Part 13

One word here about uneatable decorations, never admit them at a children’s party; they are the very part of the feast the little people will most crave; red leaves for them must be of red currant-jelly, yellow of white, etc.

“Forced butter” is another form of garnish which adds much to the appearance of glazed ham or tongue. It is butter beaten to a white cream, then put in a forcer, and a pattern traced on the ham, which must be followed just as in icing a cake.

A Few Ways of Cooking Vegetables.--It is not intended to go into the general cooking of vegetables, although it may be said that even the choicest cooking can offer no greater luxury, or, alas! a greater rarity, than a dish of early peas or asparagus perfectly cooked. But this is not the place to remedy the wholesale spoiling of summer vegetables that goes on in almost every kitchen. I will only give what may be a few new ways of preparing familiar vegetables.

Stuffed Artichokes.--Wash the artichokes; boil till nearly tender; drain them; remove the middle leaves and “chokes” (this is the fibrous part round the base); lay in each a little rich force-meat, and put them in the oven to cook until the meat is done. Serve with rich brown gravy.

Fried Artichokes.--Cut in slices lengthwise; remove the chokes, cut off the tops of the leaves, wash them in vinegar and water, drain them, and dip them in frying batter. Fry in very hot oil or lard. Serve with fried parsley sprinkled with salt.

Beet-root Fritters.--Cut boiled beets in slices; slice raw onions; scald them; dry them well; then lay one slice of onion, sprinkled with chopped chervil, pepper, and salt, between two slices of beet. Dip them carefully in frying batter, and plunge into boiling fat; when pale brown take them up.

Cauliflower Fritters.--Parboil the cauliflower--that is to say, boil until it begins to be tender--about fifteen minutes; then plunge it into ice-cold water; this keeps it white. Break it up into branches. Dip each one into thick béchamel sauce slightly warmed; let them get cold; then take each piece separately and dip it into carefully made frying batter, and drop them into boiling lard; fry a pale brown, and serve garnished with fried parsley.

XXII.

VARIOUS WAYS OF SERVING VEGETABLES.

Stuffed Cucumbers.--Cut large-sized young cucumbers into slices about two inches thick, rejecting the ends. Peel, and remove the seeds; scald the slices for ten minutes, plunge them into cold water, and drain them. Line a fire-proof china dish with very thin slices of unsmoked bacon which has been scalded; make some veal force-meat such as directed for galantines; fill the holes in the centre of the rings of cucumber till it is level with the surface on both sides; wrap each up in a slice of bacon broad enough to cover it. Tie round with a string, pour a pint of strong stock into the dish, and bake twenty minutes in a slow oven. When done, take up the cucumber, drain, and remove the bacon carefully so as not to disturb the stuffing. Lay in a dish, and serve with Robert sauce.

In the following recipes the mushrooms to be used are the large flap ones. When canned ones will serve, the fact will be stated.

Mushrooms Stuffed à la Lucullus.--Wash, dry, and trim large mushrooms; chop up the stalks and broken ones fine with a teaspoonful of minced parsley, pepper, salt, and a tomato; make these hot in a tablespoonful of butter. Fill the mushrooms with the mixture, place them on a buttered baking-dish, and bake six minutes, basting them once or twice with clarified butter.

Mushrooms and Tomatoes.--Toast some slices of bread, cut them into rounds two inches in diameter, and butter them. Peel some firm tomatoes, cut them into thick slices, and lay them on the toast. On the top of each place a peeled mushroom. Put them on a dish that can go to table, pour a little clarified butter over them, put them in a hot oven for three minutes, and baste well. Serve hot and quickly.

Mushroom Jelly.--Take two pounds of mushrooms, put them in a stewpan over the fire with a gill of strong consommé. Squeeze in a few drops of lemon juice, add a little pepper and salt, unless the consommé was salt enough. Melt in a gill of water half an ounce of gelatine, and strain it. When the mushrooms are quite soft, pass them through a sieve, mixed with the gelatine, and pour the mixture into a mould which has been rinsed with water. When set, turn out and garnish with finely chopped aspic, and a few cherry tomatoes if in season.

Mushroom Baskets.--Make some puff-paste; roll it out very thin. Line some small suitably shaped moulds (darioles will do very nicely); fill the centre with uncooked rice or flour to keep the shape while baking; cut some strips of paste, twist them, and bend them into the shape of handles; bake them very pale. When the pastry cases are done, empty out the rice, remove them from the moulds, and fill with the following mixture: chop as many canned mushrooms as you require with a small shallot, squeeze to them the juice and pulp of a large tomato, and put them in a stewpan with a tablespoonful of butter and a tablespoonful of very thick white sauce. Stir till about the consistency to eat with a fork. Squeeze a few drops of lemon juice over the top. Put the handles in so that they stand over the tops. Decorate with fried parsley.

