=Carrot Pudding.=--One pound of boiled carrots, half their bulk in
bread-crumbs, two eggs, pepper and salt, two ounces of butter, and some
white sauce. Boil the carrots till soft, chop them small, rub them
through a sieve, add the bread-crumbs and butter and eggs sufficient
to bind the whole together, with seasoning to taste. If eggs are not
used, a couple of teaspoonfuls of flour and a little milk should be put
in. Butter a pudding basin, put in the mixture, steam for two hours
according to size. Turn out the pudding, and serve with white sauce
poured round it.
=Carrot Soufflé.=--Take a quarter of a pound of boiled carrots,
rub through a sieve, add a tablespoonful of Parmesan cheese, two
tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce, and some butter and seasoning, and
mix well together. Place in soufflé dishes, sprinkle with butter and
bread-crumbs and brown in the oven.
=Carrots sauté à la Française.=--Scrape and wash a dozen young carrots,
cover with cold salted water, and boil until tender. Drain and fry
brown in butter, adding a pinch of sugar. Season with salt and pepper,
sprinkle with minced parsley and lemon juice if desired, and serve very
hot.
=Spring Carrots.=--Trim and scrape two bunches of spring carrots.
Parboil for ten minutes in salted water to cover. Drain and rinse
in cold water. Put into a deep baking dish, with two tablespoonfuls
each of butter and sugar, and two cupfuls of milk or vegetable stock.
Cover and cook slowly, until tender. Drain, reduce the liquid by rapid
boiling, and thicken with a little flour, and season; pour over the
carrots, and serve.
=Carrot Soup.=--Put eight or ten finely sliced carrots, one onion,
two heads of celery sliced, five ounces of fresh white haricot beans,
four ounces of butter, and salt and pepper to taste, in a saucepan.
Cook over a slow fire for one hour, and stir from time to time. Then
add about three pints of good stock, boil one and a half hours, and rub
through a sieve. Add half an ounce of sugar, and serve with croûtons
(fried bread). If too thick, add a little stock at intervals.
=Boiled Carrots.=--Cook peeled and sliced carrots in salted boiling
water to cover, for one hour and a half or less, according to age and
size of the carrots. Drain, and serve with melted butter.
=Stewed Carrots.=--(1) Cook a quart of very young carrots, cut into
dice, in boiling salted water until tender, and drain. Thicken the
cooking liquid with flour rolled in butter. Season with pepper and
sugar, reheat the carrots in the sauce, and serve.
(2) Parboil a bunch of carrots, drain, and cut into dice. Put into
a saucepan with two small onions chopped, pepper, salt, and minced
parsley to season, and enough drawn butter to moisten. Simmer for half
an hour, and serve.
(3) Wash and scrape whole carrots, and soak them for half an hour in
cold water. Drain and cook for forty-five minutes in salted water to
cover. Drain, cut into thin slices or dice, and cook for half an hour
in stock to cover, season with pepper and salt. Add four tablespoonfuls
of cream or milk and a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour. Bring
to the boil and serve. Water may be used instead of stock if another
tablespoonful of butter is added.
=Carrots Stewed in Cream.=--Wash and slice enough carrots to make two
cupfuls. Simmer until nearly tender in stock to cover. Add a cupful of
cream, thicken with a tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, season
with salt and pepper, and serve.
=Carrots Sauté.=--Cut scraped spring carrots into thin slices, and
cook until tender in water to cover. Drain and reheat in butter,
seasoning with sugar, pepper, and salt. Do not allow the carrots to
fry. Sprinkle with minced parsley and powdered chervil before serving.
The chervil may be omitted.
=Barley Soup and Carrots.=--Take half a cup of pearl barley, three
tomatoes, three small carrots, three small onions, one potato, one
teaspoonful of brown sugar. Put three pints of water into a saucepan,
add the barley, the sugar, and the tomatoes peeled and cut into small
pieces. Stew gently for four hours, adding more water if necessary. Cut
into small dice the three small carrots and the three small onions, fry
with darlene or other vegetable fat to a golden brown, add to the soup
one large potato cut into dice about half an hour before serving, also
the fried vegetables.
=Carrot Croquettes.=--Boil some carrots till tender in two waters.
Mash them smooth, add a beaten egg, a large spoonful of melted butter,
pepper and salt to taste, and set the paste aside to become cool enough
to handle. Form into croquettes with the hands; egg, and roll into fine
crumbs, let them stand in a cool place half an hour, and fry in deep
fat to a good brown.
