Part 34

Boil and skin enough chestnuts to make a cupful when rubbed through a colander or vegetable press. Beat four eggs light, stir the chestnut into the yolks; add a tablespoonful of melted butter and two tablespoonfuls of fine cracker dust, two cupfuls of milk, a tablespoonful of sugar, salt and pepper to taste; lastly, the frothed whites. Bake, covered, in a buttered pudding-dish for half an hour; uncover, brown and serve before it falls. Eat with meat.

Chestnut croquettes

Shell and boil five cupfuls of large chestnuts; skin, and rub through a colander. Work into them a tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, a few drops of lemon juice and a dash of paprika. Turn into a double boiler, and make very hot, then set aside to cool. When cold form into small croquettes, roll in egg, then in cracker-crumbs and set in the ice for an hour before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Peanut croquettes may be made in the same way.

DANDELIONS

Make a wholesome and, to some tastes, palatable “greens” in the spring of the year. They must be gathered while very young and tender, or they are bitter. The best time to cut them is just before they flower. Throw at once into cold water, as they wilt soon after they are picked.

Stewed dandelions (No. 1)

Cut the stems from a half peck of dandelion leaves, and break each leaf into small bits, dropping these into cold water as you do so. Wash thoroughly, drain, and lay in cold water for fifteen minutes. Drain again, and put over the fire in a porcelain-lined saucepan, with enough salted water to cover them. Simmer for fifteen minutes while you make the following sauce:

Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and pour upon them a pint of milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. Stir to a smooth white sauce. Drain the water from the dandelion leaves, and stir these into the sauce. Season to taste, and beat in, very slowly, a whipped egg. Remove at once from the fire and turn into a deep vegetable dish.

Stewed dandelions (No. 2)

Pick the leaves from the stems, and drop into iced water. Take them up by the handful, dripping wet, and put, with no other water, into the inner vessel of a farina boiler. Fill the outer kettle with boiling water; cover the inner closely, and cook fast for half an hour. Rub the leaves through a vegetable press or a colander into a saucepan; beat in a tablespoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar, salt and pepper to taste, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, and, at the last, three tablespoonfuls of hot cream to which has been added a pinch of soda. Stir until smoking hot over the fire, turn out into a heated dish, garnish with sippets of fried bread, and serve.

Dandelion greens cooked thus are almost as good as spinach _à la crême_.

EGGPLANT—A MUCH ABUSED VEGETABLE

Tens of thousands of average American housewives know but one way of cooking it, and not one in a hundred performs that one properly.

Fried eggplant is one of the many dishes which remind the eater of the small girl of nursery-rhyme fame, who—

“When she was good was very, very good But when she was bad she was horrid.”

When only half fried, or soaked with grease, this vegetable is an abomination to the educated palate and the self-respecting stomach. When tender and thoroughly cooked, it is one of the most delicious of the summer and fall garden products.

Fried eggplant

Peel an eggplant and cut into slices half an inch thick. Lay in cold salt water for an hour; wipe each slice dry and dip, first in beaten egg, and then in cracker dust. Set in a cold place for an hour and fry in deep boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain in a heated colander before dishing.

Stuffed eggplant on the half-shell

Wash and wipe a large eggplant and parboil it in boiling salted water for ten minutes. Let it get perfectly cold, cut in half lengthwise, and scrape out the center, leaving the walls of the vegetable three-quarters of an inch thick. Chop the pulp fine and add to it a small cupful of minced chicken, half a cupful of minced ham, a quarter of a cupful of bread-crumbs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well, add enough soup stock to make a stiff paste, and fill the hollow sides with this. When full and rounded, sprinkle the forcemeat with bread-crumbs, and lay the halves, side by side, in a bakepan, pouring three cupfuls of soup stock around them. Bake nearly an hour, basting every ten minutes. Remove the eggplant to a hot platter, thicken the gravy left in the pan with browned flour, boil up once on top of the range, stirring constantly, and pour this browned sauce about the base of the halved eggplant.

