Chapter V: Front Matter (5)

Broil as in foregoing recipe and keep hot (covered) over boiling water. Heat a tablespoonful of butter in a frying-pan, and as soon as it hisses fry in it a tablespoonful of minced onion. When the onion has browned, strain it from the fat, return the latter to the pan, and pour in a cupful of boiling water, with half a cupful of apple sauce. Stir while it simmers for ten minutes. Cook two minutes, and pour over the chops. Leave covered in the oven for five minutes and serve.

TRIPE

A much-maligned article, meet for good men’s tables. It is despised and set at naught by people who should know better, because it is rarely cooked daintily. At its proper estate under the hands of a cook who recognizes its real worth it is said to be both nourishing and digestible. It is certainly palatable, if tender and properly prepared. Buy from your butcher the prepared tripe—that is, tripe which has been thoroughly cleaned and is ready for boiling. No matter how you intend to cook it, boil it first.

Boiled tripe

Lay the tripe in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Set at the side of the range, where it will come slowly to a boil, and simmer steadily for at least four hours. Drain, and set in a cool place until wanted.

Stewed tripe

Cook as in the preceding recipe, but cut the tripe in half-inch squares. At the end of four hours drain off all the water except a gill; add to this a cup of stewed and strained tomatoes, a dash of onion juice, salt to taste and a pinch of paprika. Rub together a heaping teaspoonful, each, of butter and flour, and stir into the tripe mixture. Stir until the sauce is smooth and thick. Some persons like a teaspoonful of Parmesan cheese added to this stew just before it is served.

Fried tripe

Lay cold, boiled tripe in a mixture of equal parts of salad oil and vinegar for two hours. Drain in a colander for fifteen minutes. Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, and set in a cold place for several hours. _Sauté_ in a frying-pan to a light brown.

Or you may dip squares of cold boiled tripe into good fritter batter and fry in deep cottolene or other fat. When done, drain free of grease and serve with a sauce made according to the following recipe:

Into the yolk of an egg beat very slowly, a few drops at a time, a half-cup of salad oil. When as thick and smooth as cream add, still slowly, two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, a coffeespoonful of French mustard, a tablespoonful of minced parsley and salt and paprika to taste.

Stewed tripe and oysters

Drop three dozen oysters into their boiling liquor, cook for just one minute, and drain. Cut cold boiled tripe into pieces of uniform size. Put it over the fire with enough water to cover it and simmer for three-quarters of an hour. Drain off the water. Have ready a pint of fresh, scalding milk in a double boiler and drop the tripe into this. Cook for fifteen minutes; add two teaspoonfuls of flour rubbed into the same quantity of butter, and stir until smooth and thick. Season to taste, add the oysters and cook until they are heated through. Last of all, stir in very slowly one beaten egg, and remove at once from the fire.

Stewed tripe and celery

Cut into inch pieces enough celery to make a cupful, and stew tender in salted, boiling water. Drain and set aside while you stew the tripe, first in water, then in milk, as in the recipe for tripe and oysters. Instead of adding the oysters to the thickened milk, stir in the stewed celery, and cook for a minute before serving.

BEEFSTEAK

Rub the hot gridiron with a bit of suet before you lay the steak upon it. The fire should be clear and hot, and yourself at leisure to watch and to turn quickly when the meat begins to drip. There are houses in which a flavor of creosote would seem to be inseparable from a broiled steak. Turn swiftly to keep the smoke from it, and the juices _in_. Try with the point of a keen knife at the end of ten minutes. If the center of the steak be ruddy, and not purple, and the outside of a fine brown, it is done. Remove to a hot platter, pepper and salt and butter well on both sides. Fit a close cover on the dish and set in the open oven for five minutes to draw the juices to the surface.

Beefsteak with onions

Cook as just directed. Have ready three tablespoonfuls of minced onions, cooked for five minutes in hot butter. They should be tender and clear, but not crisp. After the steak is dished spread the hot onion thickly over it, let it stand in the open oven, with a close cover over it, five minutes.

Chateaubriand steak

Broil a neatly-trimmed tenderloin steak, transfer to a hot dish, butter generously and cover with broiled mushrooms cut into quarters.

Hamburg steaks

Chop a pound of lean beef very fine, and stir into it a beaten egg, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper to taste, and a pinch of mace. Mix well, mold into flat cakes, dredge with salted flour, set on the ice for an hour, roll again in flour, and _sauté_ in good dripping or butter.

Chilli con carni (No. 1)

(A Mexican dish.)

Beefsteak (round), one tablespoonful of hot dripping, two large red peppers (dry), two tablespoonfuls of rice, one-half pint of boiling water, salt, onions, flour.

Cut steaks into small pieces. Put into a frying-pan with hot dripping, hot water and rice. Cover closely, and cook steadily until tender. Remove seeds and part of rind from red peppers. Cover with the chilli water, add garlic and thyme. Simmer until cold, then squeeze them in the hand until the water is thick and red. If not thick enough, add a little flour. Season with salt and a little onion if desired. Heat and pour sauce on the meat. Serve very hot.

Chilli con carni (No. 2)

Provide for it two pounds of steak, six red chillies, two cloves, one tablespoonful of flour, a little garlic, thyme, dripping. Seed the chillies and cover with boiling water. Soak until tender and then scrape the pulp into water. Cut steak in small pieces and fry brown in dripping or butter; add flour and brown it. Cover with the chilli water, add garlic and thyme. Simmer until the meat is tender and the gravy of the right consistency.

