Hearthside Receipts (Recipes)
Spiced Cider
To one gallon cider, add a bag of spices, heat over trivet.
Spices: 6 cloves, 1 broken cinnamon, 3 allspices. When hot, remove spices. Serve.
Conner Prairie Cookbook
Pounded Cheese
Cut a pound of good mellow cheese into thin bits; add to it two and, if the cheese is dry, three ounces of fresh butter; put these ingredients into a mortar till it is quite smooth. The piquance of this is sometimes increased by pounding with it curry powder, ground spices, black pepper, cayenne and a little made mustard; and some moisten it with a little sherry. If pressed down hard in a jar, and covered with clarified butter, it will keep for several days.
Cook's Own Book (This recipe can be made with a food processor.)
Crackers
Put together one egg white, one tablespoon butter, one-half teaspoon of soda. Add one tablespoon of vinegar to one teacup of sweet milk. Add flour to make very stiff, roll thin and bake until golden and set.
Conner Prairie Cookbook
Cressy Soup
Slice twelve large onions, and fry them pretty brown in a quarter of a pound of fresh butter; scrape and clean two dozen of good red carrots, boil them in four quarts of water till quite soft; pound them in a marble mortar, mix them with the onions and add the liquor in which the carrots were boiled, a bunch of sweet herbs, pepper, salt, a blade of mace, and two or three cloves; let them all boil about an hour, then rub them through a hair sieve; put it on again to boil rather quickly, till it be as thick as rich cream. Put a little dry boiled rice in the tureen, and pour the soup over it.
The Cook's Own Book
Baked Hind Quarter of Shoat
Shoat - a young pig; able to feed alone.
Score the skin across in narrow stripes, about half an inch apart, rub it over with salt, pepper, and sifted sage, brush it with lard, or sweet oil, and put it in a pan on some sweet, or white potatoes, having scraped and rinsed clean; add a pint and a half of water, and bake it with moderate heat. During the time it is baking raise the lid several times, and baste the meat with butter, lard, or sweet oil. When it is well done, and of a light brown color; thicken the gravy with butter, flour, cream and parsley.
Kentucky Housewife
Chicken Capilotade
Put into a stewpan a little butter and flour; add mushrooms, parsley, and shallots cut small, dilute these with equal quantities of stock, and red or white wine. When the sauce is well boiled, skim it; cut a roasted fowl in pieces, and put it into this sauce; stew it gently for a quarter of an hour.
The Cook's Own Book
Pickled Beet Root and Eggs
Boil the roots tender, peel and cut them in what shape you please. Put them in a jar and pour over them a hot pickle of 1 cup vinegar, and 3 cups of sugar, add 3 teaspoons of ground cinnamon and a teaspoon of salt, add more vinegar if needed. Add shelled hard-cooked eggs to the pickled beet root. Store a few days in a cool place before using.
Sauerkraut Yankees, Conner Prairie Cookbook
Warm Slaugh
Select firm head of cabbage. Having stripped off the outer leaves, cleave the head into four equal parts. Take a very sharp knife, shave off the cabbage roundwise, cutting it very smoothly and evenly, and at no rate more than a quarter of an inch in width. Put in a skillet enough butter, salt, pepper, and vinegar to season the slaugh very well, put it into the seasonings; stir it fast, that it all may warm equally, and as soon as it gets hot, serve it in a deep china dish; make it smooth, and disseminate over it hard boiled yolks of eggs, that are minced fine.
Kentucky Housewife
Cheesecake with Fruit Sauce
Beat eight eggs light, stir them in a quart of sweet milk, and boil it till it becomes a thick custard, stirring it occasionally, to prevent its burning; then pour it in a clean sieve, drain off the whey, put the curd in a broad pan, mix with it a quarter of a pound of butter, six ounces of sugar, the beaten yolks of four eggs, four tablespoonfuls of sweet cream, a glass of lemon brandy, and two powdered nutmeg. Beat it thoroughly until it is well mixed and very smooth, adding enough rice flour to make it like common cake batter. Bake it in small buttered pans, in a brisk oven, and grate loaf sugar over them when cold. A fruit sauce may be served with the cheesecake.