Scalloped eggplant

Pare off the skin, cut into dice and lay in cold salt water for an hour. Then parboil for twenty minutes. Drain well and pack in a buttered bake-dish, alternately, with fine crumbs. Dot each layer with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and strew with finely-minced sweet green peppers. Fill the dish in this order, cover with a layer of crumbs wet with cream; dot with butter, cover and bake half an hour, then brown.

Eggplant stuffed with tomatoes

Halve the eggplant and remove the insides as in the last recipe but one. Make a forcemeat of the eggplant pulp, a cupful of chopped ripe tomatoes, one chopped green pepper, and a cupful of bread-crumbs. Season with a tablespoonful of melted butter and salt and pepper. Fill the hollow sides with this mixture, bind the two halves together with wide tape, and bake, basting frequently with melted butter and hot water. When tender, transfer to a hot platter, cut and remove the tape, and pour hot tomato sauce about the eggplant.

Stewed eggplant, with sauce piquante

Prepare as for eggplant on the half-shell by halving and scooping out the pulp, leaving substantial walls. Chop the pulp and cover with hot water. Season with a tablespoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper, and simmer for fifteen minutes. Take from the fire, drain, turn into a bowl and work in two tablespoonfuls of soft bread-crumbs, one tablespoonful of finely-chopped capers, two tablespoonfuls of cold boiled tongue, minced, and, when well-mixed, add salt to taste.

Pack this forcemeat closely into each half, and fit the two parts together, binding securely together with tapes or soft twine.

Put into your covered roaster; pour enough weak stock around it to come one-third of the way up the side, bake, covered, half an hour, then turn and cook the other side. Undo the strings, lay the eggplant carefully in the middle of a hot dish, and pour a good sauce piquante over and around it.

HOMINY

The small-grained hominy, called at the South “samp,” after the manner of the aborigines who bequeathed it to us, must be used in the recipes which follow.

Plain hominy pudding

Soak a cupful of hominy for three hours in tepid water. Drain, and put over the fire in plenty of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil fast for thirty minutes or until tender; turn off the water and pour in a pint of hot milk, with a little salt. Cook for fifteen minutes, stir in a generous lump of butter and turn into a deep dish.

Eat with sugar and cream.

Baked hominy

Stir into a pint of milk a cupful of cold boiled hominy, and when this is smooth, add a tablespoonful of melted butter, a tablespoonful of sugar, a saltspoonful of salt and four well-beaten eggs. Beat very light, pour into a buttered pudding-dish and bake for about half an hour or until “set” and brown. This is a good accompaniment to roast beef.

Hominy croquettes

Into two cupfuls of boiled hominy work a tablespoonful of melted butter; when the cereal is free from all lumps, add to it two beaten eggs, and when these are thoroughly incorporated, season the mixture with salt and pepper. Flour your hands, make the paste into small croquettes, and set aside until stiff and very cold. Now dip each croquette into beaten egg, roll in cracker-crumbs, and when all are thoroughly coated set in the ice-box for two hours. Fry to a golden brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Hominy fritters

Rub two cupfuls of cold boiled hominy to a smooth paste with one tablespoonful of melted butter. Next, thin with warmed milk, and add three well-beaten eggs. Finally, stir in a cupful of flour which has been sifted twice with a teaspoonful of salt and half as much baking-powder.

Drop by the spoonful into boiling, deep cottolene or other fat; or, better still, cook upon a soapstone griddle.

KALE

This vegetable, otherwise known as “sea-kale,” should be better known in our country. In England it takes high rank and holds it creditably.

Pick it over carefully, clip off the stems and lay it in cold water for an hour. Drain, and put it into a saucepan full of salted boiling water. Cook until tender, drain and chop fine. Return to the saucepan with three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, salt and pepper to taste. Serve very hot on squares of buttered toast.

MACARONI

Few articles of diet are more toothsome and more wholesome than macaroni in its various forms when properly prepared. Like rice, it is so often miserably cooked that its excellent qualities are not generally recognized. Macaroni may be bought in several shapes, the large, or pipe-macaroni being perhaps the most common. Besides this there are the smaller and more delicate vermicelli, spaghetti and the flat ribbon, or egg-macaroni. Recipes for the cooking of one may be used in the preparation of any of the divers phases of this food.