Beef cakes

Scrape round steak, season to taste with salt and pepper; form with the hands into small, flat cakes and broil over a quick fire.

Stew of beef’s liver

Cut one pound of liver into slices. Chop a quarter of a pound of fat salt pork. Spread a layer of the pork in the bottom of the inside kettle of a double boiler. Cover the pork with slices of liver, sprinkle this with a teaspoonful, each, of minced onion and parsley, add more pork, more liver, onion and parsley until all the ingredients are in the pot. As you do this, sprinkle each layer lightly with pepper. Pour a half-pint of seasoned weak stock over all, cover the pot closely and keep the water in the outer pot at a gentle boil for two hours and a half. Now strain out the meat and keep hot while you return the gravy in the pot to the fire and thicken it with a brown roux. Boil up once and pour the gravy over the liver.

KIDNEYS

First of all, they must be perfectly fresh. If not, they have an odor, and a peculiar “tang” that the unfortunate eater never forgets, and which causes him to feel an aversion for kidneys henceforth and forever. Care should also be exercised in removing all bits of fat and gristle. Last of all, cook the kidneys in a savory way and spare no pains to make them appetizing.

Brown stew of kidneys

Split the kidneys, wash them, drain and cut into small pieces of uniform size. Pour cold water over these and set at the side of the range, where they will come slowly to a boil. Just before the boiling point is reached turn off the hot water, substitute cold, and bring to the boil. Drain the kidneys and keep them hot while you cook together a tablespoonful of browned flour and the same quantity of butter. When these are blended pour upon them a scant teacupful of salted boiling water, and stir until thick and smooth. Now add salt and pepper, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, the same quantity of Worcestershire sauce, a half-teaspoonful of lemon juice and a tablespoonful of currant jelly. Turn the kidneys into this and stir until very hot.

Savory kidneys

Skin and slice three pairs of lambs’ kidneys. Cut into halves fourteen canned mushrooms. Heat together a cup of bouillon and a half-cup of the liquor from a can of mushrooms. Cook together in a saucepan a tablespoonful, each, of butter and browned flour, and when these bubble pour upon them the bouillon and mushroom liquor. Stir to a thick sauce and add a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, the same quantity of tomato catsup, a half-teaspoonful of onion juice, salt to taste and a dash of paprika. Now stir in the mushrooms and sliced kidneys. Cook for five minutes after the boil is reached, stirring constantly.

Fried kidneys

Cut three pairs of lambs’ kidneys into halves. Fry eight thin slices of bacon until done; remove from the fire and keep hot while you fry the halved kidneys in the bacon fat. Cook slowly for ten minutes, turning often. Remove the kidneys and keep hot with the bacon while you stir a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce and the same quantity of catsup into the gravy left in the pan.

Put crustless slices of toasted bread on a platter, lay the kidneys on these, pour the gravy over them and dispose the crisp slices of bacon about the edge of the platter.

Broiled kidneys

Cut the kidneys into thick slices. Melt a little butter and stir into it a saltspoonful of mustard and a dash of lemon juice. Dip each slice of kidney in this, roll in cracker dust, and set aside until this coating stiffens. A half-hour will be long enough. Broil on a small gridiron over a clear fire, turning often that the kidneys may not burn. Be sure they are thoroughly done. Serve very hot.

Stewed kidneys

Cut the kidneys in halves, remove all the fat and cover the kidneys with hot water, bring to the boil and drain. Cover with more hot water, again bring to the boil and drain. Repeat this process a third time. Remove them from the liquor, slice thin, and thicken the gravy with browned flour rubbed smooth with two teaspoonfuls of butter. Return the kidneys to the gravy, and when very hot add pepper, salt, two tablespoonfuls of mushrooms, minced, two teaspoonfuls of Worcestershire sauce, a little lemon juice, and two tablespoonfuls of sherry. Serve immediately.

Kidneys sautés

Split the kidneys, trim off all fat and cut each kidney into quarters. Melt three tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying-pan, sprinkle the kidneys with pepper and salt and roll each piece in flour before laying it in the frying-pan. Cook, turning often, until brown. Lay upon a hot platter and add to the grease in the pan a wineglassful of sherry, a quarter of a teaspoonful of onion juice and a tablespoonful of mushroom catsup. Boil this sauce up once, and pour it over the kidneys.

Kidneys à la brochette

Split the kidneys, put over the fire in cold water, and bring to a rapid boil. Drain, wipe and slice each half. Cut the same number of thin slices of bacon the same size and freed from rind and hard lean. Arrange the bacon and kidney slices alternately on small skewers or stout straws, and broil them quickly. Send to table on the skewers.

SWEETBREADS

Said a maid to me once: “Indeed, mem, I niver see sich another as yersel’ for cookin’ wild things and innards!”

The “wild things” to which she referred were quail, woodcock and hare, while the “innards” of which she spoke with such scorn were sweetbreads, kidneys and brains. I may remark, _en passant_, that the lower classes seldom like viands most prized by the epicure, and the cooking of them, to be done properly, must be performed by the mistress—not the maid—unless the latter be an accomplished cook.

Broiled sweetbreads

Wash a pair of sweetbreads, throw them in boiling salted water, and cook for ten minutes. Drain, and lay in iced water until thoroughly cold. This process is called “blanching” the sweetbreads, and should be done as soon as the perishable dainties are brought home from the butcher’s. Wipe them dry, rub with butter, and broil them over a clear fire. Watch them that they do not scorch. When done, put them on a hot dish, pour a little melted butter over them, sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper and serve.

