The home cook book

ing water. Take it out and wipe dry. Cut in slices and season each slice separately with salt and pepper. Sprinkle lightly with flour, and lay on a pan, ready to fry. Have the frying-pan hot, put into it pieces of bacon, and brown. When done take out and lay on a hot platter. Now drop the liver into the hot fat, turn often, and cook slowly until done, being careful not to cook long enough to harden or burn. If more fat is needed, add a little butter and lard. Lay the liver in the centre of the platter, the bacon around it, and pour the hot fat over it, without any thickening. FRIED CALF'S LIVER AND BACON Put in a frying-pan thin slices of bacon, and let them fry quickly in their own fat. Having carefully washed the calf liver, cut slices not too thin, say a third of an inch — for if liver is cut too thin it will fry dry and hard. Take out the bacon as soon as it is crisp, putting it in a hot dish. Lay the slices of the liver in the fat left in the frying-pan, and cook over not too hot a fire till thoroughly done. Then dish with the bacon, seasoning lightly with salt and pepper. Onions are sometimes served with fried liver. They may be parboiled and then sliced into the pan, seasoned with pepper and salt, and fried with the liver. Lay the bacon and onions on the liver as a garnish in serving. LIVER RISSOLES Take a pound of calf liver, put it in hot water enough to cover, and boil it till tender. Take from the water, cool, and mince it fine, adding and mincing with it quarter of a pound of beef suet. Add quarter of a pound of fine or grated breadcrumbs, a pinch of cayenne, a little salt, and two eggs thoroughly beaten. Shape the meat in the form of corks or small eggs or large walnuts, and drop into boiling hot lard. As the rissoles brown skim them from the fat, lay them a minute to drain upon brown paper or a colander, and send to the table hot. SWEETBREADS 107 TO CHOOSE AND PREPARE SWEETBREADS In picking out sweetbreads choose the larger, plumper> fleshier. Also be careful that they are perfectly fresh, for of all meats they stand keeping least well. Rinse and put them in lukewarm water to lie fifteen minutes. Then cover with slightly salted cold water, set on the fire, and bring to boil. When the water begins to boil drop them suddenly in a pan of cold water. The sudden change of temperature blanches them. Cut the sweetbreads apart, cut out the pipe, and take ofif the skin. They are now ready for creaming or other cooking. CREAMED SWEETBREADS Carefully choose a pair of fresh sweetbreads, trim oflf their fat, and follow the above directions for parboiling. Cut them in small pieces, and simmer twenty minutes in only enough water to make a steam. Then add a cup of rich milk, rub smooth a tablespoon of flour and a tablespoon of butter, moisten \vith some of the milk from the saucepan, add a pinch of salt, and stir all together over a moderate fire until the flour cooks and thickens. SWEETBREADS FRIED Wash and trim the sweetbreads, lay in a pan, and pour boiling water over them. Let stand for fifteen minutes. Beat one egg with one tablespoon of water, and have some cracker rolled fine and seasoned with salt and red pepper. Dip the sweetbreads first in the egg, and then in the cracker. Fry in just enough hot lard to cook, and brown nicely a light brown. SWEETBREADS WITH OYSTERS