Part 16

If they are winter beets, soak them overnight; in any case, be very careful not to prick or cut the skin before boiling, as they will then lose their color; put them into boiling water, and boil until tender. If they are served hot, pour a little melted butter, pepper, and salt over them. They are often served cold, cut into slices, with some vinegar over them, or cut into little dice and mixed with other cold vegetables, for a winter salad.

CAULIFLOWER, WITH WHITE SAUCE.

Trim off the outside leaves, and put the cauliflower into well-salted boiling water. Be careful to take it out as soon as tender, to prevent it dropping into pieces. Make, in a saucepan, a white sauce as follows: Put butter the size of an egg into the saucepan, and when it bubbles stir in a scant half tea-cupful of flour; stir well with an egg-whisk until cooked; then add two tea-cupfuls of thin cream, some pepper and salt. Stir it over the fire until perfectly smooth. Pour the sauce over the cauliflower, and serve. Many let the cauliflower simmer in the sauce a few moments before serving. The _sauce Hollandaise_ is very fine for cauliflower.

Cauliflower is delicious served as a garnish around fried spring chickens, or with fried sweet-breads, when the white sauce should be poured over both. In this case, it should be made by adding the cream, flour, and seasoning to the little grease (half a tea-spoonful) that is left after _sautéing_ the chickens or sweet-breads. Time to cook, fifteen minutes, if small; twenty minutes, if large.

CAULIFLOWERS, WITH CHEESE.

Add plenty of grated cheese (say a cupful to a pint of sauce) to the usual white sauce made for cauliflowers. Heat the sauce well, to melt the cheese thoroughly, and pour it over the cauliflowers.

Cauliflower is valuable as a salad, with the _Mayonnaise_ dressing, or, mixed with other cold vegetables, with the French dressing. See Salads.

ASPARAGUS.

Tie the stalks in bundles, keeping the heads one way, and cut off the stalks, so that they may be of equal length. Put them into well-salted boiling water, and cook until they are tender (no longer). While boiling, prepare some thin slices of toast; arrange the asparagus, when well drained, neatly upon it, and pour over a white sauce, as for cauliflower. The _sauce Hollandaise_ is especially nice for asparagus. Time to cook asparagus, about eighteen minutes.

PEASE.

_American mode_: First boil the pods, which are sweet and full of flavor, in a little water; skim them out, and add the pease, which boil until tender; add then a little butter, cream, pepper, and salt. If they are served as a garnish, do not add the juice; but, if served alone, the juice is a savory addition. Time to cook, about half an hour.

The American canned pease should be rinsed before cooking, as the juice is generally thick. The pease are then thrown into a little boiling water seasoned with salt, and a little sugar; butter is added when done.

_English mode_: Throw the pease into boiling water, with some lettuce leaves and a sprig of mint in the bottom of the stew-pan. To each quart of pease allow two table-spoonfuls of butter and a lump of loaf-sugar; cover the stew-pan closely, and boil until they are tender--thoroughly done; then separate the pease from the other ingredients, sending them only to the table. This cooking of pease with mint (universally done in England) is a good way of utterly destroying the delicious natural flavor of the pea.

SPINACH.

Having washed it thoroughly, put it into just enough salted boiling water to cover it. When it is tender, squeeze out all the water, and press it through a colander; then _sauté_ it a few minutes, with a little butter, pepper, and salt. Serve with sliced, hard-boiled eggs on top; or, if it is used as a garnish for lamb, add a little lemon-juice and a spoonful of stock. Or, it is nice served as a course by itself, arranged on a platter as follows:

Put a circle of thin slices of buttered toast (one slice for each person at table) around the dish, and on each slice put a cupful of spinach, neatly smoothed in shape. Press the half of a hard-boiled egg into the top of each pile of spinach, leaving the cut part of the egg uppermost.

TOMATOES STEWED.

Pour boiling water over six or eight large tomatoes to remove the skin, and then cut them into a saucepan. When they begin to boil, pour away a little of the juice; add a small piece of butter, pepper, salt, and a very little sugar. Let them cook for about fifteen minutes, stirring in well the seasoning. Some add a few bread or cracker crumbs.

TOMATOES, WITH MAYONNAISE DRESSING (see _Salads_, p. 226).

STUFFED TOMATOES BAKED.