Fried sweetbreads

Blanch and split each sweetbread in half, lengthwise. Dip in beaten egg, roll in cracker crumbs, and set in a cold place for this coating to harden. At the end of an hour, fry in deep cottolene or other fat brought slowly to a fast boil.

Broiled sweetbreads with mushrooms

Blanch the sweetbreads and cut them in half, lengthwise. Grease a small gridiron, lay the split sweetbreads on this, and broil over a clear fire, turning frequently and watching carefully lest they scorch. When done, lay on rounds of crustless toast, rub thoroughly with butter, salt and pepper to taste, and cover with minced mushrooms fried in butter.

Sweetbread cutlets

Parboil, blanch and mince enough sweetbreads to make two cupfuls. Put into a saucepan with a little white stock and bring to a boil. Thicken with a white roux, and when smooth stir in gradually two beaten egg yolks; then turn the mixture upon a dish to cool and stiffen. Form with floured hands into cutlets, and fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Creamed sweetbreads

Blanch and cut two pairs of sweetbreads into neat dice. Cook together in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls, each, of butter and flour, and pour upon them a pint of cream. Stir to a smooth sauce, add the sweetbreads and cook, stirring steadily until very hot. Season with salt, pepper, and a teaspoonful of minced parsley.

LIVER

It is not known to all housewives, even to those who practise economy from necessity or from choice—sometimes from both—that lamb’s liver, which costs one-fourth as much as calf’s liver, is quite as palatable—some say better than the more expensive viand. The hint may be borne in mind in studying the following recipes.

Liver and bacon

Slice the liver, sprinkle each slice with salt and pepper, and roll in salted flour. Set on ice while you fry twice as many thin strips of bacon as you have slices of liver. Remove the bacon from the pan and lay in the floured liver. Fry slowly until done, turning often. It should cook for at least fifteen minutes. Drain the liver, holding each piece over the pan that the grease may drip off, and arrange on a heated platter, the bacon around it.

Broiled liver en brochette

Cut the bacon thin and the slices of liver into pieces of the same length and width. Run a wooden skewer or stout straw through each piece of liver and, alternately, through a slice of the bacon. Proceed in this way until each slice of bacon is fastened to a slice of liver, and each skewer is full. Lay on a broiler and broil over a clear fire. When done lay the liver and bacon, still skewered together, on a hot platter.

Fried liver

Cut the liver into strips half an inch wide and four inches long. Heat two tablespoonfuls of butter—or dripping—in a frying-pan and fry a sliced onion in it. Strain out the onion. Have ready the liver, peppered and salted and rolled in flour. Put this into the fat and cook, turning once. Take up the liver and keep hot over boiling water. Stir into the fat left in the pan two tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce, one teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet, and a heaping teaspoonful of browned flour wet to a paste in cold water. Add salt and paprika to taste, boil up once, put in two tablespoonfuls of sherry and pour over the liver.

There is no nicer way of cooking liver for breakfast.

Mince of liver

Chop, very fine, one pound of calf’s liver. Put one tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, add the liver with two tablespoonfuls of chopped bacon; cover and cook gently for one hour. When nearly done add a half-teaspoonful of salt, a quarter-teaspoonful of pepper, and two tablespoonfuls of boiling water. Serve on a platter upon buttered toast.

CHICKEN

Fried chicken

Joint a tender chicken as for fricassee. Dip each piece in beaten egg, then roll in salted cracker dust until thoroughly coated. Set aside for an hour before frying in boiling cottolene or other fat to a golden brown. Be sure to fry long enough for the thickest pieces of chicken to be cooked all the way through.

Virginia fried chicken

Prepare the chicken as directed in the last recipe. Fry half a pound of bacon, sliced thin. When crisp, but not burned, strain off the fat and return to the pan. Keep the bacon hot while you fry the chicken (prepared with egg and cracker dust) in the fat, turning twice. Should there not be fat enough, add dripping or cottolene or other fat. When done, arrange upon a hot dish and garnish with the bacon.

Fried chicken with cream gravy

(A Maryland dish.)

After dishing the chicken cooked as in foregoing recipe, strain the fat again, stir in a lump of butter rolled in flour that has been slightly browned, and, when it bubbles, a small cup of hot cream or milk to which a pinch of soda has been added. Stir for two minutes to prevent scorching, add a tablespoonful of minced parsley and pour over the chicken.

Broiled chicken

Use none but undeniably young chickens for broiling. Clean well and split down the back. Lay for an hour in a marinade of salad oil and lemon juice, if there is any doubt on this point.

If certain of your subject, wash over with butter and lay upon a greased and heated gridiron, breast uppermost. The fire should be red and strong. Broil about ten minutes to the pound, lifting when it begins to drip and turning four times to insure thorough cooking. When dished it should be sprinkled with pepper and salt and well buttered.

SOME WAYS OF COOKING COLD CHICKEN

Chicken fritters

Cook a heaping tablespoonful of flour in one tablespoonful of hot butter and one cup of chicken stock, added gradually. Season with celery salt and pepper and pour half of this sauce into a small, shallow, buttered pan. Chop one cupful of cold chicken quite fine, season and spread it evenly over the top of the sauce after it has thickened. Cover with the remainder of the sauce, place on ice, and when very cold and hard cut into rounds or squares. Dip them quickly into batter and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat, or in clarified chicken dripping.

These should be prepared over night. The fritters will keep their shape if left a long time before the paste is cut up.

