; it will be done enough in about ten minutes, if boiled in plenty of water: if the spinage is a little old, give it a few minutes longer. When done, strain it on the back of a sieve; squeeze it dry with a plate, or between two trenchers; chop it fine, and put it into a stew-pan with a bit of butter and a little salt: a little cream is a great improvement, or instead of either some rich gravy. Spread it in a dish, and score it into squares of proper size to help at table. _Obs._--Grated nutmeg, or mace, and a little lemon-juice, is a favourite addition with some cooks, and is added when you stir it up in the stew-pan with the butter garnished. Spinage is frequently served with poached eggs and fried bread. _Asparagus._--(No. 123.) Set a stew-pan with plenty of water in it on the fire; sprinkle a handful of salt in it; let it boil, and skim it; then put in your asparagus, prepared thus: scrape all the stalks till they are perfectly clean; throw them into a pan of cold water as you scrape them; when they are all done, tie them up in little bundles, of about a quarter of a hundred each, with bass, if you can get it, or tape (string cuts them to pieces); cut off the stalks at the bottom that they may be all of a length, leaving only just enough to serve as a handle for the green part; when they are tender at the stalk, which will be in from twenty to thirty minutes, they are done enough. Great care must be taken to watch the exact time of their becoming tender; take them up just at that instant, and they will have their true flavour and colour: a minute or two more boiling destroys both. While the asparagus is boiling, toast a round of a quartern loaf, about half an inch thick; brown it delicately on both sides; dip it lightly in the liquor the asparagus was boiled in, and lay it in the middle of a dish: melt some butter (No. 256); then lay in the asparagus upon the toast, which must project beyond the asparagus, that the company may see there is a toast. Pour no butter over them, but send some up in a boat, or white sauce (No. 2 of No. 364). _Sea Kale_,--(No. 124.) Is tied up in bundles, and dressed in the same way as asparagus. _Cauliflower._--(No. 125.) Choose those that are close and white, and of the middle size; trim off the outside leaves; cut the stalk off flat at the bottom; let them lie in salt and water an hour before you boil them. Put them into boiling water with a handful of salt in it; skim it well, and let it boil slowly till done, which a small one will be in fifteen, a large one in about twenty minutes; take it up the moment it is enough, a minute or two longer boiling will spoil it. N.B. Cold cauliflowers and French beans, carrots and turnips, boiled so as to eat rather crisp, are sometimes dressed as a salad (No. 372 or 453). _Broccoli._--(No. 126.) Set a pan of clean cold water on the table, and a saucepan on the fire with plenty of water, and a handful of salt in it. Broccoli is prepared by stripping off all the side shoots, leaving the top; peel off the skin of the stalk with a knife; cut it close off at the bottom, and put it into the pan of cold water. When the water in the stew-pan boils, and the broccoli is ready, put it in; let it boil briskly till the stalks feel tender, from ten to twenty minutes; take it up with a slice, that you may not break it; let it drain, and serve up. If some of the heads of broccoli are much bigger than the others, put them on to boil first, so that they may get all done together. _Obs._--It makes a nice supper-dish served upon a toast, like asparagus. It is a very delicate vegetable, and you must take it up the moment it is done, and send it to table hot. _Red Beet-roots_,--(No. 127.) Are not so much used as they deserve; they are dressed in the same way as parsnips, only neither scraped nor cut till after they are boiled; they will take from an hour and a half to three hours in boiling, according to their size: to be sent to table with salt fish, boiled beef, &c. When young, large, and juicy, it is a very good variety, an excellent garnish, and easily converted into a very cheap and pleasant pickle. _Parsnips_,--(No. 128.) Are to be cooked just in the same manner as carrots. They require more or less time according to their size; therefore match them in size: and you must try them by thrusting a fork into them as they are in the water; when that goes easily through, they are done enough. Boil them from an hour to two hours, according to their size and freshness. _Obs._ Parsnips are sometimes sent up mashed in the same way as turnips, and some cooks quarter them before they boil them.