into ice-cold salted water for half an hour. Tie, then, in coarse
cheese-cloth or netting, and plunge, head foremost, into a pot of
boiling salted water. Cook half an hour, drain, take off the cloth and
dish. Pour a rich white sauce over it.
Cauliflower au gratin
Cut a large cauliflower into eight pieces and boil tender in salted
water. Drain, lay in a deep pudding-dish, stems down, and pour over it
a plain white sauce into which two hard-boiled eggs have been chopped.
Sprinkle with bread-crumbs and bake to a light brown.
Cauliflower with tomato sauce
Boil a whole cauliflower for ten minutes in fresh water; drain and boil
until tender in salted water. Put into a vegetable dish, flower side
up, rub thoroughly with butter, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.
Last of all, pour over the cauliflower a pint of tomato sauce.
CELERY
Stewed celery (No. 1)
Wash the celery, cut into half-inch bits, and stew tender in
slightly-salted boiling water. Drain this off and add a cupful of milk.
Cook for three minutes, stir in a teaspoonful of butter rubbed into a
teaspoonful of flour, boil up once, season to taste, and serve.
Stewed celery (No. 2)
A bunch of indifferent celery may be utilized for this dish. I have
rescued stalks frosted accidentally through the cook’s carelessness,
laid them in ice-cold water for two hours, prepared them as I shall
direct, and presented as palatable food that whose end would otherwise
have been the garbage pail.
After stewing tender and draining, transfer to another saucepan in
which you have heated a cupful of milk (with a pinch of soda in it),
thicken it with a tablespoonful of butter rubbed in a teaspoonful of
flour, and stir to a boil. Mix the celery well with this, season with
pepper and salt, heat all together for one minute, and dish.
Brown stew of celery
Wash and cut into small bits a bunch of celery. Put it into a saucepan
and pour over it a pint of cleared beef stock. Stew until tender. Drain
the celery and set aside while you return to the saucepan the stock
in which it was cooked. Thicken this with a paste made by rubbing a
heaping teaspoonful of browned flour into one teaspoonful of butter.
When you have a smooth brown sauce, stir in the celery, and when this
is very hot, season and serve.
Savory celery
Scrape, cut into inch-lengths, lay in cold water for an hour; cook
tender in salted hot water. Drain, and return the celery to the
saucepan. Have ready heated a cupful of weak stock, or gravy, strained
through a cloth, seasoned with paprika, salt and onion juice, then
thickened with a tablespoonful of browned flour rolled in the same
quantity of butter. Pour this over the celery, heat all together for
one minute, and dish.
The outer green stalks of celery may be used thus, and more
satisfactorily than a tyro might think possible.
Fried celery
Scrape and boil as directed in foregoing recipes; drain, and spread
upon a cloth in a very cold place. They must be dry and firm before you
dip each piece in beaten egg, then in seasoned bread or cracker-dust.
Set again in the cold for an hour, and fry in deep cottolene or other
fat to a golden brown. Drain in a hot colander and serve.
Stewed celery roots
Wash and scrape the roots of celery and stew in salted water until very
tender. Drain and cut into small dice. Have ready in a saucepan a pint
of hot milk, thicken this with a teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one
of butter, turn a cupful (heaping) of the celery dice into this sauce,
stir until very hot, season to taste and serve.
Besides being a palatable dish when thus cooked, celery root is an
admirable nervine, and therefore indicated as beneficial diet for
brain-workers and nervous invalids.
GREEN CORN
Boiled corn
Strip husk and silk from the ear and put over the fire in plenty of
boiling water, slightly salted. Boil hard for twenty minutes if the
corn be young and fresh.
Send to table wrapped in a napkin.
Stewed corn
Cut from the cob with a sharp knife; put over the fire in just enough
boiling salted water to cover it. Stew gently ten minutes; turn off the
water and add a cupful of hot milk (with a pinch of soda in it). Cook
ten minutes more, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed up with a
teaspoonful of flour; boil one minute and turn into a hot, deep dish.
Green corn pudding (No. 1)
Grate the grains from twelve ears of corn; beat into the corn the
whipped yolks of four eggs until thoroughly incorporated; stir in now
two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and one tablespoonful of powdered
sugar; salt to taste, and add the whites of the eggs whipped to a
froth. Lastly stir in a tiny pinch of soda; turn into a buttered
pudding-dish and bake, covered, half an hour. Uncover, brown quickly,
and send to table at once.
