Ices are too often regarded as expensive luxuries, and show how completely custom rules the majority of our housekeepers. There are many houses where the dinner may consist daily of soup, fish, entrees, joint, game, and wine, and yet, were we to suggest a course of ices, the worthy housekeeper would hesitate on the ground of extravagance. It is difficult to argue with persons whose definition of economy is what they have always been accustomed to since they were children, and whose definition of extravagance is anything new. The fact remains, however, that there is many a worthy signor who sells ices in the streets at a penny each, and manages to make a living out of the profit not only for himself, but for his signora as well. Under these circumstances, the manufacture of these "extravagances" is worthy of inquiry. Ices can be made at home very cheaply with an ice machine, which can now be obtained at a, comparatively speaking, small cost. With a machine there is absolutely no trouble, and directions will be given with each machine, so that any details here, which vary with the machine, will be useless. Ices can be made at home without a machine with a little trouble, and, to explain how to do this, it is necessary to explain the theory of ice-making, which is exceedingly simple. We will not allude to machines dependent on freezing-powders, but to those which rely for their cold simply on ice and salt mixed. We will suppose we want a lemon-water ice, i.e., we have made some very strong and sweet lemonade, and we want to freeze it. It is well known that water will freeze at a certain temperature, called freezing-point. By mixing chopped ice and salt and a very little water together, a far greater degree of cold can be immediately produced, viz., a thermometer would stand at 32 degrees below freezing-point were it to be plunged into this mixture. An ice machine is a metal pail placed in another pail much larger than itself. The "sweet lemonade" is placed in the middle pail, and chopped ice and salt placed outside it. The proportion of ice to salt should be double the weight of the former to the latter. It is now obvious that if we have filled two pails, the one with "the sweet lemonade," and the other with the ice and salt, very soon our lemonade will be a solid block of ice. To prevent this it must be constantly stirred, and, as the lemonade would of course freeze first against the sides of the pail, these sides must be constantly scraped. Inside the inner pail, consequently, there is a stirrer, which, by means of a handle, continually scrapes the side of the pail. It is obvious that if the stirrer is fixed, and the pail itself made to revolve, that is the same as if the pail were fixed and the stirrer made to revolve. To make lemon-water ice, therefore, place the lemonade in the inner pail, surrounded with chopped ice and salt, two parts of the former to one of the latter, turn the handle, and in a few minutes the ice is made. Now, suppose you have not got a machine, proceed as follows: Take an empty, clean, round coffee-tin (the larger the better). [We mention coffee-tin as the most probable one to be in the house, but any round tin will do.] Get a clean piece of wood, the same width as the inside diameter of the tin, only it must be a great deal longer. We will suppose the tin rather more than a foot deep and five inches in diameter. Our piece of wood, which should be clean and smooth, must be nearly five inches wide, say a quarter of an inch thick, and about two feet long. Next get a small tub, say nine inches deep, place the round tin in the middle, with the sweet lemonade inside; next place the piece of wood upright in the tin, so that the wood touches the bottom. Next surround the tin with chopped ice and salt up to the edge of the tub, fill it as high as you can, and then cover it round with a blanket, i.e., cover the ice and salt. Now get someone to hold the wooden board steady; take the tin in your two hands, and turn it round and round, first one way and then another. In a very short time you will find the tin to contain lemon-water ice. The following hints, rather than recipes, for making ices, i.e., for making the liquid, which must be frozen as directed above, are given, not because they are the best recipes, but because cream, which is the basis of all first-class ices, is often too expensive to be used constantly. Of course, real cream is far superior to any substitute.
Take and lard them and put them upon a spit, and halfe roast them, then draw them & put them into a Pipkin, and put a quart of Clarit Wine into it, and Chesnuts, & a pint of great Oysters taking the beards from them, and three Onyons minced very small, some Mace and a little beaten Ginger, a little Tyme stript, a Crust of a French Rowle grated put into it to thicken it, and so dish it upon sops. This may be diversified, if there be strong broth there need not be so much Wine put in, and if there be no oysters or Chesnuts you may put in Hartichoak bottoms, Turnips, Colliflowers, Bacon in thin slices, Sweet bread's, &c.
Take four pounds of freshly killed venison cut off from the bones, and one pound of ham in small slices. Add an onion minced, and black pepper to your taste. Put only as much water as will cover it, and stew it gently for an hour, keeping the pot closely covered. Then skim it well, and pour in a quart of boiling water. Add a head of celery cut into small pieces, and half a dozen blades of mace. Boil it gently two hours and a half. Then put in a quarter of a pound of butter, divided into small pieces and rolled in flour, and half a pint of port or Madeira wine. Let it boil a quarter of an hour longer, and then send it to table with the meat in it.
