Cut off tops and tails, and skin them. Lay in cold water half an hour, then put into a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them. Cook fifteen minutes and drain off the water, re-covering them with more from the boiling tea-kettle. Boil until a straw will pierce them; drain and put into a dish with pepper, salt, and plenty of butter. Send around drawn butter with them. Never cook onions in an iron pot.
Young onions should always be cooked in this way. Top, tail, and skin them, lay them in cold water half anhour or more, then put into a saucepan with hot water enough to cover them. When half done, throw off all the water, except a small teacupful—less, if your mess be small; add a like quantity of milk, a great spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt to taste. Stew gently until tender, and turn into a deep dish.
If the onions are strong and large, boil in three waters, throwing away all of the first and second, and reserving a very little of the third to mix with the milk.
It ought to be more generally known that the disagreeable odor left by any of the onion family upon the breath may be removed by chewing and swallowing a few grains of roasted coffee. No more nutritious vegetable ever finds its way to our tables, and it is greatly to be regretted that the unpleasant result just named should deter so many from eating it. It is especially beneficial to brain-workers and nervous invalids—the very people who are least likely to taste it.
The large Spanish or Bermuda onions are the only kinds which are usually baked. Wash clean, but do not remove the skins. Boil an hour—the water should be boiling when they are put in, and slightly salt. Change it twice during this time, always replenishing with more, boiling-hot. Turn off the water, take the onions out and lay upon a cloth, that all the moisture may be absorbed or evaporate. Roll each in a round piece of buttered tissue-paper, twisting it at the top to keep it closed, and bake in a slow oven nearly an hour. When tender all through, peel them, put them into a deep dish, and brown slightly, basting with butter freely. This will take perhaps a quarter of an hour more. Serve in a vegetabledish, and pour the melted butter over them when you have sprinkled with pepper and salt.
Wash and skin very large Bermuda onions. Lay in cold water an hour. Parboil in boiling water half an hour. Drain, and while hot extract the hearts, taking care not to break the outer layers. Chop the inside thus obtained very fine, with a little cold fat pork or bacon. Add bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, mace, and wet with a spoonful or two of cream. Bind with a well-beaten egg, and work into a smooth paste. Stuff the onions with this; put into a dripping-pan with a very little hot water, and simmer in the oven for an hour, basting often with melted butter. When done, take the onions up carefully, and arrange the open ends uppermost in a vegetable dish. Add to the gravy in the dripping-pan the juice of half a lemon, four tablespoonfuls of cream or milk, and a little browned flour wet with cold milk. Boil up once, and pour over the onions.
Loosen the skins by pouring scalding water upon them; peel and cut them up, extracting the cores or hard parts of the stem end, and removing all unripe portions. Stew in a saucepan (tin or porcelain) half an hour, when add salt and pepper to taste, a teaspoonful of white sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter. Stew gently fifteen minutes longer, and serve.
Some cooks thicken the tomatoes with a little grated bread. A minced onion—a small one—improves the flavor. Another pleasant variety is to put a quarter as much green corn as you have tomatoes into the saucepan when it is first set on the fire, and stew gently.
Choose large, smooth tomatoes, and cut a thin slice from the blossom end of each, laying it aside for further use. Scoop out the inside, and chop fine with a little grated bread, some green corn, salt, pepper, a teaspoonful white sugar, and a tablespoonful butter. Mix well, and stuff the hollowed tomatoes. Fit the tops on neatly, place in circular rows in a deep dish and bake three-quarters of an hour, to a light brown. Fill the interstices with the force-meat if you have any left, before you bake. Do not peel them.
Peel and cut in slices a quarter of an inch thick. Pack in a pudding-dish in alternate layers, with a force-meat made of bread-crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and a little white sugar. Spread thickly upon each stratum of tomatoes, and when the dish is nearly full, put tomatoes uppermost, a good bit of butter upon each slice. Dust with pepper and a little sugar. Strew with dry bread-crumbs, and bake covered half an hour; remove the lid and bake brown.
This is made as above, substituting for the bread-crumbs in the force-meat, green corn cut from the cob, and seasoning with some fat pork chopped very fine, a minced shallot, pepper, salt, and sugar. Let the top layer be tomatoes, butter and season, and sift grated bread-crumbs over it to brown the scallop. Bake covered half an hour; uncover and leave in the oven as much longer. This time is for a large dishful.
Select large, firm ones, and do not peel. Slice half aninch thick, and broil upon an oyster gridiron. A few minutes will suffice to cook them. Have ready in a cup some hot butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, a little sugar, and a half a teaspoonful of made mustard. As soon as the tomatoes are done, dip each piece in this mixture and lay upon a hot chafing-dish. When all are dished, heat what remains of the seasoning to a boil, pour upon them, and serve at once.
Broiled tomatoes are much liked by those who have eaten them cooked in this manner.
Peel and slice a quarter of an inch thick. Pack in a pudding-dish, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper, butter, and a very little white sugar. Bake covered half an hour, remove the lid, and brown for fifteen minutes. Five minutes before taking from the oven, pour over the top three or four tablespoonfuls of cream whipped up for a few minutes with melted butter.
Do not loosen the skins with scalding water. It impairs the flavor and destroys the crispness. Pare with a keen knife, slice and lay in a glass dish. Season with pepper, salt, and vinegar, stirring a piece of ice rapidly around in the dressing before pouring it over the tomatoes, and setting the dish in the refrigerator until wanted.
There is no salad, excepting, perhaps, lettuce and cucumbers, that is more improved by the use of ice than tomatoes.
Pare neatly from end to end, and lay in ice-water one hour. Wipe them and slice thin. Season with pepper,salt and vinegar—and oil, if you wish—laying some bits of ice among them, with thin slices of onion. Cucumbers should be gathered while the dew is on them, and eaten the same day. Leave them in a cool place until you are ready to pare them.