If this delicious “soufflé” be made of canned corn, chop it very fine.
Green corn pudding (No. 2)
Mix together two cupfuls of grated corn, two beaten eggs, a half pint
of milk, a pinch of soda, a tablespoonful of melted butter and a
tablespoonful of sugar. Grease a shallow baking-dish, turn the mixture
into this, sprinkle with buttered crumbs, cover and bake for half an
hour, then uncover and brown.
Green corn pudding (No. 3)
Grate the kernels from twelve ears of corn and stir into them the
beaten yolks of six eggs and a tablespoonful, each, of melted butter
and granulated sugar. Now beat in a quart of milk, a half teaspoonful
of salt and, last of all, the stiffened whites of the six eggs. Turn
into a greased pudding-dish and bake, covered, for half an hour, then
uncover and brown.
This, when properly made and baked in a quick oven, is a veritable
soufflé and incomparable.
Corn fritters
Cut from the ears a pint of sweet corn. Beat together a cupful of milk,
two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one egg, whipped light, salt to
taste and enough flour to make a thin batter. Into this stir the grated
corn. Beat hard and cook as you would griddle-cakes upon a soapstone
griddle. They are a palatable accompaniment to roast chicken.
Green corn balls
Grate enough green corn from the cob to make two cupfuls; into this
stir a beaten egg, a teaspoonful, each, of sugar and melted butter,
with salt to taste. Add enough flour to enable you to form the mixture
into balls, roll these in flour and fry in deep fat.
Succotash
Cut the corn from eight ears and put it into a saucepan with a pint of
young Lima beans and enough salted boiling water to cover them both.
Boil until the vegetables are tender; drain and turn into a double
boiler with a cupful of boiling milk. Cook for ten minutes, then stir
in a tablespoonful of butter, and simmer for five minutes longer.
Season to taste and serve. Large “Limas” should be cooked ten minutes
before the corn is added.
Corn and tomatoes
Grate the grains from six ears of corn; pare and cut into small pieces
four ripe tomatoes. Put over the fire in a saucepan; stew half an hour;
season with a great spoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar and one
of onion juice; salt and pepper to taste. Cook five minutes more and
dish.
Scallop of corn and tomatoes
Pare and cut small a dozen ripe tomatoes and turn them, or the contents
of a can of tomatoes, into a chopping bowl and chop the large pieces of
the vegetable into small bits; then set in a saucepan over the fire and
bring to the boil. Drain the liquor from a can of corn, or grate the
grains from a dozen ears, and put the corn into a bowl of fresh water.
After ten minutes drain the water off, and transfer the corn to a
saucepan with enough boiling water to cover it. Let it simmer for five
minutes, pour off the water and add the boiling tomatoes to the corn.
Let both cook together for five minutes, during which time stir into
them a heaping teaspoonful of butter, two teaspoonfuls of granulated
sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture into a greased
bake-dish, sprinkle bread-crumbs and bits of butter over the top and
bake for half an hour.
Green corn croquettes
Grate the corn from a dozen ears, or drain the liquor from a can of
corn, and chop the kernels fine. Cook together a tablespoonful of
butter and two of flour, and, when these are blended, add slowly a pint
of milk into which has been stirred a pinch of soda. Cook this mixture,
stirring all the time, until you have a thick white sauce; add to it
the chopped corn and half a teaspoonful of powdered sugar, with pepper
and salt to taste. Remove from the fire and set aside to cool. When
cold, form with lightly-floured hands into croquettes, and dip each
croquette in beaten egg and cracker-dust. Set all aside in a platter in
the ice-chest for several hours, then fry in deep, boiling fat.
Corn omelet
Grate the corn from four ears of boiled corn. Beat four eggs well, add
three tablespoonfuls of cream and cook in a hot pan. When ready to
fold, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add the corn and turn out on a hot
dish. Heat the corn slightly over hot water before putting into the
omelet.
Creole chowder
Heat a generous lump of butter and in it brown four sliced onions. Add
four peeled tomatoes, four chopped green bell-peppers, and the corn cut
from four cobs. Add as much water as may be needed in cooking, season
with salt and sugar and a little black pepper. A full hour’s cooking
will be necessary, and the chowder must be served piping hot.
CUCUMBERS
Many persons look upon the cucumber with fear as a source of
indigestion and gastric discomfort. One able dietitian has left on
record his opinion that a square inch of verdant cucumber is about as
fit to be put into the human stomach as would be a like quantity of
Paris green.
