Household hints

Veal Pot-pie. — Make some dough as for biscuit ; when the meat has boiled and is nearly done, drop in the pieces of dough, either rolled with your hands in the shape of biscuit, or drop from a large spoon ; allow half an hour for them to cook. Make a rich gravy by adding butter and milk to the water in which the meat was boiled. Veal may be roasted, fried, or broiled, but must always be cooked slowly, and requires a longer time to cook thoroughly than beef or lamb. Pressed Veal. — Take three pounds of veal chopped fine, two pounds of fresh, lean, raw pork, also chopped fine, three eggs, a piece of butter the size of an egg ; pepper and salt well ; bake two hours. When cold, slice it thin ; it is like pressed meat, and is very nice. A good breakfast dish is made by taking some veal, stewing it till it is tender, and then dipping it into some well-beaten eggs, and frying in butter till it is brown. Veal needs to be thoroughly cooked in order to be eatable. When roasting veal, take the kidney out and let it brown ; baste it and the entire roast with water and melted butter, well salted. Broiled Pork. — Take salt pork and cut in thin slices ; broil on a wire gridiron, so that it will almost lie on the coals. Corned Beef. — Put into a clean tub or jar a layer of meat and a layer of salt, then pour over it cold water, in which a small lump of saltpeter is dissolved, and a small quantity of sugar. Beef's Liver. — Cut in thin slices ; broil and serve with beefsteak. Fried Liver. — Cut in thin slices, and fry in a little butter, with onions sliced ; when they are cooked, take them up on a warm platter and stir a little flour into the butter, and then pour over the meat. Ham. — This may be boiled, fried, or broiled ; a good breakfast dish is made by taking pieces of cold fried ham, cutting them in small bits, and stirring two or three eggs in with them, and heating until the eggs are cooked. After boiling ham till it is tender, put it in a dripping-pan, and set it in the oven for half an hour. This will dry out all the water, and will also make the ham less greasy. Fried Pork. — Slice very thin some salt pork, roll in corn meal or flour, and fry until brown and crusty. Fricasseed Chicken. — Cut up the chicken, rinse in two or three waters, boil, serve with biscuit or toast, dipped in the gravy. When dressing a fowl, do not let it lie in the water in which it is rinsed. Wash it perfectly clean ; rinse as much as you please, but do not let it soak in the water ; put it on a platter to drain ; if it is not to be cooked at once, sprinkle a little salt over it. Roast Chicken. — A small fowl is so likely to dry down and be hard if cooked entirely in the oven that it is a good plan to steam it until tender, and then brown in the oven. Smothered Chicken. — Split the chicken down the back ; cover with lumps of butter, pepper, and salt ; put in some dish which you can cover closely ; put in half a pint of water ; set in the oven, and cook half an hour. Fried Chicken. — Parboil, after cutting the fowl up as for fricasseed chicken ; cook with just as little water as possible, then brown in butter. This is a delicious way to cook chicken. Another way is to parboil them, and then drop them into hot lard, a la fried cakes. Chicken Pie. — Line a deep basin or small pan with crust, then put in the chicken, which has been parboiled ; add the water, or a part of it, in which the chicken was cooked ; season with butter, pepper, and salt, and scatter in a little sifted flour ; oysters may be added if you like the flavor. A good recipe for the crust is : To one quart of flour take MEATS, SOUPS, AND FISH. 25