Choose large tomatoes. Do not skin them, but scoop out a small place at the top, which fill with a stuffing. The simplest is made of bread-crumbs, minced onion, cayenne, and salt. First fry the onions in a little butter, add the bread-crumbs, moistened with a little water (or, better, stock) and seasoned with a very little Cayenne pepper and enough salt. Fry them a moment; then fill the cavities, allowing the stuffing to project half an inch above the tomato, and smooth it over the top. Bake.

A better stuffing is this: Chop very fine some cold cooked chicken, lamb, beef, or pork. Each of these may be used, or they may be mixed. However, a very little pork mixed with any kind of meat makes a pleasant seasoning. Now fry a little chopped onion in butter, and, when just colored, throw in the chopped meat, a few bread-crumbs, very little stock, and season the whole with salt, pepper, and some parsley. When hot, and well mixed, take it off the fire; add the yolk of a raw egg to bind it together. Fill the tomatoes with this preparation, sprinkle bread-crumbs over the tops, and bake. The tomatoes are a pretty garnish around any kind of meat. If served as a course alone, pour into the bottom of the dish a tomato-sauce flavored with a little sherry.

ONIONS.

There is no better manner of cooking onions than as follows: Put them into salted boiling water, with a little milk added, and boil them until tender (no longer). Then place them in a baking-pan with a little pepper, salt, and butter over the top of each, and a very little of the water in which they were boiled in the bottom of the pan. Brown them quickly in the oven, and serve very hot. They may be served alone in a vegetable-dish, or as a garnish around beef, calf’s heart, etc.

ONIONS, WITH CREAM.

Boil the onions, putting them into boiling salted water, with a little milk added, until tender; drain, and put them into a stew-pan, with a white sauce made as directed for cauliflowers. Let them simmer a few moments. Serve with the sauce poured over.

STRING-BEANS.

String, and cut each bean crosswise into two or three pieces. Put them, with a little pork, into _boiling_ water, and when boiled tender drain them. Put into a stew-pan a cupful of cream, a small piece of butter rubbed in an even tea-spoonful of flour, pepper, and salt. When hot, add the beans (say one pint), and stew them a few moments before serving.

STRING-BEANS IN SALAD (see _Salads_, page 226).

LIMA BEANS (_London Cooking-teacher_).

Put a pint of the shelled beans into boiling water slightly salted, adding two or three slices of onion. When tender, drain them. Put butter the size of an egg into a heated saucepan, and when it is hot add an even table-spoonful of minced onions, which cook well; then put in the beans; add enough water (or, better, stock) to keep them moist. Keep them at the side of the fire about a quarter of an hour, as it takes them some time to soak; just before taking them out, add a small handful of minced parsley. Do not cook them much after adding the parsley, as that spoils its color.

LIMA BEANS, WITH CREAM.

Put a pint of the shelled beans into just enough boiling salted water to cover them, and boil them tender; then drain off the water; add a cupful of boiling milk (or, better, cream), a little piece of butter, pepper, and salt. Let the beans simmer a minute in the milk before serving.

CELERY FRIED.

Cut the celery into pieces three or four inches long; boil them tender in salted water; drain them. Make a batter in the proportion of two eggs to a cupful of rich milk; mix flour, or fine bread or cracker crumbs, enough to give it consistence; roll the pieces of celery in it, and fry them to a light-brown in hot lard. Serve very hot. Celery can also be cooked as asparagus, boiled tender, and served with a white sauce.

EGG-PLANT.

Cut the plant into slices less than half an inch thick, without paring off the skin; then sprinkle pepper and salt between the parts, and cover with a plate; let them remain an hour, then dip each slice separately first into beaten egg, then into fine bread or cracker crumbs. _Sauté_ them to a light-brown in hot lard or butter.

CABBAGE TO BOIL.

Cabbage is best boiled and served with corned beef; otherwise boil a small piece of pork with it. Always boil with it a piece of a red pepper. A little bunch of small red peppers, costing five cents, will last a long time for cooking cabbage, making pickles, etc.

Remove the outside damaged leaves, and cut the cabbage into halves (or, if very large, into quarters), so as to better cook the inside stalk; put it into the boiling water, with the corned beef or pork and the small red pepper. It will take the cabbage from half to three quarters of an hour to be well cooked. Drain the cabbage well, serving it with the meat in the centre of the dish.

CABBAGE STEWED.

