There is nothing in which the difference between an elegant and an ordinary table is more seen, than in the dressing of vegetables, more especially of greens; they may be equally as fine at first, at one place as at another, but their look and taste are afterwards very different, entirely from the careless way in which they have been cooked. They are in greatest perfection when in greatest plenty, i. e., when in full season. By season, we do not mean those early days, when luxury in the buyers, and avarice in the sellers about London, force the various vegetables, but the time of the year in which, by nature and common culture, and the mere operation of the sun and climate, they are most plenteous and in perfection.
1089. New Potatoes and Green Peas
New Potatoes and green peas, unless sent to us from warmer latitudes than our own, are seldom worth eating before Midsummer.
1090. Unripe Vegetables
Unripe vegetables are as insipid and unwholesome as unripe fruits.
1091. The Quality of Vegetables
As to the quality of vegetables, the middle size are preferable to the largest or the smallest; they are more tender, juicy, and full of flavour, just before they are quite full-grown: freshness is their chief value and excellence. The eye easily discovers if they have been kept too long; they soon lose their beauty in all respects.
1092. Freshness of Vegetables
Roots, greens, salads, &c., and the various productions of the garden, when first gathered, are plump and firm, and have a fragrant freshness no art can give them again; though it will refresh them a little to put them into cold spring water for some time before they are dressed.
1093. To Boil Vegetables
Soft water will best preserve the colour of such as are green; if you have only hard water, put to it a teaspoonful of carbonate of potash.
1094. Preparing Vegetables
Take care to wash and cleanse Vegetables thoroughly from dust, dirt, and insects—this requires great attention. Pick off all the outside leaves, trim them nicely, and if they are not quite fresh-gathered and have become flaccid, it is absolutely necessary to restore their crispness before cooking them, or they will be tough and unpleasant. To do this, lay them in a pan of clean water, with a handful of salt in it, for an hour before you dress them. Most vegetables being more or less succulent, it is necessary that they possess their full proportion of fluids in order to retain that state of crispness and plumpness which they have when growing.
1095. Staleness
On being cut or gathered, the exhalation from their surface continues, while from the open vessels of the cut surface there is often great exudation or evaporation, and thus their natural moisture is diminished; tho tender leaves become flaccid, and the thicker masses or roots lose their plumpness. This is not only less pleasant to the eye, but is a serious injury to the nutritious powers of the vegetable; for in this flaccid and shrivelled state its fibres are less easily divided in chewing, and the water which exists in the form of their respective natural juices is less directly nutritious.
1096. Preservation
The first Care in the preservation of succulent vegetables, therefore, is to prevent them from losing their natural moisture. They should alway be boiled in a saucepan by themselves, and have plenty of water: if meat is boiled with them in the same pot, the one will spoil the look and taste of the other.
1097. Cleaning
To have vegetables delicately clean, put on your pot, make it boil, put a little salt in, and skim it perfectly clean before you put in the greens, &c., which should not be put in till the water boils briskly: the quicker they boil the greener they will be.
1098. When Done
When the vegetables sink, they are generally done enough, if the water has been kept constantly boiling. Take them up immediately, or they will lose their colour and goodness, Drain the water from them thoroughly before you send them to table. This branch of cookery requires the most vigilant attention.
Keep Your Keys and Be at Ease.
1099. Over-Cooked
If vegetables are a minute or two too long over the fire, they lose all their beauty and flavour.
1100. Undercooked
If not thoroughly boiled tender, they are very indigestible, and much more troublesome during their residence in the stomach than underdone meats.
1101. Take Care your Vegetables are Fresh
To preserve or give colour in cookery many good dishes are spoiled; but the rational epicure, who makes nourishment the main end of eating, will be content to sacrifice the shadow to enjoy the substance. As the fishmonger often suffers for the sins of the cook, so the cook often gets undeservedly blamed instead of the greengrocer.
