The Webster County Gazette: April 19, 1878

Household Recipes

For Scotch cake, take one pound brown sugar, one pound flour, half pound butter, two eggs, one teaspoonful cinnamon; roll very thing, and bake.

“Apaquinimies” are made as follows: Yolks of two eggs, one pint flour, one-half pint milk, two teaspoonfuls butter, a little salt; roll very thin, like wafers, and bake.

Sauces should possess decided character and whether sharp or sweet, savory or plain, they should carry out their (indecipherable word) in a distinct manner, although, of course, not so much flavored as to make them too piquant on the one hand, or too mawkish on the other.

brown sauces, generally speaking, should scarcely be so thick as white sauces; and it is well to bear in mind that all those which are intended to mask the various dishes of poultry or meat should be of a sufficient consistency to slightly adhere to to (sic) the fowls or joints over which they are poured. for browning and thickening sauces, etc., browned flour nay (sic) be properly employed.

To use up cold meat: I. Prepare your meat as for has; fill a deep dish with maccaroni (sic); on top of that place the hash; cover it with tomatoes, over which sprinkle with bread crumbs, with a little butter; bake until nicely browned. II. Prepare meat as for hash; make it in rolls (like a sausage) by binding it with raw egg; tie each roll carefully in cabbage leaf, and boil one-half to three-quarters of an hour in weak stock.

Eggs form an important article of food among all known races. The English, the great egg eaters, receive annually from Ireland one hundred and thirty millions of eggs, and from France over one hundred and thirty millions. The great object is to get fresh ones, and many modes are resorted to, to ascertain this important point. some dealers place them in water, when, if fresh, they will lie on their sides; if bad, they will stand on one end.

Gravies and sauces should be sent to table very hot, and there is all the more necessity for the cook to see to this point, as, from their being usually serve din small quantities, they are more liable to cool quickly than if they were in a larger body. Those sauces of which cream or eggs form a component part, should be well stirred as soon as these ingredients are added to them, and must never be allowed to boil, as in that case they would instantly curdle.

If coffee, after roasting, were made as fine as flour by pounding in a mortar, it could be extracted so much better as to require no more than two-fifths as much as if it were only coarsely ground. An equally strong extract can be made by allowing water to stand on the grounds, as by giving it a boil or by filtering through it. The latter method is the true one for retaining all of the aroma. When coffee beans are roasted, an empyreumatic oil is produced, which being very volatile, is expelled if the coffee extract be boiled. It is better to make the grounds as fine as flour, and to extract by filtration, and never to boil.

(Editor’s note: I have no idea what “apaquinimies” were. Google was useless in this case. Empyreumatic oil is “oils obtained by distilling various organic substances at high temperatures.” I also thought it was interesting to describe sauces as being potentially “mawkish.”)

Tags: 1878