Baked macaroni (No. 1)

Break into inch-lengths half a pound of macaroni. Boil it until tender in weak broth. Drain off the liquor; put the macaroni into a pudding-dish that will stand the fire; pour over it a half cupful of the stock in which it was boiled, and put a tablespoonful of butter, broken into small pieces, here and there through it. Sift over it fine bread-crumbs and grated cheese; dot with bits of butter and brown in the oven.

Baked macaroni (No. 2)

Break half a pound of macaroni into short lengths; cook until tender in boiling, salted water. It must be clear and soft, but not broken. Drain and put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Dot with butter, sprinkle lightly with cayenne and salt to taste; cover with grated cheese, and on this dispose another layer of macaroni. Fill the dish in this order, having cheese for the top layer. Pour in a cupful of milk; cover, and bake half an hour. Uncover and brown.

Creamed macaroni

Put a cupful of macaroni into two quarts of boiling salted water and cook for twenty-five minutes, or until tender, but not broken. Drain off all the water and keep the macaroni hot in a covered dish while you make the cream sauce to pour over it. Cook together in a saucepan until they bubble, two teaspoonfuls of flour and the same quantity of butter; pour over them a pint of hot milk, and, as this thickens, stir into it two heaping tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese. Pour this sauce upon the macaroni just before serving, lifting the latter lightly with a fork that the creamy sauce may reach every part.

Macaroni with cheese sauce

Boil tender in salted water and drain. Cook together in a saucepan a great spoonful of butter and a cupful of grated Swiss cheese. As soon as the cheese is melted, turn the macaroni into the saucepan and stir and toss with a silver fork until thoroughly blended with the sauce. Serve at once.

Macaroni and chicken

Boil half a package of spaghetti tender, drain, drop into cold water, and drain again. Lay on a biscuit-board and cut into pieces about half an inch long. Thicken a pint of chicken stock with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Stir into this a cupful of cold boiled or roast chicken, chopped fine, and the cold macaroni. Last of all, beat in slowly a whipped egg, remove from the fire, season to taste, turn into a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle crumbs over the top and bake for half an hour.

Send around grated cheese with it. You may use veal if you have no chicken.

Macaroni and tomatoes (very nice)

Break half a pound of pipe macaroni into inch-lengths, and boil in salted water until tender. Drain, and put a layer of the macaroni in the bottom of a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle with pepper, salt, onion juice and grated cheese, and cover all with a layer of stewed and strained tomatoes that have been previously seasoned to taste. On these goes another layer of macaroni, and so on until the dish is full. The topmost layer must be of tomatoes sprinkled with crumbs and good-sized bits of butter. Set in a hot oven, covered, for twenty minutes, and then bake, uncovered, until the crumbs are well-browned.

Spaghetti with Swiss cheese

Break a half pound of spaghetti into bits not more than an inch and a half in length, and boil in slightly salted water for twenty minutes. Turn into a hot colander and set at the side of the range to drain. Grate enough Swiss cheese to make a generous half cupful and turn into a saucepan with three tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Stir well; add the hot spaghetti, toss and stir for a minute, or just long enough to melt the cheese; add a dash of paprika and serve in a hot dish.

Macaroni rissoles

Have ready a cupful of cold, boiled macaroni cut up small. Make a white sauce by cooking together a tablespoonful of butter and two of flour and stirring into them a cupful of hot milk. Stir until thick, add a large tablespoonful of grated cheese, and, gradually, the whipped yolks of four eggs, beating all the time. Work the macaroni into the sauce and set aside until the mixture is very cold. With floured hands form into small balls—not quite as large in circumference as a silver dollar—roll in beaten egg, then in fine cracker-crumbs, and set in the ice-box for two hours. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Serve with tomato sauce.

Macaroni piquante

Break spaghetti into very small bits less than an inch in length. Boil these for twenty minutes, or until tender, in salted water. Drain and keep hot while you make the following sauce:

Cook together in a saucepan a heaping teaspoonful, each, of butter and browned flour, and when these are blended to a brown roux, pour upon them a pint of beef stock, and stir until smooth. Now add four tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup, six drops of Tabasco sauce, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, a pinch of salt and a dash of paprika. Turn the boiled spaghetti into this sauce, stir all together, and pour the mixture into a greased pudding-dish. Sprinkle buttered crumbs and grated cheese over the top and bake until brown.