Shred two small cabbages coarser than for cold slaw; parboil them with a small piece of red pepper added to the boiling water; then pour off the water, and add three or four table-spoonfuls of vinegar, a small piece of butter, and a large-sized ladleful of stock from the stock-pot; cover the saucepan closely, and let the cabbage simmer gently for half an hour; season with a little red pepper, if it needs more, and salt.

TO BOIL CORN ON THE COB.

At the Saratoga Lake House there is a third specialty of good things. The first is the fried potato, the second is the fresh trout, the third is boiled corn, which is served as a course by itself. The corn is boiled in the husk. The latter imparts sweetness and flavor to the corn, besides keeping it moist and tender. The unhusked corn is put into salted boiling water, and when done, and well drained, some of the outside husks are removed, and the corn is served, with the remaining husks about it; or, the cobs may be broken from the husks just before sending them to table, which would save this trouble afterward.

CORN MOCK OYSTERS.

Mix into a pint of grated green corn three table-spoonfuls of milk, one tea-cupful of flour, a piece of butter the size of a hickory-nut, one tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of pepper, and one egg. Drop it by dessert-spoonfuls into a little hot butter, and _sauté_ it on both sides. It resembles, and has much the flavor of fried oysters. It is a good tea or lunch dish. Serve it hot, on a warm platter.

CORN CUSTARD, TO BE SERVED AS A VEGETABLE.

Cut corn from the cob, mix it not too thin with milk, two or three beaten eggs, pepper and salt; bake half an hour. It is very nice.

CORN PUDDING FOR TEA.

Ingredients: One dozen ears of sweet-corn, three eggs, one pint of milk, three table-spoonfuls of sugar, a small tea-spoonful of salt, a little butter, a little flour if the corn is quite young, with a little less milk; if the corn is older, omit it; grate half of the corn, and cut the other half. Bake.

GRATED CORN SAUTÉD.

Mix grated corn with salt and pepper; _sauté_ it in a little hot butter.

TO COOK CRANBERRIES.

Add one tea-cupful of water to a quart of cranberries, and put them over the fire. After cooking ten minutes, add two heaping cupfuls of sugar, and cook about ten minutes longer, stirring them often. Pour them into a bowl or mold, and when cold they can be removed as a jelly. The berries will seem very dry before the sugar is added, but if more water is used they will not form a jelly.

ARTICHOKES.

Cut off the outside tough leaves, and trim the bottom; throw them into boiling salted water, with a few drops of vinegar. When quite done, drain, and serve with drawn butter, or, what is still better, a _sauce Hollandaise_.

FRIED APPLES FOR BREAKFAST.

Sour apples should be selected: Pippins, Northern Spies, etc. First fry some thin slices of pork, then the slices (without peeling them) of apples in the same hot fat.

A RICE DISH (_Risotto à la Milanaise_).

Put one ounce of butter (size of a pigeon’s egg) into a stew-pan, and when hot mix in a quarter of an onion (half an ounce), minced, and cook until it assumes a pale-yellow color; put in the washed rice (uncooked), and stir it over the fire until it has a yellow color also; then add a pint of stock. White stock is preferable, as it preserves the light color of the rice, yet any stock may be used. Boil slowly until the rice is tender (about half an hour), when the stock will be mostly absorbed. When about to serve, add one ounce of grated cheese, stirring for a few moments over the fire, without letting it boil; sprinkle a little grated cheese over the top.

This dish can be served alone as an _entremêt_ or as a vegetable, with any kind of meat. A brown sauce may or may not be served around it.

ANOTHER RICE DISH.

Mix carefully (not to break the grains) in a pint of boiled rice (see page 288) a table-spoonful of either minced parsley or shives. Put a piece of butter size of a pigeon’s egg into a saucepan, and let it color a light-brown; mix the rice in the butter, and serve as a vegetable.

MUSHROOMS IN CRUST (_Croûte aux Champignons_).

For the crust, a little extra butter is added to the dough for rolls; it is made round, three inches in diameter, and two inches high, instead of an oval roll shape. When freshly baked, a slice is cut from the top of each one, the crumb is removed, and the shells are buttered and filled with mushrooms, cooked as for garnishing, and mixed with a _Bechamel_ sauce. Finely minced parsley is sprinkled over the tops. They should be served quite hot. Fresh mushrooms are required for this dish.

FLAXSEED FOR A CENTRE-PIECE.

Sew coarse flannel around a goblet with the stem broken off; put this shapely dome upon a saucer of water; wet the flannel, and sprinkle over as much flaxseed as will adhere to it. The flannel will absorb the water from the saucer, which should be often replenished. In about two weeks the flannel will be concealed in a beautiful verdure, which will vie with any table ornament.

