Part 3

For a _white stew_, use any kind of white meat--veal, pork, poultry, or lamb. To-day I shall use veal. To go back to the question which was debated this morning about washing meat: first, wipe the meat all over with a wet towel. It is important to have the towel clean. Wet the towel in cold water and wipe the meat, then cut it in little pieces about two inches square. The butcher will crack all the bones, and if you wish he will cut the meat for you. At least he will crack the bones so that the meat can be easily cut in pieces about two inches square. Put it over the fire; suppose you have three pounds of meat; put it in cold water enough to cover it. Let it slowly boil; when it boils, add about a tablespoonful of salt and a dozen grains of peppercorns, or a small red pepper, or if you have not either of those seasonings, about half a saltspoonful of ordinary pepper; and let the meat boil slowly until it is tender. That will be in from an hour to two hours, according to the tenderness of the meat in the beginning. When the meat is tender lay a clean towel in a colander, set over a bowl or an earthen jar, and pour the meat and broth directly into the colander. Let the broth run through the towel. If the meat has any particles of scum on it, wipe the pieces with a wet towel to remove the scum. You can, in making the stew, remove the scum as you would from clear soup, but in that case you have not quite so richly flavored a stew. The better way is to wipe off the little particles after you have taken up the meat. Now you have the meat cooked quite tender and the broth strained. Then you make the sauce. Any of the ladies who were at the lesson this morning and saw the white sauce made, will understand the principle upon which the sauce is made for the stew. Put a heaping tablespoonful of butter and a heaping tablespoonful of flour into a saucepan for the quantity of broth which you would be likely to have from about three pounds of meat; that would be broth enough to cover it. Stir the butter and flour until they are smoothly mixed; then begin to add the meat broth gradually until you have used enough of the broth to make the sauce like thick cream. If you find that you have not enough broth from the meat, add a little hot water, to make the sauce or gravy like thick cream; then put the meat into it. Season it palatably with salt and pepper, remembering that you already have some seasoning in it. Stir the meat in the saucepan over the fire until it is hot, and then serve it. That gives you a plain white stew of meat. You can transform that into a dish called in French cookery books _blanquette_, or white stew of meat, by adding to it just before you take it off the fire a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and the yolk of one egg. You will add the egg by separating the yolk from the white, putting the yolk in a cup with two or three tablespoonfuls of gravy from the meat and mix it well; then turn it all among the meat, stir it and dish it at once. Don't let the stew go back on the fire after you put in the yolk of egg; it may curdle the egg if the sauce or the stew boils after the egg is added. So you see you have a plain white stew, or a stew with the addition of chopped parsley, or chopped parsley and the yolk of an egg. Do not use the white of the egg.

_Question._ Why is not the fat meat as good as the lean?

MISS CORSON. Do you mean why is it not as nutritious? Lean meat nourishes muscle and flesh. Fat meat affords heat to the system. That is the reason why we naturally crave more fat meat in cold weather. It is not so strengthening; it is heating and in that nutritious. A great deal of its substance, of course, is wasted in the cooking. That is another reason why, weight for weight, fat meat is not so nutritious as lean.

_Question._ In making this stew brown or white do you use bones?

MISS CORSON. You can use bones. In making the soup to-day I used cooked lean meat that was on hand over from the soup this morning. You can use the breast of any kind of brown meat; you can use the ends of the ribs of roast beef; you remember the rather fat ends of the ribs of roast beef? After cooking the beef have these cut up in small pieces; after you have cooked them in the stew if there is any excess of fat, as there probably will be, skim that off and put it by to add to any brown stew or gravy; the fat replaces drippings in that case. That is a very good way to use ends of ribs of beef. Cold beefsteak makes a nice brown stew, treated in this same way.

_Question._ Do you skim the stew?

MISS CORSON. No. Not unless you are going to make a perfectly clear soup need you ever skim; because, as I explained this morning, the scum which rises on the surface in boiling meat is not dirt, it is albumen and blood, with the same nutritious properties as the meat itself, and you do not want to remove them. If the water boils away in cooking soups and stews always add a little more; it will save time if you add boiling water, unless as in the case of peas, you add cold water for the purpose of softening them. You will find, if you are trying to cook dried beans, that it will be well to add cold water, and boil them gradually.

_Question._ In cooking beans isn't it a good way to let the beans come to a boil and then pour off the water and put on more cold?

