The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory;

Potage

Boil a leg of beef, and a knuckle of veal, with a bunch of sweet herbs, a little mace and whole pepper, and a handful of salt. When the meat is boiled to rags or to a very strong broth, strain it through a hair sieve, and when it is cold, take off the fat. With raw beef make a gravy thus: cut your beef in pieces, put them in a frying-pan with a piece of butter or a slice of bacon, fry it very brown, then put it to some of your strong broth, and when it grows browner and thick till it becomes reduced to three pints of gravy, fill up your strong broth to boil with a piece of butter and a handful of sweet herbs. Afterwards a chicken must be boiled and blanched and cut in slices; and two or three sweetbreads fried very brown; a turnip also sliced and fried. Boil all these half an hour, and put them in the dish in which you intend to serve up, with three French rolls (cut in halves) and set it over a fire with a quart of your gravy, and some of your broth, covered with a dish, till it boils very fast, and as it reduces fill up with your broth till your bread is quite soaked. You may put into the dish either a duck, pigeon, or any bird you please; but whichever you choose, roast it first, and then let it boil in the dish with your bread. This may be made a pea soup, by only rubbing peas through a sieve.

Scotch Pottage

Place a tin saucepan on the fire with some boiling water; stir in Scotch oatmeal till it is of the desired consistence: when done, pour it in a basin and add milk or cream to it. It is more nutritious to make it of milk instead of water, if the stomach will bear it. The Scotch peasantry live entirely on this strengthening food. The best Scotch oatmeal is to be bought at Dudgeon’s, in the Strand.

Scotch Broth

Boil very tender a piece of thin brisket of beef, with trimmings of any other meat, or a piece of gravy beef; cut it into square pieces; strain off the broth and put it in a soup-pot; add the beef, cut in squares, with plenty of carrots, turnips, celery, and onions, cut in shapes and well boiled before put to the broth, and, if liked, some very small suet dumplings first boiled. Season it to your palate.

Turnip Broth

Have a sufficient quantity of good strong broth as for any other soup, taking care that it is not too strongly flavoured by any of the roots introduced into it. Peel a good quantity of the best turnips, selecting such as are not bitter. Sweat them in butter and a little water till they are quite tender. Rub them through a tamis, mix them with the broth; boil it for about half an hour. Add half a pint of very good cream, and be careful not to have too fierce a fire, as it is apt to burn.

Another

Put one pound of lean veal, pulled into small pieces in a pipkin, with two large or three middling turnips. Cover the pipkin very close, to prevent water from getting into it; set it in a pot of water, and let it boil for two or three hours. A tea-cupful of the broth produced in the pipkin may be taken twice or thrice a day.

Veal Broth. No. 1

Take ten or twelve knuckles, such as are cut off from legs and shoulders of mutton, at the very shank; rub them with a little salt, put them in a pan of water for two or three hours, and wash them very clean; boil them in a gallon of spring water for an hour. Strain them very clean, then put in two ounces of hartshorn shavings, and the bottom crust of a penny loaf; let it boil till the water is reduced to about three pints; strain it off, and when cold skim off the fat. Take half a pint warm before you rise, and the same in bed at night. Make it fresh three times a week in summer, and twice a week in winter: do not put in any lamb bones. This is an excellent thing.

Veal Broth. No. 2

Soak a knuckle of veal for an hour in cold water; put it into fresh water over the fire, and, as the scum rises, take it off; let it stew gently for two hours, with a little salt to make the scum rise. When it is sufficiently stewed, strain the broth from the meat. Put in some vermicelli; keep the meat hot; and as you are going to put the soup into the terrine add half a pint of cream.

Veal Broth. No. 3

Take one pound of lean veal, one blade of mace, two table-spoonfuls of rice, one quart of water; let it boil slowly two hours; add a little salt.

Veal Broth. No. 4. —Excellent for a Consumption

Boil a knuckle of veal in a gallon of water; skim and put to it half a pound of raisins of the sun, stoned, and the bottoms of two manchets, with a nutmeg and a half sliced, and a little hartshorn. Let it boil till reduced to half the quantity; then pound it all together and strain. Add some brown sugar-candy, some rose-water, and also the juice of a lemon, if the patient has no cough.

FISH

Carp and Tench

Scale the fish, take out the gut and gall; save all the blood. Split the carp if large; cut it in large pieces, and salt it. Boil some sliced parsley roots and onions tender in half a pint of water, adding a little cayenne pepper, ginger, cloves, and allspice, a lemon sliced, a little vinegar, and moist sugar, one glass of red wine, and some butter rolled in flour. Then put in the fish, and let it boil very fast for half an hour in a stewpan. The blood is to be put in the sauce.

Carp, to stew

Scale, gut, and cleanse them; save the roes and milts; stew them in some good broth: season, to your taste, with a bundle of herbs, onions, anchovies, and white wine; and, when they are stewed enough, thicken the sauce with the yolks of five eggs. Pass off the roes, dip them in yolk of egg and flour, and fry them with some sippets of French bread; then fry a little parsley, and, when you serve up, garnish the dish with the roes, parsley, and sippets.

