Take twenty good chestnuts and roast them on a slow fire so that they won't color. Remove the shells without breaking the nuts, and put them into a saucepan with one level tablespoon of powdered sugar and one-half glass of milk and a little vanilla. Cover the saucepan and let it cook slowly (simmer) for more than a half-hour. Then drain the chestnuts and pass them through a sieve. Put them back in a bowl with one-half a tablespoon of butter, the yolks of three eggs, and mix well without cooking. Allow them to cool, and then take a small portion at a time, the size of a nut, roll them, dip them in egg, and in bread crumbs, and fry in butter and lard, a few at a time. Serve hot with powdered sugar.
Take a calf's head, wash it well, lay it in an earthen dish, and cut out the tongue lay it loose under the head in the dish with the brains, and a little sage and parsley; rub the head over with the yolk of an egg, then strew over them a few bread-crumbs and shred parsley, lay all over it lumps of butter and a little salt, then set it in the oven; it will take about an hour and a half baking; when it is enough take the brains, sage and parsley; and chop them together, put to them the gravy that is in the dish, a little butter and a spoonful of vinegar, so boil it up and put it in cups, and set them round the head upon the dish, take the tongue and blanch it, cut it in two, and lay it on each side the head, and some slices of crisp bacon over the head, so serve it up.
Take a fat Pig and scald him, and cut off his head, slit him and trusse him up like a Lamb, then being slit through the middle, and flawed, then parboyle him a little, then draw him with parsley as you do a Lamb, then roast it and dridge it, and serve it up with Butter, Pepper, and Sugar.
Mutton should be roasted with a quick brisk fire. Every part should be trimmed off that cannot be eaten. Wash the meat well. The skin should be taken off and skewered on again before the meat is put on the spit; this will make it more juicy. Otherwise tie paper over the fat, having soaked the twine in water to prevent the string from burning. Put a little salt and water into the dripping-pan, to baste the meat at first, then use its own gravy for that purpose. A quarter of an hour before you think it will be done, take off the skin or paper, dredge the meat very lightly with flour, and baste it with butter. Skim the gravy and send it to table in a boat. A leg of mutton will require from two hours roasting to two hours and a half in proportion to its size. A chine or saddle, from two hours and a half, to three hours. A shoulder, from an hour and a half, to two hours. A loin, from an hour and three quarters, to two hours. A haunch (that is a leg with, part of the loin) cannot be well roasted in less than four hours. Always have some currant jelly on the table to eat with roast mutton. It should also be accompanied by mashed turnips. Slices cut from a cold leg of mutton that has been under-done, are very nice broiled or warmed on a gridiron, and sent to the breakfast table covered with currant jelly. Pickles are always eaten with mutton. In preparing a leg of mutton for roasting, you may make deep incisions in it, and stuff them with chopped oysters, or with a force-meat made in the usual manner; or with chestnuts parboiled and peeled. The gravy will be improved by stirring into it a glass of port wine.
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.
Potato-cakes, to be served with roast lamb or with game, are made of equal quantities of mashed potatoes and of flour, say one quart of each, two tablespoonfuls of butter, a little salt and milk enough to make a batter as for griddle-cakes; to this allow half a teacupful of fresh yeast; let it rise till it is light and bubbles of air form; then dissolve half a teaspoonful of soda in a spoonful of warm water and add to the batter; bake in muffin tins. These are good also with fricasseed chicken; take them from the tins and drop in the gravy just before sending to the table.
Take a large pike, scale and clean it, draw it at the gills.--To make a pudding for the Pike. Take a large handful of bread-crumbs, as much beef-suet shred fine, two eggs, a little pepper and salt, a little grated nutmeg, a little parsley, sweet-marjoram and lemon-peel shred fine; so mix altogether, put it into the belly of your pike, skewer it round and lie it in an earthen dish with a lump of butter over it, a little salt and flour, so set it in the oven; an hour will roast it.
Cut large collops of a leg of veal, spread them abroad on a dresser, hack them with the back of a knife, and dip them in the yolks of eggs, season them with nutmeg, mace, pepper and salt, then make forc'd- meat with some of your veal, beef-suit, oysters chop'd, and sweet herbs shred fine, and the above spice, strow all these over your collops, roll and tie them up, put them on skewers, tie them to a spit and roast them; and to the rest of your forc'd-meat add the yolk of an egg or two, and make it up in balls and fry them, put them in a dish with your meat when roasted, put a little water in the dish under them, and when they are enough put to it an anchovy, a little gravy, a spoonful of white wine, and thicken it up with a little flour and butter, so fry your balls and lie round the dish, and serve it up. This is proper for a side-dish either at noon or night.
Have the butcher carefully remove the blade from the shoulder and fill the space with a bread stuffing; See "Bread Dressing for Fowl". Sew up the opening, roast in the oven with a very little water in the pan, and baste frequently. Serve with the gravy from the pan after the grease has been carefully removed.
