Really old recipes.
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DRIED OCHRAS.—Take fine large fresh ochras; cut them into thin, round slices; string them on threads, and hang them up in festoons to dry in the store-room. Before using, they must be soaked in water during twenty-four hours. They will then be good (with the addition of tomata paste) to boil in soup or gumbo.
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VEAL BOUILLON.
Two knuckles of veal, four quarts of cold water, one onion, one stock celery, one bay leaf, twelve cloves, one teaspoonful salt, one blade mace, one pinch pepper. Put veal in soup kettle with cold water and salt. Simmer gently four hours. Cut up the vegetables and add with spices and simmer one hour longer. Strain, cool, remove fat, reheat and serve with teaspoonful whipped cream on each cup. -
BEEF GUMBO.—Put into a large stew-pan some pieces of the lean of fresh beef, cut up into small bits, and seasoned with a little pepper and salt. Add sliced ochras and tomatas, (either fresh, or dried ochras and tomata paste.) You may put in some sliced onions. Pour on water enough to cover it well. Let it boil slowly, (skimming it well,) till every thing is reduced to rags. Then strain and press it through a cullender. Have ready a sufficiency of toasted bread, cut into dice. Lay it in the bottom of a tureen, and pour the strained gumbo upon it.
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Roast goose
Draw, clean, singe and truss as you would prepare a turkey. Always put onion and a suspicion of sage in the stuffing. Lay upon the grating of your roaster; pour a cup of boiling water over him to cicatrice the skin and keep in the juices, and roast, covered, twenty minutes to the pound if of reasonable age. If of unreasonable, cook slowly, basting often with the liquor in the dripping-pan, at least half an hour for each obdurate pound. A goose is a most uncertain quantity.At the last, wash with butter, pepper and salt him, and dredge with flour, then brown. Drain off and skim the fat from the gravy before you season the goose. Goose-grease is valuable in the domestic pharmacopœia, but neither palatable nor wholesome.
Thicken the gravy with browned flour, add the giblets minced very fine, boil up and it is ready.
Serve apple sauce
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ONION CHOWDER
Three quarts boiling water, 1 pint minced onion, 1 quart potatoes cut in dice, 3 teaspoons salt, ½ teaspoon pepper, 3 tablespoons butter or savory dripping, 1 tablespoon dried herbs.
Cook the onion and butter together half an hour, but slowly, so that the onion will not brown. Add the boiling water, potatoes, salt and pepper and cook one hour longer, then all the dried herbs and serve with toast. -
RYE MUSH.—To make smooth rye mush, sift a quart or more of rye meal into a pan, and gradually pour in sufficient cold water to make a very thick batter, stirring it hard with a spoon as you proceed, and carefully pressing out all the lumps against the side of the pan. Add a very little salt. The batter must be so thick at the last that you can scarcely stir it. Then thin it with a little more water, and see that it is quite smooth. Rye, and also wheat flour, have a disposition to be more lumpy than corn meal, when made into mush. When thoroughly mixed and stirred, put it into a pot, place it over the fire, and boil it well, stirring it with a mush-stick till it comes to a hard boil; then place it in a diminished heat, and simmer it slowly till you want to dish it up. Eat it warm, with butter and molasses, or with sweet milk, or fresh buttermilk.
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STEWED KIDNEYS AND TOMATOES
Take 4 sheep's kidneys, 1 oz. butter or dripping, 2 slices of streaky bacon, 2 teaspoonfuls chopped onion, 2 teaspoonfuls flour, ¼ lb. tomatoes, ½ pint stock, salt and pepper.
Cut each kidney in half length ways, remove skin and white core; cut the bacon into squares; peel and slice tomatoes, which must be sound and firm; melt the butter in a saucepan, put in bacon, kidney, onion, and tomatoes, and fry all a nice brown; add the flour, and fry that also. Pour in the stock and stir until the sauce boils and thickens; add pepper and salt, and, if liked, a little chopped parsley. Serve on a hot dish with small pieces of toast. This is a very tasty breakfast dish. -
Summer squash pudding
Stew the squash, drain and rub through your vegetable press. To each pint add one cupful of sugar, one-half teaspoonful of mace and a little salt, and slowly pour over and mix in one quart of boiling milk. Set aside until perfectly cold, when add the yolks of five well-beaten eggs and a cupful of thick cream; bake in a pudding-dish in a moderate oven until firm in the center.Draw to the oven door and cover with the whites of three eggs beaten to a meringue with a cup of fine macaroon-crumbs. Shut the oven and brown lightly.