=Carrots and Peas.=--Cook separately until tender, diced young carrots
and green peas. Drain, mix, and season with salt and pepper, reheat in
white, Béchamel, or cream sauce, or melted butter.
=Compôte of Young Carrots and Green Peas.=--Clean and cut into dice
just enough carrots to make two cupfuls. Cook until tender in salted
water, drain, and reserve half a cupful of the carrot liquid; mix the
carrots with an equal quantity of cooked green peas, sprinkle with two
tablespoonfuls of flour, add two tablespoonfuls of butter, salt and
pepper and sugar to season, add half a cupful of carrot liquid and half
a cupful of stock, or use a cupful of either. Cook until smooth and
thick, stirring constantly. Sprinkle with minced parsley, and serve.
Carrots and peas may also be served with a sweet or sour sauce.
=Carrots and Asparagus.=--Reheat in milk, or white stock, equal
quantities of sliced cooked carrot, and cooked asparagus cut into small
pieces. Thicken with flour, and add the yolk of an egg well beaten.
Season with salt, pepper, butter, and minced parsley.
=Carrot Timbâles.=--Cook four peeled and sliced carrots until tender
in stock to cover. Drain and mash, add two eggs well-beaten, salt,
pepper, and grated onion to season, and a tablespoonful of cream; mix
thoroughly. Put into small buttered timbâle moulds, stand them in a
baking pan half full of boiling water, cover with buttered paper, and
bake for twenty minutes, and turn out carefully, and surround the
border with cooked peas, and serve.
=Stewed Carrots.=--Take two dozen small carrots, wash and scrape them,
and put into a saucepan with one ounce of loaf sugar, two onions, a
bunch of sweet herbs, and a bay leaf, add a few spoonfuls of vegetable
broth, and stew until the carrots are tender. Remove the carrots,
strain the stock over them, add two tablespoonfuls of cream, make it
hot, and pour this over the carrots, and serve.
=Carrots à la Flamande.=--Trim a bunch of young carrots, cover with
boiling water, and let them stand for five minutes. Drain, rub off the
skins with a coarse cloth, cut them into thin slices, and cook until
tender in a cupful of water, with a tablespoonful of butter, salt and
pepper to season. Take from the fire and add the yolks of two eggs,
well beaten, with a cupful of cream and a tablespoonful of minced
parsley. Heat gradually until smooth and thick, stirring constantly,
but do not let it boil. Serve as soon as the sauce is smooth. A little
sugar and grated nutmeg may be added, and half a cupful of cream and
milk used.
=Carrots à la Lilloise.=--Peel, and cut into very thin slices two
bunches of spring carrots, put into a saucepan with salted boiling
water to cover. Add a teaspoonful or more of sugar and a tablespoonful
of butter, cover, and cook for half an hour. Add the yolks of three
eggs beaten with half a cupful of cream, a tablespoonful of butter
broken into small pieces, and heat slowly until the sauce is smooth and
thick. Sprinkle with minced parsley before serving.
=Carrots à la Majestic.=--Cut, peel, and trim some carrots into fancy
shapes with French vegetable cutters. Cook in butter without burning.
Moisten from time to time with water seasoned with pepper and salt and
powdered sugar. Before serving add a little melted butter and sprinkle
with minced parsley.
=Carrots in White Sauce.=--Boil one dozen small French carrots in
salted water until tender. Drain, cut into thin slices and sauté in
butter, and heat in white sauce; season with mace and add a cupful of
cooked green peas, and serve very hot.
CAULIFLOWER DISHES.--For culture, see under Cabbage.
=Cauliflower Boiled.=--Cauliflowers should be cut just before using, so
that they may be quite crisp. All the leaves but the small ones close
to the flower should be discarded, as the flavour of the coarser leaves
would taint the delicacy of the flower.
Let them stand, head downwards, in strong salted water for half an hour
before boiling; by this means caterpillars will be cleared out. Have
a large saucepan of boiling water, with a tablespoonful of salt and a
piece of soda the size of a pea. Put the cauliflowers in, and when the
water boils up, draw to one side and partially remove the lid to let
the fumes escape, otherwise the flavour will not be so delicate. Time
required, twenty minutes to half an hour, according to the size of the
cauliflower.
Lift out by thrusting a fork through the thick part of the stalk and
place carefully on a hot drainer in a hot dish. The flower should be
unbroken. Pour over a rich white sauce, and serve.