[163-*] _Carrots._--(No. 129.) Let them be well washed and brushed, not scraped. An hour is enough for young spring carrots; grown carrots must be cut in half, and will take from an hour and a half to two hours and a half. When done, rub off the peels with a clean coarse cloth, and slice them in two or four, according to their size. The best way to try if they are done enough, is to pierce them with a fork. _Obs._ Many people are fond of cold carrot with cold beef; ask if you shall cook enough for some to be left to send up with the cold meat. _Turnips._--(No. 130.) Peel off half an inch of the stringy outside. Full-grown turnips will take about an hour and a half gentle boiling; if you slice them, which most people do, they will be done sooner; try them with a fork; when tender, take them up, and lay them on a sieve till the water is thoroughly drained from them. Send them up whole; do not slice them. N.B. To very young turnips leave about two inches of the green top. See No. 132. _To mash Turnips._--(No. 131.) When they are boiled quite tender, squeeze them as dry as possible between two trenchers; put them into a saucepan; mash them with a wooden spoon, and rub them through a colander; add a little bit of butter; keep stirring them till the butter is melted and well mixed with them, and they are ready for table. _Turnip-tops_,--(No. 132.) Are the shoots which grow out (in the spring) of the old turnip-roots. Put them into cold water an hour before they are to be dressed; the more water they are boiled in, the better they will look; if boiled in a small quantity of water they will taste bitter: when the water boils, put in a small handful of salt, and then your vegetables; if fresh and young, they will be done in about twenty minutes; drain them on the back of a sieve. _French Beans._--(No. 133.) Cut off the stalk end first, and then turn to the point and strip off the strings. If not quite fresh, have a bowl of spring-water, with a little salt dissolved in it, standing before you, and as the beans are cleaned and stringed, throw them in. When all are done, put them on the fire in boiling water, with some salt in it; after they have boiled fifteen or twenty minutes, take one out and taste it; as soon as they are tender take them up; throw them into a colander or sieve to drain. To send up the beans whole is much the best method when they are thus young, and their delicate flavour and colour are much better preserved. When a little more grown, they must be cut across in two after stringing; and for common tables they are split, and divided across; cut them all the same length; but those who are nice never have them at such a growth as to require splitting. When they are very large they look pretty cut into lozenges. _Obs._ See N.B. to No. 125. _Green Pease._[164-*]--(No. 134.) Young green pease, well dressed, are among the most delicious delicacies of the vegetable kingdom. They must be young; it is equally indispensable that they be fresh gathered, and cooked as soon as they are shelled for they soon lose both their colour and sweetness. If you wish to feast upon pease in perfection, you must have them gathered the same day they are dressed, and put on to boil within half an hour after they are shelled. Pass them through a riddle, _i. e._ a coarse sieve, which is made for the purpose of separating them. This precaution is necessary, for large and small pease cannot be boiled together, as the former will take more time than the latter. For a peck of pease, set on a sauce-pan with a gallon of water in it; when it boils, put in your pease, with a table-spoonful of salt; skim it well, keep them boiling quick from twenty to thirty minutes, according to their age and size. The best way to judge of their being done enough, and indeed the only way to make sure of cooking them to, and not beyond, the point of perfection, or, as pea-eaters say, of "boiling them to a bubble," is to take them out with a spoon and taste them. When they are done enough, drain them on a hair-sieve. If you like them buttered, put them into a pie-dish, divide some butter into small bits, and lay them on the pease; put another dish over them, and turn them over and over; this will melt the butter through them; but as all people do not like buttered pease, you had better send them to table plain, as they come out of the sauce-pan, with melted butter (No. 256) in a sauce-tureen. It is usual to boil some mint with the pease; but if you wish to garnish the pease with mint, boil a few sprigs in a sauce-pan by themselves. See Sage and Onion Sauce (No. 300), and Pea Powder (No. 458); to boil Bacon (No. 13), Slices of Ham and Bacon (No. 526), and Relishing Rashers of Bacon (No. 527). N.B. A peck of young pease will not yield more than enough for a couple of hearty pea-eaters; when the pods are full, it may serve for three. MEM. Never think of purchasing pease ready-shelled, for the cogent reasons assigned in the first part of this