Part 17

Turnips should be pared inside the dark line encircling them, or they will have a strong taste.

Parboiling leeks, onions, cabbage and old carrots renders them more digestible and more agreeable to some.

All vegetables will require longer cooking at great altitude.

Milk or cream of raw or steamed (not roasted) nut butter may be substituted for dairy milk or cream with nearly all vegetables.

Many vegetables are delightful to the cultivated taste served plain with Brazil or other nuts. Thus we get the benefit of the fine delicate flavors in the different foods instead of covering them up with sauces and dressings.

More elaborate dishes of vegetables are given among entrées.

=Artichokes--Globe=

Soak artichokes for several hours or over night, drain, cut stalks close, trim away the bottom leaves, clip the sharp points from the leaves or cut off the tops straight across. Boil in salted water, if possible with charcoal tied in piece of muslin, until tender enough for the leaves to draw out easily, ¾-1 hour. Remove from water carefully with flat wire beater or small skimmer. Drain upside down; serve whole or in halves or quarters, with cream or egg cream sauce, drawn butter or sauce Amèricaine poured around; or on a napkin on hot platter or chop tray and pass sauce with them. Serve cold with French dressing.

It is a good plan to tie a strip of muslin around each artichoke before boiling to hold it in shape, and to put an inverted plate upon them while cooking to keep them down.

=Artichokes--Jerusalem=

Wash and boil artichokes with the skins on until tender, 30-40 m. If they boil too long they may become tough. Drain, peel, and serve in rich cream sauce. They may be peeled before boiling.

A still better way is to peel artichokes cut them into thick slices and boil 15-20 m., then drain thoroughly and serve in cream, cream of tomato or onion cream sauce.

Not containing any starch, Jerusalem artichokes are suitable for salads, either cooked in slices and dried on a towel after draining, or used raw in thin slices.

=Asparagus=

Select green asparagus for the table, the short bleached stalks are tough and often bitter. Take care also that asparagus is fresh. The tops of stale asparagus have the odor of spoiled flesh meat and are not fit to use.

If not just from the garden, asparagus should stand in cold water ½-1 hour before cooking. Wash thoroughly, dipping the heads up and down in a large quantity of water, shaking well to dislodge the sand.

As the different parts of the stalk vary in tenderness, the best way to prepare and cook asparagus is to lay a handful of stalks on a vegetable board and holding it with the left hand, with a large sharp knife cut off the tips about 1½ in. from the end, and if the next part is very tender, cut off 1 in. more to go with the tips. Then cut inch lengths of the next that is of about equal tenderness, and lastly, the remaining part of the stalk that is not tough. The tough part save to flavor soups or sauces, or, reject entirely.

To cook, throw the third lot, that nearest the tough part, into boiling salted water, boil for 10 m., add the second lot, boil 10 m., throw in the top part and boil 10-15 m., or until tips are just tender. By this method the asparagus is all nice and tender and the tips are whole.

When desiring to serve in longer pieces, lay on the board as before and cut 4 or 5 in. from the top (reserving the remaining part for soups or scallops). Tie into neat bundles with strips of muslin. Stand these bundles in rapidly boiling, salted water with the heads well out. Cook from 20 to 30 m., when the stalks will be tender and not decapitated.

Asparagus is one of the vegetables that will not admit of many combinations; such only as develop and preserve its characteristic flavor are suitable.

=Asparagus--Cream or Butter=

Cook in short pieces as directed; drain or leave the water on (there should be but little); add without stirring a little heavy cream; bring just to the boiling point, remove from the fire, add more salt if necessary, shaking gently to dissolve it, and serve in vegetable dish with or without points of toast around the edge.

Butter may be substituted for cream.

=Asparagus--Egg Cream Sauce=

Lay cooked asparagus in small pieces on hot moistened toast of any desired shape, on tray or platter, and pour egg cream sauce, around. It may also be served the same with a nice rich cream sauce, or with either sauce in pastry crusts for Asparagus en Croustade.

=Asparagus--Drawn Butter=

On large, slightly moistened toast points on a platter, pile long pieces of asparagus cooked according to directions (enough for one serving on each piece of toast), the heads all one way, and put a generous spoonful of drawn butter on each. Or the sauce may be put on when serving.

