Luncheons, by Mary Arnold-A Project Gutenberg eBook

This book is intended as a supplement to the “Century Cook Book,” hence no general rules for cooking are given.

It is a book of illustrated receipts, a cook’s picture-book, intended to be very useful in the way of suggestion. It is arranged so that housekeepers may more readily make up a menu, often a difficult task, or may easily find new dishes to vary the routine of the daily fare.

Instead of various menus, which are impracticable because they seldom suit the convenience of the moment, lists of dishes are given which can be quickly read over and those suitable for the occasion selected. These lists are placed at the heads of the sections, each section representing a single course, and each list comprising a number of dishes, any one of which is suitable for that course.

The receipts will meet the requirements of luncheons, but the majority of them are equally appropriate for dinner.

Attention has been given to the garnishing and manner of dishing, in order to make the dishes pleasing to the sight; for pretty dishes are attractive and recommend themselves, while carelessly served ones are sometimes refused on account of their appearance.

The illustrated dishes, though apparently elaborate, are in fact quite simple, the pastry-bag and tube, the use of which is easily acquired, being the means employed to decorate many of them.

The illustrations will serve as suggestions, and the taste of the cook will lead her to use such other combinations as are suited to her convenience.

Page 20, line 16, for “gelatines” read “galantines.”

Illustration No. 10, 2, read “Purée Sieve”; 3, read “Fontage or Swedish timbale irons.”

Page 31, line 8, for “will rise and cover” read “will rise when put in the hot fat and cover.”

Page 47, last title, for “Creamed Soups” read “Cream Soups.”

Page 71, 4th line from bottom, for “usual” read “original.”

Page 71, 7th line from bottom, for “dilute it” read “diluted.”

Page 73, 2d line from bottom, for “flour” read “water.”

Page 91, 8th line from bottom, for “browned” read “brown.”

Page 119, for “Salads Nos. 6-7-8-9” read “Illustrations Nos. 94, 95, 96, 97.”

Page 135, line 3, for “and moisten” read “moistened.”

Page 143, 2d line from bottom, for “thick” read “whipped.”

Legend of illustration No. 134 read “Strawberry Charlotte No. 2.”

Legend of illustration No. 137 read “Chestnut Purée.”

Page 155, line 6, for “cupful” read “pound.”

Page 162, line 10, for “by placing” read “and.”

Page 168, 7th line from bottom, for “lemon” read “melon.”

Page 169, to receipt for Lemon Ice add, “1 quart of water.”

Page 170, line 4, for “cupful” read “quart.”

Page 175, after title, “Pineapple,” add “Illustration No. 158.”

Page 184, 5th line from bottom, for “icing” read “tracing.”

Page 189, 5th line from bottom, for “box with” read “box and serve with.”

Page 192, 9th line from bottom, for “coloring” read “covering.”

Page 199, 11th line from bottom, for “double its bulk” read “doubled in bulk.”

Page 201, 8th line from bottom, for “one quarter of an inch” read “one and a quarter inches.”

1. Transcriber’s note: these Errata have been applied to this text. (2018-08-15)

The midday meal, called luncheon, varies in character from a very informal service, where the dishes are placed on the table and the servants leave the room, to one of equal elaboration and formality with that of a dinner. As this meal is made to conform to convenience, it is difficult to give general rules, as rules are conventions of ceremony, and ceremony is sometimes disregarded, as in the case where a larger number of guests are received than the service of the house admits of entertaining in other than an informal manner.

Luncheon proper corresponds to what in foreign countries is called the second breakfast, or déjeûner à la fourchette, where people are seated at the table and served as at dinner. The French breakfast hour, however, is usually twelve o’clock, while luncheon is an hour or more later.

|The company|Entertaining at luncheon is as customary as dinner giving, but ordinarily the company is composed of women alone, men as a rule not being entertained at this hour, except on holidays or special occasions.

|Seating the guests|A card with the name of the guest distinctly written on it designates the place at the table to be occupied by that guest, and each one finds her place without being otherwise directed, as the hostess is the 4last one to enter the dining-room. If, for any reason, one lady has precedence over the others, she is placed at the right of the hostess; otherwise the hostess selects for that seat the one whom she wishes particularly to compliment. If a stranger is being especially entertained, the other guests having been invited to meet her, she is given this seat of honor. The hostess in this case presents her as a new acquaintance to her friends, who afterward may call upon and extend to her other courtesies.

|Invitations|The invitations for luncheon are the same in form as for dinner; if the luncheon is a formal entertainment they are usually written in the third person, or conventionally expressed in the first person. An informal note is written for informal occasions. Under no circumstances should a verbal invitation be given.

It is polite to answer an invitation within twelve hours. People who are in the habit of entertaining are seldom remiss in the courtesy of a prompt reply, for they have probably experienced the inconvenience of uncertainty, and the embarrassment of having to fill places at the last minute, and so are better able to understand the significance of this social convention.

|Dress|Women wear street costumes or afternoon gowns; they lay off their wraps, but do not remove their hats. Men should wear afternoon dress.

|The table|At luncheon a table-cloth is not used if the table is handsome enough to permit its omission, but often leaves are put in which have not the same polish as the main table and must be covered with a cloth. The use of a cloth is, however, a matter of taste, not of rule.

5The polished table requires care to keep it clean and free from stains and scratches. It should be very frequently rubbed hard with a soft cloth, and occasionally a little kerosene or furniture polish should be used; but what is particularly needed is plenty of hard rubbing. A varnish polish is easily defaced, especially by hot dishes, which leave white marks that are difficult to eradicate. The table top should have what is called hand polish. This can be washed without injury, does not easily stain, heat does not affect it, and with daily care it constantly grows handsomer. It is better for young housekeepers to start with a dull mahogany, or oak, than with a shellacked table, which needs frequent redressing.

|Mats|To protect the table when no table-cloth is used, mats are placed under the dishes. The plate mats, either square or round, are seven to nine inches across. Mats are sometimes lined with asbestos, felt, or other thick material to protect the table better from the heat of the plates. The mats, as a rule, match the centerpiece, but this is not obligatory. There is no limit to the variety of centerpieces and mats. They range from crochet work and embroidered linen to beautiful laces.

|Decorations|Except the mats, the decorations used are the same as for the dinner-table, flowers being the chief and always the most beautiful resource. The decorations should be kept low in order not to obstruct the view across the table and so make general conversation impossible.

A large table is more imposing with high centerpieces, and at buffet luncheons high decorations can be indulged in. The cold dishes used on such occasions 6are susceptible of much garnishing, and are made to form a part of the decoration.

Where a large number of guests are being entertained, as at wedding breakfasts, or where the luncheon is accessory to some other entertainment, the guests are frequently seated at small tables placed throughout the room. In this case, no ornamentation is attempted other than a few flowers on each table, as anything more would be an inconvenience.

|Lighting|The lighting of the table requires careful consideration. Artificial light is not used unless necessary; but a dark, gloomy table should always be avoided, and if the room is dark candles should be lighted. Sometimes half the guests face bright windows, while the faces of those sitting with their backs to the windows are in shadow. Shaded lights in the chandelier will often remove this shadow; and, if carefully managed, the gas-lights will not be disagreeably noticeable. This, together with a careful adjustment of the curtains, will often equalize the light; but if a blinding glare cannot thus be overcome, it is better to draw the shades and curtains and light the candles. In city houses this is frequently done.

|Laying the table|The table is laid as for dinner, except that bread-and-butter plates are placed at the left of the dinner plates, each bread-and-butter plate having a small knife laid across it. These plates are small, and are used for the breads and hors d’oeuvres.

|The food and courses|At luncheon the soup is served in cups, and, where the guests are seated at the table, roasts are seldom presented, the meats being served in the form of chops, or individual portions; otherwise, the service is the same as at dinner.

7At buffet luncheons large cold roasts are used, and ordinarily not more than one or two hot dishes are served, such as bouillon, creamed oysters, or croquettes. Cold fish, cold joints, gelatines, and salads make the substantial part of the luncheon. All the dishes, including the ices, are placed on the buffet table at once, and no order is observed in respect to courses, each person making his own selection. On these occasions the gentlemen serve the ladies, and but little extra household service is needed.

Where the guests are seated at small tables the service is the same as if all were seated at one table, and a number of servants are required. There should always be enough waiters to serve the meal quickly. An hour and a half is the extreme limit of time that guests should be kept at the table. Seven or eight courses are all that should be presented, and these should be served quickly, but without apparent haste. The days of long feasting are passed. People of to-day value their health and time too much to sit for hours at a time at the table. The meal should be over before there is any fatigue or dullness; but on the word of Brillat-Savarin, an accepted authority on gastronomic subjects, it is safe to detain guests at the table for one hour. He says:

“La table est le seul endroit où l’on ne s’ennuie jamais pendant la première heure.”

GARNISHING AND DISHING MEATS

One celebrated French chef says: “Il faut viser a charmer les yeux des gourmet avant d’en satisfaire 8le goût”; and another, in giving advice to beginners, says: “A cook should have that artistic feeling which imparts to everything, great and small, that harmony of style which captivates the eye.”

This necessity is well recognized by every good cook, and such a one tries to give dishes the inviting appearance justly demanded by epicures. It is not necessary that the dish belong to the category which in cooking parlance is termed “high class,” for the simplest one comes under the same rule and is capable of being raised to a higher rank by careful dishing and tasteful garnishing. The greatest cooks are renowned for such specialties.

It is said of Soyer, “for dishing up he was entitled to celebrity”; and of Carême, “he excelled in everything requiring perfect taste, and dealt in a new and very effective manner with the ornamentation of large cold dishes.”

There is nothing which so quickly indicates the grade of the cook as the manner in which she serves her dishes. One who has no pride in her work seldom takes time for ornamentation, though garnishing is the simplest part of her duty. When, however, attention is given to this branch, even though the result may not be perfect, it gives promise of better things, and one may confidently predict for the cook who thus shows desire to do well that she will attain a higher degree of excellence in her profession. There is no class of dishes, from breads to desserts, which are not more appetizing when made attractive in appearance. It has been said that “eyes do half the eating,” and as no expense need be incurred in the indulgence of tasteful arrangement of the dishes, there seems to be no reason why the simplest table 9should not share with the most expensive one this element of success. Care, taste, and ingenuity will do much to remedy the lack of money, and may change the standard of the table from coarseness to refinement. Many suggestions for decorations may be found in the show-windows of bakers, pastry-cooks, fishmongers, and of delicatessen shops. Many of the pieces displayed there may seem elaborate and difficult to the novice, but they are, in reality, simple enough when the use of materials is understood.

The word garnishing is used here in a broad interpretation of the term, meaning the general ornamentation of dishes, whether it be obtained by form, color, dishing, or by dressing them with those articles called garnishes.

For example, beginning with breads, embellishment is accomplished by means of form and color. The form is gained by molding and cutting; the color, by glazing with egg or sugar. A universal expedient, when short of bread, is the soda biscuit. These biscuits, when cut in very small rounds of uniform size, will tempt the scoffer of hot breads; while large or small crusty rolls, all of exactly the same size, and baked a golden color, will also make him forget his prejudices and find excuse in the delicious crust for eating them. But these same biscuits carelessly cut or molded or baked would offer him no excuse for inviting dyspepsia. Toast looks more inviting when cut into strips or triangles, or with the corners neatly cut off if served in whole slices. Any little thing which indicates care on the part of the cook recommends the dish to favor and almost guarantees its excellence—on the principle that straws show which way the wind blows.

10For soups, there is to be found, in any cook book, a long list of garnishes which may be used. Certainly a clear soup is more beautiful when a few green peas or a few bits of celery increase its brilliancy; a cream soup is greatly improved by a few small croutons; and so on through the various classes of dishes.

The garnishes for meat dishes are so various, it may be said that their only limit is the ingenuity and resources of the cook.

It should be remembered that dishes which are served hot do not permit of as much garnishing as cold ones. The first requisite in the former is heat, and this must not be lost by time given to elaborate garnishing. It does not, however, exclude them from the privilege of being embellished; for if the garnishes are prepared and ready at hand, it takes but a minute to put them in place. Hot meat dishes can also rely on other things to improve their appearance, such as shapeliness and uniformity; therefore, strict attention should be given to the cutting and trimming of meats, to the molding of croquettes, of meat-balls, or of anything served in pieces, and also to the dishing of the same.

After meat is well cut, if a joint, it should be divested of all points and irregularities, and of cartilage which will interfere with the carving, and then should be trimmed into a well-balanced and symmetrical form, attention being given to the matter of its standing squarely and solidly upon the platter.

Chops and cutlets should be trimmed into uniform size and shape. This can be done without waste, as the trimmings have their uses. Careful 11dressing and trussing is essential for poultry, as the appearance of an untrussed fowl is enough to destroy the appetite and condemn the dinner. A fowl should be pressed into a rounded and smooth surface in order to dissociate the article served from the thing of life.

Meat should be placed exactly in the center of the platter, except in certain instances where studied irregularity is given for special garnishing. To place chops or cutlets neatly overlapping one another, either in rows or in a circle, requires some dexterity, perhaps, but this is acquired by a very little practice, and such an arrangement not only helps to keep the meats hot, but is in itself ornamental. The platter should be in right proportion to the article served upon it. A large joint on too small a platter gives the same sense of unsuitableness that an outgrown garment gives to a boy or a girl, and the carving of this seemingly overgrown joint usually results in accidents to the table-cloth. Again, too small a platter affords no room for garnishing.

The color given meat in cooking may be called its secondary garnish, space being the first. Care should be taken, if it is roasted, that it be well browned; if it is boiled, that it be white and clean-looking; if it is fried, that it be not blackened, but a clear lemon color. Poultry should have a golden color that suggests crispness. It is difficult to make the mediocre cook understand these points.