Another way

Have your carp fresh out of the water; scale and gut them, washing the blood out of each fish with a little claret; and save that after so doing. Cut your carp in pieces, and stew in a little fresh butter, a few blades of mace, winter savory, a little thyme, and three or four onions; after stewing awhile, take them out, put them by, and fold them up in linen, till the liquor is ready to receive them again, as the fish would otherwise be boiled to pieces before the liquor was reduced to a proper thickness. When you have taken out your fish, put in the claret that you washed out the blood with, and a pint of beef or mutton gravy, according to the quantity of your fish, with some salt and the butter in which you stewed the carp; and when this butter is almost boiled to a proper thickness put in your fish again; stew all together, and serve it up. Two spoonfuls of elder vinegar to the liquor when taken up will give a very agreeable taste.

Cod, to stew

Cut a cod into thin pieces or slices; lay them in rows at the bottom of a dish; put in a pint of white wine, half a pound of butter, a few oysters, with their liquor, a little pepper and salt, with some crumbs of bread. Stew them all till they are done enough. Garnish the dish with lemon.

Cod, Ragout of

Wash the cod clean, and boil it in warm water, with vinegar, pepper, salt, a bay-leaf, and lemon. Make a sauce of burnt butter, fried flour, capers, and oysters. When you serve it up put in some black pepper and lemon-juice.

Cod’s Head, to boil

Take vinegar and salt, a bunch of sweet herbs, and an onion; set them on the fire in a kettle of water; boil them and put in the head; and, while it is boiling, put in cold water and vinegar. When boiled, take it up, put it into a dish, and make sauce as follows: – Take gravy and claret, boiled with a bundle of sweet herbs and an onion, two or three anchovies, drawn with two pounds of butter, a pint of shrimps, oysters, the meat of a lobster shred fine. You may stick little toasts on the head, and lay on and about the roe, milt, and liver. Garnish the dish with fried parsley, lemon, barberries, horseradish, and fried fish.

Crab, to dress

Take all the body and the meat of the legs, and put them together in a dish to heat, with a little broth or gravy, just to make them moist. When hot, have ready some good broth or gravy, with an anchovy dissolved in it, and the juice of a small lemon, heated; afterwards thicken it up with butter, and stir it in the crab, as it is, hot: then serve all up in the shell.

Crab or Lobster, to butter

The crabs or lobsters being boiled and cold, take all the meat out of the shells and body; break the claws and take out the meat. Shred it small; add a spoonful or two of claret, a little vinegar, and a grated nutmeg. Let it boil up till it is thoroughly hot; then put in some melted butter, with anchovies and white gravy; thicken with the yolk of an egg or two, and when very hot put it into the large shell. Put crumbs of bread over it, and brown it with a salamander.

Crab, or Lobster, to stew. No. 1

A little cayenne, vinegar, butter, flour, and salt. Cover it with water and let it stew gently.

Crab, or Lobster, to stew. No. 2

When the lobsters are boiled, take out the tail and claws, and dip them in white wine; strew over them nutmeg, cloves, mace, salt, and pepper, mixed together. Then pour over them some melted butter with a little white wine in it; send them to the bakehouse, and let them stand in a slow oven about half an hour. Pour out the butter and wine, and pour on some fresh butter; when cold, cover them, and keep them in a cold place.

Crab, or Lobster, to stew. No. 3

Boil the lobsters; when cold take out all the meat; season it well with pepper, salt, nutmeg and mace pounded. Put it into an earthen pot with as much clarified butter as will cover it; bake it well. While warm, take it out of the pot, and let the butter drain from it. Break it as fine as you can with a spoon or knife; add more seasoning if required; put it as close as possible in the pot, and cover with clarified butter. The hen lobsters are best for this purpose, as the eggs impart a good colour. It may be pounded in a marble mortar, but, if baked enough, will do as well without it.

Crawfish, to make red

Rub the fish with aqua vitæ, which will produce the desired effect most completely.

Eels broiled whole

Skin, wash, and dry your eels, and score them with the knife, seasoning them with pepper, salt, thyme, parsley, and crumbs of bread, turning them round and skewering them across; you may either roast or broil them as you like best: the sauce to be melted butter with lemon juice.

Eels, to collar

Scour large silver eels with salt; slit them, and take out the back-bones; wash and dry them; season with shred parsley, sage, an onion, and thyme. Then roll each into collars, in a cloth; tie them close with the heads, bones, and a bundle of herbs, and boil them in salt and water. When tender, take them up, and again tie them close; drain the pickle, and put them into it.

Eels, to fry

Cut every eel into eight pieces; mix them with a proper quantity of yolks of eggs, and well season with pepper, and salt, and bread rubbed fine, with parsley and thyme; then flour them, and fry them. You may cook them as plain as you like, with only salt and flour, and serve them up with melted butter and fried parsley.

Eels, to pot