=Asparagus--Sauce Amèricaine and Spinach Leaves=

Lay asparagus on hot platter with heads toward each end and stem ends just meeting in center; surround with border of salad leaves of spinach and place same across the asparagus where the stems meet. Serve leaves with asparagus, and pass sauce Amèricaine.

=String Beans--Cream, Nut or Dairy=

String beans should be gathered before the pods begin to show the shape of the bean much.

To prepare, break the blossom end back and pull off the string from that side, then break the stem the other way and remove the string from that side. Wash beans well and if they have not been crisped before stringing, let them lie in cold (ice, if possible) water a half hour or longer. Drain, take in handfuls on to the vegetable board and cut into ¾ in. lengths (cut diagonally instead of straight across when preferred). Throw into boiling salted water and boil until tender, 1-3 hours. Drain, saving the water for soups or to make drawn butter sometimes for the beans. Cover with cream, heat, remove from fire, add salt, serve.

Cream from raw nut butter may be added to the beans about ½ hour before they are done instead of using dairy cream.

Cream sauce of either nut or dairy milk may be served over beans on toast if desired.

Wax and stringless beans are prepared and cooked the same except that _young_ stringless beans have no strings. Any of the varieties may be cooked in whole pods when desired but will require a longer time for cooking. Flowering or scarlet runner beans are used for string beans when the pods are very young.

=String Beans--Nut and Tomato Bisque Sauce=

Prepare beans as above and cover with sauce 5, made of either raw or roasted nut butter.

=Shelled Green Beans=

Wash beans before shelling and not after, cook in boiling salted water until tender, the time varying according to the variety. Allow plenty of time as beans are richer in flavor if simmered or kept hot for some time after they are tender.

They may be served with different sauces, but it seems too bad to spoil their delightful flavors with anything but salt, or a little cream or butter, nut or dairy.

=Flowering Beans--Green=

The large pole beans with red and white blossoms have the richest flavor of all shelled beans. After shelling, put beans into cold water, let them heat slowly to the boiling point and boil 5-10 m. Drain, let cold water run over them in the colander. Return to the fire with boiling salted water and cook until tender, considerably longer than other shelled beans. Serve plain, or with a little cream poured over and shaken (not stirred) into them a few minutes before removing from the fire. If one has the time to hull these and Lima beans, it may be done.

_To Hull_--Boil beans about half an hour (or until the skins are loosened) in unsalted water. Drain and slip the hulls off with the thumb and finger.

Cook after hulling in double boiler or very gently on back of stove, adding seasoning before they are quite tender which will be in a much shorter time than with the hulls on.

=Beets=

Beets should be fresh, plump and firm. If slightly withered, they may be freshened by standing in cold water over night. But if much withered do not waste time and fuel in trying to cook them, as they will be bitter and tough with any amount of cooking. Use care in handling beets before cooking so as not to break the skins. If the skins are broken the flavor and sweetness of the beet will be lost in the water. Press with thumb and finger to find when they are tender rather than to puncture with a knife or fork.

Put to cooking in perfectly boiling water. Boil steadily until tender, when remove at once from the fire as over-cooking toughens them, throw into cold water a moment and rub off the skins. Serve plain, whole if small, or cut into quarters if large; or, slice and pour over a hot mixture of lemon juice and sugar (part water and a trifle of salt may be used), or hot cream with salt, or salt and olive oil.

Small young beets, right from the garden, will cook in from 20 m. to 1 hr. Large, old ones in winter will require 3-5 hours.

=Pickled Beets=

Let sliced beets stand over night in sauce 79.

=Broccoli=

This is a vegetable grown in cool climates, similar to cauliflower, more hardy but not so fine in quality. Follow directions for cooking and serving cauliflower, except that broccoli requires about 20 m. only for cooking.

=Brussels Sprouts=

Wash, pick off outside leaves, lay in cold water ½-1 hour, drain. Boil in salted water (in cheese cloth if convenient), 15-30 m., according to age; do not cook until soft. Drain carefully, pile in center of dish; serve with hot cream poured over, or with sauce 16, 19, 34, 57, olive oil or French dressing. May add 1 tablespoon of lemon juice to each ½ cup of 34.

