To Prepare the Head and Trotters.
They should be well singed, which is best done at the blacksmith's. Split the head down the middle of the skull; take out the brains, lay the head and trotters to soak in water all night, scrape and wash well be fore using. Sheep's head is excellent eaten cold.
Cock-a-Leekle (Scotch recipe). 1 fowl, 4 pounds beef, 12 leeks, Dash pepper, 1 tablespoonful salt, 5 quarts water.
Truss a fowl as for boiling, put it into a stewpan with a piece of lean beef, leeks cut in pieces an inch long, rejecting the coarser green part, a little pepper and salt, and water. Cover the stewpan closely and allow its contents to stew slowly four hours; then place the fowl in a tu reen; remove the beef, pour the soup and leeks over it, and serve.
Friar's Chicken (French recipe).
1 knuckle veal, 2 turnips, 2 carrots, 3 onions, 4 sprigs sweet herbs, 1 quart cream, 6 yolks eggs, 2 chickens.
Boil veal, carrots, turnips, onions, and a few sweet herbs to a good stock and strain it. Have ready the chick ens, boiled tender and cut in pieces, cream and yolks of eggs beaten to gether; add these to the broth, heat them up together, and send it to table. A little minced parsley may be added just before serving.
Rabbit Soup (English recipe).
1 rabbit, 1 carrot, 1 head celery, 3,onions, 1 ounce peppercorns, 1 bunch herbs, 1 tablespoonful ground rice.
When the rabbit is skinned, take care to save all the blood. Cut in pieces and put into a dish with the water required for soup. Let it stand an hour; then add the blood of the rabbit, strain it through tt sieve into a soup pot, and put all on the fire; stir constantly till it boils, to pre vent its curdling, and skim it a little; put in carrot, celery, onions, pepper corns tied up in a bit of muslin, herbs, salt, and chopped onion. Boil for three hours; take it off an hour be fore dinner; strain through a sieve; take out the onions, carrot, pepper, etc., and put in some of the best pieces of the rabbit; return it to the saucepan, and let it boil. Stir the ground rice dissolved in water into the soup; continue stirring till re moved from the fire.
Tomato Bouillon with Oysters.
1 can tomatoes, 11 quarts brown stock, 1 chopped onion, bay leaf, 6 cloves, 1 teaspoonful peppercorns, 1 pint parboiled oysters, Pepper and salt, Dash Malhenny's Tabasco Sauce.
Boil together the stock, toma toes, bay leaf, cloves, tabasco and peppercorns. Cook twenty minutes. Strain, cool and clear, then strain into cups over parboiled oysters. When cooked, clear it as if you were making a plain, clear soup. Beat the white of 1 egg lightly, just enough to separate it, and add to it the eggshell broken up. When the stock has cooled, add this and set it where it will come slowly to the boil, stirring constantly. The egg will at tract all particles of tomatoes and everything solid. Let It boil two minutes, then strain through two thicknesses of cheese cloth. It will be perfectly clear, but with the red tomato coloring. If it were left to cool, it would become a solid jelly.— STELLA A. DOWNING.
Okra Gumbo (Southern recipe).
1 chicken, 1 onion, pod red pepper without the seeds, • 2 pints okra, or about 50 pods, 2 slices ham, 1 bay leaf, 1 sprig thyme or parsley, 1 tablespoonful each lard and butter, Salt and cayenne to taste.
Clean and cut up the chicken. Cut the ham into small squares or dice, and chop the onion, parsley, and thyme. Skin the tomatoes and chop fine, saving the j uice. Wash and stem the okras and slice into thin layers of half an inch each. Put the lard and butter into the soup kettle; when hot, add the chicken and ham. Cover closely and let it simmer ten minutes. Then add the chopped onions, parsley, thyme, and tomatoes, stirring frequently to prevent scorch ing. Add the okras, and when well browned, the juice of the tomatoes. The okra is very delicate and is lia ble to scorch if not stirred frequent ly. When well fried and browned, add about 3 quarts boiling water and set on the back of the stove to simmer for an hour longer. Serve hot with bolted rice.