Kentucky Housewife
Cherry Sauce
1 cup fresh or frozen cherries 1 cup water
1 1/4 cups sugar
Mix 1 cup water and 1 1/4 cups sugar, stir into the cherries. Heat to a boil, let simmer 1 minute.
Serve warm over the cheesecake.
Kentucky Housewife
Popcorn
1 cup popcorn
1/4 cup butter
salt to taste
Hot Spiced Cider
To one gallon cider add a bag of spices, heat over trivet.
Spices: 6 cloves, 1 stick of cinnamon, 3 allspices. When hot remove spices.
(Conner Prairie Cookbook)
Winter Vegetable Soup w/ fried toasted bread
To one gallon of water add, when cut down small, a quart of the following vegetables; equal quantities of turnips, carrots, and potatoes, three onions, two heads of celery, and a bunch of sweet herbs; fry them brown in a quarter of a pound of butter, add the water with salt and pepper, and boil it till reduced to three quarts, and serve with fried toasted bread.
(Cook's Own Book)
Beef Alabraise
Take a rump of beef, lard it thickly, but so as not appear upon the surface, with bits of salt pork or ham cut about half an inch square, and rolled in the following seasonings, well mixed: Finely minced onion, parsley, thyme, a little garlic, pepper, and salt. What is left over of the seasoning add to a pint of vinegar, one of port wine, and a tea-cupful of salad oil; steep the beef in this for one night; the following day roast it in a cradle spit. Baste well, and serve it with a thick brown gravy.
(Cook's Own Book)
Fricassee of Chicken
Boil the chickens in a little water, let them cool, and cut them up. Meanwhile, add the giblets, a little lemon rind, pepper, nutmeg, herbs, and an onion to the broth in which the chickens were boiled. Boil this well and press it through a sieve. Then simmer the chicken in this until done. Remove the chicken pieces from the broth and keep it warm. thicken the broth with flour and butter, grate a little nutmeg into it, and season with salt. Bring this to a boil again, whisk in the yolk of an egg, and add half a pint of sour cream, which should not be allowed to boil. Arrange the chicken pieces on a hot serving platter, spoon sauce over the top, and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley.
(Sauerkraut Yankees, Pennsylvania Food and Foodways)
Biscuits
2 cups flour
1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon soda
1 cup milk soured with 1 teaspoon salt vinegar
Sift the flour through a hair sieve and put in salt. Cut in the butter. Stir the soda into the soured milk and stir into dry ingredients. Knead with as few strokes as possible, working rapidly. Pat out to one half inch thickness on a floured board and cut into biscuit shapes. Bake in moderate (350 degree) oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
(Conner Prairie Cookbook)
Stewed Carrots
Scrape, wash, and split your carrots; stew them in a small quantity of water, with sufficient salt to season them, keeping the pan closely covered. When they are done very well, and liquor quite low, stir in a good lump of butter. Serve them warm.
(Kentucky Housewife)
Macaroni, English Style
Put a quarter of a pound of macaroni into a stew pan, with a pint of boiling milk or broth, or water; let it boil gently till it is tender, this will take about a quarter of an hour; then put in an ounce of grated cheese, and a tea-spoonful of salt; mix it well together, and put it on a dish; stew over it two ounces of grated Parmesan or Cheshire cheese, and give it a light brown in a Dutch oven. Ladle all the cheese into the macaroni, and put bread crumbs on the top.
Macaroni is very good put into thick sauce, shreds of dressed ham, or in a curry sauce.
(Cook's Oracle)
Pickles Green Beans
1 pound green beans
1 tablespoon salt
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon dill
1/2 cup white vinegar
1 tablespoon whole pepper
Take young French green beans. Lay them as handsomely as you can in an earthen pot. Lay dill betwixt them. Then take good white vinegar, whole pepper, and salt. Boyle them a little while. Then take it out and let it stand till cold. Then pour it on your beans. Cover close, and let them stand for 3 weeks. then pour off the liquor. boyle it, pour it again on the beans. When it is boyling hot, pour more dill on the top of them. Tye them close with a leather.
(Pleasures of Colonial Cookery, Backcountry Housewife)
(We add a little sugar to taste.)
Pears, To prepare for Brandy
Take fresh pears, prick and put them into cold water; when all in, set the vessel over a moderate fire, keeping the water, however, constantly nearly boiling, until the fruit will give to the touch. Make syrup of half a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit, and boil and skim it. Put in the pears, and let them cook for fifteen minute. Take them up without any syrup and cool them on dishes. Boil the syrup down to half, and put an equal amount of brandy, pour this over the pears after they are in jars. Cover tightly and store in a cool place for at least 3 days before serving. Peaches, apricots and plums may be done the same way.
(Cook's Own Book)
Poundcake Gingerbread
Take 6 eggs, 1 lb. of sugar, 1 pint of molasses, a full tea-cup of ginger, a tea-spoonful of pearlash dissolved, a little mace, nutmeg, 1 lb. of fresh butter creamed; after these ingredients are well mixed, beat in 2 lbs. of flour. Fruit is an improvement.
(Mackenzie's Five Thousand Reciepts: An American Physician)
(This will make three large loaf pans)
Hot Spiced Cider
To one gallon cider, add a bag of spices, heat over trivet. Spices: 6 cloves, 1 stick cinnamon, 3 allspices. When hot remove spices and serve.
Conner Prairie Cookbook
Onion Soup w/fried bread
1 cup butter
10 onions
2 tablespoons flour 4 cups boiling water or beef stock
1 large slice of bread salt and pepper to taste
1 egg yolk 1 teaspoon vinegar
Heat butter in a kettle or pan until it bubbles. Peel and chop the onions and put in kettle. Add flour and stir well to blend. Pour in water or beef stock. Add piece of bread. Put in salt and pepper and stew for 10 minutes. Beat egg yolk with the vinegar. Mix a small amount of the hot stock with egg yolk in a small bowl and beat. pour the egg/vinegar mixture back into the hot stock, stirring gradually to thicken. Serve with fired toasted bread.
Conner Prairie Cookbook, Kentucky Housewife
Pork Roast w/Sweet Potatoes, Parsnips
Place 3 to 5 pound pork roast fat side up, in roasting pan. Season lightly with salt and pepper as well as sage or marjoram: brush it over with sweet oil, lard, or butter, and put with small quantity of water, having placed in the bottom some suitable vegetable, such as sweet or white potatoes, parsnips. Preheat over 500 degrees. Place prepared roast in oven and immediately reduce heat to 350 degrees. Bake until done, allowing 30-40 minutes per pound. Baste occasionally. If the meat is large it would be best to add the vegetables the last hour and half. Thicken the gravy with flour and serve with roast.
Kentucky Housewife, Hearthside Cooking, Nancy Carter Crump
Roast Game Hens
(quail or prairie chicken)
1/3 cup butter melted 1 1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 1/2 teaspoon rosemary 3 - 1 to 1 1/2 pound game hens
Rinse hens: pat dry. Place hens, breast side up, in a roasting pan. Roast in a 375 degree oven for 45 to 60 minutes, basting frequently with melted butter and herbs.
Tried and True
Brandied Cranberries
1 pound of fresh cranberries, 2 cups brown sugar, 1/4 cup brandy. Spread the freshly washed cranberries in an iron spider or heavy skillet. Sprinkle cranberries with the brown sugar, cover and cook slowly for an hour. Remove the lid and pour the brandy over the cranberries. You may take it to the table in a pewter basin or for a collation table, in a crystal compote.
