The cheese had been melted upon buttered toast, cut by a tin “shape”
into scalloped ovals; it was golden brown in color, crisp to the teeth,
savory to the palate. The tea was scalding and fresh and fragrant; for
meat we had three Hamburg steaks, garnished with celery-tops. They were
accompanied by an apple-and-celery salad, treated on the table to a
French dressing; wafery slices of brown bread and butter went with it.
Afterwards we had Albert biscuits and a second cup of tea—and nothing
else. Beyond the laughing remark prefacing the frugal meal, the hostess
offered no apology. She lived in this style every day, affecting
nothing and hiding nothing. A gentlewoman in grain, if she had sat down
to three meals a day alone, she would have breakfasted, lunched and
dined—not merely “fed.” Luxury was beyond her reach—elegance never.
Simplicity need not be homely. Neatness is not a synonym for bareness.
A certain degree of beauty and grace is almost a Christian duty.
The best cooks can not afford to despise the recommendation of the eye
to the palate. The difference between plain and dainty housekeeping
depends so much upon it that the professional caterer plays cunningly
upon the desire of the eye, often bringing a good thing into disrepute.
Because his garnishes and fanciful devices conceal cheap materials and
indifferent manufactures is no reason why the housekeeper should not
make the substantial “home fare” provided by her honest hands goodly to
sight, as well as to taste.
Cooking schools and classes, chafing-dish lectures and the cuisine
corner of the woman’s page have been active for more than a third of
a century to bring our average American housewife to what old-time
revivalists called “a realizing sense” of the deficiencies of the
national kitchen, and by the rugged road of conviction to conversion
from the old way to the new, which is the better. There is no dearth of
missionaries, no lack of machinery.
Much of the work done by these is surface culture—scratching and
smoothing over the soil, cleansing, to a polish, cup and platter.
Curled parsley, beets, carrots and turnips, carved into leaves, stars
and flowers, and fantastic confections of tissue paper and meringue—do
not cheat veterans in gastronomics into relish of the ill-prepared
dishes they adorn. Experiences of this sort have something to do with
the contempt felt by many competent cooks for culinary esthetics. They
class everything that looks in this direction under the head of “French
cookery,” a synonym with them for flash and frippery.
I grant that to the hale appetite of the lover of “plain roast
and boiled” of joints, haunches and rounds—the man who can digest
mountains of fried “griddles,” and, in the bottom of his stomachic
conscience, prefers corned beef and cabbage to broiled sweetbreads and
mushrooms—his steak, or rare roast, or sugar-cured ham, or choice cut
of cod, tastes no better for the garnish of cress, nasturtium or lemon.
I once saw a millionaire “high-liver” toss aside the green sprays with
the declaration that he “liked to have victuals and weeds sent in upon
separate dishes.” After clearing the trou—trencher!—he proceeded to
feed.
In the feeder’s very teeth I maintain that food daintily served tastes
better than the same when set before us with no regard to seemliness.
If slender appetites are to be coaxed into action, the study of
pleasing effects becomes an obligation.
DINNER SWEETS OF ALL SORTS
PIES
Pastry
Have all ingredients very cold. Into a pound of flour chop
three-quarters of a cup of firm, cold butter. When the flour is like a
coarse powder stir into it a small cupful of iced water. With a spoon
mix together, then turn upon a floured pastry-board, roll out quickly
and lightly, fold and roll out again. Set the pastry on the ice until
chilled through, roll out and line a pie-dish with it. Before filling
the pastry shell with fruit, or other material of which the pie is to
be made, wash over the lower crust with the unbeaten white of an egg,
and, when the filling is put in, set the pie immediately in an oven
that is as hot at the bottom as at the top. The oven must be hot and
steady.
A good puff paste
Into a half-pound of flour chop six ounces of firm, cold butter, and,
when like a coarse powder, wet with a small cupful of iced water. Stir
to a paste and turn upon a chilled board. Roll out quickly and lightly,
handling as little as possible. Fold and roll out three times, then
set on the ice for several hours before making into pies. Always bake
pastry in a very hot oven.
Family pie crust
Sift a quart of flour three times with one teaspoonful of
baking-powder. Chop into it two tablespoonfuls of cottolene or other
fat until it is like granulated dust. Wet with iced water into a stiff
dough, handling as little as you can, using a wooden spoon until it is
too stiff to manage. Turn upon a floured board and roll out thin. Have
ready two tablespoonfuls of firm butter, and with this dot the paste
in rows one inch apart, using one tablespoonful of butter. Roll up the
sheet of paste, inclosing the butter; beat flat with the rolling-pin,
and roll out as before. Use the other tablespoonful of butter in
dotting this sheet, sprinkle lightly with flour, and roll up tightly.
