Part 7

Pour boiling water over six or eight large, ripe tomatoes, let them remain in it a few minutes to scald the skins, then take them out and skin them. Chop them up and put them to stew with a little salt, pepper, and a small piece of butter; then add a spoonful of rolled cracker or toasted bread, and a tablespoonful of sugar, if liked; if not, omit the sugar, and let them stew gently, for half an hour longer.

TO COOK SPINACH

Wash in two or three waters, as the grit adheres very closely to spinach; when well washed, boil it one half hour in clear water; add a little soda, if it does not look a nice green. When soft, drain it well and chop very fine--it cannot be too fine; add butter, salt if needed, and pepper to taste; garnish with hard-boiled eggs cut in fancy shapes; or, in early spring, it is nice to poach two or three eggs, and lay on the freshly cooked spinach.

ASPARAGUS ON TOAST

The fresher this vegetable is the better; and in picking and washing it, all stalks not crisp and tender should be thrown aside. Cut off nearly all the horny white parts, tie the rest in neat bunches, and boil in salted water for twenty minutes or half an hour; then take it out, let it drain a minute and lay on buttered toast, the heads all one way; cover with rich drawn butter sauce.

ASPARAGUS WITH CREAM

When cream is plentiful, cut the asparagus in inch pieces, boil, and then throw it into rich hot cream, with seasoning of pepper and salt.

STEWED MUSHROOMS ON TOAST

Pull out the stems of the mushrooms, and peel them; melt a tablespoonful of butter in a stew pan, throw into the butter a little salt, pepper, and powdered mace (if liked), lay the mushrooms in this, upper side down, and stew till they are tender, which will be in about twenty minutes. Fry a slice of bread until it is a light brown, and then arrange the mushrooms over it. Serve hot.

EGG PLANT

Parboil egg plant, slice it and dip each piece in beaten egg and roll it in pounded cracker; then drop it in hot lard and fry brown. Season with salt and pepper. They are delicious cooked this way, and taste like soft-shelled crabs. Another way is to parboil them, mash them up and season with eggs, onions, pepper, salt and butter; then place the mixture back in the shell, and bake. Serve in their shells.

ANOTHER WAY TO COOK EGG PLANT

Parboil, slice them, and without rolling them in anything drop them into boiling lard; season with salt and pepper. Some like them mashed and added to a batter of eggs, flour and milk, seasoned with pepper and salt, and then dropped like fritters into hot lard.

BURR ARTICHOKES

Get them young or they are not tender, wash them in salted water, and put them to boil. Boil until you can pull off a leaf easily; salt them and serve with drawn-butter sauce, with vinegar in it, or mustard and oil, as preferred.

SNAP BEANS, STEWED AND BOILED

Pick and snap them when green and tender, cut them small, and throw into boiling water; let them cook gently for two hours; then stir in a half cup of broth, and a cup of milk; let them stew in this for half an hour longer; season with salt and pepper to taste. Many like them cooked with a piece of lean side bacon. They require several hours boiling, if not very young. Put the beans in first, and when half done, put in a pound or so of bacon to an ordinary mess of beans.

GREEN ENGLISH PEAS, TO STEW

Shell a quart of green peas for a small mess. Wash them in cold water, and put them on to cook in a stew pan with a pint of boiling water, or enough to cover them. Let them cook half an hour, and then stir in a large lump of butter rolled in flour; let this cook a few minutes, and add a teaspoonful of white sugar, same of salt and pepper, and serve while hot. Do not let them cook dry. Lamb and green peas is a favorite dish in the spring of the year.

MARROWFAT PEAS

This is a late sort of green pea, and is much richer in taste than the earlier ones, but not so delicate. They must be dressed like the early peas, by boiling in water, and when soft, pour off the water. They are sometimes a little strong if the water is not changed. Fill up with milk, or milk and water, and boil a little longer, then season with butter, pepper and salt, and thicken with a teaspoon of flour stirred in among the peas.

LIMA, OR BUTTER BEANS

Shell them, and lay them in cold water for an hour or so before cooking; this renders them more delicate and mealy. When ready to cook, put them in a stew pan in boiling water enough to cover them; let them boil fast and keep them covered while cooking; examine them in an hour, and if soft, pour off nearly all the water and stir in a lump of butter, some pepper and salt. Lima beans and sweet corn make the finest succotash, although string beans are generally used.

SQUASH, STEWED

If not very young, you must peel the squashes, steam or boil them until tender, and season them with sweet milk or cream, and a little butter, pepper and salt; let them stew down in this until they are thick, and of the consistence of mashed potatoes. Another way is to take them from the steamer, mash them with a cut-up onion, and a slice or two of ham; then stew them down thick, adding pepper and salt to taste.