1102. To Cleanse Vegetables of Insects
Make a strong brine of one pound and a half of salt to one gallon of water; into this, place the vegetables with the stalk ends uppermost, for two or three hours: this will destroy all the insects which cluster in the leaves, and they will fall out and sink to the bottom of the water.
1103. Potatoes
Most people esteem potatoes beyond any other vegetable, yet few persons know how to cook them. The following will be found to be excellent methods of cooking this delicious esculent.
1104. To Boil Potatoes
Put them into a saucepan with scarcely sufficient water to cover them. Directly the skins begin to break, lift them from the fire, and as rapidly as possible pour off
every drop
of the water. Then place a coarse (we need not say clean) towel over them, and return them to the fire again until they are thoroughly done, and quite dry. A little salt, to flavour, should be added to the water before boiling.
1105. To Peel Potatoes
The above recipe is for boiling potatoes in their jackets, as the phrase goes. When potatoes are to be peeled prior to cooking, the tubers should first be well washed and put in a bowl of clean water. As each potato is taken out of this receptacle and peeled, it should be thrown into another bowl of cold water, close at hand to receive them. This prevents undue discolouration of the potatoes.
1106. To Steam Potatoes
Some kinds of potatoes are better steamed than boiled. Whether dressed with the skins on or off a careful eye must be kept on them, and when they are nearly done the steamer should be removed, the water in the saucepan thrown off, and the steamer then replaced, in order to allow the process of cooking to be completed. Some people shake the steamer when potatoes are somewhat close and heavy, under the idea that it renders them floury, and in many cases the shaking has this effect.
1107. Potatoes Fried with Fish
Take cold fish and cold potatoes. Pick all the bones from the former, and mash the fish and the potatoes together; form into rolls, and fry with lard until the outsides are brown and crisp. For this purpose, the drier kinds of fish, such as cod, hake, &c., are preferable; turbot, soles, eels, &c., are not so good. This is an economical and excellent relish.
1108. Potatoes Mashed with Onions
Prepare some boiled onions, by putting them through a sieve, and mix them with potatoes. Regulate the portions according to taste.
1109. Potato Cheesecakes
One pound of mashed potatoes, quarter of a pound of currants, quarter of a pound of sugar and butter, and four eggs, to be well mixed together; bake them in patty-pans, having first lined them with puff paste.
1110. Potato Colcanon
Boil potatoes and greens (or spinach) separately; mash the potatoes; squeeze the greens dry; chop them quite fine, and mix them with the potatoes with a little butter, pepper, and salt. Put into a mould, buttering it well first: let it stand in a hot oven for ten minutes.
A Chair Unsound Soon Finds the Ground.
1111. Potatoes Roasted under Meat
Half boil large potatoes; drain the water; put them into an earthen dish, or small tin pan, under meat roasting before the fire; baste them with the dripping. Turn them to brown on all sides; send up in a separate dish.
1112. Potato Balls Ragoût
Add to a pound of potatoes a quarter of a pound of grated ham, or some sweet herbs, or chopped parsley, an onion or shalot, salt, pepper, and a little grated nutmeg, and other spice, with the yolk of a couple of eggs; then dress as
Potatoes Escalloped
. (
1116
).
1113. Potato Snow
Pick out the whitest potatoes, put them on in cold water; when they begin to crack, strain, and put them in a clean stewpan before the fire till they are quite dry, and fall to pieces; rub them through a wire sieve upon the dish they are to be sent up on, and do not disturb them afterwards.
1114. Potatoes Fried Whole
When nearly boiled enough, put them into a stewpan with a bit of butter, or some clean beef dripping; shake them about often, to prevent burning, till they are brown and crisp; drain them from the fat. It will be an improvement if they are floured and dipped into the yoke of an egg, and then rolled in finely sifted bread-crumbs.
1115. Potatoes Fried in Slices
Peel large potatoes, slice them about a quarter of an inch thick, or cut them into shavings, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping. Take care that the fat and frying-pan are quite clean; put it on a quick fire, and as soon as the lard boils, and is still, put in the slices of potato, and keep moving them until they are crisp; take them up, and lay them to drain on a sieve. Send to table with a little salt sprinkled over them.
