Take one pint of cold chicken, duck or any poultry. Cut it into flakes and place it in a pudding dish which has been lined with a thin crust. On the layer of meat place a layer of sweet red peppers (seeds removed), cut in slices; next, a layer of thinly sliced sausage, and so on until the dish is full. Over this pour a glass of claret into which have been rubbed two tablespoons of flour. Cover with a thin crust of pastry, and bake.
Save every scrap of fat each day; try out all that has accumulated; however small the quantity. This is done by placing the scraps in a frying-pan on the back of the range. If the heat is low, and the grease is not allowed to get hot enough to smoke or burn, there will be no odor from it. Turn the melted grease into tin pails and keep them covered. When six pounds of fat have been obtained, turn it into a dish-pan; add a generous amount of hot water, and stand it on the range until the grease is entirely melted. Stir it well together; then stand it aside to cool. This is clarifying the grease. The clean grease will rise to the top, and when it has cooled can be taken off in a cake, and such impurities as have not settled in the water can be scraped off the bottom of the cake of fat. Put the clean grease into the dish-pan and melt it. Put a can of Babbitt's lye in a tin pail; add to it a quart of cold water, and stir it with a stick or wooden spoon until it is dissolved. It will get hot when the water is added; let it stand until it cools. Remove the melted grease from the fire, and pour in the lye slowly, stirring all the time. Add two tablespoons of ammonia. Stir the mixture constantly for twenty minutes or half an hour, or until the soap begins to set. Let it stand until perfectly hard; then cut it into square cakes. This makes a very good, white hard soap which will float on water.
Take a deep earthenware dish, pour into it a cup of cream; cut several slices of eggplant very thin, salt well, and line the dish with them; slice two large tomatoes, place a layer of these on the eggplant, next a layer of spaghetti (cooked); sprinkle with grated cheese, pieces of butter, salt, and pepper; cover this with layer of tomatoes; salt well and sprinkle with chopped green pepper, and a top layer of eggplant, which also salt and pepper well. Cook gently an hour and a half in slow, hot oven.
Pare and quarter tart apples. Put them in a saucepan with just enough water to keep them from burning; bring to a boil quickly and cook until the pieces are soft. Then press through a colander and add four tablespoons of sugar (or less) to each pint of apples. If desired, cinnamon or grated nutmeg may be sprinkled over the top after the apple sauce is in the serving dish, or a little stick cinnamon or lemon peel may be cooked with the apples. Serve with goose.
Two oxtails, jointed and washed; six onions sliced and browned in pot with oxtails. When nicely browned add water enough to cover and stew slowly one hour; then add two carrots, if small; one green pepper, sprig of parsley, one-half cup of tomatoes and six small potatoes, and cook until tender. Thicken with browned flour. Cook separately eight lengths of macaroni; place cooked macaroni on dish and pour ragout over it and serve hot. To brown flour take one-half cup of flour, put in pan over moderate heat and stir until nicely browned.
One pound of tenderloin, chopped, add an egg, a little paprika, black pepper, salt and four cloves of garlic (which have been scraped, and let stand in a little salt for ten minutes, and then mashed so it looks like dough). Form this meat mixture into short sausage-like rolls; boil one-half hour and serve at once. Serve this dish with Slaitta. (See Vegetables.)
Cut two cups of cold potatoes into cubes; mix well with two cups of cream sauce, adding more seasoning if necessary; pour into a baking dish; cover with one cup of bread crumbs and dot with small pieces of butter and bake for about half an hour.
For this dish use sweet apples, and steam in a closely covered iron pot for three-quarters of an hour. Quarter and core five apples without paring. Put into the pot and melt beef drippings; when hot, lay a layer of apples in, skin down, sprinkle with brown sugar, and when nearly done, turn and brown; place on a platter and sprinkle with sugar.
When ready to make the pie, mix as much fruit in a bowl as required, sweeten, stirring the sugar through the berries and currants lightly with a spoon. Dust in a little flour and stir it through the fruit. Cut one of the pieces of pastry in halves, dust the pastry-board with flour and roll the lump of pastry out very thin, cover the pie-plate, a big deep one, with the pastry, trim off the edges with a knife, cutting from you. Fill the dish with the fruit, dust the surface well with flour. Roll out the other piece for the top crust, fold it over the rolling pin, cut a few gashes in it for a steam vent. Carefully put on the top crust, trim it well about the edge of the pie-plate. Press it closely together with the end of your thumb or with a pastry knife and stand the pie in a moderate oven and bake till the surface is a delicate brown. Then remove the pie and let it stand until it is cool. The top crust may be made lattice fashion by cutting the pastry in strips, but it will not be as good as between two closed crusts.
To one quart of milk add one-half cup of farina, salt, and a small piece of butter. Boil in a double boiler until thick. Beat the yolks of four eggs with four tablespoons of white sugar, and add this just before taking off the fire. Stir it thoroughly, but do not let it boil any more. Flavor with vanilla. Beat the whites of the eggs to a stiff froth with pulverized sugar. After the eggs have been whipped, butter a pudding dish, put in part of the custard, in which you have mixed the whites (If you have any extra whites of eggs beat and use them also), then a layer of stewed or canned peaches; cover with the remaining custard and bake. Eat with rum sauce.
