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and clean them well, and reserve the coral for dressing.
Chop and mince fine the crabs; add some onion and ginger juice, a
little lime-juice, pepper, and salt, and a little mushroom catsup.
Melt some butter, and fry the mixture in it until the butter be
absorbed; then add a little stock, and remove from the fire
immediately the stock begins to dry. Butter the shells, and fill with
the mixture. The meat of six crabs will refill five shells. Take some
finely-sifted bread-crumbs; grind down the coral, and put it over the
mixture on the shells, with the bread-crumbs, and bits of butter; bake
for a few minutes.
119.—Tamarind Fish
Make a thick pickle of ripe tamarinds, good English vinegar, and a
little salt; pass through a sieve, rejecting all stones and fibres.
Select really good fresh hilsa fish, full size, with roes. Remove all
the scales and fins, cut away the heads and tails, remove the roes,
clean out the fish inside, and then slice up, an inch thick. Wipe away
all blood, &c., with a clean dry towel. Care must be taken to use no
water in the cleaning of the fish or in the preparation of the pickle.
The board on which the fish is cut up, and also the knife, must be
very clean. After all the blood, &c., has been thoroughly cleaned and
wiped away, lay out the slices of fish and roe on a clean dish,
sprinkle thickly with salt, and place over them a wire dish-cover to
keep away the flies. Four or five hours afterwards put a layer of the
pickle into a wide-mouthed bottle or jar, and a thick coating of
pickle over each slice of fish and the roes, after washing away the
salt with a little vinegar; lay them in order in the jar, until the
last of the fish is put in; then be careful to put in a very thick
layer of the pickle. Cork the jar securely, and tie it down with a
good bladder to keep it airtight, and in three weeks it will be fit
for use. It is desirable to fill each jar well up to the mouth, to
effect which the jars or bottles to be selected should be of the
required size.
N.B.—If the fish be really fresh, all the ingredients of good
quality, and no water used in the operation of cleaning and pickling,
the jars well filled, and mouths secured with sound bladder, the fish
will keep good for months, and will be fit to send home.
120.—Smoked Fish
The mango fish, beckty, or hilsa should be cut down the back, spread
open, and well washed and salted. Have a bright charcoal fire, and
sprinkle over it some bran, with brown sugar; cover the fire with an
open-work bamboo basket, having over it a coarse duster; arrange the
fish over the duster, and allow them to smoke. When one side has
browned, turn and brown the other side. As the smoke decreases, add
more bran, and fan up the fire. A duster thrown over the fish while
smoking will facilitate the operation.
121.—Dried Prawns
Strip the prawns of their shells; keep them for a day in salt mixed
with turmeric; then string and put them out in the sun daily for
fifteen or twenty days.
122.—Prawn Powder
Take a seer of dry prawns; wash them well, dry over the fire until
crisp, pound fine, with some red pepper and nutmeg, pass through a
sieve, and bottle for use. A teaspoonful spread over bread and butter
is considered a relish.
JOINTS, MADE DISHES, ETC.
123.—Corned Round of Beef
Select a good round of beef four days previously to it being required
for the table, together with two seers of cooking salt, eight fresh
juicy limes, one anna-worth of saltpetre, and a tablespoonful of
suckur, a description of moist brown sugar. Pound fine the saltpetre;
put the rind of four limes, pared fine, into a marble mortar, with a
tablespoonful of brandy or other spirit; bruise and pound it well,
adding to it the suckur or brown sugar, and gradually half the
powdered saltpetre; mix all well together. Take one seer of the salt,
and mix into it the contents of the marble mortar; divide the mixture
into four equal parts, and rub briskly one-fourth part of it into the
round; puncture the beef lightly during the operation with a clean
bright steel sailmaker’s needle, to allow the mixture to penetrate
more freely. An hour or two after take another fourth of the mixture;
squeeze into it the juice of the four limes from which the rind had
been removed, and repeat the operation of rubbing it into the round,
puncturing it lightly with the needle; turn the beef over from side to
side continually, so that one side do not soak or steep more in the
brine than another; repeat the operation of rubbing it well several
times during the day. Next morning place it on a dry dish, and rub
into it another fourth part of the prepared salt; let it stand for an
hour or so, then pour over it the old brine; repeat the rubbing two or
three times during the day, turning the beef continually. On the third
day rub half of the remaining saltpetre into the beef dry, and allow
it to stand for an hour or two; then add the rest of the saltpetre and
the juice of the four limes to the remaining fourth part of the
mixture, in which keep turning and rubbing the beef during the day as
before; in the evening pour over it the stale brine, cover it thickly
with the one seer of remaining salt, and place a heavy weight upon it,
until required to be boiled the next day.