STEWED SUMMER SQUASH

Gather them while young and tender. Peel, cut them up, take out the seeds, and put them on to boil; let them cook rapidly until very tender. Drain them well in a colander, and mash with a wooden spoon. Put this pulp in a stew pan with a small piece of butter, a gill of cream, and a little pepper and salt; cook this, and stir constantly until the squash is dry. Serve very hot.

PUMPKIN WITH SALT MEAT

This is very good cooked with salt meat and brown sugar. Slice the pumpkin and put it in the oven with brown sugar, or good molasses; slice some smoked meat and lay it in among the pumpkin; cook it tender. It is better than many things with more reputation.

CAULIFLOWER, WITH WHITE SAUCE

Remove the green stalks, and if the heads are large, divide them into quarters; wash and boil them with a little pepper, butter and salt; serve with drawn butter or white sauce, when they become soft and tender.

STEWED CABBAGE

Cold cabbage left from dinner can be drained from the pot liquor in which it was boiled, and then simmered for half an hour in water, or milk and water; pour off all the water when it is tender, and stir in the pot a lump of butter or clarified drippings; let it cook gently, then throw in a cup of milk or cream; thicken it with flour, and season with pepper and salt. Serve with the cream gravy poured over the cabbage.

BEETS BOILED

Wash the beets clean, but do not trim the roots, or they will bleed and lose their sweetness. If the beets are young and tender, they are nice cooked whole, and then stewed in a little butter, with sugar, salt and vinegar added. Let them simmer in this batter for twenty minutes, and serve. If the beets are large, boil, and slice them when cooked, and season with vinegar, pepper and salt, or slice them, and serve with butter.

PARSNIP FRITTERS

Boil the parsnips in salted water until they are done; make a batter of an egg, a spoonful of milk and flour, pepper and salt, and when the parsnips are cool enough to handle cut them in rounds, dip them in the batter and drop them into hot lard; fry a light brown, turn them and fry the other side. When brown on both sides, drain them from the grease. They are good, mashed like turnips.

MACARONI IN A MOULD

Boil macaroni till it is tender, line a mould with it, fitting it in closely. Make a mince of any kind of meat, raw or cooked; season with sweet herbs, butter, pepper, chopped eschalot, and a couple of eggs; fill the mould with this and boil for twenty minutes. Serve with white sauce No. 10 put around the macaroni.

MACARONI AND GRATED CHEESE

Take a quarter of a pound of macaroni, break into lengths, and throw it into cold water to soak, an hour or so after breakfast. Boil it an hour, take it out of the pot and put in the bottom of the pan a layer of the boiled macaroni and then a layer of grated cheese; strew over the top a teaspoonful of salt and some lumps of butter as big as a nutmeg. Then fill up the pan with new milk and bake until browned on top, but never let it get dry; it is better to put water in, if your milk has given out, than to let it get the least dry. This is a rich dish when well made, but a poor one if badly made, and served dry.

EGGS, OMELETS, ETC.

_In choosing eggs_ hold each one up to the light; if fresh, the white will be clear and the yolk distinct; if they are not good, they will have a clouded appearance.

_Eggs for boiling_ must be as fresh as possible; they may be kept fresh for several weeks by packing them in bran. Lay the small end of the egg downward in the box. You may also keep them for months by greasing them with melted lard, or beef fat, or in a weak brine of lime water and salt; strong lime water will eat the shell, and if _very_ strong will cook the eggs. Add to a common bucket of water a pint of salt and a pint of lime; stir it well, and it is ready to receive the eggs.

_Omelets_ require a thick bottomed pan, as an ordinary pan is too thin and would scorch the eggs before they could be properly cooked. For turning omelets, eggs, fried parsley, etc., have a skimmer spoon with a flat, thin blade, with holes, to let the fat from the fry.

TO BOIL EGGS IN THEIR SHELLS, SOFT OR HARD

Wash the eggs clean, drop them as wanted in a stewpan of boiling water; if you desire them soft, let them boil just three minutes by the watch; if only the yolk is to be soft five minutes will do it; but if wanted very hard for salad, sandwiches, etc., let them boil ten or fifteen minutes. Then put them in cold water, to make them peel easily. If soft-boiled eggs are kept in the shell before eating them, they will harden very much from the heat of the shell.

EGGS, AU GRATIN, FOR LENT

Boil the eggs hard, peel and cut them in slices, and lay them in a deep dish in close circular rows. Make a sauce of a tablespoonful of butter, the yolks of four eggs, a little grated cheese and half a cup of sweet milk. Stir this over the fire until it thickens, pour it over the eggs, strew some bread crumbs on the top, and bake for about ten minutes; then send to table hot.

POACHED EGGS WITH TOAST AND ANCHOVY PASTE

Toast six pieces of bread, shape them round, before browning; keep them where they will be hot until you poach the eggs. Take a tin dipper, half fill it with boiling water, and drop it gently into the pot again, holding it so that none of the water from the pot can get into the dipper; keep it firm by holding it yourself or getting it held for you, and break a nice fresh egg into the dipper; let it stand until the white is firm. Lay each egg on one of the slices of toast, use butter and salt on the toast for both egg and toast; break each egg in this way until your six eggs and six pieces of toast are used; butter very freely, and serve hot. Anchovy paste may be spread on the toast before the eggs are put on, but it is a nice dish without it and very suitable for a delicate breakfast.

POACHED EGGS AND HAM

Poach your eggs in a tin dipper, as directed, and when done put them on round slices of broiled or fried ham. Many prefer this to fried ham and eggs.

EGGS WITH BROWNED BUTTER AND VINEGAR

Put four ounces of butter into an omelet pan over the fire; as it begins to sputter, break the eggs into it without disturbing the yolks, season with pepper and salt; fry the eggs carefully and remove them on to the dish in which they are to be served. Put two ounces more butter in the pan, fry it of a brown color; put to the butter two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, pour it over the eggs and serve.

OMELETTE AU NATUREL

Break eight eggs into a bowl; add a teaspoonful of salt, half as much pepper, beat up the whole very hard and throw in a tablespoonful of water. Have the omelet-pan on the fire with a cup of sweet butter heated to a gentle heat (fierce heat would scorch the eggs); pour the eggs into the heated butter; raise it as it cooks, with a skimmer-spoon, turn in the brown edges, or turn one half over the other, as it keeps in the lusciousness of the omelet. Keep gently rolling it, as it cooks, until, when done, it is round like a small roly-poly pudding. Omelette au naturel is the basis of all omelets, for, by substituting different seasonings, you have all the varieties of them. Parsley and onion chopped fine and mixed with the eggs is one variety; grated ham and parsley is another; sugar makes another class, and so on.

A NICE OMELET WITH GREEN ONION

Beat the whites and yolks of six eggs separately, put in a tablespoonful of butter, a spoonful of chopped green onion and one of fine-cut parsley, and mix with the eggs; then put it into a thick-bottomed pan, in which you have placed a half cup of butter. Roll it up as it cooks, and tilt the pan on one side, that the omelet may cook on the other side; roll up again as it cooks. Do not let it get hard and brown, but keep it soft. Keep on rolling as well as you can; a little practice will make you perfect. When the eggs cook, butter, pepper and salt them, and turn on a dish.

OMELET FOR ONE PERSON

Beat two eggs--yolks and whites separately; in a bowl put a tablespoonful of water, a little parsley, a teaspoonful of butter, and a little green onion, if liked; beat the eggs into this, and whisk all very rapidly for a few minutes; then pour it into a pan, where there is a tablespoonful of butter just hot enough to color the eggs; cook them very slowly, and roll up the omelet as it cooks until it is like a rolled pancake; pepper and salt it at the last moment of cooking, as putting in salt too soon makes eggs tough.

OMELET WITH PARMESAN CHEESE

Break six eggs into a bowl, add a gill of cream, four ounces of grated cheese, some pepper and a little salt; beat the whole together, pour into a pan, roll up and bake as directed. Butter it well before sending to table.

OMELET WITH SUGAR

Beat six eggs, whites and yolks separately, with seven spoonfuls of powdered sugar. Flavor with lemon, and bake like a pudding for ten or fifteen minutes, or just long enough to set the eggs. Longer baking will spoil the jelly-like consistency of the omelet.

OMELETTE SOUFFLE

Beat six eggs, the whites and yolks separately; put to the yolks four dessertspoonfuls of white sugar powdered, and the yellow rind of a lemon chopped very fine; mix them thoroughly, whip the whites to a high froth and add them to the yolks. Put quarter of a pound of butter into the pan, over a brisk fire, and as soon as it is completely melted pour in the mixture; stir it that the butter may be completely incorporated with the eggs. When it is so, put it in a buttered dish and set it over hot embers or ashes, strew powdered sugar over the top and color it with a hot shovel; this may be done in the oven. Serve as soon as possible, as it soon falls and so the appearance is spoiled.

OMELETTE SOUFFLE IN A MOULD

Break six fresh eggs, separate the whites from the yolks, put with the yolks three spoonfuls of rice flour and a tablespoonful of orange-flower water; stir these well together, whip the whites of the eggs to a high froth, and mix them with the yolks. Pour the mixture into a buttered mould, about half full; bake it in a moderate oven for half an hour. When done turn it on to a dish and serve quickly. This omelet must be clear and shake like a jelly.

A DELICIOUS OMELET

Beat separately, and lightly, six eggs; add to them a tablespoonful of chopped green onion, and the same of parsley, chopped fine; beat them into the eggs with two tablespoonfuls of water, and at the last moment a little salt. Have a thick-bottomed skillet or pan on the fire, put in a teaspoonful of nice sweet butter, and when this is hot put in the eggs. Take a broad-bladed knife and keep rolling the omelet as it sets; do not let it get too brown, but roll it in an oblong shape; never turn an omelet over, but push and roll it, as described, then slide it on a hot dish, pour a spoonful of melted butter over it, and send it to table hot. A wood fire is the best, over which to cook an omelet, as you want only a blaze; a great heat in the stove makes it impossible to have the eggs of the light delicate brown required.

SPANISH OMELET

Beat up six eggs until quite light, add to them a cup of chopped ham and two small onions minced very fine. The onions should be cooked a little before being put into the eggs, or they will not be cooked enough. When mixed together put it into a thick-bottomed pan and commence rolling. When it is a light brown, give it the last roll, let it lie a moment in the pan, then dish it. Put fresh butter as it goes to table, for the butter the omelet is fried in is never good to send to table.

OMELET WITH OYSTERS

Break eight or ten eggs in a basin, whip them up well, add a gill of cream, a tablespoonful of sweet butter, a spoonful of chopped parsley, pepper and salt to taste; beat it again very light, then stir in a pint of chopped oysters, and when the butter is hot put in the omelet. When the eggs have partly set, roll the omelet in form of a cushion, which you can do by using the tin slice. Brown delicately, and serve with a little melted butter or some sauce you prefer.

Grated Parmesan cheese is very fine in place of the chopped oysters; also, ham, in the above omelet, is an acceptable addition.

SALADS AND RELISHES

GARNISHES

Parsley is most universally used to garnish all kinds of cold meats, boiled poultry, broiled steak and fish of many kinds. Horse-radish is much liked on roast beef; slices of lemon are liked by many on broiled fish or boiled calf’s head, etc. Mint is liked by many on roast lamb, and currant jelly is generally liked on game, ducks, etc.

MUSHROOM CATSUP

Lay fresh mushrooms in a deep dish, strew a little salt over them, then a fresh layer of mushrooms and salt, till you get in all the mushrooms. Let them stay in this brine three days; then mash them fine, add to each quart a spoonful of vinegar, half a spoonful of pepper and a teaspoonful of cloves; pour all this in a stone jar, and place the jar in a pot of boiling water; let it boil two hours, then strain it without squeezing the mushrooms. Boil the juice fifteen minutes, and skim it well; let it stand a few hours to settle; bottle and cork it well. Keep it cool, or it will ferment.

A DELICIOUS FLAVOR FROM THYME, ETC.

A delicious flavor from thyme, mint, sweet marjoram and rosemary may be obtained when gathered in full perfection. They should be picked from the stalks and put into a large jar, then pour strong vinegar or brandy over them; let them stay in this twenty-four hours, then take the herbs out, and throw in fresh bunches; do this three times, then strain the liquor or vinegar. Cork and seal the bottles tight. Do not let the herbs stay more than twenty or twenty-four hours in the liquid before straining, for fear of imparting an unsavory taste. This is very useful in soups.

CELERY AND SWEET HERBS VINEGAR

Take two gills of celery seed, pound them and put them in a bottle; fill the bottle with sharp vinegar, shake it every day for two weeks, then strain and bottle it for use.

GREEN TOMATO SOY, OR SAUCE

Slice a peck of green tomatoes thin, salt them thoroughly, using a pint of salt. Let them stay in this all night, and in the morning drain them from the salt, wash them in cold water, and put them in a kettle with a dozen cut-up raw onions, two tablespoonfuls of black pepper, same of allspice, a quarter of a spoonful of ground mustard, half a pound of white mustard seed, and a tablespoonful of red pepper. Cover all with strong vinegar, and boil it until it becomes like jam. Stir it frequently while it is boiling or it will scorch.

SUPERIOR TOMATO CATSUP

Get a bushel of ripe tomatoes, scald them until they are soft enough to squeeze through a sieve. When strained, add to the pulp a pint and a half of salt, four tablespoonfuls of ground cloves, same of cayenne pepper, a quarter of a pound of allspice and a tablespoonful of black pepper, a head of garlic skinned and separated, and a half gallon of vinegar. Boil until it is reduced one-half, then bottle.

TOMATO CATSUP

Take enough ripe tomatoes to fill a jar, put them in a moderate oven, and bake them until they are thoroughly soft; then strain them through a coarse cloth or sieve, and to every pint of juice put a pint of vinegar, half an ounce of garlic sliced, a quarter of an ounce of salt, and the same of white pepper finely ground. Boil it for one hour, then rub it through a sieve, boil it again to the consistency of cream; when cold, bottle it, put a teaspoonful of sweet oil in each bottle; cork them tight, and keep in a dry place.

TOMATO CATSUP. RECIPE FOR MAKING A SMALL QUANTITY