Chicken omelet

Beat four eggs very light, season with salt and pour into a greased frying-pan. Have ready a cupful of minced chicken (heated) and a pint of hot white sauce in which a tablespoonful of minced parsley has been stirred. When the omelet is “set” and ready to be removed from the pan, sprinkle over it the minced chicken, fold it over and transfer to a hot platter. Pour the white sauce about the omelet.

Chicken mince on the half-shell

Cut fine sweet peppers in half lengthwise; remove core and seeds, taking care not to touch the sides of the peppers, and soak for an hour in cold water slightly salted.

Mince fine the cold meat of a chicken and add it to one-fourth as much fine crumbs as you have chicken; moisten with gravy or sauce; fill the peppers, sprinkle fine crumbs over the top, dot with bits of butter, bake half an hour covered, then brown.

Creamed chicken

Make a white roux of two tablespoonfuls of butter and half as much flour; when it bubbles add a cupful of cold chicken cut into dice, a teaspoonful of onion juice, salt and pepper to taste and enough stock to keep all from burning. Cook for ten minutes before stirring in two hard-boiled eggs chopped fine and a cup of rich milk heated with a pinch of soda stirred in.

Imitation terrapin

Proceed as directed in last recipe, adding at the last, the juice of half a lemon and a glass of sherry. Boil up and serve at once.

Turkey croquettes

Mince enough cold roast turkey to make two cupfuls, season with salt, pepper and a half pint of oyster liquor. Put into a saucepan and make scalding hot. Thicken a cupful of hot milk with a tablespoonful of white roux, stir it into the turkey mince, and when the boiling point is reached remove it from the fire. When cold and stiff form into croquettes, crumb these and set on the ice for two hours before frying to a golden brown in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, or in clarified chicken drippings, if you have it.

Turkey scallops

Mince remnants of cold turkey rather coarsely and mix with it one-third as much stuffing or bread crumbs. Moisten with gravy, oyster liquor or stock, season well; fill scallop shells or _pâté_ pans with the mixture, cover with fine crumbs, with dots of butter over all and bake in a quick oven.

Stewed calf-brains

Heat a great spoonful of butter in the frying-pan and when hot, stir in a tablespoonful of flour. Add a gill of cream with salt and pepper, chopped parsley and a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet. Put a pinch of soda into the cream. When heated, put in the brains, which have been previously blanched and cut into large dice. Cook ten minutes, stirring constantly, and serve hot.

Brain fritters

Blanch the brains by boiling them in salted water for ten minutes. Throw into ice-cold water and leave there for half an hour. When cold, mash to a paste with a wooden spoon. Stir into them two eggs, beaten light, a tablespoonful of melted butter, a half-teaspoonful of salt and enough flour to make a fritter batter. Beat hard for three minutes and drop this mixture into deep, boiling cottolene or other fat. When golden brown in color, drain free of grease in a hot colander. Serve very hot.

CROQUETTES

CHICKEN SCALLOP

ENTREES]

Fried brains

Blanch as above directed, leave in cold water until firm, and wipe dry. Slice into pieces of uniform size; pepper and salt, roll in beaten egg, then in fine crumbs. Do this over night. In the morning roll again in egg and cracker-dust; leave on the ice for half an hour and fry quickly in hot cottolene or other fat. Drain free from fat and serve hot. Pass thin slices of crisp toast with them.

Broiled veal chops

Trim neatly and broil over a clear fire, turning several times. Allow ten minutes to the pound. Transfer to a hot dish and cover with a mixture of butter, lemon juice and minced parsley. Cover and set in a hot oven for a few minutes before serving.

Fried veal chops or cutlets

Dip in egg, then in cracker crumbs, and set on ice until morning. Repeat the process, leave on ice for half an hour and fry in deep, hot cottolene or other fat. Drain, dish and send to table with tomato sauce.

Veal cutlets and bacon

Chop raw lean veal fine, season well with celery salt and pepper, and with your hands mold into oval shape. Roll in egg and fine crumbs and leave on ice all night. In the morning fry thin slices of bacon, remove them to a hot dish and fry the cutlets slowly in the fat left in the pan. Drain, arrange on a platter and lay the bacon about them. Pass tomato sauce with them.

Lamb chops

Trim off the fat, broil carefully and arrange them around a mound of mashed potatoes. Garnish with a garland of parsley laid about the base of the mound.

Barbecued lambs’ tongues

Open a can of lambs’ tongues and spread on a platter. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and a little onion juice. Lay in a sauce made by stirring together three tablespoonfuls of salad oil and one of vinegar. Let them stand in this mixture over night. In the morning heat a little butter in the frying-pan, lay the tongues in this and _sauté_, turning often.

Mince of mutton

Chop the meat fine, removing bits of fat and gristle. Season with salt, pepper and a little onion juice. (It is always better to grate, than to slice onions for seasoning.) Mix with the minced meat one-fifth of its bulk of fine bread crumbs wet with the gravy and work in the beaten yolk of a raw egg to “bind” the mixture. Mold into flat cakes, dip these into a beaten raw egg, then in cracker crumbs and set in a cold place over night. Fry quickly, as you would doughnuts, in deep cottolene or other fat (never in lard) made very hot. Take up as soon as they are done, drain off every drop of fat and lay upon rounds of lightly browned toast in a heated dish. Garnish with sprigs of parsley.

Minced mutton and tomato toast

Make three cups of good well-seasoned tomato sauce, thickened with a heaping teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter. Keep hot in a double boiler set at the side of the range.

