About the same as for the fish--a moderate oven, so you can put your
hand in and count, say fifteen, quickly. It takes from half an hour to
three-quarters to bake the dumplings. Be careful not to brown them. If
the pastry seems to be browning before the apples get done,--and
something will depend upon the kind of apples you use,--cover the pastry
with a buttered paper. The object of the egg on the dumplings is to make
them a little glossy. Use either butter, or egg, or water for brushing
over the tops.
STEAMED APPLE DUMPLINGS.
For steamed dumplings usually a suet crust is used. You could use this
crust if you wanted to, but it would not be sure to be light. It might
possibly absorb a little of the steam. For suet crust you would use half
a pound of suet chopped very fine, a teaspoonful of salt and a pound of
flour. Mix carefully the flour and suet and salt with enough cold water
to make a pastry just soft enough to roll out. Roll it out about a
quarter of an inch thick, and then cut it in little squares; prepare the
apples just as I prepare them for the baked dumpling; instead of folding
the crust up and leaving the corners open, pat it with your hands so
that you entirely inclose the apple. Just roll the pastry out once and
then inclose the apples in it, and put the dumpling into the steamer;
that is, an ordinary tin steamer; set over a pot of boiling water and
steam the dumplings until they are done. You must decide that by running
a trussing needle or knitting needle through the pastry into the apple.
It may take an hour and a half to steam the dumplings; be sure they are
done.
For another kind of pastry that has been described to me by enthusiastic
gentlemen who used to have mothers, a kind of pastry "that melted in
your mouth;" it is very easy to make that; not a flaky pastry, but a
soft, exceedingly tender pastry that really crumbles. To do that you
simply rub all of the shortening into the flour. Half a pound of
shortening and a pound of flour; put the shortening into the flour with
the salt; rub them with your hands till you have the shortening
thoroughly mixed with the flour. It looks like meal; the ingredients
must be thoroughly mixed, but not melted together; then use just enough
cold water to make the pastry, and roll it out just once, and use it; be
sure to keep it cool.
_Question._ Did you say an hour and a half for steamed dumpling?
MISS CORSON. It will take nearly that, but you must try them; try them
at the end of an hour. For the dumpling you can use one of the sauces I
told you of yesterday morning, white cream sauce, or you can use simply
powdered sugar, or powdered sugar mixed with a little cinnamon. You can
use a hard sauce, which is butter and sugar mixed together in equal
quantities, with any flavoring you like.
FRIED BEEFSTEAK.
That is supposed to be the great abomination of American cooking, so
that we are going now to see whether it can not be nearly as nicely
fried as broiled. It seems a heresy, but it is true, and there are very
many occasions where it is not possible to broil in an ordinary kitchen;
the fire may not be good, or uncovering it may cool the oven. There is a
very important secret in frying beefsteak, or chops, and that is to have
the pan hot before you put the meat into it. It doesn't make any
difference what kind of a pan you use. Use the ordinary iron frying pan,
the old-fashioned spider, or dripping pan, if you wish to; but have the
pan hot; have the pan hot enough to sear the outside of the meat
directly it touches it; after the pan is hot put the beefsteak, or
chops--because they are both cooked in the same way--into the hot pan.
If the meat is entirely lean, if there is not a particle of fat on it,
you may put not more than half a teaspoonful of butter in the pan; run
it quickly over the bottom of the pan. But I never saw meat yet so lean,
unless the fat was all trimmed off, that there was not fat enough to
cook any chop or steak. The portion of fat you will usually find on meat
is about one-third, unless you take the meat from the short loin; that
is called the porterhouse, or tenderloin steak. In that case you have an
excess of fat; there is more than one-third, reckoning in the kidney
fat, or suet. You may cut away some of the fat, unless the butchers have
cut it away. The butcher has already cut it away from this piece, and,
by the way, I notice that Minneapolis butchers cut a very long and thin
steak. Now I would not advise the cooking, broiling or frying of that
thin end. I would rather buy two steaks of that kind and cut off that
and use it for stewing, because it would stew very nicely; broiled it
will be rather tough.
