Part 36

Into two cupfuls of boiled and mashed sweet potatoes beat a tablespoonful of butter, and stir in a saucepan over the fire until smoking hot. Now remove and add a tablespoonful of cream and the yolks of two eggs. When cold, form into croquettes and roll each croquette in beaten egg and cracker-crumbs. Arrange all on a platter and set in a cold place for several hours before frying in deep cottolene or other fat to a golden brown.

Sweet potato puff

Into two cupfuls of boiled and mashed sweet potatoes beat three whipped eggs, a cupful of milk, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and seasoning to taste. Beat hard and bake in a greased pudding-dish.

Sweet potato and chestnut croquettes

Boil and mash enough sweet potatoes to make two cupfuls, and enough Spanish chestnuts to make one cupful. Rub the nuts and potatoes together while hot and beat into them two tablespoonfuls of butter, four teaspoonfuls of cream, two beaten eggs, and season to taste. When cold, form into croquettes, roll in egg and cracker-crumbs, and set in a cold place for an hour before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

RICE

Boiled rice

Into three pints of hot salted water, when at a fast boil, throw half a cupful of raw rice, previously washed and picked over. Keep it at a furious boil for twenty minutes, when test a grain to see if it is done. If it is soft, drain away every drop of water; set the uncovered pot at the back of the range for two minutes to dry off the rice, and serve. Not a spoon should touch it while cooking, and each grain should be whole and apart from the rest.

This, the one and only way to boil rice properly, is also the easiest. Shake the saucepan up three times while the rice is in cooking, to make sure it does not clog.

Pasty rice is as abhorrent to those who have eaten it cooked according to this recipe as sodden, gluey potatoes.

Serve in a hot, uncovered dish. Eat with butter, salt and pepper, and you will not regret the tyrant potato, should he fail to appear.

Buttered rice

Spread three cups of cold boiled rice upon a platter and set in the open oven that every grain may dry. Meanwhile, heat a little butter in the frying-pan and fry a sliced onion in it. When the slices are browned remove them with a perforated spoon, and lay the rice by the spoonful in the pan. Stir until each grain is coated with the butter; turn the rice into a heated colander, shake hard, and set at the side of the range for five minutes. Serve in a deep vegetable dish.

Rice croquettes

Boil as directed in first recipe; drain, and beat in two whipped eggs, half a cupful of milk (or cream if you have it), a little butter, a teaspoonful of sugar, a little mace, pepper and salt. Set by until perfectly cold, form into croquettes, roll in egg and fine crumbs, leave on ice for an hour and fry in boiling deep cottolene or other fat.

You can make the croquettes of cold boiled rice if you have it, but it is hardly as good for the purpose as the hot. The croquettes seldom have the consistency of those made up while the rice is hot.

Rice and tomato croquettes

When the rice has boiled ten minutes drain off the water and cover the rice with tomato juice, already heated and seasoned with pepper, salt and sugar. Cook ten minutes more, or until the rice is tender. Take from the fire, add a great spoonful of butter and a teaspoonful of onion juice; the beaten yolks of three eggs, and, when you have beaten these in, two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese. Set in a pan of boiling water and stir over the fire for five minutes. Turn out and let it get perfectly cold. Make into croquettes, roll in egg and cracker crumbs; set on ice for an hour and fry in hot, deep cottolene or other fat. Drain and serve.

Boiled rice with tomato sauce

Boil in the usual way, dish, and pour over it, loosening with a fork that the sauce may penetrate to every part, a generous cupful of rich tomato sauce, seasoned with pepper, salt, onion juice and sugar, and, finally, with two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese.

Savory rice

Prepare as in last recipe, but add a small cupful of good stock to an equal quantity of tomato sauce; cook together for two minutes and pour over the rice.

Rice pudding as a vegetable

Boil one cupful of raw rice twenty minutes, or until soft, but not broken. Beat four eggs light, and when you have stirred a tablespoonful of butter into the rice add these and season with pepper and salt. Stir in, gradually, a scant quart of milk; beat all well for one minute, turn into a buttered pudding-dish and bake, covered, half an hour; then brown.

It should be as light as a soufflé, and must be eaten at once. A pleasing accompaniment to roast poultry of any kind.