Our cucumber, like many another abused article, is maligned because its
enemies have never made the attempt to do it justice. If a few simple
rules are followed it will prove less indigestible and more palatable
than foes and friends imagine. When cooked, it loses many of its
disturbing qualities. But, as some people enjoy the crisp freshness of
its raw state, it is well to learn just how to prepare it properly.
Raw cucumbers
See to it that the cucumber is fresh and lay it on the ice until
wanted. Do not be content with leaving it on the shelf of the
refrigerator. It must be in actual contact with the ice. Just before
sending to the table, peel quickly and slice thin, scattering crushed
ice among the slices. At the table make a French dressing of one part
vinegar, three parts oil, salt and pepper to taste, and pour over the
cucumbers as you dish them. To allow the vegetable to lie for even
fifteen minutes in the dressing is to toughen the fiber and make it as
indigestible as gutta percha.
Stewed cucumbers
Peel eight medium-sized cucumbers and cut them into slices an inch
thick. Lay in iced water for half an hour. Have a pint of unsalted,
hot beef stock in a saucepan, drain the cucumbers and lay them in
this. Stew until tender, then remove with a skimmer and lay in a
vegetable-dish. Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and
browned flour, and pour upon them the stock in which the cucumbers were
cooked. Stir until you have a smooth brown sauce; add a saltspoonful of
salt, the same amount of pepper, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet and
a half teaspoonful of onion juice. Stir all together and pour over the
stewed cucumbers.
Stuffed cucumbers
Cut good-sized young cucumbers into halves, lengthwise, and remove the
seeds. Fill the hollows thus left with a forcemeat made of equal parts
of chopped roast beef and minced boiled ham, with half as much fine
bread-crumbs. Moisten this stuffing with melted butter and season to
taste. Place the halves of each cucumber carefully together and tie
with soft twine. Place in a roasting-pan, pour about them a cupful of
skimmed beef stock, and cook until tender. Remove the strings, transfer
the cucumbers to a hot platter, thicken the gravy left in the pan and
pour it about them. This is a Syrian recipe.
Baked cucumbers
Peel medium-sized cucumbers, arrange them in a bake-dish and pour about
them a couple of tablespoonfuls of water in which has been melted a
tablespoonful of butter. Dust with salt and pepper, and bake, covered,
for half an hour. If you wish, you can scallop them by cutting them in
slices, sprinkling with crumbs and basting with bits of butter. Bake,
covered, until tender; uncover and brown.
Fried cucumbers
Peel and leave in ice water for half an hour. Slice lengthwise, making
three slices of each cucumber of fair size, lay in fresh iced water for
ten minutes more. Wipe dry, sprinkle with pepper and salt, dredge with
flour and fry to a light brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.
Drain, and serve dry and hot.
CHESTNUTS
The large Spanish chestnuts sold by grocers in the city, and in the
markets, make excellent puddings with or without sugar, and, as
vegetables, go well with poultry and beef.
Chestnut pudding
Boil and skin enough chestnuts to make a cupful when rubbed through
a colander or vegetable press. Beat four eggs light, stir the
chestnut into the yolks; add a tablespoonful of melted butter and
two tablespoonfuls of fine cracker dust, two cupfuls of milk, a
tablespoonful of sugar, salt and pepper to taste; lastly, the frothed
whites. Bake, covered, in a buttered pudding-dish for half an hour;
uncover, brown and serve before it falls. Eat with meat.
Chestnut croquettes
Shell and boil five cupfuls of large chestnuts; skin, and rub through
a colander. Work into them a tablespoonful of butter, a little salt,
a few drops of lemon juice and a dash of paprika. Turn into a double
boiler, and make very hot, then set aside to cool. When cold form into
small croquettes, roll in egg, then in cracker-crumbs and set in the
ice for an hour before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.
Peanut croquettes may be made in the same way.
DANDELIONS
Make a wholesome and, to some tastes, palatable “greens” in the spring
of the year. They must be gathered while very young and tender, or they
are bitter. The best time to cut them is just before they flower. Throw
at once into cold water, as they wilt soon after they are picked.
Stewed dandelions (No. 1)
Cut the stems from a half peck of dandelion leaves, and break each leaf
into small bits, dropping these into cold water as you do so. Wash
thoroughly, drain, and lay in cold water for fifteen minutes. Drain
again, and put over the fire in a porcelain-lined saucepan, with enough
salted water to cover them. Simmer for fifteen minutes while you make
the following sauce:
Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and pour upon
them a pint of milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. Stir
to a smooth white sauce. Drain the water from the dandelion leaves, and
stir these into the sauce. Season to taste, and beat in, very slowly,
a whipped egg. Remove at once from the fire and turn into a deep
vegetable dish.
