Crisco in a saucepan, fry cod lightly in it, then take out and set
aside. Add sliced onion, flour, and curry powder to the Crisco in
saucepan and fry ten minutes, stirring continuously to prevent onion
becoming too brown, then stir in the stock and cocoanut, stir until
it boils, and afterwards simmer for twenty minutes. Strain and return
to saucepan, add lemon juice and seasonings to taste, bring nearly to
boil, then put in fish, cover closely, and cook slowly for half hour.
An occasional stir must be given to prevent the fish sticking to the
bottom of the saucepan. Turn out on hot platter and serve with rice.
The remains of cold fish may be used, in which case the preliminary
frying may be omitted.
Flounder a la Crěme
1 flounder about 2 lbs.
2 cupfuls milk
1 tablespoonful cream
3 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 blade mace
6 whole white peppers
4 tablespoonfuls flour
Lemon juice
Salt and pepper to taste
Skin flounder, and take fillets off neatly by sharply cutting down the
middle of back, and pressing the knife close to the bones. This will
produce 4 long fillets. Cut each of them in half lengthways, and tie up
in pretty knot; sprinkle a little salt over and put them aside. Wash
skin, bones of fish, put them into a small saucepan with milk, mace,
and whole peppers and simmer for half hour; strain milk into clean
saucepan; add fillets, and allow to simmer for ten minutes. Lift them
out, and add to milk the Crisco and flour beaten together; stir till it
becomes quite smooth; add salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste, and
cream; put in fillets gently to warm through; dish neatly and pour the
sauce over them. Serve very hot.
Flounder a la Turque
For Fish
1 large flounder
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley
3 tablespoonfuls breadcrumbs
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco
½ teaspoonful powdered herbs
1 pinch powdered mace
Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste
½ cupful picked shrimps
For Sauce
½ lemon
1 egg
½ cupful melted Crisco
1 yolk of egg
½ teaspoonful mustard
½ teaspoonful salt
1 pinch red pepper
1 tablespoonful vinegar
2 chopped gherkins
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley
_For fish._ Wash dry and trim flounder. On one side make cut down
center from near head to near tail and raise flesh from the bones. Make
a stuffing with Crisco, parsley, breadcrumbs, herbs, shrimps, lemon
juice, seasonings, and nearly all the egg, and insert under the fillets
of the flounder, leaving the center open. Dot with Crisco. Brush fish
over with remaining egg, sprinkle with browned breadcrumbs, put on
Criscoed baking tin, and bake thirty minutes. Serve with sauce.
_For sauce._ Put egg yolk into a bowl, and, with a wooden spoon stir a
little; then add by degrees melted Crisco, stirring constantly; then
add seasonings, vinegar, gherkins and parsley.
Fish Pudding
(_Kate B. Vaughn_)
For Pudding
2 lbs. cooked fish
1 cupful milk
1 tablespoonful flour
1 tablespoonful Crisco
2 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
¼ teaspoonful onion juice
1 tablespoonful Worcestershire sauce
Cream sauce
For Sauce
3 tablespoonfuls flour
3 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 slice carrot
1 slice onion
1 slice celery
1 blade of mace
1 bay leaf
6 whole peppers
1 sprig of parsley
¼ teaspoonful salt
1 cupful thick cream
_For pudding._ Boil fish in boiling salted water till done. Shred
or break in small pieces, and free from skin and bone. Blend Crisco and
flour in a saucepan over fire, add milk and stir till boiling, remove
from fire, add eggs well beaten, seasonings, and mix well. Turn into
Criscoed fireproof dish, cover with greased paper, set in warm water,
and bake in moderate oven for thirty minutes. Serve with the sauce,
potato balls, and chopped parsley.
_For sauce._ Blend Crisco and flour in a pan over fire, add
vegetables, mace, bay leaf, peppers, parsley, milk, and simmer for
thirty minutes. Strain, return to pan, add salt, allow to heat, then
add cream and it is ready to serve.
Fried Fish
Fish
Crisco
1 egg
Salt and pepper to taste
Crumbs
Sauce
Clean fish, season with salt and pepper. Dip in crumbs, brush over with
beaten egg, and crumb again. Fry in deep Crisco and drain on brown
paper.