CASSEROLES.

_Casseroles_ are generally made of boiled rice, or of mashed boiled potatoes. When of rice, first cook thoroughly with milk, salt, and a little butter; or they may be cooked in broth, with a little ham added, which is afterward to be taken out. Mash fine.

When of potatoes, boil, season, and mash them well. Butter the _casserole_ mold. First press the rice, or the potatoes, whichever used, into the figures of the mold; then fill it. In the centre bread may be substituted. Put the _casserole_ aside to harden. When quite cold and firm, carefully unclasp and take off the mold; then, with a small, sharp knife and a spoon, scoop out the inside, leaving the _casserole_ from a half to an inch thick. Just before serving, with a little paste-brush, dipped in the yolk of an egg, brush the whole surface. This may be omitted if preferred. Put in a very hot oven a few moments, to heat the rice or potato, and to color slightly the egg. Fill it with vegetables, such as cauliflower, Lima beans, string-beans, artichokes, pease, etc.; or with chicken fricasseed or fried, and served with a cream dressing, or with _Bechamel_ sauce, or en _blanquette_; or with any kind of scollops, whether of game, poultry, sweet-breads, fish, or shell-fish.

SHELLS, OR COQUILLES.

A tasteful variety at table is a course of something served in shells (_en coquille_). The natural shells (except oyster-shells) are not as pretty as silver shells. Plated silver scallop-shells are not expensive, and are always ready. You can always serve oysters in their shells, by once purchasing fine large ones; then, by cleaning them carefully every time they are used, they will be ready to be filled for the next occasion with suitable oysters from the can. Oysters, lobsters, shrimps, or cold fish of any kind, can be served _en coquille_ in place of fish. Chicken, or meat of any kind, should be served as an _entrée_. Salmon, or almost any kind of fish or shell-fish, can be served _en coquille_ cold, with a _Mayonnaise_ dressing, as a salad.

CHICKENS IN SHELLS.

Boil the chickens in water or in broth; cut the meat into little dice; mix them, while hot, with a hot _Bechamel_ sauce, or with a white sauce made with cream; sprinkle sifted bread or cracker crumbs over them; brown slightly in a hot oven. Serve immediately. Sometimes mushrooms are mixed with the chicken dice.

OYSTERS EN COQUILLE.

Prepare oysters as described for _vols-au-vent_; serve them in the scallop-shells, with sifted bread-crumbs (browned) sprinkled over them. Put into the oven until they are thoroughly hot.

FISH EN COQUILLE.

Cut any good fish into little scollops (having boned and skinned them) half an inch wide; fry them in a _sauté_ pan, with a little butter, salt, and a few drops of lemon-juice; then mix them with any of the fish sauces, and put them into the shells; sprinkle over bread-crumbs (_sautéd_ brown in a little butter), and warm them in the oven.

LOBSTERS OR SHRIMPS EN COQUILLE.

Cut the lobsters into scollops or pieces; mix them with the _Bechamel_, or cream, sauce; sprinkle over bread-crumbs, and brown slightly in the oven. Proceed in the same manner with shrimps, picking those that are mixed with the sauce, and reserving some whole, to decorate the tops.

MUSHROOMS EN COQUILLE.

Cut the mushrooms, if they are too large; throw them for a few minutes into boiling water, then into cold water to whiten them; wipe well, and _sauté_ them in a saucepan, with a little butter. When colored, and almost done, sprinkle in a little flour and a little chopped parsley; when the flour is cooked (which will require but a few moments), pour in, say, a tea-cupful of stock; let it all simmer for about fifteen minutes. Just before serving, stir in the beaten yolk of an egg, and a few drops of lemon-juice. The sauce should be rather thick. Fill each shell with this mixture; sprinkle a few sifted cracker-crumbs on the tops; brown them slightly with a red-hot shovel, or put them into a very hot oven a few moments just before serving.

POTTING.

In England, potting is an every-day affair for the cook. If there be ham, game, tongue, beef, or fish on the table one day, you are quite sure to see it potted on the next day at lunch or breakfast. It is a very good way of managing left-over food, instead of invariably making it into hashes, stews, etc. These potted meats will keep a long time. They are not good unless thoroughly pounded, reduced to the smoothest possible paste, and free from any unbroken fibre.

