Break fresh eggs at the small ends, drain away the whites, break down
the shells to deepish cups, each with a yolk at bottom, sprinkle yolks
lightly with salt and pepper, add a bit of butter to each, then set
shells upright, close over the bottom of a pan, pop the pan into a hot
oven, bake twenty minutes, and serve piping hot. This Mammy gave us to
keep from wasting yolks when wedding or Christmas cake demanded many
whites for frosting.
_Potato Egg Puffs_: Into a quart of rich and highly seasoned mashed
potatoes, beat two eggs, then divide into equal portions--six or eight.
With lightly floured hands make each portion into a ball, set the balls
in a baking dish, then press into each a hard-boiled egg. Lay a bit of
butter on each egg, and dredge lightly with salt and pepper. Bake in a
quick oven until the potato is brown and light--it ought to rise up like
a fat apple.
_Egg Dumplings_: Cousins-germane to the puffs but richer--will serve
indeed for the meat course of a plain dinner. Mix the potato well with
half its bulk of finely chopped cold meat, the leaner the better, bind
with beaten eggs, then divide and roll each portion around a hard-boiled
egg, lay the dumplings in a greased and floured pan, giving them plenty
of room, pour around them a good gravy, or else a rich tomato sauce,
then bake ten to twenty minutes in a hot oven.
_Egg Spread_: Spread a flat pan an inch deep with rich mashed potato,
sprinkle with pepper and salt, then cover the top with eggs hard boiled,
and cut in half. Set them yolk up. Put salt, pepper and butter on each
yolk, and bake ten minutes in a warm oven. Or if soft eggs are
preferred, make depressions in the potato with the back of a spoon,
break an egg in each, dust with pepper and salt, add a dot of butter and
bake five minutes. If the potatoes are wanted brown, bake them ten
minutes after making the depressions, then put in the eggs and bake soft
or hard at will.
_Poached Eggs_: These require a deep skillet, three parts full of water
on the bubbling boil, which is slightly salted and well dashed with
vinegar. Break all the eggs separately before putting one in. Slip them
in, one after the other, quickly, taking care not to break yolks, keep
the boiling hard, and use a knife or spoon to prevent the whites from
cooking together. Take out in six to seven minutes, using a skimmer and
draining well, trim rags off white, lay in a deep hot dish, and pour
over real melted butter, made with butter, hot water, salt, pepper,
lemon juice or vinegar, and a dash of tabasco. Send to table covered--a
poached egg chilled has lost its charm. Or you may serve the eggs on
squares of hot, well-buttered toast, which have been sprinkled thickly
with grated cheese, then set for a minute inside a hot oven. Served
thus, pass the melted butter with them, as if poured over, they might be
too rich for some palates.
_Egg Fours_: Cut hard-boiled eggs in four lengthwise, mix yolks with an
equal bulk of sardines, drained, freed of skin and bone, and minced
fine. Season with salt, pepper, lemon juice, or vinegar, and olive oil.
Add minced olives if you like. The mixture must be soft, but not too
soft to shape well. Shape it into small ovals, using two spoons, and lay
an oval in each quarter of the whites. Put very narrow strips of pimento
on the ovals, then sprinkle them thickly with grated cheese--Edam is
good for such use. Set in a baking dish and cook two to four minutes in
a hot oven. If wanted extra tasty, as for a relish before dinner, set
the fours on narrow strips of toast, spread with made mustard,
well-mixed with finely minced very sour cucumber pickle.
Bacon sliced thin, fried crisp without scorching, and finely minced can
take the place of sardines. Indeed, in making fours the widest latitude
prevails--you can vary flavors and proportions almost infinitely. Onion,
even a suspicion of garlic, tabasco, Cayenne vinegar, walnut catsup, or
Worcester can be added. Capers mixed through the mass make it
wonderfully piquant. But things which need to be crisply fresh, such as
celery and lettuce, must be let severely alone.
_Stuffed Eggs_: Staple for picnics, and barbecues. Boil twenty minutes,
throw instantly in cold water, and shell immediately. Halve, mash yolks
while hot with a plentiful seasoning of butter, pepper, salt, a little
onion juice, capers or bigger pickle finely minced, and pimentos cut
small. Work the seasoning well through, then shape into balls yolk-size,
put each between two half-whites, and fasten together with a couple of
tooth picks. Wrap each as finished in wax paper, and keep cool until
needed. Here may be a good place to say that the quicker a hard-boiled
egg is got out of its shell after chilling, the better and more delicate
will be its flavor.