_Sauce._ Blend 1½ tablespoonfuls Crisco with 1 tablespoonful flour
in saucepan over fire, add 1 cupful of milk or cream and bring to boil,
cook for a few minutes over hot water. Cool and add 2 chopped green
bell peppers and 6 medium-sized chopped sour pickles.
Fried Lobster with Horseradish Sauce
1 boiled lobster
Crisco for frying
1 egg
Breadcrumbs
1 cupful thick cream
Salt and paprika to taste
2 tablespoonfuls grated horseradish
Cut lobster meat into neat pieces, dip in beaten egg, toss in
breadcrumbs and fry in hot Crisco to brown well. Whip up cream, season
it well with salt and paprika and stir in horseradish; heap this sauce
in the center of the serving dish and arrange the pieces of fried
lobster round it. Serve hot.
Gateau of Fish
For Fish
1½ lbs. cooked white fish
3 tablespoonfuls Crisco
½ cupful breadcrumbs
½ cupful milk
2 eggs
1 teaspoonful chopped parsley
1 teaspoonful anchovy paste or extract
Salt and pepper to taste
Lemon slices
Dutch or oyster sauce
For Sauce
2 tablespoonfuls flour
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 cupful milk
½ cupful oyster liquor
1 teaspoonful lemon juice
Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste
2 hard-cooked eggs
1 dozen small oysters
_For fish._ Cook fish; remove skin and bone, chop it, then put it in a
basin, add breadcrumbs, parsley, seasonings, milk, eggs well beaten,
and melted Crisco. Mix well, turn into a Criscoed mold, cover with
greased paper and steam one hour. Serve with sauce poured over, and
dish garnished with lemon slices.
_For sauce._ Blend Crisco and flour in pan over fire, stir in
milk, oyster liquor, stir till it boils for eight minutes, then add
seasonings. Boil one minute, add eggs chopped, and oysters. Mix and
serve.
Oyster Shortcake
2 cupfuls flour
2 teaspoonfuls baking powder
½ teaspoonful salt
¾ cupful milk
1 quart oysters
½ cupful Crisco
2 tablespoonfuls cornstarch
¼ cupful cream
Salt and pepper to taste
Mix flour, baking powder and ½ teaspoonful salt, then sift twice, work
in Crisco with tips of fingers, add milk gradually. The dough should be
just soft enough to handle. Toss on floured baking board, divide into
two parts, pat lightly and roll out. Place in two shallow Criscoed cake
tins and bake in quick oven fifteen minutes. Spread them with butter.
Moisten cornstarch with cream, put into pan with oysters and seasonings
and make very hot. Allow to cook a few minutes then pour half over one
crust, place other crust on top and pour over rest of oysters. Serve at
once.
Sufficient for one large shortcake.
Salmon Mold
1 can salmon
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco
½ cupful rolled crackers
3 eggs
1 tablespoonful Worcestershire
sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Sauce
1 tablespoonful Crisco
1 tablespoonful flour
1 egg
1 cupful milk
Salt and pepper to taste
Parsley
_For the mold._ Remove oil, skin and bone from the salmon. Rub salmon
smooth, add eggs well beaten, crackers, and seasonings. Turn into a
Criscoed mold, and steam for one hour. Turn out and serve with sauce.
_For sauce._ Blend Crisco and flour in a saucepan over fire, add
milk, and stir and boil for five minutes. Add egg well beaten, and
seasonings, pour at once over salmon. Garnish with parsley.
Sufficient for one small loaf.
[Illustration: MEATS]
Cookery is a branch of applied chemistry. To cook anything, in the
narrower sense of the term, means to bring about changes in it by
submitting it to the action of heat, and usually of moisture also,
which will make it more fitted for food; and it is on the nature of
this action on different materials that the _rationale_ of the
cook’s art chiefly depends. Good cooking can make any meat tender, and
bad cooking can make any meat tough.
The substance in meat called albumen becomes tougher and more
indigestible, the higher the temperature to which it is subjected
reaches beyond a certain point. It is this effect of heat on albumen,
therefore, which has to be considered whenever the cooking of meat
is in question, and which mainly determines the right and the wrong,
whether in the making of a soup or a custard, the roasting or boiling
of a chicken or a joint, or the frying of a cutlet or an omelet.