Savory rice pudding

Boil and drain a cupful of rice. Stir into it, while hot, a tablespoonful of butter and a cupful of hot milk with which has been mixed a teaspoonful of corn-starch dissolved in cold water. Add a well-beaten egg, salt and pepper, and spread upon a platter to cool. Meanwhile make ready two cupfuls of chopped meat of almost any kind—poultry, veal, lamb, mutton, beef, giblets, liver—or a mixture of several—whatever you have on hand. Chop half a can of mushrooms and work in; season highly with paprika, kitchen bouquet and onion juice. Some even put in a little curry. Moisten slightly with gravy and when the rice has cooled mix all well together. Butter a cake mold lavishly, put the pudding into it; fit on a close top and set in a pot of boiling water. Cook steadily for at least two hours. Dip the mold into ice-water to loosen the pudding from the sides, and turn out upon a hot platter.

Send tomato sauce, mixed with grated cheese, around with it, or any gravy you may chance to have left over.

Molded rice (No. 1)

Boil a cupful of raw rice ten minutes; drain and pour over it, in place of the water, two cupfuls of chicken gravy or stock made from chicken, duck or turkey bones, seasoned well with salt, pepper and onion juice. Set in boiling water uncovered, and cook gently until quite dry. Turn into a bowl wet with hot water, press down firmly and reverse the bowl upon a hot platter. Cover the mound with grated cheese, brush all over with beaten white of egg, sift grated cheese upon the egg, and set upon the top grating of your oven to color slightly.

Molded rice (No. 2)

Boil a cupful of rice in plenty of hot salted water until soft. Drain and dry off. Stir into it a great spoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of onion juice and the beaten yolks of two eggs, with salt and pepper to taste. Stir over the fire in a bowl set in boiling water for two minutes, using a fork that you may not break the rice to pieces. Turn into a round-bottomed bowl wet with cold water, and press down hard. Reverse the bowl upon a fireproof platter, cover the molded rice thickly with a meringue made of the whites of the eggs beaten stiff, and set upon the top grating of the oven for three minutes to form.

Eat with drawn butter.

Spanish rice (very nice)

Boil one cupful of rice until tender in plenty of boiling water, salted; drain and dry off. Chop a quarter of a pound of fat salt pork, and fry in a pan. When it hisses put into the pan two medium-sized onions, also minced. Chop two green sweet peppers (seeded, of course), and mix with the rice, then the pork and onions, and enough tomato sauce to moisten the mixture well. Butter a bake-dish, add salt and pepper, if needed, to the rice, and put into the dish. Coat thickly with fine crumbs and bake, covered, for twenty minutes; then brown.

Rice timbales

Pack hot boiled rice in slightly buttered timbale molds; let them stand in hot water for ten minutes; run a pointed knife around the sides; turn from the molds and serve as a garnish for curried meats or boiled fowl.

SALSIFY, OR OYSTER-PLANT

Stewed salsify

Scrape the roots, throwing them at once into cold water, that they may not blacken. Cut into inch lengths and put over the fire in boiling salted water. Stew until tender. Drain off the water and pour upon the salsify in the saucepan a cup of hot milk. After it has simmered five minutes add a tablespoonful of butter and three tablespoonfuls of cracker dust; season to taste and serve.

Mock fried oysters

Wash, trim and cook a bunch of oyster-plant (or salsify) in boiling salted water until tender. Drain and scrape off the skin. Mash well, and if stringy rub through a colander.

To one pint of the mashed salsify add one teaspoonful of flour, one tablespoonful of butter, one well-beaten egg, and salt and pepper to season highly. Take up a small spoonful and shape it into an oval about the size of a large oyster; dip each lightly in flour or very fine cracker crumbs, and brown on each side in hot butter.

Salsify fritters

Scrape the salsify and grate it fine. If you have a machine for grinding vegetables, use that, as the process of grinding is so rapid that there is not time for the salsify to discolor before it is prepared. Have made a batter of two beaten eggs, half a cupful of flour, a gill of milk, and salt to taste. Beat hard, and whip the grated salsify into this. Drop by the spoonful into deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. When the fritters are of the right shade of brown, drain them quickly in a hot colander to free them of superfluous grease. Serve very hot.