1116. Potatoes Escalloped
Mash potatoes in the usual way; then butter some nice clean scallop-shells, pattypans, or tea cups or saucers; put in your potatoes; make them smooth at the top; cross a knife over them; strew a few fine bread-crumbs on them; sprinkle them with a paste-brush with a few drops of melted butter, and set them in a Dutch oven. When nicely browned on the top, take them carefully out of the shells, and brown on the other side. Cold potatoes may be warmed up this way.
1117. Potato Scones
Mash boiled potatoes till they are quite smooth, adding a little salt; then knead out the flour, or barley-meal, to the thickness required; toast on the girdle, pricking them with a fork to prevent them blistering. When eaten with fresh or salt butter they are equal to crumpets—even superior, and very nutritious.
1118. Potato Pie
Peel and slice your potatoes very thinly into a pie-dish; between each layer of potatoes put a little chopped onion, and sprinkle a little pepper and salt; put in a little water, and cut about two ounces of fresh butter into bits, and lay them on the top; cover it close with paste. The yolks of four eggs may be added; and when baked, a tablespoonful of good mushroom ketchup poured in through a funnel. Another method is to put between the layers small bits of mutton, beef, or pork. In Cornwall, turnips are added. This constitutes (on the Cornish method) a cheap and satisfactory dish for families.
1119. Cold Potatoes
There are few articles in families more subject to waste, whether in paring, boiling, or being actually wasted, than potatoes; and there are few cooks who do not boil twice as many potatoes every day as are wanted, and fewer still who do not throw the residue away as being totally unfit in any shape for the next day's meal; yet if they would take the trouble to beat up the despised cold potatoes with an equal quantity of flour, they would find them produce a much lighter dumpling or pudding than they can make with flour alone: and by the aid of a few spoonfuls of good gravy, they will provide a cheap and agreeable appendage to the dinner table.
Every Receipt is the Basis of Many Others.
1120. Mashed Potatoes and Spinach or Cabbage
Moisten cold mashed potatoes with a little white sauce: take cold cabbage or spinach, and chop it very finely. Moisten with a brown gravy. Fill a tin mould with layers of potatoes and cabbage; cover the top, and put it into a stewpan of boiling water. Let it remain long enough to warm the vegetables; then turn the vegetables out and serve them. Prepare by boiling the vegetables separately, and put them into the mould in layers, to be turned out when wanted. It forms a very pretty dish for an entrée.
1121. Cold Carrots and Turnips
These may be added to soups, if they have not been mixed with gravies: or if warmed up separately, and put into moulds in layers, they may be turned out, and served the same as the potatoes and cabbage described above.
1122. French Beans
Cut away the stalk-end, and strip off the strings, then cut them into shreds. If not quite fresh, have a basin of spring water, with a little salt dissolved in it, and as the beans are cleaned and stringed throw them in; put them on the fire in boiling water, with some salt in it; after they have boiled fifteen or twenty minutes, take one out and taste it; as soon as they are tender take them up, throw them into a cullender or sieve to drain. Send up the beans whole when they are very young.
1123. Boiled Turnip Radishes
Boil in plenty of salted water, and in about twenty-five minutes they will be tender; drain well, and send them to table with melted butter. Common radishes, when young, tied in bunches, boiled for twenty minutes, and served on a toast, are excellent.
1124. Asparagus
Asparagus (often mis-called "
asparagrass
").—Scrape the stalks till they are clean; throw them into a pan of cold water, tie them up in bundles of about a quarter of a hundred each; cut off the stalks at the bottom to a uniform length leaving enough to serve as a handle for the green part; put them into a stewpan of boiling water, with a handful of salt in it. Let it boil, and skim it. When they are tender at the stalk, which will be in from twenty to thirty minutes, they are done enough.
