Lords and Ladles - Cappoquin House

Method

• Pease Soup Ingredients and Method: Take a small knuckle of veal, about three or four pounds, chop it all to pieces. Set it on the fire in six quarts of water. A little piece of lean bacon, about half an ounce, steeped in vinegar an hour. Four or five blades of mace, three or four cloves, 12 peppercorns of black pepper, 12 of white, a little bundle of sweet-herbs and parsley, a little piece of upper crust toasted crisp. Cover it close and let it boil softly over a slow fire till half is wasted; then strain it off and put to it a pint of green peas and a lettuce cut small, four heads of celery cut very small, and washed clean. Cover it close and let it stew very softly over a slow fire two hours. In the meantime boil a pint of old peas in a pint of water very tender and strain them well through a coarse hair sieve, and all the pulp, then pour it into the soup, and let it boil together. Season with salt to your palate but not too much. Fry a French roll crisp, put it into your dish and pour your soup in. Be sure there be a full two quarts.
• A Pig Matelote: Gut and scald your pig, cut off the head and pettytoes, then cut your pig in four quarters. Put them with the head and toes into cold water; cover the bottom of a stew pan with slices of bacon, and place over them the said quarters, with the pettytoes and the head cut in two. Season the whole with pepper, salt, thyme, bay leaf, an onion and a bottle of white wine. Lay over more slices of bacon, put over it a quart of water, and let it boil. Take two large eels, skin and gut them, and cut them about five or six inches long. When your pig is half done, put in your eels, then boil a dozen of large crawfish, cut off the claws and take off the shells of the tails. And when your pig and eels are enough, lay first your pig and the pettytoes round it, but don't put in the head (it will be a pretty dish cold), then lay your eels and crawfish over them. Take the liquor they were stewed in, skin off all the fat, then add to it half a pint of strong gravy thickened with a little piece of burnt butter, and pour over it, then garnish with crawfish and lemon. This will do for a first course, or remove. Fry the brains and lay round, and all over the dish.
• To Make a Collar of Fish in Ragoo, to look like a Breast of Veal Collared: Take a large eel, skin it, wash it clean and parboil it. Pick off the flesh, and beat it in a mortar. Season it with beaten mace, nutmeg, pepper, salt, a few sweet herbs, parsley, and a little lemon peel chopped small. Beat all well together with an equal quantity of crumbs of bread. Mix it well together, then take a turbot (a flat fish that will roll cleverly) and lay it on the dresser. Take away all the bones and fins and cover your fish with the farce then roll it up as tight as you can. Open the skin of your eel, and bind the collar with it nicely, so that it may be flat top and bottom, to stand well in the dish. Then butter an earthen dish, and set it in upright. Flour it all over and stick a piece of butter on the top and round the edges, so that it may run down on the fish. Let it be well baked, but take great care it is not broke. Let there be a quarter of a pint of water in the dish. In the meantime, take the water the eel was boiled in, and all the bones of the fish. Set them on to boil, season them with mace, cloves, black and white pepper, sweet-herbs, and onion. Cover it close, and let it boil till there is about a quarter of a pint; then strain it, add to it a few truffles and morels, a few mushrooms, two spoonfuls of catchup, a gill of red wine anda piece of butter as big as a large walnut rolled in flour. Stir all together, season with salt to your palate, save some of the farce you make of the eel and mix with the yolk of an egg, and roll them up in little balls with flour, and dry them of a light brown. When your fish is enough, lay it in your dish, skim all the fat off the pan, and pour the gravy to your sauce. Let it all boil together till it is thick; then pour it over the roll and put in your balls. Garnish with lemon. This does best in a tin over before the fire, because then you can baste it as you please.
