Take some bacon and put in a hot frying-pan, and cook till it crisps. Then lift it out on a hot dish and put in the oven. Break six eggs in separate cups, and slide them carefully into the fat left in the pan, and let them cook till they are rather firm and the bottom is brown. Then take a cake-turner and take them out carefully, and put in the middle of the dish, and arrange the bacon all around, with parsley on the edge.
Pick over a fine cauliflower, and plunge it for a moment in boiling water. Look over it well again and remove any grit or insects. Put it head downwards in a pan when you have already placed a good slice of fat bacon at the bottom and sides. In the holes between the pan and the vegetable put a stuffing of minced meat, with breadcrumbs, yolks of eggs, mushrooms, seasoning of the usual kinds, in fact, a good forcemeat. Press this well in, and pour over it a thin gravy. Let it cook gently, and when the gravy on the top has disappeared put a dish on the top of the saucepan, turn it upside down and slip the cauliflower out. Serve very hot.
Take a fat rump of young beef and cut off the fag end, lard the low part with fat bacon, and stuff the other part with shred parsley; put it into your pan with two or three quarts of water, a quart of Claret, two or three anchovies, an onion, two or three blades of mace, a little whole pepper, and a bunch of sweet herbs; stew it over a slow fire five or six hours, turning it several times in the stewing, and keep it close cover'd; when your beef is enough take from it the gravy, thicken part of it with a lump of butter and flour, and put it upon the dish with the beef. Garnish the dish with horse-radish and red-beet root. There must be no salt upon the beef, only salt the gravy to your taste. You may stew part of a brisket, or an ox cheek the same way.
Chop the fish, bacon, and parsley finely, and mix them together with the seasoning. Make a thick sauce with 1 gill water, 1 oz flour, and 1 oz butter; flavour with anchovy and stir the fish in. Simmer for a few minutes, stir in the yolk of the egg, and turn on to a plate to cool. Make up into small balls, fill a frying pan with boiling water, put in the balls. Cover over and simmer gently for ten minutes. Dish the balls in a circle and pour over the melted butter, which has been nicely flavoured with anchovy; garnish with parsley, and serve.
Take a calf's head, wash it well, lay it in an earthen dish, and cut out the tongue lay it loose under the head in the dish with the brains, and a little sage and parsley; rub the head over with the yolk of an egg, then strew over them a few bread-crumbs and shred parsley, lay all over it lumps of butter and a little salt, then set it in the oven; it will take about an hour and a half baking; when it is enough take the brains, sage and parsley; and chop them together, put to them the gravy that is in the dish, a little butter and a spoonful of vinegar, so boil it up and put it in cups, and set them round the head upon the dish, take the tongue and blanch it, cut it in two, and lay it on each side the head, and some slices of crisp bacon over the head, so serve it up.
Bluefish, young cod, mackerel, salmon, large trout, and all other fish, when they weigh between half a pound and four pounds, are nice for broiling. When smaller or larger they are not so good. Always use a double broiler, which, before putting the fish into it, rub with either butter or a piece of salt pork. This prevents sticking. The thickness of the fish will have to be the guide in broiling. A bluefish weighing four pounds will take from twenty minutes to half an hour to cook. Many cooks brown the fish handsomely over the coals and then put it into the oven to finish broiling. Where the fish is very thick, this is a good plan. If the fish is taken from the broiler to be put into the oven, it should be slipped on to a tin sheet, that it may slide easily into the platter at serving time; for nothing so mars a dish of fish as to have it come to the table broken. In broiling, the inside should be exposed to the fire first, and then the skin. Great care must be taken that the skin does not burn. Mackerel will broil in from twelve to twenty minutes, young cod (also called scrod) in from twenty to thirty minutes, bluefish in from twenty to thirty minutes, salmon, in from twelve to twenty minutes, and whitefish, bass, mullet, etc., in about eighteen minutes. All kinds of broiled fish can be served with a seasoning of salt, pepper and butter, or with any of the following sauces: bearer noir, maître d' hôtel, Tartare, sharp, tomato and curry. Always, when possible, garnish with parsley or something else green.
One dozen thoroughly cleaned birds; stuff each with an oyster, put them into a yellow dish, and add two ounces of boiled salt pork and three raw potatoes cut into slices; add a pint of oyster liquor, an ounce of butter; salt and pepper; cover the dish with a crust and bake in moderate oven.
Trim a short fillet, and cut a deep incision in the side, being careful not to go through to the other side or the ends. Fill this with one cupful of veal, prepared as for quenelles, and the whites of three hard-boiled eggs, cut into rings. Sew up the openings, and bind the fillet into good shape with broad bands of cotton cloth. Put in a deep stew-pan two slices of ham and two of pork, and place the fillet on them; then put in two calf's feet, two stalks of celery and two quarts of clear stock. Simmer gently two hours and a half. Take up the fillet, and set away to cool. Strain the stock, and set away to harden. When hard, scrape of every particle of fat, and put on the fire in a clean sauce-pan, with half a slice of onion and the whites of two eggs, beaten with four table-spoonfuls of cold water. When this boils, season well with salt, and set back where it will just simmer for half an hour; then strain through a napkin. Pour a little of the jelly into a two-quart charlotte russe mould (half an inch deep), and set on the ice to harden. As soon as it is hard, decorate with the egg rings. Add about three spoonfuls of the liquid jelly, to set the eggs. When hard, add enough jelly to cover the eggs, and when this is also hard, trim the ends of the fillet, and draw out the thread. Place in the centre of the mould, and cover with the remainder of the jelly. If the fillet floats, place a slight weight on it. Set in the ice chest to harden. When ready to serve, place the mould in a pan of warm water for half a minute, and then turn out the fillet gently upon a dish. Garnish with a circle of egg rings, each of which has a stoned olive in the centre. Put here and there a sprig of parsley.
Mix some pepper, salt, and lemon juice together, and lay oysters in this. The bacon should be cut very thin, and then into strips about 1 inch broad and 3 inches long. Roll these up, and thread on a skewer first a roll of bacon and then an oyster, until the skewer is full; lay on a baking sheet and cook in the oven for about ten minutes. Have ready a hot dish, slip the bacon and oysters off the skewers on to this, and serve hot.
Put it into hot water, and boil gently for five minutes or longer if the fish is very thick. Take it out of water and put it on to a hot dish, rub a small piece of cold butter over it and cook for a few minutes either in the oven or in front of the fire. One or two soft boiled eggs broken over it is a nice way of serving it, or a few very thin slices of bacon well cooked may be placed round the dish as a garnish.
