=Purée of Sorrel.=--Pick over and wash the sorrel several times, add a
good handful of chervil, squeeze out any water, cook them for a moment
in boiling water, take them out, and put them into cold water; drain
again, then mince them up; put a piece of butter into a casserole with
the sorrel, a good pinch of flour, salt, and pepper, pour over a little
milk, and work in two or three eggs, well beaten, into the mixture
little by little; put it in a dish, and garnish with hard-boiled eggs.
=Stewed Sorrel.=--After washing and cleaning some sorrel, boil till
tender, then rub through a sieve, and put into a stewpan; add two
tablespoonfuls of Béchamel sauce, with a little salt and sugar, and
stew for a few minutes with one ounce of fresh butter, and serve.
=Sorrel Salad.=--Take the young leaves of sorrel, and after washing
them, dry them, and treat them as other vegetables for salads.
=Sorrel and Vermicelli Soups.= _See_ Soups.
SPINACH (_Spinacia oleracea. Chenopodiaceæ_).
In the small garden, spinach is chiefly of value as a late spring crop,
coming in between the late broccoli and the early peas, and it may be
treated as a catch-crop, sown from mid-February onwards till late March
between successive rows of peas, or in similar situations. Sown at the
same time as the peas, it will be well out of their way before they are
in pod, or even full blossom.
For spring use, the round-seeded variety is usually sown, but its
incurable habit of bolting into flower in hot soil or season induces
many good gardeners to grow the sturdier prickly seeded sort both
for spring and winter use. The seed should go into shallow drills,
and the plants be thinned to nine inches in the rows. Thin sowing is
recommended.
As a winter crop, prickly seeded spinach may be sown from mid-July to
the end of August. The rows should be in the open, and fifteen inches
apart, the plants thinned to six inches in the row. The earlier July
sowings will give spinach during the autumn; the later, early in the
spring or late in winter. As a rule, unless there be special liking for
this crop, the small garden will hardly accommodate it except to the
exclusion of more profitable and worthy subjects.
Spinach beet is a plant which will give many dishes of green stuff
through the winter, if the gardener care to find room for it. Sown in
April or March, where it is to stand, it should be in rows fifteen
inches apart, the plants thinned to three inches. The larger leaves are
gathered as required throughout winter and early spring, a succession
of leaves coming on to replace those removed. Here, again, is a subject
we scarce care to trouble to grow, but it has the merit of yielding
well over a long period, and may come in usefully if the winter frosts
have cut our brassicas about too cruelly.
=General Directions for Cooking Spinach.=--Spinach is apt to be
gritty, so that great care is needed in preparing it. The leaves should
be lifted out of the water and piled in a colander; in this way the
sand is left at the bottom of the bowl. Repeat the process in several
waters. Spinach shrinks very much in cooking, so that its bulk when
cooked is very small compared to what it was when raw.
Spinach contains so much water that none should be used in cooking it.
Take a gallon saucepan, and nearly fill it with well-washed spinach;
put it at the side of the range, and stir very frequently with a wooden
spoon. Soon the leaves will shrink, and enough liquid will have flowed
from them to cover the greens. Add a small teaspoonful of salt and a
piece of soda the size of a pea. Put on the lid, and let it simmer
slowly for half an hour. Drain and press well before serving. It may be
returned to the pan with a piece of butter and a sprinkle of pepper and
well shaken for a minute.
=Spinach Puff.=--Chop some cooked spinach very fine, or rub it through
a sieve, add a tablespoonful of butter melted, a little salt and pepper
to taste, and to a pint of vegetable use a cupful of cream, the beaten
yolks of two eggs, and the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs; mix
in the latter carefully after all the other ingredients. Turn into a
buttered dish, bake for twenty minutes in a hot oven. Serve in the dish
in which it is cooked.
=Creamy Spinach.=--Cook the spinach, press it in a strainer, and then
rub it through a wire sieve; put it into a saucepan, with a small piece
of butter, one tablespoonful of milk, or preferably cream, stir while
warming it up, add a little salt and pepper, and garnish with fried
croûtons. Poached eggs may be served with it.
=Sweet Spinach.=--Clean your spinach and wash it several times; put
in a good handful of chervil and a sprinkle of white pepper; let them
drain dry, cook them for a few minutes in boiling water; take them
out, and put them into cold water; drain them again dry, and chop them
finely, and simmer in a casserole with a good piece of butter for a
quarter of an hour. Add a very little salt and grated nutmeg and a
little sugar, moisten with cream, stir. Serve very hot on a dish with
fried croûtons and slices of hard-boiled eggs.
=Spinach Fritters.=--Chop finely or pass through a sieve one pound of
cooked spinach, season with salt and pepper, and add the yolk of one
egg, and sufficient bread-crumbs to make the mixture stiff. Form into
flat round cakes, dip into frying batter, and cook in boiling fat.
Serve with a garnish of scrambled eggs, or poached eggs.
=Spinach Soufflé.=--(1) Cook some spinach, rub it through a sieve, and
add two or three well-beaten eggs, and a small quantity of milk with
butter and salt. Mix it thoroughly, put it in a well-buttered soufflé
dish, and bake for ten minutes. This makes a simple, yet tasty entrée.
(2) Mix a cupful of cooked chopped spinach with the well-beaten yolk of
an egg, and stir over the fire until the egg is set. Cool, then fold in
the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs. Fill a buttered baking dish,
or individual soufflé dishes, and bake for a quarter of an hour. Serve
immediately.