As my frying pan is small I am going to cut the steak short. These
steaks are cut too thin. A beefsteak to be nice should be over an inch
thick--an inch and a half thick. You can easily economise on a thick
steak by simply cutting it in halves, and using only as much of it as
you want at once, because in almost any weather steak will keep at least
over night. Have it too thick rather than too thin. Have it just the
thickness you want and then cut it in two, using part only if you only
need part of it. Trim off the outside skin, the tough skin; scrape the
steak to make sure that there are no particles of bone on it. That bone,
of course, comes in sawing the steak. Cut off the cartilage at the top
of the steak, otherwise the steak may curl up. Have your pan hot enough
to make it sear. Put the steak in and brown it quickly, first on one
side and then on the other. In turning the steak run a knife or fork
under it and lift it. Don't stick a fork into it, because by doing that
you make little holes in the fibre of the steak and so let the juice
escape.
_Question._ Will you pound your steak?
MISS CORSON. No, decidedly not; that lets out the juice. You make little
holes in the steak if you stick a fork into it, and by pounding you let
the juice out. Now, you want to keep all the juice in the steak, all the
juice that you can; so that, in turning the steak simply lift it with a
fork or knife and turn it over; when it is brown on both sides push the
frying pan back toward the back part of the fire, and finish cooking it
until it is done to your taste. After it is brown on one side, turn it
over; and then, after that, you can turn it once or twice; the frequent
turning does not make any difference after you have got it browned on
both sides and you can keep all the juice in. Turn it as soon as it is
brown at first; have the hottest kind of a fire; get it brown on the
under side as fast as you can; don't be afraid of burning it; then turn
it over and brown it on the other side; after that you can turn it as
often as you please. Some people like their steak rare, some medium
rare, and some well done. To test steak, do not cut into it to see if it
is done, but press your finger on it, on the substance of the steak. If
you do that quickly you won't burn your finger. As long as the steak is
very rare the fibre of the meat will be elastic, and directly you take
your finger up the fibre will press up again; there will be no dent
there. When it is medium rare just a little dent will remain from the
pressure, because the fibre is less elastic. When it is well done you
can press on it and make a little hollow that will stay there. Do not
season the meat until after it is done; don't put salt on any meat
before cooking; you draw out the juice by salting it.
Now for the seasoning of the steak. I have already said that to apply
salt to the cut fibre of meat will be sure to draw out the juice, so
that you do not want to season a steak until it is done. When it is done
season it with salt, pepper and butter. The quantities you use depend
upon the taste. That rule applies whether steak is broiled or fried. On
that plate you will see the drippings, all that was in the frying pan.
There is no juice of the meat there; it is simply browned fat. Whatever
juice there was in the meat is still there. Broiled steak is cooked on
precisely the same principle. It is to be put just as near the fire as
you can get it. After the broiled steak is browned on one side and then
on the other, just as fast as you can brown it; don't be afraid of
burning it; you need to watch it; then move it away from the fire, and
let it cook as much as you like. Test it in the same way I told you to
test fried steak. When it is done put it on a hot dish; put butter,
pepper and salt on it, and serve it hot.
_Question._ What do you do when the fat drops in the fire and blazes?
MISS CORSON. Of course it will do that, but that will help brown the
steak. If it is possible to broil under the fire it is very much nicer.
Sometimes the front of the stove is so arranged that you can let it down
and run the gridiron under it; before you begin to broil over the fire
you can get the top of the fire very red and clear by throwing a little
salt upon it; that will help to destroy the odor. If the meat is frozen
you should put it in cold water to thaw before cooking it; you can not
avoid in that case washing the meat. To return to the matter of pounding
steak: If you pound or break the fibre of meat in any way you let the
juice escape; that makes the meat dry.
_Question._ What do you say to the notion that so many have, that
pounding the meat makes it tender?
