A Fine Venison Pie and Rhubarb Cups

The Lady's Receipt-book, Eliza Leslie, 1847

A FINE VENISON PIE.
--Cut steaks from a loin, or haunch of venison, which should be as freshly killed as you can get it.  The strange prejudice in favour of hard, black-looking venison, that has been kept till the juices are all dried up, is fast subsiding; the preference is now given to that which has been newly killed, whenever it can be obtained.  Those who have eaten venison fresh from the woods, will never again be able to relish it in the state in which it is brought to the Atlantic cities.

Having removed the bones [I didn't.  I cut around them after the steaks were cooked.], and seasoned it with a little salt and pepper; put the venison into a pot [A slow cooker, in this case], with barely as much water as will cover it, and let it stew till perfectly tender, skimming it occasionally.  Then take it out, and set it to cool, saving the gravy in a bowl.  Make a light paste, in the proportion of three quarters of a pound of fresh butter to a pound and a half of flour.  Divide the paste into two portions, and roll it out rather thick.  Butter a deep dish, and line it with one of the sheets of paste.  Then put in the venison.  Season the gravy with a glass of very good wine, either red or white, a few blades of mace, and a powdered nutmeg [I did not use an entire nutmeg, because I am not an insane person].  Stir into it the crumbled yolks of some hard-boiled eggs. [I used six] Pour the gravy over the meat, and put on the other sheet of paste as the lid of the pie.  Notch it handsomely round the edges, and bake it well. If a steady heat is kept up, it will be done in an hour.  Send it to table hot.

Instead of wine, you may put into the gravy a glass of currant-jelly. [I did.]

Any sort of game may be made into a pie, in the above manner.

RHUBARB CUPS.
--Take twenty stalks of green rhubarb; cut them, and boil them in a quart of water.  When it comes to a hard boil, take it from the fire; strain off the water, drain the rhubarb as dry as possible, and then mash it, and make it very sweet with brown sugar.  Have ready half a pint of rice, that has been boiled in a quart of water, till soft and dry. [No.  Victorian people were very bad at cooking rice.] Mix the rhubarb and the rice well together; beating them hard.  Then mould it in cups slightly buttered, and set them on ice, or in a very cold place.  Just before dinner, turn them out on a large dish.  Serve up with them, in a bowl, cream and sugar, into which a nutmeg has been grated; [again, not an entire nutmeg.] or else a sauce made of equal portions of fresh butter and powdered white sugar, beaten together until very light, and flavoured with powdered cinnamon, or nutmeg, and oil of lemon or lemon-juice.

Verdict:

A Fine Venison Pie:  Fabulous.  I over did it on the currant jelly, adding half a jar.  Two or three tablespoons would have done better.  The mace and nutmeg were delicious.  People who say that people in the past only put nutmeg, cinnamon, fruit, sugar, etc. on meats because they wanted to show off because it is awful are terribly misinformed, because it was super great. I was inspired to up my game (ha) by Food History Jottings, which is jaw-droppingly incredible and that you should read right now.  After finishing here.

Rhubarb Cups:  I chose this recipe because I have been canning rhubarb juice!  The byproduct of this was a gallon-size bag of sweetened, drained rhubarb pulp (plus the lemon and orange peels it was cooked with). Perfect!  Rhubarb doesn't seem to be very popular, which is a shame.  If it does appear, it is usually adulterated with strawberries.  Not that there's anything wrong with that, just... let rhubarb be rhubarb sometimes.

Notice that the recipe calls for green rhubarb stalks.  I'm not actually sure why.  Color is not an indicator of how ripe the rhubarb is.  Some varieties are completely red, some are completely green, and most exist on a spectrum between the two, with shades of both on the same plant.  They taste identical, one is just prettier.

I thought it was delicious.  Although, to be honest, I'd probably eat a wooden plank if it came with cream poured over it.  The orange peel mashed up with the rhubarb made it above average, so although it is not in the original recipe, I recommend if you are going to try this.

Cheese!

Vinegar and Lemon Wheys.
Pour into boiling milk as much vinegar or lemon-juice as will make a small quantity quite clear, dilute with hot water to an agreeable smart acid, and put a bit or two of sugar. This is less heating than if made of wine; and if only to excite perspiration, answers as well.
~Rundell, Maria Eliza Ketelby. A New System Of Domestic Cookery, Formed Upon Principles Of Economy, And Adapted To The Use Of Private Families. By A Lady. Boston: W. Andrews, 1807.