Larding also serves an ornamental purpose. Dry meats, like veal, and oftentimes fowls, are improved in flavor by being larded; and it should be so done as to make it an ornamental feature. There is no part in the preparation of dishes easier to perform 12than larding, and no novice need hesitate to undertake it.

Hashes and minces can, with very little trouble, be made attractive in appearance as well as in taste. Hash pressed into a mold, giving it a ring or a dome shape, then masked or not with a sauce, or simply turned upon a platter, can be prettily garnished with eggs and greens. Plain meat-balls and potato- or hominy-balls can be placed together on a platter with such regard to effect that the dish assumes the character of an entrée, instead of appearing like a makeshift from left-over pieces.

The next means after larding in what may be called natural garnishing is in the employment of gravies and sauces. No article should ever swim in sauce, but a little can be used with good effect on many dishes. A venison steak wet with a currant jelly sauce, and just enough of the sauce poured on the bottom of the platter to color it, gives a glaze and juicy look to the steak which improves its appearance. A very little tomato sauce under breaded veal chops or croquettes gives color and emphasis to the dish. White sauce poured over boiled dishes gives greater whiteness and often covers defects. In French cooking, much use is made of masking, which is often done by glazing and by the use of sauces. As white sauces will make white foods whiter, so brown ones will make brown ones browner. Fitness must of course be observed. If crispness is a part of the excellence of a dish, it would not do to destroy that quality by using a moistening garnish.

Vegetables as garnishes come next in order of suitableness and convenience. When vegetables are placed on the same platter with meats, they not only 13ornament the dish, but contribute to the ease of serving a dinner. When they are used the dish is called à la jardinière or à la printanière. Probably every cook knows how to serve mashed or fried potatoes or green peas in the center of a circle of chops. Similar combinations can be made in various ways and of many things. Spinach, beans, carrots, purées, macaroni, spaghetti, or rice may be placed so as to form a base, raising the chops like a crown, or grouped with them in rows, or alternating with the individual pieces. Macedoine is a mixture of any number of vegetables, such as peas, beans of various kinds, carrot and turnip balls, flowers of cauliflower and any other vegetable obtainable. They may be mixed together, or each vegetable may be kept distinct and placed in small piles around the platter. Small portions of vegetables left over may be used to advantage in this way. Very little need be used of any one, and any number may be combined on the same dish. Potatoes boiled or fried can be prepared in many fancy ways to make them suitable for garnishing. Well-seasoned spinach is excellent with chops, steaks, or roasts. Browned onions are often used. Meats with onion garnishes make dishes called à la soubise. Brussels sprouts, hot, are a suitable garnish for corned beef; or cold, with a French dressing, are an excellent salad to serve with cold beef. They should not be over-cooked or they will lose their shape. Stuffed tomatoes may be used with almost any meat dish.

Vegetable purée, in fancy form, is useful for embellishment, and may take the place of a fresh vegetable. Purée is made of any vegetable mashed and seasoned in the same manner as potato. Navy beans, 14lima beans, flageolets, and peas, either fresh or dried, are so used. The purée can be pressed through a pastry-bag into forms simulating roses, or placed in piles on rounds of toast. Vegetables intended to be eaten with the meats they garnish should be well seasoned before being placed on the platter; but where they are to serve only an ornamental purpose, they may sometimes, as in the case of carrots and turnips, be used uncooked, as they have a better color and more firmness when raw. These two vegetables are very useful, as they are obtainable all the year round. Carrots are particularly pretty when small. Large ones sliced and then stamped into fancy shapes, combined with turnips treated in the same way, are frequently used for making designs. Sometimes they are cut into balls, sometimes are carved into forms simulating roses. It is easy to make them into cups, using a fluted knife to shape the outside, and hollowing the center with a potato-scoop. These cups are good for holding any vegetable or for vegetable salads.

Rice is generally used for borders which are intended to keep creamed dishes and fricassees in shape. Sausages cut in halves or quarters, or fried bacon, make a good relish as well as a garnish for many meats; they are particularly good with egg dishes. Paper frills on protruding bones serve the excellent purpose of concealing these unsightly ends. They are easily made by folding a strip of paper lengthwise, then cutting it down about one and a half inches at intervals of one-eighth inch on the folded side, thus making a double fringe; next slip one side up a little, making the fringe round out; and, finally, roll this around a stick, leaving the 15openwork in a close spiral. These frills are used on the bones of a leg of mutton, on ham, on chops, and on drumsticks.

The green garnishes are parsley, watercress, small crisp lettuce leaves, green lettuce cut into ribbons, chicory, and celery tops. These are all edible, and all have places where they are especially appropriate. Parsley, which is most commonly used, is preëminent for convenience, beauty of leaf, and freshness. In many cases, however, greens which can be eaten with the dish are preferable, such as watercress with broiled or fried meats or fish. Parsley may be used with almost everything in its purely ornamental function, but it can be chopped and sprinkled over foods for both its flavoring and decorative qualities. A woman who has mastered the art of making an omelet will usually give it this finishing touch. Parsley should be very green and crisp, well washed, and dried with a cloth before being used; it may then be broken into sprigs and placed at intervals, or formed into a wreath. Sometimes a large bunch, like a bouquet, may be used with good effect.

Lemons, like parsley, have convenience to recommend them, and, like watercress, are acceptable with fried meats. The acid of lemon is the best condiment for veal. When they serve the double purpose of garnish and condiment, they should be cut so the pieces can be taken in the hand and pressed without soiling the fingers. This is effected by cutting them in quarters lengthwise, or in halves and then in quarters. In some instances a half lemon is not too much to serve with one portion, but ordinarily quarters are sufficient. Slices are useless with meats, except as ornaments. Illustration No. 1 shows a 16lemon ready to be sliced. It has been channeled so as to give the notched edges which make the slices more ornamental. The illustration also shows a lemon made to simulate a pig. This form can be used with propriety on a ham or pork dish. The ears are formed by cutting and raising a triangular slice on each side of the pointed end, the eyes are made of cloves, the legs and tail of wooden toothpicks.

Hard-boiled eggs ornament in a variety of ways. They should be boiled very hard, then cut with a thin, sharp knife so the slices will be smooth and the edges clean. Illustration No. 2 shows plain slices, rings made by slipping the yolk out of slices, an egg cut into quarters and eighths, a whole yolk set into a ring, and a stuffed egg. Yolks pressed through a colander and sprinkled over creamed meat and fish dishes, cream toast, and some other dishes make a beautiful golden covering. Chopped whites in conjunction with crumbed yolks are used for tracing designs over salads, minces, and cold pieces.

Pickled beets are a useful and effective garnish. The color gives decided contrast, and the flavor is a good relish. Sliced beets can be stamped with vegetable-cutters into fancy shapes, or cut with a knife into diamonds, cubes, or strips. One can easily have them always at hand. Two or three boiled beets sliced thin and put into vinegar will last until all are used, and should be among the stores in the dresser awaiting the convenience of the cook. Cucumber pickles and gherkins are equally useful in point of color effects, and in giving piquancy to many foods. They are used in slices stamped into fancy shapes, or chopped and arranged in lines or in little heaps. Gherkins are usually left whole, but may be sliced, 17giving buttons of color. Capers and olives complete the list of condiment garnishes, though any pickle may be used with propriety on cold meat dishes. Illustration No. 3 shows various garnishes as explained in legend.

Croutons are an indispensable part of hot minced meat dishes, creamed mixtures, and eggs cooked in various ways. They serve also to ornament these dishes, which especially require garnishing to make them presentable. Croutons are pieces of bread browned in butter in a sauté-pan, or moistened with butter and browned in the oven. Care should be taken to cut them exactly, the shape depending on the dish with which they are to be used. For soups they should be quarter-inch cubes; for minced meats, triangles more or less acute. Circles, squares, and strips also have their places. The color should be light golden, not dark brown; the latter color betrays inexperience or carelessness.

NO. 3. GARNISHES.
1. A carrot cut into cup shape with a fluted knife and filled with tomato.
2. A lemon cut into basket shape, the center covered with chopped parsley.
3. A turnip cut into cup shape with fluted knife and filled with green peas.
4. A carrot cup holding parsley.
5. Graduated slices of carrot holding a sprig of parsley.
6. Olives.
7. Strips of the white of a hard boiled egg arranged in a circle, the whole yolk placed in the center. The white is cut lengthwise of the egg, the strips pointed at the ends and sliced so they will lie flat. A small slice is taken off the yolk to make it stand firm.
8. Cranberries.
9. Slices of celery that are crescent shaped.
10. Sliced pickled beet stamped into various shapes.
11. A gherkin sliced nearly to the end, the slices then spread out to resemble a leaf.
12. Chopped pickled beet.
13. A bottle of capers.
14. Aspic jelly cut into triangular, square, and diamond shaped pieces and into small dice.

On the front edge of the board are three pieces of chicken aspic which is so transparent that the pattern of the paper shows through it.

18A cook who has a desire to ornament her dishes can make an infinite variety of garnishings by combining various things, or by changing the form and arrangement of any one of them. Most of the articles used are within the reach of all. It is even not necessary to buy articles especially for this purpose, for odds and ends left over, or those standard stores always in the larder, will afford enough material tastefully to ornament the dishes.

It must be borne in mind that decorations should not be such as will embarrass the carver.

VEGETABLES

With very few exceptions, vegetables should be served au naturel. Meats require all the aids of skilful handling and tasteful adornment. Vegetables, on the contrary, have great beauty in themselves, and the art of the cook cannot rival that of nature. Therefore a few sprigs of parsley so arranged as to give a finish to the dish are ordinarily sufficient garnishing. In those cases, however, where the vegetables lose form and color in cooking, the skill of the cook may be employed to restore these qualities as far as possible. The more a cabbage can be made to look like itself, the more attractive it will be. This, at first thought, may seem a difficult thing to do, but the boiled vegetable can easily be placed in a cup made of the outside green leaves of the cabbage, and so, in a measure, present its own beautiful form and color. Illustration No. 4 shows a plain boiled cabbage mixed with a white sauce and so arranged.

The color of this vegetable in its natural state appeals to the esthetic sense of every artist, and many 19a beautiful picture has been made of a field of cabbages; yet the farmer who sees a man sit down with canvas and brush before his cabbage patch usually regards him as a crank, for to his untutored mind cabbages are associated only with their utility. Many housekeepers are equally mistaken in their views about this vegetable, and consider it coarse food fit to serve only garnished with apologies. Such opinions are based on error, however, for the cabbage is both beautiful to look at and delicious to eat. There are many receipts for cooking cabbage which make it as delicate a dish as cauliflower.

In the case of spinach, since the form cannot be preserved, recourse is had to molding; the color also may be heightened by contrast with other colors. Illustration No. 5 shows spinach molded by being pressed into a basin decorated with the whites of hard-boiled eggs, and with croutons placed around the form after it is unmolded. Both the eggs and the croutons improve the taste of the spinach. The basin was first buttered to hold the egg in place while the design was being arranged. Crumbed yolk of hard-boiled egg sprinkled over spinach is another garnishing for this vegetable which enhances its green color and gives the dish a better appearance.

There are many ways of cooking any vegetable. These various ways may serve for change, but few of them are better than the simple one of boiling and serving with a suitable sauce. Attention should be given to dishing vegetables so that there is no appearance of their having been turned carelessly on to the platter. A neatly folded napkin can be used under dry, unseasoned vegetables, like asparagus, artichokes, or corn. The napkin gives daintiness to 20the dish, and in the case of corn, when folded over it, helps to keep it hot.

COLD DISHES

It has been said above that discrimination should be made in garnishing dishes; those to be served hot, for instance, should go directly from the fire to the table, and not be allowed to become cool while being elaborately garnished; on the other hand, cold dishes demand no haste and permit of so much elaboration that at suppers and buffet luncheons they are depended upon largely for table decoration.

The accomplished cook considers the work on cold pieces an opportunity for giving examples of his skill, and the ornamentation of molds and chaud-froids a kind of fancy work which requires nicety and taste. Under the head of cold dishes come all the salads, the pâtés, galantines, cold fish dishes, ices, and sweets. In each of these there is range in which to display culinary accomplishments. The skill requisite for moderate adornment of these dishes is not so great that one need hesitate to undertake them. Cold dishes are often more gratefully received in summer than hot ones, therefore it is desirable that every cook should be able to serve them in attractive forms. Again, from an economic point of view they are desirable, as meats can be served a second time in cold forms quite as acceptably as before.

Many meats, when served cold, require to be boned and pressed into good shape. Ordinary kitchen boards weighted down serve very well for a press. The meat, while hot, is put into molds, or is rolled 21in cloth, the ends tied, and then placed in the press. Small muffin-rings can be used for sweetbreads, bread-tins or oval molds for other meats. Chaud-froid sauce is often spread over galantines, and jellied mayonnaise over cold fish. On this smooth surface the decoration is laid in some design traced in fancy cuts of truffle, or in a combination of white of egg with truffles, cold tongue, olives, and other suitable things which give color. See illustration No. 114.

Aspic jelly is a principal reliance for covering cold pieces. It is not masking in this case, for the jelly should be perfectly transparent, while masking conceals the material of which the dish is composed. Aspic is also cut into small triangles or in squares to make borders, and is sometimes chopped and used for decoration. See illustration No. 3. Aspic is no longer one of the difficult preparations reserved for the hand of the very experienced cook. Any of the beef or chicken extracts stiffened with gelatine, and seasoned and cleared if necessary, make good aspic. The preparation is as simple as that of any jelly. A little care, however, in molding and handling is requisite for good results. Jellied vegetables are appropriate to use with jellied or other cold meats. Small cups are used for molding them, and the pieces can be made very ornamental. See illustration No. 6. The small forms placed around meat and served with a green salad make an attractive cold course.