Pare and lay in ice-water half an hour. Cut lengthwise, into slicesnearlyhalf an inch thick, and lay in ice-water ten minutes longer. Wipe each piece dry with a soft cloth, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and dredge with flour. Fry to a delicate brown in sweet clarified dripping, nice lard, or butter.
Many declare that cucumbers are never fit to eat unless fried, and they are assuredly far more wholesome than when served raw.
Pare, lay in ice-water an hour; then, slice a quarter of an inch thick. Pick out the seeds with a penknife, and put into a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them. Stew fifteen minutes, and drain off the water. Add enough from the boiling tea-kettle to keep them from burning; season with salt and pepper, and stir carefully in a tablespoonful of butter—or two, should the quantity of cucumber be large. Stew gently ten minutes, and add half a cupful of rich milk; thicken with a little flour, boil up, and serve in a deep dish, squeezing some lemon-juice in at the last.
This is a popular English dish, although it seems a strange one to American ideas.
Choose young sugar-corn, full grown, but not hard;test with the nail. When the grain is pierced, the milk should escape in a jet, and not be thick. Clean by stripping off the outer leaves, turn back the innermost covering carefully, pick off every thread of silk, and recover the ear with the thin husk that grew nearest it. Tie at the top with a bit of thread, put into boiling water salted, and cook fast from twenty minutes to half an hour, in proportion to size and age. Cut off the stalks close to the cob, and send whole to table wrapped in a napkin.
Or, you can cut from the cob while hot, and season with butter, pepper and salt. Send to table in a vegetable dish.
Take equal quantities of green corn cut from the cob, and tomatoes sliced and peeled. Stew together half an hour; season with pepper, salt, and averylittle sugar. Stew fifteen minutes longer, and stir in a great lump of butter. Five minutes later, pour out and serve.
This is made of green corn and Lima beans, although you can substitute for the latter string or butter beans. Have a third more corn than beans, when the former has been cut from the cob and the beans shelled. Put into boiling water enough to cover them—no more—and stew gently together until tender—perhaps half an hour—stirring now and then. Pour off nearly all the water, and add a large cupful of milk. Stew in this, watching to prevent burning, for an hour; then stir in a great lump of butter, a teaspoonful of flour wet with cold milk, pepper and salt to taste. Boil up once, and pour into a deep vegetable-dish. If you use string-beans, string and cut up into half-inch lengths before cooking.
Grate the corn from the cob; beat the whites and yolks of the eggs separately. Put the corn and yolks together, stirhard, and add the butter; then the milk gradually, beating all the while; next the sugar and a little salt; lastly the whites. Bake slowly at first, covering the dish, for an hour. Remove the cover, and brown finely.
This is a most delicious accompaniment to a meat course, when properly mixed and baked. Warm up what is left from dinner for breakfast, by moistening it with a little warm milk, and stirring in a saucepan until smoking hot. You can make this pudding from canned corn in winter, chopping the corn fine.
Grate the corn, and allow an egg and a half for every cupful, with a tablespoonful of milk or cream. Beat the eggs well, add the corn by degrees, beating very hard; salt to taste; put a tablespoonful of melted butter to every pint of corn; stir in the milk, and thicken with just enough flour to hold them together—say a tablespoonful for every two eggs. You may fry in hot lard, as you would fritters, but a better plan is to cook upon a griddle, like batter cakes. Test a little first, to see that it is of the right consistency.
Eaten at dinner or breakfast, these always meet with a cordial welcome.
Cut from the cob, and stew fifteen minutes in boiling water. Turn off most of this, cover with cold milk, and stew until very tender, adding, before you take it up, a large lump of butter cut into bits and rolled in flour. Season with pepper and salt to taste. Boil five minutes, and serve.
Cold corn left from dinner should be cut from the cob and stewed a few minutes in a little milk, adding seasoning as above. Or, you can mix it with chopped cold potatoes—Irish or sweet; heat a piece of butter or beef-dripping in a frying-pan, and stir in the mixture until smoking-hot. Never throw away a good ear of sweet corn.
Turn back the husks upon the stalk, pick off the silk, recover with the husks as closely as possible, and roast in the hot ashes of a wood-fire. Eat with butter, salt, and pepper, out of doors, in the forest, or on the beach.
Scrape the roots, dropping each into cold water as soon as it is cleaned. Exposure to the air blackens them. Cut in pieces an inch long, put into a saucepan with hot water enough to cover them, and stew until tender. Turn off nearly all the water, and add a cupful of cold milk. Stew ten minutes after this begins to boil; put in a great lump of butter, cut into bits, and rolled in flour; pepper and salt to taste. Boil up once, and serve. The taste is curiously like that of stewed oysters.
Scrape the roots thoroughly, and lay in cold waterten or fifteen minutes. Boil whole until tender, drain, and when cold, mash with a wooden spoon to a smooth paste, picking out all the fibres. Moisten with a little milk; add a tablespoonful of butter, and an egg and a half for every cupful of salsify. Beat the eggs light. Make into round cakes, dredge with flour, and fry brown.
Slice the egg-plant at least half an inch thick; pare each piece carefully, and lay in salt and water, putting a plate upon the topmost to keep it under the brine, and let them alone for an hour or more. Wipe each slice, dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot lard until well done and nicely browned.
Parboil for ten minutes. Slit each down the side, and extract the seeds. Prop open the cut with a bit of clean wood or china, and lay in cold salt and water while you prepare the force-meat. Make this of bread-crumbs, minute bits of fat pork, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and averylittle onion, chopped up together. Moisten with cream, and bind with a beaten egg. Fill the cavity in the egg-plant with this; wind soft pack-thread about them to keep the slit shut, and bake, putting a little water in the dripping-pan. Baste with butter and water when they begin to cook. Test with a straw when they are tender, and baste twice at the last with butter. Lay the egg-plants in a dish, add two or three tablespoonfuls of cream to the gravy, thicken with a little flour, put in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, boil up once, and pour over the vegetable.