MISS CORSON. You do nothing but break the fibre and save yourself the
trouble of chewing the steak. To encourage laziness it is a very good
idea. But remember, if you drive the juice out of the steak by pounding
you destroy its nutriment. You need the juice in the steak. Now, there
is a remedy for the toughness of steak, which I can give you, depending
upon whether you like salad oil. If you do not, you ought to learn to,
because it is one of the most nutritious and purest of the fats when it
is perfectly good. Good sweet salad oil is preferable to any animal or
vegetable fat for purposes of nutriment. There is no reason why you
should not use salad oil on the score of health. A great many people
object to it; they do not like the idea; they think it is rather
foreign, and to some people it is distasteful, but they have very strong
memories of childhood and another kind of oil. You know even that kind
of oil in these days does not taste badly. Olive oil, the peanut oil, or
lard oil, when they are fresh and sweet, are very desirable. To soften
the fibre of the meat with vinegar and salad oil put on the platter
about three tablespoonfuls of salad oil, and half a teacupful of vinegar
and a pinch of pepper; no salt. Put these on the platter; then lay the
raw steak on the platter, and let it stand at least an hour; then turn
it over and let it stand another hour. The longer you can let it stand,
if it is in the daytime, turning it over every hour, the tenderer you
will make it. The vinegar makes the fibre of the meat tender, and the
oil keeps it so. That is, the vinegar softens the fibre of the meat and
the oil keeps it soft. If you want to prepare it for over night put it
in the oil and vinegar about 6 o'clock, about supper time, and let it
stand till bed time, then turn it over, and let it stand till morning.
When you come to cook the steak do not wipe the oil and vinegar off;
simply let what will run off, and then lay the meat on the gridiron and
broil it, or fry it; there will be no taste perceptible if the oil is
good.
CARAMEL FOR COLORING SOUP.
A heaping tablespoonful of common brown sugar if you have it; if not,
use any kind of sugar; put it in the frying pan and stir it until it is
dark brown; that is, until it is on the point of burning; see that it
browns evenly. Then put in a tablespoonful of water, either hot or
cold--it does not make any difference; stir that until it is mixed with
the sugar; then another tablespoonful, until you have used about half a
cupful of water. If you should pour the water all in at once the sugar
would simply boil over and burn you. Use about half a cupful of water,
adding it gradually, and stirring until the burnt sugar is dissolved.
That gives you the caramel. Now, while I am making the caramel, I will
describe to you the clarifying of the soup.
CLARIFYING SOUP.
To clarify soup stock: For each quart use the white and shell of one egg
and one tablespoonful of cold water. Put the white and shell of the egg
and the cold water into the bottom of the saucepan, and mix them
together. Then put in the soup stock. Set the saucepan over the fire and
let it boil gradually, stirring it every minute to mix the egg
thoroughly so that it will not cake on the bottom of the pan before it
begins to boil. When you have the stock made quite hot, when it begins
to boil, then you do not need to stir it; but let it boil until the egg
rises to the surface in the form of a thick, white scum, and the soup
underneath looks perfectly clear, like sherry wine. Then strain it. When
the egg is thick and white, as you see this, and the soup is clear
underneath, set a colander in an earthen bowl, put a folded towel,
doubled, in it, pour the soup into the bowl, and let it run through the
colander without squeezing the towel. You see that is a repetition of
the direction I gave you for straining the soup in the first place. The
egg is in the towel. Now, I am going to put some of the soup into a
goblet before coloring it, so that you can see the natural color. A
light straw-color is the proper color for clear soup. You will very
often find clear soup served to you, even at nice hotels, much darker
than that; as dark as what I am going to make now, which is the proper
color for the luncheon soups called _bouillon_. The coloring is a matter
of taste. The clear soup, or _consomme_, is to be served plain like
that, or with the addition of any macaroni paste, or poached eggs, and
then it takes its name from the additional ingredient which goes into
the clear soup. Julienne soup is served with strips of vegetables in it,
as I may tell you in some subsequent lesson.
LECTURE FOURTH.
SLICED APPLE PIE.
Half a pound of shortening to a pound of flour, the shortening to be
rubbed into the flour with the hands until it is so thoroughly mixed
that it seems like meal, but not at all melted or softened; then just
enough cold water to make a pastry which will roll out. Roll out the
pastry and use it at once to line the pie plates. Fill the plates with
sliced apples, or with any fruit or mince meat. To-day I shall use
sliced apples. Sprinkle flour over the pastry, and then roll it out and
line the plates; wet the lower crust to make the upper crust stick to
it. Cut two or three little slits in the upper crust. Take care not to
press the outer edges of the crust together. After the upper crust has
been put on the pie brush it with beaten egg, if you wish it to be
glossy when it is done. Then put it in a moderate oven and bake it for
three-quarters of an hour, until you are very sure that the apple is
done. You can tell that by trying the apple through the little cuts that
you make in the pastry. This morning, in making pastry, you remember
that we rolled and folded it a number of times. I simply roll this out
once, just enough to get it thin enough to use for my pie. First roll
out the pastry, and cut off the cover for the top of the pie. Lay it one
side, and then roll out the rest and use it for the pie, as I have
already directed. Use Greening apples if you can get them. These are
table apples. They are not so good for pies for two or three reasons.
