Marion Harlands Complete Cook Book by Marion Harland

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Complete Cook Book, by Marion Harland

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Title: Marion Harland's Complete Cook Book
A Practical and Exhaustive Manual of Cookery and Housekeeping
Author: Marion Harland
Release Date: February 5, 2021 [eBook #64459]
Language: English
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Transcriber’s Note

In the section Pickled nutmeg melons, melons change to mangoes part way through, viz.
“Lay the _mangoes_ in strong brine for three days. Drain off the brine and freshen in pure water for twenty-four hours.
“Green” as you would cucumbers—that is, have a kettle lined with green vine leaves, and lay the _mangoes_ evenly within
it, scattering powdered alum over the layers. A piece of alum as large as a pigeon’s egg will be enough for a two-gallon
kettleful. Fill with cold water; cover with vine leaves, three deep; put a close lid or inverted pan over all, and steam over a
slow fire five or six hours, not allowing the water to boil. When the _mangoes_ are a fine green remove the leaves and lay
the melons in cold water until cold and firm.”
This has been corrected.

Marion Harland’s

Complete Cook Book

MARION HARLAND

Marion Harland’s

Complete Cook Book

A PRACTICAL AND EXHAUSTIVE MANUAL OF

COOKERY AND HOUSEKEEPING

CONTAINING

THOUSANDS OF CAREFULLY PROVED RECIPES—PREPARED FOR THE

HOUSEWIFE, NOT FOR THE CHEF—AND MANY CHAPTERS
ON THE CARE AND MANAGEMENT OF THE HOME—THE

FINAL EXPRESSION OF HER

LIFE’S EXPERIENCE

BY MARION HARLAND

Author of

Common Sense in the Household, Etc.

NEW EDITION, REVISED AND ENLARGED

INDIANAPOLIS

THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY

PUBLISHERS

Copyright 1903

The Bobbs-Merrill Company

June

Copyright 1906

The Bobbs-Merrill Company

March

PRESS OF

BRAUNWORTH & CO.

BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS

BROOKLYN, N. Y.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

Marketing
3

Care of Household Stores
6

Kitchen Utensils
9

Chemistry in the Kitchen
12

Carving
15

Serving and Waiting
18

Among the Linens
23

The Children
25

Diet and Digestion
28

The Impromptu Larder
32

Familiar Talk

Breakfast
34

Breakfast Fruits
38

Breakfast Cereals
42

Breakfast Breads
46

Hot Breakfast Breads
54

Quick Biscuits
61

Muffins and Their Congeners
63

Waffles
65

Griddle Cakes
66

Breakfast Breads of Indian Meal
71

Divers Kinds of Toast
75

Eggs
78

Familiar Talk

Who Rules the Home
89

Fish for Breakfast
93

Familiar Talk

Where We Eat
107

Breakfast Meats
110

Breakfast Bacon
110

Tripe
114

Beefsteak
116

Kidneys
118

Sweetbreads
120

Liver
122

Chicken
123

Other Breakfast Meats
126

Breakfast Game
129

Breakfast Vegetables
131

Familiar Talk

With Martha in Her Kitchen
137

The Family Luncheon
143

Luncheon Dishes
145

Familiar Talk

Living to Learn
183

Croquettes
188

With the Casserole
194

Cheese Dishes for Luncheon
198

The Toast Family
205

Luncheon Vegetables
207

v

Sandwiches
214

Tempting Prefixes to Luncheon
221

Salads
224

Luncheon Fruits, Cooked and Raw
241

Sweet Omelets
247

Familiar Talk

With the Nominal Mistress of the House
249

Luncheon Cakes
258

Frostings for Cakes
278

Various Fillings for Cakes
279

Gingerbreads
281

Small Cakes
284

The Doughnut and Cruller Family
292

Familiar Talk

A Friendly Word With “Our Maid”
296

Dinner
300

Soups
303

Bisques
314

Cream Soups
318

Vegetable Soups With Meat
322

Vegetable Soups Without Meat
328

Fish Soups
333

Fish
337

Sauces for Fish and Meat
353

Familiar Talk

Is Impromptu Hospitality a Lost Art
361

Meats
367

Beef
367

Veal
377

Mutton
385

Meat and Poultry Pies
388

Pork
395

Poultry
400

Turkey
400

Ducks
404

Chickens
405

Geese
413

Game
415

Dinner Vegetables
427

Even Threaded Living
498

Sweets of All Sorts
503

Pies
503

Hot Puddings
518

Baked Puddings
528

Fritters
544

Pancakes and Dumplings
548

Some Pudding Sauces
551

Cold Puddings and Custards
555

Whipped Cream Dishes
558

Blanc Mange
563

Fruit Desserts
576

Ice Cream and Ices
580

Home-Made Candies
590

Afternoon Tea
604

vi

vii

Some Dainties for Afternoon Tea
610

Frappé Beverages
614

Wafers
616

Stewed Fruit, Preserves, Fruit Jellies, Et cetera
617

Pickles
633

Catsups, Et cetera
648

The Home Brew
652

Formal Breakfasts and Luncheons
663

Concerning Dinner Giving
668

Some Studies of Color in Family Dinners
673

An Evening Reception and Chafing-Dish Supper 676
Familiar Talk

Common Sense and “Etiquette”
681

Canned Goods
684

“Handy” Household Hints
693

Final Familiar Talk

Emergencies, Broken China, Et cetera
715

Some Culinary Terms
719

For Ready Reference
724

Index
729

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Facing Page

After Dinner Coffee in a Cozy Corner
672

Afternoon Tea on the Veranda
606

Anchovies on Toast
464

Beef, Roast
380

Belgian Hare, Roast
416

Beverages
652

Birthday Cake
520

Biscuits, Hot
364

Brandied Peaches, Garnished
628

Breakfast Equipage
36

Cake, Sliced Home-Made
364

Calf’s Head, Boiled
380

Caviar Toast, Garnished
222

Cheese and Egg Entrées
202

Chicken Pie, Small
388

Chicken Pie in Silver Stand
388

Chicken Omelet
84

Chicken Salad Mantled with Cream Mayonnaise and Garnished
232

Chicken, Scalloped
404

Chicken, Scalloped
126

Cod, Boiled
344

Coffee, Capital Cup of
364

Covered Cheese Dish for Limburger
202

Crab, Scalloped, in Shell
156

Creamed Macaroni in Pineapple Cheese Shell
202

Croquettes
126

Daffodils
84

Dinner, A Little
668

“Dinner, A Pick-Up”
364

Eggs
78

Eggs, Baked
78

Egg Omelet
78

Eggs, Stuffed
202

Entrees
126

Fish
100

Fish
344

Floating Island
520-558

Fondu of Cheese
202

Fruit Salad, Garnished
232

Fruit Salad, in Banana-Skin
232

Game
416

Game Pie in Napkinned Dish
388

Grape Fruit Prepared for Luncheon
222

Green Peas, Garnished
464

Halibut Steak
100

Harland, Marion
Frontispiece

Ice Cream with Hot Maple Sauce
582

Individual Floating Island
558

Irish Stew and Browned Potatoes
364

Lamb Chops
126

Lobster Cutlets and Whipped Potatoes
156

viii

