First Course.—Vermicelli soup; brill and shrimp sauce. Entrées.—Fricandeau of veal; lobster cutlets. Second Course.—Roast fore-quarter of lamb; boiled chickens; tongue; vegetables. Third Course.—Goslings; sea-kale; plum pudding; whipped cream; compôte of rhubarb; cheesecakes; dessert.
First Course.—Ox-tail soup; crimped salmon. Entrées.—Croquettes of chicken; mutton cutlets and soubise sauce. Second Course.—Roast fillet of veal; boiled bacon-cheek, garnished with sprouts; boiled capon; vegetables. Third Course.—Sea-kale; lobster salad; cabinet pudding; ginger cream; raspberry-jam tartlets; rhubarb tart; macaroni; dessert.
APRIL, Plain Family Dinners for.
Sunday.—1. Clear gravy soup. 2. Roast haunch of mutton, sea-kale, potatoes. 3. Rhubarb tart, custards in glasses.
Monday.—1. Crimped skate and caper sauce. 2. Boiled knuckle of veal and rice, cold mutton, mashed potatoes. 3. Baked plum-pudding.
Tuesday.—1. Vegetable soup. 2. Toad-in-the-hole, made from remains of cold mutton. 3. Stewed rhubarb and baked custard puddings.
Wednesday.—1. Fried soles, anchovy sauce. 2. Boiled beef and carrots, suet dumplings. 3. Lemon pudding.
Thursday.—1. Pea-soup, made with liquor that beef was boiled in. 2. Cold beef, mashed potatoes, mutton cutlets and tomato sauce. 3. Macaroni.
Friday.—1. Bubble-and-squeak made with remains of cold beef, roast shoulder of veal stuffed, spinach and potatoes. 2. Boiled batter pudding and sweet sauce.
Saturday.—1. Stewed veal with vegetables, made of remains of cold shoulder, broiled rump-steak and oyster sauce. 2. Yeast dumplings.
Sunday.—Boiled salmon and dressed cucumber, anchovy sauce. 2. Roast fore-quarter of lamb, spinach, potatoes, and mint sauce. 3. Rhubarb tart and cheesecakes.
Monday.—Curried salmon, made with remains of salmon, dish of boiled rice. 2. Cold lamb, rump-steak and kidney pudding, potatoes. 3. Spinach and poached eggs.
Tuesday.—1. Scotch mutton broth with pearl barley. 2. Boiled neck of mutton, caper sauce, suet dumplings, carrots. 3. Baked rice puddings.
Wednesday.—1. Boiled mackerel and melted butter and fennel sauce, potatoes. 2. Roast fillet of veal, bacon and greens. 3. Fig pudding.
Thursday.—1. Flemish soup. 2. Roast loin of mutton, broccoli, potatoes, veal rolls made from remains of cold veal. 3. Boiled rhubarb pudding.
Friday.—1. Irish stew or haricot for cold mutton, minced veal. 2. Half-pay pudding.
Saturday.—1. Rump-steak pie, broiled mutton chops. 2. Baked arrowroot pudding.
APRIL, Things in Season.
Fish.—Brill, carp, cockles, crabs, dory, flounders, ling, lobsters, red and grey mullet, mussels, oysters, perch, prawns, salmon (but rather scarce and expensive), shad, shrimps, skate, smelts, soles, tench, turbot, whitings.
Meat.—Beef, lamb, mutton, veal.
Poultry.—Chickens, ducklings, fowls, pigeons, pullets, rabbits.
Game.—Leverets.
Vegetables.—Broccoli, celery, lettuces, young onions, parsnips, radishes, small salad, sea-kale, spinach, sprouts, various herbs.
Fruit.—Apples, nuts, pears, forced cherries, &c. for tarts, rhubarb, dried fruits, crystallized preserves.
ARROWROOT BISCUITS, or Drops.
Ingredients.—½ lb. of butter, 6 eggs,½ lb. of flour, 6 oz. of arrowroot,½ lb. of pounded loaf sugar. Mode.—Beat the butter to a cream; whisk the eggs to a strong froth, add them to the butter, stir in the flour a little at a time, and beat the mixture well. Break down all the lumps from the arrowroot, and add that with the sugar to the other ingredients. Mix all well together, drop the dough on a buttered tin, in pieces the size of a shilling, and bake the biscuits about ¼ hour in a slow oven. If the whites of the eggs are separated from the yolks, and both are beaten separately before being added to the other ingredients, the biscuits will be much lighter. Time.—¼ hour. Average cost, 2s. 6d. Sufficient to make from 3 to 4 dozen biscuits. Seasonable at any time.
ARROWROOT BLANCMANGE (an inexpensive Supper Dish).
Ingredients.—4 heaped tablespoonfuls of arrowroot, 1½ pint of milk, 3 laurel-leaves or the rind of ½ lemon, sugar to taste. Mode.—Mix to a smooth batter the arrowroot with ½ pint of the milk; put the other pint on the fire, with laurel-leaves or lemon-peel, whichever may be preferred, and let the milk steep until it is well flavoured; then strain the milk, and add it, boiling, to the mixed arrowroot; sweeten it with sifted sugar, and let it boil, stirring it all the time, till it thickens sufficiently to come from the saucepan. Grease a mould with pure salad-oil, pour in the blancmange, and, when quite set, turn it out on a dish, and pour round it a compôte of any kind of fruit, or garnish it with jam. A tablespoonful of brandy, stirred in just before the blancmange is moulded, very much improves the flavour of this sweet dish. Time.—Altogether,½ hour. Average cost, 6d. without the garnishing. Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons. Seasonable at any time.
ARROWROOT PUDDING, Baked or Boiled.
Ingredients.—2 tablespoonfuls of arrowroot, 1½ pint of milk, 1 oz. of butter, the rind of ½ lemon, 2 heaped tablespoonfuls of moist sugar, a little grated nutmeg. Mode.—Mix the arrowroot with as much cold milk as will make it into a smooth batter, moderately thick; put the remainder of the milk into a stewpan with the lemon-peel, and let it infuse for about ½ hour; when it boils, strain it gently to the batter, stirring it all the time to keep it smooth; then add the butter; beat this well in until thoroughly mixed, and sweeten with moist sugar. Put the mixture into a pie-dish, round which has been placed a border of paste; grate a little nutmeg over the top, and bake the pudding from 1 to 1¼ hour, in a moderate oven, or boil it the same length of time in a well-buttered basin. To enrich this pudding, stir to the other ingredients, just before it is put in the oven, 3 well-whisked eggs, and add a tablespoonful of brandy. For a nursery pudding, the addition of the latter ingredients will be found quite superfluous, as also the paste round the edge of the dish. Time.—1 to 1¼ hour, baked or boiled. Average cost, 7d. Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons. Seasonable at any time.
ARROWROOT SAUCE, for Puddings.
Ingredients.—2 small teaspoonfuls of arrowroot, 4 dessertspoonfuls