_Fried Eggs_: Anybody, almost, can fry an egg wrong. It takes some skill
to fry one exactly right. Have the frying pan covered with grease, hot,
but not scorching, slip in the eggs, previously broken separately,
taking pains not to break yolks, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper,
keep edges from running together, then when they have hardened
underneath, dip hot grease over the tops, keeping on till the white
sets. If the heat is right the eggs will not stick to the pan. Cook as
hard as is desirable, take up with a cake-turner, and lay in a shallow
pan, lined with soft clean paper. Keep hot while they drain--it takes a
minute or so--then remove to a blazing hot dish, and serve. If ham goes
with them lay it in the middle, with eggs all around it. Triangles of
fried toast in between look and taste well at breakfast.
[Illustration: _Soups, Salads, Relishes_]
_Vegetable Soup_: Cut into joints two fat chickens three parts grown,
salt and pepper, and lay aside while you fry in a deep pot half a pound
streaky bacon. Take out when crisp, put in the chicken, turning it so as
to brown it all over. Put in a thick slice of ham, let it also brown a
bit, do the same with four sliced onions--mild ones--then add two
gallons cold water, half a teaspoonful salt, two pods red pepper, a
dozen whole pepper corns, and two sprigs of parsley. Keep at a gentle
boil for an hour, then put in two small heads of tender cabbage finely
shredded, and six white potatoes, peeled and sliced a quarter-inch
thick. Fifteen minutes later put in a quart of string beans, broken
short, a pint of shelled lima beans, a stalk of celery cut fine
lengthwise, and a dozen tomatoes, peeled and sliced. Follow them in ten
minutes with a pint of tender okra sliced--next add a little later the
pulp from a dozen ears of green corn, slit lengthwise and scraped. Stir
almost constantly with a long-handled skimmer, after the corn pulp is
in. If the skimmer brings up chicken bones, throw them aside. Just
before serving put in a large spoonful of butter, rolled in flour.
Taste, add salt if required. Serve very hot with corn hoe cake and cider
just beginning to sparkle. If there is soup enough for everybody,
nothing else will be wanted.
_Black Turtle Bean Soup_: Pick and wash clean, one quart black turtle
beans, soak overnight in three quarts cold water, and put on to boil
next morning in the soaking water. When it boils add three onions
sliced, one carrot scraped and cut up, a stalk or so of celery, three
sprigs of parsley, and one tomato, fresh or canned. Boil slowly four to
five hours, until the beans are tender, filling up with cold water as
that in the kettle wastes. When the beans are very soft, strain all
through a fine collander, mashing through beans and vegetables, add a
quart of very good soup stock, also a bay leaf, and boil up hard half a
minute before serving. Put into each soup plate a slice of lemon, a
slice of hard-boiled egg, and a tablespoonful of sherry wine before
adding the soup.
_Gumbo_: Cut a tender, fat chicken, nearly grown, into joints, season
well with salt and pepper, and fry for ten minutes in the fat from half
a pound of bacon, with two thick slices of ham. Then add two onions
chopped fine, six large ripe tomatoes, peeled and chopped, adding with
them their juice, half a large pod of mild red pepper, cut small, a
teaspoonful of minced thyme and parsley mixed, a pint of tender sliced
okra, stemmed and cut lengthwise. Cook altogether, watching all the
time, and stirring constantly to prevent scorching until everything is
well-browned. Then add three quarts fresh-boiled water, on the full
boil, set the pot where it will barely simmer, and cook an hour longer,
taking the same pains against scorching. Rice to eat with the gumbo--it
must never be cooked in the pot--needs to be washed until the water runs
clear from it, drained, then tossed into a wide kettle of water on the
bubbling boil, and cooked for twenty minutes. The water must be salted
to taste. Drain the rice in a collander, set it after draining in the
oven for a minute. The grains should stand out separate, but be very
tender. Rice thus cooked, and served with plenty of butter, is excellent
as a vegetable.
_Wedding Salad_: Roast unstuffed, three young tender turkeys, or six
full grown chickens. Take the white meat only, cut it fine with shears,
cutting across the grain, while hot. Let cool, then mix it with ten
hearts of crisp celery cut in bits, two heads of tender white cabbage,
finely chopped, rejecting hard stalks--use three heads if very
small--and set in a cool place. For the dressing boil thirty fresh eggs
twenty minutes, throw in cold water, shell, take out the yolks, saving
the white for garnishing, mash the yolks while hot very smooth with a
pound and a half of best butter, season them well with salt, pepper, a
little dry mustard, celery seed, and, if at hand, a dash of walnut
catsup, but not enough to discolor. Add also a teaspoonful of
sugar--this to blend flavors only. Add a little at a time enough warm
vinegar to make as thick as cream. Chill, and pour over the salad, mix
well through, then heap it in a big glass bowl, lined with partly white
lettuce leaves, make a wreath of leaves around the top, and in serving,
lay a larger lettuce leaf on each plate, filling it with the
yellow-white salad.
