This section is from the book "The Dinner Year-Book", by Marion Harland. See also: Rachael Ray 365: No Repeats - A Year of Deliciously Different Dinners.
Stewed Ducks.
Almond Custard with Cocoanut Frost.
Take the fat from your cold soup; pour the latter carefully from the meat, and heat to a slow boil. Having removed all the scum that will rise, add a quarter pound of macaroni, broken into short pieces, boiled twenty minutes in hot salted water, and left to get cold. Simmer fifteen minutes, and serve.
Clean, wash, and truss neatly, but do not stuff the ducks. Put into a broad saucepan, such as is generally known as a braising-pan. Strew with a little onion; pour over them a cupful of weak broth made by boiling the giblets in a pint of water and reducing one-half. Season this well, and when you have poured it upon the ducks, cover the saucepan and cook gently an hour and a half or until the ducks are tender. Turn them when half done. Take up when ready; keep hot while you strain and thicken the gravy with browned flour. Pour a little over the ducks, the rest into a boat.
See Monday, Fourth Week in July.
Strip off all except the inner thin husk. Turn this down, and pick off the silk. Put back the husk, tie with a bit of thread, and cook in boiling water from twenty-five to thirty minutes. Break off the stalks and husks, and send to table wrapped in a napkin.
Cut in slices half an inch thick; pare each carefully, and lay for one hour in salt and water, to remove the bitter taste. Then slightly salt and pepper each piece, and dip in a batter made of two eggs, half a cup of milk, and about a cup of flour, or enough for thin batter. Fry in hot lard or dripping to a fine brown; drain well, and serve hot.
Slice six or eight cold boiled potatoes; put them into a salad-dish, and season as follows : To two tablespoon-fuls of salad-oil add one teaspoonful of sugar, half as much, each, of made mustard, salt, and pepper, and nearly as much essence of celery. Rub to a smooth paste, and whip in, a teaspoonful at a time, five tablespoonfuls of vin egar. When well mixed, pour upon the salad.
2 cups fresh milk, with a pinch of soda stirred in; 1/2 lb. almonds, blanched, dried, and pounded; 3 beaten eggs; 1/2 cup powdered sugar; rose-water; 1 cocoanut, pared, thrown into cold water, and grated.
Scald the milk; stir in the almond-paste, which should have been mixed with rose-water, to prevent oiling. Boil one minute, and pour upon the beaten eggs and sugar. Return to the fire, and stir until the mixture begins to thicken. Take off, and pour into a bowl. When cold, put on ice until Sunday. Then turn the custard into a glass dish, and heap high with the grated cocoanut Strew powdered sugar over all.
 
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