receipt. _Cucumbers stewed._--(No. 135.) Peel and cut cucumbers in quarters, take out the seeds, and lay them on a cloth to drain off the water: when they are dry, flour and fry them in fresh butter; let the butter be quite hot before you put in the cucumbers; fry them till they are brown, then take them out with an egg-slice, and lay them on a sieve to drain the fat from them (some cooks fry sliced onions, or some small button onions, with them, till they are a delicate light-brown colour, drain them from the fat, and then put them into a stew-pan with as much gravy as will cover them): stew slowly till they are tender; take out the cucumbers with a slice, thicken the gravy with flour and butter, give it a boil up, season it with pepper and salt, and put in the cucumbers; as soon as they are warm, they are ready. The above, rubbed through a tamis, or fine sieve, will be entitled to be called "cucumber sauce." See No. 399, Cucumber Vinegar. This is a very favourite sauce with lamb or mutton-cutlets, stewed rump-steaks, &c. &c.: when made for the latter, a third part of sliced onion is sometimes fried with the cucumber.[166-*] _Artichokes._--(No. 136.) Soak them in cold water, wash them well, then put them into plenty of boiling water, with a handful of salt, and let them boil gently till they are tender, which will take an hour and a half, or two hours: the surest way to know when they are done enough, is to draw out a leaf; trim them and drain them on a sieve; and send up melted butter with them, which some put into small cups, so that each guest may have one. _Stewed Onions._--(No. 137.) The large Portugal onions are the best: take off the top-coats of half a dozen of these (taking care not to cut off the tops or tails too near, or the onions will go to pieces), and put them into a stew-pan broad enough to hold them without laying them atop of one another, and just cover them with good broth. Put them over a slow fire, and let them simmer about two hours; when you dish them, turn them upside down, and pour the sauce over. Young onions stewed, see No. 296. _Salads._--(No. 138*, _also_ No. 372). Those who desire to see this subject elaborately illustrated, we refer to "EVELYN'S _Acetaria_," a discourse of Sallets, a 12mo. of 240 pages. London, 1699. Mr. E. gives us "an account of seventy-two herbs proper and fit to make sallet with;" and a table of thirty-five, telling their seasons and proportions. "In the composure of a sallet, every plant should come in to bear its part, like the notes in music: thus the comical Master Cook introduced by Damoxenus, when asked, 'what harmony there was in meats?' 'the very same,' says he, 'as the 3d, 5th, and 8th have to one another in music: the main skill lies in this, not to mingle' ('_sapores minimè consentientes_'). 'Tastes not well joined, inelegant,' as our Paradisian bard directs Eve, when dressing a sallet for her angelical guest, in MILTON'S _Paradise Lost_." He gives the following receipt for the oxoleon:-- "Take of clear and perfectly good oyl-olive three parts; of sharpest vinegar (sweetest of all condiments, for it incites appetite, and causes hunger, which is the best sauce), limon, or juice of orange, one part; and therein let steep some slices of horseradish, with a little salt. Some, in a separate vinegar, gently bruise a pod of Ginny pepper, and strain it to the other; then add as much mustard as will lie upon a half-crown piece. Beat and mingle these well together with the yelk of two new-laid eggs boiled hard, and pour it over your sallet, stirring it well together. The super-curious insist that the knife with which sallet herb is cut must be of silver. Some who are husbands of their oyl, pour at first the oyl alone, as more apt to communicate and diffuse its slipperiness, than when it is mingled and beaten with the acids, which they pour on last of all; and it is incredible how small a quantity of oyl thus applied is sufficient to imbue a very plentiful assembly of sallet herbs." _Obs._ Our own directions to prepare and dress salads will be found under No. 372. FOOTNOTES: [155-*] "Next to bread, there is no vegetable article, the preparation of which, as food, deserves to be more attended to, than the potato."--Sir JOHN SINCLAIR'S _Code of Health_, vol. i. p. 354. "By the _analysis of potato_, it appears that 16 ounces contained 11-1/2 ounces of water, and the 4-1/2 ounces of solid parts remaining, afforded scarce a drachm of earth."