Fancy skewers are much employed on cold meats. Their office is purely ornamental, so when they are used trouble is not to be considered. A fancy-headed skewer is run through, perhaps, a fine red cockscomb, then a truffle, then a fancy cut of lemon, or a mushroom, 22or a carved vegetable. Truffles in combination with vegetables molded in aspic and quenelles also are often used. If all these things are impracticable, one can devise combinations more easily obtained. A trussing needle can be utilized, concealing the head in a section of lemon and building down with carrot and turnip in alternating colors and shapes, and perhaps using a crawfish, an egg, or an olive in the combination. See illustration No. 7. French authors recommend that these skewers be employed only occasionally, so that they may not lose the attraction which novelty gives them.

Cracked, crushed, or ground ice can often be used with good effect. It gives crispness to olives, celery, radishes, and cucumbers, and enhances the beauty of the dish as well. With raw oysters it is indispensable, and with melons very desirable. A free use of ice on the summer breakfast table will go far toward inviting an appetite for that meal.

It is well to remember that although great elaboration is possible in cold dishes, it is not necessary, and dishes can be made very attractive without chaud-froid, aspic, or traced designs. If the pieces are shapely, they will look well if simply sprinkled with chopped parsley, chopped white of egg, or the crumbed yolks, and dressed with any of the green salads. Flowers also can be used to aid in adornment.

FISH

As fish dishes rank with any other kind in point of attractiveness, and are open to almost as great a variety of garnishing as are meats, the same general 23remarks apply to them. The matter of shape and color here, too, has to be considered. A boiled fish dropping to pieces from over-cooking, or bereft of its head or tail, is an unsightly dish. It is permitted to serve fish au naturel, even going so far as to simulate swimming. This is done by propping it with a whole carrot laid inside, which gives the fish enough rigidity to stand upright. Illustration No. 8 shows a fish served in this way. The garnishing is white rings of hard-boiled egg, holding sprigs of parsley, laid along the back. A slice of lemon sprinkled with and surrounded by parsley, giving the effect of a medallion, is placed against the side of the fish. A fish to be baked may be twisted like the letter S to make it stand upright. A boiled fish, whether served whole or in part, should appear clean. No scum from the kettle should be suffered to remain on it, and no water should drip from it into the platter. A folded napkin is usually placed under boiled fish to insure dryness.

Boiled potatoes are ordinarily served with boiled fish, and may be used for garnishing, if cut into balls and cooked so that they are very white and mealy. Parsley gives color and also a sense of freshness. It may be used in large bunches, especially when the fish is cut, or on creamed fish dishes.

Illustration No. 9 shows a middle cut of fish with potato and parsley decoration. The fish being cod, the flesh is not sufficiently white to be attractive, and so it is masked with white sauce, then sprinkled with chopped parsley. Had the fish been halibut, the sauce would have been omitted. Hard-boiled eggs are an excellent accompaniment for boiled fish, and when not used in the sauce may be supplied in the 24garnishing. Creamed fish is pretty with the top made golden with crumbed yolks.

Fried fish should have a lemon color and look clean, dry, and bright, not black or greasy. The color is secured by dipping them in milk, then rolling in flour and frying in smoking-hot fat; or, if eggs and crumbs are used, having white, fresh crumbs grated from the stale loaf. Fish to be fried is often cut into slices, or into fillets, but small fish need not be cut and so lose their character. Smelts are sometimes turned into rings, or are laid open and the head drawn through a slit cut in the back. Different ways of dressing them give variety, and make dishes ornamental from form alone. If potatoes are served with fried fish, they should be cut into balls and fried. Lemons are indispensable with fried or broiled fish. They are frequently sliced, but are better cut in quarters so as to give more of the juice, which is needed for condiment. Lemon sprinkled with chopped parsley is very pretty.

Broiled fish is improved by being spread with maître d’hôtel butter. This gives it a moist appearance, and is the best possible sauce for it; at the same time the parsley in the sauce helps to garnish the dish. Watercress placed around the fish completes the garnishing and makes the dish perfect. Lemon and watercress are the best condiments for any fried or broiled dish. Baked fish will not bear more than a few sprigs of parsley as garnishing.

Lobster coral is much esteemed on account of its brilliant color, and when lobster is served it is well to use it as a garnish. It may be sprinkled over the whole surface of a lobster dish, or be arranged in lines or dots as the circumstances suggest. Shrimps, 25prawns, and crawfish make good garnishes for any fish, whether it is served hot or cold.

When dishes are to be passed, the dishing and garnishing should be such that the portions are easily distinguishable.

An amusing story is told by a scientist of the predicament in which he was placed when the guest of honor at an English table. He was a man of simple habits in his home, and was very near-sighted. Elaborately garnished dishes were passed to him first, as he sat at the right of the host, and he had to break the construction of what he was pleased to call architectural or master-builder’s dishes, and this without knowing where their keystone lay, or of what they were composed. He was thus obliged to make public exhibition of his awkwardness, as well as betray ignorance in that branch of his own business, which left him unable to recognize biological specimens when they had evolved into their highest development in the hands of the cook. This story serves as an important hint that no dish should be entirely disguised. A lobster should still be a lobster in form or suggestion, however it is prepared. For example, should it be served in chops, a claw pressed into one end would not only carry out the form of a chop, but would also designate the dish. There is generally something that can be reserved from an article which loses its shape in cooking that may be used to garnish the dish and act as a kind of label.

POTATOES

Potatoes are a universal dish, and there are an infinite variety of ways of cooking them: boiling, baking, frying, all manner of ways to suit all manner of people, and to accompany all kinds of meats. Yet, strange as it may seem, it is the food usually the worst cooked of any that is presented. The potatoes are too often soggy, greasy, blackened, burned. The poor cook seems determined to destroy both the favor and flavor of this useful vegetable. The potato is mostly starch, and it is not as well known as it should be that the principle of cooking starch is to cook it only until the starch grains burst, and then remove it from moisture, for the starch grains, when 27open, readily absorb moisture and become soggy. Hence we see this vegetable a most delicious dish or one unfit to eat, according to the skill of the cook. Mashed potato is served from the simplest kitchen, but betrays the poor cook as quickly as a greasy soup. Sometimes one sees an attempt made to improve the appearance of this dish by pressing and smoothing it over the top. This makes a hard and compact mass of what ought to be a light and flaky substance. Often it is served in a deep dish, which is another mistake; for the potato, when light and white, is tempting enough to serve on a flat dish where it may be seen. Potatoes that are to be served in this way should be mashed the moment they are cooked, and not set aside for a more convenient time. They may then be moistened with milk or cream and be seasoned with butter, pepper, and salt, in measure to the richness desired, and whipped until, like the whites of eggs, they become white and spongy from the air imprisoned in the cells. Mashed potato may be served in a great variety of ways. It can be run through the menu from soup to salad; can be used for entrées, and can make ornamental fancy dishes out of even minces and stews. It is invaluable as a mask for broken dishes; for instance, a leg of mutton can be made a presentable dish to serve a second time by filling the cut with mashed potato. In this case it must be molded to the shape of the roast and be painted with egg over the top, so it will take color and not betray the patch. Such expedients are at times admissible and should not be scorned. It has been wisely said that “if there is not economy in the kitchen there will soon be no kitchen.”

When potato is made into cakes, timbales, or croquettes, 28it must have egg mixed through it, else it will lose its form when cooked the second time. When used as borders for minces or creamed dishes, it can be turned into shape with a knife, be lightly pressed into a mold to give it form, or be pressed through a pastry-bag and tube into fancy forms.

Frying is perhaps the method of cooking potatoes which requires the most skill. Fried balls, slices, or straws are always excellent with broiled meats, and at the same time are the best garnish for them. The height of skill is reached in the soufflé. These small balloons are something of a marvel, and are seldom seen except from the hand of a French cook. The amateur seldom succeeds with this dish, yet it is one worthy of the practice which makes perfect. To prepare the delectable soufflé, the potato is cut lengthwise, or with the grain; the slices must be one eighth of an inch in thickness and taken off with one clean, sharp cut, then trimmed to uniform shapes, either elliptical or round. The slices are soaked in cold water and dried with a cloth at the moment of cooking. They are immersed in fat just below the smoking-point, and cooked for five minutes, or until softened; are then drained and allowed to cool for a little time in an open oven, and then immersed a second time in fat which is very hot, when the slices at once puff and brown. They should be served at once.

NO. 12. CUTTERS AND MOLDS.
1. A nest of long vegetable cutters making pencil-shaped pieces of different sizes.
2, 3, 4. Bread and cake cutters in the forms of a heart, a spade, and a clover leaf.
5. Individual timbale molds.
6. Pastry cutter for vol-au-vents.
7. Form for molding lobster or fish chops.
8, 9. Small plain round, and fluted cutters for tiny biscuits or for garnishes.
10. A group of fancy cutters for sliced vegetables to be used in macedoine, in soup, or as garnishes.
11. A smaller cutter used for truffles and hard boiled eggs.
12. Cake cutter in form of crescent.
13. Three vegetable scoops.
14. Fluted knife for cutting fluted slices of vegetables, turnip cups, etc.
15. A spatula, or dull edged flexible knife.
16. Small molds for aspics or other jellies used for garnishing.

Potato straws are very attractive and seem so light and harmless that those who ordinarily reject fried dishes are tempted by them. They are cut lengthwise of the tuber, first in slices about one eighth of an inch in thickness, and then into straws the length of the slices. They cook very quickly in smoking-hot fat, and must not be left in so long as to become 29brown and dry. They should be crisp and of a lemon color. The straws can be cut of a larger size if desired, and are especially pretty if cut with a fluted knife.

It seems desirable to suggest to housekeepers the feasibility of making a specialty of cooking potatoes, and with them to give variety, which is so acceptable to those who sit at their board. Perhaps no other one thing is susceptible to so many changes, and is so simple to prepare, is so satisfactory when properly served, and withal so nutritious. It answers both the substantial and the esthetic requirements of the perfect meal; it can be suitably served for breakfast, dinner, supper, and luncheon; it is within the reach of all.

CREAM

Whipped cream often makes the best sauce for a dessert dish, and can be used as a garnish. Its use need not be considered an extravagance. A half-pint of double cream is all that is usually called for, this costs but ten cents, and often the use of cream saves the use of butter, in the same way that water can sometimes be substituted for milk if a little butter is added to the receipt to give the richness which milk imparts.

CAKE

Decorating cakes takes a little time, but facility is soon acquired, and the time is not misspent, as the cakes, before being served, can be used to ornament the table.

The pastry-bag is a cornucopia-shaped pocket made of rubber cloth, of duck, or of any closely woven fabric like ticking. The point of the cornucopia is cut off and a tin tube pressed into the small opening. The bags made of rubber cloth are the best, as they do not allow moisture to come through, and are easily cleaned. They cost fifteen cents each, and can be bought at house-furnishing stores, but bags can be easily made at home.

The tubes cost ten cents each, are of graduated sizes, and have various-shaped openings.

The pastry-bag is easy to handle, and is of great utility where ornamental dishes are desired. It is used for mashed vegetables, meringues, whipped cream, drop cake mixtures, icing, etc.

A tube, with opening of suitable size, is fitted into the small end of the bag, the mixture is then put in, and the bag, gathered over close to the material, is held and pressed with one hand while the tube is guided with the other, leaving the material squeezed through it in the forms desired. It needs but very little practice to make ornamental designs. It is well to have at least two bags, one of them large, with a large tube, to hold mixtures used in quantity, and one small for decorating with icing.

FONTAGE CUPS

31Add enough milk to a cup of flour to make a thin batter, then add the salt and the beaten yolks. The batter must be smooth and quite thin. Use a small bowl deep enough to immerse the fontage iron.

Have deep fat smoking hot. Place the iron in the fat to heat it. Dip the hot iron into the batter, covering it to within a quarter of an inch of the top; the batter will rise when put in the hot fat and cover the whole iron. Hold the iron in the batter for a minute, or until a little of the batter has hardened around it, then lift it carefully, holding the iron so the batter will not slip off. Immerse it in the hot fat and cook until light-colored.

After a few trials one will be able to make the cups even and thin. They are also called Swedish timbales, and are used for holding any kind of creamed mixtures, or for holding vegetables. They can be used as an entrée, or for garnishing other dishes. The cups will keep for some time, but in this case should be freshened by heating before being used; and, as they soften quickly, the mixture should not be replaced in them until the moment of serving. Illustration No. 10 shows fontage irons.

DIFFERENT WAYS OF PREPARING BUTTER

Numbers one, two, and three are made by pressing butter through a pastry-bag with star-tube. In No. 1 it is cut in three-inch lengths; in No. 2 it is pressed into long pencils and cut when cold into one-inch lengths; and in No. 3 it is made into rosettes by holding the tube still until the butter has piled up to the size desired. These are good forms for fresh butter, and they should be made as soon as the 32butter is churned and worked, as it is soft enough then to pass through the tube. If salted butter is used, it must be whipped with a fork until it is soft and light before being pressed through the bag. The forms must be dropped at once into ice-water to harden them. Serve the pieces in a dish with cracked ice and green leaves. Parsley will do if nothing better is at hand. Rose leaves are especially pretty, or a lettuce leaf may be used as a kind of basket.

No. 4 are shell-shaped pieces made with a bent, fluted utensil made for the purpose (see illustration No. 5, opposite page 256, “Century Cook Book”). The utensil is dipped in hot water, wiped dry, and then drawn lightly over the butter, making a thin shaving which curls over as the utensil is drawn along. The crook must be dipped in hot water and wiped clean each time.

MEASURES AND TERMS

Blanching sweetbreads means whitening them by 33pouring cold water on them immediately after the hot water is poured off. A scale and a half-pint tin cup are indispensable cooking utensils, as the success of many dishes depends on exact weight and measurements.

Except in a few cases, receipts given in “Century Cook Book” are not repeated here.