Wash and scrape well, and lay in cold water half anhour. If large, split them, or cut across in two or three pieces. Put into boiling water, slightly salted, and boil until tender. Large ones will require nearly an hour and a half to cook. Young carrots should only be washed before they are boiled, and the skin be rubbed off with a cloth afterward. Butter well, and serve hot.
Scrape, and lay in cold water half an hour or more. Boil whole three-quarters of an hour, drain, and cut into round slices a quarter of an inch thick. Put on in a saucepan with a teacupful of broth—veal, or beef, or mutton; pepper and salt to taste, and stew gently half an hour. Just before they are done, add four tablespoonfuls cream or milk, and a good lump of butter cut into bits, and rolled in flour. Boil up and serve.
If you have not the broth, use water, and put in a tablespoonful of butter when the saucepan is set on the fire, in addition to the quantity I have specified.
Scrape and boil until nearly done. Cut into small squares, and put into a saucepan, with two small onions, minced; a little chopped parsley, pepper and salt to taste, and half a cup of rather thin drawn butter. They will require half an hour’s simmering. Serve hot.
Wash, scrape, and lay in cold water a while. Boil very tender in hot water, slightly salted. Drain, and mash with a beetle or wooden spoon, working in a large spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt. A little cream will improve them. Mound as you would mashed potatoes,and stamp a figure upon them, or mark in squares with a knife.
Break off the tops and bottoms and “string” carefully.Thenpare both edges with a sharp knife, to be certain that no remnant of the tough fibre remains. Not one cook in a hundred performs this duty as deftly and thoroughly as it should be done. I have heard several gentlemen say that they could always tell, after the first mouthful, whether the mistress or the hireling had “strung” the beans. It is a tedious and disagreeable business, this pulling bits of woody thread out of one’s mouth when he wants to enjoy his dinner.
Cut the beans thus cleared of their troublesomeattachés, in pieces an inch long, and lay in cold water with a little salt for fifteen or twenty minutes. Drain them, and put into a saucepan of boiling water. Boil quickly, twenty minutes if well-grown—less if small—at any rate, until tender. Drain in a cullender until the water ceases to drip from them. Dish with a great spoonful of butter stirred in.
To my taste, beansneedto have a bit of bacon boiled with them—whole, or chopped into bits that dissolve in the boiling. It mellows the rank taste you seek to remove by boiling.
Shell into cold water; let them lie a while; put into a pot with plenty of boiling water and a little salt, and cook fast until tender. Large ones sometimes require nearly an hour’s boiling. The average time is forty minutes. Drain and butter well when dished, peppering to taste.
Shell into cold water, and cook in boiling until tender.A small piece of fat bacon boiled with them is an advantage to nearly all. If you do this, do not salt them.
Wash and soak over night in lukewarm water, changing it several times for warmer. If this is done they will require but two hours’ boiling. Drain very thoroughly, pressing them firmly, but lightly, in the cullender with a wooden spoon; salt, pepper and mix in a great lump of butter when they are dished.
Wash, but do not touch with a knife before they are boiled. If cut while raw, they bleed themselves pale in the hot water. Boil until tender—if full-grown at least two hours. When done, rub off the skins, slice round if large, split if young, and butter well in the dish. Salt and pepper to taste.
A nice way is to slice them upon a hot dish, mix a great spoonful of melted butter with four or five of vinegar, pepper and salt, heat to boiling, and pour over the beets.
Instead of consigning the cold ones “left over” to the swill pail, pour cold vinegar upon them and use as pickles with cold or roast meat.
Boil young, sweet beets, until nearly done; skin and slice them. Put into a saucepan with a minced shallot and parsley, two tablespoonfuls melted butter, a like quantity of vinegar, some salt and pepper. Set on the fire and simmer twenty minutes, shaking the saucepan now and then. Serve with the gravy poured over them.
If young, scrape before cooking. If old, pare carefully,and if large, split. Put into boiling water, salted, and boil, if small and tender, from half to three-quarters of an hour, if full-grown, more than an hour. When tender, drain and slice lengthwise, buttering well when you dish.
Boil until tender, scrape off the skin, and cut in thick lengthwise slices. Dredge with flour and fry in hot dripping or lard, turning when one side is browned. Drain off every drop of fat; pepper, and serve hot.
Boil tender, mash smooth and fine, picking out the woody bits. For three large parsnips allow two eggs, one cup rich milk, one tablespoonful butter, one teaspoonful salt, three tablespoonfuls flour. Beat the eggs light, stir in the mashed parsnips, beating hard; then the butter and salt, next the milk, lastly the salt. Fry as fritters, or as griddle-cakes.
Boil and scrape them, mash smooth with the back of a wooden-spoon, or a potato beetle, picking out the fibres; mix in three or four spoonfuls of cream, a great spoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste. Heat to boiling in a saucepan, and serve. Heap in a mound as you would potato cooked in the same way.
Boil tender and scrape. Slice a quarter of an inch thick lengthwise. Put into a saucepan with three tablespoonfuls melted butter, pepper and salt, and a little chopped parsley. Shake over the fire until the mixture boils. Lay the parsnips in order upon a dish, pour thesauce over them, and garnish with parsley. It is a pleasant addition to this dish to stir a few spoonfuls of cream into the sauce after the parsnips are taken out; boil up, and pour upon them.
Tie up in bunches when you have picked it over carefully, and lay in cold water for an hour. Put into salted boiling water, and cook twenty or thirty minutes until tender. Lay some slices of buttered toast in the bottom of a dish, clip the threads binding the stems of the sea-kale, and pile upon the toast, buttering it abundantly. Or, you can send around with it a boat of drawn butter.
Clip off the stems, wash well, tie in neat bunches, and when it has lain in cold water an hour or so, put into a saucepan of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil fifteen minutes, drain well, clip the threads, and return to the saucepan, with a little rich gravy if you have it. If not, pour in three or four tablespoonfuls of butter drawn in milk, pepper and salt, and simmer eight or ten minutes.