Macaroni á la Napolitaine

Have a long fish kettle half full of boiling, salted water, and lay a half pound of unbroken pipe-macaroni in this. Boil for twenty minutes or until tender. Carefully drain the water from the kettle and slip the macaroni gently upon a heated platter, where it may lie at full length. Set the platter in the oven to keep warm while you make a sauce by cooking together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of flour, and pouring upon them a pint of strained tomato liquor. Stir to a smooth sauce, then season with onion juice, celery salt, pepper, and four tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese. Pour this sauce over the macaroni on the platter. When you serve, cut the mass with a sharp knife into manageable lengths.

MUSHROOMS

It is a pity there should be such a popular dread of the poisonous “toadstool” that his nutritious and innocuous brother—the edible mushroom—is shunned by thousands of rational creatures. The most wary need not fear this joy of the epicure when it is bought at market or at a responsible grocer’s shop. Trustworthy dealers run no risks in purchasing the wares from those whose business it is to cultivate and sell them. Mushrooms bought under these circumstances are no more to be feared than artichokes or Brussels sprouts. They form delicious entrées and tempt the most jaded appetite.

Broiled mushrooms

Peel carefully with a small knife and cut off the stems. Lay the mushrooms in a deep dish and pour melted butter over them. Remove them gently to a greased gridiron and broil over clear coals until delicately browned on both sides. Lay diamond-shaped slices of thin buttered toast in a dish, and the mushrooms upon these, sprinkle with pepper and salt and pour a little melted butter over all.

Fried mushrooms

Melt a great spoonful of butter in an agate frying-pan. Peel the mushrooms and cut off their stems, scraping the latter. Lay the mushrooms with their scraped stalks in the frying-pan and cook, turning often, until done. Serve very hot.

Stewed mushrooms

Peel the mushrooms and simmer gently in salted water until tender. Ten minutes should suffice. Drain and keep hot while you make a white sauce of a half pint of milk thickened with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Turn the mushrooms into this and stir over the fire until very hot. Season with salt, pepper, a dash of mace, and serve.

Baked mushrooms

Peel very large mushrooms and cut off their stems. Grease a shallow pudding-dish and put a layer of mushrooms, under sides upward, into this. Into each mushroom pour a few drops of melted butter. Do not put more than two layers in the dish. Bake, closely covered, in a quick oven until tender. This should be in about twenty minutes. When done, remove the cover, pour melted butter over the mushrooms, and serve very hot in the dish in which they were cooked.

Fricasseed mushrooms

Peel and remove the stems from large mushrooms. Make a forcemeat by chopping the white meat of a cold roast chicken fine with a few small mushrooms and moistening it with chicken stock. Grease a pudding-dish and lay the large mushrooms, tops down, in this. Fill the mushrooms and the space between them with the forcemeat. Sprinkle bits of butter over all. Pour in enough of the chicken stock to make the contents of the dish very moist, lay a few wafer-like slices of bacon on top of the scallop, and bake, covered, in a hot oven for a quarter of an hour. Uncover, and cook for five minutes longer. Serve in the dish in which they were cooked.

ONIONS

A once-despised vegetable which now takes rank as a highly-respectable edible upon good men’s—and women’s—tables. Delicate spinsters no longer faint at fumes of boiled onions, and finical housewives have forgotten the rusty joke about cooking onions in the middle of a ten-acre lot. There are ways of extracting the coarser flavor that once condemned them with dyspeptics. Cooks have learned that there is as much difference between a well-done and a parboiled onion as between half-cooked and mealy potatoes. Housewives and physicians now appreciate the nutritive values of the esculent bulb, and prize it for these as well as for the seasoning which nothing else supplies. Onion juice is indispensable to the flavor of ragouts and soups, and is obtained by grating, not chopping. The superiority of this mode of getting the essence of the vegetable can not be rightly estimated by one who has not tried it. Onion seasoning should be tasted, never seen.