We now will see to begin with, what are the special ways in which it
bears on meat cookery. Take a little bit of raw meat and put it in cold
water. The juice gradually soaks out of it, coloring the water pink and
leaving the meat nearly white. Now take another bit, and pour boiling
water upon it; and though no juice can be seen escaping, the whole
surface of the meat turns a whitish color directly.
[Illustration]
Lean meat is made up of bundles of hollow fibres within which the
albuminous juices are stored. Wherever these fibres are cut through,
the juice oozes out and spreads itself over the surface of the meat.
If, as in our first little experiment, the meat is put in cold water,
or even in warm water, or exposed to a heat insufficient to set the
albumen, either in an oven or before the fire, the albuminous juices
are in the first case drawn out and dissolved, and in the second
evaporated. In either case the meat is deprived of them. But if the
meat is put into boiling water or into a quick oven or before a hot
fire, the surface albumen is quickly set, forms a tough white coating
which effectually plugs the ends of the cut fibres, and prevents any
further escape of their contents.
Here, then, we have the first principles on which meat cookery must
be conducted; viz: that if we wish to get the juices out of the meat,
as for soups and stews, the liquid in which we put it must be cold to
begin with; while if we wish, as for boiled or roast meat, to keep them
in, the meat must be subjected first of all to the action of boiling
water, a hot fire or a quick oven. The meats of soups and stews must
not be raw, and that of joints must not be tough; and the cooking of
both one and the other, however it is begun, should be completed at
just such a moderate temperature as will set, but not harden, the
albumen. That is to say, the soup or stew must be raised to this
temperature, after the meat juices have been drawn out by a lower one,
while a joint or fowl must be lowered to it after the surface albumen
has been hardened by a higher one.
All poultry or game for roasting should be dredged with flour before
and after trussing, to dry it perfectly, as otherwise it does not
crisp and brown so well. Unless poultry is to be boiled or stewed it
never should be washed or wet in any way as this renders the flesh
sodden and the skin soft. Good wiping with clean cloths should be quite
sufficient. With the exception of ducks and geese, all poultry and game
require rather a large addition of fat during roasting, as the flesh is
dry. Chickens will cook in from twenty to thirty minutes; fowls take
from thirty to sixty minutes when young and tender, the only condition
in which they are fit to roast; turkeys take from one to two hours and
even more if exceptionally large. Game takes longer in proportion to
its size than poultry, and all birds require better and more cooking
than beef or mutton.
Beef Collops
1 lb. hamburg steak
1 chopped onion
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 cupful water or stock
1 tablespoonful flour
Salt and pepper to taste
1 teaspoonful mushroom catsup
or Worcestershire sauce
Sippets of toast or croutons
Mashed potatoes or plain boiled rice
Melt Crisco in saucepan, put in beef and onion and fry light brown,
then sprinkle in flour, add water or stock, catsup or sauce, and
seasonings. Cover pan and let contents simmer very gently forty-five
minutes. Arrange collops on hot platter with border of sippets of toast
or croutons, or border of hot mashed potatoes, or plain boiled rice.
Braised Loin of Mutton
3 lbs. loin mutton
3 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 celery stalk
½ teaspoonful whole white peppers
1 bunch sweet herbs
Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste
1 turnip
1 carrot
3 cloves
2 sprigs parsley
4 tablespoonfuls flour
12 button mushrooms
1 onion
Remove bone from mutton, rub with a little salt, pepper and red pepper
mixed together; roll up and tie in neat roll with tape; cut up celery,
onion, carrot and turnip, and lay them at bottom of saucepan with herbs
and parsley; lay mutton on top of these, and pour enough boiling water
to three parts cover it, and simmer slowly two hours; lift mutton into
roasting tin with a few tablespoonfuls of the gravy; set in hot oven
until brown; strain gravy and skim off fat, melt Crisco in saucepan,
add flour, then add gravy gradually, seasoning of salt and pepper,
mushrooms, and boil eight minutes. Set mutton on hot platter with
mushrooms round, and gravy strained over.
