The Chuckwagon

We come across articles from newspapers printed in the 1800's that contain recipes and cooking tips that you might find interesting. Some have become our favorites and others are simply amusing.

Sourdough Biscuits

Sourdough biscuits were a delicacy whether on the trail or at the ranch. Once a cook got a good sourdough starter he cherished it like a baby. On the trail he would store it in a dark, cool place in his chuck wagon. Here is one cook's recipe for a sourdough starter.

2 cups of lukewarm potato water

2 cups flour

1 tablespoon sugar

Make potato water by cutting up 2 medium-sized potatoes into cubes, and boil in cups of water until tender.

Remove the potatoes and measure out two cups of the remaining liquid. (The potatoes can be used for the evening meal.)

Mix the potato water, flour and sugar into a smooth paste.

Set the mixture in a warm place until it doubles its original size.

Old West Omelet

Here’s an 1883 receipt for making an omelet:

Break all eggs into one plate. Stir rather than beat them.

For each three eggs add one teaspoon cold water. (Cold water makes the omelet light and moist.)

Salt and pepper, and place finely chopped parsley on the eggs.

Put two ounces of sweet butter in pan. When the butter is very hot, pour in the eggs.

The instant it is cooked on one side, turn it quickly and cook the other side.

Double it over when you serve it, on a very hot plate.

How To Fry Quick Doughnuts

The following recipe for doughnuts came from the March 17, 1885 Daily Missoulian:

Put a frying kettle half full of fat over the fire to heat.

Shift together one pound of flour, one teaspoonful each of salt and bicarbonate of soda, and half a saltspoon full of grated nutmeg.

Beat half a pound of butter to a cream and add them to the flour.

Beat the yokes of two eggs to a cream, add them to the first-named ingredients, beat the whites to a stiff froth and reserve them.

Mix into the flour and sugar enough sour milk to make a soft dough and then quickly add the whites of the eggs.

Roll out the paste at once, shape and fry.

Mountain Oysters

Next to donuts, mountain oysters, or less delicately stated, calf testicles, was a cowboy's most favorite food. In 1882, Oliver Nelson, the new cook for the T5 Ranch, was almost hanged because he threw out a half peck of "clippings." He thought the cowboys were playing a joke on him when they left them in his kitchen.

As you castrate the calf, place the freshly severed testicles in a pot of cold salt water.

Remove tough membrane and slice across the grain, into ¼ inch rounds. Rinse each piece several times under running water to remove blood.

Heat oil to 375 degrees. Soak in buttermilk. Stir together flour black pepper and seasoning. Drop individual slices, a few at a time, in flour mixture and quickly coat and remove. Carefully place each piece into oil and fry a few at a time to keep them from clumping together. When the meat floats it is done.

Old West Cooking Terms

Here are some terms you would run into while traveling Out West in the 1800’s.

Li’l bitty ........................................1/4 tsp
Passle ...........................................1/2 tsp
Pittance ........................................1/3 tsp
Dib ................................................1/3 tsp
Crumble ........................................1/8 tsp
A Wave At It ..............................1/16 tsp

Fart & Dart Beans

Mix together one 16 ounce can of the following: Pinto beans, pork & beans, red kidney beans, lima beans, white northern beans and butter beans.

1 lb cut up bacon
1 chopped onion
½ tsp minced garlic
½ tsp prepared mustard
½ cup vinegar
1 cup brown sugar

Fry the bacon until done, but not crisp. Pour beans, bacon, onion and garlic into large pan and mix. Simmer for 15 minutes a combination of the mustard, vinegar and brown sugar.

Pour the liquid over the beans and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour. Mix the beans a couple of times during the cooking process.

Fried Cakes

Here is a great treat whether you are a cowboy on a cattle drive; a member of a family on your way west; or spending the evening watching TV. Obviously today you need to substitute an oil that builds less cholesterol than rendered beef fat. Sprinkling the Fried Cakes with sugar can make them a great dessert.

Mix well with fork 1-½ cups of flour and 1 cup water. With plenty of flour on hands and rolling surface, roll out dough to ¼ inch thickness. Cut into 2-inch squares. Heat rendered beef fat in skillet, and add dough squares. Brown on both sides. Sprinkle fried cakes with salt. Makes about 20 cakes.

Chocolate Carmels

Boil together a pound of white sugar, a quarter of a pound of chocolate, four tablespoons of molasses, a cup of sweet milk, and a piece of butter as big as a walnut. When it will harden in water, flavor with vanilla and pour on a buttered slab. When nearly cold, cut in squares.

Sorghum Cake

This was a dessert made either at the ranch or restaurants in town. It couldn’t be made on the cattle drive because of the need for butter and eggs, two items that would not remain fresh during a two to three month cattle drive.

2 tablespoons butter
½ cup sugar
2 eggs
1 cup sorghum molasses
½ cup water
½ teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour

Start by mixing the butter and sugar. Then add the eggs.

In a separate bowl mix the molasses, water and baking soda. Mix all the ingredients together.

Bake about 45 minutes at a 350-degree temperature.

Red Bean Pie

Beans were a staple of the cowboy's food, particularly when he was on the trail. Beans could be easily stored and they were inexpensive. And although it probably wasn't known, they're also nutritious.

Here is yet another way the cook could feed cowboys beans.

1-cup cooked and mashed pinto beans.
1-cup sugar.
3-beaten egg yokes.
1-teaspoon vanilla.
1-teaspoon nutmeg.

Place combined ingredients in an uncooked piecrust. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes. Make a meringue with the leftover egg whites. Spread over baked pie and return to oven to brown.

Lazy Cobbler

This updated version of an old cowboy dessert, sometimes called dump, will serve 12 hungry cowboys.

Cook in a 12’ Dutch oven. Use 2 cans slices peaches or pineapple with syrup, 1 package of white or yellow cake mix, 1/3 stick butter and some ground cinnamon. Place fruit into oven. Spread cake mix evenly over fruit. Sprinkle cinnamon and thin slices of butter on top.

Place 15 hot charcoal briquettes on the bottom and 10 on the top. Bake for about 45 minutes or until you can stick a toothpick into the cake without having batter on it when you pull the toothpick out.

Cornfield Peas

Take freshly picked peas in your left hand and gouge them out with your right thumb until it gets sore, and then reverse hands.

Throw the shelled peas mercilessly into hot water and boil them until they ‘cave in.’ Then fry them about ten minutes in plenty of good fat meat gravy.

When you see that the union is complete, put them in a dish and eat them all.

Hominy

Jane Winterston ran a sporting house and restaurant in early Abilene, Kansas. One of the favorite dishes was hominy. It was a favorite of Will Bill Hickok.

“Melt a generous amount of butter in a frying pan. Add a cup of hominy and mix until covered with butter. Chop up pimentos as finely as possible. Add to hominy and salt and pepper to taste.”

Trail Measurements

Glob....................1 tsp.
Bit....................3/4 tsp.
Bitty....................1/2 tsp.
LI’L Bitty....................1/4 tsp.
Lump....................1 tbsp.
Good Lump....................2 tsp.
Heap....................Rounded Cupful.
Whole Heap....................2 Rounded Cupfuls.
Bunch....................6 Items

Chicken Broth

Cut cleaned chicken into small pieces, break all bones, and place it in a pot with one-quart water and two teaspoons of salt. Cover and let simmer for 3 1/2 hours, or until the meat drops from the bones.

If necessary, add a little hot water while it is cooking. When done, there should be a pint of broth. Strain into a bowl and when cold remove all grease that is on the top.

When ready to serve, heat again.

Crackling Cornbread

For six servings sift 1 1/2 cups cornmeal, 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 teaspoon soda, and 1 teaspoon salt. To this add 2 cups buttermilk, 1 egg, and 1 cup finely chopped cracklings. (Cracklings are the skin of the hog, which has been rendered of all fat until the pieces are very crisp and almost dry.)

Blend the above ingredients well. Pour the batter into a hot, well-greased baking pan, and bake at 425 degrees for about 25 minutes.

Curing Bacon

One-peck salt to five hundred pounds pork. To five gallons water:

4 pounds salt

1 pound sugar

1 pint molasses

1 teaspoonful saltpeter

Mix, and after sprinkling the fleshy side of the ham with the salt, pack in a tight barrel. Hams first, then shoulders, middlings. Pour over the brine; leave the meat in brine from four to seven weeks.

Noodles

Shift 2 cups flour onto a pastry board. In well in center of the flour, break one egg and add 2 tablespoons warm water and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Work mixture together, adding water to make a very stiff dough.

Divide into two equal parts and roll as thin as possible. Cut into ribbons. After 30 minutes of standing, place ribbons in salty boiling water. Boil until just tender. Drain and toss with melted butter and breadcrumbs. Serve hot.

Ash Cake

This is a pioneer bread using corn meal, salt and either cold or warm water to create a batter.

Pour the batter on a hot hearth or if outside on a hot rock. Spread ashes on the top.

When the bread is brown, brush off the ashes. Some ashes will penetrate the batter, but early settlers thought it only served to enhance the flavor!

Lacy-Edged Corn Pancakes

Into 1 cup white cornmeal, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon baking soda, mix an egg and 1 1/4 cup buttermilk.

Place tablespoon of bacon fat or lard in hot skillet. Let the shortening smoke a little before placing into it a tablespoon of batter, dropped at a distance of six inches. Dropping batter at a distance into hot shortening is essential.

Serve with syrup made by bringing to boil over a low heat 1 cup dark-brown sugar, 1/4 cup water and tablespoon butter bacon fat.

Molasses Stack Cake

Blend ½ cup buttermilk, ½ cup shortening, 1 egg, 1 cup molasses, ½ teaspoon soda and a generous sprinkling of nutmeg and cinnamon.

Then add 2 cups flour. Roll the dough thin and cut into circles the size of a small cake. Bake on a greased cookie sheet until slightly brown.

Place sweet and seasoned apple sauce between layers. Dribble a little molasses over the top and place a dollop of whipped cream over it.

Tapioca Jelly

One cupful of tapioca. Pour over it three cupfuls of cold water and let it stand three hours, then put it in a saucepan set within another pan of boiling water.

If the tapioca has soaked up the water, add a little lukewarm water to it, then boil, stirring frequently when it begins to clear. If too thick, add a little boiling water, about a tablespoonful.

When quite clear, add white sugar to taste, the juice of one lemon and very little of the grated rind.

Pour into a mould wet with cold water. Serve when cold with sugar and cream.

(This is a recipe from Palatable Dishes, a book published in 1891. The book is a practical guide to good living.)

Kiss Pudding

One quart of milk, four tablespoons of 1883 Texas Cookbook cornstarch, mixed with a little cold milk, and five eggs.

Beat the yolks of the eggs with one cup of sugar and the corn starch. Put in the milk and let it boil until it thickens, stirring all the time.

Beat the whites: add a cup of sugar, flavor and spread over the pudding. Brown in the oven.

(From an 1883 Texas Cookbook)

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