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AMERICAN COOKERY,

OR THE ART OF DRESSING

VIANDS, FISH, POULTRY and VEGETABLES,

AND THE BEST MODES OF MAKING

PASTES, PUFFS, PIES, TARTS, PUDDINGS,

CUSTARDS AND PRESERVES,

AND ALL KINDS OF CAKES, FROM THE IMPERIAL PLUMB TO PLAIN CAKE.

ADAPTED TO THIS COUNTRY, AND ALL GRADES OF LIFE.

PUBLISHED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS.

PREFACE

The candor of the American Ladies is solicitously intreated by the Authoress, as she is circumscribed in her knowledge, this being an original work in this country. Should any future editions appear, she hopes to render it more valuable.

DIRECTIONS for CATERING, or the procuring the best VIANDS, FISH, &c.

BEEF. The large stall fed ox beef is the best, it has a coarse open grain, and oily smoothness; dent it with your finger and it will immediately rise again; if old, it will be rough and spungy, and the dent remain.

Cow Beef is less boned, and generally more tender and juicy than the ox, in America, which is used to labor.

Of almost every species of Animals, Birds and Fishes, the female is the tenderest, the richest flavour'd, and among poultry the soonest fattened.

To each ham put one ounce saltpetre, one pint bay salt, one pint molasses, shake together 6 or 8 weeks, or when a large quantity is together, bast them with the liquor every day; when taken out to dry, smoke three weeks with cobs or malt fumes. To every ham may be added a cheek, if you stow away a barrel and not alter the composition, some add a shoulder. For transportation or exportation, double the period of smoaking.

In all great fish-markets, great fish-mongers strictly examine the gills--if the bright redness is exchanged for a low brown, they are stale; but when live fish are bro't flouncing into market, you have only to elect the kind most agreeable to your palate and the season.

Most white or soft fish are best bloated, which is done by salting, peppering, and drying in the sun, and in a chimney; after 30 or 40 hours drying, are best broiled, and moistened with butter, &c.

All birds are known, whether fresh killed or stale, by a tight vent in the former, and a loose open vent if old or stale; their smell denotes their goodness; speckled rough legs denote age, while smooth legs and combs prove them young.

The cultivation of Rabbits would be profitable in America, if the best methods were pursued--they are a very prolific and profitable animal--they are easily cultivated if properly attended, but not otherwise.--A Rabbit's borough, on which 3000 dollars may have been expended, might be very profitable; but on the small scale they would be well near market towns--easier bred, and more valuable.

A roast Potato is brought on with roast Beef, a Steake, a Chop, or Fricassee; good boiled with a boiled dish; make an excellent stuffing for a turkey, water or wild fowl; make a good pie, and a good starch for many uses. All potatoes run out, or depreciate in America; a fresh importation of the Spanish might restore them to table use.

The general rules are, to have a brisk hot fire, to hang down rather than to spit, to baste with salt and water, and one quarter of an hour to every pound of beef, tho' tender beef will require less, while old tough beef will require more roasting; pricking with a fork will determine you whether done or not; rare done is the healthiest and the taste of this age.

If a breast let it be cauled, if a leg, stuffed or not, let be done more gently than beef, and done more; the chine, saddle or leg require more fire and longer time than the breast, &c. Garnish with scraped horse radish, and serve with potatoes, beans, colliflowers, water-cresses, or boiled onion, caper sauce, mashed turnip, or lettuce.

As it is more tender than beef or mutton, and easily scorched, paper it, especially the fat parts, lay it some distance from the fire a while to heat gently, baste it well; a 15 pound piece requires one hour and a quarter roasting; garnish with green-parsley and sliced lemon.

Lay down to a clear good fire that will not want stirring or altering, baste with butter, dust on flour, baste with the dripping, and before you take it up, add more butter and sprinkle on a little salt and parsley shred fine; send to table with a nice sallad, green peas, fresh beans, or a colliflower, or asparagus.

Grate a wheat loaf, one quarter of a pound butter, one quarter of a pound salt pork, finely chopped, 2 eggs, a little sweet marjoram, summer savory, parsley and sage, pepper and salt fill the bird and sew up.

The same will answer for all Wild Fowl.

One pound soft wheat bread, 3 ounces beef suet, 3 eggs, a little sweet thyme, sweet marjoram, pepper and salt, and some add a gill of wine; fill the bird therewith and sew up, hang down to a steady solid fire, basting frequently with salt and water, and roast until a steam emits from the breast, put one third of a pound of butter into the gravy, dust flour over the bird and baste with the gravy; serve up with boiled onions and cramberry-sauce, mangoes, pickles or celery.