=Cabbage--Plain Boiled=

Trim cabbage and if not very crisp let stand in cold or ice water 1 hr. or over night. Drain, cut into sixths, eighths or any number of pieces 1-1½ in. across the broadest part. Lay in sufficient boiling salted water to cover; let come to the boiling point and set back on the stove where it will simmer gently ½-¾ of an hour, until tender only, and still perfectly white. Drain and lay on to hot dish with pieces overlapping. Serve at once.

Until one has tried it, he will not know how delightfully sweet this cabbage is, perfectly plain, eaten slowly with Brazil nuts, filberts, almonds or English walnuts. It may be served with olive oil or lemon juice, or with both together or with sauce 16, 34 or 57, or with the sour cream or sour milk salad dressing without cooling. Use two eggs in dressing when serving warm.

If cooked until it begins to turn dark, cabbage will have a strong flavor and will be indigestible.

_To Parboil_--Put at first into a large quantity of unsalted boiling water, cook 15 m., drain carefully, sprinkle with salt, pour boiling water over and proceed as above.

=My Mother’s Cabbage, or Cabbage in Cream=

Shave crisp cabbage fine, cook in boiling salted water 20-30 m., until just tender and still white. Drain, pour in cream, heat to almost boiling, serve.

_For Sour Cabbage_--Add a little lemon juice instead of or with cream and more salt if necessary.

=★ Cabbage in Tomato=

Prepare cabbage as in preceding recipe, cook for 20 m., drain, add stewed tomatoes (not too juicy, they may be strained if preferred) with salt and cook until cabbage is tender. This is an unusually fine combination and very suitable to accompany a hearty nut meat dish such as broiled trumese. A little cream may be added just before serving, but the dish is complete without it.

=Cabbage and Corn=

Heat together 2 parts of stewed cabbage and 1 part of corn with cream, nut or dairy.

=Sweet Sour Cabbage=

1 qt. fine shaved cabbage ¾ cup water 2 tablespns. oil or butter 1 level teaspn. salt ¼ cup sugar ½ teaspn. caraway seeds ¼ cup lemon juice

Cook cabbage in water 15-20 m., then add the other ingredients and simmer slowly until the cabbage is tender.

=Cabbage with Nuts and Raisins=

Season stewed cabbage with cream--cocoanut, almond or dairy, or with butter; add stewed raisins and sprinkle chopped nuts over just before serving. May garnish with halves of nuts.

=Carrots=

Carrots being among the most healthful vegetables should be used freely, and with a little care they may be made exceedingly palatable.

Unless very fresh, let carrots stand in cold water for some time before paring. When they are full grown, or late in the season, parboil them to remove the strong taste.

It will require from 20 m. to 1½ hr. to cook carrots tender, according to the age and the sizes into which they are cut. A little chopped parsley makes a pretty combination with most of the dishes.

=Carrots--Minced=

Scrape or pare carrots, cut into strips, grind in food cutter coarse or fine as preferred, cook in water until tender, add salt, boil, drain. Add a little cream, cream sauce, butter or oil, reheat, serve. Add a trifle of sugar to cream sauce or cream. Carrots may be ground or rubbed through colander after boiling.

=Carrots--Stewed=

Cut pared carrots into quarters, sixths or eighths, lengthwise, then across in quarter inch slices in the largest part and gradually thicker toward the small end; or if carrots are small and of uniform size they may be cut in whole round slices. Cook until tender, drain, and reheat with cream, or sauce 16 or 28, to each pint of which a teaspoonful of sugar has been added, or add butter and lemon juice, sauce 1, 2 or 34.

=Carrots à la Washington=

1 qt. sliced or diced carrots 1 cup to 1 pint sliced onions ¼ cup strained tomato ½ tablespn. browned flour ¾-1 teaspn. salt 1 tablespn. raw nut butter if desired

Cook all together in a small quantity of water until carrots are tender and well dried out.

=Pickled Carrots=

Pour sauce 79, over sliced cooked carrots, cover and let stand for several hours.

=Carrots and Peas--Better than either alone=

Mix 1 part stewed carrots and 2 parts cooked green peas. Add cream or cream sauce, heat and serve.

Or, the carrots may be cooked in slices, laid overlapping around edge of flat dish, with peas piled in center and sauce poured around.

=Carrots and String Beans--Excellent=

Equal quantities cooked string beans and carrots with cream or cream sauce. If preferred, the beans may be cooked whole and the carrots cut into strips.

=Carrots and Onions=

Pour hot cream over a mixture of stewed onions and carrots; heat and serve.

