All foods that are suitable should be used uncooked. They are more
nourishing and consequently more satisfying.
Foods containing starch should not be eaten raw.
Next to wholesomeness, make taste and palatability first. There is
nothing more disappointing than to taste of a daintily arranged and
decorated dish and find it flat and insipid.
Seek to develop the natural flavors of foods, of which there are
thousands, rather than to add foreign flavorings.
To stir fruits, legumes and many foods while cooking is just the way to
make them stick and scorch. Shake the vessels instead of stirring.
To brush kettles and saucepans on the inside with oil, helps to keep
milk and other foods from sticking.
Use double boilers as far as possible for reheating gravies, cereals
and legumes, and for heating milk.
When, in spite of all precautions, something burns on, plunge the
vessel without ceremony into a pail or pan of cold water for a moment,
empty the contents immediately into another kettle, add boiling water
and return to the fire to finish cooking. Badly scorched foods often
lose all the scorched flavor by this treatment.
Remove the burnt portion from bread or cake with a grater, when first
taken from the oven.
Dip the knife into hot water to cut butter, warm bread or cake.
Two forks are better than a knife for separating steamed puddings,
fresh cake and many things.
Use pastry flour for gravies, sauces and all thickenings.
To blend flour and liquid for thickening, add only a little liquid at
a time, stirring with a fork or batter whip until a perfectly smooth
paste is formed, then add liquid to make of the consistency of rather
thin cream.
Flour, for thickening, gives a more creamy consistency than corn
starch. Use corn starch for fruit juices, as it leaves them clearer.
Never mix flour or corn starch with eggs to stir into boiling
liquid, as they both require longer cooking than eggs will bear
without separating. Stir the blended flour or corn starch into the
liquid first, let it boil well, then pour the hot mixture gradually,
stirring, into the beaten eggs, return to the fire and cook a moment if
necessary, but do not boil.
In adding yolks of eggs to hot mixtures, put two or three spoonfuls of
the mixture on to the yolks, stirring, then add them, all at once, to
the whole.
Eggs must be added all at once to hot liquids so they will all be
cooked alike and a part will not curdle before the rest is done.
To prevent a raw taste, blended flour should be added to boiling liquid
so slowly as not to stop its boiling.
“Rich milk” means one-fourth to one-third cream.
Cream judiciously used is no more expensive from a financial stand
point than butter, and from a health standpoint it is cheaper.
Being in the form of an emulsion, cream does not hinder digestion as
does the free fat of butter. It should be sterilized before using in
uncooked dishes.
In the recipes in this book, heavy cream is meant unless thin is
specified.
It is cheaper to buy heavy cream than light, when there are two
qualities, and you can make it as thin as you wish.
When cream is scarce do not use it where oil and skimmed milk will do
just as well, but save it for uses where nothing else will take its
place.
Cream with water often gives a better flavor to foods than milk, and is
just as cheap.
For farmers, the use of cream saves the labor of making butter.
When taking cream, use fewer nuts and less butter and other oils.
Nut creams and butters may always be substituted for dairy cream and
butter, with judgment as to flavors.
Peanut butter should be used sparingly and judiciously. No one enjoys,
as one man expressed it, “that everlasting peanut flavor in everything.”
Oil and melted butter may be combined in equal quantities when the
butter flavor is desirable, as in pilau and drawn butter.
Oil makes more tender pastry, raised cakes and universal crust.
“Stale” bread crumbs are those of a two or three days old loaf.
Stale bread is understood for crumbs when no specification is given.
A quick and easy way to prepare stale bread crumbs is to cut very thin
slices from the loaf, lay them together and cut as thin as possible
across one way and then the other with a large sharp knife into tiny
dice.
“Dry” crumbs are those from a loaf dry enough to grate or grind.
Save all pieces of bread not usable for croutons or other things, dry
without browning, and roll or grind, for dry crumbs; sift, leaving two
sizes of crumbs.
When bread crumbs are used for puddings or molds the quantity will vary
with the kind of bread. Fewer will be required with home-made bread
than with baker’s bread.
Bread, cracker or zwieback crumbs, corn meal, flour or browned flour
No. 1, or a mixture of crumbs and brown or white flour may be used for
rolling croquettes or cutlets, or for sprinkling the top of scallops or
gratins.
Nut meal is suitable for the outside of rice croquettes and the top of
many dishes.
Grated or chopped onion is apt to become bitter if prepared long before
using.
To extract the juice from lemons without a drill, cut them in halves
without rolling, the same as for a drill, then holding each half over a
strainer in a bowl, work the point of a spoon from the cut surface in
and around gradually to the rind. This method removes the juice cleaner
than does the drill.
Another way is to roll the lemon and puncture it at one end with a
silver fork, then squeeze the juice out. This leaves the seeds inside.
Dry lemons yield more juice than fresh ones.