Eat cold.
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ALMOND TART.
Yolks of six eggs, beaten well, to which is added one cup powdered sugar. Mix one cup grated dried rusk, one cup grated almonds, one teaspoonful baking powder. Add to the yolks, and lastly add the well-beaten whites of six eggs. This makes three layers. Bake very slowly. -
Chocolate Chip Cookies ..1920
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Cream together 1/2 cup shortening, 1/2 cup packed brown sugar, 1/4 cup white sugar, 1 teaspoon vanilla. Beat in one egg.
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Combine 1 cup all-purpose flour, 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, 1/2 teaspoon salt, then stir into cookie mixture.
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Mix in 1 cup (6-ounce package) chocolate chips ( any brand) and 1/2 cup chopped nuts.
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Drop by teaspoon onto greased cookie sheet. Bake 10 to 12 minutes in 375°F oven. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.
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Cornmeal dumplings
Scald a quart of milk, stir in three cupfuls of Indian meal, or enough to make a stiff dough; cook for five minutes, stirring often from the bottom. Take from the fire; beat in one-half cupful of powdered suet with a teaspoonful of salt, and let it get perfectly cold. Then add three eggs beaten light with two tablespoonfuls of sugar, and, lastly, a tablespoonful of flour sifted three times with half a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Make out into balls the size of an egg with floured hands, envelop in cheese-cloth squares, prepared as directed in preceding recipes The dumplings will double their size in boiling, so make allowances in tying them up.Boil one hour hard. Dip into cold water for a second, turn out and eat with hard sauce.
Hard sauce
Work two tablespoonfuls of butter and a cupful of powdered sugar to a white cream, then beat in the juice of a lemon and a pinch of nutmeg. Set in a cold place until needed. -
Virginia Batter Bread
2 cups milk
Salt to taste
1 tablespoon butter
½ cup of cream
½ cup white corn meal
2 to 5 well beaten eggs
Put in double boiler 2 cups of milk and ½ cup of cream. When this reaches boiling point salt to taste. While stirring constantly sift in ½ cup of white corn meal (this is best). Boil 5 minutes still stirring, then add 1 tablespoon of butter and from 2 to 5 well beaten eggs (beaten separately) 1 for each person is a good rule.Pour into a greased baking dish and bake in a quick oven until brown like a custard. It must be eaten hot with butter and is a good breakfast dish.
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SHORT-CAKE—Take a pound of Zante currants; and, after they are well picked and washed, dry them on a large dish before the fire, or on the top of a stove. Instead of currants, you may use sultana or seedless raisins cut in half. When well dried, dredge the fruit profusely with flour to prevent its clodding while baking. Have ready a tea-spoonful of mixed spice, powdered mace, nutmeg, and cinnamon. Sift two quarts of flour, and spread it to dry at the fire. Cut up a pound of the best fresh butter; put it into a clean sauce-pan, and melt it over the fire; shaking it round and taking care that it does not burn. Put the flour into a large pan, and mix with it a pound of powdered white sugar. Pour the melted butter warm into the midst of the flour and sugar; and with a large spoon or a broad knife mix the whole thoroughly into a soft dough or paste, without using a drop of water. Next sprinkle in the fruit, a handful at a time, (stirring hard between each handful) and finish with a tea-spoonful of spice, well mixed in. Let all the ingredients be thoroughly incorporated.
Strew some flour on your paste-board; lay the lumps of dough upon it, flour your hands, and knead it a while on all sides. Then cut it in half, and roll out each sheet about an inch thick. With a jagging-iron cut it into large squares, ovals, triangles, or any form you please, and prick the surface handsomely, with a fork. Butter some square pans, put in the cakes, and bake them brown.
For currants and raisins, you may substitute citron cut into slips and floured. This cake will be found very fine if the receipt is exactly followed.