=Carrots and Beets=

Heat mixture for pickled carrots, add 1 part carrots and 2 parts beets; serve as soon as hot. Butter, lemon juice and salt may be used instead of the dressing.

=Carrots and Corn--Delightful=

To equal quantities of stewed carrots and corn add cream or thin rich cream sauce; heat, serve. If the corn is dried corn, especially dried yellow sweet corn, the dish is most delightful.

=Carrots and Succotash=

1 part each carrots and beans with 2 parts corn; season with cream or with milk and butter.

=Cauliflower=

While cauliflower is a delightfully delicate vegetable when properly cooked, it is easily rendered strong and disagreeable. It should be cooked until tender only, 15-25 m. in constantly boiling liquid, either slightly salted water, or milk and water (⅓ milk), salted. Tie loosely in cheese cloth or muslin to prevent any particles of scum from settling on it and to keep the flowerets whole, then drop into a sufficient quantity of rapidly boiling liquid to cover it.

It should not lose its snowy whiteness in cooking. 5 m. of over-cooking will ruin it. The milk helps to keep it white and gives it a richer flavor.

To serve whole, trim off the outside leaves, leaving the inside green leaves on, and cut the stalk close. When done, lay carefully in a round dish and pour sauce over or around it. If the head is a perfect one, do not cover its beauty with sauce.

Sauce 16, 18 or 75 or 34 plain or with lemon juice, are all suitable for the heads, and when broken into flowerets it is delightful with hot rich cream poured over it. Salt and oil, with or without lemon juice may also be used.

Nice perfect flowerets with Sauce Amèricaine or any suitable sauce may be used as a garnish for timbales and other true meat dishes.

For salad, let cooked cauliflower stand in cold water until ready to serve.

=Celery--Raw=

Trim off the coarse outside stalks, leaving about an inch of the root stalk; then cut the whole stalk into quarters or sixths from the bottom up, and throw into ice water until well crisped. If there should be dirt between the stalks it will be necessary to cut them off and brush each one separately with a vegetable brush. Throw the tender inside stalks into water to be served raw, and reserve the outside ones for cooking.

It is said that wilted celery may be restored to crispness by dipping into hot water or laying a few minutes in warm water, then plunging into ice water.

=Celery--Mint Sauce=

Cut tender stalks of celery across as fine as possible, cover with cold fresh mint sauce and serve in dainty cups with suitable true meat dishes.

=Celery--Stewed=

Cut tender stalks of celery (not those that are fit for flavoring only) into half-inch lengths, by handfuls on board with large knife. Put into boiling salted water and boil 30-35 m., or until just tender. Drain (there should not be much water left), pour cream or sauce over, let stand over hot water 10-20 m. Serve by itself or on toast. Sauce 16, plain, with a few drops of lemon juice in it, or made with half water in which the celery was cooked, or 34, 57 or 31 (when using 31, of course it should not stand over hot water) are all enjoyable with it.

=★ Celery in Tomato=

Stew celery as above in just enough water to cook, for 25 m. and have very little water, if any, remaining; then add enough strained or unstrained stewed tomato to nearly cover, and simmer until celery is tender and tomato cooked away a little. The combination of the flavors of celery and tomato is unusually fine. The addition just before serving of a little heavy cream makes the dish still more delicious.

=Chard--Swiss=

Swiss Chard or Spinach Beet, affords two distinct dishes from the same plant at one time. Strip the leafy part of the foliage from the stalk and cook as greens. Cook and serve the stalks the same as asparagus. The leaves and stalks may be cooked together as greens.

Young shoots of poke or scoke are sometimes served as “French Chard.”

=Corn--Green=

The earliest varieties of green corn are never very sweet. By far the richest and sweetest are the yellow kinds, though the dark purple or black almost equals them. There are also some medium or later varieties of white corn that are excellent.

Corn is at its best the day it is gathered. When not perfectly fresh, cook corn in almost any other way than on the cob. Never cook it in salted water as salt hardens it. Corn requires the least salt for seasoning of any vegetable.

=Corn--On the Cob=

Husk nice fresh corn and put it over the fire in cold water. When just at the boiling point, but not boiling, remove from the fire. Let it stand in the hot water where it will not boil until ready to serve.

