The Whitehouse Cookbook (1887) Part 14

_Prince's Bay, S. I._

BOSTON OYSTER PIE.

Having b.u.t.tered the inside of a _deep_ pie plate, line it with puff paste, or common pie crust, and prepare another sheet of paste for the lid; put a clean towel into the dish (folded so as to support the lid), set it into the oven and bake the paste well; when done, remove the lid and take out the towel. While the paste is baking, prepare the oysters. Having picked off carefully every bit of sh.e.l.l that may be found about them, drain the liquor into a pan and put the oysters into a stewpan with barely enough of the liquor to keep them from burning; season them with pepper, salt and b.u.t.ter; add a little sweet cream or milk, and one or two crackers rolled fine; let the oysters simmer, but _not boil_, as that will shrivel them. Remove the upper crust of pastry and fill the dish with the oysters and gravy. Replace the cover and serve hot.

Some prefer baking the upper crust on a pie plate, the same size as the pie, then slipping it off on top of the pie after the same pie is filled with the oysters.

MOCK OYSTERS.

Grate the corn, while green and tender, with a coa.r.s.e grater, into a deep dish. For two ears of corn, allow one egg; beat the whites and yolks separately, and add them to the corn, with one tablespoonful of wheat flour and one of b.u.t.ter, a teaspoonful of salt and pepper to taste. Drop spoonfuls of this batter into a frying pan with hot b.u.t.ter and lard mixed, and fry a light brown on both sides.

In taste, they have a singular resemblance to fried oysters. The corn _must_ be _young_.

FRICa.s.sEED OYSTERS.

Take a slice of raw ham, which has been pickled, but not smoked, and soak in boiling water for half an hour; cut it in quite small pieces, and put in a saucepan with two-thirds of a pint of veal or chicken broth, well strained; the liquor from a quart of oysters, one small onion, minced fine, a little chopped parsley, sweet marjoram, and pepper; let them simmer for twenty minutes, and then boil rapidly for two or three minutes; skim well and add one scant tablespoon of cornstarch, mixed smoothly in one-third cup of milk; stir constantly, and when it boils add the oysters and one ounce of b.u.t.ter; after which, just let it come to a boil, and remove the oysters to a deep dish; beat one egg, and add to it gradually some of the hot broth, and, when cooked, stir it into the pan; season with salt, and pour the whole over the oysters. When placed upon the table, squeeze the juice of a lemon over it.

Small Oyster Pies.

For each pie take a tin plate half the size of an ordinary dinner plate; b.u.t.ter it, and cover the bottom with a puff paste, as for pies; lay on it five or six select oysters, or enough to cover the bottom; b.u.t.ter them and season with a little salt and plenty of pepper; spread over this an egg batter, and cover with a crust of the paste, making small openings in it with a fork. Bake in a hot oven fifteen to twenty minutes, or until the top is nicely browned.

_Boston Oyster House._

STEWED CLAMS.

Wash clean as many round clams as required; pile them in a large iron pot, with half a cupful of hot water in the bottom, and put over the fire; as soon as the sh.e.l.ls open take out the clams, cut off the hard, uneatable "fringe" from each with strong, clean scissors, put them into a stewpan with the broth from the pot, and boil slowly till they are quite tender; pepper well and thicken the gravy with flour stirred into melted b.u.t.ter.

Or, you may get two dozen freshly opened _very_ small clams. Boil a pint of milk, a dash of white pepper and a small pat of b.u.t.ter. Now add the clams. Let them come to a boil and serve. Longer boiling will make the clams almost indigestible.

ROAST CLAMS IN THE Sh.e.l.l.

Roast in a pan over a hot fire, or in a hot oven, or, at a "Clam Bake," on hot stones; when they open, empty the juice into a saucepan; add the clams, with b.u.t.ter, pepper and a very little salt.

_Rye Beach._

CLAM FRITTERS.

Take fifty small or twenty-five large sand clams from their sh.e.l.ls; if large, cut each in two, lay them on a thickly-folded napkin; put a pint bowl of wheat flour into a basin, add to it three well-beaten eggs, half a pint of sweet milk and nearly as much of their own liquor; beat the batter until it is smooth and perfectly free from lumps, then stir in the clams. Put plenty of lard or beef fat into a thick-bottomed frying pan, let it become boiling hot; put in the batter by the spoonful; let them fry gently; when one side is a delicate brown turn the other.

CLAM CHOWDER.

The materials needed are fifty round clams (quahogs), a large bowl of salt pork cut up fine, the same of onions finely chopped, and the same (or more, if you desire) of potatoes cut into eighths or sixteenths of original size; wash the clams very thoroughly and put them in a pot with half a pint of water; when the sh.e.l.ls are open they are done; then take them from the sh.e.l.ls and chop fine, saving all the clam water for the chowder; fry out the pork very gently, and when the sc.r.a.ps are a good brown take them out and put in the chopped onions to fry; they should be fried in a frying pan, and the chowder kettle be made very clean before they are put in it, or the chowder will burn.