ORDER OF COURSES

No. 1. Oranges. Cut off the tops of the oranges. Scrape out the pulp and draw a narrow ribbon through each top, passing the two ends through with a bodkin and tying them on the under side. Drawing through the ribbon soils it. Tie a bow on top.

Loosen the pulp of the orange, using a silver knife, so it can be eaten with a spoon. Add a little sugar if necessary, and a teaspoonful of sherry, if desired.

No. 2. Salpicon of fruits. Place in the center of a glass plate some pieces of the pulp of an orange or grape-fruit, or both mixed together. Arrange around them a double row of white grapes cut in halves and with the seeds removed.

Salpicon of fruits in glasses. This is a mixture of fruits such as grape-fruit, grapes, oranges, bananas, and pineapple, or any combination convenient. Divide the oranges and grape-fruit into sections, then carefully take off the skins and remove the seeds. Leave the pulp in large pieces; add enough sugar to sweeten and a little sherry if desired. Cut the grapes in halves and remove the seeds. Place the mixture in individual glasses and add two or three candied cherries to each glass.

Grape-fruit. Prepare grape-fruit as directed above. Sweeten it and make it very cold. Place it in individual 38glasses with a candied cherry in the center. At the last moment add a teaspoonful of cracked ice to each glass.

Strawberries. Press powdered sugar into a small cup or glass to mold it. Turn the sugar into the center of a dish and arrange around it carefully selected strawberries. Leave the hulls on the berries and serve in individual portions.

Individual pineapples. Cut small pineapples in two. Cut the ends so the pieces will stand straight. Cut out the centers and tear the pulp into pieces, then return it to the cups formed by the skins. Sweeten with powdered sugar; add a tablespoonful of sherry, if desired, to each portion. Let them stand a little while to extract the juice. At the moment of serving add a teaspoonful of cracked ice to each cup. Serve as a first course at luncheon, or before the game at dinner.

A variety called strawberry pines are best suited for this dish. They are sometimes so small that a whole one may be used as one portion.

Currants. Make a mound of sugar as directed for strawberries. Place around the sugar bunches of cherry currants, as in No. 1, or pile them on grape leaves as in No. 2. White and red currants may be placed in the same dish. Serve in individual portions as first course at luncheon or at breakfast.

Frosted currants. Stem large cherry currants. Put them in a dish with a quantity of granulated sugar 39and shake them together. The moisture of the currants will cause enough sugar to adhere to completely cover them. Turn them off the sugar and serve at once before the sugar loses its dryness. Serve them on leaves in individual portions, or pass them as a first course at luncheon or breakfast. This is a very pretty way of serving currants.

Muskmelon. The muskmelon should be very ripe and very cold. Cut the melons in two and serve with cracked ice in each half. If the melon is not too large serve a half as one portion. Serve on individual plates, or pass as first course for breakfast, luncheon, or dinner. Pass salt and sugar.

CLAM OR OYSTER COCKTAILS

Mix the sauces and let the clams or oysters stand in them for an hour before serving.

Cut hard-boiled eggs in two lengthwise, using a thin-bladed, sharp knife. Have the eggs boiled twenty-five minutes so the yolks will be crumby.

Remove the yolks, mash them, and mix them with mayonnaise and the trimmings of the anchovies. Just before serving, fill the white halves with the yolk mixture, covering the whole top, heaping it in the middle and leaving a rough surface. Trim anchovies to the right length and lay two of them crossed over the top of each egg. Set each piece on a round of bread sautéd in butter. Slice a little piece off the bottom of the egg to make it stand firm.

Anchovies preserved in oil are put up in small bottles and can be purchased from a grocer.

HEART-SHAPED SALMON CANAPÉS

Cut very light bread into slices one quarter of an inch thick. Stamp them with a cutter into heart shapes. Spread them thinly on both sides with butter and put them in the oven to brown; or sauté them in butter. Let them cool, then lay on each one a slice of Nova Scotia smoked salmon, cut as thin as possible. Place around the edges of the heart a border of chopped white of hard-boiled eggs, and a little crumbed yolk just at the upper point of the heart, making a round spot. The salmon must not be entirely covered with egg, so that the hearts may show three colors. Serve on individual plates, with a small piece of parsley at the rounded end.

Cut fresh bread into slices quarter of an inch thick, then into rounds two and a half inches in diameter. Spread the rounds of bread with butter, season with a little salt, pepper, and mustard.

Split and trim the anchovies to uniform length and arrange them on the bread in rosette form. Fill the spaces between the anchovy fillets with the chopped white and the crumbed yolk of hard-boiled eggs and make a border around the bread with the white. Use a little chopped parsley in the decoration.

CANAPÉS OF CAVIARE

Cut very light bread into slices quarter of an inch thick, then into rounds or squares two inches across. Sauté them in butter on one side. When they are cold spread them with a thin covering of caviare moistened with a little oil and lemon juice. Place on the top of each one a very thin slice of lemon.

Caviare is the fermented roe of the sturgeon. It is a dish much esteemed in Russia, but the taste for it is not very general in other countries, so discretion should be used in serving it.

OYSTERS OR CLAMS ON THE HALF SHELL

Raw oysters and clams are served on the “half shell” for a first course. Blue Point oysters and Little Neck clams are the varieties preferred. The smallest ones, and those uniform in size, should be selected. They should be opened 42only a short time before serving. The muscle holding the mollusk to the shell is cut and the oyster or clam is served on the deep valve.

Arrange the clams or oysters symmetrically in a circle, the beaks turned to the center, on a bed of cracked ice. Place in the middle a quarter of a lemon cut lengthwise, the top edge shaved off and the seeds extracted. Rest the piece of lemon on a sprig of parsley or any green leaf.

Condiments, thin brown bread and butter sandwiches, and biscuits are passed with this course.

The condiments (horseradish and tomato catsup, black and red pepper) may be placed on a dish, and the bread and biscuits arranged around them as in illustration.

Soups used for luncheon are served in cups. Any kind of soup can be used, but those given below are the ones generally employed. For other soups, see “Century Cook Book,” page 97.

CONSOMMÉ OF BEEF

Cut into pieces four pounds of beef taken from the under part of the round, and the meat cut from a knuckle of veal. Put them into a soup pot with two tablespoonfuls of butter and let them brown on all sides. Then add a cupful of water and let it fall to a glaze. This is to give color to the soup. Add five and a half quarts of cold water. Let it boil slowly for five to six hours. An hour before removing it add soup vegetables, a tablespoonful of salt, fifteen peppercorns, three cloves, two bay-leaves, a little thyme, marjoram, and summer savory.

Strain the soup through a cloth and let it cool without covering. When it is cold take off the grease. As no bones were boiled with the soup, it will be clear; and as the meat was browned, it will have a good color.

It can be made perfectly clear as follows: Pour the soup off the sediment which has fallen to the bottom of the dish. Stir into it while it is cold the whites of two eggs beaten enough to break them. Place it on the fire and stir it until it comes to the boiling-point; the egg will then be cooked and have imprisoned any particles which clouded the soup. Let it boil violently for a few minutes, then draw it to the 46side of the range. Strain it again through a cloth. Heat it again before serving it.

In summer this soup is sometimes served cold in the form of jelly. In this case the bone of the knuckle of veal must be cooked with it in order to make it jelly. Care must be taken that during the cooking the water only simmers, for if it boils lime will be extracted from the bone and it will be impossible to have a clear soup.

CONSOMMÉ OF CHICKEN

Place a fowl in a soup pot with four quarts of cold water and let it come slowly to the boiling-point, then draw it to the side of the range and let it simmer for five or six hours. If it is allowed to boil the soup will be clouded by lime extracted from the bones.

An hour before removing it add an onion, a branch of celery, a tablespoon of salt, and six peppercorns. Strain it through a cloth, and when cold remove the grease. Clear it the same as the beef consommé.

A knuckle of veal may also be used with this soup if a jellied stock is wanted to serve cold.

CLAM BROTH

Boil clams in their own liquor for twenty minutes. Let the liquid settle before pouring it off. Season it with pepper and serve it very hot in cups, with a teaspoonful of whipped cream on the top of each cupful. About two dozen clams will give a quart of liquor.

CLAM BISQUE

Boil a pint of clams in their own liquor. Chop the clams very fine and return them to the fire with the clam liquor, 47a quart of soup stock (chicken or veal stock preferred), half a cupful of uncooked rice, a sprig of parsley, and a bay-leaf. Boil until the rice is tender, then strain the soup through a purée sieve, pressing through as much of the clams and rice as possible. Strain a second time. Just before serving, heat it, add a cupful of cream, and beat the whole with an egg-whip.

CREAM OF CLAMS

Steam twenty-five clams and as soon as they open remove them from the shells and strain off the liquor. Chop the clams, pound them in a mortar, and rub as much of them as possible through a purée sieve. Put three cupfuls of milk into a double boiler, cook two tablespoonfuls of butter and two tablespoonfuls of flour together, but do not let them brown, then add to the cooked butter and flour a little of the milk from the boiler to make a smooth paste, put the paste into the milk in the double boiler, and stir the mixture until it is a little thickened. When ready to serve add two cupfuls of clam liquor and the pulp which has passed through the sieve. Let it get hot, but do not let it boil or it will curdle. Season with salt, if necessary, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg. At the moment of serving add a cupful of cream and beat the whole well with an egg-whip. This receipt makes a quart and a half of soup.

CREAM OF OYSTERS

CREAM SOUPS

Any vegetable pulp can be used for creamed soups after the rule given for Cream of Spinach.

Boil spinach until tender, then drain it. Chop it and rub it through a purée sieve. To two cupfuls of vegetable pulp add a quart of soup stock, or a quart of milk, or half stock and half milk. Rub together a tablespoonful of butter and two tablespoonfuls of flour. Put this into the soup on the fire and stir all together until the soup is a little thickened. Season it with pepper and salt and add a half or a whole cupful of cream. Beat it well with an egg-whip and serve at once. If the soup is too thick dilute it with a little stock or milk. It should have the consistency of cream.

CREAM OF CELERY

This is prepared in the same manner as the Cream of Spinach, using celery pulp instead of spinach. The roots of the celery as well as the stalks should be boiled to make the pulp.

Egg dishes are especially useful for luncheon, as they are easily and quickly prepared, are always liked, and can be served in a great variety of ways. They may be used as a first course, or in the order named in the list.

TO POACH EGGS

Drop the eggs into water just off the boiling-point. Let them cook slowly until the whites are like jelly, but not until hard. Muffin-rings may be used to keep them in good shape.

TO POACH EGGS IN FRENCH STYLE

Use a large saucepan and have it two thirds full of water. Add a tablespoonful of vinegar. When the water boils stir it with the handle of a wooden spoon until it whirls, then drop quickly a fresh egg into the depression or eddy of the whirling water. This will give the egg a rounded shape. When the white is set and before the yolk has hardened, remove the egg with a skimmer and place it on a dish to drain. Only one egg at a time can be cooked in this way. Trim the eggs carefully, cutting away all the ragged white.

TO SCRAMBLE EGGS

Add a tablespoonful of milk, a saltspoonful of salt, and a dash of pepper for every two eggs. Beat them just enough to break them, but not enough to make them smooth or 52frothy. Put a tablespoonful of butter into a sauté-pan, and when it bubbles turn in the eggs. With a fork scrape the cooked eggs from the bottom of the pan, giving flakes of cooked egg. If the butter is not allowed to brown, the eggs will have a clean, bright yellow color.

PLAIN FRENCH OMELET

Add a tablespoonful of milk, a half teaspoonful of salt, and a dash of pepper to three or four eggs. Beat them just enough to break them. Put a tablespoonful of butter into a clean, smooth sauté-pan. When the butter bubbles turn in the eggs. When the eggs are a little set on the bottom, tip the pan a little towards the handle, and with a fork stir the mixture on the handle half of the pan, lifting the cooked portion off the bottom in large flakes. When the mixture is all cooked, but still soft, pile the scrambled part on to the smooth half, making it high in the center. Turn the omelet on to a hot dish. This should give a smooth outside surface of egg, covering the softer inside portion, which is scrambled in large flakes. It is not well to make an omelet of more than three or four eggs. If more is needed, make a second omelet.

BEATEN OMELET

Beat the whites of three or four eggs to a stiff froth. Add to the yolks a half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and a tablespoonful of milk. Beat them well together, then fold in lightly the whipped whites. Put a teaspoonful of butter in a sauté-pan and let it run all over the bottom. When it bubbles turn in the egg mixture and spread it evenly over the pan. Let it cook slowly without stirring until it seems cooked through, then place it in the oven for a few minutes 53to harden the top surface. Fold one half over the other and turn the omelet on to a hot dish.

OMELET CHASSEUR

Make either a French or a beaten omelet. Before folding it, place in the center some well-seasoned or creamed minced chicken, or other meat. Fold the omelet and turn it on to a dish. Cover the top with well-seasoned tomato. The tomato should be dry enough to hold its place, leaving a border of yellow egg between the tomato and the meat.

No. 1. Eggs à la romaine. Cut sliced bread into rounds and sauté them in butter. Place on each one an artichoke bottom which has been heated in hot water. On the artichoke place an egg poached in the French style (see page 51). Arrange the eggs around a mound of green peas, and pour over the eggs a white sauce made partly of chicken stock, with the yolk of an egg beaten in the last thing.

No. 2. Eggs baked in tomatoes. Select round tomatoes of uniform size. Cut off the stem ends and take out enough of the pulp to leave a space as large as an egg. Sprinkle the inside with salt and pepper. Drop into each one an egg. Place the filled tomatoes in a baking-dish with a little hot water, and bake them about fifteen minutes, or until the eggs are set and the tomatoes are a little softened. Serve the eggs on rounds of bread browned in butter. No sauce is required with this dish.