ix

Meringue Glace and Whipped Cream
558

Mock Pigeon
380

Mould of Jelly, Garnished
628

Orange Marmalade
582

Oyster Cocktails
222

Oyster Patties
344

Oysters Scalloped
84

Pair of Boiled Fowls, Garnished
404

Pair of Roast Ducks
404

Partridge, Roast
416

Perch, Fried
100

Plum Pudding
520

Poultry and Entrées
404

Punch, Strawberry
628

Quail on Toast
416

Range Screen Lowered to Shut in Heat
140

Range Screen Partly Raised
138

Salads
236

Salmon, Boiled
344

Sandwiches
Afternoon Tea
582

Brunette
216

Crescent
216

Whole Wheat Bread
216

Side-Board and China Closet
718

Smelts, Fried
100

Sweetbreads, Braised
404

Sweetbread Cutlets and Saratoga Potatoes
156

Tables
Autumn Dinner
300

Bridesmaid’s, with Pink Roses
500

Christmas, Decorated with Holly
300

Decorated with Pine Cones
266

Decorated with Chrysanthemums and Palms
300

Easter Wedding Breakfast
266

Engagement Dinner
500

Japanese Decorations for Children’s Luncheon
266

Sunflower Luncheon
500

A Little Dinner
668

Toast and Anchovies Garnished
464

Tomato Salad
236

Tomato Salad with Whipped Cream Dressing
236

Tomatoes, Stuffed and Garnished
464

Trout, Fried
344

Turkey, Roast
404

Veal and Beef
380

Veal Chops and Spinach
380

Venison, Roast
416

Wafers
616

Whipped Cream
520

Whipped Cream, Garnished with Cherries
558

Woodcock, Roast
416

x

xi

Marion Harland’s

Complete Cook Book

DEDICATORY PREFACE

To My Fellow Housekeepers, North, East, South and West:
Thirty-one years ago I wrote, dedicated to you, and sent to press, Common Sense in the Household.
The daring step was taken in direct opposition to the advice of all who knew my purpose. I was assured that I should
lose the modest measure of literary reputation I had won by novels, short stories and essays if I persisted in the ignoble
enterprise.
One critic forewarned me that “whatever I might write after this preposterous new departure would be tainted, for the
imaginative reader and reviewer, with the odor of the kitchen.”
He may have been right. I do not know nor do I care whether his judgment or mine was the better. I gave my first
cook-book to you because I knew from my own experience, as a young, raw and untaught housekeeper, that you
needed just what I had to say. The hundreds of thousands of copies which have been sold, the thousands of grateful
letters received from my toiling sisters, testify to that need and that to me was appointed the gracious task of supplying
it.
Under the impulse of a conviction as solemn and as strong I offer you now a work embodying the best results of mature
Housewifery. Or, as I would rather name it, Housemotherhood. Before I put pen to paper I stipulated that the contract
with the publishers of The Complete Cook Book should contain a clause forbidding me to prepare and issue any book
of a similar character during the next ten years.
Whatever I have to say to you through the medium of a printed and bound volume in all these years must be said here.
I have had this thought in my mind with the writing of every page. In every page, in every line, in every word I have
done my best to serve you. I know you well enough to be assured that you will not forget this. If such a thing might be I
would have every dish compounded according to my directions a souvenir to each of you of one who has given thirty-
odd of the best years of a busy life to the task of dignifying housewifery into a profession, and ennobling the practice of
it in your eyes.
For the fair degree of success which has followed these efforts I am thankful. Thankful, too, to those of you whose
appreciation of my aim and my work has held up weary hands and stayed the failing heart.
This talk, made purposely as “familiar” as if I were face-to-face with each of you, is not a valedictory, but an au revoir.
The book in your hands contains the gleanings of an active decade. Housewifery keeps pace with other professions in
the swinging march of an Age of Wonders. I have faith in it and in myself to believe that I shall go on with the fascinating
work of accumulating. I add, hopefully, I have also faith in you that, in the future as in the thirty years overpast, you will
aid me in that accumulation.

Marion Harland.