_Fruit Salad_: Wash well a very ripe juicy pineapple, let dry, then
shred with a fork, holding the crown in the left hand firmly, while you
pull away sections with the fork in the right. Thus you avoid taking any
of the hard center. Peel the sections delicately after they are
separated, and cut them in long thin slivers, with the grain. Arrange
these slivers star-shape upon lettuce leaves in the plates, lay a very
narrow slip of pimento--sweet red pepper,--between each two of them,
then fill in the points of the stars with grape-fruit pulp, freed of
skin and seed, and broken into convenient sized bits. Lay more pimento
strips upon it. Set on ice till ready to serve, then drench with sweet
French dressing.
_Sweet French Dressing_: Mix well a scant teaspoonful of granulated
sugar, the same of dry mustard, half a teaspoonful salt, as much black
pepper and paprika mixed, put in the bottom of a deep small bowl, and
stir for two minutes. Wet with claret vinegar, adding it gradually, and
stirring smooth. Make as thick as cream. Add twenty drops tabasco,
twenty drops onion juice, the strained juice of half a lemon, and half a
teaspoonful of brandy, rum or whiskey. Mix well, then add, tablespoonful
at a time, a gill of salad oil, stirring hard between spoonfuls. Put in
more vinegar, more oil--the seasoning suffices for half a pint of
dressing. Stir till it thickens--it should be like an emulsion when
poured upon the salad. Keep on ice. The oil and vinegar will separate,
but the dressing can be brought back by stirring hard.
_Banana and Celery Salad_: Chill heart celery and very ripe bananas,
slice thin crosswise, mingling the rounds well. Pile on lettuce leaves,
and cover with French dressing, into which finely grated cheese has been
scantly stirred. This dressing with cheese is fine for tender Romaine,
also for almost any sort of cooked vegetable used as salad.
_Red and White Salad_: Make cups from lettuce hearts, fasten them to the
plate, with a drop of melted butter, fill lightly with grape-fruit pulp,
and set a tiny red beet, boiled tender, in the middle. Have a very sharp
French dressing made with oil lemon juice and Tarragon vinegar. Pass
with this cheese straws, or toasted cracker sprinkled lightly with
Parmesan cheese.
_Pineapple Salad_: Pare and core a very ripe, sweet pineapple, cut in
slices crosswise, lay the slices in a bowl, with a sprinkle of sugar,
half a cup rum or sherry, all the juice shed in cutting up, and a grate
of nutmeg. Let stand till morning, cool, but not on ice. Make rosettes
of small lettuce leaves in the plates, lay a slice of pineapple on each,
fill the hole in the center with pink pimento cheese. Make the cheese
into a ball the size of a marble, and stick in it a tiny sprig of celery
top. Put a little of the syrup from the bowl in each plate, then finish
with very sharp French dressing. Make the pimento cheese by grinding
fine half a can of pimento, and mixing it through two cakes of cream
cheese, softening the cheese with French dressing, and seasoning it to
taste.
_Cold Slaw_: (V. Moroso.) Shave very fine half a medium sized head of
tender cabbage, put in a bowl, and cover with this dressing. Melt over
hot water a heaping tablespoonful of butter, with two tablespoonfuls
sugar, a saltspoon of pepper, a teaspoonful of salt, dash of red pepper,
and scant teaspoonful dry mustard. Mix smooth, then add gradually four
tablespoonfuls vinegar, mix well, then put in the yolk of a raw egg,
beating it in hard. Cook till creamy, but not too thick. Take from
fire, and add if you like, two tablespoonfuls cream, but it is not
essential--the dressing is good without it.
_Tomato Soy_: Take one gallon solid, ripe tomatoes, peeled and sliced,
or four canfuls put up in glass, put in a preserving kettle with a quart
of sliced onions, two tablespoonfuls salt, as much moist sugar,
teaspoonful black pepper, saltspoon paprika, four hearts of celery cut
fine, a tablespoonful of pounded cloves, alspice, mace, grated nutmeg,
and cinnamon mixed. Stir well together and cook slowly, taking care not
to burn, until reduced one-half. Dry mustard or mustard seed can be
added, but many palates do not relish them. After boiling down add a
quart of very sharp vinegar, stir well through, skim if froth rises,
bottle hot, and seal. This keeps a long time in a dark cool place.
