A Poetical Cook-Book Part 7

Muse, sing the man that did to Paris go, That he might taste their soups and _mushrooms_ know.

KING.

Take a pint of white stock; season it with salt, pepper, and a little lemon pickle, thicken it with a bit of b.u.t.ter rolled in flour; clean and peel the mushrooms, sprinkle them with a very little salt, boil them for three minutes; put them into the gravy when it is hot, and stew them for fifteen minutes.

SAUCES.

MUSHROOM KETCHUP.

If you please, I'll taste your tempting toasted cheese, Broiled ham, and nice _mushroom'd ketchup_.

If you love good ketchup, gentle reader, make it yourself, after the following directions, and you will have a delicious relish for made dishes, ragouts, soup, sauces, or hashes. Mushroom gravy approaches the nature and flavor of made gravy, more than any vegetable juice, and is the superlative subst.i.tute for it; in meagre soups and extempore gravies, the chemistry of the kitchen has yet contrived to agreeably awaken the palate and encourage the appet.i.te.

A couple quarts of double ketchup, made according to the following receipt, will save you some score pounds of meat, besides a vast deal of time and trouble, as it will furnish, in a few minutes, as good sauce as can be made for either fish, flesh, or fowl. I believe the following is the best way for preparing and extracting the essence of mushrooms, so as to procure and preserve their flavor for a considerable length of time.

Look out for mushrooms, from the beginning of September. Take care of the right sort and fresh gathered. Full-grown flaps are to be preferred.

Put a layer of these at the bottom of a deep earthen pan, and sprinkle them with salt; then another layer of mushrooms, and some more salt on them, and so on, alternately, salt and mushrooms; let them remain two or three hours, by which time the salt will have penetrated the mushrooms, and rendered them easy to break; then pound them in a mortar, or mash them well with your hands, and let them remain for a couple of days, not longer, stirring them up, and mas.h.i.+ng them well each day; then pour them into a stone jar, and to each quart add an ounce and a half of whole black pepper, and half an ounce of allspice; stop the jar very close, and set in a stewpan of boiling water, and keep it boiling for two hours at least.

Take out the jar, and pour the juice, clear from the settlings, through a hair sieve (without squeezing the mushrooms), into a clean stewpan; let it boil very gently for half an hour. Those who are for superlative ketchup, will continue the boiling till the mushroom juice is reduced to half the quant.i.ty. There are several advantages attending this concentration: it will keep much better, and only half the quant.i.ty required; so you can flavor sauce, &c., without thinning it; neither is this an extravagant way of making it, for merely the aqueous part is evaporated. Skim it well, and pour it into a clean dry jar or jug; cover it close, and let it stand in a cool place till next day; then pour it off as gently as possible (so as not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the jug), through a tamis or thick flannel bag, till it is perfectly clear; add a tablespoonful of good brandy to each pint of ketchup, and let it stand as before; a fresh sediment will be deposited, from which the ketchup is to be quietly poured off and bottled in pints or half pints (which have been washed in brandy or spirits). It is best to keep it in such quant.i.ties as are soon used.

Take especial care that it is closely corked and sealed down. If kept in a cool dry place, it may be preserved for a long time; but if it be badly corked, and kept in a damp place, it will soon spoil.

Examine it from time to time, by placing a strong light behind the neck of the bottle, and if any pellicle appears about it, boil it up again with a few peppercorns.

SUPERLATIVE SAUCE.

Who praises, in this _sauce enamor'd_ age, Calm, healthful temperance, like an Indian sage?

WARTON.

Claret or Port wine and mushroom ketchup, a pint of each; half a pint of walnut or other pickle liquor; pounded anchovies, four ounces; fresh lemon-peel, pared very thin, an ounce; peeled and sliced eschalots, the same; sc.r.a.ped horseradish, ditto; allspice and black pepper, powdered, half an ounce each; cayenne, one drachm, or curry powder, three drachms; celery seed, bruised, one drachm; all avoirdupois weight. Put these into a wide-mouthed bottle, stop it close, shake it every day for a fortnight, and strain it (when some think it improved by the addition of a quarter of a pint of soy or thick browning), and you will have "a delicious double relish." Dr. Kitchener says, this composition is one of the chefs d'oeuvres of many experiments he has made, for the purpose of enabling good housewives to prepare their own sauces; it is equally agreeable with fish, game, poultry, or ragouts, &c.; and as a fair lady may make it herself, its relish will be not a little augmented, that all the ingredients are good and wholesome.