• Potato Pudding: Take two pounds of white potatoes, boil them soft, peel and beat them in a mortar, or strain them through a sieve till they are quite fine. Then mix in half a pound of fresh butter melted, then beat up the yolks of eight eggs and three whites. Stir them in, and half a pound of white sugar finely pounded, half a pint of sack. Stir it well together, grate in half a large nutmeg, and stir in half a pint of cream. Make a puff paste, and lay all over your dish and round the edges; pour in the pudding and bake it of a fine light brown. For change, put in half a pound of currants; or you may strew over the top half an ounce of citron and orange peel cut thin, before you put it into the oven.
• Ragoo of Ox Palates: Take four ox palates, and boil them very tender, clean them well, cut some in square pieces, and some long. Take and make a rich cooley thus: put a piece of butter in your stew-pan and melt it, put a large spoonful of flour to it, stir it well till it is smooth; then put a quart of good gravy to it. Chop three shallots, and put in a gill of Lisbon, cut some lean ham very fine and put in, also half a lemon. Boil them 20 minutes, then strain it through a sieve. Put it into your pan, and the palates, with some force meat balls, truffles and morels, pickled or fresh mushrooms stewed in gravy. Season with pepper and salt to your liking, and toss them up five or six minutes, then dish them up. Garnish with lemon or beetroot.
• To make Force-meat Balls: Now you are to observe, that force-meat balls are a great addition to all made dishes, made thus: take half a pound of veal, and half a pound of suet, cut fine, and beat in a marble mortar or wooden bowl. Have a few sweet-herbs and parsley shred fine, a little mace dried and beat fine, a small nutmeg grated, or half a large one, a little lemon-peel cut very fine, a little pepper and salt, and the yolks of two eggs. Mix all these well together, then roll them in little round balls, and some in little long balls. Roll them in flour, and fry them brown. If they are for anything of white sauce, put in a little water in a sauce pan, and when the water boils put them in, and let them boil for a few minutes, but never fry them for white sauce.
• Dressed Broccoli: Boil your 'brockely' tender, saving a large bunch for the middle, and six or eight little thick sprigs to stick round. Take a toast half an inch thick, toast it brown, as big as you would have it for your dish or butter-plate. Butter some eggs thus: take six eggs, more or less as you have occasion, beat them well, put them into a sauce-pan with a good piece of butter and a little salt. Keep beating them with a spoon till they are thick enough, then pour them on the toast. Set the biggest bunch of brockely in the middle and the other little pieces round and about, and garnish the dish round with little sprigs of brockely. This is a pretty side-dish or a corner-plate.
• A Fricasey of Kidney-Beans: Take a quart of the seed, when dry, soak them all night in river water, then boil them on a slow fire till quite tender. Take a quarter of a peck of onions, slice them thin, fry them in butter till brown; then take them out of the butter, and put them in a quart of strong draw'd gravy. Boil them till you may mash fine, then put in your beans, and give them a boil or two. Season with pepper, salt and nutmeg.
• Kickshaws: Make puff-paste, roll it thin, and if you have any moulds, work it upon them, make them up with preserved pippins. You may fill some with gooseberries, some with raspberries, or what you please, then close them up and either bake or fry them. Throw grated sugar over them and serve them up.
• Preserved Pippins: When your pippins are prepared, but not cored, cut them in slices and take the weight of them in sugar. Put to your sugar a pretty quantity of water, let it melt, and skim it. Let it boil again very high; then put them in to the syrup when they are clear. Then put into the syrup a candied orange-peel cut in little slices very thin, and lay about the pippin. Cover them with syrup, and keep them about the pippin.
• Roast Ducks: A large fowl, three-quarters of an hour; a middling one, half an hour. Your fire must be very quick and clear when you lay them down. You should have some sage shred fine, and a little pepper and salt, and put them into the belly; but never put anything into wild ducks. Sauce: a little gravy in the dish and onion in a cup if liked.
• Tripe à la Kilkenny: This is a favourite Irish dish, and is done thus: take a piece of double tripe cut in square pieces. Have 12 large onions peeled and washed clean, cut them in two, and put them on to boil in clean water till they are tender. Then put in your tripe, and boil it 10 minutes. Pour off almost all the liquor, shake a little flour in, and put some butter in and a little salt and mustard. Shake it all over the fire till the butter is melted; then put in your dish and send it to table as hot as possible. Garnish with barberries or lemons.