Scalloped salsify

Wash and trim, but do not scrape fine roots of salsify. Boil in salted water until tender. Drain, scrape, clean and cut into inch lengths. Pack into a buttered bake-dish, alternately with thick white drawn butter, well seasoned, and fine bread-crumbs, seasoned and buttered. The top layer should be crumbs wet with cream. Cover closely and bake half an hour; then brown delicately.

Not a bad imitation of scalloped oysters.

SPINACH

“Spinach is one of our most valuable vegetables. It contains salts and is slightly laxative. In order to retain all the nutritive value and the salts in the spinach it is best to cook in a steamer. It should be cooked just long enough to be tender, which is from ten to fifteen minutes. Spinach, if cooked too long, will lose its flavor and color.”

Thus writes an able authority upon dietetics. In three sentences we have here condensed the cardinal rules for preparing this queenly esculent for the use of the human animal. Opposed to one clause of the summary we have the story of a noted epicure who found spinach so much better when warmed up for the thirteenth time that he ordered his cook to cook it thirteen times on the first day of serving.

Boiled spinach, plain

Pick over the spinach, rejecting all yellow or dried leaves. Wash in four waters, letting it soak in the last cold bath for three-quarters of an hour. Put into a large pot over the fire with just enough cold water to cover it. Cook for twenty minutes, or until tender. Drain in a colander, then turn into a wooden chopping-bowl and chop very, _very_ fine. Return the spinach to the saucepan, stir into it a great spoonful of butter, and salt and pepper to taste. Mound the spinach on a hot platter, and garnish with slices of hard-boiled eggs.

Spinach á la crême

Pick over and wash the spinach as in the last recipe. After soaking in the fourth water, put the leaves, with the moisture still clinging to them, into a large pot, and cover closely. The moisture on the leaves and the juice of the vegetables will form enough liquor to prevent scorching. Cook for twenty minutes, stirring well several times during the process. Sprinkle with salt and turn into a colander to drain. Press out the liquid, turn the spinach into a chopping-bowl and chop as fine as possible. Cook together in a saucepan one tablespoonful of flour and two of butter, and, when they are blended, pour the spinach upon them. Season and cook for several minutes, stirring constantly. Pour upon the spinach a small cupful of cream in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved, and cook three minutes longer, still stirring. Now add pepper and salt to taste and a pinch of nutmeg, and beat hard for three minutes. Serve smoking-hot, garnished with small triangles of toast.

Spinach puff

Boil as in the former recipe, chop “exceeding small,” and beat in a tablespoonful of melted butter, salt, pepper and a pinch of nutmeg. Set aside until cool, then stir in a gill of cream, the whipped yolks of two eggs and the stiffened whites of three. Beat hard and turn into a deep, greased pudding-dish. Bake for twenty minutes, and serve at once.

Spinach soufflé

Boil the spinach and chop fine. Add the beaten yolks of two eggs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, salt and pepper to taste. Set this mixture away to cool. When cold, beat into it a half-gill of cream and the frothed whites of three eggs. Turn into a buttered pudding-dish, and bake quickly in a hot oven to a light brown. Serve as soon as it is removed from the oven.

Spinach pátés

Boil the spinach, press out every drop of water and chop fine. Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful of butter and two of flour. Add the spinach with pepper and salt to taste; cook for five minutes. Butter the insides of muffin-tins or pâté-pans, and press the spinach hard into these. Set in the oven to keep hot while you make a white sauce. Carefully turn out the forms of spinach on a hot platter, lay a slice of hard-boiled egg on the top of each form and pour the white sauce around it.

SQUASH

The summer squash differs from the winter variety in having a tender shell and in being very juicy. Both may be cooked in a variety of ways, and form many appetizing dishes. In opening the winter squash it is often necessary to exert great strength to break through the outer rind—some housekeepers using a small saw for the purpose. The summer vegetable may be easily peeled or sliced with an ordinary case-knife.

Boiled squash

Wash two summer squashes, pare them, and cut into pieces about an inch square. Put them over the fire in a saucepan of boiling water and boil steadily for twenty-five minutes. Drain in a colander, pressing hard to extract the water, turn into a wooden bowl and mash with a potato-beater until free from lumps. Now beat in a heaping tablespoonful of butter; salt and pepper to taste. Return to the fire just long enough to get very hot, stirring all the time. Serve in a deep vegetable dish.