Give a blow or two of the pin to hold it in fold, and set on the ice
until you are ready to use it—all night if you like. It is better for
three or four hours’ chilling.
Butter the pie-plates, lay the crust lightly within them; pinch the
edges to hinder it from “crawling” while baking, fill with fruit, or
whatever else is to go into them. If this is to be what a witty editor
designates as “the kivered pie which stands high in the royal family of
Pie,” lay the paste neatly over the filling, trim off ragged edges, and
press or print down the edges.
A North Carolina man thus separates the “royal family” aforesaid:
“There are three varieties: kivered, unkivered and barred.”
The New York editor, just quoted, says of the “kivered” variety:
“Its triumphant composition requires of the artist higher qualities
of head and heart, a more delicate touch, a higher strain of genius,
a sublimer imagination, than the composition of the unkivered, or
the barred. There must be magic in the upper crust of it. Ah! that
delicious, finely-flaking upper crust, designed by a deep-revolving
brain and fashioned by a sensitive hand, a pâté Queen Mab would be glad
to nibble!”
On the other hand, a New Orleans knight of the pen boldly defines the
kivered pie as “distinctively a product of New England civilization,
that has no place in simpler and more democratic states. Descendants of
the men who made the charge up King’s Mountain, the Majuba Hill of this
continent, take their pie unkivered. They will not touch the kivered
abomination!”
Mince pie
Returning to our New York editorial, the amused reader finds this
eulogium upon mince pie:
“There goes much skill to the making of a mince pie. Within the
fortunate inwards of the president of pies are strange dainties and
spices, and Dr. Johnson’s drink of heroes. The elements are so mixed in
it that nature may stand up and say to all the world: ‘This is a _pie_!
A great mince pie is a masterpiece!’”
An anonymous writer upon the same subject says for the comfort of
semi-dyspeptics:
“Mince-meat ought to be extremely wholesome for the same reasons that
make it good to eat—its flavors of sweet and sour, of meat, apple and
spice, which relieve each other, and its finely divided particles which
allow the choicer blending of flavors and save the stomach much of
the grinding work which reduces food to the pulp in which it enters
the blood. What gives mince pie its ill repute as the very spawn of
nightmare, are its overdressing with suet and butter, only fit for
polar consumption, and its drugging with spices. Spice is the very food
of the nerves, rightly used, growing more essential as circulation and
sense dull with age. But it should be delicately, discerningly used not
to lose its potency. The overdressing with fat is a relic of the old
English barbarism which stewed its food in tallow, and, as the old play
has it, ‘took two fat wethers to baste one capon.’”
Mince-meat
(A family recipe 150 years old.)
Boil two pounds of lean beef, and when cold, chop fine. Mince a pound
of beef suet to a powder. Peel and chop five pounds of apples. Seed
and halve two pounds of raisins. Wash, and pick over carefully two
pounds of cleaned currants and one pound of sultana raisins. Cut into
tiny bits three-quarters of a pound of citron. Mix these ingredients,
adding, as you do so, two tablespoonfuls, each, of cinnamon and mace,
a tablespoonful, each, of cloves and allspice, a teaspoonful of ground
nutmeg, a tablespoonful of salt and two and a half pounds of brown
sugar. When all is well mixed, stir in a quart of sherry and a pint of
the best brandy. Mix thoroughly and pack down in a stone crock.
Mince-meat should be prepared several weeks before it is needed, that
it may “ripen” and become mellow. Those whose temperance principles
forbid the moistening of the mince-meat with brandy or sherry, may use
cider in their place. In making mince pies have the best puff-paste.
Line pie-plates with this, fill the crust shells with the mince-meat,
and lay strips of pastry, lattice-wise, across the tops of the pies.
Bake in a good oven, which should be as hot at the bottom as at the
top. The pies may be kept for weeks, but must be reheated before
serving.
Our New Orleans essayist upon the national pie, is cavalierly
disdainful in throwing aside the third variety:
“The barred pie may be dismissed without discussion, being a mere
compromise, a pabulum for colorless individuals who are the mugwumps of
the dining-room.”
In defiance of the slur, I commend my “barred” mince pie, with its
latticed cover, as the pearl of the royal race. For a century and a
half, the Old Virginia housewives, from whom I proudly claim descent,
laid the dainty trellis across the heaving brown breast of the
masterpiece, and six generations of epicures have set thereon the seal
of their approval.