Chicken a la Tartare
1 young chicken
1 egg
¾ cupful Crisco
Breadcrumbs
Salt and pepper to taste
Mixed pickles
Tartare sauce
Singe, empty, and split chicken in half; take breastbone out and
sprinkle salt and pepper over. Melt ½ cupful Crisco in frying pan
and fry chicken half hour, turning it now and then. Remove from pan
and place between two dishes with heavy weight on top, till it is
nearly cold. Then dip in egg beaten up, and roll in breadcrumbs.
Melt remaining Crisco, then sprinkle it all over chicken; roll in
breadcrumbs once more. Fry in hot Crisco to golden color. Serve at once
with a garnish of chopped pickles, and tartare sauce.
Chicken en Casserole
1 tender chicken for roasting
½ cupful Crisco
Salt and pepper
1 pint hot water
1 cupful hot sweet cream
2 cupfuls chopped mushrooms
1 tablespoonful chopped parsley
Clean chicken, split down back, and lay breast upward, in casserole.
Spread Crisco over breast, dust with salt and pepper, add hot water,
cover closely and cook in hot oven one hour. When nearly tender, put in
the cream, mushrooms, and parsley; cover again and cook twenty minutes
longer. Serve hot in the casserole. Oysters are sometimes substituted
for mushrooms, and will be found to impart a pleasing flavor.
Curried Ox-Tongue
6 slices cooked ox-tongue
3 tablespoonfuls Crisco
2 teaspoonfuls curry powder
6 chopped mushrooms
1 cupful brown sauce
1 dinner roll
1 egg
1 cupful boiled rice
_For tongue._ Cut slices of tongue, fry in Crisco, season with
¼ teaspoonful salt and curry powder, then add mushrooms, and brown
sauce, simmer ten minutes. Cut large dinner roll into slices, and toast
them lightly on both sides; dip them in egg well beaten, then fry in
hot Crisco and drain. Dish up slices of tongue alternately with fried
slices of roll, pour sauce round base, and serve with boiled rice.
_For brown sauce._ Melt 3 tablespoonfuls Crisco, add 1 chopped
onion, piece of carrot, 2 mushrooms, and fry a good brown color; stir
in 2 tablespoonfuls flour and fry it also; then add 1 cupful stock
or water and few drops of kitchen bouquet. Let all cook ten minutes,
stirring constantly; add seasoning of salt and pepper, and strain for
use.
Sufficient for 6 slices.
Fried Chicken
Chicken
Crisco
Select young tender chickens and disjoint. Wash carefully and let stand
over night in refrigerator.
A
(_Kate B. Vaughn_)
Drain chicken but do not wipe dry. Season with salt and white pepper
and dredge well with flour. Fry in deep Crisco hot enough to brown a
crumb of bread in sixty seconds. It requires from ten to twelve minutes
to fry chicken. Drain and place on a hot platter garnished with parsley
and rice croquettes.
B
(_Kate B. Vaughn_)
Make batter of 1 cupful flour, 1 teaspoonful salt, 2 grains white
pepper, ½ cupful water, 2 well beaten eggs, and 1 tablespoonful melted
Crisco. Have kettle of Crisco hot enough to turn crumb of bread a
golden brown in sixty seconds. Drain chicken but do not dry. Dip each
joint separately in batter and fry in the Crisco until golden brown.
It should take from ten to twelve minutes. Serve on a folded napkin
garnished with parsley.
C
(_Kate B. Vaughn_)
Drain chicken but do not wipe dry. Season with salt and white pepper
and dredge well with flour. Put three tablespoonfuls Crisco in frying
pan and when hot place chicken in pan; cover, and allow to steam for
ten minutes. Uncover, and allow chicken to brown, taking care to turn
frequently. Serve on hot platter, garnished with parsley and serve with
cream gravy.
D
Select medium-sized chickens and wash well, then cut into neat
pieces and season them. Mix 1 cupful cornmeal with 1 cupful flour, 1
tablespoonful salt and 1 tablespoonful black pepper. Dip each piece
in mixture and fry in hot Crisco twelve minutes. Drain and serve with
cornmeal batter bread.
