Prepare the vol-au-vent as directed. Put one quart of oysters on to boil in their own liquor. As soon as a scum, rises, skim it off, and drain the oysters. Return half a pint of the oyster liquor to the sauce-pan. Mix two heaping table-spoonfuls of butter with a scant one of flour, and when light and creamy, gradually turn on it the boiling oyster liquor. Season well with salt, pepper and, if you like, a little nutmeg or mace, (it must be only a "shadow"). Boil up once, and add three table-spoonfuls of cream and the oysters. Stir over the fire for half a minute. Fill the case, cover, and serve immediately.
Use cold fish and potatoes, if there are any in the larder; if not, boil a piece of blue smoked cod in some water for five minutes. Flake it up free from skin and bone and put it into a basin; mash up the potatoes and mix them in with the pepper and salt. Bind into a paste with an egg; rub some dripping on a baking sheet, turn the mixture on to it and shape into the letter S, brush over with egg or milk, and bake till brown. Slip it off on to a hot dish, and garnish with parsley.
Skin and bone one and one-half pounds of codfish or haddock. Cut six large tomatoes, six large potatoes, two large onions in small pieces, add salt, pepper, three pints of water and cook one hour. Add one-half pint of cream, one-fourth cup of butter, and paprika. Cook five minutes and serve.
Wash the roots and scrape off their skins, throwing them, as you do so, into cold water, for exposure to the air causes them to immediately turn dark. Then cut crosswise into little thin slices; throw into fresh water, enough to cover; add a little salt and stew in a covered vessel until tender, or about one hour. Pour off a little of the water, add a small lump of butter, a little pepper, and a gill of sweet cream and a teaspoonful of flour stirred to a paste. Boil up and serve hot. Salsify may be simply boiled and melted butter turned over them.
One pint of milk, one pint of cream, four table-spoonfuls of flour, one cupful of bread crumbs and between four and five pounds of any kind of white fish--cusk, cod, haddock, etc., boiled twenty minutes in water to cover and two table-spoonfuls of salt. Put fish on to boil, then the cream and milk. Mix the flour with half a cupful of cold milk, and stir into boiling cream and milk. Cook eight minutes and season highly with salt and pepper. Remove skin and bones from fish, and break it into flakes. Put a layer of sauce in a deep escalop dish, and then a layer of fish, which dredge well with salt (a table- spoonful) and pepper; then another layer of sauce, again fish, and then sauce. Cover with the bread crumbs, and bake half an hour. This quantity requires a dish holding a little over two quarts, or, two smaller dishes will answer. If for the only solid dish for dinner, this will answer for six persons; but if it is in a course for a dinner party, it will serve twelve. Cold boiled fish can be used when you have it. Great care must be taken to remove every bone when fish is prepared with a sauce, (as when it is served à la crème, escaloped, &c.), because one cannot look for bones then as when the sauce is served separately.
Select tart, firm, red or yellow crab-apples, three quarts; remove all decayed spots but leave the stems. Put three cups of cider vinegar, three cups of sugar, and one cup of water in preserving kettle; let boil two minutes, add two tablespoons of cloves and two sticks of cinnamon broken; these spices must be tied in a bag, and let cook ten minutes. Lift out carefully with perforated skimmer, put in glass jars. When all the apples have been cooked, pour over enough syrup to cover; set spice bag away in a cup. Cover jars and let stand twenty-four hours. Pour off syrup and boil again. Wait two days, then boil apples, sugar, with spice bag until apples are tender but firm. Place apples in jars; cover to keep hot. Boil down syrup a little and fill the jars to overflowing with the hot syrup and seal.
Having buttered the inside of a deep pie plate, line it with puff paste, or common pie crust, and prepare another sheet of paste for the lid; put a clean towel into the dish (folded so as to support the lid), set it into the oven and bake the paste well; when done, remove the lid and take out the towel. While the paste is baking, prepare the oysters. Having picked off carefully every bit of shell that may be found about them, drain the liquor into a pan and put the oysters into a stewpan with barely enough of the liquor to keep them from burning; season them with pepper, salt and butter; add a little sweet cream or milk, and one or two crackers rolled fine; let the oysters simmer, but not boil, as that will shrivel them. Remove the upper crust of pastry and fill the dish with the oysters and gravy. Replace the cover and serve hot. Some prefer baking the upper crust on a pie plate, the same size as the pie, then slipping it off on top of the pie after the same pie is filled with the oysters.
The old method of boiling coffee is still practised by at least one- half the housekeepers in this country. The coffee is sometimes boiled with an egg, which makes it perfectly clear, and also enriches it. When an egg is not used a small piece of salt fish skin is boiled with the coffee to clear it. Directions for making: A small cupful of roasted and ground coffee, one-third Mocha and two-thirds Java; a small egg, shell and all, broken into the pot with the dry coffee. Stir veil with a spoon, and then pour on three pints of boiling water. Let it boil from five to ten minutes, counting from the time it begins to boil. As soon as it has boiled enough, pour in a cupful of cold water, and turn a little of the coffee into a cup, to see that the nozzle of the pot is not filled with grounds. Turn this back, and let the coffee stand a few moments to settle, taking care that it does not boil again. The advantages of boiled coffee are that when the egg is used the yolk gives a very rich flavor, and when the milk or cream is added the coffee has a rich, yellow look, which is pleasing. It has also a peculiar flavor, which many people prefer to the flavor gained by any other process. The disadvantages are that the egg coats the dry coffee, and when the hot water is added the coating becomes hard, and a great deal of the best of the coffee remains in the grounds after boiling. Also, in boiling, much of the fine flavor is lost in the steam that escapes from the pot.
Having cut off the head, tail, and fins, season the carp with salt, peppers and powdered mace, both, inside and out. Rub the seasoning on very well, and let them lay in it an hour, Then put them into a stew-pan with a little parsley shred fine, a whole onion, a little sweet marjoram, a tea-cup of thick cream or very rich milk, and a lump of butter rolled in flour. Pour in sufficient water to cover the carp, and let it stew half an hour. Perch may be done in the same way. You may dress a piece of sturgeon in this manner, but you must first boil it for twenty minutes to extract the oil. Take off the skin before you proceed to stew the fish.
Take a little of the liquor that comes from the pike when you take it out of the oven, put to it two or three anchovies, a little lemon-peel shred, a spoonful or two of white wine, or a little juice of lemon, which you please, put to it some butter and flour, make your sauce about the thickness of cream, put it into a bason or silver-boat, and set in your dish with your pike, you may lay round your pike any sort of fried fish, or broiled, if you have it; you may have the same sauce for a broiled pike, only add a little good gravy, a few shred capers, a little parsley, and a spoonful or two of oyster and cockle pickle if you have it.