Baked squash

Peel, boil and mash two small squashes. When cold, beat in two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, two whipped eggs, a gill of cream and salt and pepper to taste. Turn into a greased bakedish, sprinkle with bread-crumbs and bake for a half-hour. A good way to use squash left over from yesterday.

Creamed squash

Peel two summer squashes and cut into dice of uniform size. Boil for fifteen minutes in salted water, or until tender, but not broken. Drain carefully in a colander and keep hot while you cook together two heaping teaspoonfuls of butter and the same quantity of flour until they bubble; then pour upon them a cupful and a half of sweet milk. Stir until smooth; turn in the squash dice, season liberally with salt and white pepper, and serve.

Scalloped squash

Peel, wash and boil three summer squashes according to directions given in the recipe for boiled squash. Beat two eggs light, and whip into them a small cupful of rich sweet milk, and a tablespoonful of melted butter. Beat this mixture into the mashed squash, season with salt and pepper and turn all into a greased pudding-dish. Sprinkle with bread-crumbs and bits of butter, and bake.

Squash pancakes

Boil and mash two squashes, and when cold beat into them two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a quarter of a teaspoonful of salt, a pint of milk, two eggs and a cupful of flour in which has been sifted a teaspoonful of baking-powder. Beat hard for five minutes. Have a soapstone griddle heated, and drop the mixture by the spoonful on this. If the cakes are too stiff, add a little more milk. Serve hot with butter. These are good with broiled steaks or chops.

Squash fritters

Peel and slice the squash, and boil in salted water for a little over five minutes. Carefully remove the slices and drop into iced water. When cold, drain in a colander and pat dry between the folds of a dish-towel. Dip each slice in beaten egg, then in cracker crumbs, and when all are thoroughly coated set in a cold place for an hour. Have ready a kettle of boiling dripping; drop the squash slices carefully into this and fry to a golden brown. Drain in a heated colander, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and serve.

TOMATOES

The nineteenth century was a third gone before the world on this side of the sea began to appreciate the beneficent qualities of what our foremothers used to call “love apples.” There is no other vegetable that is of more value as a liver regulator and blood-cooler than the tomato. The small quantity of calomel it contains acts as a corrective of biliousness, and stimulates all the secretions of the body to activity. Eaten raw, it is cooling and delicious, and it may be cooked in so many and varied forms that one does not soon weary of it.

In the average home it appears as a salad, in soup, stewed, and perhaps baked or scalloped. When it has been thus served many housekeepers consider that they have exhausted its capabilities. On the contrary, they have hardly touched upon its possibilities.

The increasing familiarity with sauces as the cook’s potent aids in converting old dishes into new, has made tomato sauce popular as an accompaniment of certain compounds of macaroni, but even those who use the sauce in this manner do not all know how admirable it is served with boiled or baked fish, or with roast mutton, or as a vehicle for shrimps, or as a zest for eggs. Apart from this, the tomato, not made into a sauce, but employed either fresh or canned, may come to the table in a variety of easily-prepared and savory combinations that will appeal to the family caterer as being the new and inexpensive dishes she is always seeking.

Raw tomatoes

Never scald them. Pare and strip off the skins. Set on ice until you are ready to serve. Cut up quickly, lay within a chilled bowl and season, as you serve, with French dressing.

Raw tomatoes and cucumbers

Cut off the tops of large, firm tomatoes and carefully remove most of the pulp. Keep pulp and tomatoes in the refrigerator while you peel and cut into small dice ice-cold cucumbers. Mix the cucumber dice with the tomato pulp, fill the tomato shells, set them on crisp lettuce leaves and pour a great spoonful of mayonnaise dressing over each.

Creamed tomatoes

Cut firm tomatoes into thick slices and fry them until tender in a couple of spoonfuls of butter. Have ready a white sauce made by cooking together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour to the bubbling point, and then pouring upon them a half-pint of milk—or, better still, a half-pint of mingled milk and cream. Cook, stirring constantly, until the sauce thickens, dish the tomatoes and turn the sauce upon them, after seasoning them suitably with pepper and salt.

Stewed tomatoes

Peel, slice and put a quart of tomatoes over the fire in a nickel-steel-plated or agate saucepan—never in tin. Stew fast twenty minutes. Season with a lump of butter rolled in flour, a teaspoonful of sugar, salt and pepper to taste, and two teaspoonfuls of onion juice. Stew five minutes longer, and serve.

