into small dice. Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of
butter and flour; when they are blended pour upon them a cup of white
stock, and when this is thick, a cup of milk. Stir to a smooth sauce
and add the minced chicken. Season to taste; cook until the meat is
very hot and serve.
Creamed chicken and macaroni
Cut cold boiled or roast chicken into small dice of uniform size, and
into half-inch lengths half the quantity of cold, cooked macaroni. Make
a good white sauce, season highly with paprika, salt and a suspicion of
onion juice. Beat two eggs light and stir into them four tablespoonfuls
of cream, heated, with a pinch of soda. Mix well with the chicken and
spaghetti; put over the fire in a frying-pan, or broad saucepan, and
stir and toss until smoking hot. Serve in a deep dish.
Scallops of turkey or chicken
Chop the meat fine and to two cupfuls add a tablespoonful of butter,
two tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs, half a cupful of boiling water,
salt and pepper to taste. Put these all into a saucepan and stir while
heating. Lastly, put in two raw eggs, beaten light, and take from the
fire. Fill baking cups two-thirds full of the mixture, set in a pan of
boiling water and bake about twenty-five minutes. Turn out carefully
into a heated dish and pour white sauce around them.
Philadelphia scrapple
(Contributed)
Take a cleaned pig’s head and boil until the flesh slips easily from
the bones. Remove all the bones and chop fine. Set the liquor in which
the meat was boiled aside until cold, take the cake of fat from the
surface and return the liquor to the fire. When it boils, put in the
chopped meat and season well with pepper and salt. Let it boil again
and thicken with corn-meal as you would in making ordinary corn-meal
mush, by letting it slip slowly through the fingers to prevent lumps.
Cook an hour, stirring constantly at first, afterward putting back on
the range in a position to boil gently. When done, pour into a long,
spare pan, not too deep, and mold. In cold weather this can be kept
several weeks. Slice and sauté in butter or dripping.
CHEESE DISHES FOR LUNCHEON
A fondu of cheese
Grate cheese and crush broken and dried bread and crusts into fine
crumbs. There should be two cupfuls of these to one of cheese. Wet the
crumbs with two cupfuls of milk in which has been dissolved a bit of
soda no larger than a Lima bean. Beat two eggs light, whites and yolks
apart; whip the yolks into the soaked crumbs with a tablespoonful of
melted butter. Season with salt and a dust of cayenne, add the frothed
whites, deftly and rapidly; bake in a greased pudding dish in a brisk
oven, keeping the dish covered until the fondu has puffed high and is
crusty on top. Then brown lightly and serve at once, as it soon falls.
Pass crackers and pickles with it.
Rice and cheese pudding
Boil a cupful of rice tender; drain dry in a hot colander; set at the
side of the range for ten minutes. Mix, then, with two beaten eggs, a
tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste. Line a well-greased
dish with this paste, leaving a hollow in the middle. The walls of rice
should be about an inch thick. Set in the hot oven for five minutes.
Have ready a cupful of hot milk; stir into it a tablespoonful of butter
rolled in flour, half a cupful of grated cheese, a generous pinch of
paprika, with salt to taste, and a pinch of baking-soda. Lastly, and
quickly, add a beaten egg. Pour this mixture into the hollowed rice,
sift fine crumbs over it, and set covered in the oven. At the end of
ten minutes uncover and brown slightly. Serve at once, as it falls into
heaviness with standing.
Cheese rice
Boil a cupful of rice in two quarts of water. When tender, turn into
a colander, drain, shake hard and stand at the side of the range ten
minutes to dry. Now stir into the rice, first, a tablespoonful of
melted butter, then four tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese and a dash
of cayenne pepper. Serve very hot.
Tomatoes and cheese
Cut the stem-end from large tomatoes, and with a small spoon scoop out
the insides. To two tablespoonfuls of the tomato pulp add a teaspoonful
of bread-crumbs and the same quantity of cheese crumbled into bits.
Season to taste and return this mixture to the tomatoes. Replace the
stem-ends and bake the tomatoes for twenty minutes in a roasting-pan.
Transfer to a hot platter and serve.
Cheese straws
To a half pint of prepared flour add two ounces of grated Parmesan
cheese, moisten with the yolk of an egg and enough milk to make a paste
that can be rolled out. Roll into a thin sheet and cut into narrow
“straws.” Bake to a delicate brown. While they are hot sift grated
cheese over them.