Toast slices of bread, butter them, spread on a platter and put a tablespoonful of tomato sauce on each. Into the remainder of the tomato sauce turn two cupfuls of minced mutton, put the saucepan over the fire, stir until the meat is thoroughly heated, season to taste and pour upon the toast.

BREAKFAST GAME

Broiled rabbit

Have your butcher skin and clean the rabbit, remove the head and open it from end to end on the under side. Wipe it inside and out with a damp cloth and lay it open on a greased gridiron. Cut gashes across the back that the heat may penetrate to the thickest part. Broil over a clear fire, turning often. It should cook for about twenty minutes. Transfer to a hot dish, rub with butter, sprinkle with salt and pepper and serve.

Barbecued rabbit

Cook precisely as in the last recipe and keep hot on a platter while you make a sauce of two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, two of melted butter, a dash of salt and a teaspoonful of French mustard. Pour this sauce over the hot rabbit and send to table. This is a delicious and savory dish.

Smothered rabbits

Skin and clean a pair of rabbits; lay in a covered roaster; pour a cup of boiling water over them and cook, covered, until tender. Baste five or six times with a mixture of butter and water mixed with a teaspoonful of onion juice. When the rabbits are done transfer to a platter and keep hot, while you thicken the gravy in the pan with a tablespoonful of browned flour rubbed up with one of butter. Cook one minute, add two teaspoonfuls of vinegar, a saltspoonful of paprika and a generous teaspoonful of made mustard. Boil up once, pour over the rabbits and leave, covered, over hot water five minutes before serving.

Venison steak

Grease your gridiron thoroughly before laying your steak upon it. Broil the steak, turning frequently over the fire of clear coals. As it is better rare, do not cook the venison too long. When done lay the meat upon a hot platter, put upon it several spoonfuls of butter and a little currant jelly, cover and set in the oven long enough to melt the butter and to soften the jelly, then send immediately to the table.

Broiled quails and woodcock

Clean and split down the back. Wash carefully and dry inside and out with a clean cloth. Leave on ice half an hour and broil over a clear hot fire. Dish, pepper and salt, put a piece of butter upon, and lay under each bird a round of delicate toast.

Small birds

Can be cooked in the same way.

Breakfast stew of squirrels

Clean and joint a pair of large gray squirrels; lay in vinegar and water for an hour; wipe dry and brown them slightly in pork fat in which a sliced onion has been fried. Pack the squirrels in a pot, pour over them the fat and onion from the frying-pan and a cup of weak stock. Cover closely and simmer until tender. Season with pepper, celery salt and kitchen bouquet; thicken with browned flour rubbed to a paste with butter, boil up and serve. Stew the squirrels tender overnight, seasoning and thickening the gravy when you warm them up in the morning.

BREAKFAST VEGETABLES

Stewed potatoes

Pare the potatoes and cut into small dice. Cook tender in boiling water, salted. When clear, but not broken, turn off the water and cover with hot milk into which you have stirred a lump of butter rolled in flour. Simmer for ten minutes, add a tablespoonful of finely-minced parsley, boil up once and serve.

Hashed potatoes, browned (No. 1)

Cook as in last recipe, but when ready for the milk turn the stewed potatoes into a buttered pudding dish, cover with the milk, butter and flour and bake, covered, half an hour. Then uncover and brown.

This dish is particularly good if a little onion juice and about a tablespoonful of minced celery be mixed with the potatoes just before they are put into the bake-dish. The dice should be _very_ small.

Hashed potatoes, creamed and browned (No. 2)

Cut a dozen cold boiled potatoes into very small dice. Thicken a cupful of hot milk with a tablespoonful of flour, rubbed into one of butter. Season to taste and stir the potato dice into this sauce. Stir for just a minute; turn into a greased baking-dish and brown in a good oven.

Lyonnaise potatoes

Cut a dozen cold boiled potatoes into dice of uniform size. Shred two onions _very_ thin and put them into a frying-pan with two tablespoonfuls of butter. Fry the onion to a light brown; add the potatoes and fry until delicately colored, stirring frequently. Strew with chopped parsley and serve.

Potato croquettes

Into a pint of hot mashed potatoes stir a tablespoonful of butter, a beaten egg, salt and pepper and enough cream to make the potatoes of the proper consistency to be formed into croquettes. Roll in egg and cracker crumbs and set in the ice-box for an hour before frying in deep cottolene or other fat to a light brown. Drain in a hot colander.

Potato omelet

Beat two cupfuls of mashed potatoes to a cream with milk, salt and pepper and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Beat three eggs light and whip them into the potato mixture. Have a buttered frying-pan heated, turn the omelet into this and cook until set; turn out upon a hot platter.

Chopped potatoes sautés

Chop cold boiled potatoes evenly and rather coarsely. Put a tablespoonful of butter or of good dripping into a frying-pan and when hot stir the potato-dice into it, tossing and shaking until they are smoking hot. Pepper and salt and dish.

An equal quantity of sweet potato dice mixed with the white will make the dish still better.

Potatoes fried whole

Boil potatoes of uniform size until just done. Sprinkle with salt. When cold roll in beaten egg and cracker crumbs and set in a cold place for an hour. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat, or in dripping to a golden brown.

Fried green peppers

Slice green peppers crosswise and remove the seeds and tough, white membrane. Melt a little butter in the frying-pan and fry the sliced peppers in this. They are an appetizing accompaniment to fried fish.