MISS CORSON. That is simply a question of taste. It is not necessary to do it. If you pour away the first water in which they come to a boil, you pour away a certain amount of their nourishment, which already has escaped in the water. Some people say that they like to pour away that first water, because it carries off the strong taste of the beans. That is a question for any one to settle individually. The water would not have the strong taste of the beans if there were not some of the nourishment of the beans in it. While we are on the subject of beans I might tell you a good way to cook beans plainly, a favorite way in the south of France, the beans to be served with roast mutton. Cook them in just water enough to cover them, after having first washed them, adding only water enough to keep them covered all the time. They are dried white beans. Then at the last, when the beans are tender, leave off the cover of the sauce pan and let the beans cook, so that nearly all the water is evaporated, and the beans have about them simply water enough to form a very thick sauce, just enough to moisten them. Then they are seasoned with salt and pepper. In that way they are served as stewed beans, with roast mutton or roast lamb.

In regard to the lentils that I was talking to you about, I think you may be able to learn something more about them from Prof. Porter. He probably would know. You long ago have made their acquaintance in the form of the _tares_ that the enemy sowed among the wheat. Lentils are really a species of tare or vetch. If you do not know about them--if they are not known in the market--it really would be worth while to make some inquiry which would lead to the introduction of them; but very likely if there are German people here, as I suppose there are,--there are always German people in every thriving city,--they will already have had them for sale in their special groceries; you can get them in that way, and they make a very good winter vegetable to use alternately with others. You cook them either by soaking them over night, or boil them just as we boiled the peas, until they are tender, and then drain them, and either heat them, with a little salt and pepper and butter, after they are drained, or fry them. They are exceedingly nice fried with a little chopped onion or parsley. If you have a pint bowl full of lentils, use a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a tablespoonful of onion, very finely chopped; put the onion in the frying pan with a tablespoonful of butter or drippings, and let it brown; then put in the lentils and chopped parsley, a little salt and pepper, stir them till you have them hot, and serve them. They are exceedingly good.

PROF. PORTER. I may say that the first cousin of the lentils is well known among our Minnesota farmers in our wheat fields, and they are such an intolerable pest that we prefer paying the duties on the German article and importing them.

PEA SOUP--_Continued_.

(The pea soap being now about ready to take up, Miss Corson continued:)

You know how the flour of the peas settles to the bottom of the soup tureen or plate, and leaves the top clear? Prevent that by adding to the soup, just before it is dished, a little paste made of flour and butter. For four quarts of soup a tablespoonful of flour and a tablespoonful of butter; mix the flour and butter to a smooth paste just before the soup is done. After the peas are soft pour them into a fine sieve and rub them through the sieve with a potato masher; just a stout wire sieve. After you have rubbed them through the sieve put them back into the soup kettle with the soup, and mix the flour and butter in with them over the fire; stir them until they come to a boil, then season palatably with salt and pepper, and the soup is ready to serve. Remember this is a perfectly plain soup I am making to-day, without the addition of meat of any kind; but of course you will vary the flavor of the soup by adding the bones of ham or other meat, or a very little fried onion. Now, you can count for yourselves how cheap a soup that is.

_Question._ Can you give us your experience with regard to pea meal for soup?

MISS CORSON. I have used one form that has been put on the New York market. It was made of dried green peas. I do not know whether there is on this market a meal made of the yellow peas. There is a German preparation which is admirable. In New York it is for sale at the German stores; but the meal of which I speak, the meal made of dried green peas, was not at all satisfactory to me. Of course the meal of the green peas has not the flavor of the split peas. You will find in rubbing the peas through the sieve that if you moisten them a little once in a while they will go through more readily.

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I have left the brown stew with all the fat on. It is a question not only of taste but of economy whether you leave on the fat in addition to the first butter in which you browned the meat, a question of economy and nourishment. If the people you are cooking for have good strong digestions you do not need to remove the fat. The bread or potatoes which are eaten with the stew will absorb it and will render it perfectly digestible; and, of course, as I have already told you, the fat serves certain purposes in nutrition. If you are cooking for people having weak digestions then you would take the fat off the stew. The white stew I am going to finish plain, without any parsley or egg--simply seasoned with salt and pepper.

LECTURE THIRD.

Our lesson this morning is the clarifying of soup, or the soup stock that we made yesterday; caramel for coloring soup, gravy and sauces; baked whitefish, after a very nice Western fashion; beefsteak, broiled and fried; and baked apple dumplings.