Cheese puffs
In a saucepan of boiling water melt two tablespoonfuls of butter. When
the water and butter are boiling, stir into them four tablespoonfuls
of flour, wet with a little cold water, and four tablespoonfuls of
grated cheese. Cook for three minutes, stirring all the time. Remove
from the fire, and when the mixture is cold add two eggs and beat hard
for fifteen minutes. Line a baking-pan with greased paper and drop the
mixture upon it, a spoonful at a time, leaving ample space between each
puff for the swelling caused by baking. When puffed up and brown they
are done and must be eaten at once.
Cheese fritters
Make small sandwiches of buttered white bread (from which the crust
has been removed) sliced thin and thin slices of cheese. Press each
sandwich firmly, that the two pieces of bread may not separate in the
cooking, and drop into boiling fat. Fry to a golden brown and remove to
a colander lined with tissue paper.
Egg and cheese timbales
Beat six eggs very light and add to them a gill of warm milk, in which
a pinch of soda has been dissolved, five tablespoonfuls of grated
cheese and a pinch, each, of paprika and salt. Butter small timbale
molds, or pâté pans, fill with the egg mixture and set in a baking-pan
of boiling water until the egg is set. Turn out carefully on a hot
platter and pour hot tomato sauce about them. Serve at once, as they
soon fall. A nice luncheon _entrée_.
Cheese soufflé
Cook together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls, each, of butter and
flour, and when they are blended pour upon them a half pint of milk.
Stir to a smooth white sauce and stir into this eight tablespoonfuls
of grated cheese, a saltspoonful of salt, a pinch of baking-soda and a
dash of paprika. Have ready beaten four eggs, white and yolks separate.
Remove the cheese mixture from the fire and gradually beat into it the
yolks of the eggs; last of all, fold in lightly the stiffened whites.
Turn the mixture into a greased pudding-dish and bake in a steady oven
to a golden brown. Serve immediately.
Cheese ramakins
Cut slices of bread very thick, pare off the crusts and press a round
cake-cutter half-way through the middle of each slice. Take out the
crumb enclosed in this circle. Butter the bread and set in the oven
until dry and crisp. Now fill the hollow in each slice with a mixture
made of a tablespoonful of butter, four tablespoonfuls of grated
cheese, a tablespoonful of cream and a little salt and pepper. Set for
five minutes in a hot oven.
Cheese biscuits
Cook together in a small saucepan three tablespoonfuls of butter and
four of flour. When these are blended pour upon them a half pint of
boiling water and stir until thick and smooth; add four tablespoonfuls
of grated cheese, a dash of celery salt and of cayenne pepper. Cook,
stirring constantly, until very thick; remove from the fire and add,
slowly, two beaten eggs. Beat for ten minutes and drop by the spoonful
upon a greased baking-pan. Drop these cakes so far apart that they will
not touch each other. Lay a sheet of brown paper over the top of the
pan and set in a hot oven for ten or fifteen minutes. When the biscuits
are puffed up and seem nearly done, remove the paper and brown them.
Slip a thin-bladed knife carefully under the biscuits to loosen them
from the pan and serve at once, as they soon fall.
Cheese crackers
On buttered crackers lay slices of American cheese cut thin; arrange in
a baking-pan and set in the oven until the cheese is melted. Serve hot.
A little cayenne sprinkled upon the crackers is liked by many.
Cheese fingers
Cut puff-paste into strips as long and as wide as your middle finger,
sprinkle with a layer of cheese (grated), press upon this another strip
of pastry, sprinkle with more cheese and bake in a quick oven.
Cream cheese
To every quart of rich milk you use allow a pinch of salt and a
teaspoonful of rennet, taking care to buy that which is not flavored in
any way. When it is solid, turn into a bag and let it drip. When it is
well drained so that all the whey is taken from the curd—it may take
more than a day for this, and in that case you must change the bag at
the end of the first twelve hours—take it out, chop the curd fine, put
it into a cheese box and press two hours. Wrap in two or three folds of
tissue paper or in tinfoil, to exclude the air.
Deviled crackers and cheese
Butter thin crackers—water, butter, cream or saltine—dip each lightly
into hot milk and lay in a buttered bake-dish. Sprinkle the layers
with salt and paprika and every other layer with a spatter of French
mustard. Cover each layer with dry, grated cheese. The topmost layer
should be soaked crackers dotted with butter. Finally, pour in a cup
of milk, heated, with a pinch of soda. Cover closely for the first
half-hour of baking, then brown delicately.
Creamed cheese golden buck
This is a good way of using cream cheese which has become a little dry
after the tinfoil has been removed.
Rub three tablespoonfuls of cream cheese to a paste with a teaspoonful
of butter; salt and pepper it and work in a tablespoonful or two of
cream, enough to make it quite soft. Set in a pan of boiling water over
the fire and stir until hot, when add a beaten egg, cook one minute and
spread upon buttered crackers.