Stuffed peppers

Mince enough cold chicken to make a cupful and stir into it two tablespoonfuls of minced ham and one of melted butter. Season to taste. Cut the stems from green peppers so that they will stand upright. Cut off the tops of the peppers, remove the seeds and membrane and fill with the minced chicken and ham. Stand the peppers on end in a baking-pan, pour about them a cup of chicken stock and bake half an hour.

German potato pancakes

Six large raw potatoes grated fine; three eggs; a scant teaspoonful of soda; salt to taste. Mix as pancake dough and fry in plenty of cottolene or other fat previously heated gradually to a boil.

Fried eggplant

Cut the eggplant into slices nearly three-quarters of an inch thick, peel these and lay them in a bowl of cold, salted water, putting a plate on them to keep them under the surface of the liquid. At the end of an hour remove the vegetables from the water and wipe dry on a clean cloth. Dip each slice in beaten egg, then in cracker crumbs and lay on a platter. Set in the ice-box for an hour and fry to a golden brown in deep boiling cottolene or other fat. Drain in a colander lined with tissue paper and pile on a folded napkin on a hot platter.

Broiled eggplant

Cut the eggplant in slices half an inch thick, peel and leave for an hour in cold, salted water, as in the preceding recipe. Wipe the slices dry and lay in a bath of five tablespoonfuls of salad oil and two teaspoonfuls of vinegar. At the end of fifteen minutes remove the eggplant, drain in a colander, sprinkle each slice with salt and pepper, lay on a gridiron and broil over a clear fire. Cook for five minutes on one side before turning the broiler. Serve very hot.

Fried ripe tomatoes

Cut firm tomatoes into thick slices, but do not peel them. Sprinkle each slice with salt, dip into a beaten egg and then in fine cracker dust. Set in a cold place for an hour and fry in boiling cottolene or other fat, or in butter.

Broiled ripe tomatoes (No. 1)

Cut large, firm tomatoes into half-inch slices, sprinkle with salt and pepper and dip in fine bread crumbs. Put into a greased broiler and broil over a clear fire until heated thoroughly. Spread with soft butter and serve at once.

Broiled tomatoes (No. 2)

Wash and wipe ripe tomatoes. With a very sharp knife cut them in half and lay, skin side down, upon a buttered broiler. Cook over a clear fire until done; arrange squares of toast on a hot platter and lay the broiled tomatoes on this toast—half a tomato to each slice. Handle carefully that they may not break. Sprinkle with pepper and salt and pour melted butter over all.

Grilled tomatoes

Cut large, firm tomatoes into thick slices. Do not peel. Rub an oyster broiler lightly with butter, lay on it the slices of tomato and broil over a clear fire. Have ready a sauce made by working a teaspoonful, each, of minced parsley and of lemon juice into two tablespoonfuls of butter. Sprinkle the tomatoes with pepper and salt, put the sauce on them, let them stand covered in the open oven or plate-warmer for a couple of minutes, or until the butter is melted, and serve.

Tomatoes and bacon

Prepare tomatoes as in the preceding recipe, omitting the sauce. Keep them hot while you broil or fry thin slices of bacon to a delicate crisp. Arrange the tomatoes on a dish, lay a slice or two of the bacon on each piece of the tomato and serve. This is an excellent breakfast dish.

If for any reason it is not convenient to broil the tomatoes, they may be fried in butter or in olive oil, drained dry and served in the same fashion.

Broiled green tomatoes

Cut the unpeeled tomatoes into half-inch slices and lay in sweet oil for five minutes. Transfer the slices carefully to a fine wire broiler and cook to a delicate brown. When done, sprinkle with salt and pepper, lay on slices of crisp toast and pour a white sauce over and around all.

Fried green tomatoes

Wipe green tomatoes with a damp cloth, cut them into slices half an inch thick, dip in beaten egg and cracker crumbs, set in the ice-chest for half an hour and then fry in butter to a delicate brown. Drain from grease and serve on a hot platter.

Broiled mushrooms

Peel, lay upon a buttered broiler and cook over clear coals, allowing three minutes to each side of the mushrooms. Transfer to thin slices of crustless toast, put a bit of butter and a dash of salt and paprika on each mushroom and set in an oven just long enough to melt the butter.

Fried mushrooms

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

Green pepper toast

Slice bread thin, cut off the crusts and toast on both sides to a delicate brown, then butter and keep hot in the oven. Heat a cup of beef stock in the saucepan. Rub together a tablespoonful of butter and the same quantity of browned flour and stir it into the beef stock. When you have a very thick brown sauce add salt to taste and a half cupful of green peppers which have been seeded, freed from the tough white core and minced very fine. Stir to a paste, remove from the fire and spread upon the slices of hot toast. Set in the oven long enough to become very hot and crisp, and serve.

Fried hominy

Warm three cups of cold boiled hominy by setting the vessel containing it in an outer vessel of boiling water. When hot, add a saltspoonful of salt and a tablespoonful of melted butter, beat the hominy smooth and turn into small muffin-tins to get cold and to form. When very stiff, turn the forms over, roll each in beaten egg and cracker dust and set all in a cold place for an hour. Fry in deep, boiling cottolene or other fat.

Block potatoes

(Contributed)

Cut raw potatoes in cubes. Wipe them dry and fry in deep fat until a light brown. Salt, drain on brown paper and serve hot.

FAMILIAR TALK

WITH MARTHA IN HER KITCHEN

(Time—The cook’s “afternoon out.”)

It is the Christian duty of every housemother in this comfort-loving land to provide a commodious, well-appointed kitchen and laundry, where daily household work is done, and clean, airy, comfortable chambers for workers, where they may take rest in sleep when that work is over. I should fail in observance of the Golden Rule if I were to oblige them to work where I could not work, or to sleep where slumber would be an impossibility to me.