Watch the exact time of their becoming tender; take them up that instant. While the asparagus is boiling, toast a round of a a quartern loaf, about half an inch thick; brown it delicately on both sides; dip it lightly in the liquor the asparagus was boiled in, and lay it in the middle of a dish; melt some butter, but do not put it over them. Serve butter in a butter-boat.
1125. Artichokes
Soak them in cold water, wash them well; put them into plenty of boiling water, with a handful of salt, and let them boil gently for an hour and a half or two hours: trim them and drain on a sieve; send up melted butter with them, which some put into small cups, one for each guest.
1126. Stewed Water-Cress
The following receipt will be found an agreeable and wholesome dish:—Lay the cress in strong salt and water, to clear it from insects. Pick and wash nicely, and stew it in water for about ten minutes; drain and chop, season with pepper and salt, add a little butter, and return it to the stewpan until well heated. Add a little vinegar previously to serving; put around it sippets of toast or fried bread. The above, made thin, as a substitute for parsley and butter, will be found an excellent sauce for a boiled fowl. There should be considerably more of the cress than of the parsley, as the flavour is much milder.
A Good Suggestion is Often Invaluable.
1127. Stewed Mushrooms
Cut off the ends of the stalks, and pare neatly some middle-sized or button mushrooms, and put them into a basin of water with the juice of a lemon as they are done. When all are prepared, take them from the water with the hands to avoid the sediment, and put them into a stewpan with a little fresh butter, white pepper, salt, and a little lemon juice; cover the pan close, and let them stew gently for twenty minutes or half an hour; then thicken the butter with a spoonful of flour, and add gradually sufficient cream, or cream and milk, to make the same about the thickness of good cream. Season the sauce to palate, adding a little pounded mace or grated nutmeg. Let the whole stew gently until the mushrooms are tender. Remove every particle of butter which may be floating on the top before serving.
1128. Indications of Wholesome Mushrooms
Whenever a fungus is pleasant, in flavour and odour, it may be considered wholesome; if, on the contrary, it have an offensive smell, a bitter, astringent, or styptic taste, or even if it leave an unpleasant flavour in the mouth, it should not be considered fit for food. The colour, figure, and texture of these vegetables do not afford any characters on which we can safely rely; yet it may be remarked that in colour the pure yellow, gold colour, bluish pale, dark or lustre brown, wine red, or the violet, belong to many that are eatable; whilst the pale or sulphur yellow, bright or blood-red, and the greenish belong to few but the poisonous. The safe kinds have most frequently a compact, brittle texture; the flesh is white; they grow more readily in open places, such as dry pastures and waste lands, than in places humid or shaded by wood. In general, those should be suspected which grow in caverns and subterranean passages, on animal matter undergoing putrefaction, as well as those whose flesh is soft or watery.
1129. To Distinguish Mushrooms from Poisonous Fungi
1130. Cookery for Soldiers Sailors, Travellers, and Emigrants
The following seven receipts are due to the inventive genius of the late Alexis Soyer, who at one time was chief cook of the Reform Club:
1131. Stewed Salt Beef and Pork
Put into a saucepan about two pounds of well-soaked beef, cut in eight pieces; half a pound of salt pork, divided in two, and also soaked: half a pound of rice, or six tablespoonfuls; a quarter of a pound of onions, or four middle-sized ones, peeled and sliced; two ounces of brown sugar, or a large tablespoonful; a quarter of an ounce of pepper, and five pints of water; simmer gently for three hours, remove the fat from the top, and serve. This dish is enough for six people, and it cannot fail to be excellent if the receipt be closely followed. Butchers' salt meat will require only a four hours' soaking, having been but lightly pickled.
A Good Beginning Makes a Good Ending.