Conner Prairie Cookbook
Buttered Beet Root
Draw them while young and sweet; if very old and strong, they should be reserved for pickles. Trim off the tops, but do not break the roots, wash them clean, and boil them until tender, which you may tell by trying them with a fork. Then throw them while boiling hot into a pan of cold water, which will make the skin slip off smoothly and easily. Slice them quick, sprinkle on a little salt and pepper. Pour over them some melted butter, and eat them warm. They generally accompany roast meats.
Quaker Woman's Cookbook, Kentucky Housewife
Sauerkraut
In the fall after we have had two or three freezing nights, collect up as many solid heads of cabbage as you wish to preserve, salt up (say fifty for a family of 6 or 8 persons), take off the green and imperfect leaves, cut each head lengthwise through the heart, and cut that clean out. A cabbage knife should be procured on which the cabbage should be cut fine, and a strong barrel, previously well soaked and cleaned at hand, the bottom to of which to be laid over with cabbage leaves; fine salt now to be well mixed with portions of the cabbage in the proportion of a pint of salt to a heaped bushel of cabbage, and these gradually packed in the barrel by gently stamping with a suitable wooden rammer. When the barrel is nearly full, it should be placed in a cool dry cellar, a piece of board laid on the top of the cabbage, and a heavy weight laid on top to weight the cabbage down. In a week or ten days the pickle should cover the cabbage, this is when fermentation will commence; and from this time to the end of the season once a week, the froth should be skimmed off, and the boards, weight and sides of the barrel cleanly washed. At the end of two weeks it will be fit to cook; and as much of it savory and salutary quality depends on this. Put good clean sauerkraut in water over the fire. Season it with strong meat broth and let simmer for two hours. Serve with fresh pork.
Sauerkraut Yankees, translated from Johann Furst's Simon Struf.
Pears, to prepare for brandy
Take fresh pears, prick and put them into cold water; when all in, set the vessel over a moderate fire, keeping the water, however, constantly nearly boiling, until the fruit will give the touch. Make syrup of the half a pound of sugar to a pound of fruit, and boil and skim it. Put the pears in and let them cook for fifteen minutes. Take them up without any syrup and cool them on dishes. Boil the syrup down to half, and put an equal amount of brandy , pour this over the pears after they are in jars. Cover tightly and store in a cool place for at least 3 days before serving. Peaches, apricots and plums may be done the same way.
Cook's Own Book
Biscuits
2 cups flour 1/4 cup butter
1 teaspoon soda 1 cup of milk soured with 1 tablespoon vinegar
1 teaspoon salt
Sift flour through a hair sieve and put in salt. Cut in the butter. Stir the soda into the soured milk and stir into dry ingredients. Knead with as few strokes as possible, working rapidly. Pat out to one half inch thickness on a floured board and cut into biscuit shapes. Baked in moderate (350 degree) oven until golden brown, about 20 minutes.
Conner Prairie Cookbook
Moravian Cake
Sift a quart of fine flour, sprinkle into it a small spoonful of salt, two powdered nutmegs, a spoonful of cinnamon, one of mace, and four ounces of powdered sugar. Rub in with your hands four ounces of butter and two beaten eggs: when they are completely saturated, add four table-spoonfuls of good yeast, and enough sweet milk to make it into a thick batter. Put in a buttered pan, cover it and set by the fire to rise, but be sure you do not let it get hot, or the cake will be spoiled. When it looks quite light superadd four ounces of sugar, and a handful of flour; sprinkle a handful of brown sugar over the top, and bake it in a moderate over.
Kentucky Housewife
Sources of Receipts
The Conner Prairie Cookbook edited by Margaret A. Hoffman,
Conner Prairie Press, 13400 Allisonville Road, Fishers, Indiana 46038 and Guild Press of Indiana, 6000 Sunset Lane, Indianapolis, Indiana 46208.
The Cook's Own Book by Mrs. N. K. M. Lee, Boston, 1832.
Reprint: Arno Press, New York, 1972.
Kentucky Housewife by Mrs. Lettice Bryan, Cincinnati, 1839.
Reprint: Collector Books, Paducah, Kentucky.
Sauerkraut Yankees by William Woys Weaver,
University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1983.