(The chief secret in chowder-making is to fry the onions so delicately that they will be missing in the chowder.)

Add a quart of hot water to the onions; put in the clams, clam-water and pork sc.r.a.ps. After it boils, add the potatoes, and when they are cooked, the chowder is finished. Just before it is taken up, thicken it with a cup of powdered crackers, and add a quart of fresh milk. If too rich, add more water. No seasoning is needed but good black pepper.

With the addition of six sliced tomatoes, or half a can of the canned ones, this is the best recipe of this kind, and is served in many of our best restaurants. _New Bedford Recipe_.

SCALLOPED CLAMS.

Purchase a dozen large soft clams in the sh.e.l.l and three dozen opened clams. Ask the dealer to open the first dozen, care being used not to injure the sh.e.l.ls, which are to be used in cooking the clams. Clean the sh.e.l.ls well, and put two soft clams on each half sh.e.l.l; add to each a dash of white pepper, and half a teaspoonful of minced celery.

Cut a slice of fat bacon into the smallest dice, add four of these to each sh.e.l.l, strew over the top a thin layer of cracker dust; place a piece of table b.u.t.ter on top, and bake in the oven until brown. They are delightful when properly prepared.

SCALLOPS.

If bought in the sh.e.l.l boil them and take out the hearts, which is the only part used. Dip them in beaten egg and fry in the same manner as oysters.

Some prefer them stewed the same as oysters.

FROGS FRIED.

Frog are usually fried, and are considered a great delicacy. Only the hind-legs and quarters are used. Clean them well, season, and fry in egg batter, or dip in beaten egg and fine cracker crumbs, the same as oysters.

FROGS STEWED.

Wash and skin the quarters, parboil them about three minutes, drain them. Now put into a stewpan two ounces of b.u.t.ter. When it is melted, lay in the frogs, and fry about two minutes, stirring them to prevent burning; shake over them a tablespoonful of sifted flour and stir it into them; add a sprig of parsley, a pinch of powdered summer savory, a bay leaf, three slices of onion, salt and pepper, a cup of hot water and one of cream. Boil gently until done; remove the legs, strain and mix into the gravy the yolks of two eggs, well beaten to a cream; put the legs in a suitable dish, pour over the gravy and serve.

POULTRY AND GAME

In choosing poultry, select those that are fresh and fat, and the surest way to determine whether they are young is to try the skin under the leg or wing. If it is easily broken, it is young; or, turn the wing backwards, if the joint yields readily, it is tender. When poultry is young the skin is thin and tender, the legs smooth, the feet moist and limber, and the eyes full and bright. The body should be thick and the breast fat. Old turkeys have long hairs, and the flesh is purplish where it shows under the skin on the legs and back.

About March they deteriorate in quality.

Young ducks and geese are plump, with light, semi-transparent fat, soft breast bone, tender flesh, leg-joints which will break by the weight of the bird, fresh-colored and brittle beaks, and windpipes that break when pressed between the thumb and forefinger. They are best in fall and winter.

Young pigeons have light red flesh upon the breast, and full, fresh-colored legs; when the legs are thin and the breast very dark the birds are old.

Fine game birds are always heavy for their size; the flesh of the breast is firm and plump and the skin clear; and if a few feathers be plucked from the inside of the leg and around the vent, the flesh of freshly-killed birds will be fat and fresh-colored; if it is dark and discolored, the game has been hung a long time. The wings of good ducks, geese, pheasants and woodc.o.c.k are tender to the touch; the tips of the long wing feathers of partridges are pointed in young birds and round in old ones. Quail, snipe and small birds should have full, tender b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Poultry should never be cooked until six or eight hours after it has been killed, but it should be picked and drawn as soon as possible. Plunge it in a pot of scalding hot water; then pluck off the feathers, taking care not to tear the skin; when it is picked clean, roll up a piece of white paper, set fire to it and singe off all the hairs. The head, neck and feet should be cut off, and the ends of the legs skewered to the body, and a string tied tightly around the body. When roasting a chicken or small fowl there is danger of the legs browning or becoming too hard to be eaten. To avoid this, take strips of cloth, dip them into a little melted lard, or even just rub them over with lard, and wind them around the legs. Remove them in time to allow the legs to brown delicately.

Fowls, and also various kinds of game, when bought at our city markets, require a more thorough cleansing than those sold in country places, where as a general thing the meat is wholly dressed. In large cities they lay for some length of time with the intestines undrawn, until the flavor of them diffuses itself all through the meat, rendering it distasteful. In this case, it is safe, after taking out the intestines, to rinse out in several waters, and in next to the last water, add a teaspoonful of baking soda, say to a quart of water.

This process neutralizes all sourness, and helps to destroy all unpleasant taste in the meat.

Poultry may be baked so that its wings and legs are soft and tender, by being placed in a deep roasting pan with close cover, thereby retaining the aroma and essences by absorption while confined. These pans are a recent innovation, and are made double with a small opening in the top for giving vent to the acc.u.mulation of steam and gases when required. Roast meats of any kind can also be cooked in the same manner, and it is a great improvement on the old plan.