Part 5

Epicures have devised a dish which consists of lettuce with French dressing served with cream cheese and thick preparations of currants or other fruits preserved in honey or sugar, which, owing to the fact that the seeds have been extracted by a laborious process, are fairly expensive. The soft cheese often found in market is also relatively expensive. There is a suggestion in this dish, however, for others which are much less costly. Buttermilk cream (see p. 21), or ordinary cottage cheese served with lettuce or other green salad and a small amount of rich homemade preserves, is a combination with much the same character, and also very appetizing.

Deviled Eggs with Cheese.

In making deviled eggs, either to be eaten alone or upon lettuce leaves in the form of salad, a little grated cheese may be mixed with the yolks in addition to the usual salad dressing and flavorings with which the yolks are mixed.

Cheese and Celery.

Cut stalks of celery having deep grooves in them into pieces about 2 inches long. Fill the grooves with cream cheese salted or flavored with chopped pimientos, and serve with bread and butter as a salad course or serve as a relish at the beginning of a meal.

Although not cheese dishes, strictly speaking, the following salad dressings made with buttermilk cream (see p. 21) may be included in this section.

Buttermilk Cream Salad Dressing.

½ cupful of buttermilk cream (see p. 21). 1 tablespoonful of vinegar. ¼ teaspoonful of salt. Cayenne pepper.

This dressing is particularly suitable for serving with cucumbers.

Buttermilk Cream Horseradish Salad Dressing.

To buttermilk cream add a little grated horseradish and vinegar and salt. Serve on whole or sliced tomatoes.

Cheese Sandwiches.

Mash or grate American cheese, add salt, a few drops of vinegar and paprika, and a speck of mustard. Mix thoroughly and spread between thin slices of bread.

Cheese and Anchovy Sandwiches.

To the mixture mentioned in the preceding recipe, add a little anchovy essence. Sardines mashed or rubbed into a paste or any other fish paste may be used in a similar way.

Pimiento, Olive, and Cheese Sandwiches.

These sandwiches are referred to on page 34.

Cuban Sandwiches.

This sandwich may be described as a kind of club sandwich with cheese. It is usually made large so that it is necessary to eat it with a knife and fork. It may be made in such proportions as to supply a large amount of nourishment.

Cut the crusts from slices of bread. Between two slices lay first lettuce with a little salad dressing or salt on it, then a slice of soft mild cheese and finally thin slices of dill pickles or a little chopped pickle.

Toasted Cheese Sandwiches.

Plain bread and butter sandwiches with fairly thick slices of cheese put between the slices are frequently toasted, and on picnics, or at chafing-dish suppers, are often browned in a pan in which bacon has just been fried.

CHEESE PASTRY, CHEESE SWEETS, AND SIMILAR DISHES.

In the foregoing pages a large number of recipes have been included in which cheese is combined with materials without cooking, as in salads, or used in cooked dishes of creamy or custard-like consistency, as in soufflés and Welsh rabbit or in combination with vegetables or cereals, such as rice.

There are a number of cheese dishes of quite different character in which the cheese is combined with dough, batter, or pastry in various ways, and a number of dishes in which cheese or cheese curd is used in combinations suitable for dessert. Such sweet dishes were once much more common than they are to-day, as reference to old cookery books will show, but some of them are well worth retaining.

In cheese sweets, flavor and richness are both contributed by the cheese.

When cheese is used in pastry or dough it may serve simply as a flavor, as in cheese sticks or cheese straws, or it may wholly or in part replace with its fat the usual shortening, as butter or other fat, and with its protein (casein) the protein (albumin) of eggs. As an illustration of such a use of cheese, cheese gingerbread may be cited.

Using cheese in this way is often an economy when eggs are scarce. Better results will be obtained if soft cheese is used which can be worked into the dough in much the same way as butter or other shortening. To those who like cheese the flavor which it imparts would be an advantage. However, if a very mild cheese is used in combination with molasses or spice the dish differs a little in flavor from one prepared in the usual way.

CHEESE PASTRIES AND SIMILAR DISHES.

Cheese Biscuit No. 1.

2 cupfuls of flour. 4 teaspoonfuls of baking powder. 2 tablespoonfuls of lard or butter. ⅞ of a cup of milk. ¼ teaspoonful of salt. Grated cheese sufficient to give desired flavor.

Mix all the ingredients excepting the cheese as for baking powder biscuits. Roll thin, divide into two parts, sprinkle one half with grated cheese, lay the other half of the dough over the cheese, cut out with a small cutter, and bake.

Cheese Biscuit No. 2.

¼ pound of soft cheese. 2 cupfuls of flour. 1 cupful of water. 4 teaspoonfuls of baking powder. 1½ teaspoonfuls of salt.