Pumpkin pie (No. 1)
Belongs to the noble order of the “unkivered” pie.
Add the beaten yolks of four eggs and one cupful of white sugar to two
cupfuls of pumpkin that has been stewed and put through a colander.
With this mix a quart of milk, one teaspoonful of cinnamon, mace and
nutmeg mixed, and the whites of the eggs, beaten stiff. Line a very
deep pie-dish with a good paste, cut slashes in it here and there, stir
the pumpkin custard well from the bottom and put it into the pastry.
Bake in a steady oven.
Pumpkin pie (No. 2)
Into a quart of stewed and strained pumpkin stir a quart of milk, a
cup of granulated sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg to taste, and, last of
all, five eggs, well beaten. Mix thoroughly, and pour the mixture into
a deep pie-plate lined with puff paste. Bake in a good oven until the
pumpkin custard is “set.” Eat cold. Canned pumpkin is used in the same
way and is almost as good as the fresh.
Lemon cream pie (No. 1)
Heat a quart of milk and stir into it one-third of a cupful of prepared
flour wet with a little cold milk. Let this get hot, stirring all the
while. Beat the yolks of five eggs light with five tablespoonfuls
of sugar, and add the milk and flour to this. Let all cook together
for one minute after they come to the simmer; take from the fire and
add the juice and grated peel of a large lemon. Bake in open shells
of puff paste, and, as soon as the custard is set, cover it with a
meringue made of the whites of the five eggs beaten stiff with three
tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Brown lightly and serve cold.
Lemon cream pie (No. 2)
Cream a tablespoonful of butter with a cupful of sugar; dissolve a
heaping tablespoonful of corn-starch in a gill of cold water, and stir
it into a cupful of boiling water. Stir until smooth; then pour over
the sugar and butter. Mix well and when cool stir in the grated rind
and the juice of a large lemon, and one beaten egg. Line a pie-plate
with puff paste, fill with this mixture and bake. When done, cover with
a meringue, and return to the oven just long enough to brown lightly.
Lemon pie with crust
Beat two eggs light and stir into them two cupfuls of sugar; add a
pint of water, three tablespoonfuls of cracker-dust, the same quantity
of flour rubbed to a paste with a little cold water, the grated rind
of one, and the juice of two lemons. Beat hard, add a pinch, each, of
cinnamon and nutmeg, and turn the mixture into pie-plates lined with
pastry. Cover with an upper crust, cut gashes in this for the escape of
the steam, and bake in a steady oven for forty minutes.
Crustless lemon pie
Soak a cupful of crumbs for an hour in a little milk. Cream together a
half-cupful of sugar and half as much butter, whip into them the beaten
yolks of three eggs and the white of one, reserving the other whites
for the meringue. Now add the juice and grated rind of two lemons, then
the soaked crumbs. Line a large pie-plate with puff paste, pour in
the lemon mixture and bake to a golden brown. Make a meringue of the
stiffened whites and two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Draw the pie
to the door of the oven, spread with the meringue and return it to the
oven just long enough to brown it delicately. Eat cold.
Cocoanut pie
Cream a half-cupful of butter with two scant cupfuls of powdered
sugar, and when very light add half a grated cocoanut and a generous
tablespoonful of rose-water. Now “fold” in quickly and lightly the
stiffened whites of six eggs, turn into a deep pie-dish lined with
puff paste and bake in a quick oven. Eat cold with powdered sugar and
whipped cream flavored with rose-water. This is delicious.
When it is possible to do so buy the fresh cocoanut and grate it.
The prepared or desiccated article put up in boxes may be used as a
makeshift. It can never be a worthy substitute for the fresh and juicy
nut.
Chocolate pie (No. 1)
Make a custard by pouring two cupfuls of scalding milk gradually
upon three eggs that have been beaten well with four tablespoonfuls
of sugar. Return to the fire, stir in a half-cupful of grated
sweet-chocolate, remove from the fire, add a teaspoonful of vanilla,
and pour the mixture into a pie-plate lined with puff paste. Bake until
“set.”
Chocolate pie (No. 2)
One pint of milk; one cupful of sugar; yolks of two eggs; two
tablespoonfuls of grated chocolate. Mix, and bake in an open crust.
Make a meringue of the whites of the eggs and a tablespoonful of sugar
and spread on the top of the pie to brown.