124.—Beef a la Mode
Corn a round of beef in every particular as directed above, and
twenty-four hours previously to its being cooked lard it as follows
with the undermentioned ingredients:—Four pounds of lard or fat
bacon, half a tablespoonful of cinnamon powdered, half a seer or one
pound of finely-powdered pepper, one tablespoonful of cloves powdered,
and four tablespoonfuls of chutnee strained through muslin. Mix the
ground pepper, ground hot spices, and strained chutnee with a
claretglassful of mixed sauces, such as Harvey, walnut,
Worcestershire, tap, tomato, &c. Cut up into long narrow slips the
lard or bacon to correspond in thickness with the larding-pin, and lay
the slips into the mixture of spices, sauces, &c., for an hour or two
before larding the beef, which should be larded through and through,
and as closely as possible.
Cook it the next day, either in plain water, with half a pint of
vinegar, and with bay-leaves and peppercorns, as is usual, or in a
preparation of claret or champagne with vinegar, bay-leaves, &c. This
is not necessary, but it tends to the improvement of the flavour at
some considerable cost.
125.—Le Fricandeau de Veau
Take a large leg of veal; remove the knuckle-bone; corn and lard it in
all respects like a beef � la mode, reducing the ingredients in
proportion to the difference in size and weight between a round of
beef and the leg of veal. Boil, baste, and glaze it well in the liquor
in which it is boiled. Serve up with all sorts of boiled and glazed
vegetables.
126.—Hunter’s Beef, or Spiced Beef
Corn a round of beef, as per recipe No. 123, with the addition of
large quantities of finely-ground pepper and hot spices. Some of the
pepper and spice should be well rubbed in with the saltpetre, and the
beef should be punctured well the whole time with a needle to insure
the saltpetre and spices penetrating. After the dry saltpetre and
spice have been well rubbed in, prepare a mixture of salt, saltpetre,
suckur, lemon-rind, pepper, and spice, and rub in one-fourth of the
mixture, continuing to puncture the beef. Add subsequently to the
brine the juice of lemon, and observe closely all the instructions
given in recipe No. 123. On the seventh day remove the beef from the
brine; rub it well with two tablespoonfuls of finely-powdered spices
and pepper; inclose it thoroughly in skins of fat, and then in a
strong coarse piecrust, and bake it in a good oven. A baker’s oven is
the best.
127.—Collared Brisket
Bone a brisket of beef; rub into it saltpetre, suckur or brown sugar,
and one seer of salt, with some lime-juice; keep it in the brine for
thirty-six hours, rubbing it continually. Then remove it from the
brine, and clear away all the salt. Roll the beef tightly into a
collar, secure it well, inclose it in a stout duster, and boil it.
128.—Spiced Collared Brisket
The process is the same as the above, but if the beef be required to
keep for any lengthened time the quantity of salt ought to be doubled,
the beef kept in the brine for seventy-two hours, and hot spices,
pepper, chutnee, and sauces added. The beef after being rolled should
be packed in the skin of fat, then in a coarse pastry, instead of in
plantain-leaf, and baked in a baker’s oven.
129.—Pigeons with Petit Pois
Kill and feather, with plunging into hot water, four young, full-grown
pigeons, taking care not to break their skins; singe them, to destroy
any remaining feathers; then wash them in three or four cold waters,
cut them in halves, dredge them well with salt and finely-sifted
pepper, and allow to remain for an hour. Then boil up two
tablespoonfuls of ghee or lard, and fry the birds to a rich brown,
turning them over. When sufficiently browned, put in a cupful of beef
stock, and allow to simmer until the birds are quite tender; pour over
them a tin of petit pois with their gravy, and serve up hot.
130.—Ducks with Green Olives
Choose young, full-grown, tender ducks; feather and singe them as
directed in the foregoing recipe, after which wash them in three or
four cold waters; stuff the ducks according to recipe No. 325, and
bake in a deep dish in a moderate oven until brown; then add a good
beef stock with sliced onions, and bake until the stock is reduced;
remove the ducks, and put into the pan the contents of a bottle of
olives stoned, and allow to bake for ten or fifteen minutes to soften
the olives; place the ducks on a clean dish, arrange the olives round
the ducks, and pour the gravy over. Serve up hot.
131.—Kidney Stew
Steep in lukewarm water for a few minutes a dozen mutton kidneys, and
remove the white skin or coat which will become perceptible; cut into
halves or quarter them, wash in three or four waters, and allow them
to remain as long as possible in pepper, salt, and the juice of
onions, ginger, and garlic; boil up three dessertspoonfuls of ghee or
lard in a deep frying-pan, throw in the kidneys with the juice, put in
half a clove of garlic, and cover over the whole with eight large
Patna onions sliced each into eight slices, and separated so as to
cover over the whole surface of the pan; pour over it as much hot
stock as will keep all the onions under, and simmer over a slow fire
until the onions disappear, when serve up quite hot.
132.—French Mutton Chops
Take half a dozen chops cut from a breast of mutton, throwing away the
intermediate bones—that is to say, allow the meat of two chops to
remain on one bone. Wash, dry, and steep the chops for an hour or two
before dinner in the juice of
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