This is page 13 from the antique booklet The Enterprising Housekeeper [1], sixth edition (1906). If you’d like to follow along and browse through more pages of the book, I’m filing them in the Enterprising Housekeeper Category [2].
The most common mistake made in preparing left-over meats is in cooking them again, instead of merely re-warming. In the majority of recipes the re-heating is done in a sauce, and upon this depends the flavor and success of the dish. When this is the case the sauce should be first made and the meat cooked in it only long enough to be thoroughly heated and seasoned. Where cream sauces are used it is better and safer to put them in a farina boiler and then add the meat.
The seasoning of re-cooked meats requires special skill, for the law of combination is by no means fixed. Veal and chicken are the easiest meats to re-cook, beef comes next, while lamb and mutton more often tax the resources. They need more palatable seasoning, and a little acid, like a chopped pickle or olive, or a tablespoonful of capers adds to their flavor. Game is usually cut in delicate slices, or minced and re-warmed in a brown sauce to which currant or other acid jellies, spices or condiments have been added.
While the meats have been classified in the following recipes, they are, in the majority of cases, interchangeable. Croquettes can be made of beef, veal, chicken or turkey; ragouts and curries of all the meats including game; soufflés of veal, chicken or turkey; boudins, the same. Veal, chicken or turkey are usually re-heated in white sauces; beef, mutton, lamb and game in brown.
Where only a small portion of meat is left, the rice or potato border enables it to be served and adds to its appearance. Upon the appearance of “left-overs” depends their success, and special attention should be paid to their serving and garnishing.
A meat chopper saves appearances as well as food, for unsightly and unpalatable pieces of gristle, long ends and unchopped pieces are impossible if it is used instead of the old-fashioned hand chopper.
When meat is served on toast with or without eggs, it should be chopped very fine and the toast cut in even and attractive shapes and sizes. A good hash is delicious, but it needs strict attention to details; meat and potatoes chopped together and warmed through do not constitute hash nor deserve the name. A chopper, like the Enterprise, should be selected, which does not grind or tear the meat, but cuts it in even sized pieces with the nicety of scissors.