Nonpareil Welsh rarebit
Half a pound of soft grated cheese; one gill of ale; two eggs; one
tablespoonful of butter; one teaspoonful of lemon juice and the same
of Worcestershire sauce and half a spoonful of celery salt. A pinch of
cayenne and one of mustard.
Put a broad saucepan over the fire and melt the butter. When it hisses
stir in the cheese, then, still stirring, the dry seasoning. Have
ready the eggs beaten separately and very light, before you stir them
together in a bowl with a few swift strokes. Add three spoonfuls of the
hot mixture to these, rapidly, then pour the eggs (now warmed by the
hot cheese) into the saucepan, never letting the spoon rest. In one
minute more add the sauce and lemon juice and put upon rounds of hot,
buttered toast.
[Illustration: CREAMED MACARONI IN PINEAPPLE CHEESE SHELL]
STUFFED EGGS
FONDU OF CHEESE
COVERED CHEESE DISH FOR LIMBURGER, ETC.
CHEESE AND EGG-ENTREES]
Macaroni in cheese shell
Break macaroni into two-inch lengths and boil until tender in plenty
of salted water; then drain and blanch by pouring cold water over
it. After it has been blanched cut into pieces not over a half inch
long. Have ready a cheese-shell, one from which the cheese has been
thoroughly scooped out. These shells, which are frequently thrown away,
make a nice receptacle for serving macaroni. Stand the shell on a
piece of waxed paper and this in a baking-pan. Put two tablespoonfuls
of butter and two of flour in the saucepan, mix and add a pint of
milk, stir until boiling, mix in the cold macaroni and stir over the
fire until it is just heated through; add a teaspoonful of salt and
saltspoonful of pepper and pour the mixture into the shell; cover with
a piece of greased paper and leave in the oven fifteen minutes. Lift
the shell carefully, putting it on a round plate and send to the table.
This process imparts a most delicate cheese flavor and makes a sightly
dish. If baked too long, it will become soft and fall apart. For that
reason the macaroni must be hot when poured into the shell. If the
shell is carefully cleaned, it may be used several times.
Cream celery in Edam cheese shell
Cut the cleaned celery stalks into inch-lengths and cook until tender
in boiling water, slightly salted. For three cupfuls of the cut celery
allow a pint of white sauce, using the water in which the celery was
cooked, with the cream, as the liquid. Turn into the shell of an Edam
cheese, cover with half a cupful of fine cracker-crumbs, mixed with
two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and let it brown in the oven. Send
around powdered cheese with this dish.
Cheese rings
(Contributed)
Prepare a dough as for cheese straws, but cut it out with a doughnut
cutter, brown slightly in a moderate oven. Draw several cheese straws
through the opening in each ring and serve with salad.
Baked cheese
(Contributed)
Dissolve three ounces of butter in a gill of hot water. Melt three
ounces each of American and Gruyère cheese. Stir all together until
creamy, then add enough sifted flour to make a stiff paste and the
beaten yolks of two eggs. Mix the whole thoroughly. Mold with two
buttered tablespoons, slip on greased paper, and when all are molded
set in a moderate oven. When slightly brown brush them over with the
whites of the eggs beaten stiff. Return to the oven for one minute.
Take up on a hot dish, dust with pepper and fill the center with grated
cheese.
Cheese cutlets
(Contributed)
To the well-beaten yolks of three eggs add one tablespoonful of cream
and one ounce of grated Parmesan cheese and season with mace and
cayenne. Beat until very light and add one tablespoonful of Béchamel
sauce. Pour into a buttered pan and steam over hot water until firm.
When cold cut in shapes with a fancy cutter, dredge with grated cheese
and fry in boiling fat to a delicate brown. Serve at once on fried
bread.
Cheese dates
Cut large dates two-thirds around lengthwise, and extract the seeds,
leaving the back of each uncut to form a hinge. Fill them with cream
cheese rubbed soft with butter, bring the sides together to hold in the
filling, and pile upon a glass dish.
They are a nice accompaniment to afternoon tea.
THE TOAST FAMILY
Toast, pure and simple
Pare the crust from _thin_ slices of bread, cut each slice in two
and toast to a golden brown over a clear fire; butter lightly; pile
together and throw a napkin over them. The sooner they are eaten the
better. This toast is the accompaniment to scores of breakfast and
luncheon dishes.
Brown bread toast
Is especially good and goes well with oysters and certain salads.