No. 3. Eggs baked in green peppers. Select green peppers of uniform size and shape. Cut off the stems close to the 54peppers so they will stand firmly. Take off the tops and remove the seeds and ribs. Parboil them. Remove them from the water as soon as they are a little tender, and before they become limp. Break an egg into each one. Set them in a baking-pan with a little hot water, and bake them slowly about fifteen minutes, or until the eggs are set. Arrange them on rounds of browned bread with white sauce in the dish.

No. 4. Scrambled eggs with tomato. Place scrambled eggs on rounds of browned bread, and on the top of each piece place a slice of broiled tomato (see page 97). Serve with or without a white sauce.

CREAMED POACHED EGGS

Poach eggs, the French style preferred. Lay them on rounds of bread sautéd in butter. Arrange them symmetrically and pour over them a plentiful amount of white sauce made partly of stock, and having the yolk of one or two eggs stirred in after it is taken from the fire. Garnish the dish with a large bunch of parsley, or a bunch of nasturtiums.

The dish may be varied by placing a very thin slice of broiled ham under each egg; or the eggs may be covered with a tomato sauce.

CREAMED EGG BASKETS

Boil the eggs hard. Cut them in two lengthwise and remove the yolks. Drop the whites into hot water so they will be warm when needed for use. Mash the yolks and mix them with a little white sauce, or with stock, or with cream and a little butter and salt. Beat the mixture until it is smooth 55and light. Press the paste through a pastry-bag and star tube into the hollows of the white halves, and insert handles made of thin slices of celery cut from the green ends. Arrange the little baskets on a bed of any kind of well-seasoned vegetable.

In illustration the center is bean purée (see page 98) pressed through a pastry-bag.

POACHED EGGS WITH GREENS

Boil green leaves of lettuce until tender, drain them, chop them fine, and season with a little white sauce. Cover rounds of bread, which have been browned in butter, with the lettuce; or, if more convenient, with well-seasoned creamed spinach. Make nests of the green, leaving the edges of the toast clean, with a border one half inch wide around the depression. Place in each one an egg poached in the French style; or break an uncooked egg into each hollow, and place them in the oven until the eggs are set.

EGGS IN NESTS

Whip to a stiff froth the whites of as many eggs as are needed. Pile it irregularly on a flat, buttered baking-dish, and make depressions in it here and there. Sprinkle the hollows with salt and pepper and drop into each one the yolk of an egg. Put a small piece of butter on each yolk. Place the dish in a moderate oven for five to eight minutes. Serve at once.

Cover the bottom of an earthen baking-dish with well-seasoned tomato purée. Arrange on it poached eggs, leaving spaces to show the red color. Lay between the eggs whole small sausages, already cooked, or sausages cut in inch lengths. Place a bit of butter on each egg and set the dish in the oven to heat it only.

EGGS FARCI

No. 1. Boil until hard as many eggs as are needed. Cut them in two lengthwise. Remove the yolks and mash them. To six yolks add four tablespoonfuls of crumb of bread, softened with water, one half teaspoonful of onion juice, and two tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley. Mix well. Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan on the fire, add the egg mixture with enough milk or stock to moisten it, but not enough to make it lose consistency. Season with salt, pepper, and a dash of nutmeg. A mushroom or a chicken liver chopped fine added to the farce improves its flavor. Fill the whites of the eggs with the farce, and with what is left make a mound on the serving-dish. Pour a white sauce over it and arrange the stuffed eggs on it; or cut the eggs in two crosswise and fill the cups with farce, molding it to look like whole yolks. Cut a small slice off the ends so they will stand. Arrange them on a dish with white sauce around them.

No. 2. Boil until hard a dozen eggs, cut them in two lengthwise and remove the yolks. Place the whites in cold water to keep them white until ready to use them. Put in a chopping-bowl the breast of a fowl which 57has been boiled for chicken stock, the yolks of the boiled eggs, two fresh mushrooms sautéd, one half of a truffle, two tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, and two tablespoonfuls of crumb of bread. Chop all together to a fine mince. Place in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter and a teaspoonful of onion juice. When the butter bubbles add the chopped mixture moistened with enough chicken stock to make it of the right consistency for filling the egg cups. Season it with two teaspoonfuls of salt, one half teaspoonful of pepper, and a dash of nutmeg, and stir until it is hot. Place the whites in hot water to heat them, then fill each one with the hot farce, rounding it to look like a whole yolk.

Make a sauce as follows. Beat the yolks of two eggs enough to break them, stir them into a cupful of cream, and add this to the farce left after filling the cups. Stir it over the fire long enough to set the eggs. If not soft enough, add stock to make it the consistency of thick cream. Pour this sauce on a platter and arrange the stuffed eggs on it in lines or in circles.

No. 3. With giblet sauce. Prepare eggs as in No. 1. Add chopped giblets to a brown sauce. Spread the sauce on a dish and place the stuffed eggs upon it.

EGGS À L’AURORE

Chop the whites of hard-boiled eggs into fine dice. Mix them with enough white sauce to make them creamy. Crumb the yolks by pressing them through a coarse sieve or a colander, and spread them over the creamed whites.

To a pair of calves’ brains use three or four eggs. Scald the brains by letting them lie in scalding water six or eight minutes. Trim them and cut them into half-inch dice. Put them in a sauté-pan with a tablespoonful of butter and cook them until they look white, then add the beaten eggs and stir them all together, using a fork, until the eggs are cooked. Add one half teaspoonful of salt and one quarter teaspoonful of pepper.

Put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a sauté-pan; when it is hot add as many drained oysters as will make two cupfuls. Add a little salt and pepper and a tablespoonful of lemon juice. Shake them in the pan until the gills are curled, then add a tablespoonful of parsley chopped very fine. Turn them upon slices of toasted bread on a hot platter.

FRIED OYSTERS WITH COLD SLAW

Lay the oysters on a cloth to dry them. Roll them in cracker dust, then in egg diluted with a little milk and seasoned with pepper and salt, then again cover them with cracker dust. Lay them in a frying-basket and fry them in smoking-hot fat just long enough to give them a light-brown color. Oysters toughen if cooked too long. Prepare only four at a time, as more lower the temperature of the fat too much, and if they are rolled before the moment of frying they moisten the cracker dust. Place them on a paper on the hot shelf until all are done.

Fold a small napkin and place it in the center of a cold platter. Pile the oysters on the napkin and make a wreath around them of cold slaw.

COLD SLAW

Cut cabbage into fine shreds. Put in a saucepan a half cupful of weak vinegar, the yolks of three eggs, a half teaspoonful 62of English mustard, a dash of pepper, a teaspoonful of salt and of sugar. Beat them together, then place them on the fire and stir until the mixture is thickened. Pour it, while hot, over the cabbage and set it away to cool.

OYSTERS À LA NEWBURG

Place twenty-five large oysters in a saucepan with one and one half tablespoonfuls of butter, half a cupful of white wine or a tablespoonful of lemon juice, and a little pepper and salt. Cook until the oysters are plump, then add half a cupful of mushrooms cut into quarters, and a chopped truffle, if convenient. Beat the yolks of four eggs into a cupful of cream, turn it into the oyster mixture, and let it get hot and a little thickened, without boiling. Turn it into a hot dish and garnish with croutons.

Oysters toughen if cooked too long, and cream curdles easily when added to a mixture which has acid in it, so it is necessary to prepare this dish quickly and to serve it at once.

SCALLOPS

Scallops are the adductor muscle of a large pecten, a mollusk commonly known as scallop.

FRIED SCALLOPS

Marinate the scallops in a mixture of oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. Roll them in cracker dust, then in egg, and again in cracker dust or white bread crumbs. Fry them in smoking-hot fat to a golden color.

Prepare but a few at a time so the covering will not be dampened, serve on a napkin with quarters of lemon, and sprinkle over them parsley chopped very fine.

Discard the black ring. Cut the scallops into quarters. Place them in the scallop shells. Dredge them with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley, then cover them with a layer of chopped fresh, or canned, mushrooms, some bits of butter, a teaspoonful of white wine or of lemon juice, for each shell, and lastly with bread crumbs moistened with butter. Place them in a hot oven for ten or fifteen minutes.

CREAMED LOBSTER

Cut the meat of boiled lobster into inch dice. Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan with a teaspoonful of grated onion, let them cook a minute, then add a tablespoonful of flour. Stir for a few minutes to cook the flour, and then add slowly a cupful of stock and a tablespoonful of lemon juice, or a quarter of a cupful of white wine. When all this thickens add the lobster meat, turning it carefully so as not to break it. When the meat is heated remove it from the fire and mix in a quarter of a cupful of cream which has the yolk of an egg beaten in it. Replace it on the fire for just a minute.

For Lobster Newburg and other lobster dishes, see “Century Cook Book,” page 136.

BROILED LOBSTER

Parboil a lobster. As soon as it begins to turn red take it out. Split it in two down the back. Remove and discard the stomach and intestine. Remove the green and the coral.

Broil it fifteen to twenty minutes with the shell side to the fire, but turn the flesh side to the coals for a minute before removing it, then at once season it with butter, pepper, and salt.

64Mix the green, which is the liver, and the coral with melted butter and use it as a sauce.

BROILED SMELTS

Select large smelts of equal size. Have them split down the back, the head and tail left on. Dip them in melted butter and broil them until they are tender. Lay them evenly on a hot dish and spread them with maître d’hôtel butter (see page 103).

BROILED SHAD ROE

Wash and dry the roes, then broil them very slowly and keep them moistened with butter to prevent the skin from breaking. They may also be cooked by sautéing them in butter; or they may be baked in the oven with a little stock or water in the pan to baste them with. Cook them brown. Cover the top with butter, pepper, salt, and a little lemon juice, and sprinkle them with chopped parsley. Garnish with lemon and watercress and serve some of the watercress with each portion. Serve them with maître d’hôtel butter.

SHAD ROE CROQUETTES

Boil shad roes in salted, acidulated water for fifteen minutes, letting the water simmer only, so that the skin will not break. When they are cold cut them, using a sharp knife, into slices one and one half inches thick. Sprinkle them with salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Roll them first in egg, then in bread crumbs or cracker dust, and fry them in smoking-hot fat to a light brown color. Garnish with watercress and serve them with maître d’hôtel butter.

Fillets of fish are the flesh of the fish freed from the skin and bones. (See “Century Cook Book,” page 112.) The fillets of flounder are used to imitate sole, a variety of fish much esteemed in France and England. Sheepshead and other smaller fish also make good fillets.

FRIED FILLETS OF FISH

Marinate the fillets by letting them lie in a mixture of oil, salt, pepper, lemon juice, and chopped parsley. Take the fillets from the marinade, roll them first in flour, then in egg, and then in white bread crumbs grated from the loaf. Fry them to a lemon color in smoking-hot fat. They must not be cooked too long or they will become dry. They may also be cooked by sautéing, using half butter and half lard. Prepare one fillet at a time, for the covering of flour and crumbs will become damp if it stands long, and then will not crisp. If the fillets are small, serve them piled in crossed layers on a napkin and garnish with quarters of lemon. If they are large, serve with maître d’hôtel butter or with tartare sauce and garnish with watercress.

ROLLED FILLETS OF FLOUNDER

Sprinkle each fillet with salt and pepper. Spread it with a mixture made of butter, lemon juice, and parsley cut in pieces, not chopped fine. Fold the fillet over, roll it, and fasten it with a wooden toothpick or small skewer. Stand the rolled fillets on end in a baking-pan, put a piece of butter on the top of each one, and pour over the whole a half cupful of white cooking wine (California sauterne). Bake them in a moderate oven for twenty minutes, or until tender, and baste them frequently. Arrange the fillets symmetrically on a platter. Put a piece of parsley in the top of each one, and 66place in the center of the dish a lemon cut into the shape of a basket. Sprinkle the exposed pulp of the lemon with chopped parsley.

Make a sauce to serve with the fish as follows: Add to the drippings, in the pan in which the fish was cooked, a tablespoonful of flour, stir constantly until the flour is cooked, then add enough stock to make a creamy sauce. Add pepper and salt if necessary.

BAKED FILLETS OF FISH WITH SAUCE

Arrange evenly on a baking-platter fillets of flounder or of sheepshead, or slices of halibut or codfish cut one quarter of an inch thick. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper.

Make a sauce as follows: Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, add to it a half teaspoonful of onion juice, cook until the butter has browned, then add a tablespoonful of flour and stir until the flour has browned. Take it off the fire and add very slowly one and a half cupfuls of soup stock, stirring constantly to keep the mixture smooth. Add a tablespoonful of parsley chopped very fine, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, a teaspoonful of salt, one half teaspoonful of pepper, and, if convenient, a teaspoonful of mushroom catsup, or a half cupful of liquor from a can of mushrooms, or a half cupful of juice strained from a can of tomatoes. Pour the sauce over the fish, lifting the fillets a little to let the sauce run under them. Place the dish in the oven and cook for thirty minutes, or until the fish is tender. If the sauce dries away too much, baste the fish with stock. The cooked sauce should have the consistency of cream.

When taken from the oven sprinkle the top with bread crumbs browned in butter and ornament with mashed potato pressed through a pastry-bag and star tube, making a design that will cover the edges of the platter where the sauce has stained it. Set the hot platter on a second platter to serve.

67Creamed hashed fish can be served in the same manner. After the fish has been mixed with the sauce spread it smoothly on the baking-platter, cover the top with buttered bread crumbs, and set it in the oven to brown.

FILLETS OF FISH WITH MUSHROOMS

Take fillets of flounder, season them with pepper and salt. Take half a can or more of mushrooms, a slice of onion, and a sprig of parsley, and chop them all fine; add a cupful of stock and a tablespoonful of sherry. Spread a part of this mixture on the bottom of a platter that can be used in the oven. Lay the fillets of fish on the mixture. Cover them with the rest of the mixture, then with bread crumbs and with small pieces of butter. Bake forty minutes or until the fillets are tender. Heat the rest of the mushrooms in a little stock. Place them around the edges of the dish and pour the stock over the whole if the fillets are at all dry. This dish should be very moist.