_Obs._ Under an infinity of circ.u.mstances, a cook may be in want of the substances necessary to make sauce; the above composition of the several articles from which the various gravies derive their flavor, will be found a very admirable extemporaneous subst.i.tute. By mixing a large tablespoonful with a quarter of a pint of thickened melted b.u.t.ter, or broth, five minutes will finish a boat of very relis.h.i.+ng sauce, nearly equal to drawn gravy, and as likely to put your lingual nerves into good humor as anything I know.

MINT SAUCE.

"Live bullion," says merciless Bob, "which I think Would, if coined with a little _mint sauce_, be delicious."

MOORE.

Wash half a handful of nice, young, fresh-gathered green mint (to this add one-third the quant.i.ty of parsley), pick the leaves from the stalks, mince them very fine, and put them into a sauce-boat, with a teaspoonful of moist sugar and four tablespoonfuls of vinegar.

CRANBERRY SAUCE.

Our fathers most admired their _sauces sweet_, And often asked for sugar _with their meat_.

KING.

Wash a quart of ripe cranberries, and put them into a pan with just about a teacup of water; stew them slowly and stir them frequently, particularly after they begin to burst. They require a great deal of stewing, and should be like marmalade when done. When they are broken and the juice comes out, stir in a pound of white sugar. When they are thoroughly done, put them into a deep dish, and set them away to get cold. You may strain the pulp through a cullender or sieve into a mould, and when it is a firm shape send it to table.

Cranberry sauce is eaten with roast fowl, turkey, &c.

CAPER SAUCE.

Along these sh.o.r.es Neglected trade with difficulty toils, Collecting slender stores; the sun-dried grape, Or _capers_ from the rock, that prompt the taste Of luxury.

DYER.

To make a quarter of a pint, take a tablespoonful of capers and two teaspoonfuls of vinegar. The present fas.h.i.+on of cutting capers is to mince one-third of them very fine, and divide the others in half; put them into a quarter of a pint of melted b.u.t.ter, or good thickened gravy; stir them the same way as you did the melted b.u.t.ter, or it will oil.

Some boil and mince fine a few leaves of parsley or chevrel or tarragon, and add to the sauce; others, the juice of half a Seville orange or lemon.

VEGETABLES.

Grateful and salutary Spring! the _plants_ Which crown thy numerous gardens, and invite To health and temperance, in the simple meal, Unstain'd with murder, undefil'd with blood, Unpoison'd with rich sauces, to provoke The unwilling appet.i.te to gluttony.

For this, the _bulbous esculents_ their roots With sweetness fill; for this, with cooling juice The green herb spreads its _leaves_; and opening _buds_ And _flowers_ and _seeds_ with various flavors tempts Th' ensanguined palate from its savage feast.

DODSLEY.

As to the quality of vegetables, the middle size are preferred to the largest or smallest; they are more tender, juicy, and full of flavor, just before they are quite full grown. Freshness is their chief value and excellence, and I should as soon think of roasting an animal alive, as of boiling a vegetable after it is dead.

To boil them in soft water will preserve the color best of such as are green; if you have only hard water, put to it a teaspoonful of carbonate of potash.

Take care to wash and cleanse them thoroughly from dust, dirt, and insects. This requires great attention.

If you wish to have vegetables delicately clean, put on your pot, make it boil, put a little salt in it, and skim it perfectly clean before you put in the greens, &c., which should not be put in till the water boils briskly; the quicker they boil, the greener they will be. When the vegetables sink, they are generally done enough, if the water has been kept constantly boiling. Take them up immediately, or they will lose their color and goodness. Drain the water from them thoroughly before you send them to table.

This branch of cookery requires the most vigilant attention.

TO DRESS SALAD.

Two large potatoes, pressed through kitchen sieve, Smoothness and softness to the _salad_ give; Of mordant mustard add a single spoon; Distrust the condiment that bites too soon; But deem it not, thou man of herbs, a fault, To add a double quant.i.ty of salt.

Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar procured from town; True flavor needs it, and your poet begs The pounded yellow of two boiled eggs; Let onion's atoms lurk within the bowl, And, scarce suspected, animate the whole; And, lastly, in the flavored compound toss A magic spoonful of anchovy sauce.

O great and glorious! O herbaceous treat!

'Twould tempt the dying anchorite to eat, Back to the world he'd turn his weary soul, And plunge his fingers in the salad bowl.

REV. SIDNEY SMITH.

If the herbs be young, fresh-gathered, trimmed neatly, and drained dry and the sauce-maker ponders patiently over the above directions, he cannot fail of obtaining the fame of being a very accomplished salad-dresser.

ONIONS.