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ALPISTERAS—To one pound of fine flour, (well sifted and dried,) add half a pound of powdered loaf-sugar, (also sifted,) and mix them well together. In a shallow pan beat your eggs very light, and then gradually wet with them the mixed flour and sugar, adding a wine-glass of rose-water, or orange-flower water, or else the juice of two large oranges or lemons. Work the whole into a stiff dough, and knead it well. Roll it out into a very thin sheet, and cut it into squares of about five inches in size each way. Divide each square (half way down) into slips, so as to resemble a hand with fingers. Then curl or bend up the slips or fingers; or twist and twirl them so as to look like bunches of ribbons. Have ready, in a pot over the fire, a large portion of boiling lard. Put the alpisteras carefully into it, a few at a time, and fry them a light brown. Take them up on a perforated skimmer, draining back the lard into the pot. Spread them to cool on a large dish; and when cool, sift powdered sugar over them.
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Banana froth
Whip a cupful of cream stiff. Rub enough bananas through a fine sieve to make a cupful of pulp, and beat this at once into the whipped cream; add four tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and beat to a frothy mass. Line a glass dish with almond macaroons, fill it with the banana cream, and sprinkle this generously with tiny bits of crystallized cherries, citron and blanched and minced almonds. Serve at once. Of course, the fruits and nuts must be minced and made ready before the preparation of the banana cream is begun. -
MEAT SOUFFLE.
Make one cup of cream sauce and season with chopped parsley and onion juice. Stir one cup chopped meat (chicken, fresh tongue, veal or lamb) into the sauce. When hot, add the beaten yolks of two eggs, cook one minute, and then set away to cool. When cool, stir in the whites, beaten stiff. Bake in a buttered dish about twenty minutes and serve immediately. If for lunch, serve with a mushroom sauce. -
Pecan Nut Loaf
1 cup hot boiled rice
1 cup pecan nut meat (finely chopped)
1 cup cracker crumbs
1 egg
1 cup milk
1¼ teaspoons salt
pepper to taste
1 teaspoon melted butter
Mix rice, nut meats, cracker crumbs; then add egg well beaten, the milk, salt and pepper.Turn into buttered bread pan; pour over butter, cover and bake in a moderate oven 1 hour.
Put on hot platter and pour around same this sauce:
Cook 3 tablespoons butter with slice of onion and a few pimentos, stirring constantly. Add 3 tablespoons flour; stir, pour in gradually 1½ cups milk.
Season and strain.
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Risen brunette muffins
Cream together two tablespoonfuls of brown sugar and one tablespoonful of butter and add to it three cups of warm (not hot) milk. Sift into a bowl three cups of graham flour and one of white, with a teaspoonful of salt. Pour into this the butter, sugar and milk mixture and add a cup of warm milk in which half a yeast-cake has been dissolved. Beat thoroughly and set in a warm place to rise for at least six hours. Butter muffin-tins, half fill with the mixture, and set on a stool by the range to rise for fifteen minutes before baking in a steady oven. -
Potato, or Lemon Cheesecakes:—Take six ounces of potatoes, four ounces of lemon-peel four ounces of sugar, four ounces of butter; boil the lemon-peel til tender, pare and scrape the potatoes, and boil them tender and bruise them; beat the lemon-peel with the sugar, then beat all together very well, and melt all together very well, and let it lie till cold: put crust in your pattipans, and fill them little more than half full: bake them in a quick oven half an hour, sift some double-refined sugar on them as they go into the oven; this quantity will make a dozen small pattipans.
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Chicken cream soup (No. 1)
Cut up a large fowl and beat with a mallet to crack the bones; pour in five quarts of cold water, cover closely and simmer for four hours more, until the chicken is perfectly tender. Take the meat off the bones, take out the skin. Return the soup to the fire with a part of the meat chopped fine, salt, pepper, a little boiled rice and butter rolled in flour. Just before taking from the fire add a small teacupful of cream heated with a pinch of soda; add a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and boil for one minute.You may further enrich this excellent soup by beating up two eggs and stirring them into it just before taking from the fire. A still better way is to pour a little of the soup upon the eggs to avoid curdling, then add to the rest.
Chicken cream soup (No. 2)
One cupful of cold roast chicken, chopped as fine as powder; a pint of strong chicken broth; a cupful of sweet cream; half a cupful of bread or cracker-crumbs; three yolks of eggs; one teaspoonful of salt; one-half teaspoonful of pepper.
Soak the crumbs in a little of the cream. Bring the broth to boiling point and add the meat. Break the eggs, separating the yolks and whites. Drop the yolks carefully into boiling water and boil hard; then rub to a powder and add to the soup with the cream and the seasoning. Simmer ten minutes and serve hot.