The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual Part 16

_Eggs._ A salmon of 20 pounds weight contained 27,850 A middling-sized pike 148,000 A mackerel 546,681 A cod 9,344,000

See _Cours Gastronomiques_, 18mo. 1806, p. 241.

[88-*] Fish are very frequently sent home frozen by the fishmonger, to whom an ice-house is now as necessary an appendage (to preserve fish,) as it is to a confectioner.

CHAPTER VII.

BROTHS AND SOUPS.

The cook must pay continual attention to the condition of her stew-pans[89-*] and soup-kettles, &c. which should be examined every time they are used. The prudent housewife will carefully examine the condition of them herself at least once a month. Their covers also must be kept perfectly clean and well tinned, and the stew-pans not only on the inside, but about a couple of inches on the outside: many mischiefs arise from their getting out of repair; and if not kept nicely tinned, all your good work will be in vain; the broths and soups will look green and dirty, taste bitter and poisonous, and will be spoiled both for the eye and palate, and your credit will be lost.

The health, and even life of the family, depends upon this, and the cook may be sure her employers had rather pay the tinman's bill than the doctor's; therefore, attention to this cannot fail to engage the regard of the mistress, between whom and the cook it will be my utmost endeavour to promote perfect harmony.

If a servant has the misfortune to scorch or blister the tinning of her pan,[89-+] which will happen sometimes to the most careful cook, I advise her, by all means, immediately to acquaint her employers, who will thank her for candidly mentioning an accident; and censure her deservedly if she conceal it.

Take care to be properly provided with sieves and tammy cloths, spoons and ladles. Make it a rule without an exception, never to use them till they are well cleaned and thoroughly dried, nor any stewpans, &c.

without first was.h.i.+ng them out with boiling water, and rubbing them well with a dry cloth and a little bran, to clean them from grease, sand, &c., or any bad smell they may have got since they were last used: never neglect this.

Though we do not suppose our cook to be such a naughty s.l.u.t as to wilfully neglect her broth-pots, &c., yet we may recommend her to wash them immediately, and take care they are thoroughly dried at the fire, before they are put by, and to keep them in a dry place, for damp will rust and destroy them very soon: attend to this the first moment you can spare after the dinner is sent up.

Never put by any soup, gravy, &c. in metal utensils; in which never keep any thing longer than is absolutely necessary for the purposes of cookery; the acid, vegetables, fat, &c. employed in making soups, &c.

are capable of dissolving such utensils; therefore stone or earthen vessels should be used for this purpose.

Stew-pans, soup-pots, and preserving pans, with thick and round bottoms (such as sauce-pans are made with), will wear twice as long, and are cleaned with half the trouble, as those whose sides are soldered to the bottom, of which sand and grease get into the joined part, and cookeys say that it is next to an impossibility to dislodge it, even if their nails are as long as Nebuchadnezzar's. The Editor claims the credit bf having first suggested the importance of this construction of these utensils.

Take care that the lids fit as close as possible, that the broth, soup, and sauces, &c. may not waste by evaporation. They are good for nothing, unless they fit tight enough to keep the steam in and the smoke out.

Stew-pans and sauce-pans should be always bright on the upper rim, where the fire does not burn them; but to scour them all over is not only giving the cook needless trouble, but wearing out the vessels. See observations on sauce-pans in Chapter I.

Cultivate habits of regularity and cleanliness, &c. in all your business, which you will then get through easily and comfortably. I do not mean the restless spirit of _Molidusta_, "the _Tidy One_," who is anon, anon, Sir, frisking about in a whirlpool of bustle and confusion, and is always dirty, under pretence of being always cleaning.

Lean, juicy beef, mutton, or veal, form the basis of broth; procure those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and as fresh killed as possible.[90-*]

Stale meat will make broth grouty and bad tasted, and fat meat is wasted. This only applies to those broths which are required to be perfectly clear: we shall show hereafter (in No. 229), that fat and clarified drippings may be so combined with vegetable mucilage, as to afford, at the small cost of one penny per quart, a nouris.h.i.+ng and palatable soup, fully adequate to satisfy appet.i.te and support strength: this will open a new source to those benevolent housekeepers, who are disposed to relieve the poor, will show the industrious cla.s.ses how much they have it in their power to a.s.sist themselves, and rescue them from being objects of charity dependent on the precarious bounty of others, by teaching them how they may obtain a cheap, abundant, salubrious, and agreeable aliment for themselves and families.

This soup has the advantage of being very easily and very soon made, with no more fuel than is necessary to warm a room. Those who have not tasted it, cannot imagine what a salubrious, savoury, and satisfying meal is produced by the judicious combination of cheap homely ingredients.

Scotch barley broth (No. 204) will furnish a good dinner of soup and meat for fivepence per head, pease soup (No. 221) will cost only sixpence per quart, ox-tail soup (No. 240) or the same portable soup (No. 252), for fivepence per quart, and (No. 224) an excellent gravy soup for fourpence halfpenny per quart, duck-giblet soup (No. 244) for threepence per quart, and fowls' head soup in the same manner for still less (No. 239), will give you a good and plentiful dinner for six people for two s.h.i.+llings and twopence. See also s.h.i.+n of beef stewed (No. 493), and a-la-mode beef (No. 502).

BROTH HERBS, SOUP ROOTS, AND SEASONINGS.

Scotch barley (No. 204).

Pearl barley.

Flour.

OATMEAL (No. 572).

Bread.

Raspings.

Pease (No. 218).

Beans.

Rice (No. 321*).

Vermicelli.

Macaroni (No. 513).

Isingla.s.s.

Potato mucilage (No. 448).

Mushrooms[91-*] (No. 439).

Champignons.

Parsnips (No. 213).

Carrots (No. 212).

Beet-roots.

Turnips (No. 208).

Garlic.

Shallots, (No. 402.) Onions.[91-+]

Leeks.

Cuc.u.mber.[92-*]

Celery (No. 214).

CELERY SEED.[92-+]

Cress-seed,[92-+] (No. 397).

Parsley,[92-++] (N.B. to No. 261.) Common thyme.[92-++]

Lemon thyme.[92-++]

Orange thyme.[92-++]

Knotted marjorum[92-++] (No. 417).

Sage.[92-++]

Mint (No. 398).

Winter savoury.[92-++]

Sweet basil[92-++] (No. 397).

Bay leaves.

Tomata.

Tarragon (No. 396).

Chervil.

Burnet (No. 399).

ALLSPICE[92---] (No. 412).

Cinnamon[92---] (No. 416*).

Ginger[92---] (No. 411).

Nutmeg.[92---]

Clove (No. 414).

Mace.

Black pepper.

Lemon-peel (No. 407 & 408.) White pepper.

Lemon-juice.[92- ]

Seville orange-juice.[92---]

Essence of anchovy (No. 433).

The above materials, wine, and mushroom catchup (No. 439), combined in various proportions, will make an endless variety[93-*] of excellent broths and soups, quite as pleasant to the palate, and as useful and agreeable to the stomach, as consuming pheasants and partridges, and the long list of inflammatory, _piquante_, and rare and costly articles, recommended by former cookery-book makers, whose elaborately compounded soups are like their made dishes; in which, though variety is aimed at, every thing has the same taste, and nothing its own.