My own preference for a kitchen floor-covering is really good linoleum of conventional design and light in color, therefore cheerful in effect. Many housewives insist upon oiled hardwood or painted floors. Not one cook in twenty takes proper care of an oiled floor, and paint soon wears off. It is economical to buy a prime quality of linoleum, and to lay the same pattern on kitchen, laundry and hall. When it wears out in one room it can be replaced from another. Inlaid linoleum will last for years.

Thick, strong rugs should be laid before the range and by the tables, one under the table at which the servants eat. Linoleum is cold to the feet, and one takes cold readily when over-heated.

I read, last year, that kitchen tables are now, as “a taking novelty,” covered with zinc. Over a score of years ago I covered what may be called the work-tables in my kitchen with this useful metal, tacking it neatly under the edges, lest a loose point might tear hands or clothes. I have kept it up ever since. The tabletops are cleaned easily; they never “take” grease or stain of any kind, and they outwear wood by many years.

Another invaluable invention which I wish I could place in every kitchen is a sheet-iron hood and asbestos curtain, fitted to the top of the recess enclosing the range. It works so easily upon pulleys that a little finger could pull it down. When raised, it is entirely out of the cook’s way; when down, it shuts in the range like an impervious screen. Sliding doors in the center allow one to look into pots and kettles simmering behind it, when oversight is advisable. If left closed, it will lower the temperature of the kitchen twenty degrees within two hours. It cost twenty dollars when new, twelve years ago. If I could not get another, twelve hundred dollars would not buy it.

I long ago discarded the old-fashioned tin and iron cooking utensils in favor of agate-nickel-steel ware, which is as easily washed as crockery bowls and plates; is light and neat in appearance; never rusts, and is altogether satisfactory. All of my kettles have covers, and we use covered roasters—another boon to housewives—for cooking meats. They keep in flavor and juices, and lessen the labor of basting.

Always have a rocking-chair convenient into which the cook can drop for rest between the times of active duty, and one apiece for maids in the laundry. For yourself, follow the rule I laid down imperatively a quarter-century ago in COMMON SENSE IN THE HOUSEHOLD—“Never stand at your work when you can sit.” A chair suited in height to the mixing table will save you many an ache in the feet, back and head.

Do not allow servants to jumble their table crockery, etc., up with pots, saucepans, kettles, colanders and the like. There is no reason why the dresser or closet in which the kitchen tableware is kept should not be as daintily arranged as the dining-room buffet. It should hold no commerce with the pot closet.

The servants’ chambers must be furnished with iron bedsteads, good mattresses, plenty of clean blankets and white spreads. The “honeycomb” spreads are absurdly cheap and easily washed. The rest of the appointments of the dormitories need not be elaborate. If they are neat and comfortable the occupants are more likely to try and make them attractive. When one pins up a crucifix over her bed, her mother’s or sister’s photograph against the wall, or even a colored lithograph of a patent medicine—notice it pleasantly. It means that she is catching the home feeling. Muslin curtains cost next to nothing. Hang them up at her window; give her a pretty cover for her bureau-top and a plain one for her washstand, and plenty of towels. The Golden Rule works well here—where does it not?

I read a little story many, many years ago—before you were born, I think—a slight, commonplace affair, that has furnished two generations of busy housewives with a hard-worked _mot de famille_.

Excuse the foreign phrase! We have none in English that exactly translates it. “Household word” comes nearer to it than anything else, without quite covering it.

The tale was of a fidgety housekeeper of the sort stigmatized in the rough parlance of the sensible vulgar as “nasty particular.” A friend, calling upon her soon after breakfast, found her fairly beside herself with worry because guests she had expected at noon had telegraphed that they would be with her at eleven o’clock that morning. Distracted Martha “could never in the world be ready for them. There was so much to do that she did not know what to take hold of first. It was enough to drive a woman out of her senses,” etc., etc., etc.

“But what have you to do?”

“Do! Do! Do! Why—everything!”

The visitor drew off her gloves.

“I will stay and help you. Shan’t I get the spare room ready?”

A gesture of disdain.

“As if I would have put that off until today!”

“Can I help about luncheon?”

“Well! I should be ashamed of myself if the cook hadn’t her orders and materials and all before this!”

“Perhaps I could dust the parlors? or polish silver? or—” glancing around the perfectly appointed dining-room, where the luncheon table was already laid—“I might arrange the flowers in the vases?”

It finally transpired that the frantic and “forehanded” hostess could specify but one thing that remained to be done before everything should be in order for the visitors. She had “butter-balls to make” for luncheon. She always kept the paddles in ice-water for hours beforehand.

I was young then and read the little story aloud to my mother—a woman blessed with a keen sense of humor and as keen a perception of the fitness of things. She adopted the phrase on the spot. “Butter-balls to make” became with us the synonym for needless hurry and flurry and worry. When used interrogatively, it was the cabalistic formula that caused a precipitate and a settlement of many a muddy whirl of anxieties, the open sesame to a “chamber the name of which was Peace.”

Half of the perturbations that chase the housemother “clean out of her wits” are as purely imaginary as those that beset the heroine of our wee scrap of a story. That other American Martha who cried out on Monday morning: “Washing to-day! Ironing on Tuesday! Baking on Wednesday! Bless my life, half the week gone and nothing done!” is hardly a caricature of the national housewife. Worry is a whirlwind that throws the weightier matters of the law of life out of plumb, and raises such a dust of minor duties and possible hindrances that the blinded victim can see nothing aright.