2

MARKETING

Mutton and beef may be called the Marketer’s Perennials. They are in season all the year round.
In buying mutton see that the fat is clear, very firm and white; the flesh close of grain, and ruddy. Buy your meat fresh,
even if you mean to hang it in the cellar for a week—or longer in cold weather. “Begin fair!”
The best cuts of mutton are loin, saddle and leg. French chops are cut from the rib, the fat taken off and several inches
of the bone cleaned from meat. They are nice to look at, good to eat—and expensive. You can do the trimming at
home when you have once seen it done and save the extra cent or two paid for the word “French.” Loin chops are
cheaper and usually more tender and better-flavored.
A more economical piece than the leg for the housewife who does her own marketing is the fore-quarter. You can bone
and stuff part of it for a roast; the chops are almost as good as those cut from the loin, and the bones, when removed,
make good stock for broth. The meat is really more juicy and sweet than that of the leg, and the cost from two to three
cents a pound less.
Lamb is in season from May to November. What is sold under that name in winter is undersized mutton, and usually
tough and dry.
Beef—the Englishman’s main-stay—is quite as important in the American kitchen. Seek, in purchasing, for rosy, red
meat, “shot” with cream-colored suet, dry and mealy, and a good outer coat of fat. Press the meat hard with the tip of
your thumb. If it be flabby, and, after yielding to pressure, retains the dent, let it alone.
The rib roast is a choice cut. It is more comely when the bones are removed, the meat rolled and bound into a round. In
which case insist upon having the trimmings sent home. You pay for them, and, when you order soup-meat, for that as
well. Have the bones cracked, buy one pound of coarse lean beef for perhaps ten cents, and you have foundation for a
good gravy soup, or stock enough for several hashes and stews.
The round costs about two-thirds as much as a rib-roast and half as much as a sirloin, and serves admirably for à la
mode beef, or a pot-roast.
The sirloin steak is far more economical than a porterhouse. Remove the bone before cooking. This cut often contains
really more of the coveted tenderloin than the porterhouse, and the rest of the steak is more tender, as a rule, than the
dearer cut. Have the steak cut at least an inch thick.
Summer fresh pork is less desirable than winter lamb. It should be barred from the market after the first of May, and
not allowed there before December first, if then. The lean should be pink, the fat pure white and solid, the skin like
white, translucent parchment. That it is cheap and “goes far” recommends it to many people.
The chine, the spare-ibiss and loin are the best cuts for roasting. Pork chops are popular, and pork tenderloins much
affected, even by epicures. Children and invalids should never touch unsalted pork at its best estate.
Veal comes into market earlier than genuine spring lamb, and is seasonable all the summer through. Be sure it is not that
most objectionable variety of what is rated by dieticians as a decidedly objectionable meat—known in slang usage as
“bob-veal.” No calf should be slaughtered until at least six weeks old. The meat should be a clear, pale red, the fat very
white, the texture firm. Veal may be innutritious, but the knuckle and, indeed, all the bony parts are invaluable for soups,
containing much gelatinous matter. The breast, the fillet and loin are the most popular roasting pieces. Veal chops are
really better eating and cheaper than the cutlet, and should be better known to the frugal housewife.
A calf’s head, scraped free of hair and well-cleaned, may be bought in country markets for fifty cents, and can be made
into a dainty dish fit for John and John’s unexpected friend.
Sweetbreads are an acknowledged delicacy, and liver, properly cooked, will be approved by all.
By the way, lamb’s liver costs less than calf’s liver, and is more toothsome.
In choosing poultry, slip your bare forefinger under the wing where it joins the body and press hard with the nail. If the
skin breaks easily, the fowl is probably young. Then try the tip of the breast-bone. If the cartilage gives readily and
springs back slowly, the signs are still favorable. Next, look for hairs on the body and hard horny scales on the legs; for
scrawny necks and a livid hue in the flesh—all unfavorable indications. Tough fowls should be cheaper far than tender.
If your market-man calls them frankly “fowls,” commend his honesty, and if you contemplate a fricassee or chicken pie,
reward his integrity by a purchase. Chickens may be “fowls,” yet good,—that is, nourishing and amenable to judicious
“tendering.”
A veteran housewife, with a reputation to support, tells me she has but one method of securing really excellent meats for
her table: “When a market-man sells me tough flesh, or superannuated poultry, or ancient fish, I give him warning. At
the second offense, I transfer my custom to another dealer. The rule works well!”
It is especially useful when one would be certain of getting fresh fish. Now that fish and oysters are bedded in ice until
the wiliest connoisseur may be mistaken in their age, it behooves the housemother to know, first of all, that she is dealing
with a man with a conscience as free from reproach as she would have her halibut, salmon and oysters.

