IN attempting to make out under the above heading, a list of receipts,
I have laid down my pen several times in sheer discouragement.
The number and variety of esculents supplied by the American
market-gardener would need for a just mention of each, a treatise
several times larger than our volume. I have, therefore, selected a few
of the vegetables in general use on our tables, and given the simplest
and most approved methods of preparing them.
As a preface I transcribe from “Common Sense in the Household” “RULES
APPLICABLE TO THE COOKING OF ALL VEGETABLES.”
Have them as fresh as possible.
Pick over, wash well, and cut out all decayed parts.
Lay them when peeled in _cold_ water before cooking.
If you boil them put a little salt in the water.
Cook steadily after you put them on.
Be sure they are thoroughly done.
_Drain well._
Serve hot!
Potatoes (boiled).
Pare them thin with a sharp knife. The starch or meal lies, in greatest
quantities, nearest to the skin. Lay in clean cold water for one hour,
if the potatoes are newly gathered. Old potatoes should be left in
the water for several hours. If very old, they will be the better for
soaking all night. New potatoes require half an hour for boiling, and
the skins are rubbed off with a coarse cloth before they are cooked.
Those stored for winter use should be boiled forty-five minutes.
Wipe each dry before dropping them into a kettle of boiling water, in
which has been mixed a heaping tablespoonful of salt.
Boil steadily until a fork will go easily into the largest.
Turn off the water by tipping the pot over on its side in the sink,
holding the top on with a thick cloth wrapped about your hand, and
leaving room at the lowest edge of the cover for the water to escape,
but not for a potato to slip through.
Set the pot uncovered on the range; sprinkle a tablespoonful of salt
over the potatoes, shaking the pot as you do this, and leave it where
they will dry off, but not scorch, for five minutes.
Mashed Potatoes.
Boil as directed in last receipt, and when the potatoes have been dried
off, remove the pot to the sink, or table, break and whip them into
powder with a four-tined fork, or a split spoon. When fine, add a great
spoonful of butter, whipped in thoroughly, salting to taste as you go
on.
Have ready a cup of milk _almost_ boiling, and beat in until the potato
is soft and smooth.
Heap in a deep dish for the table.
Onions (boiled).
Remove the outer layers until you reach the sleek, silvery, crisp
skins. Cook in plenty of boiling, salted water, until tender. Forty
minutes should be sufficient, unless the onions are very old and large.
Turn off all the water; add a cupful from the tea-kettle with one of
warm milk and stew gently ten minutes.
Heat, meanwhile, in a saucepan, half a cupful of milk with a large
tablespoonful of butter.
Drain the onions in a hot _clean_ colander, turn them into a heated
deep dish, salt and pepper lightly, and pour the boiling milk and
butter over them.
Onions cooked thus are not nearly so rank of flavor as when boiled in
but one water.
Tomatoes (stewed).
Put ripe tomatoes into a pan, pour boiling water directly from the
kettle, upon them, and cover closely for five minutes. The skins will
then come off easily.
When all are peeled, cut them up, throwing away the unripe parts and
the cores, and put them into a clean saucepan with half a teaspoonful
of salt.
Stew twenty minutes before adding a heaping tablespoonful of butter,
one teaspoonful of white sugar (for a dozen large tomatoes) and a
little pepper. Stew gently fifteen minutes, and serve.
Scalloped Tomatoes.
Scald, skin, and cut each crosswise, into two or three pieces. _Just_
melt a teaspoonful of butter in a pie-plate, or pudding-dish, and put
into this a layer of tomatoes. Lay a bit of butter on each slice,
sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper, and white sugar, and cover with
fine dry cracker, or bread crumbs. Fill the dish with alternate layers
of tomato crumbs, having a thick coating of crumbs on the top, and
sticking tiny “dabs” of butter all over it.
Bake, covered, half an hour. Take off the tin pan, or whatever you have
used to keep in the steam, and brown nicely before sending to table.
Beets.
Wash well, taking care not to scratch the skin, as they will “bleed”
while in cooking if this is cut or broken.
Cook in boiling water an hour and a half if young, three, four or five
hours as their age increases.
Drain, scrape off the skins, slice quickly with a sharp knife; put into
a vegetable dish, and pour over them a half a cupful of vinegar, with
two tablespoonfuls of butter, heated to boiling, and a little salt and
pepper.
Let them stand three minutes covered in a warm place before serving.
Green Peas.
Shell and leave in very cold water fifteen minutes. Cook in plenty of
boiling, salted water. They should be done in half an hour.
Shake gently in a hot colander to get rid of the water; turn into a
heated deep dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir in fast and
lightly _with a fork_, two tablespoonfuls of butter.
Eat while hot.
String Beans.
Do not cook these at all unless you are willing to take the trouble of
“stringing” them.
With a small sharp knife cut off the stem and blossom-tips, then trim
away the tough fibres from the sides carefully, and cut each bean into
inch-lengths.
Lay in cold water for half an hour. Cook one hour in salted boiling
water, or until the beans are tender.
Drain, butter and season as you would peas.
String beans half-trimmed and cut into slovenly, unequal lengths are a
vulgar-looking, unpopular dish. Prepared as I have directed, they are
comely, palatable and wholesome.
Squash.
Pare, quarter, take out the seeds, and lay in cold water for half an
hour.
Boil in hot salted water thirty minutes for summer squash; twice as
long if the “Hubbard” or other varieties of winter squash are used.
Take up piece by piece, and squeeze gently in a clean cloth, put back
into the empty dried pot, and mash quickly and smoothly with a wooden
spoon.
Stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter for one large squash, or two
small ones.
Season with pepper and salt; heat and stir until smoking hot, then dish
and serve.
Cauliflower.
Trim off leaves and cut the stalk short.
Lay in ice-cold water for half an hour.
Tie it up in a bit of white netting.
Put into a clean pot, cover _deep_ with salted boiling
water.
Boil steadily, not hard, one hour and ten minutes.
Before taking it from the fire, put a cupful of boiling water in a
saucepan.
Wet a heaping teaspoonful of corn-starch with cold water, and stir into
the boiling until it thickens. Then add two tablespoonfuls of butter,
and when this is well stirred in, the strained juice of a lemon.
Remove the net from the cauliflower, lay in a deep dish, and pour over
it the drawn butter made by the addition of the lemon juice into _sauce
tartare_.
Egg Plant.
Slice it crosswise, and about an inch thick; lay in strong salt water
for one hour with a plate on the topmost slice to keep it under the
brine.
This will draw out the bitter taste.
Put a cupful of pounded crackers into a flat dish and season with salt
and pepper.
Beat the yolks of two eggs in a shallow bowl. Wipe each slice of the
egg plant _dry_, dip it in the egg, and roll it over and over in the
crumbs. Have ready heated in a frying-pan, some sweet lard, and fry the
vegetables in it to a fine brown.
As each slice is done, lay it in a hot colander set in the open oven,
that every drop of grease may be dried off. Serve on a hot platter.
Spinach.
Wash very carefully, leaf by leaf, to get rid of sand and dust. Lay
in very cold water until you are ready to cook it. Boil forty-five
minutes; drain in a colander and chop _fine_ in a wooden tray. Beat
then three great tablespoonfuls of butter (this for a peck of spinach),
a teaspoonful of white sugar, and half as much salt, with a little
pepper. Whip all to a soft green mass and return to the empty pot.
As you stir it over the fire add a cupful of rich milk—cream, if you
have it—whip up hard and turn into a deep dish.
Cut two hard-boiled eggs into thin slices, and lay in order on the
spinach when dished.
12