Boil the inwards tender, chop them fine, put double quantity of grated bread, 4 ounces butter, pepper, salt, 2 eggs moulded into the stuffing, parboil 4 onions and chop them into the stuffing, add wine, and roast the bird.

The above is a good stuffing for every kind of Water Fowl, which requires onion sauce.

Fill the bird with dry Oysters, and sew up and boil in water just sufficient to cover the bird, salt and season to your taste--when done tender, put into a deep dish and pour over it a pint of stewed oysters, well buttered and peppered, garnish a turkey with sprigs of parsley or leaves of cellery: a fowl is best with a parsley sauce.

Take one pound of veal, half pound pork one pound grated bread, chop all very fine, with a handful of green parsley, pepper it, add 3 ounces butter and 3 eggs, cut the leg round like a ham and stab it full of holes, and fill in all the stuffing; then salt and pepper the leg and dust on some flour; if baked in an oven, put into a sauce pan with a little water, if potted, lay some scewers at the bottom of the pot, put in a little water and lay the leg on the scewers, with a gentle fire render it tender, when done take out the leg, put butter in the pot and brown the leg, the gravy in a separate vessel must be thickened and buttered and a spoonful of ketchup added.

Corn the leg 48 hours and stuff with sausage meat and bake in a hot oven two hours and an half or roast.

To a 14 or 16 pound round of beef, put one ounce salt-petre, 48 hours after stuff it with the following: one and half pound beef, one pound salt pork, two pound grated bread, chop all fine and rub in half pound butter, salt, pepper and cayenne, summer savory, thyme; lay it on scewers in a large pot, over 3 pints hot water the steam of which in 4 or 5 hours will render the round tender if over a moderate fire; when tender, take away the gravy and thicken with flour and butter, and boil, brown the round with butter and flour, adding ketchup and wine to your taste.

Take fat pork cut in slices or mince, season it with pepper, salt, sweet marjoram and thyme, cloves, mace and nutmeg, make holes in the beef and stuff it the night before cooked; put some bones across the bottom of the pot to keep from burning, put in one quart Claret wine, one quart water and one onion; lay the round on the bones, cover close and stop it round the top with dough; hang on in the morning and stew gently two hours; turn it, and stop tight and stew two hours more; when done tender, grate a crust of bread on the top and brown it before the fire; scum the gravy and serve in a butter boat, serve it with the residue of the gravy in the dish.

Fill a boiler or kettle, with a quantity of water sufficient to scald the callapach and Callapee, the fins, &c. and about 9 o'clock hang up your Turtle by the hind fins, cut of the head and save the blood, take a sharp pointed knife and separate the callapach from the callapee, or the back from the belly part, down to the shoulders, so as to come at the entrails which take out, and clean them, as you would those of any other animal, and throw them into a tub of clean water, taking great care not to break the gall, but to cut it off from the liver and throw it away, then separate each distinctly and put the guts into another vessel, open them with a small pen-knife end to end, wash them clean, and draw them through a woolen cloth, in warm water, to clear away the slime and then put them in clean cold water till they are used with the other part of the entrails, which must be cut up small to be mixed in the baking dishes with the meat; this done, separate the back and belly pieces, entirely cutting away the fore fins by the upper joint, which scald; peal off the loose skin and cut them into small pieces, laying them by themselves, either in another vessel, or on the table, ready to be seasoned; then cut off the meat from the belly part, and clean the back from the lungs, kidneys, &c. and that meat cut into pieces as small as a walnut, laying it likewise by itself; after this you are to scald the back, and belly pieces, pulling off the shell from the back, and the yellow skin from the belly, when all will be white and clean, and with the kitchen cleaver cut those up likewise into pieces about the bigness or breadth of a card; put those pieces into clean cold water, wash them and place them in a heap on the table, so that each part may lay by itself; the meat being thus prepared and laid separate for seasoning; mix two third parts of salt or rather more, and one third part of cyanne pepper, black pepper, and a nutmeg, and mace pounded fine, and mixt all together; the quantity, to be proportioned to the size of the Turtle, so that in each dish there may be about three spoonfuls of seasoning to every twelve pound of meat; your meat being thus seasoned, get some sweet herbs, such as thyme, savory, &c. let them be dryed an rub'd fine, and having provided some deep dishes to bake it in, which should be of the common brown ware, put in the coarsest part of the meat, put a quarter pound of butter at the bottom of each dish, and then put some of each of the several parcels of meat, so that the dishes may be all alike and have equal portions of the different parts of the Turtle, and between each laying of meat strew a little of the mixture of sweet herbs, fill your dishes within an inch an half, or two inches of the top; boil the blood of the Turtle, and put into it, then lay on forcemeat balls made of veal, highly seasoned with the same seasoning as the Turtle; put in each dish a gill of Madeira Wine, and as much water as it will conveniently hold, then break over it five or six eggs to keep the meat from scorching at the top, and over that shake a handful of shread parsley, to make it look green, when done put your dishes into an oven made hot enough to bake bread, and in an hour and half, or two hours it will be sufficiently done.