--PARMENTIER'S _Obs. on Nutritive Vegetables_, 8vo. 1783, p. 112. [155-+] Or the small ones will be done to pieces before the large ones are boiled enough. [159-*] Sweet potatoes, otherwise called Carolina potatoes, are the roots of the _Convolvulus batatas_, a plant peculiar to and principally cultivated in America. It delights in a warm climate, but is raised in Connecticut, New-York, and all the states of the Union south of New-York. It is an excellent vegetable for the dinner-table, and is brought on boiled. It has an advantage over common potatoes, as it may be eaten cold; and it is sometimes cut into thin slices and brought to the tea-table, as a delicate relish, owing to its agreeable nutritious sweetness. A. [163-*] After parsnips are boiled, they should be put into the frying-pan and browned a little. Some people do not admire this vegetable, on account of its sickish sweetness. It is, however, a wholesome, cheap, and nourishing vegetable, best calculated for the table in winter and spring. Its sweetness may be modified by mashing with a few potatoes. A. [164-*] These, and all other fruits and vegetables, &c., by Mr. APPERT'S plan, it is said, may be preserved for twelve months. See APPERT'S _Book_, 12mo. 1812. We have eaten of several specimens of preserved pease, which looked pretty enough,--but _flavour_ they had none at all. [166-*] Cucumbers may be cut into quarters and boiled like asparagus, and served up with toasted bread and melted butter. This is a most delicate way of preparing cucumbers for the dinner-table, and they are a most luscious article, and so rich and savoury that a small quantity will suffice. The ordinary method of cutting cucumbers into slices with raw onions, served up in vinegar, and seasoned with salt and pepper, is most vulgar and most unwholesome. In their season they are cheap and plenty; and as they are crude and unripe they require the stomach of an ostrich to digest them. They cause much sickness in their season, creating choleras, cramps, and dysenteries. If stewed or boiled as above directed, they would be more nutritious and wholesome. A. _FISH._ See _Obs._ on Codfish after No. 149. _Turbot to boil._--(No. 140). This excellent fish is in season the greatest part of the summer; when good, it is at once firm and tender, and abounds with rich gelatinous nutriment. Being drawn, and washed clean, if it be quite fresh, by rubbing it lightly with salt, and keeping it in a cold place, you may in moderate weather preserve it for a couple of days.[168-*] An hour or two before you dress it, soak it in spring-water with some salt in it, then score the skin across the thickest part of the back, to prevent its breaking on the breast, which will happen from the fish swelling, and cracking the skin, if this precaution be not used. Put a large handful of salt into a fish-kettle with cold water, lay your fish on a fish-strainer, put it in, and when it is coming to a boil, skim it well; then set the kettle on the side of the fire, to boil as gently as possible for about fifteen or twenty minutes (if it boils fast, the fish will break to pieces); supposing it a middling-sized turbot, and to weigh eight or nine pounds. Rub a little of the inside red coral spawn of the lobster through a hair sieve, without butter; and when the turbot is dished, sprinkle the spawn over it. Garnish the dish with sprigs of curled parsley, sliced lemon, and finely-scraped horseradish. If you like to send it to table in full dress, surround it with nicely-fried smelts (No. 173), gudgeons are often used for this purpose, and may be bought very cheap when smelts are very dear; lay the largest opposite the broadest part of the turbot, so that they may form a well-proportioned fringe for it; or oysters (No. 183*); or cut a sole in strips, crossways, about the size of a smelt; fry them as directed in No. 145, and lay them round. Send up lobster sauce (No. 284); two boats of it, if it is for a large party. N.B. Cold turbot, with No. 372 for sauce; or take off the fillets that are left as soon as the turbot returns from table, and they will make a side dish for your next dinner, warmed in No. 364--2. _Obs._ The thickest part is the favourite; and the carver of this fish must remember to ask his friends if they are fin-fanciers. It will save a troublesome job to the carver, if the cook, when the fish is boiled, cuts the spine-bone across the middle. _A Brill_,--(No. 143.) Is dressed the same way as a turbot. _Soles to boil._--(No. 144.) A fine, fresh, thick sole is almost as good eating as a turbot. Wash and clean it nicely; put it into a fish-kettle with a handful of salt, and as much cold water as will cover it; set it on the side of the fire, take off the scum as it rises, and let it boil gently; about five minutes (according to its size) will be long enough, unless it be very large. Send it up on a fish-drainer, garnished with slices of lemon and sprigs of curled parsley, or nicely-fried smelts (No. 173), or oysters (No. 183). _Obs._ Slices of lemon are a universally acceptable garnish with either fried or broiled fish: a few sprigs of crisp parsley