Orange pie
Rub to a creamy paste a half-cupful of butter and a cupful of
granulated sugar. Beat light the yolks of four eggs, whip them into the
butter and sugar, add the juice and a quarter of the grated peel of a
large orange, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, and the stiffened whites of
two eggs. Line a pie-plate with light puff paste and turn the orange
mixture into this. Bake until the filling is set and the crust lightly
browned. Beat the whites of two eggs light with two tablespoonfuls of
powdered sugar. When the pie is done, draw it to the door of the oven,
spread it with this meringue, and return to the oven just long enough
to color the meringue delicately. Eat cold.
Custard pie
Whip light the yolks of three eggs with four tablespoonfuls of sugar.
Pour upon them two cupfuls of boiling milk, stirring this in slowly.
Flavor with a teaspoonful of vanilla. Line a pie-plate with paste,
brush the inside with the white of an egg, pour in the custard and bake.
Sliced apple pie
Line a deep pie-dish with good puff paste. Put into this peeled and
cored and thinly-sliced apples; sprinkle thickly with sugar and squeeze
a few drops of lemon juice upon them. Add more sliced apple, more
sugar, a little more lemon, and proceed in this way until the dish is
full. Cover with a round of puff paste, pinch together the edges of
the upper and lower crusts, and cut several slits in the upper to allow
the steam to escape. Bake in a steady oven to a golden brown, covering
the pie with paper for the first ten minutes.
Creamed sweet apple pie
Pare, core and quarter Campfield pound sweets, or other sweet apples.
Put them into a pudding-dish with a few spoonfuls of water to prevent
burning, cover closely and cook until tender, but not broken. Add two
tablespoonfuls of sugar to each cupful and let them get cold in the
syrup. Then cut into thin slices or tiny dice. Roll out some puff paste
quite thin; line a pie-plate, sprinkle with flour, lay on another crust
and bake until brown. When ready to serve, open the crusts, spread the
lower one with the stewed apple, cover with whipped cream, put on the
top crust and sprinkle that with powdered sugar.
Creamed apple-sauce pie
Bake your crusts as directed in preceding recipe. When you separate
them, spread with well-sweetened apple-sauce beaten light; cover with
whipped cream; lay on the upper crust and sprinkle powdered sugar on
top.
In both of these recipes you may substitute a meringue of frothed
whites, slightly sweetened, for the cream, spreading the same upon the
top crust.
Apple meringue pie
Slice and stew ripe, tart apples; run through the colander or vegetable
press into a bowl. Sweeten plentifully, and beat in, while hot, a
tablespoonful of butter. Have ready buttered pie-plates lined with
puff paste; when the sauce is cold fill these shells with it and bake
until very lightly browned. Cover with a meringue, slightly sweetened
and flavored with vanilla or other essence; set in a hot oven and bake
until the meringue begins to color. Sift powdered sugar over all. Eat
cold.
Peach meringue pie
Stew and rub peaches through a colander or a vegetable press. Sweeten
to taste, and when cold, proceed as directed in last recipe. They are
very nice.
Whole peach pie
Line a deep pie-plate with pastry, and lay in it as many whole peeled
peaches as it will hold. Strew thickly with sugar; fit on an upper
crust and bake to a golden brown. Eat with powdered sugar and cream.
Creamed peach pie (No. 1)
Peel, stone and halve ripe peaches. Line a deep pie-plate with puff
paste, and lay the peaches in this. Sprinkle thickly with sugar, and
fit on an upper crust. Have ready and cold, a cream sauce. To make
this, scald a half-pint of milk and thicken it with a tablespoonful of
corn-starch rubbed smooth in a little cold milk. Add two tablespoonfuls
of sugar and the frothed white of one egg. Boil together for five
minutes and set aside to cool. When the pie is done carefully lift the
top crust and fill the pie to overflowing with the cream sauce. Replace
the crust and set in a cool place. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and eat
very cold.
Creamed peach pie (No. 2)
Bake as above, stoning the peaches and cutting each in half. While hot,
insinuate the blade of a knife between upper and lower crust, to loosen
them. Let the pie get cold; lift the crust and spread whipped cream
upon the peaches. Cover again, strew powdered sugar upon the top crust
and eat.
Creamed raspberry pie
Line a pie-dish with good pastry and fill it three-quarters full of
red raspberries strewed with granulated sugar. Cover with an upper
crust, but rub the edges of this and of the lower crust with butter to
prevent their sticking together. Make a cream of a cupful of hot milk
thickened with a teaspoonful of corn-starch wet with cold milk. Stir
in two tablespoonfuls of sugar, remove from the fire, and when cool
whip in the stiffened whites of three eggs. When the pie is done and
is cold, lift off the upper crust and cover the raspberries with the
“cream.” Replace the cover and sift powdered sugar over it.