=Cauliflower au Gratin.=--Prepare and boil as above, then put the
cauliflower in a hot baking dish and cover with grated Parmesan cheese,
put in the oven for a few minutes till the cheese is melted.
=Cauliflower Salad.=--Boil a cauliflower (having first removed the
outside leaves), in salt water and let it get cold. Cut in pieces
with a silver knife and place in a salad bowl. Take the yolks of two
hard-boiled eggs, mix with salt and pepper to taste, and smooth with
a wooden spoon, then add three tablespoonfuls of oil and three of
vinegar, drop by drop, beating with the back of the spoon all the time.
Mix well, and pour over the cauliflower. This salad requires more
vinegar than others.
=Baked Cauliflower.=--(1) Take two cauliflowers, trim off the outer
leaves, and wash thoroughly and boil in milk and water for twenty
minutes, then drain. Mix two ounces of Parmesan cheese with two eggs
and some bread-crumbs. Season well with pepper and salt, cut the
cauliflower into four pieces, dip each piece into well-beaten egg and
roll in the mixture of cheese and bread-crumbs, bake in a warm oven for
ten minutes; a little white sauce may be poured over. Serve very hot.
=Baked Cauliflower à la Béchamel.=--Boil a cauliflower in salted water
for half an hour. Drain and break into bits. Put a layer of cauliflower
into a pie dish and cover with Béchamel or alla Panna sauce. Sprinkle
with some grated cheese. Fill the dish with alternate layers of
cauliflower and sauce, and cover the top with bread-crumbs. Spread with
grated cheese and bits of butter. Bake in a moderate oven for half an
hour. Serve hot.
=Timbâle of Cauliflower.=--After removing all the leaves, boil a large
cauliflower in salted water to cover, adding a tablespoonful of salt
to the water. Cook until soft, drain, and press through a sieve. Soak
two cupfuls of fresh bread-crumbs in milk, squeeze dry, press the
cauliflower through a sieve. Mix the crumbs with the cauliflower, add
the yolks of three eggs well beaten, a tablespoonful of butter melted,
salt and pepper to season, and the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs.
Butter a mould, pour the purée into it, cover, and cook in boiling
water nearly to the height of the mould for forty-five minutes. Turn
out carefully on a serving dish, pour over it a rich cream sauce, and
serve.
=Mashed Cauliflower.=--(1) Separate a cauliflower into florets and cook
in boiling salted water until tender--not more than ten minutes. Drain,
press through a sieve, season with salt, pepper, and butter, and a
little cream or milk, reheat, and serve.
(2) Boil and separate two heads of cauliflower. Fry a teaspoonful of
chopped onion in butter and press through a sieve with the cauliflower.
Moisten with cream sauce, season with salt and sugar, and reheat,
adding a little cream if it is too thick.
=Cauliflower à la Hongroise.=--Prepare according to directions given
for Boiled Cauliflower (1). Drain, separate into florets, and arrange
in a buttered baking dish. Chop a small onion finely and fry it in
butter with four tablespoonfuls of stale bread-crumbs. Cook until
brown, spread over the cauliflower, and serve immediately.
=Cauliflower à la Parisienne.=--Boil a large cauliflower until
tender, drain, chop, and press hard into a buttered mould. Turn out
on to a dish that will stand the heat of the oven. Cook together a
tablespoonful each of butter and flour, add two cupfuls of stewed and
strained tomatoes, and cook until thick, stirring constantly. Season
with salt, pepper, and grated onion. Add enough cracker-crumbs to make
the sauce very thick. Spread over the cauliflower, put it into a hot
oven for ten minutes, and serve.
=Escalloped Cauliflower.=--Boil until tender, separate into small
pieces and pack stems downward in a buttered baking dish, or use
the cauliflower unbroken. Mix with a cupful of bread-crumbs, two
tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and enough cream or milk to moisten,
pepper and salt to season, and one egg well beaten. Spread over the
cauliflower, cover, and bake for six minutes, then uncover and brown.
Serve in the same dish.
=Cauliflower in Cheese Shell.=--Use an Edam cheese shell from which the
cheese has been scooped out. Fill with creamed cauliflower, sprinkle
with cheese, and bake on a tin until thoroughly hot. Buttered crumbs
may be spread over the top if desired.
=Cauliflower in Crusts.=--Cut the tops from stale rolls, scoop out
the crumbs, and toast or fry the shells thus made. Fill with creamed
cauliflower, and serve hot.