may be added, if you wish to make it look very smart; and parsley, or fennel and butter, are excellent sauces (see Nos. 261 and 265), or chervil sauce (No. 264), anchovy (No. 270). N.B. Boiled soles are very good warmed up like eels, Wiggy's way (No. 164), or covered with white sauce (No. 364--2; and see No. 158). _Soles, or other Fish, to fry._--(No. 145.) Soles are generally to be procured good from some part of the coast, as some are going out of season, and some coming in, both at the same time; a great many are brought in well-boats alive, that are caught off Dover and Folkstone, and some are brought from the same places by land-carriage. The finest soles are caught off Plymouth, near the Eddystone, and all the way up the channel, and to Torbay; and frequently weigh eight or ten pounds per pair: they are generally brought by water to Portsmouth, and thence by land; but the greatest quantity are caught off Yarmouth and the Knole, and off the Forelands. Be sure they are quite fresh, or the cleverest cook cannot make them either look or eat well. An hour before you intend to dress them, wash them thoroughly, and wrap them in a clean cloth, to make them perfectly dry, or the bread-crumbs will not stick to them. Prepare some bread-crumbs,[170-*] by rubbing some stale bread through a colander; or, if you wish the fish to appear very delicate and highly-finished, through a hair-sieve; or use biscuit powder. Beat the yelk and white of an egg well together, on a plate, with a fork; flour your fish, to absorb any moisture that may remain, and wipe it off with a clean cloth; dip them in the egg on both sides all over, or, what is better, egg them with a paste-brush; put the egg on in an even degree over the whole fish, or the bread-crumbs will not stick to it even, and the uneven part will burn to the pan. Strew the bread-crumbs all over the fish, so that they cover every part, take up the fish by the head, and shake off the loose crumbs. The fish is now ready for the frying-pan. Put a quart or more of fresh sweet olive-oil, or clarified butter (No. 259), dripping (No. 83), lard,[170-+] or clarified drippings (No. 83); be sure they are quite sweet and perfectly clean (the fat ought to cover the fish): what we here order is for soles about ten inches long; if larger, cut them into pieces the proper size to help at table; this will save much time and trouble to the carver: when you send them to table, lay them in the same form they were before they were cut, and you may strew a little curled parsley over them: they are much easier managed in the frying-pan, and require less fat: fry the thick part a few minutes before you put in the thin, you can by this means only fry the thick part enough, without frying the thin too much. Very large soles should be boiled (No. 144), or fried in fillets (No. 147). Soles cut in pieces, crossways, about the size of a smelt, make a very pretty garnish for stewed fish and boiled fish. Set the frying-pan over a sharp and clear fire; watch it, skim it with an egg-slice, and when it boils,[170-++] _i. e._ when it has done bubbling, and the smoke just begins to rise from the surface, put in the fish: if the fat is not extremely hot, it is impossible to fry fish of a good colour, or to keep them firm and crisp. (Read the 3d chapter of the Rudiments of Cookery.) The best way to ascertain the heat of the fat, is to try it with a bit of bread as big as a nut; if it is quite hot enough, the bread will brown immediately. Put in the fish, and it will be crisp and brown on the side next the fire, in about four or five minutes; to turn it, stick a two-pronged fork near the head, and support the tail with a fish-slice, and fry the other side nearly the same length of time. Fry one sole at a time, except the pan is very large, and you have plenty of fat. When the fish are fried, lay them on a soft cloth (old tablecloths are best), near enough the fire to keep them warm; turn them every two or three minutes, till they are quite dry on both sides; this common cooks commonly neglect. It will take ten or fifteen minutes,[171-*] if the fat you fried them in was not hot enough; when it is, they want very little drying. When soles are fried, they will keep very good in a dry place for three or four days; warm them by hanging them on the hooks in a Dutch oven, letting them heat very gradually, by putting it some distance from the fire for about twenty minutes, or in good gravy, as eels, Wiggy's way (Nos. 164, 299, 337, or 356). _Obs._ There are several general rules in this receipt which apply to all fried fish: we have been very particular and minute in our directions; for, although a fried sole is so frequent and favourite a dish, it is very seldom brought to table in perfection.