Stewed dandelions (No. 2)
Pick the leaves from the stems, and drop into iced water. Take them up
by the handful, dripping wet, and put, with no other water, into the
inner vessel of a farina boiler. Fill the outer kettle with boiling
water; cover the inner closely, and cook fast for half an hour. Rub
the leaves through a vegetable press or a colander into a saucepan;
beat in a tablespoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar, salt and
pepper to taste, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, and, at the last, three
tablespoonfuls of hot cream to which has been added a pinch of soda.
Stir until smoking hot over the fire, turn out into a heated dish,
garnish with sippets of fried bread, and serve.
Dandelion greens cooked thus are almost as good as spinach _à la crême_.
EGGPLANT—A MUCH ABUSED VEGETABLE
Tens of thousands of average American housewives know but one way of
cooking it, and not one in a hundred performs that one properly.
Fried eggplant is one of the many dishes which remind the eater of the
small girl of nursery-rhyme fame, who—
“When she was good was very, very good
But when she was bad she was horrid.”
When only half fried, or soaked with grease, this vegetable is an
abomination to the educated palate and the self-respecting stomach.
When tender and thoroughly cooked, it is one of the most delicious of
the summer and fall garden products.
Fried eggplant
Peel an eggplant and cut into slices half an inch thick. Lay in cold
salt water for an hour; wipe each slice dry and dip, first in beaten
egg, and then in cracker dust. Set in a cold place for an hour and fry
in deep boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain in a heated colander
before dishing.
Stuffed eggplant on the half-shell
Wash and wipe a large eggplant and parboil it in boiling salted water
for ten minutes. Let it get perfectly cold, cut in half lengthwise,
and scrape out the center, leaving the walls of the vegetable
three-quarters of an inch thick. Chop the pulp fine and add to it a
small cupful of minced chicken, half a cupful of minced ham, a quarter
of a cupful of bread-crumbs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, salt and
pepper to taste. Mix well, add enough soup stock to make a stiff paste,
and fill the hollow sides with this. When full and rounded, sprinkle
the forcemeat with bread-crumbs, and lay the halves, side by side,
in a bakepan, pouring three cupfuls of soup stock around them. Bake
nearly an hour, basting every ten minutes. Remove the eggplant to a hot
platter, thicken the gravy left in the pan with browned flour, boil up
once on top of the range, stirring constantly, and pour this browned
sauce about the base of the halved eggplant.
Scalloped eggplant
Pare off the skin, cut into dice and lay in cold salt water for an
hour. Then parboil for twenty minutes. Drain well and pack in a
buttered bake-dish, alternately, with fine crumbs. Dot each layer with
butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and strew with finely-minced
sweet green peppers. Fill the dish in this order, cover with a layer of
crumbs wet with cream; dot with butter, cover and bake half an hour,
then brown.
Eggplant stuffed with tomatoes
Halve the eggplant and remove the insides as in the last recipe but
one. Make a forcemeat of the eggplant pulp, a cupful of chopped ripe
tomatoes, one chopped green pepper, and a cupful of bread-crumbs.
Season with a tablespoonful of melted butter and salt and pepper. Fill
the hollow sides with this mixture, bind the two halves together with
wide tape, and bake, basting frequently with melted butter and hot
water. When tender, transfer to a hot platter, cut and remove the tape,
and pour hot tomato sauce about the eggplant.
Stewed eggplant, with sauce piquante
Prepare as for eggplant on the half-shell by halving and scooping out
the pulp, leaving substantial walls. Chop the pulp and cover with hot
water. Season with a tablespoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper, and
simmer for fifteen minutes. Take from the fire, drain, turn into a bowl
and work in two tablespoonfuls of soft bread-crumbs, one tablespoonful
of finely-chopped capers, two tablespoonfuls of cold boiled tongue,
minced, and, when well-mixed, add salt to taste.
Pack this forcemeat closely into each half, and fit the two parts
together, binding securely together with tapes or soft twine.
Put into your covered roaster; pour enough weak stock around it to
come one-third of the way up the side, bake, covered, half an hour,
then turn and cook the other side. Undo the strings, lay the eggplant
carefully in the middle of a hot dish, and pour a good sauce piquante
over and around it.