E
Wash young chicken, cut into neat pieces, dust with salt, pepper,
and flour, and fry in hot Crisco twelve minutes. Drain, place on hot
platter, pour over it ½ pint hot sweet cream, sprinkle over with
chopped hot roasted peanuts, little salt and pepper.
Fried Chicken, Mexican Style
1 tender chicken
Salt and pepper to taste
1 clove garlic
1 seeded green pepper
2 large tomatoes
5 tablespoonfuls Crisco
Corn croquettes
For Croquettes
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 can or 14 ears corn
2 tablespoonfuls flour
2 cupfuls milk
½ teaspoonful sugar
Pepper and salt to taste
1 egg
Breadcrumbs
_For chicken._ Draw, wash and dry chicken, then cut into neat joints,
sprinkle with salt and pepper. Heat Crisco in frying pan, add clove of
garlic and pepper cut in small pieces. When garlic turns brown take
out, put chicken in, fry till brown, then cover closely, allow to
simmer till ready. A short time before covering chicken, add tomatoes
peeled and cut in small pieces.
_For croquettes._ Drain liquor from can of corn, or grate ears, and
chop kernels fine. Blend Crisco and flour together in pan over fire,
add milk, stir till boiling and cook five minutes, stirring all the
time, add seasonings, and corn, and cook five minutes, then allow to
cool. When cold, form lightly with floured hands into neat croquettes,
brush over with beaten egg, toss in crumbs and fry in hot Crisco to
a golden brown. Drain. Place chicken on hot platter, garnish with
croquettes and serve hot.
Fried Sweetbreads
Sweetbreads
Egg
Breadcrumbs
Crisco
Peas or new Potatoes
Rich brown gravy
Sweetbreads should always be blanched before using. To blanch, soak in
cold water two hours, changing water 3 or 4 times. Put into saucepan,
cover with cold water, add little salt, and skim well as water comes
to boil. Simmer from ten to thirty minutes, according to kind of
sweetbread used. Remove to basin of cold water until cold, or wash well
in cold water and press between two plates till cold. Dry, remove
skin, cut in slices, coat with beaten egg and toss in breadcrumbs, and
fry in hot Crisco to a golden brown. Serve round peas or new potatoes,
with rich brown gravy.
For those whose digestions are at fault, sweetbreads ought to be eaten
as a daily ration if the pocketbook will afford it. For this special
part of the animal’s anatomy is that one of all the viscera whose
mission is to help digestion. It is of the very pancreas itself, that
stomach gland of marvelously involved structure which elaborates the
powerful pancreatic juice. It is alkaline in nature, able to digest
starches, fats, and most of what escapes digestion in the stomach
proper. It received its name from a fancied resemblance in its
substance and formation to the rising lumps of dough destined for bread.
Kidney Omelet
4 kidneys
6 tablespoonfuls Crisco
6 eggs
Salt and pepper to taste
1 tablespoonful chopped parsley
2 tablespoonfuls cream
Melt 2 tablespoonfuls Crisco in frying pan. Skin kidneys and cut into
small dice and toss them into hot Crisco three minutes. Whisk whites of
eggs to stiff froth, then add yolks, seasonings, parsley, and cream,
then add kidney. Make remaining Crisco hot in omelet pan or frying pan,
pour in omelet and fry over clear fire six minutes. When the edges are
set, fold edges over so that omelet assumes an oval shape; be careful
that it is not done too much; to brown the top, hold pan before fire,
or put it in oven; never turn an omelet in the pan. Slip it carefully
on a hot dish and serve the instant it comes from the fire.
Macaroni and Round Steak
½ package macaroni
½ can tomatoes
3 tablespoonfuls Crisco
2 onions
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cupful grated cheese
1 lb. round steak
½ cupful breadcrumbs
Break macaroni into inch lengths and add it with 1 tablespoonful of the
Crisco to plenty of boiling water and boil twenty minutes, then drain.
Put steak and onions through a food chopper. Put macaroni into Criscoed
fireproof dish, then put in meat and onions, add seasonings, tomatoes,
cheese, breadcrumbs, and remainder of Crisco melted. Bake in moderate
oven one hour.