Serve in a dish on a napkin covered with another napkin, or in a close covered dish, as a few moments’ exposure to the air toughens it. In eating, score each row with one tine of the fork so that the hulls will be left on the cob, unless you have a corn slitter.

=Corn--Boiled=

Put husked corn into boiling water and boil rapidly for 5-15 m., usually about 10 m., as that which requires 12-15 m. cooking is really too old to cook on the cob. Young, tender corn will cook in 5 m. Long boiling destroys the sweetness of corn and renders it tough.

=Corn--Steamed=

Wrap ears of corn in cheese cloth and steam for 15-20 m.

Hold the ear of corn with one hand and draw the slitter with slight pressure. Three or four strokes will slit every grain on the cob. It does not remove the corn from the cob but cuts the hull of every grain. The delicious corn is obtained with the slightest pressure of the teeth, leaving the hulls on the cob.

_To Prepare Corn for Muffins, Oysters, etc._--Slit the grains as described above, then, holding the slitter in the same position but elevating the hand use the front of the slitter as a scoop and push the corn into a dish.

=Corn--Baked, Boiled or Steamed in Husks=

Select nice tender ears of uniform size. Open the husks and remove the silk, then tie the husks close in place. A few of the heavy outside husks should be removed. Bake the ears in a _hot_ oven, separate from each other, 15-20 m., remove the husks quickly and serve covered.

Or prepare in the same way and after tying, cut off the stalk and point of the ear and boil rapidly for 10-12 m. or steam for 10-20 m. Serve in the husks on napkin. The husks give a sweet flavor to the corn and help to keep it warm when they are not removed before serving.

=Corn--Roasted--Best of All=

Place husked corn in wire broiler or large corn popper and hold close to bed of hot coals, or lay on gridiron over the coals, turning the ears as necessary. The ears may be laid on the coals when more convenient and turned often, or they may be roasted in a _very hot_ oven.

=Corn--Stewed=

If corn is quite old, grate the outside of each ear on a coarse grater and scrape out the remaining pulp with the back of a knife. Cook carefully in oiled saucepan on ring or asbestos pad, in a small quantity of water 8-12 m.; add sugar, to give the sweetness of young corn, salt and a little cream, cream sauce or butter. Heat, serve.

When corn is not too old, the nicest way to prepare it is to draw a knife down each row of kernels, then with a large sharp knife cut a thin shaving from each two rows and scrape the pulp from the cob with the back of a knife. Cook the part cut off in boiling water for 5 m., then add the pulp and cook carefully 5-8 m. longer. Season as for grated corn, omitting the sugar if corn is sweet.

=In Milk=--Cook either way in milk in double boiler 20-30 m., and season as desired.

=Corn--Baked=

Prepare corn in either of the ways given for stewed corn; add salt, sugar if necessary, and enough rich milk to cover. Bake in hot oven 15-20 m.

=Corn--Dried=

Cover dried corn ½ in. (or more) deep with warm water, let stand over night. In the morning set in warm place and shortly before serving time increase the heat gradually until it is about at the boiling point, but not boiling. Season with a little cream, milk or butter, or with cream of raw or steamed nut butter and salt; heat, serve.

Or, cover with warm water 1½-2 hours before meal time and keep hot (covered) on the back of the stove. Just before serving, season and heat just to boiling.

Or, best of all, cover quite deep with cold milk, let stand in cold place over night, cook in double boiler 1 hr. or longer, season, serve.

=Cucumbers=

The fruit of the cucumber vine “serves to introduce a large quantity of water into the system and is a refreshing addition to richer foods, especially in hot weather, when its crisp, cool succulence is peculiarly acceptable.”--_Church._

One unusually successful physician used to recommend cucumbers because they were “so crisp and easily digested.”

Cucumbers should be gathered in the early morning, laid in ice water for an hour or two, then kept in the ice box or on the cellar bottom until serving time. Or, when they come from the market, they should be put at once into ice water and kept in it until thoroughly refreshed. Cucumbers are nearly always left on the vines until they are too old. Many never know the delightful flavor of cucumbers in which the seeds are just formed but not developed.

=Cucumbers au Naturel=

Pare nice crisp cucumbers, cut in quarters lengthwise and serve on a flat dish, to be eaten with or without salt the same as celery. This is by far the most enjoyable way to serve cucumbers.

=Sliced Cucumbers=