3

4

5

CARE OF HOUSEHOLD STORES

Apples, potatoes, turnips, carrots, beets, etc., if stored in bins or barrels, should be picked over every week. The
defective should be thrown away, and if there be any sign of sweating, the good should be spread out on the floor for a
day or two to dry before they are repacked. Fruit should be handled with care. Bruises are incipient decay.
Particularly fine fruit—apples and pears—should be wrapped, each separately, in soft, unprinted paper and, when
packed, covered with fine, dry sand. Thus protected, they will keep plump and sweet for months, and need no
overhauling meanwhile.
When practicable, keep vegetables in large quantities elsewhere than in the cellar under your dwelling. Putrefying roots,
cabbages and apples were responsible for much of the winter and spring diseases that puzzled our forefathers and
mothers. Even now many a farmhouse reeks with “cellar smells,” as subtile and dangerous as sewer gas.
Keep eggs in a cool place, yet not where they will be liable to freeze. If you store them in large quantities, pack in dry
salt, the small end down. As an additional precaution, grease the shells, and pour melted lard upon the topmost layer of
salt.
Dried beans and peas should be kept in wooden or tin boxes with close tops.
Have canisters with tight lids for coffee and tea, and keep them shut. Coffee loses strength and flavor when exposed to
the air. Tea softens and molds.
In buying crackers give the preference to those packed in tin cases. If they come in paper boxes, set these in tin
receptacles, or in stone crocks with snugly fitting tops. Never throw away a tin cracker-box. It is always useful.
After cheese is cut, wrap in tin-foil, or in soft (unprinted) paper and keep in tin, or in stoneware.
Crusts, bits of toast, broken crackers and stale slices of bread should be kept in the kitchen closet until perfectly dry;
then set in a moderate oven for an hour before crushing them with a rolling-pin. Keep these crumbs in a glass jar with a
close top. They are invaluable for breading chops and croquettes, and for scallops.
Brown flour by the quantity, and when cool put into glass jars ready for use.
Salt cakes and hardens in damp weather. Store it in your warmest and driest pantry. In very wet weather mix a little
corn starch with that you put into the table salt-cellars.
Flour can not be kept too dry, nor can Indian oatmeal, and all kinds of sugar. Pulverized sugar is as susceptible to
humidity as salt. Tin boxes are absolutely necessary for keeping it tolerably free from lumps.
Spices, pepper and dried herbs must also be shut up closely, and never be kept in open receptacles. Some brands of
baking-powders actually effervesce when exposed for days at a time to the open air. All are injured seriously by such
exposure.
For all these staples and ingredients, have closely-fitting lids—and keep them on!
Store dried fruits in stone jars with covers; canned fruits and pickles in glass jars; tumblers of jelly and marmalade
should be kept in the dark. The light acts chemically upon the contents. If your storeroom be light, wrap jars and
tumblers in thick paper tied on with strings.
As soon as meat comes home from market remove every bit of the brown paper enveloping it, and lay upon a clean
dish near the ice—never upon it. Fish does not suffer from contact with ice. Meat does, becoming flabby and viscid. If
your refrigerator is so arranged that you can hang the meat up, that the air can get at all sides of it, it will keep far better
than when laid on a platter.
A good meat preserver is a box, as large as you can make room for in the refrigerator, the top and bottom of which are
of wood, the sides of wire netting. Stout hooks are screwed into the inside of the top, and one of the netted sides is
hinged, like a door. Meat hung in this box will remain untainted and sweet much longer than when hung upon the side of
the refrigerator. If you have a cool cellar, keep the meat box, thus prepared, upon a shelf in the darkest corner. The
netting excludes insects, yet allows the air to enter, and by drying the surface forms an impervious coating which will
keep in the juices.
Get large tin boxes for bread and cake. Scald them frequently, drying thoroughly in the sun, and have clean, dry cloths
in which to wrap each fresh batch of cake and baking of bread and biscuits.
It is an excellent plan to make cotton bags in which to put lettuce, celery, tomatoes, spinach and other green things you
wish to store in the refrigerator. The shelves and ice-box are kept clean, the esculents fresh. Many housewives have
adopted the expedient within a few years, and none has abandoned it after a trial. The bags are of coarse, light cotton
cloth, or of cheese-cloth, and go into the weekly wash.
Table butter, wrapped in dampened cheesecloth squares, keeps sweet and firm. These squares are as large as a child’s
pocket handkerchief, and hemmed to prevent raveling. Half a dozen will last a year, unless the “hired gurrel” takes them
for dish-cloths.
Butter, made into balls for the table, should be kept in a bowl of cold water in the refrigerator, and the water changed
every morning.

6

7

8

Keep in your own mind, and so far as you can, impress upon the conscience of servants, that whatever has been once
in the refrigerator must be returned to cold storage, unless used. Meats soften and taint, butter turns rancid, fruits and
vegetables decay when this precaution is neglected.