CREAMED FISH GARNISHED WITH POTATOES

Make a good white sauce, or any other sauce preferred. Cut cold boiled fish in pieces one or two inches across and heat them in the sauce without breaking them. Use a plentiful amount of the sauce. Turn the fish mixture on to a platter and sprinkle over the top a little parsley chopped very fine.

Season some mashed potato with salt, butter, and milk, and beat it until it is light and white. Press it through a pastry-bag with star tube into rosettes, forming a wreath around the creamed fish.

FISH À LA JAPONNAISE

Make a creamed mince of any kind of fish, or use a fish forcemeat. Canned salmon is very good for the purpose.

68Place the creamed fish on a piece of stiff paper and mold it into the form of a fish. Roll some pie paste very thin. Lay a piece of the paste on one end of the mince and shape it into the form of a fish’s tail. Cut the paste into circles of half an inch diameter, using a pastry-tube if a small vegetable-cutter is not at hand. Beginning at the tail, cover the molded fish with little rounds of paste, placing them in even overlapping layers to imitate scales, and mold a piece of pastry to imitate a head and fins. Use half a cranberry or a turned vegetable to imitate an eye. Brush the paste over lightly with yolk of egg and place it in the oven to brown. Slip it carefully off the baking-sheet on to the serving platter. Trim off the paper that projects and garnish.

Illustration No. 46 shows a fish ready to bake and the manner in which it may be garnished.

Roll puff paste about one eighth of an inch thick. Put a teaspoonful of meat of any kind at intervals on the paste, about three inches from the edge. Moisten the paste around the meat-ball, fold over the paste, and press it lightly around the meat. Stamp it with a fluted biscuit-cutter into half circles, leaving the meat on the straight side and an inch of paste around the meat on the round side. Egg the top and bake from fifteen to twenty minutes in a hot oven.

VOL-AU-VENT

Roll puff paste (see page 154) three quarters of an inch to an inch in thickness. Stamp it with a cutter, or if this is not convenient use a tin, of the size desired, for a gage; lay the tin lightly on the paste, and with a sharp knife cut around it with a quick, firm stroke so as to press the paste as little as possible; then with a sharp-pointed knife cut a ring around the form, leaving a border about an inch wide, and do not let the knife penetrate the paste more than an eighth of an inch. Brush the top with the yolk of an egg, diluted with a little water, and set it away to cool. Bake it in a hot oven as directed for puff paste for thirty minutes, and do not open the oven door during the first fifteen minutes. It should rise to about three times its original thickness. When it is well dried and a good light-brown color, remove it from the oven and let it stand for a few minutes, then carefully lift out the centerpiece and remove all the uncooked 72paste. Set it in the oven again to dry the inside. The uncooked pieces can also be returned to the oven for a few minutes, and when dry be put back into the shell.

Although puff paste is better when used at once, it will keep very well for several days, and will be perfectly crisp and tender if well heated in the oven just before being used.

When ready to serve fill the center with any salpicon, place the little cover on top, and set the vol-au-vent on a lace-paper. The filling must not be put in until just before sending it to the table, as it will soften the pastry if it stands in it for any length of time.

SALPICON

Salpicon is made of cooked chicken, sweetbreads, veal, or calf’s brains cut into small dice, mixed with mushrooms, a little chopped truffle and chopped tongue. One meat alone, or a combination of two or more, may be used. The mixture is then combined with enough good sauce to make it creamy. A white sauce should be used with white meats; a brown sauce when the dark meat and livers of chicken are used. (See “Century Cook Book,” pages 80-299.)

A plain white sauce is made as follows: Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan. When the butter is hot add a tablespoonful of flour and cook them together for a few minutes, not letting them brown; remove from the fire and add a cupful of stock. Add the liquor very slowly at first, stirring constantly to keep it smooth. Return the sauce to the fire, add a teaspoonful of salt, a quarter teaspoonful of pepper, and a little cream, if convenient. Stir constantly until the sauce is thickened. Lastly, add the beaten yolks of one or two eggs to the sauce after it has been taken off the fire.

Sweetbreads are the thymus gland and the pancreas of calves and lambs. They are commonly called by butchers the throat and the stomach, or heart, sweetbreads. The former is the larger, the latter is the whiter, rounder, and more delicate.

TO PREPARE SWEETBREADS

Soak the sweetbreads in cold water for two hours, changing the water several times. Put them on the fire in cold water. When they are whitened and firm to the touch, or parboiled, remove and immerse them again in cold water to blanch them. Remove all the pipes, fibers, and fatty substance. Roll each one in a piece of cheese-cloth, draw the cloth tight and tie it at the ends, pressing the sweetbread into an oval shape. Place them under a light weight for several hours.

BAKED SWEETBREADS

Parboil and blanch the sweetbreads. Marinate them by standing them for two hours in a mixture of one beaten egg, a teaspoonful of onion juice, one half teaspoonful of salt, one quarter teaspoonful of pepper, and one tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Turn them in the marinade occasionally so they will absorb the seasoning. Roll them in cracker dust and place them in a pan on very thin slices of salt pork, and place a thin slice of pork on top of each one. Bake in a hot oven fifteen or twenty minutes, or until they are tender and brown. The pork will crisp and the sweetbread will brown around it.

Serve with a sauce made as follows: Brown a little flour in the drippings left in the pan, then add a little water or stock, a little lemon juice, and what is left of the marinade. 74Stir it until it has the consistency of thick cream and strain it on to the platter. Place the sweetbreads upon the sauce.

GLAZED SWEETBREADS

Place sweetbreads, prepared as directed on page 73, in a sauté-pan with butter and a few slices of onion. Sauté them for a few minutes on both sides, then place them in the oven to finish cooking. Put a little stock in the baking-pan and baste them frequently to brown and glaze them. Serve them as in illustration, or place them around a pile of green peas.

COQUILLES OF SWEETBREADS

Parboil one pair of sweetbreads. Trim and put them under a light weight to cool. When they are cold and firm cut them into dice. Sauté them in a tablespoonful of butter for a few minutes, then add a cupful of button mushrooms cut in quarters, a tablespoonful of white wine or of lemon juice, a dash of pepper, a saltspoonful of salt, and cook them until tender, then add a white sauce as given below, and turn over the mixture until it is creamy. Fill shells with the mixture, cover the tops with white bread crumbs wet with melted butter, and place them in the oven to brown.

Sauce: Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan; when it bubbles, add a tablespoonful of flour. Cook the flour a few minutes, but do not let it brown. Remove it from the fire and add, while stirring all the time, a half cupful of stock, chicken stock preferred, a dash of nutmeg and of pepper, and a saltspoonful of salt. Put the saucepan on the fire again and stir until the sauce has thickened, then add two tablespoonfuls of cream.

75Any pretty bivalve shell of suitable size may be used for holding this or other creamed mixtures. The illustration shows pecten and cardium shells.

TO PREPARE CALF’S BRAINS

Calf’s brains, in whatever way they are to be served, must be prepared in the following manner: Soak the brains in cold water for some time to extract all the blood. Trim them, removing the membranes and fibers, without breaking the brains apart. Place them in hot water with a bay-leaf, soup vegetables, a few peppercorns, a teaspoonful of salt, and a tablespoonful of vinegar. Cook them for half an hour, letting the water simmer only. When done immerse them in cold water to blanch them.

CALF’S BRAINS

No. 1. À la poulette. Cut the brains in halves or quarters. Arrange them in a circle around mushrooms and pour over the whole a white sauce made partly of stock, and the beaten yolks of two eggs with a little cream added after the sauce is taken from the fire. Garnish with croutons or cut the brains into large dice, mix them with the same sauce, and serve them in individual cups.

No. 2. À l’aurore. Cut the brains into dice; add the chopped whites of three or four hard-boiled eggs to each pair of brains. Add a teaspoonful of parsley chopped very fine, and a saltspoonful of salt. Moisten with white sauce and place the mixture in a baking-dish. Cover the top with crumbed yolks, and over the yolks spread a thin layer of white bread crumbs wet with butter. Set the dish in the oven to brown the crumbs.

76No. 3. With Hollandaise sauce. Cut the brains in halves. Place each piece on a round of bread which has been browned in butter. Pour over the whole a Hollandaise sauce, or a white sauce to which has been added, after taking it from the fire, the beaten yolk of an egg and a tablespoonful of parsley chopped very fine.

No. 4. With black butter. Cut the brains into thick slices. Cook two tablespoonfuls of butter in a sauté-pan until it is brown. Lay in the slices of brains and color them on both sides. Arrange them in a dish, sprinkle them with chopped parsley, pepper, and salt. Add a teaspoonful of vinegar to the butter, and strain it over the brains.

CROQUETTES

Croquettes can be made of chicken or turkey or veal, alone, but are much nicer when the meat is mixed with sweetbreads or calf’s brains and mushrooms. The meat mixture must be chopped very fine.

Put a tablespoonful of butter and a half teaspoonful of onion juice into a saucepan. When it bubbles add two tablespoonfuls of flour and cook it a few minutes without browning, then add slowly, so as to keep it smooth,

Cook until the sauce has thickened a little. Remove it from the fire, stir in a beaten egg and two cupfuls of minced meat. Turn it on to a tin platter and place it on the ice to set.

77When the mixture is set mold the croquettes into shapes pointed at one end. Cover them with egg diluted with a very little water, to break the stringiness of the whites, then cover them with bread crumbs. Crumbs grated from the loaf give a better color than dried crumbs composed partly of crusts. Fry the croquettes in smoking-hot fat to a light-brown color, and until a thin crust is formed. Place them on paper in the open oven to dry and keep hot until all are fried. Arrange them symmetrically on a platter and stick a paper frill into the pointed end of each one. These frills are fastened to a little stick. They can be bought at confectioners’.

It is important to use for the sauce stock which jellies, as it hardens the mixture and makes it easy to mold, while it softens when the croquettes are fried, making them very creamy. Stock will jelly if a knuckle of veal is used in making it. If jellied stock is not at hand, put a level teaspoonful of soaked gelatine into a cupful of any stock or of milk.

CHICKEN TIMBALES

Lay raw chicken breasts on a board and scrape off the meat, thus separating it from the large fibers. Put the scraped meat in a mortar with the white of an egg and pound it to separate it still more from the fibers, then rub it through a purée sieve.

Soak some crumb of bread with milk, stir it to a smooth paste, and cook it until it leaves the sides of the pan. This makes a panada.

Take a half cupful of the fine chicken meat, a quarter of a cupful of panada, one egg, a half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper and of nutmeg. Beat them all well together, then fold in lightly a half cupful of cream whipped to a stiff froth.

78Butter the timbale molds well, ornament them with slices of truffle cut into fancy shapes, or with chopped truffle sprinkled over the surface. Put the mixture into the molds carefully with a small spoon so as not to disarrange the decoration, and fill them to within a quarter of an inch of the top. Set them in a pan of hot water. Cover them with a greased paper and poach them in the oven for five to eight minutes, or until they are firm to the touch.

Turn the timbales on to a flat dish and pour around them a white sauce made with chicken stock and the yolks of two eggs diluted with two tablespoonfuls of cream added the last thing. (See Allemande and Poulette sauces, “Century Cook Book,” pages 279-280.)

LIVER TIMBALES

Moisten a half cupful of crumbs of bread and a half cupful of flour with a cupful of milk.

Fry the slices of half an onion in a tablespoonful of butter until they are tender, then remove them and turn into the pan the mixture of bread, flour, and milk. Stir until it is cooked to a smooth paste.

Put into a bowl two cupfuls of liver pulp, the bread paste, a teaspoonful of salt, a saltspoonful of pepper, and a dash of paprika. Mix them well together and add, one at a time, four eggs, beating in each one well, then add enough cream to make rather a thin batter. Pass the whole through a purée sieve. Beat it well again and turn it into molds.

This amount of mixture will fill twelve individual timbale molds and one pint mold, the latter to be used cold (see page 127).

Fill the individual timbale molds to within a quarter of an inch of the top, set them into a pan of hot water, cover them 79with a greased paper, and poach them in the oven for fifteen to twenty minutes, or until firm to the touch.

Turn the timbales on to a flat dish and pour around them a little good brown sauce. The molds may be ornamented, if desired, the same as chicken timbales, using the white of hard-boiled eggs instead of truffles.

BAKED MUSHROOMS

Cut the mushroom stems off even with the caps. Peel the caps and stand them on a dish with the gills up. Sprinkle them with pepper and salt and let them stand until moisture gathers on them. Cut sliced bread with a biscuit-cutter into rounds, or if convenient use a fancy cutter. Illustration shows bread cut with a leaf-shaped stamp. Dip the pieces of bread into water to moisten them, but do not let them get soggy. Place them on a baking-tin and sprinkle with pepper and salt and bits of butter. Arrange the mushrooms on them, one or more according to size, with the gills up. Bake about thirty minutes, or until tender.

Watch them carefully so they will not get overdone or too dry. Baste with melted butter, if necessary, while they are baking.

STUFFED MUSHROOMS

Cut the stems off close to the gills. Peel the caps. Cut the stems fine. Sauté all the parts together in butter. Remove the caps when they are tender and before they lose shape. After the caps are removed add six drops of onion juice and a teaspoonful of flour. Let the flour cook a few minutes and then add a quarter of a cupful of stock and a tablespoonful of minced chicken or livers, pepper, and salt, and stir until the mixture is thickened.

80Place a little of this mixture on the gills of each mushroom. This quantity is enough for six or eight large caps. Use the stuffed mushrooms for garnishing meat dishes, or serve them separately as an entreé on rounds of bread which have been browned in butter.

