VEGETABLES.
There is nothing in which the difference between an elegant and an
ordinary table is more seen than in the dressing of vegetables, more
especially greens. They may be equally as fine at first, at one place as
at another; but their look and taste are afterward very different,
entirely from the careless way in which they have been cooked.
They are in greatest perfection when in greatest plenty, _i. e._ when in
full season.
By season, I do not mean those early days, that luxury in the buyers,
and avarice in the sellers, force the various vegetables; but that time
of the year in which by nature and common culture, and the mere
operation of the sun and climate, they are in most plenty and
perfection.
Potatoes and pease are seldom worth eating before midsummer; unripe
vegetables are as insipid and unwholesome as unripe fruits.
As to the quality of vegetables, the middle size are preferred to the
largest or the smallest; they are more tender, juicy, and full of
flavour, just before they are quite full-grown. Freshness is their chief
value and excellence, and I should as soon think of roasting an animal
alive, as of boiling a vegetable after it is dead.
The eye easily discovers if they have been kept too long; they soon lose
their beauty in all respects.
Roots, greens, salads, &c. and the various productions of the garden,
when first gathered, are plump and firm, and have a fragrant freshness
no art can give them again, when they have lost it by long keeping;
though it will refresh them a little to put them into cold spring water
for some time before they are dressed.
To boil them in soft water will preserve the colour best of such as are
green; if you have only hard water, put to it a tea-spoonful of
_carbonate of potash_.[84-*]
Take care to wash and cleanse them thoroughly from dust, dirt, and
insects: this requires great attention. Pick off all the outside leaves,
trim them nicely, and, if not quite fresh gathered and have become
flaccid, it is absolutely necessary to restore their crispness before
cooking them, or they will be tough and unpleasant: lay them in a pan of
clean water, with a handful of salt in it, for an hour before you dress
them.
"Most vegetables being more or less succulent, their full proportion of
fluids is necessary for their retaining that state of crispness and
plumpness which they have when growing. On being cut or gathered, the
exhalation from their surface continues, while, from the open vessels of
the cut surface, there is often great exudation or evaporation; and thus
their natural moisture is diminished, the tender leaves become flaccid,
and the thicker masses or roots lose their plumpness. This is not only
less pleasant to the eye, but is a real injury to the nutritious powers
of the vegetable; for in this flaccid and shrivelled state its fibres
are less easily divided in chewing, and the water which exists in
vegetable substances, in the form of their respective natural juices, is
directly nutritious. The first care in the preservation of succulent
vegetables, therefore, is to prevent them from losing their natural
moisture."--_Suppl. to Edin. Encyclop._ vol. iv. p. 335.
They should always be boiled in a sauce-pan by themselves, and have
plenty of water; if meat is boiled with them in the same pot, they will
spoil the look and taste of each other.
If you wish to have vegetables delicately clean, put on your pot, make
it boil, put a little salt in it, and skim it perfectly clean before you
put in the greens, &c.; which should not be put in till the water boils
briskly: the quicker they boil, the greener they will be. When the
vegetables sink, they are generally done enough, if the water has been
kept constantly boiling. Take them up immediately, or they will lose
their colour and goodness. Drain the water from them thoroughly before
you send them to table.
This branch of cookery requires the most vigilant attention.
If vegetables are a minute or two too long over the fire, they lose all
their beauty and flavour.
If not thoroughly boiled tender, they are tremendously indigestible, and
much more troublesome during their residence in the stomach, than
under-done meats.[85-*]
To preserve or give colour in cookery, many good dishes are spoiled; but
the rational epicure who makes nourishment the main end of eating, will
be content to sacrifice the shadow to enjoy the substance. Vide _Obs._
to No. 322.
Once for all, take care your vegetables are fresh: for as the fishmonger
often suffers for the sins of the cook, so the cook often gets
undeservedly blamed instead of the green-grocer.
Vegetables, in this metropolis, are often kept so long, that no art can
make them either look or eat well.
Strong-scented vegetables should be kept apart; leeks, or celery, laid
among cauliflowers, &c. will quickly spoil them.
"Succulent vegetables are best preserved in a cool, shady, and damp
place.
"Potatoes, turnips, carrots, and similar roots, intended to be stored
up, should never be cleaned from the earth adhering to them, till they
are to be dressed.
"They must be protected from the action of the air and frost, by laying
them in heaps, burying them in sand or earth, &c., or covering them with
straw or mats.
"The action of frost destroys the life of the vegetable, and it speedily
rots."--_Suppl. to Edin. Encyclop._ vol. iv. p. 335.
MEM.--When vegetables are quite fresh gathered, they will not require so
much boiling, by at least a third of the time, as when they have been
gathered the usual time those are that are brought to public markets.
FOOTNOTES:
[84-*] Peàrlash is a sub-carbonate, and will answer the purpose. It is a
common article in the kitchen of the American housekeeper. A.
[85-*] "CAULIFLOWERS and other vegetables are often boiled only crisp to
preserve their beauty. For the look alone they had better not be boiled
at all, and almost as well for the use, as in this crude state they are
scarcely digestible by the strongest stomach. On the other hand, when
over-boiled, they become vapid, and in a state similar to decay, in
which they afford no sweet purifying juices to the body, but load it
with a mass of mere feculent matter."--_Domestic Management_, 12mo.
1813, p. 69.