Deviled toast
Is best when made of stale whole wheat or of graham bread. Toast as
just directed and spread with a mixture made by creaming together a
great spoonful of butter with a quarter-teaspoonful, each, of lemon
juice, dry mustard and paprika. Sift, if you like, dry grated cheese
over each round of toast thus deviled and set for one minute upon the
upper grating of a hot oven. Eat at once.
Tomato toast
Make a pint of well-seasoned tomato sauce. Toast crustless slices of
bread; butter and dip each slice in hot, salted milk, then put the
slices in layers in a pudding dish. Put a spoonful of tomato sauce on
each layer, and when the dish is full, pour the remaining sauce over
all. Cover and set in the oven for ten minutes, then send to the table.
It will be found very good.
Celery toast
Stew inch-lengths of celery until soft; run through a vegetable press;
mix with a thin white sauce, seasoning with paprika, salt and a dash of
onion juice; boil up once and put into a pudding dish with alternate
layers of lightly toasted bread which have been dipped into the salted
water poured off from the boiled celery. Cover and set in the oven for
ten minutes, then serve in the bake-dish. A pleasant accompaniment to
chicken or veal croquettes.
Sandwiched toast
Cut bread into very thin slices and remove all the crusts. Butter
lightly, and between every two slices lay an extremely thin shaving of
chicken or cold roast veal. Press the slices of bread firmly together,
lay on a toaster and toast each to a delicate brown. Serve at once.
These are especially nice with cucumber salad.
Toasted crackers
Butter seafoam or snowflake crackers and dust with celery salt and a
little paprika. Set in the oven until very hot, then serve.
Toasted anchovy crackers
Spread crackers with anchovy paste and set in the oven until very hot
before sending to the table.
Anchovy toast
Cut thin slices of bread into rounds; toast delicately on both sides,
lay a coiled anchovy on each round and set in the oven for three
minutes to heat.
LUNCHEON VEGETABLES
Hashed potatoes, browned
Pare, wash and cut eight fine potatoes into small cubes, not more than
half an inch square. Put these over the fire with two tablespoonfuls of
minced celery and half as much grated onion. Salt to taste, and cook
until tender but not broken; drain off the water and turn the potatoes
into a buttered dish. Have ready a cupful of hot milk, into which stir
a large tablespoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour. Do not cook
them together, but add a tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley, and
pour over the potatoes. Cover and bake fifteen minutes, then brown upon
the upper grating of your oven. Serve in the bake-dish.
The celery and onion impart a most agreeable flavor to the dish.
Potato scallop
Work gradually into your cold mashed potato a cupful of warmed milk
(in which has been dissolved a pinch of soda) until you have a smooth
mixture; season with pepper and salt, add an egg beaten very light, and
bake briskly in a well-greased pudding dish. Serve in the dish before
it has time to fall.
Potato chips
Pare, slice very thin with a sharp knife and throw into ice water for
an hour. Dry between two towels, and cook until delicately colored in
deep, boiling cottolene or the best salad oil, slightly salted. Drain
perfectly dry, toss upon hot tissue paper for an instant and serve in a
deep dish lined with a napkin, which is drawn over the potatoes.
Potato strips
Prepare in the same way, after cutting into long, thin strips, the
length of the potato.
Potatoes on the half-shell
Bake large, smooth potatoes of uniform size until they yield to the
pinching fingers. Divide each carefully in half, lengthwise; scrape out
the interior, taking care not to break the skin; mash the potato with
a little hot milk and melted butter until you can beat it to a cream;
salt and pepper, beat in two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese (Parmesan
is best) for two cupfuls of potato, and return to the waiting shells.
Set in the oven until hot through and slightly browned. Serve in the
skins.
They are very good.
Potato puff
Beat a cupful of mashed potato to a soft, creamy mass, with a cupful
of warm milk and an even tablespoonful of butter. Have ready two eggs,
whipped light, and add to the “cream.” Pepper and salt to your liking;
turn into a warmed and buttered pudding dish; set in a quick oven and
bake, covered, for half an hour, then brown. Serve at once before it
falls.
Potato drop cakes
Pare, wash and grate six good-sized raw potatoes; press out the water,
add three well-beaten eggs and a heaping tablespoonful of flour, with
salt to taste. Beat well, and drop by the great spoonful in deep, hot
cottolene or other fat. Fry to a delicate brown.
Sweet potatoes au gratin
Peel and slice cold, boiled sweet potatoes. Grease a pudding dish, put
a layer of potatoes in the bottom of it, sprinkle with salt, pepper,
sugar and bits of butter. Put in more potatoes, sprinkle these as you
did the others, and when the dish is full pour over the contents a
gill of boiling water, in which a tablespoonful of butter has been
melted. Strew with fine crumbs, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and
bake, covered, for twenty minutes. Uncover and brown.