Remove the pulp from lemons for pies and other uses by cutting them
lengthwise in the middle of the sections and scraping each side of the
membrane, or by cutting the lemon in halves crosswise and taking the
pulp out with a spoon.
To keep lemons and oranges from molding, spread them on a shelf in a
dry place so that they will not touch each other. They may be covered
with glass tumblers if in a cool as well as dry place.
To core apples, insert a steel fork at the blossom end and turn it
round and round, then repeat from the stem end.
The half shell of an egg will remove bits of shell from broken eggs
much better than a spoon.
My mother taught me to use too little rather than too much salt in
foods, saying it was easier to add it than to take it out.
Salt varies so much in saltness that it is impossible to give definite
rules for its use.
Have a shelf over the stove for zwieback, crackers and toasted cereals
to keep them crisp.
Keep a dish of oil on or near your work table.
Have a small tin of pastry flour on the table to use for thickening
sauces; also a small bowl or tin of sugar, and one of corn starch if
using it frequently, and a box of salt, of course.
If a thickened mixture is allowed to any more than boil up well, after
lemon juice is added, it will become thin.
Finely-sliced, tender, raw celery is much to be preferred to cooked, in
timbales, croquettes, batters and sauces.
Never chop celery; slice it fine instead.
The word “meat” as used in this book refers to true meats, not flesh
meats, but is confined to such foods as are rich in proteids, not being
taken in its broadest sense.
Use soft butter for oiling molds to be decorated, as that holds the
decorations better than oil.
To unmold, dip the mold in hot water a moment.
Both oil and crumb molds for delicate fillings.
Dip molds in cold water, invert and turn quickly right side up without
draining, for gelatine and other fillings to be served cold.
Many foods gain in richness of flavor by being reheated; and for that
reason, left overs often make more appetizing dishes than fresh cooked
foods.
Reheat foods, legumes, vegetables, cereals, or fruits, to preserve
them, before they begin to show signs of spoiling.
Only a small quantity of sugar, proportionately, should be added to
yolks of eggs, or they will gather in small, hard particles and become
useless.
Ice water crisps and freshens such vegetables as lettuce, parsley,
cabbage and cucumbers as that just a little warmer will not.
In multiplying a recipe to make a larger quantity of soup or other
liquid food, use a smaller proportion of liquid; or in dishes
containing thickening take a larger proportion of flour, as the
evaporation is not so great in proportion to the quantity.
The alcohol of yeast or of flavoring extracts goes off in the steam in
cooking.
When eggs are used in cakes, breads, puddings or other dishes, fewer
nuts, nut foods, legumes or other proteid foods will be required.
Bake soufflés and dishes made light with eggs, slowly, as when baked
rapidly they puff up quickly and fall just as quickly; while if baked
slowly, they retain their lightness.
Timbales, puddings and all molds to be served hot should stand 5 or 10
m. in a warm place after removing from the fire, before unmolding.
Place a cold wet towel over pudding molds to loosen, if inclined to
stick.
Do not chop nut meats fine for roasts, cakes or puddings. Sometimes
leave them whole, or just break them a little.
To try vegetables for tenderness, use a sharp pointed knife rather than
a fork.
Batter and plum puddings and brown bread may be steamed in the oven by
setting the mold containing them into a vessel of water with a tight
fitting cover.
To steam in glass, set dishes or jars first into cold water and bring
to boiling, then set into steamer.
Honey attracts moisture, consequently it should be kept in a warm dry
place.
In discarding unwholesome foods be sure to put something wholesome in
their place; in other words, employ a system of substitution rather
than one of subtraction.
For instance, for this book we have taken pains to search out a
variety of harmless flavorings to be used in place of the irritating
condiments, such as mustard, pepper, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg and
cloves; and instead of the acetic acid of vinegar, we use lemon
juice--citric acid.
“Vinegar--acetic acid, is about ten times as strong as alcohol and
makes more trouble in the stomach than any of the other acids except
oxalic.”--_Dr. Rand._
“Do not eat largely of salt.”
“Very hot food ought not to be taken into the stomach. Soups, puddings
and other articles of the kind are often eaten too hot, and as a
consequence the stomach is debilitated.”
Many people can digest cream better when accompanied by an acid fruit.
While using oil enough to keep the machinery of the body lubricated,
take care not to use too much. People with dilated stomachs can take
very little, and that little best in salad dressings or as shortening
with flour.
Malt gives flesh but not strength; too much is harmful.
Flesh is more often a sign of disease than of health. Good solid firm
muscle is to be cultivated.
Taste is a matter of education. Let us educate ourselves to like the
things that are good for us.
“Perseverance in a self-denying course of eating and drinking will soon
make plain, wholesome food palatable, and it will be eaten with greater
satisfaction than the epicure enjoys over his rich dainties.”