(3) Mix two tablespoonfuls of chopped cooked spinach with the beaten
yolks of two eggs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, and salt and
pepper to season. Cool, mix with two or three tablespoonfuls of cream
and the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs. Turn into a buttered
baking dish and bake immediately. The cream may be omitted, and milk
used instead.
(4) Cook and chop a peck of spinach, add a well-beaten egg, a
tablespoonful of butter, salt, sugar, and pepper to season. Cool, add
two tablespoonfuls of cream. Mix thoroughly, and fold in the stiffly
beaten whites of two eggs. Put in a buttered baking dish, sprinkle with
sugar, cover for ten minutes, then uncover for five minutes, and serve
immediately.
STACHYS TUBERIFERA. _See_ Artichoke.
TOMATO (_Solanum Lycopersicum. Solanaceæ_).
The tomato, or love apple, is to be considered, for the small garden,
mainly an outdoor subject. It is useless to attempt to grow it without
glass in cold and backward districts, as it requires plenty of full
sunshine to bring it to perfection. Even in such a district, however, a
few plants put out by a south wall or fence may yield a good return; it
may also be fruited well, trained under the lights of a cold frame.
It is important to have well-grown and forward plants of an early
variety, ready to go out early in June. This is not difficult with
the aid of a hotbed and couple of frames; better still, add to these
requirements a cool house or glass-roofed tool-shed.
Select then such a variety as Sutton’s Earliest of All, and sow in
pots or pans, early in March, in the hotbed. Warmth and moisture will
soon bring the young plants up, and as soon as they are in their second
leaf, they must be potted off, into “sixty-four” size pots, with an
inch of last year’s hotbed at the bottom of the pots, and a nice
compost on top. The frame must be kept closed, or nearly so, until the
plants have taken hold. It may be found well to spread a newspaper
over the glass, to protect them from the effects of the full sun for a
couple of days. Thereafter the ordinary frame management will suit them
all right. In an astonishingly short time the pots will become full of
roots, and late in April it will be necessary to give them a second
shift. Without disturbing the roots, they must now go into four-inch
pots at least. Again some good stuff must be put in the bottom of the
pots, but the roots should not be placed directly upon it. They will
scarcely feel that they have been moved if it be skilfully done, and
they must be grown on with daily watering, as close to the glass as
possible. A third move is advised, about the twentieth of May, into
six-inch pots, and this time a slender stick must be placed to each
plant, and tied with bast. At this time those plants for which room
can be found in the greenhouse must go into the boxes they are to
fruit in. These boxes should be about a foot deep, a good layer of old
manure should be mixed in with the lower layer of soil, and the boxes
two-thirds filled with nice compost. As the season advances, this
leaves room for fresh earth to be added, with perhaps a touch of guano,
thus feeding the plants from above, and giving them fresh soil into
which they will root freely.
At the time of the last repotting the plants will be some fifteen
inches high, showing bud, and in many cases flower. They must still be
kept warm o’ nights, grown near the glass, and kept well watered. Many
gardeners put them out at the end of May without this third repotting,
but we are convinced that far less check, and far better results
follow, if the plants are kept growing on, until the 10th or 14th of
June, when the nights have become warm and genial, and the plants have
a bunch of fruit set.
When planting time comes, each plant should go out alongside fence
or wall, or along the paths, dodged in among the other crops. To
those in the open, where wall or fence does not afford support, stout
five-foot stakes must be provided. There must be no mistake about this;
the stakes are to be driven a good foot into the ground, as, if the
tomatoes go on well, they will have to support many pounds’ weight of
fruit. The tomatoes must be watered for a week or so after planting
out, and until rain has relieved the gardener from this duty, and the
plants have settled in.
As they grow the plants must be tied to the stakes, and the side
shoots be rubbed out twice a week. The aim is to keep the plants to
one stem carrying three good bunches of fruit. To facilitate watering
in dry weather, the plants should have been set in little cup-shaped
depressions in the ground. Be careful only to remove the axillary side
shoots, and not the flowering bunches, which are not axillary to a
leaf. This dis-budding is a pleasant enough job, except that the tomato
juice stains the fingers a deep orange; provide against this with
gloves or abundant soap and water.
At the beginning of August, when three good trusses of fruit are set
on each plant, nip out the top of the leader, and do not allow the
plants to grow any more or throw more flower. Force them to concentrate
their attention upon perfecting the fruit already set. Remove with
caution any leaves that overhang the fruit, and so intercept the full
sunlight, but do not by any means strip the leaves. It is unnecessary
to allow the fruit to completely ripen on the plants, but as soon as
they show colour they may be gathered and laid out in dryness and
cleanliness, under the lights of a frame or near the glass roof of the
tool-shed. This will save the plants a certain effort, and will promote
the interests of the fruit still coming towards maturity. When the
shorter days of September come in, and the sun perceptibly loses his
power, the remaining fruit may be gathered and hung up in bunches on
the stalks on which it grew, to come to what ripeness it may. At any
rate these bunches will provide good store of tomatoes to fry with the
morning bacon far into October.
If heat be available, seed sown in January and carried on in moderate
heat will give fruit in May. The autumn crop may also be prolonged,
but sun is needed to produce really ripe fruit, and it is questionable
whether the amateur is well advised in striving to grow tomatoes after
November has set in.