The first thing I prepare will be the whitefish, after a method which I learned from one of my Cleveland friends, who, by the way, is one of the nicest cooks I know of. I shall use only a little butter, and tell you about the wine which the recipe calls for. When the fish is prepared especially for gentlemen, wine is considered exceedingly nice, but that, as in all other cookery, is a matter of choice. We to-day will use some butter, pepper and salt. I will tell you the kind of wine, and the quantity that is used, when I come to cook the fish. In the winter, of course, all the fish is frozen. We were speaking of that yesterday, how to prepare frozen fish. In the first place, thaw it in plenty of cold water. Put it in a large pan of cold water and let it stay till it is perfectly thawed. Then cut it from the bone and take off the skin. Now, please write down the directions, and then watch and see how I do it. The fish simply has been scaled; to cut it from the bone, make one cut down to the bone through the middle of the side of the fish, lengthwise; having made that line, cut round under the head, to the bone; now lay the knife against the bone of the fish, and turn it until you have the blade cutting against the bone, holding the knife flat; it will take that entire piece of the fish off; cut two pieces from one side of the fish. Now I am going to cut from the other side in the same way, and then I shall take the skin off. First take the four pieces of fish off the bone; you will not find this at all difficult to do, ladies; after you have done it once or twice it will be very easy, and if you have fish that has not been frozen it will be much more easy to do than if you have frozen fish, which, of course, will break a little. It is not possible to keep the pieces entire, cutting from a frozen fish. One of the ladies asks if this can be done as well if the fish has been dressed by the fishmonger; that is, if the entrails have been taken out. Yes, quite as well. This is not dressed simply because it had been sent from market without being dressed. I did not take the trouble to have it dressed here, as I am not going to use the bone of the fish. After I have finished giving you the direction for taking off the skin, I am going to tell you how you could use the bone of the fish. To cut the skin off the fish, lay the pieces of fish skin down on the board; then, holding the knife down straight, cut through the fish until you feel the skin under the knife; as soon as you feel the skin under the knife, flatten the knife out so that it lies against the skin; cut away from you, holding the knife perfectly level, leaving the skin between the board and the knife. Hold the piece of fish in your fingers; lay it flat on the board, skin down, keeping hold of the skin all the time. That takes the skin off, and none of the fish; there is no waste there, and it certainly is very much easier to eat fish in this shape than it is if you have the skin and bone on it. Now, I assure you, ladies, if you only hold the knife flat, you will have no trouble whatever in taking the skin off. If you slant it you will cut through the skin of the fish, but if you hold it perfectly flat you will have no trouble. Of course, with certain kinds of fish there are bones that run transversely from the spine out through the sides of the fish. You do not take these bones out by this operation, but you take out the large back bone. It comes out every time, and I assure you it is a very easy operation.

After you have taken all the skin and bones from the fish, then, for this special dish, cut it in small slices three inches long and a couple of inches wide. Use two soup plates, or two dishes of the same size, deep dishes that you can send to the table. Butter them very thickly, both of them. Lay the fish in one of the dishes, season the layers with salt and pepper, and put a very little butter between each layer, and plenty of butter on the top. Turn the second plate over the first one, upside down on it. Put the dishes with the fish between them into the oven to bake for about twenty minutes, or until the fish flakes. You can tell about that by opening the oven at the end of twenty minutes, and lifting off the top plate; then you can see whether the fish is done or not. Now, in the recipe of which I spoke to you first, the addition of Sauterne wine is made. After the fish is put into the dish, being seasoned as I have told you, using less butter than you would without the wine, with half as much butter on the layers, pour on Sauterne wine,--that is a light, rather acid wine,--just enough to moisten the fish. In placing the fish into the dish it does not make any difference which side you put down. You simply want to put the pieces nicely together so that when you come to help them you can lift each piece out with a spoon. There is no acid that will take the place of the wine and give the same taste. The fish is very nice cooked simply with the butter, pepper and salt. You do not need the wine to make a nice dish, only wine is used by the lady of whom I speak. That is her special preparation of the dish. The wine is put in after the fish is in the dish, just enough wine to moisten it. You will notice that often I will make dishes that have no wine in them; if I make dishes that require wine, I of course put it in, saying that you may use the wine or not, as you please. In this instance I use butter, pepper and salt because it makes a very nice dish, a very nice plain dish, but it is a distinct dish, entirely different to the dish cooked with wine; simply two ways of cooking fish, making two different dishes. For a fish of this size--which probably weighed nearly three pounds--you may use about a heaping tablespoonful of butter in all; that is, besides what you put on the plates. You will butter the plates, and distribute butter throughout the dish. The oven should be moderately hot, not hot enough to brown it--hot enough to heat the plates, which are very thick, and to cook the fish within twenty or twenty-five minutes.