They will not keep their form when they are baked in the pie, and they
may not be perfectly tender. These will break and grow very soft as soon
as they begin to cook.
I might, while I am making our pie, say a little about flour in general
use in the family. As a rule I use what is called pastry flour, best for
pie crusts. Pastry flour has more starch in it than ordinary family
flour, or bread flour. The starch is the interior of the grain. The
family flour is the grain ground entire, only the husk being removed.
From grain ground in that way none of the nutritious elements are
removed. You get a greater proportion of gluten, and some of the mineral
elements of the grain that lie close to the husk; the flour that has an
excess of gluten in it will absorb more water than pastry flour, or
flour composed chiefly of starch, and it will make a tougher dough,
either in the form of pie crust or bread than a flour which has the most
starch in it. It is more nutritious than starchy flour, so that if you
want tender, rather white pastry and bread, you must make up your minds
to sacrifice some of the nutritious elements of the flour. All through
the West the flour which is marketed is made, I think, from the entire
wheat, and that is more thoroughly good, and more nutritious, than the
so-called choice pastry flour. In the West you have a better flour than
we at the East do, if we depend upon the Eastern mills. There are some
very good brands of flour made in New York State, but as a rule they are
not so full of gluten and not so nutritious as the Western flours. Where
flour is made from winter wheat, which lies in the ground all winter
long and gathers more of the mineral elements of the soil than spring
wheat does, the flour is superior.
The pie is now heaped full of sliced apples by using about half a dozen
rather small apples. I suppose you think this is a rather extravagant
way to make a pie, but you do not need to put so many apples in unless
you want to; we want a nice thick pie. This is cinnamon that I am using
for flavoring. Put two heaping tablespoonfuls of sugar on top of the
apples in the pie. Finally brush the top of the pie, either with beaten
egg or with a little sugar and water dissolved, and put it into the oven
to bake.
BREAD MAKING.
Now take your recipe for bread making. Use the compressed yeast which
you buy at the grocery store. For two small loaves of bread or a large
pan of biscuit use a whole cake of yeast. Dissolve the yeast in lukewarm
water, a cupful of lukewarm water. Then add enough flour to form a thick
batter; that will be about a cupful of flour; a thick batter which will
cling to the mixing spoon when you lift the spoon and let a drop fall
on the surface. Cover the bowl with a towel folded several times, or a
thick cloth, so that all the heat can be retained. Then set the bowl
somewhere near the fire, in a place not too hot to bear your hand, and
let it stand for about half an hour, or until the batter is light and
foamy. Keep the bowl covered all the time, and take care that you do not
have it in too hot a place. Don't have it in a place where you can not
bear your hand. After the sponge--as the batter is called--is light and
foaming, mix in another cupful of lukewarm water in which a teaspoonful
of salt is dissolved. After the second cupful of lukewarm water with the
teaspoonful of salt dissolved in it, add enough flour to form a dough
stiff enough to knead with the hands. Knead the dough on the board for
just five minutes. Some good housekeepers would declare that just five
minutes' kneading is flying in the face of Providence in the way of
bread making, but I assure you it is enough. That is, it is enough to
give you bread of a firm, fine grain, perfectly even in its consistency.
It won't be full of large, uneven holes; it will be firm, fine bread.