Strip off the outer leaves, and cut the stalks close to the bottom. Wash well and lay in cold water two hours. Immerse in boiling water, the stalk-ends uppermost, with an inverted plate upon them to keep them down. Boil an hour and a half, or until very tender. Arrange in circles upon a dish, the tops up, and pour drawn butter over them.
There are many varieties of this vegetable, but the generalrules for cooking them are the same. Unless they are extremely tender, it is best to pare them, cutting away as little as possible besides the hard outer rind. Take out the seeds, when you have quartered them, and lay the pieces in cold water. Boil until tender throughout. Drain well, pressing out all the water; mash soft and smooth, seasoning with butter, pepper, and salt. Do this quickly, that you may serve up hot.
Pare, take out the seeds, cut into small pieces, and stew until soft and tender. Drain, press well, to rid it of all the water, and mash with butter, pepper, and salt. It will take much longer to cook than the summer squash, and before you put it into hot water, should lie in cold at least two hours.
Cut in two, extract the seeds, slice, and pare. Cover with cold water for an hour; put over the fire in a pot of boiling water and stew gently, stirring often, until it breaks to pieces. Drain and squeeze, rub through a cullender, then return to the saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, and salt to taste. Stir rapidly from the bottom until very hot, when dish, rounding into a mound, with “dabs” of pepper on the top.
Choose the richest pumpkin you can find; take out the seeds, cut in quarters or eighths, pare, and slice lengthwise half an inch thick. Arrange in layers—not more than two or three slices deep—in a shallow but broad baking-dish. Put averylittle water in the bottom, and bake very slowly until not only done, but dry. It requires along time, for the heat should be gentle. Butter each strip on both sides when you dish, and eat hot with bread and butter for tea.
I have been assured, by people who have tried it, that this is a palatable dish to those who are fond of the flavor of pumpkin. I insert it here upon their recommendation—not my own.
When the young stalks are not larger than a man’s little finger, and show only a tuft of leaves at top a few inches above ground, is the time to gather them. They are unfit for table-use when larger and older. Scrape the stalks, but do not cut off the leaves. Lay in cold water, with a little salt, for two hours. Tie in bundles, as you do asparagus, put into a saucepan of boiling water, and cook fast three-quarters of an hour. Lay buttered toast in the bottom of a dish, untie the bundles, and pile the poke evenly upon it, buttering very well, and sprinkling with pepper and salt. This is a tolerable substitute for asparagus.
Imprimis.—Have nothing to do with them until you are an excellent judge between the true and false. That sounds somewhat like the advice of the careful mother to her son, touching the wisdom of never going near the water until he learned how to swim—but the caution can hardly be stated too strongly. Not being ambitious of martyrdom, even in the cause of gastronomical enterprise, especially if the instrument is to be a contemptible, rank-smelling fungus, I never eat or cook native mushrooms; but I learned, years ago, in hill-side rambles, how to distinguish the real from the spurious article. Shun low, damp, shady spots in your quest. The good mushrooms are most plentyin August and September, and spring up in the open, sunny fields or commons, after low-lying fogs or soaking dews. The top is a dirty white,—par complaisance, pearl-color,—the under side pink or salmon, changing to russet or brown soon after they are gathered. The poisonous sport all colors, and are usually far prettier than their virtuous kindred. Those which are dead-white above and below, as well as the stalk, are also to be let alone.
Cook a peeled white onion in the pot with your mushrooms. If it turn black, throw all away, and be properly thankful for your escape. It is also deemed safe to reject the mess of wild pottage, if in stirring them, your silver spoon should blacken. But I certainly once knew a lady who did not discover until hers were eaten and partially digested, that the silver had come to grief in the discharge of duty. It was very dark, and required a deal of rubbing to restore cleanliness and polish; but the poison—if death were, indeed, in the pot—was slow in its effects, since she lived many years after the experiment. It is as well perhaps, though, not to repeat it too often.
To re-capitulate.—The eatable ones are round when they first show their heads in a critical world. As they grow, the lower part unfolds a lining of salmon fringe, while the stalk and top are dirty white. When the mushroom is more than twenty-four hours old, or within a few hours after it is gathered, the salmon changes to brown. The skin can also be more easily peeled from the edges than in the spurious kinds.
Choose button mushrooms of uniform size. Wipe clean and white with a wet flannel cloth, and cut off the stalks. Put into a porcelain saucepan, cover with cold water, and stew very gently fifteen minutes. Salt to taste; add atablespoonful of butter, divided into bits and rolled in flour. Boil three or four minutes; stir in three or four tablespoonfuls of cream whipped up with an egg, stir two minutes without letting it boil, and serve.
Rub them white, stew in water ten minutes; strain partially, and cover with as much warm milk as you have poured off water; stew five minutes in this; salt and pepper, and add some veal or chicken gravy, or drawn butter. Thicken with a little flour wet in cold milk, and a beaten egg.
Take fresh ones,—the size is not very important,—cut off nearly all the stalks, and wipe off the skin with wet flannel. Arrange neatly in a pie-dish, pepper and salt, sprinkle a little mace among them, and lay a bit of butter upon each. Bake about half an hour, basting now and then with butter and water, that they may not be too dry. Serve in the dish in which they were baked, withmaître d’hôtelsauce poured over them.
Peel the finest and freshest you can get, score the under side, and cut the stems close. Put into a deep dish and anoint well, once and again, with melted butter. Salt and pepper, and let them lie in the butter an hour and a half. Then broil over a clear, hot fire, using an oyster-gridiron, and turning it over as one side browns. Serve hot, well buttered, pepper and salt, and squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon each.
Wash and scrape the stalks when you have cut off theroots. Cut off the green leaves and reject the greenest, toughest stalks. Retain the blanched leaves that grow nearest the heart. Keep in cold water until you send to table. Serve in a celery glass, and let each guest dip in salt for himself. (SeeCelery Salad.)
Stew the celery in clear water until tender. Turn off the water, add the milk, and as soon as this boils, seasoning and butter. Boil up once and serve very hot.