Take your Pigeons (if they be not very young) cut them into four quarters, one sweet-bread sliced the long way, that it may be thin, and the pieces not too big, one Sheeps tongue, little more then parboyl'd, and the skin puld off, and the tongue cut in slices, two or three slices of Veale, as much of Mutton, young chicken (if not little) quarter them, Chick-heads, Lark, or any such like, Pullets, Coxcombs, Oysters, Calves-Udder cut in pieces, good store of Marrow for seasoning, take as much Pepper and Salt as you think fit to season it slightly; good store of sweet Marjoram, a little Time and Lemon-Pill fine sliced; season it well with these Spices as the time of the year will afford; put in either of Chesnuts (if you put in Chesnuts they must first be either boyl'd or roasted) Gooseberries or Guage, large Mace will do well in this Pye, then take a little piece of Veale parboyl'd and slice it very fine, as much Marrow as meat stirred amongst it, then take grated Bread, as much as a quarter of the meat, four yolks of Eggs or more according to the stuffe you make, shred Dates as small as may be, season it with salt, but not too salt. Nutmeg as much as will season it, sweet Marjoram pretty store very small shred, work it up with as much sweet Creame as will make it up in little Puddings, some long, some round, so put as many of them in the Pye as you please; put therein two or three spoonfulls of Gravy of Mutton, or so much strong Mutton broth before you put it in the Oven, the bottome of boyled Artichokes, minced Marrow over and in the bottom of the Pye after your Pye is baked; when you put it up, have some five yolks of Eggs minced, and the juyce of two or three Oranges, the meat of one Lemon cut in pieces, a little White and Claret Wine; put this in your Pye being well mingled, and shake it very well together.
Take an onion, carrot, small head of celery, and some turnip, and boil them till they are tender in some stock. The water in which some rice has been boiled is very well suited for the purpose. Add also to every quart a brimming tablespoonful of mixed savoury herbs. Rub the whole through a wire sieve, thicken it with brown roux till it is as thick as cream; add a few drops of Parisian essence--(sold in bottles by all grocers)--to give it a dark colour. Add a wineglassful of sherry or Madeira, or, if the use of wine be objected to, the juice of a hard lemon. Flavour the soup with a little cayenne pepper, and serve some egg forcemeat balls in it, about the size of small marbles.
Take a shoulder, have the bone taken out and then pound the meat well with a mallet. Lay it in vinegar for twenty-four hours. Heat some fat or goose oil in a deep pan or kettle which has a cover that fits air tight and lay the meat in the hot fat and sprinkle the upper side with salt, pepper and ginger. Put an onion in with the meat; stick about half a dozen cloves in the onion and add one bay leaf. Now turn the meat over and sprinkle the other side with salt, pepper and ginger. Cut up one or two tomatoes and pour some soup stock over all, and a dash of white wine. Cover closely and stew very slowly for three or four hours, turning the meat now and then; in doing so do not pierce with the fork, as this will allow the juice to escape. Do not add any water. Make enough potato pancakes to serve one or two to each person with "Wiener Braten."
Lard your meat with bacon through, but slant-way; half roast it; take it off the spit, and put it in a small pot as will boil it; two quarts of strong broth, a pint of white-wine, some vinegar, whole spice, bay-leaves, green onions, savoury, sweet-marjoram; when 'tis stew'd enough, make sauce of some of the liquor, mushrooms, lemon cut like dice, two or three anchovies: thicken it with browned butter. Garnish with lemon.
Put on to boil one cup of good red wine and one-half cup of water, sweeten to taste, add three whole cloves and three small pieces of cinnamon bark, let boil ten minutes, and pour while boiling over the well-beaten yolk of one egg. Eat hot or cold. This quantity serves one person.
Take fowl and brown in a skillet the desired color, then add to this enough water (or soup stock preferred), put it in casserole and add vegetables; add first those that require longest cooking. Use mushrooms, carrots, small potatoes and peas. If you like flavor of sherry wine, add small wine glass; if not, it is just as good. Season well and cook in hot oven not too long, as you want fowl and vegetables to be whole. You may add soup stock if it is too dry after being in oven.
Slice off the outside red part of two or three large carrots, and cut them up into small dice not bigger than a quarter of an inch square. Cut up also into similar size a young turnip, and the white, hard part of a head of celery. Fry these very gently in a little butter, taking care that the vegetables do not turn colour. Make some soup exactly in every respect similar to that described in Imitation Mock Turtle. Throw in these fried vegetables, and let the soup simmer gently by the side of the fire, in order for it to throw up its butter, which should be skimmed off. In flavouring the soup, add only half the quantity of wine or lemon juice that you would use were you making Mock Turtle.