After you have kneaded the bread five minutes make it up in a little
loaf, or two loaves, as you like; put them in small iron pans,
buttered--black iron bread pans--and set them again by the fire, where
you can bear your hand, and let the little loaves of dough rise until
they are just twice as large as when you put them down. That generally
will take about half an hour if the yeast is good. Brush the loaves over
the top with a little melted butter, or with a teaspoonful of sugar
dissolved in water. Put them in the oven and bake them. The bread is to
be baked until you can run a sharp knife or trussing needle in through
the thickest part of the loaf without the bread sticking in any way. If
the needle or knife comes out clean and bright the bread is done. It may
take from half an hour to an hour to bake the bread. In the stove that I
used the first morning over in the other building I have baked a loaf of
bread, the size of those I am going to show you, in eleven minutes. I
had not realized that bread could be baked thoroughly in so short a
time, but one day in Northampton, Mass., one of my class timed the
baking of the bread. A loaf of bread of that size was baked in eleven
minutes. This same bread dough you can make up in the form of little
rolls. I will make part of it up in rolls. Of course you will understand
that the smaller the piece of dough the more rapidly it will rise the
second time, and the quicker you will be enabled to bake it. So if you
are in a hurry, and want bread baked quickly, you will make it in the
form of little rolls; when I make the rolls I will describe the process.
_Question._ Should bread be baked a long or a short time?
MISS CORSON. The sooner it can be baked the better. There is no special
object to be gained in the baking of bread except to thoroughly cook the
dough. It can not affect the nutriment of the flour very much whether it
takes a longer or a shorter time. The nutriment of the flour might be
slightly wasted if it took a very long time. There is no objection to
baking bread as quickly as it can be done.
Now before I begin to make the pudding I will answer a question that has
been asked about the best yeast and the quick rising of bread. The
object of raising bread is simply to make it digestible by separating
the mass of the dough. If it is firm and solid, that is, if the bread is
heavy, it can not be easily penetrated by the gastric juice, and
consequently is indigestible. So that the most healthy bread is that
which is sufficiently light and porous to allow the gastric juice to
penetrate it easily. Only a mechanical operation is required to make the
bread light. Now that process which will most quickly make the bread
dough light is the most desirable. The longer you take to raise bread,
the more slowly you raise, the more of the nutriment of the flour you
destroy by the process of fermentation that lightens the bread. The
yeast combining with water at a certain temperature causes fermentation,
and from that fermentation carbolic acid gas is evolved, which forces
its way up through the dough and fills it with little bubbles,--in other
words, makes it light. Now the more quickly you can accomplish that
fermentation, or rather lightening of the dough by the formation of
little air cells, the more you will preserve the nutriment of the flour.
The idea prevails to some extent that if ladies use as much yeast as I
have to-day the bread will taste of the yeast. It will not if the yeast
is fresh. If the yeast is old or sour it will taste. But you can use as
much as I have shown you and not have the bread taste after it is done.
You see my object in using a great deal of yeast, proportionately, is to
accomplish the lightening of the dough in a very short time. The best
bread that ever was made or that ever was put on the market was raised
mechanically, without the action of yeast; it was called aerated bread.
It was bread dough lightened by a mechanical process. Carbonic acid gas
was driven into the dough by machinery after the flour was mixed with
salt water; and the bread made was very light and every particle of the
nourishment preserved in that way.
_Question._ Do you ever put sugar in bread?
MISS CORSON. You can put in anything you like. You can put sugar, or
milk, or anything you like in the bread to vary it. I will use nothing
to-day but yeast, flour, water, and salt. This is perfectly plain,
wholesome bread. You put milk in bread and it makes it dry quicker.
Vienna bread, which is made partly of milk, dries more quickly than any
other bread that is made. You can make any variation you like from the
recipe I have given you. I have given you a perfectly plain home-made
bread.
_Question._ Do you ever scald the flour for bread?
MISS CORSON. You can scald the flour if you wish, but you do not
accomplish any special purpose by it. In the winter time, if you heat
the flour before you mix it with yeast and warm water, you increase the
rapidity with which the bread dough rises.
_Question._ How would you make brown bread--ordinary graham bread?
MISS CORSON. Use graham flour; mix your white flour with it, if it is
for graham bread proper; if it is for graham gems use simply graham
flour, water and salt, beaten together. Graham flour, salt and water
beaten together into a form and baked in little buttered tins is the
graham bread pure and simple of the Grahamites. It is not necessary to
knead bread more than once to secure lightness. I have already said that
the longer you prolong the process of bread making the more of the
nourishment of the flour you destroy. You will see when the bread is
baked to-day, if we are fortunate in our baking, that the bread is
perfectly light and of even grain.
BREAD AND APPLE PUDDING.