• To Collar Beef: Take a thin piece of flank beef and strip the skin to the end, beat it with a rolling pin. Then dissolve a quarter of peter-salt in five quarts of pump-water, strain it, put the beef in, and let it lie five days, sometimes turning it. Then take a quarter of an ounce of cloves, a good nutmeg, a little mace, a little pepper, beat very fine, and a handful of thyme stripped off the stalks. Mix it with the spice, strew all over the beef, lay on the skin again, then roll it up very close. Tie it hard with tape, then put it into a pot with a pint of claret, and bake it in the oven with the bread.
• Macaroni with Parmesan Cheese: For this you must boil them in water first, with a little salt. Pour to them a ladle of cullis, a morsel of green onion and parsley minced fine, pepper, salt and nutmeg. Stew all a few minutes and pour into a dish with a rim as before, squeeze a lemon or orange, and cover it over pretty thick with Parmesan cheese grated very fine. Bake it of a fine colour about a quarter of an hour, and serve it up hot. The French serve to their tables a great many dishes with this sort of cheese, and in the same manner, only sometimes with a savoury white sauce, such as scallops, oysters, and many of the things you have among these entremets.
• Cullis: Take a stewpan that will hold about four quarts, put a thin slice or two of bacon at the bottom, about two pound of veal, a piece of ham, three or four carrots, onions and parsley, with a head or two of celery. Pour in about a pint of your broth, cover it close, and let it go gently on upon a slow stove for an hour. When it comes to be almost dry watch it narrowly, so as to bring it to a nice brown. Fill it up with broth, and let it boil softly about half an hour. Take about half a pound of fresh butter, melt it, three or four large spoonfuls of fine flour, and rub over a stove till it is of a fine yellowish or light-brown colour. Pour it into your gravy, and stir it well after boiling 10 minutes or so. Take your meat and roots out and pass it through your etamine. Take off the fat, and set it handy for such uses as you find in the following receipts. Be sure great care is taken of this, for on it the goodness and beauty of all the rest depends.
• To Make a 'Hedge-Hog': Take two pounds of sweet almonds blanched, beat them well in a mortar, with a little canary and orange-flowerer water, to keep them from oiling. Make them into a stiff paste, then beat in the yolks of 12 eggs. Leave out five of the whites, put to it a pint of cream. Sweeten it with sugar, put in half a pound of sweet butter melted. Set it on a furnace or slow fire, and keep continually stirring till it is stiff enough to be made into the form of a hedge-hog. Then stick it full of blanched almonds slit, and stuck up like the bristles of a hedge-hog. Then put it into a dish. Take a pint of cream and the yolks of four eggs beat up, and mix with the cream. Sweeten to your palate, and keep them stirring over a slow fire all the time till it is hot. Then pour it into your dish round the hedgehog. Let it stand till it is cold, and serve it up. Or cold cream sweetened, with a glass of white wine in it, and the juice of a Seville orange, and pour it into the dish. It will be pretty for change. Plump two currants for the eyes. This is a pretty side-dish at a second course, or in the middle for supper, or in a grand dessert.
• Asparagus Forced in French Rolls: Take three French rolls, take out all the crumb, by first cutting a piece of the top-crust off, but be careful that the crust fits again the same place. Fry the rolls brown in fresh butter. Then take a pint of cream, the yolks of six eggs beat fine, a little salt and nutmeg and stir them well together over a slow fire till it begins to be thick. Have ready a hundred of small grass boiled, then save tops enough to stick the rolls with, the rest cut small and put into the cream. Fill the loaves with them. Before you fry the rolls, make holes thick in the top crust and stick the grass in. Then lay on the piece of crust, and stick the grass in, that it may looks as if it were growing. It makes a pretty side-dish at a second course.