_Table Mustard_: Mix well together two tablespoonfuls dry mustard, scant
teaspoon sugar, half a teaspoon salt. Wet smooth, to a very stiff paste
with boiling water, then add either a teaspoon of onion juice, or a
clove of garlic mashed, stir well through, add little by little, a
tablespoonful olive oil, then thin, with very sharp vinegar, added
gradually so as not to lump nor curdle, to the consistency of thin
cream. Put in a glass jar, seal tight and let stand a week. A month is
better--indeed, the mustard improves with age if not permitted to dry
up.
_Cabbage Pickle_: Shred enough tender cabbage to make four quarts, put
with it four large green tomatoes, sliced thin, six large onions,
chopped fine, three green peppers also chopped, rejecting the seed, two
ounces white mustard seed, half-ounce celery seed, quarter-ounce
turmeric, three tablespoonfuls salt, two pounds white sugar, two quarts
vinegar. Put all in a preserving kettle, set it upon an asbestos mat
over a slow fire, and cook gently for several hours, stirring so it
shall not scorch. It must be tender throughout but not mushy-soft.
_Cauliflower Pickle_: Drop two heads cauliflower in salted boiling
water, cook fifteen minutes, take up, drop in cold water, separate into
neat florets, and pack down in a clean crock. Pour upon the florets,
hot, a quart of vinegar, seasoned with a mixture of two tablespoonfuls
salad oil, teaspoonful dry mustard, tablespoonful sugar, teaspoonful
salt, half-teaspoonful onion juice, half-teaspoonful black pepper, dash
of paprika, ten drops tabasco. Bring all to a boil, and pour over the
pickle, first strewing well through it blade mace, whole cloves, alspice
and cinnamon, broken small but not powdered.
_Pear Relish_: Wash and stem a gallon of sound ripe, but not mellow
Seckel pears, remove the blossoms with a very sharp narrow pen-knife,
and stick a clove in each cut. Drain, and drop into a syrup, made of
three pounds of sugar and a quart of vinegar. Bring to a quick boil,
skim, and set back to simmer. Add after skimming, cloves, alspice, mace,
ginger, cinnamon, and black pepper, pounded small but not powdered. Cut
up a large sweet red pepper, and drop in the shreds. Let cook till the
pears are tender. If the syrup is thin, add more sugar--some pears yield
more juice than others. Sliced lemon gives a piquant tang, but is
optional. Put in glass or stone jars, and cover tight, laying a brandy
paper on top.
_Cherries Piquant_: Wash well, and stem but do not pit, half a gallon
ripe Morello cherries. Drain well, strew spices well through them, lay
thin sliced lemon on top, add a dozen whole pepper corns, and a tiny pod
of Cayenne pepper, then pour over a pint of sharp vinegar, boiled with
four pounds of sugar, and skimmed clean. Let stand all night, drain off
syrup in the morning, boil up, skim, and pour again over the fruit. Next
day, put all in a kettle, and cook for fifteen minutes, then put in
glass jars, seal and keep dark. Especially good with game or any meat
highly seasoned.
_Gooseberry Jam Spiced_: Wash, and nub half a gallon of green
gooseberries, picked just before they ripen. Put them in a kettle with
six large cups of sugar, a cup of water, half a teaspoonful each of
cloves, alspice, mace, grated nutmeg, and cinnamon, the grated yellow
peel of an orange and the strained juice. Cook slowly until thick--it
should jelly when dropped on a plate. Pack in small jars. One of the
very finest accompaniments to any sort of fowl. By leaving out the
spices, and merely cooking the berries thick enough to cut like cheese,
it is as fine as _bar le duc_ for serving with salad.
_Frozen Cranberry Sauce_: (Mrs. R. Heim.) Gives a new tang to game,
roast turkey, capon or duck. Cook a quart of cranberries until very soft
in one pint water, strain through coarse sieve, getting all the pulp,
add to it one and a half pints sugar, the juice--strained--of four
lemons, one quart boiling water, bring to a boil, skim clean, let cool,
and freeze rather soft.
"_Apple Sauce Gone To Heaven_": Thus a poet names it, though I, the
architect thereof, insist that it is wholly and beautifully mundane. To
make it, pare eight firm apples, the higher-flavored the better, core,
drop into cold water, as pared, let stand till you make the syrup. Take
a cup of sugar to each two apples and a cup of water to each two cups of
sugar. Bring to a boil, skim, clean twice, then throw in half a dozen
blades of mace, bits of thin yellow peel from two lemons, a few bits of
stick cinnamon, and one pepper corn--no more. Stick four cloves in each
apple, drop them in the syrup, which must be on the bubbling boil. After
the apples are in--they should just cover the pan, add the strained
juice of two lemons. Boil hard for five minutes, turn over the apples,
simmer till done--they will look clear all through. Skim out with a
perforated ladle, letting all syrup drain away from them, arrange in a
deepish glass dish, or pile on a glass platter. Boil the syrup until it
jellies when dropped on a plate, then dip it by spoonfuls over the
apples, letting it harden as it is dipped.