A friend of mine, after many and woful trials with “the greatest plague of life,” engaged a supercilious young lady who “only hired out in the best of families as a professed cook.” She arrived in the afternoon, and was told that tea would be a simple affair—bread-and-butter, cold meat, cake, and a dish of radishes, which were brought in from the garden as the order was given. The lady was summoned to the parlor at that moment, and remarked in leaving—“You can prepare those now, Bridget.” Awhile later she peeped into the kitchen, attracted by the odor of hot fat. The frying-pan hissed on the fire, the contents were a half-pound of butter, and the “professional” stood at the table with a radish topped and tailed in one hand, a knife in the other. “I’m glad to see ye,” thus she greeted the intruder. “Is it paled oronpaled ye’ll have them radishes? Some of the quality likes ’em friedwid the skins on—some widout. I thought I’d wait and ask yerself.”
My readers can exercise their own choice in the matter of peeling, putting the frying out of the question. Wash and lay them in ice-water so soon as they are gathered. Cut off the tops when your breakfast or supper is ready, leaving about an inch of the stalks on; scrape off the skin if you choose, but the red ones are prettier if you do not; arrange in a tall glass or a round glass saucer, the stalks outside, the points meeting in the centre; lay cracked ice among them and send to table. Scrape and quarter the large white ones.
Good radishes are crisp to the teeth, look cool, and taste hot.
Boil the young pods, in enough salted hot water to cover them, until tender. Drain thoroughly, and when dished pour over them a sauce of three or four spoonfuls melted (not drawn) butter, a tablespoonful of vinegar, pepper, and salt to taste. Heat to boiling before covering the okras with it.
The large kind, made of cracked, not ground corn, is erroneously termed “samp” by Northern grocers. This is the Indian name for the fine-grained. To avoid confusion, we will call the one large, the other small. Soak the large over night in cold water. Next day put it into a pot with at least two quarts of water to a quart of the hominy, and boil slowly three hours, or until it is soft. Drain in a cullender, heap in a root-dish, and stir in butter, pepper, and salt.
Soak the small hominy in the same way, and boil in as much water, slowly, stirring very often, almost constantlyat the last. It should be as thick as mush, and is generally eaten at breakfast with sugar, cream, and nutmeg. It is a good and exceedingly wholesome dish, especially for children. The water in which it is boiled should be slightly salt. If soaked in warm water, and the same be changed once or twice for warmer, it will boil soft in an hour. Boil in the last water.
If large, put a good lump of butter or dripping in the frying-pan, and heat. Turn in some cold boiled hominy, and cook until the under-side is browned. Place a dish upside down on the frying-pan and upset the latter, that the brown crust may be uppermost.
Eat with meat.
Cut the small hominy in slices and fry in hot lard or drippings. Or, moisten to a soft paste with milk; beat in some melted butter, bind with a beaten egg, form into round cakes with your hands, dredge with flour and fry a light brown.
To a cupful of cold boiled hominy (small-grained) add a tablespoonful melted butter and stir hard, moistening, by degrees, with a little milk, beating to a soft light paste. Put in a teaspoonful of white sugar, and lastly, a well-beaten egg. Roll into oval balls with floured hands, dip in beaten egg, then cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot lard.
Very good!
To a cupful of cold boiled hominy (small kind) allow two cups of milk, a heaping teaspoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of white sugar, a little salt, and three eggs. Beat the eggs very light, yolks and whites separately. Workthe yolks first into the hominy, alternately with the melted butter. When thoroughly mixed, put in sugar and salt, and go on beating while you soften the batter gradually with the milk. Be careful to leave no lumps in the hominy. Lastly stir in the whites, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish, until light, firm, and delicately browned.
This can be eaten as a dessert, but it is a delightful vegetable, and the best substitute that can be devised for green corn pudding.
Soak the rice three hours in warm water enough to cover it. Drainalmostdry, and pour in the milk. Stew in a farina-kettle, or one saucepan set in another of hot water, until the rice is very tender. Add the sugar, butter and salt, and simmer ten minutes. Whisk the eggs to a froth, and add cautiously, taking the saucepan from the fire while you whip them into the mixture. Return to the range or stove, and stir while they thicken, not allowing them to boil. Remove the saucepan, and add the grated lemon-peel; then turn out upon a well-greased dish to cool. When cold and stiff, flour your hands and roll into oval or pear-shaped balls; dip in beaten egg, then in fine cracker-crumbs, and fry in nice lard.
You can make a plainer dish of cold boiled rice, moistenedwith milk and a little melted butter to a smooth paste. Add sugar and salt, bind with two or three beaten eggs; make into cakes or balls, and proceed as directed above. Eat hot with roast or boiled fowls. If you shape like a pear, stick a clove in the small end for the stem.
Pick over carefully and wash in two waters, letting it stand in the last until you are ready to boil. Have ready some boiling water slightly salted, and put in the rice. Boil it just twenty minutes, and do not put a spoon in it, butshakeup hard and often, holding the cover on with the other hand. When done, drain off the water, and set the saucepan uncovered upon the range, where the rice will dry, not burn, for five minutes.
Eat with boiled mutton or fowls.
Break half a pound of pipe macaroni in pieces an inch long, and put into a saucepan of boiling water slightly salted. Stew gently twenty minutes. It should be soft, but not broken or split. Drain well and put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pie or pudding-dish; upon this grate some mild, rich cheese, and scatter over it some bits of butter. Spread upon the cheese more macaroni, and fill the dish in this order, having macaroni at the top, buttered well, without the cheese. Add a few spoonfuls of cream or milk, and a very little salt. Bake covered half an hour, then brown nicely, and serve in the bake-dish.
Break the macaroni into inch lengths, and stew twenty minutes, or until tender. Prepare the sauce beforehand. Cut half a pound of beef into strips and stew half an hour.The water should be cold when the meat is put in. At the end of that time, add a minced onion and a pint of tomatoes peeled and sliced. Boil for an hour, and strain through a cullender when you have taken out the meat. The sauce should be well boiled down by this time. You do not want more than a pint for a large dish of macaroni. Return the liquid to the saucepan, add a good piece of butter, with pepper and salt, and stew until you are ready to dish the macaroni. Drain this well, sprinkle lightly with salt, and heap upon a chafing-dish or in a root-dish. Pour the tomato-sauce over it; cover and let it stand in a warm place ten minutes before sending to table. Send around grated cheese with it. The Italians serve the meat also in a separate dish as a ragoût, adding some of the sauce, highly seasoned with pepper and other spices.