So far, rennet is not working out for me in the cheese department. Maybe it makes you nervous too, but you want to make cheese. This is the cheese for you!

This kind of cheese does not melt or act like normal cheese, so I like to crumble it up with salt (LOTS of salt) and chives and eat it on crackers. You can also use it as a meat substitute. This is also the kind of cheese Indians call Panir and Mexicans call Queso Blanco. Or you can use it like ricotta.

1. Heat 1 gallon of milk to 185 F.

Stir pretty much constantly. Milk tends to burn on the bottom, which will make your cheese taste like burning. That is bad. It also forms a skin on top, under which pressure builds until it suddenly boils right over the top of your pot and burns onto your stove. If doing this over a fire, it helps to have a friggin' huge spoon.

2. Take off the heat and add 1/4 C. vinegar or lemon juice. Stir until the curds separate from the whey. It should take about 10 seconds. The whey will be almost clear. You can throw it away or use it to make breads and things, as the whey has lots of vitamins and whatnot.

3. Pour into a dish towel. Cheesecloth will not work here because the curds are very small, unless you have several layers. If you squeeze it, it will turn into a sliceable ball, as I did. If you just pour it in and then let it hang naturally, it will be like little crumbles. Hang it up to drip dry for a while. At home, I find the faucet over the sink works well for this.

4. Ta da! A cheese! You can either mash it up into crumbles, or refrigerate and slice.

If you add herbs, it is even more tasty! My favorite is sage.



SAGE CHEESE. --Take some of the young top leaves of the sage plant, and pound them in a mortar till you have extracted the juice. Put the juice into a bowl, wipe out the mortar, put in some spinach leaves, and pound them till you have an equal quantity of spinach juice. Mix the two juices together, and stir them into the warm milk immediately after you have put in the rennet. You may use sage juice alone; but the spinach will greatly improve the colour; besides correcting the bitterness of the sage.
~Leslie, Eliza. Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches. Philadelphia: E.L. Carey & Hart, 1840.

Molasses Posset

Guyyyyyyyys. My head is so buuuuuuurny! And my throat is huuuurty and I can't breeeeeeeaaathe! Nobody can tell how I suffer! But it is always so. Those who do not complain are never pitied. *snivel/whine*

But I have not languished in vain. I have found many fine preparations for invalids like myself. I hope they will bring you all the joy that is denied me. :'(



MOLASSES POSSET.--Put into a sauce-pan a pint of the best West India molasses; a tea-spoonful of powdered white ginger; and a quarter of a pound of fresh butter. Set it on hot coals, and simmer it slowly for half an hour; stirring it frequently. Do not let it come to a boil. Then stir in the juice of two lemons, or two table-spoonfuls of vinegar; cover the pan, and let it stand by the fire five minutes longer. This is good for a cold. Some of it may be taken warm at once, and the remainder kept at hand for occasional use.

It is the preparation absurdly called by the common people a stewed quaker.

Verdict: Quite nice! Soothing on the throat and pleasant to the taste! Much nicer than Robitussin. Yechhh. I used sorghum instead of West India molasses, as I couldn't find my regular molasses and sorghum is smoother anyway. Remember sorghum? Notice how it specifies. That is to differentiate between sugar cane molasses and sorghum molasses. I also scaled the recipe waaaaaay down and nuked it for 30 seconds in the microwave instead of simmering it half an hour. Forgive me, I am enfeebled.


REJECTED:

RAW EGG. --Break a fresh egg into a saucer, and mix a little sugar with it; also, if approved, a small quantity of wine. Beat the whole to a strong froth. It is considered a restorative.

LEAD WATER. --Mix two table-spoonfuls of extract of lead with a bottle of rain or river water. Then add two table-spoonfuls of brandy, and shake it well.

Raw Beef Sandwich for Invalids. Scrape some raw beef fine, season with salt and pepper, and spread between two thin slices of slightly buttered bread; then cut in strips. ~S. Adelaide Hall, M.D.

Raw beef sandwiches from The Woman Suffrage Cookbook [1886], all others from Directions for Cookery, in its Various Branches [1840].

Cold potato and unfermented wheat cake

I... I can't... why can't I... I... I can't... Why can't I... I... I... ice cream. Ice cream. Ice cream.