If you wash the board on which the fish is cut, at once, in plenty of hot water, with soap and a little soda or borax all the odor of the fish will be removed. Don't let any of the utensils stand with the fish drying on them, because if you do it will be very much harder to destroy the odor. And, by the way, ladies, the odor of onions is another thing that troubles some persons. The odor of onions on boards, knives and dishes you can do away with entirely by using parsley. If you take a knife with which you have cut onions, and chop a little parsley with it, or draw the knife through the root of parsley two or three times, it entirely destroys the odor of the onion. So that you see you never need have any trouble in that way in the kitchen.

One of the ladies asks me how to prevent the odor of onions going through the house when you are cooking them. What makes onions, cabbage and turnips smell when you are cooking them is the escape of an exceedingly volatile oil which they all contain; in all of them it has the same characteristics; it does not begin to escape until they are tender. The oil does not begin to escape until the vegetables are tender; if you continue to boil them after that, it will escape. If you take up cabbage or turnips as soon as they are tender, that is, as soon as their substance begins to grow tender, you will notice there will be comparatively little odor; but if you keep on boiling them, according to the old-fashioned rules, for an hour, two hours, or three hours,--you know you sometimes boil cabbage all day long,--you will be sure to have a nice odor through the house. In cutting the onions, of course, if you bend over them, that same oil rising from them escapes as you cut into their substance, and will be sure to make you cry; but if you hold them a little away from you in peeling them, or under water, or if you stand where there is a draught blowing over your hands, it will blow that oil away. In eating onions at the table, if you will subsequently eat parsley dipped in vinegar, you will find that there will be very little odor of the onion remaining in the breath.

Now to return to our fish. After you have taken the flesh of the fish off the bone, you still would see a little of the fish remaining, even if you cut closely. Then draw the fish, and trim the bone; that is, cut off the head, and the fins, and the tail, and take out the entrails of the fish; then make a paste of dry mustard, salt, and a dust of Cayenne pepper. For a bone the size we have here, a long bone like that, use two heaping tablespoonfuls of mustard, a dust of Cayenne pepper and enough vinegar, or Worcestershire sauce, to moisten the mustard to make a paste, which is to be spread over the fishbone. Have the double wire gridiron very thickly buttered, put the bone into the gridiron, brown it quickly at a hot fire, and serve it simply as a relish. A sort of Barmecide feast, but I assure you it is very nice with bread or crackers and butter. It makes a very nice little relish. I might say, ladies, that you can treat any kind of bones in this way. Cold roast beef bones are exceedingly nice. Of course there will be more flesh on the beef bones than on the fish bones.

PLAIN PASTRY.

Use butter, or lard, or very finely chopped suet. If you can get good lard it makes nice pastry; by that I mean lard which has a very little water in it. A good deal of the lard that you buy in the stores has a large proportion of water in it, and I believe in these days it is apt to be sophisticated with several articles which are not exactly lard, so that home-made lard is decidedly the best; that which you try out yourself. First take the butter, or whatever shortening you use,--butter, lard, or suet,--and mix it with twice the quantity of flour. For instance, if you are going to use a pound of flour allow half a pound of shortening. Take half the shortening and mix it with the flour, using a knife. Then wet the mixed flour and butter with just enough cold water to form a paste which you can roll out. If you mix with a knife or spoon you avoid heating the pastry. After the flour and the first half of the shortening have been mixed to a paste roll it out, about half an inch thick, and put the rest of the shortening in flakes on it. One of the ladies asks about putting flour on the pastry board: Extra flour, of course, besides the quantity that you put in the pastry. The only object in washing the butter is to get out any buttermilk that there may be in it. After putting the butter--the second half of the butter--over the pastry in rather large pieces, put just a little flour over it, fold the pastry in such a way that the edge is turned up all round to inclose the butter; that is about an inch and a half all round. Fold the pastry together thin, and roll it out, and fold it several times. Remember that the oftener you fold it and roll it the more flakes you will have in the cooked pastry. Take care to use flour enough to keep it from sticking to the board or the roller. You will remember the pastry is not salted and unless the shortening has enough salt in it to salt the flour, you must add it. Good lard makes a more tender pastry than butter.

_Question._ Do you ever mix them?