The head and feet being well scalded and cleaned, open the head, taking the brains, wash, pick and cleanse, salt and pepper and parsley them and put bye in a cloth; boil the head, feet and heartslet one and quarter, or one and half hour, sever out the bones, cut the skin and meat in slices, drain the liquor in which boiled and put by; clean the pot very clean or it will burn too, make a layer of the slices, which dust with a composition made of black pepper one spoon, of sweet herbs pulverized, two spoons a tea spoon of cayenne, one pound butter, then dust with flour, then a layer of slices with slices of veal and seasoning till compleated, cover with the liquor, stew gently three quarters of an hour. To make the forced meat balls--take one and half pound veal, one pound grated bread, 4 ounces raw salt pork, mince and season with above and work with 3 whites into balls, one or one an half inch diameter, roll in flour, and fry in very hot butter till brown, then chop the brains fine and stir into the whole mess in the pot, put thereto, one third part of the fryed balls and a pint wine or less, when all is heated thro' take off and serve in tureens, laying the residue of the balls and hard boiled and pealed eggs into a dish, garnish with slices of lemon.

Boil a shoulder of Veal, and cut up, salt, pepper, and butter half pound, and slices of raw salt pork, make a layer of meat, and a layer of biscuit, or biscuit dough into a pot, cover close and stew half an hour in three quarts of water only.

Four pound of flour, one and half pound of butter rolled into paste, wet with cold water, line the pot therewith, lay in split pigeons, turkey pies, veal, mutton or birds, with slices of pork, salt, pepper, and dust on flour, doing thus till the pot is full or your ingredients expended, add three pints water, cover tight with paste, and stew moderately two and half hours.

Pick and clean six chickens, take out their inwards and wash the birds while whole, then joint the birds, salt and pepper the pieces and inwards. Roll one inch thick paste No. 8 and cover a deep dish, and double at the rim or edge of the dish, put thereto a layer of chickens and a layer of thin slices of butter, till the chickens and one and a half pound butter are expended, which cover with a thick paste; bake one and a half hour.

Or if your oven be poor, parboil, the chickens with half a pound of butter, and put the pieces with the remaining one pound of butter, and half the gravy into the paste, and while boiling, thicken the residue of the gravy, and when the pie is drawn, open the crust, and add the gravy.

Scald neets feet, and clean well, put them into a large vessel of cold water, which change daily during a week, then boil the feet till tender, and take away the bones, when cold, chop fine, to every four pound minced meat, add one pound of beef suet, and four pound apple raw, and a little salt, chop all together very fine, add one quart of wine, two pound of stoned raisins, one ounce of cinnamon, one ounce mace, and sweeten to your taste; make use of paste No. 3--bake three quarters of an hour.

Weeks after, when you have occasion to use them, carefully raise the top crust, and with a round edg'd spoon, collect the meat into a bason, which warm with additional wine and spices to the taste of your circle, while the crust is also warm'd like a hoe cake, put carefully together and serve up, by this means you can have hot pies through the winter, and enrich'd singly to your company.

One pound neat's tongue, one pound apple, one third of a pound of Sugar, one quarter of a pound of butter, one pint of wine, one pound of raisins, or currants, half ounce of cinnamon and mace--bake in paste No. 1, in proportion to size.

Four pound boild beef, chopped fine; and salted; six pound of raw apple chopped also, one pound beef suet, one quart of Wine or rich sweet cyder, one ounce mace, and cinnamon, a nutmeg, two pounds raisins, bake in paste No. 3, three fourths of an hour.

All meat pies require a hotter and brisker oven than fruit pies, in good cookeries, all raisins should be stoned.--As people differ in their tastes, they may alter to their wishes. And as it is difficult to ascertain with precision the small articles of spicery; every one may relish as they like, and suit their taste.

Stew and strain the apples, to every three pints, grate the peal of a fresh lemon, add cinnamon, mace, rose-water and sugar to your taste--and bake in paste No. 3.

Every species of fruit such as peas, plums, raspberries, black berries may be only sweetened, without spices--and bake in paste No. 3.

Take green, full grown currants, and one third their quantity of sugar, proceeding as above.

Pare, quarter and core tart apples, lay in paste No. 3, cover with the same; bake half an hour, when drawn, gently raise the top crust, add sugar, butter, cinnamon, mace, wine or rose-water q: s:

PUDDINGS.

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