[171-+] _Soles to stew._--(No. 146.) These are half fried, and then done the same as eels, Wiggy's way. See No. 164. _Fillets of Soles, brown or white._--(No. 147.) Take off the fillets very nicely, trim them neatly, and press them dry between a soft cloth; egg, crumb, and fry them, &c. as directed in No. 145, or boil them, and serve them with No. 364--2. N.B. This is one of the best ways of dressing very large soles. See also No. 164. _Skate_,[172-*]--(No. 148.) Is very good when in good season, but no fish so bad when it is otherwise: those persons that like it firm and dry, should have it crimped; but those that like it tender, should have it plain, and eat it not earlier than the second day, and if cold weather, three or four days old it is better: it cannot be kept too long, if perfectly sweet. Young skate eats very fine crimped and fried. See No. 154. _Cod boiled._--(No. 149.) Wash and clean the fish, and rub a little salt in the inside of it (if the weather is very cold, a large cod is the better for being kept a day): put plenty of water in your fish-kettle, so that the fish may be well covered; put in a large handful of salt; and when it is dissolved, put in your fish; a very small fish will require from fifteen to twenty minutes after the water boils, a large one about half an hour; drain it on the fish-plate; dish it with a garnish of the roe, liver, chitterlings, &c. or large native oysters, fried a light brown (see No. 183*), or smelts (No. 173), whitings (No. 153), the tail[172-+] of the cod cut in slices, or bits the size and shape of oysters, or split it, and fry it. Scolloped oysters (No. 182), oyster sauce (No. 278), slices of cod cut about half an inch thick, and fried as soles (No. 145), are very nice. MEM.--The SOUNDS (the jelly parts about the jowl), the palate, and the tongue are esteemed exquisites by piscivorous epicures, whose longing eyes will keep a sharp look-out for a share of their favourite "_bonne bouche_:" the carver's reputation depends much on his equitable distribution of them.[173-*] _Salt Fish boiled._--(No. 150.) Salt fish requires soaking, according to the time it has been in salt; trust not to those you buy it of, but taste a bit of one of the flakes; that which is hard and dry requires two nights' soaking, changing the water two or three times; the intermediate day, lay it on a stone floor: for barrelled cod less time will do; and for the best Dogger-bank split fish, which has not been more than a fortnight or three weeks in salt, still less will be needful. Put it into plenty of cold water, and let it simmer very gently till it is enough; if the water boils, the fish will be tough and thready.[173-+] For egg sauce, see No. 267; and to boil red beet-root, No. 127; parsnips, No. 128; Carrots, No. 129. Garnish salt fish with the yelks of eggs cut into quarters. _Obs._--Our favourite vegetable accompaniment is a dish of equal parts of red beet-root and parsnips. N.B. Salted fish differs in quality quite as much as it does in price. _Slices of Cod boiled._--(No. 151.) Half an hour before you dress them, put them into cold spring-water with some salt in it. Lay them at the bottom of a fish-kettle, with as much cold spring-water as will cover them, and some salt; set it on a quick fire, and when it boils, skim it, and set it on one side of the fire to boil very gently, for about ten minutes, according to its size and thickness. Garnish with scraped horseradish, slices of lemon, and a slice of the liver on one side, and chitterling on the other. Oyster sauce (No. 278), and plain butter. _Obs._--Slices of cod (especially the tail, split) are very good, fried like soles (No. 145), or stewed in gravy like eels (No. 164, or No. 364--2).[174-*] _Fresh Sturgeon._--(No. 152.) The best mode of dressing this, is to have it cut in thin slices like veal cutlets, and broiled, and rubbed over with a bit of butter and a little pepper, and served very hot, and eaten with a squeeze of lemon-juice. Great care, however, must be taken to cut off the skin before it is broiled, as the oil in the skin, if burned, imparts a disgusting flavour to the fish. The flesh is very fine, and comes nearer to veal, perhaps, than even turtle. Sturgeon is frequently plentiful and reasonable in the London shops. We prefer this mode of dressing it to the more savoury one of stewing it in rich gravy, like carp, &c. which overpowers the peculiar flavour of the fish.