Mix and sift the dry ingredients, then work in the cheese with a fork or with the fingers, and add the water gradually. The approximate amount of water has been given; it is impossible to give the exact amount, as flour differs in its capacity for taking up moisture. Toss the dough on a floured board and roll out and cut with a biscuit cutter. Place in a buttered pan and bake in a quick oven from 12 to 15 minutes. The biscuit may be sprinkled with cheese before being put into the oven.

If the cheese is sufficiently soft it can be measured just as butter is. This recipe, then, would call for ½ cupful.

Cheese Drops.

2½ tablespoonfuls of milk. 1 teaspoonful of butter. 1¼ cupfuls of flour. ⅛ teaspoonful of salt. 1 egg. 2 tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese or dry American cheese.

Heat the butter and milk to boiling point, add the flour and the salt and stir thoroughly. Remove from the fire, add the egg and cheese and stir until well mixed. When cold, drop in small pieces in deep fat and brown. This makes a good addition to any clear soup or to consommé.

Cheese Wafers.

Spread grated cheese on thin crackers, heat in the oven until the cheese is melted. Serve with soup or salad.

Cheese Relish.

Spread bread which has been toasted or fried in deep fat with grated cheese, or with grated cheese mixed with a little mustard, then heat in the oven until the cheese is melted. This may be served with salad, or as a relish to give flavor to some dish such as boiled rice or hominy, which has no very marked flavor.

Cheese Straws.

Roll out plain or puff paste until one-fourth of an inch thick. Spread one-half of it with grated cheese. Fold over the other half and roll out again. Repeat the process three or four times. Cut into strips and bake. Serve with soup or salad.

Salad Biscuit.

½ pound of cheese. 2 cupfuls of flour. 4 teaspoonfuls of baking powder. 1½ teaspoonfuls of salt. 1 cupful of water.

Mix as for cheese biscuits No. 1 or No. 2, depending on whether the cheese is hard or soft. (See p. 36.)

Cheese Gingerbread No. 1.

1 cupful of molasses. 4 ounces of cheese. 1 teaspoonful of soda. ½ cupful of water. 2 cupfuls of flour. 2 teaspoonfuls of ginger. ½ teaspoonful salt.

Heat the molasses and the cheese in a double boiler until the cheese is melted. Add the soda and stir vigorously. Mix and sift dry ingredients and add them to the molasses and cheese alternately with the water. Bake 15 minutes in small buttered tins.

Cheese Gingerbread No. 2.

½ cupful of molasses. ½ cupful of sugar. 4 ounces of cheese. 2 cupfuls of flour. 1 teaspoonful of soda. 2 teaspoonfuls of ginger. ½ teaspoonful of salt. ¾ cupful of water.

Rub the cheese and the sugar together. Add the molasses. Mix and sift the dry ingredients and add them to the cheese mixture alternately with the water.

Cheese Custard.

1 cupful of grated cheese. ½ cupful of cream or rich milk. Yolks of 2 eggs. A speck of salt and of paprika.

Mix the cream and the cheese and heat until the cheese is melted. Remove from the fire and add the yolks of the eggs. Bake in paper cases or buttered ramekins. Serve with jelly or preserves.

Cheese Cakes.

1 quart of milk. Rennet. 1 ounce of sugar. Yolks of 2 eggs. A speck of nutmeg. 1½ ounces of butter. 1 ounce of dried currants or small raisins.

Warm the milk and add the rennet, using the amount prescribed on the package. Let the milk stand until the curd forms, then break up the curd and strain off the whey. Add the other ingredients to the curd; line patty tins with pastry, fill them with the mixture, and bake.

Brown Betty with Cheese.

Arrange in a deep earthenware baking dish, alternate layers of bread crumbs and thinly sliced apples. Season with cinnamon, also a little clove if desired and brown sugar. Scatter some finely shaved mild full-cream cheese over each layer of apple. When the dish is full, scatter bread crumbs over the top and bake 30 to 45 minutes, placing the dish in a pan of water so that the pudding will not burn.

If preferred, this may be sweetened with molasses mixed with an equal amount of hot water and poured over the top, a half cupful of molasses being sufficient for a quart pudding dish full.

Cheese may be used in place of butter in a similar way in other apple puddings. Apple pie made with a layer of finely shaved cheese over the seasoned apple and baked in the usual way is liked by many who are fond of cheese served with apple pie.

CONCLUSION.

In the foregoing pages information has been summarized regarding the food value of cheese, an important agricultural product, and ways of preparing it for the table. It has been pointed out that, judged by the kind of nutrients it supplies—chiefly nitrogenous material and fat—and the proportion in which they are present, it resembles such foodstuffs as meat, fish, and eggs, which means that like them its rational use in the diet is in combination with other staple foods, to form well-balanced meals.