THE YOUNG-HOUSE-KEEPER, OR THOUGHTS ON FOOD AND COOKERY. BY WM. A. ALCOTT, Author of the Young Husband, Young Wife, Young Woman's Guide, House I Live in, &c. &c. [1846]. All right. Okay. This guy has some pretty good ideas. For instance, one should not consume one's body weight in meat every day, and vegetables and whole grains are good. After that, things get a little... different.

*All food must be eaten at room temperature.

Food should not be of a high temperature. I will not say, indeed, that it should be as cold as ice; but it should be cool...Above 60 or 70°, they are, as a general rule, more or less injurious; and they would probably be better at a much lower temperature still... What, then, must be the effect of hot tea, hot coffee, hot soups, hot bread, &c.

*No condiments. Including salt.
*No oils or fats.
*Only water shall be drunk, and it must not be drunk during your meal.
*Bread must be aged at least 24 hours, preferably a few days to let it dry out, as fresh bread is heating and injurious to the system.
*Only one food item must be eaten in a meal. At most, if you must, you can eat two kinds of things.
*Vast pots of gruel or potatoes must be made every week or two weeks, so as you can eat them without having to wait hours for them to cool down to room temperature.
*No meat
*Only white fruits and vegetables

Let this be a sample:
There is a great variety of forms of cookery, into which Indian meal [cornmeal], notwithstanding its supposed vulgarity, sometimes enters, but I forbear to mention them here. The very name of pancakes or fritters, whether with or without apples or other fruits, and whether with or without oysters, is enough, almost, to give one an attack of dyspepsia; and fried hasty pudding is still worse. There is no special, or at least serious, evil in warming over a mass of cold hasty pudding; but when we add the frying process, it is too much; and if I ever wish for sumptuary laws at all, it is when I think of that parent of a thousand evils, fried hasty pudding.

Parent of a thousand evils. Wow. Okay! Well. I chose to make potatoes and unfermented wheat cake.



Potatoes
To the pure appetite, there is a richness of the potatoe roasted in hot embers, for which we look in vain elsewhere. Perhaps it is owing to the fact, that all its properties are preserved unimpaired; whereas, in boiling, if none of its properties are actually lost, some of them may be impaired...This method is also preferable for those who eat the skins. The latter I do not recommend; but like the skins of apples, as well as many other vegetables, if not too much changed by cookery, and if well masticated, the skins cannot be particularly objectionable...It is commonly said that a potatoe is most agreeable immediately after it is [cooked]; and to those who cannot eat anything which is not hot enough to endanger their mouths, it may be so. But it is more wholesome and scarcely less mealy a short time after boiling, when it has had time to cool a little; and to an unperverted taste and good appetite, quite as agreeable. It is even pleasant and wholesome for twenty-four hours or more after boiling, to those who are accustomed to its use.

Unfermented Cakes
My opinion is, that the best bread in the world is that which is made of recently and coarsely ground wheat meal, mixed with water, and baked in thin cakes, not unlike the unfermented cakes so common in many parts of the east, and so much used by the ancient Israelites. My preference for unleavened bread arises, in part, from the consideration that leaven is a foreign and partially decayed substance, which it were better to avoid unless some essential point is to be gained by its use.

Verdict:

Cold potato: As the recipe is written it is okay, but with the simple addition of butter, overpriced boutique seasoning, salt, and heat, it was great!



Unfermented wheat cake: Whole wheat flour... plus water. Yeah. The absence of leavening and oil made the inside gummy. Much like library paste. In fact, now that I think on it, precisely like library paste. The first bite balled up in my mouth like rubbery mud. I felt sorry for all the pioneers that trekked across the plains that had to live on this stuff.

However, with the simple addition of a solid quarter inch of butter and syrup, it was fine!


I don't know why those pioneers were so whiny.

I will only add a few thoughts on shell fish. How strange it is that people in a civilized community will perpetuate, by their example, such an uncivilized--I was going to say disgusting--practice as that of eating, on all occasions when they can get them, oysters, clams, lobsters, &c. We are disgusted with the Arab and the South Sea Islander for eating locusts and snails; yet, in what respect is eating whole oysters or clams a whit more decent?

Rejected:
This last is the state in which we ought to eat eggs, if we eat them at all. Some suppose they are best raw; but this is going to the other extreme. They should be boiled just long enough to coagulate slightly part of the white.


Next time: The Hyde to William A. Alcott's Jekyll. Sir Kenelm Digby, Knight.