Harper's cook book encyclopædia

Lightly scald four fine, medium-sized tomatoes, peel and cut them into, small pieces, and add them to the preparation. Open and place in a bowl twenty-four medium-sized, fine, fresh clams. Pour into another bowl half of their juice. Place the clams on a wooden board, cut each one into four equal pieces, and immediately plunge them into the pan with the rest; gently mix, so as to prevent burning at the bottom while boiling, for two minutes. Range the pan on the corner of the stove to keep warm. Season with one salt-spoonful of black pepper and one tablespoonful of Worcestershire sauce ; gently stir the whole with a wooden spoon, break in two pilot crackers in small pieces, stir a little again. Leave two minutes longer in the same position, but under no circumstances allow to boil. Put it into a hot soup-tureen and serve. Another way : — Cut Vz lb. of fat salt pork into tiny dice, and fry crisp in a large pot. Remove the bits of pork with a skimmer, and fry a large onion, sliced, in the fat left in the bottom of the pot. Have ready twelve potatoes, peeled and sliced, and a quart of canned tomatoes, a nd, as the onion browns, turn these in upon it and add two quarts of water. Stir all together, and .season with a liberal pinch of cayenne and as much salt as taste demands. Tie up twelve whole allspice and twelve whole cloves in a small square of cheese-cloth and drop in the pot. Cook slowly, but steadily, three hours and a half, then add two quarts of long clams, chopped coarsely, and half a dozen pilot biscuits, broken in pieces and soaked in milk. Boil for half an hour longer, remove the spice-bag and pour the chowder, smoking hot, into a soup-tureen. Clam Fritters. — Two dozen clams, one egg, one cupful of milk, two small cupfuls of flour, or enough for thin batter ; salt and pepper. Chop the clams fine, and stir them into the batter made of the milk, clam liquor, beaten eggs, and the flour. Season to taste, and fry by the spoonful in very hot lard. Crab, Baked. — Pick the crab, cut the solid part into small pieces, and 'mix the inside with a little rich gravy, or cream, and seasoning ; then add some curry paste and fine breadcrumbs. Put all into the shell of the crab, and finish in a Dutch oven. Crab Bisque. — The recipe for Lobster Soup or Bisque can be used by substituting crab meat for the lobster. Crab, Curried. — Pound a clove of garlic in a mortar with the white part of half a small cocoanut, a tablespoonful of curry powder, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a piece of butter about Crabs, Devilled Lobsters the size of a walnut. When these are beaten to a paste, mix them very smoothly over a gentle fire with Y\ lb. of fresh butter, taking especial care that the saucepan is delicately clean. Add the crab meat, and gradually a small cupful of cream. A pound of French beans, cut into thin strips and simmered with the crab, is sometimes added to this dish. Just before serving, squeeze over it the juice of a lemon. Serve with rice round the dish. Lobster may be used instead of crab. Time to simmer, ten minutes.