One of the fixed principles of the universe is that two objects can not occupy the same place at the same time. Another, which we are more slow to admit, is that no two duties are cast for one and the same instant. The throngs of homely tasks that obscure our toiler’s vision in the anticipation of “another day’s work,” drifting and dancing in the light of the new day—a flood of elusive moths—have really sequence and order. Let her take hold of her astral or inner self, by the shoulders, and hold her steady until she can weigh and classify the importunate atoms. The pretty fairy-tale of the tasks set for Graciosa by her wicked stepmother supplies another and a pat illustration. The poor girl had to sort a roomful of feathers of all colors and sizes. After laboring vainly for hours, she called tearfully for her fairy lover, who, with one stroke of his wand, laid each kind in a separate heap from the rest.

Your wand—and my wand—dear Martha, is the cool, long breath of sober reflection that gives us time to say: “All these things can not be done at once. Some of the less important can be laid over into the convenient season which must fall into the lot of even an American housekeeper. I must keep each in its place. I will”—a strong “will,” a long “will,” and many “wills” altogether—“I will think of but one thing at a time, and do it as if there were nothing else in the world for me to do.”

The discipline of thought and nerves that must attend upon such a moral and mental effort will train lawless impulses and teach concentration of thought as well as the much-vaunted higher mathematics could. Work need not, of necessity, be worry. Industry does not imply haste.

“Count five and twenty, Tattycoram!” entreated Mr. Meagles, when the foundling’s temper was likely to get away from her.

In the same tone of affectionate warning, I pass on my homely test of facts and values—“Butter-balls to make!” First, make sure of what you really have to do, and to do today. Secondly, having screened and sifted the mass, assort the ore before you begin to smelt it—and yourself!

In place of counting five and twenty, accept my formula—“Draw ten deep breaths” before you make up your mind that you have not time for one.

The world is full of fresh air and it owes us all we can take in leisurely and thankfully.

No matter how heavy your burdens, your experience reflects that of hundreds of others. It may be a mean kind of misery that loves company. The knowledge that others are fighting and toiling bravely along the same line with ourselves; that others have conquered the circumstances which oppose us, braces us for renewed effort. What woman has done, woman may do again.

You are far from being hopelessly “mired;” you have what is called “a good fighting chance” for life and usefulness. You have one tremendous advantage, a solid foothold to begin with, in the certainty that you are in the right path.

The confident assurance of this is half the battle. The other half is in doing your work as it comes to your hand. Don’t cultivate “a long reach.” It never pays. You “don’t get ahead one inch.” Perhaps God means for you to move by quarter-inches. He has ten thousand ways of disciplining His children, and so teaching them to make the very best of themselves. It is as certain as that He rules the heavens, that He knows just what sort of training is good for you. Your husband, your children, your home, are your working capital, a loan from Him—your talents, if you like that figure better. They are more than worth all the labor and the worries that fall into your lot.

Husband, children, home, work and worry fill to-day full. Hence the folly, and the danger, and the sin of “the long reach.” The one coming guest whom you should never welcome is to-morrow’s possible troubles. The children are not to be educated today, nor is John ill or dead at the present moment, and the “lonesome” maid does not go until her month is up. The faith that removes mountains wears short-sighted glasses and brings them to bear upon the work in hand.

This is not preaching, but practical philosophy. Try how it will work for a week—then a month—then a year.

Keep your house as well as you can for John, for the babies, for yourself, and let the neighbors run theirs to suit themselves. Comparisons, according to Dogberry, are “odorous.” Comparison of this sort savors of discontent and trouble. Mind your own business and take your business in sections.

“Magnify your office.” You are as important in your kingdom as was Queen Victoria in hers, and have not one worry where she had a thousand.

Dust may be disease in embryo, and should be done away with by the use of all reasonable means. Overwork and worry kill more women in one year than the neglected deposit upon picture cords slays in a century. “Let all things be done decently and in order” is a capital working motto, but reserve the right of private judgment in determining what constitute order and decency. Study what you can leave undone, or what may be laid over for another day with least discomfort to yourself and others.

Spare yourself, and study Slighting (so-called) as a Useful, Life-lengthening Art.

THE FAMILY LUNCHEON

Fifty years ago luncheon expressed the most desultory and haphazard meal possible to enlightened humanity. School children carried lunch-boxes and parcels in the corners of book-bags when they left home after breakfast. Picnic, berrying and nutting parties stowed away bountiful luncheons in baskets and hampers. There were three meals a day, breakfast, dinner and supper, or in New England, tea. Households in which people sat down, even upon “occasions,” to a luncheon set forth in orderly fashion upon a table, to be eaten in courses with knives and forks, were as few as those in which afternoon tea was served.

The change that, by pushing the dinner hour nearer the close of day has made expedient, if not needful, a substantial noon-day meal, has come about naturally and gradually. The down-town of men workers and the up-town of homes have receded from each other until the head of the house can no longer spare time to dine at home at midday. And the stately sequence of soup, fish, meat and sweets is a tedious sham when there are no men to be cooked for. In the country the increasing army of commuters have but two meals at home during the week day. Wives, compassionately reminiscent of the hasty bit and sup that stays their stomachs during a day’s shopping, assume that the respective Johns fare no better. John’s breakfast is a touch-and-go affair. He shall have abundant recompense for that and the wretched sandwich and lukewarm coffee that mocked fainting Nature at the noon spell.