HOMINY
The small-grained hominy, called at the South “samp,” after the manner
of the aborigines who bequeathed it to us, must be used in the recipes
which follow.
Plain hominy pudding
Soak a cupful of hominy for three hours in tepid water. Drain, and put
over the fire in plenty of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil fast
for thirty minutes or until tender; turn off the water and pour in a
pint of hot milk, with a little salt. Cook for fifteen minutes, stir in
a generous lump of butter and turn into a deep dish.
Eat with sugar and cream.
Baked hominy
Stir into a pint of milk a cupful of cold boiled hominy, and when this
is smooth, add a tablespoonful of melted butter, a tablespoonful of
sugar, a saltspoonful of salt and four well-beaten eggs. Beat very
light, pour into a buttered pudding-dish and bake for about half an
hour or until “set” and brown. This is a good accompaniment to roast
beef.
Hominy croquettes
Into two cupfuls of boiled hominy work a tablespoonful of melted
butter; when the cereal is free from all lumps, add to it two beaten
eggs, and when these are thoroughly incorporated, season the mixture
with salt and pepper. Flour your hands, make the paste into small
croquettes, and set aside until stiff and very cold. Now dip each
croquette into beaten egg, roll in cracker-crumbs, and when all are
thoroughly coated set in the ice-box for two hours. Fry to a golden
brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.
Hominy fritters
Rub two cupfuls of cold boiled hominy to a smooth paste with one
tablespoonful of melted butter. Next, thin with warmed milk, and add
three well-beaten eggs. Finally, stir in a cupful of flour which
has been sifted twice with a teaspoonful of salt and half as much
baking-powder.
Drop by the spoonful into boiling, deep cottolene or other fat; or,
better still, cook upon a soapstone griddle.
KALE
This vegetable, otherwise known as “sea-kale,” should be better known
in our country. In England it takes high rank and holds it creditably.
Pick it over carefully, clip off the stems and lay it in cold water
for an hour. Drain, and put it into a saucepan full of salted boiling
water. Cook until tender, drain and chop fine. Return to the saucepan
with three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, salt and pepper to taste.
Serve very hot on squares of buttered toast.
MACARONI
Few articles of diet are more toothsome and more wholesome than
macaroni in its various forms when properly prepared. Like rice, it
is so often miserably cooked that its excellent qualities are not
generally recognized. Macaroni may be bought in several shapes, the
large, or pipe-macaroni being perhaps the most common. Besides this
there are the smaller and more delicate vermicelli, spaghetti and the
flat ribbon, or egg-macaroni. Recipes for the cooking of one may be
used in the preparation of any of the divers phases of this food.
Baked macaroni (No. 1)
Break into inch-lengths half a pound of macaroni. Boil it until
tender in weak broth. Drain off the liquor; put the macaroni into a
pudding-dish that will stand the fire; pour over it a half cupful of
the stock in which it was boiled, and put a tablespoonful of butter,
broken into small pieces, here and there through it. Sift over it fine
bread-crumbs and grated cheese; dot with bits of butter and brown in
the oven.
Baked macaroni (No. 2)
Break half a pound of macaroni into short lengths; cook until tender in
boiling, salted water. It must be clear and soft, but not broken. Drain
and put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Dot with
butter, sprinkle lightly with cayenne and salt to taste; cover with
grated cheese, and on this dispose another layer of macaroni. Fill the
dish in this order, having cheese for the top layer. Pour in a cupful
of milk; cover, and bake half an hour. Uncover and brown.
Creamed macaroni
Put a cupful of macaroni into two quarts of boiling salted water and
cook for twenty-five minutes, or until tender, but not broken. Drain
off all the water and keep the macaroni hot in a covered dish while you
make the cream sauce to pour over it. Cook together in a saucepan until
they bubble, two teaspoonfuls of flour and the same quantity of butter;
pour over them a pint of hot milk, and, as this thickens, stir into it
two heaping tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese. Pour this sauce
upon the macaroni just before serving, lifting the latter lightly with
a fork that the creamy sauce may reach every part.
Macaroni with cheese sauce
Boil tender in salted water and drain. Cook together in a saucepan a
great spoonful of butter and a cupful of grated Swiss cheese. As soon
as the cheese is melted, turn the macaroni into the saucepan and stir
and toss with a silver fork until thoroughly blended with the sauce.
Serve at once.
Macaroni and chicken