Meat Cakes
1 lb. round steak
3 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco
3 small onions
1 tablespoonful chopped parsley
2 eggs
¼ lb. grated cheese
2 cupfuls breadcrumbs
Salt, pepper, and paprika to taste
Tomato sauce
For Sauce
4 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 carrot
1 turnip
2 onions
3 tablespoonfuls flour
2 cupfuls stock
1 can or ½ lb. fresh tomatoes
1 tablespoonful tomato catsup
1 bunch sweet herbs
Salt, pepper, and red pepper to taste
1 blade mace
1 bay leaf
_For meat cakes._ Grind steak and onions together, add Crisco, cheese,
parsley, crumbs, seasonings, and eggs lightly beaten. Mix together;
form into small cakes, toss in flour and fry in hot Crisco. Serve hot
with tomato sauce.
_For sauce._ Slice vegetables, fry in Crisco ten minutes; then add
flour, stock, mace, bay leaf, tomatoes, catsup, and herbs. Stir till
they boil, then simmer gently forty-five minutes. Rub through sieve,
add seasonings and use.
Sufficient for twelve meat cakes.
Roast Turkey
For Stuffing
1 quart fine breadcrumbs
4 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1½ teaspoonfuls salt
2 tablespoonfuls chopped onion
1 lemon
1 tablespoonful chopped parsley
¼ teaspoonful powdered thyme
¼ teaspoonful white pepper
1 egg
1 cupful country sausage
A little warm water
1 turkey
Salt pork
Mix sausage with breadcrumbs, add egg well beaten, Crisco, seasonings,
grated rind and strained juice of lemon, and moisten with a little
hot water. Be careful not to make stuffing too moist. See that turkey
is well plucked, singed and wiped; fold over pinions, and pass skewer
through them, thick part of legs and body, catching leg and pinning it
on other side; now secure bottom part of leg, which should have feet
cut off half way to first joint, fill breast of bird with stuffing
and skewer down skin. Place 2 strips salt pork in bottom of roasting
pan, lay in turkey and place several strips salt pork over breast
and sprinkle lightly with flour. Roast in hot oven, allowing fifteen
minutes to the pound. Baste occasionally with melted Crisco. Serve hot
decorated with cooked onions, celery tips, cranberries, and parsley.
Roast with Spaghetti
2 tablespoonfuls flour
3 lbs. sirloin steak
2 tablespoonfuls Crisco
1 large onion
¼ lb. bacon
Salt and pepper to taste
½ cupful water
½ can tomatoes
1 cupful cooked peas
1 cupful cooked spaghetti
1 cupful cooked mushrooms
8 stuffed olives
Melt Crisco and make very hot in roasting pan, lay in steak, season
with salt and pepper, cover with layer of sliced onion, layer of
bacon, add water, cover, and cook in moderate oven about three hours.
Have ready peas, mushrooms, and spaghetti. Place meat on hot platter.
Add juice of tomatoes to gravy, and flour moistened with a little
cold water, peas and mushrooms, and when hot pour round meat. Spread
spaghetti on top and decorate with olives.
Sirloin Steak with Fried Apples
1 sirloin steak weighing 2 lbs.
3 tablespoonfuls melted Crisco
1 teaspoonful salt
½ teaspoonful white pepper
4 tart apples
Milk
Flour
Mix salt and pepper with melted Crisco, then rub mixture into steak and
let steak lie in it twenty minutes. Broil it over a clear fire till
done and serve surrounded with fried apples. Peel and core and slice
apples, then dip in milk, toss in flour, and drop into hot Crisco to
brown.
[Illustration: VEGETABLES]
In the vegetable kingdom the cereals form a very important part of our
diet, by supplying chiefly the carbohydrates or heat giving matter.
Another nutritious group termed pulse, are those which have their seed
enclosed in a pod. The most familiar are peas, beans, and lentils;
peas and beans are eaten in the green or unripe state as well as in
the dried. Vegetables included in the pulse group are very nourishing
if they can be digested, they contain a large amount of flesh forming
matter, usually a fair amount of starch, but are deficient in fat. Peas
and beans also contain sulphur and tend to produce flatulence when
indulged in by those of weak digestion. Lentils contain less sulphur,
and do not produce this complaint so readily.