STUFFED TOMATOES

Select smooth, round tomatoes of equal size. Cut a slice off the stem end. Remove carefully the pulp and fill the shells with any of the mixtures given below. Cover the top of the stuffing with bread crumbs moistened with melted butter. Bake them about one half hour, or until they are tender, but not fallen out of shape. Have a little water in the bottom of the baking-pan. Use them for garnishing meat dishes, or serve them on rounds of browned bread as an entrée.

STUFFING FOR TOMATOES

No. 1. Chop fine a half cupful of canned mushrooms, add a half or three quarters of a cupful of crumb of bread and the pulp taken from six tomatoes, a tablespoonful of chopped ham or of chicken, if convenient, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, six drops of onion juice, a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and a teaspoonful of melted butter. If the mixture is not sufficiently moistened by the tomato juice add enough stock to make it quite wet.

No. 2. Use equal parts of minced meat (chicken or veal preferred) and crumb of bread, add the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs. Season with chopped parsley, a little onion juice, pepper, and salt. Moisten with the pulp taken from the tomatoes, or with stock, or with both of them.

81No. 3. Use boiled rice mixed with chopped green peppers, a few drops of onion juice, pepper, and salt. Moisten with the pulp taken from the tomato, or with stock.

No. 4. Boil macaroni, broken into half-inch lengths, until tender. Moisten it with well-seasoned white sauce, and add some grated cheese, a little pepper and salt, and a dash of paprika.

STUFFED GREEN PEPPERS

Select green peppers of equal size. Cut a piece off the stem end, or cut them lengthwise. Remove the seeds and ribs. Parboil them, stuff them with any of the mixtures given for stuffed tomatoes, using stock instead of tomato-pulp for moistening. Bake with a little water in a pan for fifteen to twenty minutes, or until they are tender, but not so long as to allow them to lose their shape. Sprinkle a little parsley chopped fine over the tops just before serving them.

BAKED TOMATOES AND FONTAGE CUPS

Place in the center of the dish stuffed tomatoes (see page 80) and place around them fontage cups filled with eggs à l’aurore, as in illustration, or with any well-seasoned vegetable, or minced meat. Put a handle made of celery in each cup, to resemble a basket.

JARDINIÈRE

The illustration shows a variety of vegetables served together, or à la jardinière.

This dish can be used as a course or vegetable entrée, and is particularly appreciated where one has an abundance of fresh vegetables from the garden. The vegetables should 82be well seasoned and arranged with regard to color so as to give a pleasing effect.

The combination used in the illustration is a cauliflower, green peas, string beans, lima beans, corn, macedoine, and baked tomatoes.

VEGETARIAN DISH

After boiling enough rice to fill a ring mold, steam it until it is quite dry, and until the grains are separated. Mix the rice with enough thick white sauce to moisten it. Butter a ring-mold well and sprinkle it thickly with white bread crumbs (crumbs grated from the loaf). Put in the prepared rice and place the ring in a pan, the bottom of which is covered with a very little water. Cover the top with greased paper, and bake for half an hour, or until the crumbs are brown. Turn the browned ring on a platter. Fill the center with any vegetable, and place around the outside fontage cups holding a second vegetable. In the illustration the ring is filled with corn, and the cups hold small lima beans.

A good combination is baked tomatoes alternating with fontage cups holding macedoine of vegetables, the ring holding green peas.

The same style of dish may be made with meat. The ring may be made with mashed potato and hold minced creamed meat.

Sauté three or four sliced onions in a tablespoonful of butter. Put them when soft into the casserole. Cut a steak, taken from the upper side of the round, into pieces suitable for one portion. Put them in the sauté-pan and sear them on all sides, then put them in the casserole. Add a tablespoonful of flour to the sauté-pan, let it brown, then add slowly a cupful and a half of water and stir until it is a little thickened, season with a teaspoonful of salt, a half teaspoonful of pepper, and a tablespoonful of chopped parsley. Add, if convenient, a little Worcestershire sauce and a little mushroom catsup. The sauce should be highly seasoned, and such condiments as are at hand may be used. The sauce will be richer if stock is used instead of water. Turn the sauce over the meat, cover the casserole, set it in the oven and cook slowly until the meat is tender, then cover the top with parboiled sliced potato and return it to the oven for a few minutes to finish cooking the potatoes. The sauce should be of the consistency of cream, and there should not be a great quantity of it. Serve in the casserole.

FILLET OF BEEF

The fillet or tenderloin of beef is taken from the under side of the loin. It is the most tender and the most expensive cut of the beef, costing from eighty cents to a dollar a pound. The whole fillet is used as a roast. When sliced it is given different names. Cuts from the middle, which is the thickest part, are Chateaubriands. The Chateaubriand is cut one and a half to three quarters of an inch thick, trimmed, tied into a neatly rounded shape, and struck lightly with the flat 86side of the cleaver to smooth the top and reduce the thickness to one and a quarter or one and a half inches. It is cooked and served as a steak.

The next pieces are the mignon fillets. These are prepared in the same way as the Chateaubriand and should be about one inch thick and from two and a half to three inches across when finished. They may be broiled or cooked on a hot pan.

Cuts from the small ends are noisettes and turnedos; the former are cut one half of an inch thick and cooked in a sauté-pan; the latter are cut one quarter of an inch thick, and are cooked in a sauté-pan for five minutes only. The noisettes and turnedos should be brushed with glaze before serving (see Glaze, page 104).

Grenadines are cut lengthwise from the thin end of the fillet and trimmed into chop-shaped pieces. They are larded, sautéd in a little butter, and cooked five to eight minutes.

FILETS MIGNONS

Prepare and cook the fillets as directed above. Arrange them in a circle overlapping one another and fill the center of the circle with fried potatoes. Lay on each fillet a half slice of lemon sprinkled with chopped parsley.

The center of the circle may be filled with potato, mashed, balls, puffed, straws, etc., or with a vegetable such as peas, beans, macedoine, etc.

FILETS MIGNON WITH TOMATOES AND MUSHROOMS

Prepare the fillets as directed on this page. Have them of uniform size. Broil them over coals or on a hot pan. Turn them very often so they will cook slowly and when done 87have an even red color all through. The broiling will take eight to ten minutes. Cover the tops with maître d’hôtel butter (page 103), or butter, pepper and salt, and chopped parsley. Arrange them in a circle on one end of a platter. Place on each one a slice of broiled tomato (see page 97), and on the tomato a stuffed mushroom (page 79).

On one side of the platter place an ornamental skewer stuck into a shaped piece of uncooked vegetable of sufficient size. The skewer in illustration has a mushroom on top, then a slice of lemon, then a row of small carrots strung on a thread, a slice of lemon to hold the carrots in place, and then the foliage of the carrots. It is stuck into a raw parsnip cut so it stands firm. The skewer is for ornamenting the dish only.

CHOPS À LA SOUBISE

Put soubise sauce in the center of the dish and arrange broiled French chops standing in a ring around it. Place a ring of fried onion over each chop bone.

French chops are cut from the rack and trimmed so as to leave the upper half of the bone bare.

SOUBISE SAUCE

Boil six white onions for ten minutes. Cut them in pieces, put them in a saucepan with one quarter of a pound of butter and cook them very slowly indeed for a long time or until they are soft. The onions must cook so slowly that they do not color. Add a tablespoonful of flour. After the flour is cooked remove the onions from the fire, add one cupful of cream, and pass the whole through a sieve. Add a very little pepper and salt.

Arrange French chops down the middle of the platter, with the chops overlapping and the bones crossing. Place a piece of bread under the first two to support and lift the bones off the dish; the rest are then easily arranged in a symmetrical manner.

Garnish the dish with spoonfuls of horseradish sauce, or serve the sauce in a separate dish.

HORSERADISH SAUCE

Grate fresh horseradish root and mix with it enough whipped cream to make it light and to reduce sufficiently the sharpness of the horseradish. The horseradish absorbs the cream, and a few more spoonfuls of the cream are needed than of the grated horseradish. The sauce should not be mixed until just before serving.

CHOPS GARNISHED WITH ARTICHOKES

These chops are cut from the rack. They are cut an inch thick, the bones removed, and the meat turned and tied into round pieces. They are then struck with the flat side of the cleaver to smooth and flatten them a little.

Broil the chops, spread them with butter, and sprinkle them with chopped parsley, pepper, and salt. Arrange them symmetrically on a platter and place on each one an artichoke bottom holding a little good sauce, such as bearnaise or Hollandaise, or even melted butter, and a few green peas.

Artichoke bottoms come in cans and can be purchased from a grocer. The French ones are the best. They do not need any more cooking, but should be heated by placing them in hot water.

These chops should be cut an inch and a quarter thick from the loin, the bone then carefully removed, some of the fat taken out, and the thin end piece drawn around and fastened with a wooden skewer, giving a perfectly round chop. Have them uniform in size. Cook them on a hot pan. Turn them frequently after the surfaces are seared so they will cook evenly and slowly. If preferred, they can be broiled over hot coals, but are then more likely to lose their shape and the skewers will be burned.

Arrange the chops flat on the dish in a circle with the skewers pointing out. Cover the top of each chop with a sauce made of the chopped mushroom stems, and place in the center of each chop a large mushroom cap. Place a paper frill on each skewer. Fill the center of the ring of chops with green peas or any small vegetable, or with mashed or fried potatoes.

TO PREPARE THE MUSHROOMS

Select large mushrooms, those not fully opened preferred, as they stand higher. Cut the stems off even with the caps. Peel the caps. Chop the stems. Put all in a pan with butter and sauté them until tender. Remove the caps as soon as they are tender, and before they have flattened out. Add a little stock, or water, to the pan, and a little flour. Stir until the sauce is thickened to the consistency of cream, season with a little salt and pepper. Use this sauce for the tops of the chops.

Cut a roasted leg of mutton in thick slices and run the knife under the slices to free them, but leave them in place. Conceal the bone with a paper frill. Arrange around the 90dish a variety of vegetables. In illustration No. 67 the vegetables are boiled potato balls, macedoine, and string beans cut in two ways, lengthwise and across diagonally into one half inch pieces.

Arrange slices cut from a roasted leg of mutton on one end of a large platter. Cover the rest of the dish with a variety of seasoned vegetables. The vegetables used in illustration No. 68 are cauliflower, string beans, lima beans, and green peas.

COTTAGE PIE

Peel a good-sized onion, stick into it half a dozen whole cloves, and place it in the center of an earthenware baking-dish, or a granite-ware basin, or, best of all, the baking-pan of a double pudding-dish. Cut any cold meat into small and rather thin slices. Roll each piece in flour mixed with pepper and salt. Arrange the pieces of meat around the onion, filling the dish three quarters full.

Put the bone of the meat and all of the scraps into a saucepan, cover them with cold water, add a bay-leaf and soup vegetables, and simmer the whole for an hour or longer. Strain off the stock.

Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan with a teaspoonful of onion juice, let it brown, then add a tablespoonful of the flour used for rolling the meat, let the flour brown, then add one and a half cupfuls of the stock and stir until it becomes a little thickened. Add more pepper and salt if necessary, and a dash of mustard and of nutmeg, also a few drops of Worcestershire sauce, if convenient. Let this sauce become a little cooled, then pour it over the meat, and cover the whole with mashed potato. The potato should be seasoned by adding to it a little hot milk, with melted butter in it, and a little salt, and then be whipped with a fork until it is smooth, light, and white. The potato may be 91put through a ricer over the meat, or be piled on it roughly and scratched with a fork into cone shape, or be put through a pastry-bag with star tube as in illustration. In the latter case it must have the white of an egg mixed with it in order to hold its form when baked. Touch the potato lightly over the top with yolk of egg diluted with milk to make it brown well. Put the dish in the oven for ten to fifteen minutes, or long enough to brown the potato a little and heat the meat. When the sauce begins to bubble through the potato at the edges it is done.

The meat, having been cooked already, will be toughened if cooked a second time and needs only to be heated.

Wrap a folded napkin around the dish before sending it to the table in case a kitchen basin has been used. This is a presentable dish and will be well liked.

MEAT AND POTATO PIE

Butter a pie-plate, spread over it like an under-crust well-seasoned mashed potato. Spread it about a quarter of an inch thick on the bottom. Make a border two inches wide, and thick enough to rise a little above the dish. Score the top of the potato border with a fork and touch it lightly with egg. Fill the center with rare cold beef or mutton cut into dice. Pour over the meat well-seasoned brown sauce and sprinkle the top with a few buttered bread crumbs. Do not let any of the sauce get on the potato border. Place it in the oven for a few minutes to brown.

MINCED MEAT WITH POTATO RINGS

Mince any kind of meat. Make it creamy with brown sauce for dark meat, or with white sauce for veal or chicken; or moisten the minced meat with stock, add pepper and salt, a few drops of onion juice, and, if convenient, a little 92tomato. Chopped mushrooms added to the mince improve it very much. Spread the creamed mince flat on the dish, or form a mound as in illustration. Sprinkle the top with crumbs browned in butter.

Mash some boiled potatoes, season them with butter, salt, and enough milk to moisten them well, and one or two beaten eggs; one egg is enough for a pint of potato. Beat the potato until it is light and white. Press it through a pastry-bag with star tube into rings. Paint the rings with yolk of egg diluted with a little milk and put them in the oven to brown. The potato will not hold its form unless the egg is added. Arrange the rings around the minced meat and fill the centers with corn and spinach alternately, as in illustration, or with any other vegetables.

MINCED HAM AND EGGS

Mince boiled ham very fine. Moisten it with white sauce. Form it into a mound and cover it with crumbed yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Cut the whites of the eggs into strips and arrange them around the ham.