Cook the macaroni ten minutes in boiling water. Drain this off, and add a cupful of milk, with a little salt. Stew until tender. In another saucepan heat a cup of milk to boiling, thicken with a teaspoonful of flour, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and lastly, a beaten egg. When this thickens, pour over the macaroni after it is dished.
This is a simple and good dessert, eaten with butter, sugar, and nutmeg, or sweet sauce. If set on with meat, grate cheese thickly over it, or send around a saucer of grated cheese with it.
To guess (I do not say determine) whether an egg is good, shut one eye; frame the egg in the hollow of the hand, telescope-wise, and look at the sun through it with the open eye. If you can distinctly trace the outline ofthe yolk and the white looks clear around it, the chances are in favor of the egg and the buyer. Or, shake it gently at your ear. If addled, it will gurgle like water; if there is a chicken inside, you may distinguish a slight “thud” against the sides of the egg. Or, still again, you may try eggs from your own poultry-yard by putting them into a pan of cold water. The freshest sink first. Those that float are questionable—generally worse.
The best plan is to break them. In making cake, or anything that requires more than one, break each over a saucer, that it may be alone in its condemnation, if bad. Reject doubtful ones without hesitation. Yield implicit trust, or none at all.
Keep eggs in a cool, not cold place. Pack in bran or salt, with the small end downward, if you wish to use within two or three weeks; and furthermore, take the precaution to grease them well with linseed oil, or wash them over with a weak solution of gum tragacanth or varnish. This excludes the air. Another way is to make some pretty strong lime-water, allowing a pound of lime to a gallon of boiling water. When perfectly cold, fill a large jar with it in which you have packed the eggs, small end downward; lay a light saucer upon the top to keep them under water, and keep in a cool place. Renew the lime-water every three weeks. You may add an ounce of saltpetre to it.
Eggs for boiling may be “canned” as follows: So soon as they are brought in from the nests, put two or three dozen at a time in a deep pan; pour scalding water over them; let it stand thirty seconds, and turn it all off. Cover immediately with more scalding water, and repeat the process yet the third time. Wipe dry, and pack in bran or salt when they cool. This hardens the albumen into an air-tight case for the yolk. Of course, you cannot usethese eggs for cake or syllabubs, or anything that is prepared with whipped eggs. Pack with the small end down.
Put into a saucepan ofboilingwater with a tablespoon, not to break or crack them. Only a slovenly cook, or a careless one, drops them in with her fingers. Boil steadily three minutes, if you want them soft—ten, if hard.
Another way is to put them on in cold water, and let it come to a boil, which will be in ten minutes. The inside, white and yolk, will be then of the consistency of custard. Many gourmands like them best thus. Still another is to put them in one of the silver egg-boilers used on the breakfast-table (a covered bowl will do as well); cover them with boiling water, and let them stand three minutes. Pour this off, and refill with more, also boiling hot, and leave them in it five minutes longer. Wrap in a napkin in a deep dish, if you have not a regular egg-dish.
Strain some boiling water into a frying-pan, which must also be perfectly clean. The least impurity will mar the whiteness of the eggs. When the water boils, break the eggs separately into a saucer. Take the frying-pan off, and slip the eggs, one by one, carefully upon the surface. When all are in, put back over the fire and boil gently three minutes. Take out with a perforated skimmer, drain, and lay upon slices of buttered toast in a hot dish. Garnish with parsley, and dust with pepper and salt.
Nearly fill a clean frying-pan with strained water boiling hot; strain a tablespoonful of vinegar through doublemuslin, and add to the water with a little salt. Slip your eggs from the saucer upon the top of the water (first taking the pan from the fire.) Boil three minutes and a half, drain, and lay on buttered toast in a hot dish. Turn the water from the pan and pour in half a cupful of cream or milk. If you use the latter, thicken with a very little corn-starch. Let it heat to a boil, stirring to prevent burning, and add a great spoonful of butter, some pepper and salt. Boil up once, and pour over the eggs. A better way still is to heat the milk in a separate saucepan, that the eggs may not have to stand. A little broth improves the sauce.
Fry the eggs in a little very nice salted lard; drain off every drop of grease, and lay them upon a hot dish, with neat slices of fried ham around the edges, half the size of the slice as first carved from the ham. Trim off the rough edges of the eggs, and cut the ham evenly in oblong pieces before dishing. Garnish with parsley.
Melt some butter in a frying-pan, and when it hisses drop in the eggs carefully. Fry three minutes; dust with pepper and salt, and transfer to a hot dish.
Boil the eggs hard, cut in half crosswise, and take out the yolks. Chop these fine, or rub to a paste, with a little ground tongue or ham or cold fowl, some minced parsley, some melted butter, and averylittle made mustard. Work well together and fill the whites with it, setting them close together in a deep covered dish, the open ends up. Have ready some veal gravy or chickenbroth; heat to boiling in a saucepan with a half teaspoonful chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and lastly three tablespoonfuls of cream to a cup of broth. Boil up; pour smoking hot over the eggs, let them stand five minutes, closely covered, and send to table.
This is not an expensive dish. Eggs are always a cheaper breakfast-dish for a small family than meat, even at fifty cents a dozen. Six will make a nice quantity of the fricassee, and it is a delicious relish. Always drop hard-boiled eggs into cold water as soon as they are done, to prevent the yolks from turning black.
Boil hard, and cut in round thick slices. Pepper and salt; dip each in beaten raw egg, then in fine bread-crumbs or powdered cracker, and fry in nice dripping or butter, hissing hot. Drain off every drop of grease, and serve on a hot dish for breakfast, with sauce, like that for fricasseed eggs, poured over them.
