Handbomb Dish from an Old Hen

Ingredients

• an old hen
• half a box (that is, one ounce) of gelatine
• pepper
• celery salt
• powdered thyme

Method

1. 1

   Boil the hen until bones drop out, chop meat, return to broth with dissolved gelatine, season, and boil.

2. 2

   Mold and chill until set.

Nutrition per serving

Estimated from matched ingredients across 4 servings.

As published

This recipe was extracted from Virginia Cookery-book (1884) by Mary Stuart Smith, page 53. The excerpt below is the record exactly as published.

pepper and salt; put these articles well mingled in a baking-dish that they will fill, and cover them over with milk ; let it soak in till the bread is perfectly soft ; stir it well up together and bake. If you have been provi- dent enough to save the gravy from the roast of the day before, it will answer just as well as butter in the com- position of this appetizing breakfast dish. Vkal Ouvbs thb Fbbnch Wat. Cut into small pieces, of about three fingers' breadth, and a finger's thickness, three pounds of fine veal ; chop to pieces a quarter of a pound of beef marrow; wash a couple of anchovies, take out the bones, and cut them to pieces; mix this with the marrow; grate over it some nut- meg; break to pieces the yolks of two eggs boiled hard for that purpose ; chop to pieces some fresh mushrooms and a dozen and a half of large oysters without the beards; strip some thyme and sweet marjoram leaves from the stalks ; add some salt, pepper, and a very little beaten mace, and mix all well together ; have a veal caul clean and ready, and cut some thin slices of fat ham ; when all this is ready begin to put the whole together ; spread the 5* 106 VIRGINIA COOKERT-BOOK. caul open, and lay in some slices of ham nearly to cover it; then put upon this a thin covering of the seasonings prepared; upon this lay some of the veal, and upon that some more of the seasoning, then some ham again, etc., until all is in; then roll up the caul with the whole in it, and roast it ; if the fire be brisk, an hour will be enough to allow for this part of the process. When it is nearly done make the sauce thus : Take some of the drippings, skim well, add a little water, and then thicken with a tea- spoonful of brown flour, and a few bread-crumbs toasted in butter. When the meat is to be served cut it all up into thick slices, lay them upon a dish in handsome order, and pour some of the gravy over it hot. Garnish with rings of hard-boiled egg and thin slices of lemon. Sweetbreads with Oranges. Choose the largest and finest sweetbread you can get, gash it very lightly in two or three places, then baste it well with butter ; when this is done squeeze a Florida orange carefully over it, that some of the juice may get into the gashes, sprinkle with pepper and salt, tie it to a spit, and let it be carefully and thoroughly roasted; when the sweetbread is nearly done prepare a little rich gravy, take up the sweetbread, squeeze another orange over it, and pour some of the gravy over it hot ; serve on a flat dish, garnished with thin slices of orange, from which the seeds have been extracted. Sweetbreads A la Dauphinb. Choose three very large and fine sweetbreads : this number makes a handsome dish. Roast a grown pullet, and cut off all the flesh from the breast; cut half a pound of ham in very thin slices, fat and lean together, and mince these extremely small. When these are mixed to- nnoimA cookert-book, kw gether put them into a marble mortar, add some lemon- peel shred very fine, some shred parsley, and a little grated nutmeg. Beat all these well together in the mor- tar, and when they are thoroughly mixed put in as much yolk of egg as will make them a good, firm paste. This force-meat is for the stuffing of the sweetbreads. When it is thus got ready open the three sweetbreads, stuff them well with it, and then fasten them together with fine, small wooden skewers. Set a stewpan on the fire, lay' in the bottom of it some thin slices of ham, strew over them a seasoning of salt, pepper, and mace, and last of all scatter upon them some slices of onion cut into very small and thin sheets ; lay upon the ham thus sea- soned some very thin slices of veal, and upon these lay the sweetbreads ; cover the stewpan close, and set it over a slow fire for ten minutes. When this stewpan is set on let there be another set on with a quart of veal broth ; this will boil by the time the sweetbreads are ready for it, and it must then be poured gently into the pan ; let this be covered up and set over a very gentle fire to stew for two hours ; then uncover the pan and take out the sweetbreads ; strain off the gravy, that will now be very fine ; skim off the fat, and boil it till there is not more than half a pint left. When it is thus rich put in the sweetbreads; let them stew in it five minutes, that all may be hot together ; then take them out, lay them regularly in a dish, and pour gravy over them; garnish the dish with quarters of lemon cut thin. To MAKfl A Handbomb Dish out of an Old Hbn. Take an old hen and boil it in water till the bones drop out ; spread it upon a dish, and remove all the bones care- fully; chop the meat up fine ; put it back again in a ket- 108 VIRGINIA COOKERY-BOOK. tie of the water in which it was boiled, with half a box (that is, one ounce) of gelatine, first dissolved in a little cold water ; season very highly with what you like — pep- per, celery salt, and powdered thyme

Cook this with the app: pantry check, scaling, and the assistant.