Sweet potato puff
Into two cupfuls of boiled and mashed sweet potatoes beat three
tablespoonfuls of melted butter, a cupful of milk and four beaten eggs.
Salt to taste, beat hard and turn into a greased pudding dish. Bake to
a golden brown.
Pea pancakes
Open a can of green peas several hours before you wish to use them,
drain in a colander and cover with cold water until you are ready to
cook them. Boil tender in water slightly salted, drain, and while
hot rub through a colander or vegetable press. Work in a teaspoonful
of butter, with pepper and salt to taste. Stir for a minute, and let
the paste get cold. Beat two eggs light and add to the cold paste,
alternately with a cupful of milk. Sift half a teaspoonful of baking
powder twice with four tablespoonfuls of flour, and stir into the
mixture.
Drop upon a soapstone griddle as you would griddle cakes. Eat while
hot, as a vegetable. Peas left over from yesterday are nice made up in
this way.
Buttered rice
This, too, is a nice “made-over entrée.” Boil rice in the usual way,
and, after draining well, press while warm into a bowl or mold. Next
day turn it out carefully upon a pie plate and set in a quick oven.
When it is hot all through draw to the door of the oven and butter
abundantly. Shut the oven door and brown lightly. Butter again and
sift a thick coating of grated cheese (Parmesan, if you have it) over
all. Leave in the oven for a few minutes to melt the cheese, and heap
irregularly with a meringue of the whites of two eggs beaten up with a
pinch of celery salt. Brown very lightly, slip a spatula under the mold
and transfer carefully to a hot platter.
It is a pretty yet a simple side dish, good and easily made.
Tomatoes farcies
Carefully peel large, firm tomatoes, and scoop out the centers. In the
hollow thus left in each tomato put a layer of minced ham. Set the
tomatoes in a bake-pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, put a bit of
butter upon the top of each and cook for ten minutes. Then drop upon
the mince in each tomato a raw egg; dust with salt and pepper and cook
until the eggs are “set.”
Tomato caps and saucers
Cut the tops from large, ripe tomatoes, and scoop out the insides with
a small spoon. Keep these insides for the sauce, to be used later. Make
a mince of cold roast beef or mutton, moisten it with a rich gravy,
season to taste and half fill the hollowed tomatoes with this mixture.
Set in a covered roasting-pan and bake for twenty minutes in a steady
oven. Meanwhile, strain the tomato pulp, heat it and make of it a sauce
thickened with two teaspoonfuls, each, of flour and butter, rubbed to
a paste. Season to taste. Toast rounds of crustless bread, lay these
on a platter and pour the tomato sauce over and around them. Keep hot
until the tomatoes are ready. When these have cooked for twenty minutes
remove the cover of the roaster and drop into each half-filled tomato a
raw egg. Replace the cover and bake just long enough to “set” the eggs.
Upon each round of toast lay a stuffed tomato, sprinkle with pepper and
salt and send to the table.
Scallop of tomatoes and eggs
Into a pint of stewed tomatoes stir a generous cupful of fine bread
crumbs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a half teaspoonful of sugar,
pepper and salt to taste. Mix thoroughly and turn into a greased
pudding dish. Upon the top of this scallop break as many eggs as will
lie upon it side by side. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and bits of butter
and bake until the eggs are set.
Rice and cheese pudding
Boil a cup of rice until each grain is tender and stands alone. Now
beat in gradually five whipped eggs and a cup of milk, in which have
been stirred two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Stir over the fire
for a minute and pour the mixture into a greased pudding dish. Bake in
a good oven for half an hour.
Pilau of green peppers
Cut green peppers lengthwise, removing the seeds with care, lest they
make the green shells too hot. Fill the halves with boiled rice, into
which has been stirred a tablespoonful of melted butter for a cupful of
the boiled rice, and two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, with
salt to taste. Mound the rice smoothly and high, and after the pilau
has cooked ten minutes in a covered pan brown lightly. Serve hot.
Scallop of sweet peppers and ham
Cut each pepper lengthwise into quarters and remove the seeds
carefully, lay in iced water for fifteen minutes, then drain. Cut each
quarter in half. Butter a pudding dish and put in the bottom of it a
layer of minced ham, on top of this a layer of cut peppers; sprinkle
thickly with fine crumbs and moisten all thoroughly with seasoned
stock. Now put in more ham, another layer of peppers and crumbs,
liberally dotted with bits of butter and sprinkled with salt. Bake,
covered, in a good oven for half an hour, then uncover and cook ten
minutes longer.
Buttered rice with peppers