POTTED HAM.

Mince some cold cooked ham, mixing lean and fat together; pound in a mortar, seasoning at the same time with a little Cayenne pepper, pounded mace, and mustard. Put into a dish, and place in the oven half an hour; afterward pack it in potting-pots or little stone jars, which cover with a layer of clarified butter (lukewarm), and tie bladders or paste paper over them. This is convenient for sandwiches. The butter may be used again for basting meat or for making meat-pies.

POTTED TONGUE (_Warne_).

Ingredients: One pound and a half of boiled tongue, six ounces of butter, a little cayenne, a small spoonful of pounded mace, nutmeg and cloves each half a tea-spoonful.

The tongue must be unsmoked, boiled, and the skin taken off. Pound it in the mortar as fine as possible, with the spices. When perfectly pounded, and the spices are well blended with the meat, press it into small potting-pans; pour over the butter. A little roast veal, or the breasts of turkeys, chickens, etc., added to the tongue, are an improvement.

POTTED BEEF.

This is well-cooked beef chopped and pounded with a little butter, pepper, salt, and mace. Manage as for potted ham.

POTTED BIRDS.

Clean pigeons, or any other birds, and thoroughly season them with mace, allspice, pepper, and salt; then lay the breasts in a pan as close as possible, and put some butter over them; cover the pan with a coarse flour paste. Bake the birds well in the oven, and when cold cut them into small pieces; pound these to a paste in a mortar; pack them closely in a potting-pot, and cover with butter.

POTTED FISH.

Cut out the pieces of fish; season with pepper, salt, and cloves, if you like; then put them into a dish; cover closely as for potted birds. Bake one hour. When cold, press them into the pot, and cover well with butter, etc.

POTTED CHICKEN AND TONGUE OR HAM.

Roast the chicken; take off all the meat, separating it from the sinews and skin; chop and pound thoroughly, with a pound of tongue or of ham. Let the bones of the chicken be boiled down to a glaze; moisten the pounded meat with this glaze; season with salt, Cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and a little butter. When well pounded and run through a sieve, put it into pots, and press it in hard. Now put the pots into a covered stew-pan, with some boiling water in the bottom; let them be steamed half an hour, then let them cool. Press the meat down again, wipe dry, and cover with some hot butter. It will keep for months.

MACARONI.

MACARONI, WITH CHEESE (_London Cooking-school_).

Do not wash the macaroni. Throw it, broken into convenient pieces, into boiling water which is well salted; stir or shake it frequently, to prevent its adhering to the bottom of the stew-pan. The moment it is quite tender (no longer), pour it into a colander, and shake off all the water. In the mean time, melt a lump of butter the size of a large egg (two ounces) to half a pound of macaroni, in a cup on the fire, and grate a handful (four ounces) of cheese. Now, when the macaroni is well drained, place a little of it in the bottom of the dish in which it is to be served; pour over it some of the melted butter, and sprinkle over that a little grated cheese. Continue alternate layers of the three ingredients until all the macaroni is used, leaving butter and cheese on the top. Put the dish into the oven, and let it remain three or four minutes, or long enough for the macaroni to soak the butter and cheese; then take it out; brown the top with a salamander or hot kitchen-shovel, when it will be ready to be served. Aim to have it done just the moment of serving, otherwise the cheese will cool and harden.[D] It requires about twenty minutes to boil macaroni.

MACARONI AND WELSH RARE-BIT.

When the macaroni is cooked as in the preceding receipt, arrange it in the centre of a large hot platter; brown the top with the salamander; place around it, as a garnish, little diamonds of Welsh rare-bits (see page 264). This is a nice dish to serve in place of cheese.

MACARONI, WITH SWEET-BREADS.

Parboil, egg, bread-crumb, and _sauté_ the sweet-breads. Place them in the centre of a large hot platter; arrange macaroni (cooked with cheese) around it, and brown the top with the salamander.

MACARONI, WITH TOMATO-SAUCE.

_Sauce._--Put butter size of an egg into a saucepan; when it is at the boiling-point, throw in an onion (minced), two sprigs of parsley (chopped fine), and a little pepper. Let it cook five or eight minutes; then throw in a heaping table-spoonful of flour and a little broth from the stock-pot (if there be no broth, use a little boiling water). Stir this well, and let it cook five or eight minutes longer. Now pour in about a coffee-cupful of tomatoes which have been stewed and strained through a colander or sieve, and stir all together.