Another way, and easier, is to wash and core the apples, without
peeling, stick in the cloves, put in an earthen or agate baking dish,
add the sugar, water, spices, cover close, and set in a hot oven. Cook
until the apples are soft through, then uncover, and crisp a little on
top. The peel will be edible, and the flavor richer than when boiled,
but the dish is not so decorative.
_Spiced Grapes_: Wash and drain sound full-ripe grapes, pick from the
stems, then pop out the grapes singly from the hulls. Save the hulls and
juice. Put the pulp and seeds over the fire, cook until soft, strain
through a colander to remove the seed, then add the pulp to the hulls
and juice, put all over the fire, with equal weight of sugar, and spices
to taste. I like cloves, alspice, mace and cinnamon, all pounded small,
but not powdered. Cook until thick, take care not to burn, put into
glasses like jelly, and serve with any sort of meat, or as a sweet.
Wild grapes washed, picked from stems, stewed and passed through a
colander, furnish a pulp that is worth sugar, spices and so on. Cook as
directed for vineyard grapes. By leaving out the most part of spices,
and putting in vinegar, a cupful to the quart of syrup, the result is a
very piquant jelly, or more properly, fruit cheese.
_Sweet-Sour Pears_: The pears must be ripe, but very firm. If large,
pare and quarter, cutting out the core, stick a clove in each quarter,
and drop as pared in cold ginger tea. If small or medium, wash instead
of paring, take out cores, stick two cloves in each cavity, pack close
in the kettle and cover when all are in with strained ginger tea. Boil
in the tea fifteen minutes, until a fork will pierce without too much
exertion. Skim out then, pack in jars, strewing spices liberally
through, then cover with vinegar boiling hot, to which you had added a
cupful of sugar for each quart. Let stand twenty-four hours, drain off,
boil, and pour over again. Do this three times, then put all in the
kettle, bring to a boil, cook five minutes, and put while hot in clean
stone jars.
_Spiced Plums_: All manner of plums, even the red wild fruit, make the
finest sort of relishes when cooked properly. Wash, pick, and weigh,
take four pounds of sugar to five of fruit, with what spices you choose,
never forgetting a tiny pod of Cayenne pepper, put all over the fire,
let boil slowly, skimming off froth. Stir with a perforated skimmer--it
will take out the most part of stones. A few stones left in give a fine
bitter almond flavor after the plums have stood a while. Take care not
to scorch, cook until very thick, then add strong vinegar, a cupful to
the half-gallon of fruit. Boil three minutes longer, put hot into
well-scalded jars, lay brandy paper over, or seal with paraffin.
_Baked Peaches_: Especially fine with barbecued lamb or roast duck or
smothered chicken. Peel one dozen large, ripe, juicy peaches, stick two
cloves in each, set in an agate or earthen pan they will just fill, add
two cups sugar, a tablespoonful butter, a very little water, and a good
strewing of mace and lemon peel. Cover close, and bake until done. Serve
hot. Instead of butter, a gill of whiskey may be used, putting it in
just before the peaches are taken up, and letting them stand covered
until the spirit goes through them. So prepared, they are better cold
than warm. The pits flavor the fruit so delicately they should never be
removed.
[Illustration: _Vegetables, Fruit Desserts, Sandwiches_]
_Tomato Layer_: Peel and slice a dozen meaty tomatoes, slice thin six
mild onions, cut the corn from half a dozen large ears, saving the milk.
Cover an earthen baking dish with a layer of tomatoes, season well with
salt and pepper, also the least suspicion of sugar. Lay onion slices
over, sprinkle lightly with salt, then add a layer of corn, seasoning it
with salt and a little sugar. Repeat till the dish is full. Pour over
the corn milk, the tomato juice, and a heaping tablespoonful of melted
butter. Bake in a hot oven half an hour, covering it for twenty
minutes, then browning uncovered. When corn is not in season, very crisp
brown bread crumbs may take its place. But it should be against the law
to put soft crumbs or any sort of bread uncrisped, into cooked tomatoes.
A green pepper shredded and mixed through the layers adds to the
flavor--for the devotees of green peppers.