The large Spanish or Portuguese onion that has of late years appeared in the markets is not often properly cooked. It is the most delicate and delicious of all onions, lacking the usual intense heat and rank odor. For this reason persons who wish to eat onions, either for health or inclination, will find this large onion cut up with ordinary salad dressing a great improvement even on Bermudas. This onion is full of a milky juice, which is lost in cooking if it is cut. Therefore, where a simple dish is required, the best way is to boil it, without peeling or trimming, for three hours if it weighs three pounds (it must be tender right through); then take it up, strip it, and remove the root, stalk, etc. Pour over it a rich white sauce, and serve, taking care that the gravy that runs from the onion is served with it. A still better way when an oven is not wanted is to bake them. Put them in a dripping-pan in the oven without removing peel or stalk. Bake at least four hours in a moderate oven. It will burn and blacken outside, which is of no consequence. Keep it turned so that the darkening may not go deeper one side than the other. When quite tender (but do not try it until it begins to shrink, or you will let out the juices), so that a knitting-needle will run through it, take it out of the oven, strip off three or four skins, remove root and stalk, and place the onion, without breaking it, on a dish; put a piece of butter as large as an egg, with a saltspoonful of salt and a quarter one of pepper worked in it, on the onion; cover it, and put in the oven till the butter melts, and serve very hot.

Stuffed Spanish Onion.--Parboil a Spanish onion; then drop it into ice-water; take out the centre and fill it with force-meat; cover with a thin slice of sweet fat pork; sprinkle with a teaspoonful of salt and the same of sugar; add four tablespoonfuls of stock, cover closely, and cook over a good fire. When the onion is tender, take it up, remove the pork, strain and skim the gravy, pour it over, and serve. The best force-meat for the stuffing is made of cold chicken, a shred of boiled ham, a little chopped parsley, half a dozen mushrooms, all chopped well and mixed with a tablespoonful of butter and pepper and salt.

Potatoes à la Provençale.--Mash and pass through a wire sieve two pounds of potatoes; season with pepper and salt. Grate two ounces of Gruyère (Swiss) cheese, pound it with enough butter to make a paste, add a gill of milk and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley; put this in a sauté pan, add the potato, mix all well, and stir until the mass is pale brown; serve as a pyramid.

Milanese Potatoes.--Bake large potatoes till just tender; cut off the tops, which keep. Scoop out the potatoes, but do not break the skin. Mash the inside with butter, pepper, salt, and grated Parmesan; about a teaspoonful of butter and cheese to each will be the right proportion. Beat the potato mixture with a fork for a minute to make it light, refill the skins, put on the covers, and heat them in the oven.

Scalloped Potatoes.--Mash two pounds of potatoes with milk, and pass through a sieve; add three ounces of butter melted, two ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, and a little pepper and salt. Fill shells with this mixture, and brown them in the oven. Glaze them over with butter melted and grated Parmesan; return one minute to the hottest part of the oven. Serve very hot.

Tomato Jelly.--Two pounds of tomatoes, half a grain of red pepper, and two small shallots. Place them in a stewpan and boil till quite soft. Melt half an ounce of gelatine in as little white stock as possible; add this to the tomatoes, and strain; if not perfectly clear, clarify with white of egg in the usual way. Mould, and serve with chopped aspic round it. A little grated Parmesan may be sometimes sprinkled over it for a change.

Tomato Soufflé.--Prepare some tomato pulp, taking care to boil it down if too liquid; stir in the yolks of three eggs, then the whites well beaten; salt to taste. Fill either a large soufflé case or several small ones. Bake in a hot oven till it rises very high and is set in the centre; serve instantly.

Spinach Fritters.--Boil the spinach till it is quite tender; drain, press, and mince it fine; add half the quantity of grated stale bread, one grate of nutmeg, and a small teaspoonful of sugar; add a gill of cream and as many eggs as will make a batter, beating the whites separately; pepper and salt to taste. Drop a little from a spoon into boiling lard; if it separates, add a little more crumb of bread; when they rise to the surface of the fat they are done. Drain them, and serve very quickly, or they will fall.

XXIII.

JELLIES.

In this country culinary skill seems to run to sweet rather than to savory cooking; very few housekeepers but make excellent preserves and cakes, yet the list of sweet dishes manufactured at home is very limited; as soon as anything not in this category is required the caterer is applied to, and he has his list of water-ices, cream-ices, and méringues, with very little variation; sometimes, indeed, a new name appears on the list, but it turns out to be some old friend with a new garnish, or put in a different mould and given an alluring name. There are many delicious sweet dishes not difficult to make when once the processes of making jelly and of freezing are understood (and very many who do not pretend to be good cooks are expert at these two things), and others which do not require even that ability. To put a sweet dish on the table, however, in perfection, especially if it be an iced one, requires the utmost care and skill; the slightest carelessness in packing a frozen pudding, any delay between removing it from the ice and getting it on the dish, will destroy that dull, marble-like appearance it ought to wear when first it makes its entry, although it will gleam with melting sweetness long before it reaches the partakers. Happily there are many delightful sweets which are beautiful in appearance and less depending on atmosphere than any of the family of ices. The simplest of these are fruit jellies.

I spoke just now of the art of making jelly, and many readers may think in using such a term for so simple a thing I am exaggerating, and perhaps “art” is hardly the word, yet there is a daintiness and nicety in making jelly which almost deserves the term.

However, before talking of how sweet dishes are to be made it is necessary to provide the means by which they are to be redeemed from the commonplace of mere richness and sweetness. The flavorings and liqueurs keep indefinitely if well corked. Orange-flower water, it is true, will lose strength, but when a bottle is first opened, if it is poured off into small vials, and each one corked and sealed, it will keep its original strength. The following list of articles kept in store will enable a cook to give her cakes, creams, etc., just that “foreign” flavor that home products so often lack: almonds, almond paste, candied cherries, candied angelica, candied orange, lemon, and citron peels, pistachio-nuts, orange-flower water, rose-water, prepared cochineal, maraschino, ratafia, lemons, extract of vanilla, and sherry.