Experiments have shown that when eaten either raw or carefully cooked, cheese is as thoroughly digested as other staple foods and is not likely to produce physiological disturbance.

An ounce of cheese roughly is equivalent to 1 egg, to a glass of milk, or to 2 ounces of meat.

Although uncooked cheese resembles meat in composition, cheese dishes prepared after ordinary recipes, with milk and shortening, are likely to contain more fat than meat dishes prepared in the usual ways. When, therefore, such cheese dishes are served with other staple foods the combination is likely to contain more fat than the usual meal. If little fat is ordinarily used, this may be an advantage. If a great deal of fat is ordinarily used, it may be desirable to lessen the amount in the cheese dishes. This can readily be done by omitting the shortening and using skim milk or water in the preparation of such dishes, a change which also lessens their cost.

The fact that cheese, like meat, contains neither starch nor cellulose suggests that, like meat, it should be combined with bread, potatoes, and other starchy foods, with vegetables and with sweets. The concentrated character of cheese and many cheese dishes suggests the use of succulent fruits and vegetables with them. The high percentage of fat in cheese suggests the use of correspondingly small amounts of fat in the accompanying dishes, while the soft texture of cheese dishes as compared with meat makes it reasonable to serve the harder and crustier breads with them.

When cheese is not used as the chief nitrogenous food of a meal it may be introduced into bills of fare in many incidental ways, and thus add materially to that portion of the diet needed for building and repairing body tissue.

Though cheese is so generally used in some way in most families, yet the making of menus with cheese as a central dish is less well understood than more usual food combinations, since there is less experience to serve as a guide. More thought is therefore usually required to arrange such cheese meals in order that they may be palatable and at the same time reasonable in nutritive value.

In order that the diet may remain well balanced, cheese, if used in quantity, should replace foods of similar composition rather than supplement them. The builder who has a choice of materials must have a knowledge of their relative properties if he wishes to use stone instead of brick, or wood in place of iron. It is the same with the housekeeper who wishes to use her available food supply intelligently and whose choice of foods is influenced by their relative cost at a given time or season. The woman who has a knowledge of the relative food value of different articles of diet, and their real food qualities as distinguished from their market value, who understands good methods of cooking and serving foods, and who plans her meals and other housework so that unnecessary labor and expense may be avoided, is taking account of the things which make for economical living as well as for good living.

Some persons seem to believe that cheese or fish or other food is the ideal food for some particular circumstance and that there is a special food or diet suited to each kind of work and to every circumstance of our daily life, and that it would be a great advantage if we could regulate our daily fare with the accuracy a chemist uses in making an experiment. Work, recreation, the amount of clothing we wear, and other details of our daily life are not so regulated, and it is the belief of those who have studied the subject that the best interests of persons living under normal conditions are served if the ideal be rather the regulation of the diet along general lines in accordance with good sense, the teachings of experience, economy, and the available knowledge gained from a scientific study of the subject, due care being taken that the different staple foodstuffs are so combined that all the needs of the body are provided, excessive waste is prevented, and that both undernourishment and excess or overeating are avoided.

Dishes which are liked and the methods followed in preparing them will vary in different countries and at different times, yet this does not of necessity mean that the nutritive value of the diet varies correspondingly. In the same way it is possible for us to vary the selection of our foods and the character of our diet at will, according to the demands of our taste and our purse, without correspondingly changing its value for supplying the needs of the body. This means that the housekeeper, in suitable ways, can use cheese, meat, fish, eggs, and other foods of similar composition as substitutes for one another, being governed by their relative market value at different times and seasons, by the tastes of her family, and similar considerations. If she uses the different foodstuffs with reference to their nutritive value and is skillful in preparing foods in appetizing ways and in serving them in attractive combinations, the daily fare may be both adequate and pleasing, whether she selects cheese or meat or fish or eggs or other foods to supply nitrogenous material and fat. Here, as in all that pertains to housekeeping, true economy is dependent upon a knowledge of materials and skill in using them.

Transcriber’s Notes

pg 8 Removed repeated word the from: If cream is removed the the cheese pg 12 Changed brought about chiefly by the action of enzyms to: enzymes pg 15 Changed 90 per cent of the nitrogeous to: nitrogenous pg 20 Changed the curd assumes a custardlike to: custard-like pg 24 Added period after No in: Cheese Fondue No 1. pg 24 Added period after: 1 tablespoonful of butter pg 25 Changed Corn and Cheese Souffle. to: Soufflé. pg 31 Added period after: Salt, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg