Chapter XVI: Front Matter (16)

Soak over night and boil tender as already directed. Parboil half a pound of pork and chop fine. Have ready a large cupful of strained tomato sauce, well seasoned with onion juice, butter, salt and a good deal of sugar. Put a layer of minced pork in the bottom of your dish; then one of beans, next tomato sauce. Proceed in this way until the dish is full; add a very little hot water; cover closely and bake two hours, then brown.

It will be found very good, a vast improvement upon the conventional pork and baked beans. The top layer should be of tomato sauce.

Baked beans with tomato sauce

Soak white beans over night in cold water, and in the morning put over the fire in boiling water, slightly salted. Cook until tender. Drain and put into a deep dish. Cover with a tomato sauce, made by cooking together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour until they bubble, and then pouring upon them a cupful of strained tomato liquor. Season to taste, and rather highly, unless you have previously added salt and pepper to the beans. Stir the sauce in with these and bake, closely covered, for two hours.

Beans sautés

Soak beans over night and boil until tender. Drain very dry and sprinkle with salt. Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a frying pan, and when this has melted fry in it a large onion sliced. When the onion has browned remove it with a perforated spoon, and stir into the butter a tablespoonful of minced parsley. Now add the beans and turn them over and over in the hissing butter until very hot. Sprinkle lightly with salt (if needed) and pepper. Turn into a colander, then into a hot dish.

Stewed beans

Soak over night. In the morning parboil for one hour, drain, put them over the fire in enough weak stock to cover them and stew two hours, slowly. For the last hour set in a pan of boiling water to prevent scorching. All the stock should be absorbed, yet the beans should not be dry. At the end of two hours stir in a sauce made of one tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of mustard and the same of molasses, with twice as much onion juice and the juice of half a lemon, mixed in half a cupful of boiling water. Leave, covered, upon the fire for ten minutes (still in boiling water) and turn out.

Lima beans

Shell, lay in cold water for half an hour, and cook half an hour in boiling water, a little salted. Drain, dish, toss about over a lump of butter, and salt and pepper to your liking.

Lima beans with white sauce

Cook as directed in last recipe, but instead of dishing after draining, return to the saucepan with a good white sauce into which you have stirred a little chopped parsley. Simmer three minutes and serve.

Boiled string beans

You can not destroy this dish more effectually than by “stringing” the beans in the slovenly manner practised by at least one-half of American cooks, or those who represent the American kitchen. The neatest way of ridding beans of backbones is to pare each the whole length with a sharp knife. The flavor is more delicate when this is done.

Lay a handful of the pods upon a board with the ends even, and cut through all into inch-pieces. Wash and cook in boiling salted water until tender. Drain, season with butter, salt and pepper, and serve.

Full-grown beans demand much more time for cooking than young. Underdone beans have a rank taste and are unwholesome.

Steamed cream string beans

By some they are called “butter beans,” by others “German wax beans.” They are sweeter and richer than the ordinary green string bean. Put into cold water for half an hour after paring the fiber lightly from each side of the pods, taking care not to touch the beans inside. Then, with a _sharp_ knife cut them into slanting slivers, three for each bean, and each a little over an inch long. Wash and put the dripping beans into a saucepan containing a great spoonful of warmed (not hot) butter, pepper and salt to taste. Add three tablespoonfuls of warm water. Cover closely, and bring slowly to a gentle simmer. Now and then shake the saucepan upward to make sure the beans are not sticking to the bottom, but do not open it, as everything depends upon the steam. Young beans may be tender in forty minutes. Large or stale will not be fit to eat under one hour. Do not put more than three tablespoonfuls of water for a quart of beans, and dish without draining.

String beans of any kind are nicer when cooked in this way than any other.

Savory string beans

String and cut the beans diagonally as just directed, and boil tender in salted water. Have ready a roux of butter and flour, and mix it with half a cupful of gravy of any kind. Stir until smooth, seasoning with pepper, salt and a little onion. Strain this sauce over the beans and cook for five minutes longer.

BEETS

Boiled beets

As the preliminary process to all dishes composed of beets is boiling it is well to learn exactly how this should be done. Too often the once ruddy vegetable is allowed to “bleed” out its juices until it has a pallid and uninviting appearance.

Wash the beets, rubbing them carefully with the palm of the hand to dislodge dirt, but not so hard as to abrade the tender skin. Drop into fresh cold water as you cleanse them. Put into a saucepan of salted boiling water and cook for an hour. Drain, scrape, slice and serve in a deep dish with melted butter poured over them. They are best when a tablespoonful of hot vinegar is added to the melted butter.

Creamed young beets

Cook with two inches of the stem on to prevent bleeding, and do not clip the tap root. Have ready a cupful of cream heated with a pinch of soda. Rub the skins off, top and tail the beets, and slice them thin into the cream, setting the saucepan containing it in boiling water. When all are in stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed into one of flour, pepper, salt and a teaspoonful, each, of sugar and onion juice. Simmer two minutes to cook the flour, and dish.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS

Boiled Brussels sprouts

Remove the outer leaves and lay the sprouts in cold salted water for three-quarters of an hour. Drain and boil in salted water for about fifteen minutes, or until tender. Try with a fork, and if they are tender, but not soft, all through, they are done. Drain and lay in a hot dish and pour over them a half cupful of melted butter in which has been stirred a half saltspoonful, each, of salt and pepper. Serve very hot.

Brussels sprouts au gratin

Boil the sprouts tender in salted water, drain and cut each sprout in four pieces. Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and when they are blended pour upon them a scant pint of milk. When you have a smooth sauce stir the quartered sprouts into this. Season to taste, turn all into a greased pudding-dish, strew thickly with crumbs and bits of butter, and bake to a light brown. Serve in the dish in which they were baked.

CABBAGE

Those who know cabbage as it is served with the old-fashioned “boiled dinner” have no conception of the many delightful changes of which this so-called plebeian vegetable is susceptible. In summer, when it is young and tender, it is particularly good, and may be so cooked that it is as palatable and delicate to the taste as its refined cousin, the cauliflower. Have the water boiling when the vegetable is thrust into it, head down, and keep it at a hard boil until done. Some housekeepers claim that a teaspoonful of vinegar added to the water will dissipate the obnoxious odor.

Savory boiled cabbage

Cut a firm cabbage into four parts and reject the outer leaves. Wash carefully in two waters, taking care to dislodge any insects that may be concealed between the leaves. Have a large pot of boiling water on the range; dissolve in a tablespoonful of salt and a quarter of a teaspoonful of baking soda. Plunge the cabbage into this, and cook, uncovered, for fifteen minutes, drain, and fill the pot with more boiling water, adding salt as you do so. Cook the cabbage until tender, always uncovered, turn into a colander, press out all the water and set aside to get very cold. Chop fine and season with salt, white pepper, and a dash of tomato catsup. Heat in a saucepan a large cupful of well-seasoned soup stock, turn the cabbage into this and toss and turn until very hot. Now add a large spoonful of melted butter, and a teaspoonful of lemon juice, and serve.

Baked cabbage

Boil cabbage tender in two waters, drain and set aside until cold, then chop fine. Mix together two beaten eggs, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, two tablespoonfuls of cream, a saltspoonful of salt and a dash of paprika. Stir this into the chopped cabbage and put it into a buttered pudding-dish. Sprinkle breadcrumbs over the top and bake until brown.

Fricasseed cabbage

Boil and chop, as in the last recipe, and keep hot while you cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful of butter and one (heaping) of flour; when they bubble pour upon them a cupful of hot milk. Stir to a smooth sauce; turn into this the chopped cabbage, cook for a minute, season and serve.

Stuffed cabbage

Choose a fresh, firm cabbage. Lay in cold water for half an hour, and boil in salted water for ten minutes. Remove, drain, and allow it to get very cold. Meanwhile make a forcemeat of a cupful of boiled rice and the same quantity of chopped cold chicken with half a cupful of minced ham. Work to a paste and season. Stand the cabbage on the stem-end and carefully open the leaves, beginning at the center. Fill the spaces between the layers of leaves with the forcemeat; close the cabbage upon itself, tie it up firmly in a piece of coarse netting, put it gently into a pot of boiling salted water, and cook almost two hours. Take from the water, remove the netting very carefully, put the cabbage on a platter and pour a rich white sauce over it. If properly prepared, this is a delicious dish.

Baked cabbage with tomato sauce

Boil a cabbage in two waters, drain, cut it fine, and season with salt and pepper. Grease a pudding-dish and put a layer of the cabbage in the bottom of it; cover this layer with tomato sauce and sprinkle with a few fine crumbs. Proceed in this way until the dish is full, having the last layer of crumbs. Bake for half an hour.

Shredded cabbage and cheese

Cut a cabbage into shreds and boil in salted water until tender. Drain and stand in a heated colander at the side of the range. Cook together two teaspoonfuls of butter and two of flour, and pour upon them a pint of hot milk. Season with salt and pepper, and stir in three heaping tablespoonfuls of grated cheese. Cook, stirring constantly, for just a minute. Turn the cabbage into a deep vegetable dish and pour the cheese sauce over it.

Cold slaw

Wash a cabbage and lay it in cold water for half an hour. With a sharp knife cut it into strips, or shreds. As you cut these drop them into iced water. When ready to serve, drain in a colander, shaking hard to dislodge the moisture, and pour over all a dressing made by rubbing the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs to a paste with one beaten egg, a half cupful of salad oil, the juice of a lemon, mustard, salt and pepper to taste.

Cabbage cream salad

Prepare as in the preceding recipe, only cutting the shreds into inch-lengths before dropping them in iced water. Beat a pint of cream very stiff. Drain the cabbage, sprinkle lightly with salt, and stir it into the whipped cream, turning and tossing until it is thoroughly coated with the white foam. Serve at once with crackers and cheese. The cabbage should be tender and crisp for this dish.

An Italian dish of cabbage

Boil a cabbage in two waters; drain; when cold, chop coarsely, and season with salt and pepper. Butter a pudding-dish, put a layer of the cabbage in this; sprinkle with buttered crumbs and a teaspoonful of grated Parmesan cheese. Put in more cabbage, more crumbs and cheese, and, when the dish is nearly full, pour a cup of seasoned beef stock over all. Bake for half an hour.

Scalloped cabbage

Boil a head of cabbage in two waters; drain; let it cool, and chop fine. Cover the bottom of a baking-dish with bread-crumbs; scatter over these tiny morsels of butter, seasoned with pepper, salt and a few drops of onion juice; spread with a layer, an inch thick, of the minced cabbage. Season this layer with salt, butter-bits, and a sharp dash of lemon juice. Repeat the crumbs, then a second stratum of cabbage, a cupful of boiling milk, and cover all thickly with bread-dust, well seasoned. Sift grated cheese upon the top, and bake, covered, until bubbling hot. Uncover and brown. You can use weak stock in place of milk if you have it. Boil a pinch of soda in the milk. An excellent family dish.

CARROTS

Stewed carrots

Wash, scrape off the skin, cut into dice and leave in cold water for half an hour. Put, then, into the inner compartment of a double boiler with no water upon them except that which clings to them after washing. Cover closely, and cook tender. An hour should be long enough for this. Turn into a deep dish, pepper and salt, and cover with a good white sauce.

Mashed carrots

Scrape and slice carrots, and boil tender in two waters. Drain, rub through a colander, and mash with a potato-beetle. Beat light with a tablespoonful of melted butter, add salt and pepper, and serve very hot.

Carrots sautés

Boil young carrots, not longer than your forefinger, for eight minutes in salted water. Rub and scrape off the skins; cover with boiling water and cook tender. Drain, lay for a minute in cold water until you can handle them, and cut each carrot in two, each half into strips. Heat a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan with a half teaspoonful of white sugar, a little salt and pepper, and when it boils lay in the strips of carrot. Cook three minutes after the bubble recommences; sprinkle with chopped parsley, toss about for one minute, drain and serve hot.

Carrot croquettes

Wash and scrape and cook until very tender. Mash smooth and beat to a paste with the yolk of a raw egg, a good spoonful of softened butter, pepper and salt to taste. Let this paste get cold and stiff before making into croquettes or balls. Roll in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs; set on ice for an hour and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain and serve hot.

CAULIFLOWER

Cauliflower boiled whole

Choose a fine, white head for this purpose. Put it, flower downward, into ice-cold salted water for half an hour. Tie, then, in coarse cheese-cloth or netting, and plunge, head foremost, into a pot of boiling salted water. Cook half an hour, drain, take off the cloth and dish. Pour a rich white sauce over it.

Cauliflower au gratin

Cut a large cauliflower into eight pieces and boil tender in salted water. Drain, lay in a deep pudding-dish, stems down, and pour over it a plain white sauce into which two hard-boiled eggs have been chopped. Sprinkle with bread-crumbs and bake to a light brown.

Cauliflower with tomato sauce

Boil a whole cauliflower for ten minutes in fresh water; drain and boil until tender in salted water. Put into a vegetable dish, flower side up, rub thoroughly with butter, then sprinkle with salt and pepper. Last of all, pour over the cauliflower a pint of tomato sauce.

CELERY

Stewed celery (No. 1)

Wash the celery, cut into half-inch bits, and stew tender in slightly-salted boiling water. Drain this off and add a cupful of milk. Cook for three minutes, stir in a teaspoonful of butter rubbed into a teaspoonful of flour, boil up once, season to taste, and serve.

Stewed celery (No. 2)

A bunch of indifferent celery may be utilized for this dish. I have rescued stalks frosted accidentally through the cook’s carelessness, laid them in ice-cold water for two hours, prepared them as I shall direct, and presented as palatable food that whose end would otherwise have been the garbage pail.

After stewing tender and draining, transfer to another saucepan in which you have heated a cupful of milk (with a pinch of soda in it), thicken it with a tablespoonful of butter rubbed in a teaspoonful of flour, and stir to a boil. Mix the celery well with this, season with pepper and salt, heat all together for one minute, and dish.

Brown stew of celery

Wash and cut into small bits a bunch of celery. Put it into a saucepan and pour over it a pint of cleared beef stock. Stew until tender. Drain the celery and set aside while you return to the saucepan the stock in which it was cooked. Thicken this with a paste made by rubbing a heaping teaspoonful of browned flour into one teaspoonful of butter. When you have a smooth brown sauce, stir in the celery, and when this is very hot, season and serve.

Savory celery

Scrape, cut into inch-lengths, lay in cold water for an hour; cook tender in salted hot water. Drain, and return the celery to the saucepan. Have ready heated a cupful of weak stock, or gravy, strained through a cloth, seasoned with paprika, salt and onion juice, then thickened with a tablespoonful of browned flour rolled in the same quantity of butter. Pour this over the celery, heat all together for one minute, and dish.

The outer green stalks of celery may be used thus, and more satisfactorily than a tyro might think possible.

Fried celery

Scrape and boil as directed in foregoing recipes; drain, and spread upon a cloth in a very cold place. They must be dry and firm before you dip each piece in beaten egg, then in seasoned bread or cracker-dust. Set again in the cold for an hour, and fry in deep cottolene or other fat to a golden brown. Drain in a hot colander and serve.

Stewed celery roots

Wash and scrape the roots of celery and stew in salted water until very tender. Drain and cut into small dice. Have ready in a saucepan a pint of hot milk, thicken this with a teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter, turn a cupful (heaping) of the celery dice into this sauce, stir until very hot, season to taste and serve.

Besides being a palatable dish when thus cooked, celery root is an admirable nervine, and therefore indicated as beneficial diet for brain-workers and nervous invalids.

GREEN CORN

Boiled corn

Strip husk and silk from the ear and put over the fire in plenty of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil hard for twenty minutes if the corn be young and fresh.

Send to table wrapped in a napkin.

Stewed corn

Cut from the cob with a sharp knife; put over the fire in just enough boiling salted water to cover it. Stew gently ten minutes; turn off the water and add a cupful of hot milk (with a pinch of soda in it). Cook ten minutes more, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed up with a teaspoonful of flour; boil one minute and turn into a hot, deep dish.

Green corn pudding (No. 1)

Grate the grains from twelve ears of corn; beat into the corn the whipped yolks of four eggs until thoroughly incorporated; stir in now two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and one tablespoonful of powdered sugar; salt to taste, and add the whites of the eggs whipped to a froth. Lastly stir in a tiny pinch of soda; turn into a buttered pudding-dish and bake, covered, half an hour. Uncover, brown quickly, and send to table at once.

If this delicious “soufflé” be made of canned corn, chop it very fine.

Green corn pudding (No. 2)

Mix together two cupfuls of grated corn, two beaten eggs, a half pint of milk, a pinch of soda, a tablespoonful of melted butter and a tablespoonful of sugar. Grease a shallow baking-dish, turn the mixture into this, sprinkle with buttered crumbs, cover and bake for half an hour, then uncover and brown.

Green corn pudding (No. 3)

Grate the kernels from twelve ears of corn and stir into them the beaten yolks of six eggs and a tablespoonful, each, of melted butter and granulated sugar. Now beat in a quart of milk, a half teaspoonful of salt and, last of all, the stiffened whites of the six eggs. Turn into a greased pudding-dish and bake, covered, for half an hour, then uncover and brown.

This, when properly made and baked in a quick oven, is a veritable soufflé and incomparable.

Corn fritters

Cut from the ears a pint of sweet corn. Beat together a cupful of milk, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one egg, whipped light, salt to taste and enough flour to make a thin batter. Into this stir the grated corn. Beat hard and cook as you would griddle-cakes upon a soapstone griddle. They are a palatable accompaniment to roast chicken.

Green corn balls

Grate enough green corn from the cob to make two cupfuls; into this stir a beaten egg, a teaspoonful, each, of sugar and melted butter, with salt to taste. Add enough flour to enable you to form the mixture into balls, roll these in flour and fry in deep fat.

Succotash

Cut the corn from eight ears and put it into a saucepan with a pint of young Lima beans and enough salted boiling water to cover them both. Boil until the vegetables are tender; drain and turn into a double boiler with a cupful of boiling milk. Cook for ten minutes, then stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and simmer for five minutes longer. Season to taste and serve. Large “Limas” should be cooked ten minutes before the corn is added.

Corn and tomatoes

Grate the grains from six ears of corn; pare and cut into small pieces four ripe tomatoes. Put over the fire in a saucepan; stew half an hour; season with a great spoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar and one of onion juice; salt and pepper to taste. Cook five minutes more and dish.

Scallop of corn and tomatoes

Pare and cut small a dozen ripe tomatoes and turn them, or the contents of a can of tomatoes, into a chopping bowl and chop the large pieces of the vegetable into small bits; then set in a saucepan over the fire and bring to the boil. Drain the liquor from a can of corn, or grate the grains from a dozen ears, and put the corn into a bowl of fresh water. After ten minutes drain the water off, and transfer the corn to a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover it. Let it simmer for five minutes, pour off the water and add the boiling tomatoes to the corn. Let both cook together for five minutes, during which time stir into them a heaping teaspoonful of butter, two teaspoonfuls of granulated sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture into a greased bake-dish, sprinkle bread-crumbs and bits of butter over the top and bake for half an hour.

Green corn croquettes

Grate the corn from a dozen ears, or drain the liquor from a can of corn, and chop the kernels fine. Cook together a tablespoonful of butter and two of flour, and, when these are blended, add slowly a pint of milk into which has been stirred a pinch of soda. Cook this mixture, stirring all the time, until you have a thick white sauce; add to it the chopped corn and half a teaspoonful of powdered sugar, with pepper and salt to taste. Remove from the fire and set aside to cool. When cold, form with lightly-floured hands into croquettes, and dip each croquette in beaten egg and cracker-dust. Set all aside in a platter in the ice-chest for several hours, then fry in deep, boiling fat.

Corn omelet

Grate the corn from four ears of boiled corn. Beat four eggs well, add three tablespoonfuls of cream and cook in a hot pan. When ready to fold, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add the corn and turn out on a hot dish. Heat the corn slightly over hot water before putting into the omelet.

Creole chowder

Heat a generous lump of butter and in it brown four sliced onions. Add four peeled tomatoes, four chopped green bell-peppers, and the corn cut from four cobs. Add as much water as may be needed in cooking, season with salt and sugar and a little black pepper. A full hour’s cooking will be necessary, and the chowder must be served piping hot.

CUCUMBERS

Many persons look upon the cucumber with fear as a source of indigestion and gastric discomfort. One able dietitian has left on record his opinion that a square inch of verdant cucumber is about as fit to be put into the human stomach as would be a like quantity of Paris green.

Our cucumber, like many another abused article, is maligned because its enemies have never made the attempt to do it justice. If a few simple rules are followed it will prove less indigestible and more palatable than foes and friends imagine. When cooked, it loses many of its disturbing qualities. But, as some people enjoy the crisp freshness of its raw state, it is well to learn just how to prepare it properly.

Raw cucumbers

See to it that the cucumber is fresh and lay it on the ice until wanted. Do not be content with leaving it on the shelf of the refrigerator. It must be in actual contact with the ice. Just before sending to the table, peel quickly and slice thin, scattering crushed ice among the slices. At the table make a French dressing of one part vinegar, three parts oil, salt and pepper to taste, and pour over the cucumbers as you dish them. To allow the vegetable to lie for even fifteen minutes in the dressing is to toughen the fiber and make it as indigestible as gutta percha.

Stewed cucumbers

Peel eight medium-sized cucumbers and cut them into slices an inch thick. Lay in iced water for half an hour. Have a pint of unsalted, hot beef stock in a saucepan, drain the cucumbers and lay them in this. Stew until tender, then remove with a skimmer and lay in a vegetable-dish. Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and browned flour, and pour upon them the stock in which the cucumbers were cooked. Stir until you have a smooth brown sauce; add a saltspoonful of salt, the same amount of pepper, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet and a half teaspoonful of onion juice. Stir all together and pour over the stewed cucumbers.

Stuffed cucumbers

Cut good-sized young cucumbers into halves, lengthwise, and remove the seeds. Fill the hollows thus left with a forcemeat made of equal parts of chopped roast beef and minced boiled ham, with half as much fine bread-crumbs. Moisten this stuffing with melted butter and season to taste. Place the halves of each cucumber carefully together and tie with soft twine. Place in a roasting-pan, pour about them a cupful of skimmed beef stock, and cook until tender. Remove the strings, transfer the cucumbers to a hot platter, thicken the gravy left in the pan and pour it about them. This is a Syrian recipe.

Baked cucumbers

Peel medium-sized cucumbers, arrange them in a bake-dish and pour about them a couple of tablespoonfuls of water in which has been melted a tablespoonful of butter. Dust with salt and pepper, and bake, covered, for half an hour. If you wish, you can scallop them by cutting them in slices, sprinkling with crumbs and basting with bits of butter. Bake, covered, until tender; uncover and brown.

Fried cucumbers

Peel and leave in ice water for half an hour. Slice lengthwise, making three slices of each cucumber of fair size, lay in fresh iced water for ten minutes more. Wipe dry, sprinkle with pepper and salt, dredge with flour and fry to a light brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain, and serve dry and hot.

CHESTNUTS

The large Spanish chestnuts sold by grocers in the city, and in the markets, make excellent puddings with or without sugar, and, as vegetables, go well with poultry and beef.

Chestnut pudding

Boil and skin enough chestnuts to make a cupful when rubbed through a colander or vegetable press. Beat four eggs light, stir the chestnut into the yolks; add a tablespoonful of melted butter and two tablespoonfuls of fine cracker dust, two cupfuls of milk, a tablespoonful of sugar, salt and pepper to taste; lastly, the frothed whites. Bake, covered, in a buttered pudding-dish for half an hour; uncover, brown and serve before it falls. Eat with meat.

Chestnut croquettes

Shell and boil five cupfuls of large chestnuts; skin, and rub through a colander. Work into them a tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, a few drops of lemon juice and a dash of paprika. Turn into a double boiler, and make very hot, then set aside to cool. When cold form into small croquettes, roll in egg, then in cracker-crumbs and set in the ice for an hour before frying in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Peanut croquettes may be made in the same way.

DANDELIONS

Make a wholesome and, to some tastes, palatable “greens” in the spring of the year. They must be gathered while very young and tender, or they are bitter. The best time to cut them is just before they flower. Throw at once into cold water, as they wilt soon after they are picked.

Stewed dandelions (No. 1)

Cut the stems from a half peck of dandelion leaves, and break each leaf into small bits, dropping these into cold water as you do so. Wash thoroughly, drain, and lay in cold water for fifteen minutes. Drain again, and put over the fire in a porcelain-lined saucepan, with enough salted water to cover them. Simmer for fifteen minutes while you make the following sauce:

Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and flour, and pour upon them a pint of milk, in which a pinch of soda has been dissolved. Stir to a smooth white sauce. Drain the water from the dandelion leaves, and stir these into the sauce. Season to taste, and beat in, very slowly, a whipped egg. Remove at once from the fire and turn into a deep vegetable dish.

Stewed dandelions (No. 2)

Pick the leaves from the stems, and drop into iced water. Take them up by the handful, dripping wet, and put, with no other water, into the inner vessel of a farina boiler. Fill the outer kettle with boiling water; cover the inner closely, and cook fast for half an hour. Rub the leaves through a vegetable press or a colander into a saucepan; beat in a tablespoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar, salt and pepper to taste, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, and, at the last, three tablespoonfuls of hot cream to which has been added a pinch of soda. Stir until smoking hot over the fire, turn out into a heated dish, garnish with sippets of fried bread, and serve.

Dandelion greens cooked thus are almost as good as spinach _à la crême_.

EGGPLANT—A MUCH ABUSED VEGETABLE

Tens of thousands of average American housewives know but one way of cooking it, and not one in a hundred performs that one properly.

Fried eggplant is one of the many dishes which remind the eater of the small girl of nursery-rhyme fame, who—

“When she was good was very, very good
But when she was bad she was horrid.”

When only half fried, or soaked with grease, this vegetable is an abomination to the educated palate and the self-respecting stomach. When tender and thoroughly cooked, it is one of the most delicious of the summer and fall garden products.

Fried eggplant

Peel an eggplant and cut into slices half an inch thick. Lay in cold salt water for an hour; wipe each slice dry and dip, first in beaten egg, and then in cracker dust. Set in a cold place for an hour and fry in deep boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain in a heated colander before dishing.

Stuffed eggplant on the half-shell

Wash and wipe a large eggplant and parboil it in boiling salted water for ten minutes. Let it get perfectly cold, cut in half lengthwise, and scrape out the center, leaving the walls of the vegetable three-quarters of an inch thick. Chop the pulp fine and add to it a small cupful of minced chicken, half a cupful of minced ham, a quarter of a cupful of bread-crumbs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, salt and pepper to taste. Mix well, add enough soup stock to make a stiff paste, and fill the hollow sides with this. When full and rounded, sprinkle the forcemeat with bread-crumbs, and lay the halves, side by side, in a bakepan, pouring three cupfuls of soup stock around them. Bake nearly an hour, basting every ten minutes. Remove the eggplant to a hot platter, thicken the gravy left in the pan with browned flour, boil up once on top of the range, stirring constantly, and pour this browned sauce about the base of the halved eggplant.

Scalloped eggplant

Pare off the skin, cut into dice and lay in cold salt water for an hour. Then parboil for twenty minutes. Drain well and pack in a buttered bake-dish, alternately, with fine crumbs. Dot each layer with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and strew with finely-minced sweet green peppers. Fill the dish in this order, cover with a layer of crumbs wet with cream; dot with butter, cover and bake half an hour, then brown.

Eggplant stuffed with tomatoes

Halve the eggplant and remove the insides as in the last recipe but one. Make a forcemeat of the eggplant pulp, a cupful of chopped ripe tomatoes, one chopped green pepper, and a cupful of bread-crumbs. Season with a tablespoonful of melted butter and salt and pepper. Fill the hollow sides with this mixture, bind the two halves together with wide tape, and bake, basting frequently with melted butter and hot water. When tender, transfer to a hot platter, cut and remove the tape, and pour hot tomato sauce about the eggplant.

Stewed eggplant, with sauce piquante

Prepare as for eggplant on the half-shell by halving and scooping out the pulp, leaving substantial walls. Chop the pulp and cover with hot water. Season with a tablespoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper, and simmer for fifteen minutes. Take from the fire, drain, turn into a bowl and work in two tablespoonfuls of soft bread-crumbs, one tablespoonful of finely-chopped capers, two tablespoonfuls of cold boiled tongue, minced, and, when well-mixed, add salt to taste.

Pack this forcemeat closely into each half, and fit the two parts together, binding securely together with tapes or soft twine.

Put into your covered roaster; pour enough weak stock around it to come one-third of the way up the side, bake, covered, half an hour, then turn and cook the other side. Undo the strings, lay the eggplant carefully in the middle of a hot dish, and pour a good sauce piquante over and around it.

HOMINY

The small-grained hominy, called at the South “samp,” after the manner of the aborigines who bequeathed it to us, must be used in the recipes which follow.

Plain hominy pudding

Soak a cupful of hominy for three hours in tepid water. Drain, and put over the fire in plenty of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil fast for thirty minutes or until tender; turn off the water and pour in a pint of hot milk, with a little salt. Cook for fifteen minutes, stir in a generous lump of butter and turn into a deep dish.

Eat with sugar and cream.

Baked hominy

Stir into a pint of milk a cupful of cold boiled hominy, and when this is smooth, add a tablespoonful of melted butter, a tablespoonful of sugar, a saltspoonful of salt and four well-beaten eggs. Beat very light, pour into a buttered pudding-dish and bake for about half an hour or until “set” and brown. This is a good accompaniment to roast beef.

Hominy croquettes

Into two cupfuls of boiled hominy work a tablespoonful of melted butter; when the cereal is free from all lumps, add to it two beaten eggs, and when these are thoroughly incorporated, season the mixture with salt and pepper. Flour your hands, make the paste into small croquettes, and set aside until stiff and very cold. Now dip each croquette into beaten egg, roll in cracker-crumbs, and when all are thoroughly coated set in the ice-box for two hours. Fry to a golden brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Hominy fritters

Rub two cupfuls of cold boiled hominy to a smooth paste with one tablespoonful of melted butter. Next, thin with warmed milk, and add three well-beaten eggs. Finally, stir in a cupful of flour which has been sifted twice with a teaspoonful of salt and half as much baking-powder.

Drop by the spoonful into boiling, deep cottolene or other fat; or, better still, cook upon a soapstone griddle.

KALE

This vegetable, otherwise known as “sea-kale,” should be better known in our country. In England it takes high rank and holds it creditably.

Pick it over carefully, clip off the stems and lay it in cold water for an hour. Drain, and put it into a saucepan full of salted boiling water. Cook until tender, drain and chop fine. Return to the saucepan with three tablespoonfuls of melted butter, salt and pepper to taste. Serve very hot on squares of buttered toast.

MACARONI

Few articles of diet are more toothsome and more wholesome than macaroni in its various forms when properly prepared. Like rice, it is so often miserably cooked that its excellent qualities are not generally recognized. Macaroni may be bought in several shapes, the large, or pipe-macaroni being perhaps the most common. Besides this there are the smaller and more delicate vermicelli, spaghetti and the flat ribbon, or egg-macaroni. Recipes for the cooking of one may be used in the preparation of any of the divers phases of this food.

Baked macaroni (No. 1)

Break into inch-lengths half a pound of macaroni. Boil it until tender in weak broth. Drain off the liquor; put the macaroni into a pudding-dish that will stand the fire; pour over it a half cupful of the stock in which it was boiled, and put a tablespoonful of butter, broken into small pieces, here and there through it. Sift over it fine bread-crumbs and grated cheese; dot with bits of butter and brown in the oven.

Baked macaroni (No. 2)

Break half a pound of macaroni into short lengths; cook until tender in boiling, salted water. It must be clear and soft, but not broken. Drain and put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pudding-dish. Dot with butter, sprinkle lightly with cayenne and salt to taste; cover with grated cheese, and on this dispose another layer of macaroni. Fill the dish in this order, having cheese for the top layer. Pour in a cupful of milk; cover, and bake half an hour. Uncover and brown.

Creamed macaroni

Put a cupful of macaroni into two quarts of boiling salted water and cook for twenty-five minutes, or until tender, but not broken. Drain off all the water and keep the macaroni hot in a covered dish while you make the cream sauce to pour over it. Cook together in a saucepan until they bubble, two teaspoonfuls of flour and the same quantity of butter; pour over them a pint of hot milk, and, as this thickens, stir into it two heaping tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese. Pour this sauce upon the macaroni just before serving, lifting the latter lightly with a fork that the creamy sauce may reach every part.

Macaroni with cheese sauce

Boil tender in salted water and drain. Cook together in a saucepan a great spoonful of butter and a cupful of grated Swiss cheese. As soon as the cheese is melted, turn the macaroni into the saucepan and stir and toss with a silver fork until thoroughly blended with the sauce. Serve at once.

Macaroni and chicken

Boil half a package of spaghetti tender, drain, drop into cold water, and drain again. Lay on a biscuit-board and cut into pieces about half an inch long. Thicken a pint of chicken stock with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Stir into this a cupful of cold boiled or roast chicken, chopped fine, and the cold macaroni. Last of all, beat in slowly a whipped egg, remove from the fire, season to taste, turn into a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle crumbs over the top and bake for half an hour.

Send around grated cheese with it. You may use veal if you have no chicken.

Macaroni and tomatoes (very nice)

Break half a pound of pipe macaroni into inch-lengths, and boil in salted water until tender. Drain, and put a layer of the macaroni in the bottom of a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle with pepper, salt, onion juice and grated cheese, and cover all with a layer of stewed and strained tomatoes that have been previously seasoned to taste. On these goes another layer of macaroni, and so on until the dish is full. The topmost layer must be of tomatoes sprinkled with crumbs and good-sized bits of butter. Set in a hot oven, covered, for twenty minutes, and then bake, uncovered, until the crumbs are well-browned.

Spaghetti with Swiss cheese

Break a half pound of spaghetti into bits not more than an inch and a half in length, and boil in slightly salted water for twenty minutes. Turn into a hot colander and set at the side of the range to drain. Grate enough Swiss cheese to make a generous half cupful and turn into a saucepan with three tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Stir well; add the hot spaghetti, toss and stir for a minute, or just long enough to melt the cheese; add a dash of paprika and serve in a hot dish.

Macaroni rissoles

Have ready a cupful of cold, boiled macaroni cut up small. Make a white sauce by cooking together a tablespoonful of butter and two of flour and stirring into them a cupful of hot milk. Stir until thick, add a large tablespoonful of grated cheese, and, gradually, the whipped yolks of four eggs, beating all the time. Work the macaroni into the sauce and set aside until the mixture is very cold. With floured hands form into small balls—not quite as large in circumference as a silver dollar—roll in beaten egg, then in fine cracker-crumbs, and set in the ice-box for two hours. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. Serve with tomato sauce.

Macaroni piquante

Break spaghetti into very small bits less than an inch in length. Boil these for twenty minutes, or until tender, in salted water. Drain and keep hot while you make the following sauce:

Cook together in a saucepan a heaping teaspoonful, each, of butter and browned flour, and when these are blended to a brown roux, pour upon them a pint of beef stock, and stir until smooth. Now add four tablespoonfuls of tomato catsup, six drops of Tabasco sauce, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, a pinch of salt and a dash of paprika. Turn the boiled spaghetti into this sauce, stir all together, and pour the mixture into a greased pudding-dish. Sprinkle buttered crumbs and grated cheese over the top and bake until brown.

Macaroni á la Napolitaine

Have a long fish kettle half full of boiling, salted water, and lay a half pound of unbroken pipe-macaroni in this. Boil for twenty minutes or until tender. Carefully drain the water from the kettle and slip the macaroni gently upon a heated platter, where it may lie at full length. Set the platter in the oven to keep warm while you make a sauce by cooking together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of flour, and pouring upon them a pint of strained tomato liquor. Stir to a smooth sauce, then season with onion juice, celery salt, pepper, and four tablespoonfuls of Parmesan cheese. Pour this sauce over the macaroni on the platter. When you serve, cut the mass with a sharp knife into manageable lengths.

MUSHROOMS

It is a pity there should be such a popular dread of the poisonous “toadstool” that his nutritious and innocuous brother—the edible mushroom—is shunned by thousands of rational creatures. The most wary need not fear this joy of the epicure when it is bought at market or at a responsible grocer’s shop. Trustworthy dealers run no risks in purchasing the wares from those whose business it is to cultivate and sell them. Mushrooms bought under these circumstances are no more to be feared than artichokes or Brussels sprouts. They form delicious entrées and tempt the most jaded appetite.

Broiled mushrooms

Peel carefully with a small knife and cut off the stems. Lay the mushrooms in a deep dish and pour melted butter over them. Remove them gently to a greased gridiron and broil over clear coals until delicately browned on both sides. Lay diamond-shaped slices of thin buttered toast in a dish, and the mushrooms upon these, sprinkle with pepper and salt and pour a little melted butter over all.

Fried mushrooms

Melt a great spoonful of butter in an agate frying-pan. Peel the mushrooms and cut off their stems, scraping the latter. Lay the mushrooms with their scraped stalks in the frying-pan and cook, turning often, until done. Serve very hot.

Stewed mushrooms

Peel the mushrooms and simmer gently in salted water until tender. Ten minutes should suffice. Drain and keep hot while you make a white sauce of a half pint of milk thickened with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Turn the mushrooms into this and stir over the fire until very hot. Season with salt, pepper, a dash of mace, and serve.

Baked mushrooms

Peel very large mushrooms and cut off their stems. Grease a shallow pudding-dish and put a layer of mushrooms, under sides upward, into this. Into each mushroom pour a few drops of melted butter. Do not put more than two layers in the dish. Bake, closely covered, in a quick oven until tender. This should be in about twenty minutes. When done, remove the cover, pour melted butter over the mushrooms, and serve very hot in the dish in which they were cooked.

Fricasseed mushrooms

Peel and remove the stems from large mushrooms. Make a forcemeat by chopping the white meat of a cold roast chicken fine with a few small mushrooms and moistening it with chicken stock. Grease a pudding-dish and lay the large mushrooms, tops down, in this. Fill the mushrooms and the space between them with the forcemeat. Sprinkle bits of butter over all. Pour in enough of the chicken stock to make the contents of the dish very moist, lay a few wafer-like slices of bacon on top of the scallop, and bake, covered, in a hot oven for a quarter of an hour. Uncover, and cook for five minutes longer. Serve in the dish in which they were cooked.

ONIONS

A once-despised vegetable which now takes rank as a highly-respectable edible upon good men’s—and women’s—tables. Delicate spinsters no longer faint at fumes of boiled onions, and finical housewives have forgotten the rusty joke about cooking onions in the middle of a ten-acre lot. There are ways of extracting the coarser flavor that once condemned them with dyspeptics. Cooks have learned that there is as much difference between a well-done and a parboiled onion as between half-cooked and mealy potatoes. Housewives and physicians now appreciate the nutritive values of the esculent bulb, and prize it for these as well as for the seasoning which nothing else supplies. Onion juice is indispensable to the flavor of ragouts and soups, and is obtained by grating, not chopping. The superiority of this mode of getting the essence of the vegetable can not be rightly estimated by one who has not tried it. Onion seasoning should be tasted, never seen.

Stewed young onions

Cut off the stalks, remove the skins and lay the onions in cold water for half an hour. Put them over the fire in hot, salted water and cook for twenty minutes. Drain off the water and return the onions to the fire with a cupful of hot milk, in which has been dissolved a bit of soda the size of a pea. Add a tablespoonful of flour and stew slowly until the sauce is like thick cream.

Boiled onions

Peel and lay for an hour in cold water. Boil in two waters until tender. Drain, sprinkle with pepper and salt; put into a deep vegetable-dish and pour over them a great spoonful of melted butter.

Baked onions (No. 1)

Peel the onions and boil for ten minutes. Drain, arrange in a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and pour over all a white sauce, to which a beaten egg has been added. Sprinkle with fine crumbs, set in the oven and bake, covered, for twenty minutes, then uncover and brown.

Baked onions (No. 2)

Cook tender in boiling water changed once after fifteen minutes; drain and arrange, side by side, in a baking-pan. Melt a tablespoonful of butter in a cupful of hot soup stock, season with salt and pepper and pour over the onions. Cook in a hot oven until the onions are brown, when they may be lifted with a perforated spoon and put into the dish in which they are to be served. Put the pan of gravy on top of the range, thicken the contents with browned flour and pour over the onions. Serve very hot.

Savory onions

Select young onions for this dish. Lay the onions in a saucepan with a very little salted water and simmer for ten minutes. Drain off the water; pour over the onions a small cupful of beef stock and cook for ten minutes longer. With a split spoon remove the onions to a hot dish, while you thicken the gravy left in the pan with a heaping teaspoonful of browned flour rubbed to a paste in the same quantity of butter. When you have a smooth brown sauce season it with a teaspoonful, each, of kitchen bouquet and tomato catsup, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour this sauce over the onions.

Stuffed onions, creamed

Boil eight large onions gently until quite tender, but not broken. Drain, and when cold, carefully remove the hearts or centers. Chop three of these hearts fine and mix with them a cupful of minced ham and season to taste. Moisten with rich cream and the beaten yolk of an egg. Fill the centers of the onions with the mixture, put a piece of butter in the top of each, set side by side, in a deep dish, pour a little milk about them and bake, covered, for twenty minutes. Then uncover, sprinkle with buttered crumbs and bake ten minutes longer. Serve hot.

Scalloped onions

Parboil onions and drain. When cold, cut into bits. Put a thick layer of these in the bottom of a greased pudding-dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper and dot with bits of butter. Cover with a very thin layer of crumbs moistened with milk. Put in more seasoned onions and more crumbs, and proceed in this way until the dish is full. Then pour in carefully a little cream, cover and bake for half an hour; uncover and brown.

Onion custard

Cook the onions tender in two waters; drain, and lay in a deep pudding-dish. Thicken a pint of hot milk with a teaspoonful of corn-starch rubbed into two teaspoonfuls of butter and gradually pour this white sauce upon two beaten eggs. Season with pepper and salt and pour the mixture about the onions. Bake until the custard is set.

GREEN PEAS

They lose sweetness with every hour—I might say with every minute—that passes after they have been picked. The passage from garden to kitchen and from pod to pot should be made as short as possible. As you shell throw them into cold water, not holding them in the hand until they are heated and moist. As soon as the last is shelled, drain and cook.

Boiled green peas