=Baked Cauliflower.=--(2) Boil a cauliflower, drain it, and put it
in a baking pan. Put two ounces of butter and one ounce of flour
into a saucepan, boil it, add three-quarters of a pint of milk, stir
it continually, add a bay leaf, a little chopped parsley, salt, and
pepper, and stand it in a bain-marie for ten minutes; take out the
bay leaf, pour the sauce over the cauliflower, sprinkle it with
bread-crumbs, add some bits of fresh butter, and bake it in a very hot
oven for a quarter of an hour.
=Cauliflower with Mushroom Sauce.=--Cook cauliflower (see Boiled
Cauliflower) and dish on slices of toast. Have ready the following
sauce: Six mushrooms finely chopped, a little pepper and salt. Put two
ounces of butter in a saucepan, put in the mushrooms, draw to one side,
and simmer slowly for ten minutes or till quite tender, stir in one
tablespoonful of flour, add half a pint of milk or vegetable stock.
Stir till smooth and until it bubbles free from the side of the pan,
then if liked one tablespoonful of cream or one yolk of egg may be
added, after the saucepan is off the fire. Pour over the cauliflower,
and serve.
CELERY (_Apium graveolens. Umbellifercæ_).
Celery is a subject worth much care and attention. We prefer the
smaller, better-flavoured varieties such as Sulham prize pink or
Clayworth prize pink. These are both excellent sorts; the second is
rather larger and does not stand the winter quite so well, but they
are both infinitely superior to the great gross sticks grown for the
market. Further, we are of opinion that early celery is scarcely worth
eating, the plant needing the effect of frost to develop its clean
crispness to the uttermost.
Nevertheless, as folk will have early celery the gardener must sow an
early variety in heat in February. The seedlings need tender handling,
and must be pricked into rich compost four inches distant as soon as
they are large enough to handle. Move them into a cold frame and keep
them growing on with plenty of air and moisture, and gradually harden
them off, plant them in their trenches early as possible in May, keep
them well watered, begin to earth up in July and complete the operation
about the middle of August, and dig in September as required.
The main crop should be sown in the frame late in March, the plants put
out and hardened off as above, and planted in the trenches in June and
July. The latest crop of all may be sown in April, treated in the same
way, and pricked out in the open six inches apart on a rich, not too
sunny bed, and finally transferred to the trench quite late in July.
For large varieties the trenches should be quite five feet from centre
to centre; for smaller sorts four feet is a minimum distance. The
trench should be eighteen inches wide at the top and about fifteen at
the bottom. In a trench this width there will be two rows of plants a
foot apart in the row, the plants being placed W fashion. Many prefer
a single row, in which case the trench need be but a foot wide at the
bottom. For the main crop the trenches should be two spades deep, for
the smaller early sorts and for the late varieties half this depth will
be better; in the latter case the roots will stand well above the level
between the trenches after earthing up, an important consideration, as
dryness is thereby promoted and the plants will better withstand winter
damp and frost. A liberal supply (quite three inches) of manure should
be dug deeply into the bottom of the trench before planting; it should
be well trodden, and a top-dressing of soot applied. The celery plants
must be carefully lifted with a trowel, a few at a time, so as to avoid
a check, any side shoots must be trimmed off, and any blotched leaves,
and they must be carefully and firmly planted in the trench. A thorough
soaking of water must be given immediately after planting, whether it
is raining or not.
Celery must be kept well watered through dry weather, and water in
which soot has been soaking must be sprinkled through a rose at least
once a week, in order to check the celery fly. The attack of the celery
fly will cause leaves to blister and turn brown in blotches; these
blisters contain a maggot and must be picked off and burned.
The first earthing up of main crop celery is done in dry weather, late
in August. The plants should be lightly tied together with bast; any
side shoots must be removed and the trench weeded. With the spade chop
down the sides of the trench and draw the earth up to the celery to the
height of about six inches. This earthing up must be repeated two or
three times at intervals of about ten days; the bast should be cut away
as it will interfere with the growth of the plant if left tied. Great
care must be exercised to prevent any grains of earth trickling down
into the heart of the plant.
When finished, the earth should come well up to the neck of the plant
and the ridge be neatly finished off with rather sloping top in order
to throw off the winter wet. During frost a covering of dry fern laid
along the top of the ridge will very greatly help to prevent the plants
from rotting.