Original White House Cookbook

it hot. When the head is done, take it up and drain very dry. Score the top and rub it over with melted butter ; dredge it with flour and set it in the oven to brown. When you serve the head, have it accompanied with a gravy boat of melted butter and minced parsley. CALF’S LIVER AND BACON. Slice the liver a quarter of an inch thick ; pour hot water over it and let it remain for a few minutes to clear it from blood ; then dry it in a cloth. Take a pound of bacon, or as much as you require, and cut the same number of thin slices as you have of liver ; fry the bacon to a nice crisp ; take it out and keep it hot ; then fry the liver in the same pan, having first seasoned it with pepper and salt and dredged in a little flour ; lay it in the hot bacon fat and fry it a nice brown. Serve it with a slice of bacon on the top of each slice of liver. If you wish a gravy with it, pour off most of the fat from the frying pan, put in about two ounces of butter, a tablespoonful of flour well rubbed in, add a cup of water, salt and pepper, give it one boil and serve in a gravy boat. Another Way. — Cut the liver in nice thin slices, pour boiling water over it and let it stand about five minutes ; then drain and put in a dripping* pan with three or four thin slices of salt pork or bacon ; pepper and salt and put in the oven, letting it cook until thoroughly done, then serve with a cream or milk gravy poured over it. Calf s liver and bacon are very good broiled after cutting each in thin slices. Season with butter, pepper and salt. CROQUETTES OF SWEETBREADS. Take four veal sweetbreads, soak them for an hour in cold salted water, first removing the pipes and membranes; then put them into boiling salted water with a tablespoonful of vinegar, and cook them twenty minutes, then drop them again into cold water to harden. Now remove them, chop them very fine, almost to a paste. Season with salt, pepper and a teaspoonful of grated onion; add the beaten yolks of three raw eggs, one tablespoonful of butter, half a cupful of cream, and sufficient fine cracker crumbs to make stiff enough to roll out into little balls or cork-shaped croquettes. Have ready a frying kettle half full of fat over the fire, a dish containing three smoothly beaten eggs, a large platter of cracker dust; wet the hands with cold water and make the mixture in shape; afterwards rolling them in the cracker dust, then into the beaten egg, and again in the cracker dust; smooth them on the outside and drop them carefully in the hot fat. When the croquettes are fried a nice golden brown, put them on a brown paper a moment to free them from grease. Serve hot with sliced lemon or parsley. SWEETBREADS. There are two in a calf, which are considered delicacies. Select the largest. The color should be clear and a shade darker than the fat. Before cooking in any manner let them lie for half an hour in tepid water; then throw into hot water to whiten and harden, after which draw off the outer casing, remove the little pipes, and cut into thin slices. They should always be thoroughly cooked. FRIED SWEETBREADS. After preparing them as on preceding page they are put into hot fat and butter, and fried the same as lamb chop, also broiled the same, first rolling them in egg and cracker crumbs. BAKED SWEETBREADS.