Cherry pie
Many persons make a cherry pie without stoning the cherries. That
stoning them is a trouble is not to be denied, but the result is so
satisfactory that it really seems worth while to take the pains to
accomplish it. In stoning cherries, use a sharp knife and save all the
juice. Grease a deep pie-dish and line it with good puff pastry. Fill
the pastry shell with the cherries and the juice that flowed from them
in the stoning process. Cover with a thin crust, cut slits in this for
the escape of the steam, and bake. Eat cold.
Cranberry pie
Seed a cupful of raisins and chop them into bits. Cut into halves two
cupfuls of cranberries and mix them with the minced raisins. Add two
even cupfuls of sugar, a cupful of water, two tablespoonfuls of flour
and a few drops of lemon juice. Line deep pie-plates with puff paste;
fill each with the mixture, put on a thin upper crust and cut slits
in this for the escape of the steam. Bake in a good oven to a golden
brown. When cold, sprinkle with sugar.
Cranberry and raisin pie
Seed and mince one cupful of raisins; mix with two cupfuls of
cranberries halved, a half cupful of water and a cupful of sugar. Stir
one teaspoonful of flour with the sugar and mix all well. Fill shells
of pastry laid in buttered plates with this mixture, called by some
“mock cherry pie,” lay strips of crust cut with a jagging-iron over the
top and bake.
Strawberry pie
Line a buttered plate with puff paste, wash with white of egg and fill
with ripe strawberries capped and washed. Sweeten plentifully, cover
with another crust; cut slits in this, and bake.
Currant pie (No. 1)
Mix ripe and stemmed currants with one cupful of sugar to two of
currants, and bake between upper and lower crusts. Strew white sugar
over the top and eat cold.
Currant pie (No. 2)
Fill a pastry shell with one cupful of ripe currants, cleaned and
stemmed. Pour upon them an egg, beaten light with one-half cupful of
sugar. Lay another crust over the currants and bake.
New England blueberry pie
Wash and dredge blueberries with flour; then scatter among them half a
cupful of sugar for each pint of berries. Fill paste shells with this,
dot with butter, cover with another crust and bake.
These are richer than huckleberry or blueberry pies, when made in the
usual way, the flour thickening the juice slightly and the butter
tempering the acid.
Blackberry pie
Make as directed in foregoing recipe.
Combination berry pie
Line a deep pie-plate with pastry and bake long enough to set the crust
on top, but not to brown, or entirely cook it. Have ready a mixture of
equal quantities of elderberries and huckleberries with one-fourth as
many red currants. Dredge with flour, and sprinkle over all a generous
cupful of sugar for a quart of berries; dot the surface with bits of
butter,—one tablespoon in all,—cover with a crust which should be well
turned under the crust of the lower one, and bake, covered, half an
hour, then brown.
Sweet potato pie
Parboil, peel, and when cold, grate enough sweet potatoes to make a
pound. Cream a half cupful of butter with three-quarters of a cupful
of sugar and the beaten yolks of four eggs, a teaspoonful, each, of
powdered cinnamon and nutmeg, the grated potato, the juice and rind of
a lemon, a wineglassful of brandy and, last of all, the whites of the
eggs. Line a large pie-plate with puff paste, fill with the mixture and
bake.
Irish potato pie
Boil and rub through a colander or vegetable press; then proceed as
with the sweet potatoes in last recipe, but using a full cupful of
sugar.
This pie is even more delicious than the sweet potato compound.
Rhubarb and raisin pie
Peel the rhubarb and cut into inch pieces; pour boiling water over it
and let stand for ten minutes. Drain; line the pie-plate with plain
paste. Fill the pie with rhubarb, and strew over it one cupful of sugar
and one-half cupful of raisins. Add small pieces of butter. Cover with
a crust and bake.
Whipped cream pie
(Contributed)
Line a pie-plate with a rich crust and bake in a hot oven. When cool
spread over with a layer of jelly or marmalade. Whip one cupful of
thick cream, sweetened with powdered sugar, and flavored with vanilla;
pour this over the marmalade. Or fill crust with whipped cream to
which has been added one teacupful of blanched chopped almonds.
Turnover pies
(Contributed)
Mix a plain puff paste. Roll thin and cut into circular pieces about
the size of a saucer. Put fruit over one-half of the piece. Sprinkle
with sugar. Wet the edges and turn the paste over. Press the edges
together and bake on tins in a quick oven twenty minutes.
Mock mince pie
(Contributed)