[174-+] _Whitings fried._--(No. 153.) Skin[174-++] them, preserve the liver (see No. 228), and fasten their tails to their mouths; dip them in egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry them in hot lard (read No. 145), or split them, and fry them like fillets of soles (No. 147). A three-quart stew-pan, half full of fat, is the best utensil to fry whitings. They will be done enough in about five minutes; but it will sometimes require a quarter of an hour to drain the fat from them and dry them (if the fat you put them into was not hot enough), turning them now and then with a fish-slice. _Obs._--When whitings are scarce, the fishmongers can skin and truss young codlings, so that you can hardly tell the difference, except that a codling wears a beard, and a whiting does not: this distinguishing mark is sometimes cut off; however, if you turn up his jowl, you may see the mark where the beard was, and thus discover whether he be a real whiting, or a shaved codling. _Skate fried._--(No. 154.) After you have cleaned the fish, divide it into fillets; dry them on a clean cloth; beat the yelk and white of an egg thoroughly together, dip the fish in this, and then in fine bread-crumbs; fry it in hot lard or drippings till it is of a delicate brown colour; lay it on a hair-sieve to drain; garnish with crisp parsley (No. 318), and some like caper sauce, with an anchovy in it. _Plaice or Flounders, fried or boiled._--(No. 155.) Flounders are perhaps the most difficult fish to fry very nicely. Clean them well, flour them, and wipe them with a dry cloth to absorb all the water from them; flour or egg and bread-crumb them, &c. as directed in No. 145. _To boil Flounders._ Wash and clean them well, cut the black side of them the same as you do turbot, then put them into a fish-kettle, with plenty of cold water and a handful of salt; when they come to a boil, skim them clean, and let them stand by the side of the fire for five minutes, and they are ready. _Obs._--Eaten with plain melted butter and a little salt, you have the sweet delicate flavour of the flounder, which is overpowered by any sauce. _Water Souchy_,[175-*]--(No. 156.) Is made with flounders, whitings, gudgeons, or eels. These must be quite fresh, and very nicely cleaned; for what they are boiled in, is the sauce for them. Wash, gut, and trim your fish, cut them into handsome pieces, and put them into a stew-pan with just as much water as will cover them, with some parsley, or parsley-roots sliced, an onion minced fine, and a little pepper and salt (to this some cooks add some scraped horseradish and a bay leaf); skim it carefully when it boils; when your fish is done enough (which it will be in a few minutes), send it up in a deep dish, lined with bread sippets, and some slices of bread and butter on a plate. _Obs._--Some cooks thicken the liquor the fish has been stewing in with flour and butter, and flavour it with white wine, lemon-juice, essence of anchovy, and catchup; and boil down two or three flounders, &c. to make a fish broth to boil the other fish in, observing, that the broth cannot be good unless the fish are boiled too much. _Haddock boiled._--(No. 157.) Wash it well, and put it on to boil, as directed in No. 149; a haddock of three pounds will take about ten minutes after the kettle boils. Haddocks, salted a day or two, are eaten with egg sauce, or cut in fillets, and fried. Or, if small, very well broiled, or baked, with a pudding in their belly, and some good gravy. _Obs._ A piscivorous epicure protests that "Haddock is the poorest fish that swims, and has neither the delicacy of the whiting, nor the juicyness of the cod."[176-*] _Findhorn Haddocks._--(No. 157*.) Let the fish be well cleaned, and laid in salt for two hours; let the water drain from them, and then wet them with the pyroligneous acid; they may be split or not: they are then to be hung in a dry situation for a day or two, or a week or two, if you please; when broiled, they have all the flavour of the Findhorn haddock, and will keep sweet for a long time. The pyroligneous acid, applied in the same way to beef or mutton, gives the fine smoke flavour, and may be kept for a considerable length of time. _Scotch way of dressing haddocks._--A haddock is quite like a different fish in London and in Edinburgh, which arises chiefly from the manner in which they are treated: a haddock should never appear at table with its head and skin on. For boiling, they are all the better for lying a night in salt; of course they do not take so long to boil without the skin, and require to be well skimmed to preserve the colour. After lying in salt for a night, if you hang them up for a day or two, they are very good broiled and served with cold butter. For frying, they should be split and boned very carefully, and divided into convenient pieces, if too large to halve merely; egg and crumb them, and fry in a good deal of lard; they resemble soles when dressed in this manner. There is another very delicate mode of dressing them; you split the fish, rub it well with butter, and do it before the fire in a Dutch oven. _To stew Cod's Skull, Sole, Carp, Trout, Perch, Eel, or Flounder._--No.