1132. Mutton Soup
Put into a pan—half a pound of mutton will make a pint of good family soup—six pounds of mutton, cut in four or six pieces; three quarters of a pound of mixed vegetables, or three ounces of preserved, three and a half teaspoonfuls of salt, one teaspoonful of sugar, and half a teaspoonful of pepper, if handy; five tablespoonfuls of barley or rice; eight pints of water; let it simmer gently for three hours and a half, remove this fat, and serve. Bread and biscuit may be added in small quantities.
1133. Plain Pea Soup
Put in a pan six pounds of pork, well soaked and cut into eight pieces; pour six quarts of water over; one pound of split peas; one teaspoonful of sugar; half a teaspoonful of pepper; four ounces of fresh vegetables, or two ounces of preserved, if handy; let it boil gently for two hours, or until the peas are tender. When the pork is rather fat, as is generally the case, wash it only; a quarter of a pound of broken biscuit may be used for the soup. Salt beef, when rather fat and well soaked, may be used for pea soup.
1134. French Beef Soup, or Pot au Feu (Camp Fashion)
Put into the kettle six pounds of beef, cut into two or three pieces, bone included; one pound of mixed green vegetables, or half a pound of preserved, in cakes; four teaspoonfuls of salt; if handy, one teaspoonful of pepper, one of sugar, and three cloves; and eight pints of water. Let it boil gently three hours; remove some of the fat, and serve. The addition of a pound and a half of bread, cut into slices, or one pound of broken biscuits, well soaked, will make a very nutritious soup. Skimming is not required.
1135. How to Stew Fresh Beef, Pork, Mutton, and Veal
Cut or chop two pounds of fresh beef into ten or twelve pieces; put these into a saucepan, with one and a half teaspoonfuls of salt, one teaspoonful of sugar, half a teaspoonful of pepper, two middle-sized onions sliced, half a pint of water. Set on the fire for ten minutes until forming a thick gravy. Add a good teaspoonful of flour, stir on the fire a few minutes; add a quart and a half of water; let the whole simmer until the meat is tender. Beef will take from two hours and a half to three hours; mutton and pork, about two hours; veal, one hour and a quarter to one hour and a half; onions, sugar, and pepper, if not to be had, must be omitted; it will even then make a good dish; half a pound of sliced potatoes, or two ounces of preserved potatoes; either fresh or preserved vegetables may be added if they can be obtained, also a small dumpling.
1136. Plain Boiled Beef
Put in a saucepan six pounds of well-soaked beef, cut in two, with three quarts of cold water; simmer gently three hours, and serve. About a pound of either carrots, turnips, parsnips, greens, or cabbage, as well as dumplings, may be boiled with it.
1137. Cossack's Plum Pudding
Put into a basin one pound of flour, three quarters of a pound of raisins (stoned, if time be allowed), three quarters of a pound of the fat of salt pork (well washed, cut into small squares, or chopped), two tablespoonfuls of sugar or treacle; and half a pint of water; mix all together; put into a cloth tied lightly; boil for four hours, and serve. If time will not admit, boil only two hours, though four are preferable. How to spoil the above:—Add anything to it.
1138. Meat Cookery
1139. Beef Minced
Cut into small dice remains of cold beef: the gravy reserved from it on the first day of it being served should be put in the stewpan, with the addition of warm water, some mace, sliced shalot, salt, and black pepper. Let the whole simmer gently for an hour, A few minutes before it is served, take out the meat and dish it, add to the gravy some walnut ketchup, and a little lemon juice or walnut pickle. Boil up the gravy once more, and, when hot, pour it over the meat. Serve it with bread sippets.
1140. Beef with Mashed Potatoes
Mash some potatoes with hot milk, the yolk of an egg, some butter and salt. Slice the cold beef and lay it at the bottom of a pie-dish, adding to it some sliced shalot, pepper, salt, and a little beef gravy; cover the whole with a thick paste of potatoes, making the crust to rise in the centre above the edges of the dish. Score the potato crust with the point of a knife in squares of equal sizes. Put the dish before a fire in a Dutch oven, and brown it on all sides; by the time it is coloured, the meat and potatoes will be sufficiently done.