Some cooks substitute fine dry crumbs for the flour. Unless some thickening is used, the tomatoes will be watery and thin.

Raw tomatoes and whipped cream

Pare large, smooth tomatoes carefully, and set on ice until chilled to the heart. Cut each in half when ready to serve, sprinkle lightly with salt and paprika, and heap with whipped cream.

A welcome entrée in summer. Send around heated and buttered crackers and cream cheese with them, or thin slices of buttered graham bread.

Tomato croquettes

These can be made either of fresh or canned tomatoes. Rub through a colander half the contents of a can of tomatoes into a saucepan with a thin slice of onion, salt, pepper, two or three cloves, and one tablespoonful of sugar. Cook for fifteen minutes, thicken with corn-starch—four teaspoonfuls of it rubbed to a cream with a generous lump of butter. Let it boil up and add one egg. Pour the mixture out to cool. When cool, form into croquettes, and dip them, first, in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs; set on ice for two hours before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Stuffed tomatoes (No. 1)

Cut the tops from large, firm tomatoes, and with a small spoon scoop out the insides. To half of this pulp, chopped, add as much minced boiled ham and two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs. Season to taste and fill the tomatoes with this mixture. Set in a baking-pan and bake for twenty minutes, covered; then brown.

Stuffed tomatoes (No. 2)

Cut the tops from large tomatoes and scrape out the pulp. Mix with this one part of bread-crumbs to two parts of minced boiled ham. Fill the tomato shells with this mixture, put a bit of butter upon the top of each, and set, side by side, in a bake-pan. Pour a cupful of soup stock over and around the tomatoes, and bake until tender.

Scalloped tomatoes

Grease a pudding-dish and put in the bottom of it a layer of peeled and sliced tomatoes. Cover with a layer of salted and peppered crumbs, sprinkle with bits of butter and a little sugar. Now put in another stratum of tomatoes and more crumbs. When the dish is full pour over all a cupful of well-seasoned soup stock, sprinkle the top with crumbs, and bake, covered, for fifteen minutes. Uncover and brown.

Tomatoes and corn

Put a cupful, each, of stewed tomatoes and boiled corn over the fire together, bring to a boil, add half a teaspoonful of white sugar and, if you like, a dash of onion juice; cook one minute longer and serve.

A good way of using yesterday’s left-overs of these vegetables.

Tomato fritters

Make a batter of a cupful of flour, a cupful of water, a tablespoonful of butter, a saltspoonful of salt and the white of an egg. The water should be just warm enough to melt the butter, but not hot. Stir the two into the sifted and salted flour, mixing carefully, and, lastly, beat in the whipped white of an egg. Into the batter thus made dip rather thick slices of peeled tomatoes, and fry in deep hot fat to a light, delicate brown. The tomatoes may be sprinkled with salt and pepper before dipping them in batter, or the fritters may be seasoned after they are cooked.

Tomatoes stuffed with meat

Select large, firm tomatoes, cut off the tops and scoop out the inside pulp. Do not peel. Chop fine a cupful of cold meat—it may be fowl, tongue or ham, or even lamb, mutton or beef, if the latter are well seasoned. With the meat put a half cupful of fine bread-crumbs, a tablespoonful of butter, and salt, pepper, parsley and onion juice. The quantity of these to be used must be determined by the amount of seasoning there is already in the meat. After sprinkling the inside of the tomato shells with a very little salt and pepper fill them with the mixture of meat, crumbs, etc. If this seems too dry it may be moistened with a small quantity of gravy or soup stock, or even with milk or cream. Arrange the tomatoes in a pudding-dish, replace the tops, lay a cover over them and bake half an hour. Serve in the dish in which they were cooked.

Tomatoes stuffed with corn

Prepare the tomatoes as in the preceding recipe, place them in the bake-dish and fill them with a mixture of a cupful of grated green corn, half a cupful of bread-crumbs, a tablespoonful, each, of milk and butter, a teaspoonful of white sugar, and salt and pepper to taste.

Tomatoes stuffed with rice

Fill tomato shells prepared as above directed with cold boiled rice, to which have been added two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, half a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and paprika. When the shells are filled strew the contents of each thickly with grated cheese before laying on the tops. Bake, covered, half an hour.

Tomatoes stuffed with macaroni