The Indian Cookery Book by - (good fiction books to read txt) 📕

the crabs in salt; remove them out of the shells; pick

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