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What’s for dinner? Here, we answer the question with a book published in 1883 by Marion Harland. The book contains a dinner menu for each day of the year.
This video is for September, the fourth week, Wednesday Dinner.
On the menu for dinner: Julienne Soup, Cold Lamb, Tomato Sauce, Eggs and Mushrooms, Breaded Egg-plant.
On the menu for dessert: Potato Fritters.
For the audio version, please visit my YouTube Channel.
Julienne Soup
4 lbs of beef, 2 carrots, 3 turnips, A half head of cabbage, 1 pint green corn, 1 quart tomatoes, Bunch of herbs, 4 quarts of water, pepper and salt
Put on the beef, herbs, and water early in the morning, with some well-cracked bones, if you have them, and let it boil at the back of the range, very slowly, for five or six hours. Should the water sink below two-thirds of the original quantity, replenish from the boiling tea-kettle. An hour before dinner, strain the soup, put meat and bones into the stock-pot, and season well. Pour upon them all that you can spare from the liquor, and leave enough for to-day. Set this in a cool place. Cool, and remove the fat from that meant for to-day, return to the soup-kettle, and put in the vegetables, cut into shreds, and parboiled for ten minutes. The cabbage should have been cooked in two waters. The corn must be cut from the cob, and the tomatoes pared and sliced. Simmer gently half an hour, season and cook one minute, and pour out.
Cold Lamb
Trim the remains of your roast into a presentable shape, garnish with parsley and nasturtium-blooms.
Tomato Sauce
Pare, slice, and stew the tomatoes for twenty minutes. Strain, and rub through a colander, leaving the hard and tough parts behind. Put into a sauce pan with a little minced onion, parsley, pepper, salt, and sugar. Bring to a boil, stir in a good spoonful of butter rolled in flour. Boil up and serve.
Eggs and Mushrooms
Slice the rest of the can of mushrooms, opened for Monday’s stew, into halves. Stew ten minutes in a little butter, seasoned with pepper and salt and very little water. Drain and put the mushrooms into a pie-dish, break enough eggs to cover them over the top, pepper, salt, and scatter bits of butter over them, strew with breadcrumbs, and bake until the eggs are “set.” Serve in the dish.
Breaded Egg-plant
Slice nearly half an inch thick, pare each slice and lay in salt and water one hour. Wipe dry, dip in beaten egg, then in rolled cracker, and fry to a fine brown in salted lard or dripping.
Potato Fritters
6 tablespoonfuls mashed potato rubbed through a colander, a half cup rich milk, or cream, 5 eggs, beaten light, 2 tablespoonfuls sugar, 2 tablespoonfuls prepared flour, juice of 1 lemon, and half the grated peel, one half grated nutmeg.
Work the cream into the potato, add beaten yolks and sugar, and whip to a froth. Put in lemon, flour, nutmeg, and beat three minutes before stirring in the whites. Drop, by the spoonful, into hot sweet lard. Fry to a light brown. Drain upon clean, heated paper, sift white sugar thickly over them and serve at once. Eat if you like with wine sauce or with powdered sugar only.