Stewed young onions

Cut off the stalks, remove the skins and lay the onions in cold water for half an hour. Put them over the fire in hot, salted water and cook for twenty minutes. Drain off the water and return the onions to the fire with a cupful of hot milk, in which has been dissolved a bit of soda the size of a pea. Add a tablespoonful of flour and stew slowly until the sauce is like thick cream.

Boiled onions

Peel and lay for an hour in cold water. Boil in two waters until tender. Drain, sprinkle with pepper and salt; put into a deep vegetable-dish and pour over them a great spoonful of melted butter.

Baked onions (No. 1)

Peel the onions and boil for ten minutes. Drain, arrange in a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and pour over all a white sauce, to which a beaten egg has been added. Sprinkle with fine crumbs, set in the oven and bake, covered, for twenty minutes, then uncover and brown.

Baked onions (No. 2)

Cook tender in boiling water changed once after fifteen minutes; drain and arrange, side by side, in a baking-pan. Melt a tablespoonful of butter in a cupful of hot soup stock, season with salt and pepper and pour over the onions. Cook in a hot oven until the onions are brown, when they may be lifted with a perforated spoon and put into the dish in which they are to be served. Put the pan of gravy on top of the range, thicken the contents with browned flour and pour over the onions. Serve very hot.

Savory onions

Select young onions for this dish. Lay the onions in a saucepan with a very little salted water and simmer for ten minutes. Drain off the water; pour over the onions a small cupful of beef stock and cook for ten minutes longer. With a split spoon remove the onions to a hot dish, while you thicken the gravy left in the pan with a heaping teaspoonful of browned flour rubbed to a paste in the same quantity of butter. When you have a smooth brown sauce season it with a teaspoonful, each, of kitchen bouquet and tomato catsup, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour this sauce over the onions.

Stuffed onions, creamed

Boil eight large onions gently until quite tender, but not broken. Drain, and when cold, carefully remove the hearts or centers. Chop three of these hearts fine and mix with them a cupful of minced ham and season to taste. Moisten with rich cream and the beaten yolk of an egg. Fill the centers of the onions with the mixture, put a piece of butter in the top of each, set side by side, in a deep dish, pour a little milk about them and bake, covered, for twenty minutes. Then uncover, sprinkle with buttered crumbs and bake ten minutes longer. Serve hot.

Scalloped onions

Parboil onions and drain. When cold, cut into bits. Put a thick layer of these in the bottom of a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper and dot with bits of butter. Cover with a very thin layer of crumbs moistened with milk. Put in more seasoned onions and more crumbs, and proceed in this way until the dish is full. Then pour in carefully a little cream, cover and bake for half an hour; uncover and brown.

Onion custard

Cook the onions tender in two waters; drain, and lay in a deep pudding-dish. Thicken a pint of hot milk with a teaspoonful of corn-starch rubbed into two teaspoonfuls of butter and gradually pour this white sauce upon two beaten eggs. Season with pepper and salt and pour the mixture about the onions. Bake until the custard is set.

GREEN PEAS

They lose sweetness with every hour—I might say with every minute—that passes after they have been picked. The passage from garden to kitchen and from pod to pot should be made as short as possible. As you shell throw them into cold water, not holding them in the hand until they are heated and moist. As soon as the last is shelled, drain and cook.

Boiled green peas

Shell and lay in cold water for ten minutes. Drain, turn into slightly salted boiling water and cook for about twenty-five minutes, or until very tender, but not broken. Drain in a colander, put into a dish, stir into the peas a lump of butter, and sprinkle very lightly with salt and pepper.

Green pea pancakes

Boil a pint of shelled peas, and mash while hot, adding a tablespoonful of butter and salt and pepper to taste. Now beat in two whipped eggs, a half pint of milk and five tablespoonfuls of prepared flour. Beat hard and fry on a hot griddle. A soapstone griddle is best. Then they are baked—not fried.

Green pea soufflé

Boil a pint of shelled peas until very tender, and mash with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Beat three eggs light and stir into them a pint of milk and the mashed peas. Season with salt and pepper, beat hard and turn into a greased pudding-dish. Bake, covered, for twenty minutes; uncover and brown. Serve this soufflé as soon as it is removed from the oven.

Green pea fritters