Break six or seven eggs into a buttered dish, taking care that each is whole, and does not encroach upon the others so much as to mix or disturb the yolks. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, and put a bit of butter upon each. Put into an oven and bake until the whites are well set. Serve very hot, with rounds of buttered toast, or sandwiches.
Put a good piece of butter in a frying-pan, and when it is hot drop in the eggs, which should be broken whole into a bowl. Stir in with them a little chopped parsley, some pepper and salt, and keep stirring to and fro, upand down, without cessation, for three minutes. Turn out at once into a hot dish, or upon buttered toast and eat without delay.
Make a white sauce as follows: Stew half a pound of lean veal, cut into strips, with a large sprig of parsley, in a quart of water, until the meat is in rags, and the liquor reduced one-half. Strain through tarlatan or lace, and return to the saucepan with half a cupful of milk. When it boils, thicken with a little rice or wheat flour, season with white pepper and salt, and the juice of half a lemon. Set in the corner to keep hot. Have ready six, or eight, or ten hard-boiled eggs. Take out the yolks carefully, and cut the whites into thin shreds. Pile the yolks in the centre of a round, shallow dish, arrange the shreds of white about them in the shape of a bird’s nest; give a final stir to the sauce, and pour carefully over the eggs. It should not rise higher in the dish than half way to the top of the nest, when it flows down to its level. Garnish with parsley.
Make a force-meat of chopped ham—ground is better—fine bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, a little minced parsley, and some melted butter. Moisten with milk to a soft paste, and half fill some patty-pans or scallop-shells with the mixture. Break an egg carefully upon the top of each, dust with pepper and salt, and sift some very finely powdered cracker over all. Set in the oven, and bake until the eggs arewellset—about eight minutes. Eat hot. They are very nice. You can substitute ground tongue for the ham.
Make the sauce by putting half a cupful of hot waterin a saucepan, with a teaspoonful of lemon-juice, three tablespoonfuls of veal or chicken broth (strained), pepper, salt, mace, and a tablespoonful of butter, with a little minced parsley. Boil slowly ten minutes, and stir in a well-whipped egg carefully, lest it should curdle. Have ready some poached eggs in a deep dish, and pour the sauce over them.
Put a good lump of butter into the frying-pan. When it is hot, stir in four or five well-beaten eggs, with pepper, salt, and a little parsley. Stir and toss for three minutes. Have ready to your hand some slices of buttered toast (cut round with a tin cake-cutter before they are toasted); spread thickly with ground or minced tongue, chicken, or ham. Heap the stirred egg upon these in mounds, and set in a hot dish garnished with parsley and pickled beets.
Mince some cold fowl—chicken, turkey, or duck (or some cold boiled veal and ham in equal quantities)—very fine, and rub in a Wedgewood mortar, adding by degrees some melted butter, pepper, salt, minced parsley, and two beaten eggs. Warm in a frying-pan when it is well mixed, stirring in a little hot water should it dry too fast. Cook five minutes, stirring to keep it from scorching or browning. Form, on a hot platter or flat dish, into a mound, flat on top, with a ridge of the mixture running all around. It is easily moulded with a broad-bladed knife. In the dish thus formed, on the top of the mince-meat, lay as many poached eggs as it will hold, sprinkling them with pepper and salt. Arrange triangles of buttered toast in such order, at the base of the mound, that they shall make a pointed wall against it.
Boil six or eight eggs hard; leave in cold water until they are cold; cut in halves, slicing a bit off the bottoms to make them stand upright,à laColumbus. Extract the yolks, and rub to a smooth paste with a very little melted butter, some cayenne pepper, a touch of mustard, and just a dash of vinegar. Fill the hollowed whites with this, and send to table upon a bed of chopped cresses, seasoned with pepper, salt, vinegar, and a little sugar. The salad should be two inches thick, and an egg be served with a heaping tablespoonful of it. You may use lettuce or white cabbage instead of cresses.
Make these for breakfast the day after you have had roast chicken, duck, or turkey for dinner. Boil six eggs hard, cut neatly in half and extract the yolks. Rub these to a paste with some melted butter, pepper, and salt, and set aside. Pound the minced meat of the cold fowl fine in the same manner, and mix with the egg-paste, moistening with melted butter as you proceed, or with a little gravy, if you have it to spare. Cut off a slice from the bottoms of the hollowed whites of the egg, to make them stand; fill with the paste; arrange close together upon a flat dish, and pour over them the gravy left from yesterday’s roast, heated boiling hot, and mellowed by a few spoonfuls of cream or rich milk.
Beat six eggs very light, the whites to a stiff froth that will stand alone, the yolks to a smooth thick batter. Add to the yolks a small cupful of milk, pepper, and salt; lastly stir in the whites lightly. Have ready in a hotfrying-pan a good lump of butter. When it hisses, pour in your mixture gently and set over a clear fire. It should cook in ten minutes at most. Do not stir, but contrive, as the eggs “set,” to slip a broad-bladed knife under the omelette to guard against burning at the bottom. The instant “hiss” of the butter as it flows to the hottest part of the pan will prove the wisdom and efficacy of the precaution. If your oven is hot, you may put the frying-pan into it as soon as the middle of the omelette is set. When done, lay a hot dish bottom upward on the top of the pan, and dexterously upset the latter to bring the browned side of the omelette uppermost. Eat soon, or it will fall.
Iknowthese directions to be worthy of note. I have never seen lighter or better omelettes anywhere than in households where these have been the rule for years in the manufacture of this simple and delightful article of food.
Make precisely as above; but when it is done, scatter thickly over the surface some minced ham, tongue, or seasoned chicken, slip your broad knife under one side of the omelette and double in half, enclosing the meat. Then upset the frying-pan upon a hot dish.
You can stir the minced meat into the omelette after all the ingredients are put together, adding, if you like, some chopped parsley.
Chop some cold cauliflower very fine, and mix in when your omelette is ready to go into the pan. Season highly with cayenne pepper and salt.
Is made of the tops only, minced and seasoned, and stirred in as is the cauliflower.Tomato omelettehas stewed tomato spread over the surface, and is then doubled in half.
Rub the yolks of three or four hard-boiled eggs to a smooth paste with averylittle melted butter, pepper, and salt. To these add two raw ones, beaten light, and enough flour to hold the paste together. Mince into balls with floured hands and set in a cool place until just before your soup comes off, when put in carefully and boil one minute.
After the yolks and whites are mixed together with the milk, stir in, with two or three strokes of the spoon or whisk, two tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, green thyme, and sweet marjoram, with pepper and salt. Fry instantly.
Grate some rich old cheese, and having mixed the omelette as usual, stir in the cheese with a swift turn or two of the whisk, and at the same time some chopped parsley and thyme. If you beat long the cheese will separate the milk from the eggs. Cook at once.
Make the omelette in the usual way; grate cheese upon it and fold it over.
Beat the whites and yolks separately. Add the sugar to the yolks, a little at a time, beating very thoroughly, until they are smooth and thick. The whites should stand alone. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan, heat to boiling, and when you have added the vanilla to the omelette, pour it in and cook very quickly, as you would a plain one. Slip the knife frequently under it, to loosen from the sides and bottom. It is more apt to scorch than an omelette without sugar. Turn out upon averyhot dish, sift powdered sugar over the top, and serve instantly, or it will fall and become heavy.
Beat yolks and whites separately and very well. Add to the yolks by degrees the powdered sugar, and beat until it ceases to froth, and is thick and smooth. The whites should be stiff enough to cut with a knife. Stir together lightly with the seasoning, pour into a well-buttered dish, and bake in a quick oven five or six minutes. The dish should be warmed when it is buttered, not to chill the eggs. Send around with a spoon, and let each one help himself before it can fall.
Stew the apples, when you have pared and cored them, as for apple-sauce. Beat them very smooth while hot, adding the butter, sugar, and nutmeg. When perfectly cold, put with the eggs, which should be whipped light, yolks and whites separately. Put in the yolks first, then the rose-water, lastly the whites, and pour into a deep bake-dish, which has been warmed and buttered. Bake in a moderate oven until it is delicately browned. Eat warm—not hot—for tea, with Graham bread. It is better for children—I say nothing of their elders—than cake and preserves.
Beat whites and yolks separately, adding to the latter the sugar and milk after they are thick and smooth. Next, chop in the seasoning; lastly, stir in the whites with a few swift strokes. Put a large spoonful of butter in the frying-pan, and, when it is hot, pour in the omelette. Spread upon it when done, which will be in a very few minutes, some nice jelly. Take the pan from the fire to do this, spread quickly, slip your knife or tin spatula under one-half of the omelette, and double it over. Turn over on a hot platter, sift powdered sugar upon it, and eat at once.
A cool cellar is the best place in which to keep milk, if you have no dairy or milk-room. Strain it into broad shallow pans, which are lukewarm from recent scalding. You can get them made in one piece, with no seams in which sour cream or dirt may lurk unsuspected. Set upon swing shelves, to avoid the possibilities of drowned mice, and keep the cellar dark to save it from flies. In twelve hours skim for the table, and, unless you have need of the milk, let it stand twelve hours more for the second rising of cream. Put this into the stone jar or crock in which the cream is kept for churning. Even in butter-making, I have found it a good plan to take off at night the cream clean from the morning churning, instead of letting it stand twenty-four hours, as is the usual custom. The “second rising” will repay one for the additional trouble. Churn as soon as convenient after the cream “loppers” or thickens. If it stands too long, it becomes bitter or musty. The churn should be well scalded and aired between the churnings. Scrupulous cleanliness should be the unbending rule of dairy arrangements. All strongly-flavored substances must be kept from the neighborhood of milk and butter. They are ready absorbents, and when they contract odor or taste, never get rid of it. Have earthen and tin milk vessels, and never allow them to be put to any other use.
Scald the churn, and cool with ice or spring water; pour in the thick cream. Churn rather fast, until the butter-flakes, left by the dasher upon the top, show that the end to be gained is near—then more slowly. The motion should always be regular. In warm weather pour a little cold water into the churn, should the butter come slowly. Take it up with the perforated dasher, turning it dexterouslyjust below the surface of the butter-milk, to catch every stray bit. Have ready some clean,verycold water, in a deep wooden tray, and into this plunge the dasher when you draw it from the churn. The butter will float off, leaving the dasher free. Having collected every particle, gather behind a wooden butter-shovel and drain off the water, squeezing and pressing the butter with the shovel. Set in a cool place for an hour to harden—a necessary measure in summer—then work and knead it with a wooden ladle until not another drop of water exudes, and the butter is like yellow marble in polish and closeness of pores. When you have worked out the butter-milk, add by degrees fine salt in the proportion of a dessertspoonful to every pound. Then set aside for some hours,alwaysin a cool place. The last working is a slight affair, comparatively. Still using the paddle, and never, from beginning to end of the operation, touching with your hands, mould into rolls or pound “pats.” Mark with grooves or checkers with the ladle, or stamp with a print. Wrap each roll in a clean wet linen cloth, which has no touch of soap or starch about it, and pack in a stone jar, sprinkling a little salt between the layers.
If you wish to keep it a long time, work with especial care, and pack downhardin a perfectly clean stone jar. Do not, above all things, take one that has ever been used for pickles. You may not detect the faintest odor lingering about it, but the butter will, and absorb it, too. Some cover the butter with strong brine, but a better way is to press a fine linen cloth closely to the surface, and cover this with a thick layer of clean fine salt. Set in a cool, dry place, and keep the cloth over it all the time; also a tightly-fitting lid. When you begin to use it, take out enough to last a week, and re-cover. If you admit the air every day, it is apt to grow strong. A pretty plate of butterfor the table is made of balls half the size of an egg, rolled in the little fluted paddles sold for the purpose.