VEAL CHOPS

Cut thin chops from the rack and trim them like French mutton chops. Leave the bone two and a half inches long. Strike the meat with a cleaver to flatten it out to two and a half inches in diameter. Chop the trimmings very fine, season them with pepper and salt and a few drops of onion juice. Spread the mince over the chops in an even layer. Egg and bread-crumb them and sauté them until thoroughly cooked. Serve on a dish with a little sauce made from the drippings in the sauté-pan, or with a tomato sauce.

Divide a veal cutlet into uniform small pieces and tie them to make the pieces round and keep them in shape until cooked, when the strings are cut and removed.

Dredge the small cutlets with salt and pepper. Dip them into egg, and then cover them with bread crumbs. Sauté them in the fat tried out of thin slices of salt pork. It will take from ten to fifteen minutes to cook them. Veal should be thoroughly cooked, but not dried. The meat will be white when cooked. Put a little lemon juice on each cutlet.

Boil the required amount of spaghetti in salted water until it is tender, then steam it until dry so the sauce will adhere to it. Mix it with tomato purée and a few thin strips of boiled ham cut into straws one and a half inches long. Pile the spaghetti in the center of the dish and arrange the cutlets around it. Place the crisp slices of salt pork on the dish.

SMALL VEAL CUTLETS

Cut and tie the cutlets into rounds as directed in above receipt. Dredge them in salt and pepper and roll them in flour.

Put a tablespoonful of butter in a sauté-pan, when it is hot add half a teaspoonful of grated onion, let it cook for a minute, then add the cutlets and cook them until done and well browned, turning them several times.

Remove the cutlets. Sprinkle in the pan a teaspoonful of flour, let it cook a minute, then add slowly half a cupful of stock, stirring all the time to keep it smooth. Remove it from the fire and stir in a small bit of butter and the yolks 94of one or two eggs mixed with a tablespoonful of hot water; season with salt and pepper. If the sauce is too thick, dilute it with a little hot water or stock. It should have the consistency of cream. Strain it on to the serving dish. Place the cutlets upon the sauce, arranging them in a line in the center of the dish, one on top of another, and place around them hard-boiled eggs cut in two lengthwise.

GRENADINES OF VEAL

Cut a thin veal cutlet into small pieces and tie the pieces into rounds about two inches in diameter. Lard them. Put them in a baking-pan with a few trimmings of the larding pork, a sliced onion, and enough stock to half cover them. Place them in the oven and cook until the stock has fallen to a glaze. Baste them frequently so they will be well glazed. Arrange them on a dish and pour around them a sauce made from the drippings in the pan, as follows: Add a little stock or water to the pan and a little browned flour, if necessary, to thicken it. Then strain it. A little ham cut into thin strips an inch long improves the sauce.

PORK TENDERLOINS

Sauté tenderloins of pork until cooked and browned. Arrange the tenderloins evenly on a dish and place around them sautéd slices of apples.

Cut apples across into slices quarter of an inch thick, stamp out the cores with a small biscuit-cutter, but do not remove the skin. Sauté the rings of apple in the drippings of the pork until they are tender, but not until they have lost shape.

STUFFED BAKED POTATOES

Select potatoes of the same size and shape. After carefully washing them, bake them until tender, then cut them in two lengthwise and remove the pulp of the potato, leaving the skins uninjured. Season the potato with butter, salt, and a little milk. Beat it well and replace it in the potato skins. Smooth the top with a knife, brush them with yolk of egg, and set in the oven to brown.

POTATO PURÉE

Mash and season the potatoes and add enough milk or hot water to make them quite soft. Take up a spoonful of potato at a time and place it on a flat dish in a regular order. Place a small sprig of parsley on each spoonful.

RICE À LA MILANESE

Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan with a teaspoonful of onion chopped fine. Cook for a minute, but do not brown. Add half a cupful of clean, unwashed rice, and stir until it is a light yellow, then add two cupfuls of stock and cook without stirring for twenty minutes. The rice should be tender and the stock should be absorbed. Add a tablespoonful of grated cheese and a little salt. Turn it lightly together, using a fork, so as not to break the rice. Cover the top with grated cheese.

Serve as a vegetable-dish or as a course for luncheon. In the latter case brush the inside of a ring-mold with glaze, add to the rice a teaspoonful of butter in small bits, and a dash 96of paprika. Press it lightly into the mold and set it in the oven for a few minutes.

BAKED HOMINY

To two cupfuls of cold boiled hominy add a beaten egg, three quarters of a cupful of milk, and a half teaspoonful of salt. Beat it until perfectly smooth. Put it into a baking-dish, smooth the top, pour over it a teaspoonful of melted butter, and bake it until it forms a golden surface.

QUENELLES OF CORNMEAL

Put a cupful of milk and a cupful and a half of water in a saucepan and add a teaspoonful of salt. When it boils stir in slowly half a cupful of yellow meal and cook for fifteen to twenty minutes, and until the mixture is well thickened. Then take it off the fire. When it is cold and stiffened take it up in spoonfuls and lay the egg-shaped pieces formed by the spoon in a baking-dish. Place the pieces in the dish symmetrically. Pour over them a little melted butter and set them in the oven to brown slightly. Serve as a vegetable.

BOILED LETTUCE

Wash thoroughly whole heads of lettuce. Tie the tops so the leaves will lie together. Place the heads in a large pan so they do not touch and boil them in salted water until tender. Remove them carefully and let them drain on a sieve, pressing each one to free it of water. Lay them in a row on a flat dish and pour over them a sauce made of melted butter, pepper and salt, and a little vinegar; or use a plain white sauce.

Select tomatoes of equal size, and if they are small use them whole, if large cut them in two. Peel them. Arrange them close together in a flat earthen baking-dish which can be sent to the table. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Spread over the top a mixture of chopped mushrooms, bread crumbs, chopped parsley, and sufficient butter to moisten the bread. Bake about thirty minutes, or until the tomatoes are softened. Set the hot baking-dish on a second dish when serving.

BROILED TOMATOES

Without removing the skin, cut fresh tomatoes into slices three eighths of an inch thick. Sprinkle the slices with pepper and salt and dip them first in melted butter or in oil and then in cracker or bread crumbs, then broil them over hot coals until they are softened. Do not let them cook so much that they fall apart.

SPINACH

Boil carefully washed and carefully picked over spinach until it is tender, drain it, chop it very fine, and press it through a purée sieve. Season it with white sauce made of half milk and half stock (page 102). Use enough of the sauce to make it quite creamy. If it is to be molded it cannot be quite as soft as when it is to be served in a vegetable-dish.

No. 1. Fill thoroughly buttered individual timbale molds with spinach and press it down quite hard. After a few minutes, turn the spinach out of the molds on to rounds of browned bread. Cover the tops with chopped whites of hard-boiled eggs and place in the center a spot of the crumbed yolks.

This is a good way to utilize a small amount of leftover spinach. Spinach is improved rather than injured by recooking.

No. 2. Make a mound of spinach by pressing it into a buttered bowl. Ornament the top with a hard-boiled egg, the whole yolk standing on slices of the white cut lengthwise.

No. 3. Ornament a thoroughly buttered tin basin or any mold with half rings of hard-boiled eggs as shown in illustration No. 5. The egg will stick to the butter and be held in place. Fill the mold with spinach, putting it in carefully with a spoon so as not to displace the ornamentation, and press it down firmly. After a few minutes turn it out of the mold and garnish it with croutons.

BEAN CROQUETTES

Boil until tender a pint of dried beans which have been soaked overnight. Boil an onion in the water with the beans. Press the beans through a purée sieve. Season the purée with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, two beaten eggs, a little pepper and salt, and a tablespoonful of parsley chopped very fine. If the mixture is still too dry add a little stock. Mold the purée into small croquettes. Cover the croquettes with egg and bread crumbs and fry them in smoking-hot fat. Serve with tomato sauce.

CASSEROLE OF CHICKEN, No. 1

Cut tender chicken into joints. Remove the skin, put a tablespoonful of butter into a casserole. Lay in the pieces of chicken loosely with bits of butter between them, add the sautéd slices of one onion and a bouquet of herbs consisting of a small bunch of parsley, a bay-leaf, and a little thyme, wrap the parsley around the others and tie them together. Add also a few raw potato balls and, if convenient, a few fresh mushrooms. Sprinkle with salt. Lay two or three very thin slices of salt pork over the top. Cover the casserole and put it in the oven. At the end of half an hour turn the chicken carefully and return it to the oven to finish the cooking.

CASSEROLE OF CHICKEN, No. 2

Cut a chicken into joints, remove the skin, sprinkle the pieces with pepper and salt, and roll them in flour. Sauté the slices of one onion and a tablespoonful of butter; when they are tender remove and put them in the casserole, then put in the sauté-pan the pieces of chicken with a little more butter and sauté them to a golden brown on all sides. Place the chicken in the casserole. Add half a tablespoonful of flour to the sauté-pan; after it has cooked a minute stir in slowly one and a half cupfuls of water, or, preferably, stock, and stir until it is slightly thickened. Season with a saltspoonful of pepper and a half teaspoonful of salt. Turn the sauce over the chicken, add a bay-leaf, a few potato balls, and, if convenient, a tablespoonful of sherry and a few mushrooms. Cover the casserole, put it in the oven, and cook slowly until the chicken is tender. If the sauce becomes too 100dry add enough water or stock to make it the consistency of cream. If it is too thin leave off the lid and continue cooking until it is reduced. There should not be a great quantity of sauce.

PANNED CHICKEN

Split a spring chicken down the back, double the flippers under the back, and cross the legs as shown in illustration No. 82.

Put a little butter all over the chicken and dust it with pepper, salt, and flour. Place it in a baking-pan with a cupful of water and bake it for thirty minutes, basting it frequently.

SMOTHERED CHICKEN

Put a chicken prepared as above in a pan, cover it with a second pan, and set it in a hot oven for fifteen minutes, or until browned, then turn it over, add a cupful of water, cover it again with the pan, and cook until tender.

CHICKEN FRIED IN CREAM

Fry a few pieces of salt pork until crisp. Remove them from the pan and put in the chicken, which has been cut into pieces and the skin removed. Sauté the chicken in the pork fat until it is cooked and browned, then turn over it a cupful of cream in which has been mixed half a teaspoonful of mustard and the chopped white and crumbed yolk of a hard-boiled egg. Stir them together for a minute and serve.

CHICKEN JOINTS

Take the drumsticks and second joints and the wings of cooked chicken or turkey. Remove the skin and trim them so 101they are smooth and shapely. Rub them with salt and pepper. Dip them in batter and fry them in smoking-hot fat to a light golden color. Arrange them on a platter with the points in, and ornament the tops with a line of mashed potato pressed through a pastry-bag and star-tube.

Use a plain pancake batter, omitting the baking-powder; or use the batter given for fontage cups (page 30), but a little thicker. Have it of a consistency to coat the spoon evenly and let it be very smooth.

CHICKEN EN SURPRISE

Bone a chicken without removing the leg or wing bones. Spread the boned chicken on a board, lay a roll of forcemeat on it, draw it together, giving it the shape of the chicken, and sew the skin together. Put the legs and wings into the positions of a trussed fowl, roll it in a piece of cheesecloth, and secure the ends well. (See Boning and Braising, pages 181-182, “Century Cook Book.”)

Put it in a pot with enough water to cover it, add soup vegetables, herbs and spices, and let it simmer for four hours.

Let the chicken cool before removing the cloth, then lard it, rub it over with a little melted butter, and dredge with salt, pepper, and flour. Place it in the oven to brown and to heat it if it is to be used hot. Baste with a little butter and water so it will not get too brown while it is heating through. Place paper frills on the leg bones, and garnish with fried potato balls and a few sprigs of parsley, as shown in the illustration.

FORCEMEAT

Chop very fine the meat of a fowl, or use veal or pork or a mixture of them both. Add to the meat a cupful of the 102crumb of bread, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, a teaspoonful each of salt, thyme, and onion juice, and a quarter teaspoonful of pepper; a little ham or tongue, some dice of larding-pork and truffle improve the forcemeat, but are not essential when the chicken is to be served hot. Moisten the whole with stock and mix it well.

SAUCES

WHITE SAUCE

Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan; when it bubbles add a tablespoonful of flour and cook them together for a few minutes, but do not let them brown. Remove from the fire and add a cupful of milk, very slowly so as to keep it smooth; stir all the time. Add a half teaspoonful of salt and a saltspoonful of pepper. Return it to the fire and cook until it is thickened to a creamy consistency. The sauce is richer if half stock and half milk are used. It is also improved for some uses by adding the yolks of one or two eggs. If yolks are used they are stirred in after the sauce is taken from the fire, as it is still hot enough to cook the egg sufficiently. (See Sauces, “Century Cook Book,” pages 275-277.)

BROWN SAUCE

This is made in the same way and with the same proportions as the white sauce, but the butter with a few drops of onion juice in it is browned before the flour is added. The flour is also allowed to brown. It is then diluted with stock instead of milk.

Put a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan; when it is hot add a tablespoonful of flour and let it cook a few minutes without coloring, then add slowly a cupful of chicken or veal stock, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a dash of paprika; stir until it thickens, then remove it from the fire, and after a few minutes add slowly a mixture of quarter of a cupful of cream and the yolks of three eggs. Return it to the fire for a minute to cook the eggs. Just before serving add a tablespoonful of lemon juice.

TOMATO PURÉE

Put a canful of tomatoes in a saucepan with half an onion sliced, a bay-leaf, a sprig of parsley, three cloves, one half teaspoonful of salt, and a saltspoonful of pepper. Cook uncovered until reduced one half, then strain it through a purée sieve. Return it to the fire and add, a little at a time, a tablespoonful of butter.

HOLLANDAISE SAUCE

Put in a saucepan the yolks of four eggs, one half cupful of butter, one half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of paprika, and one half cupful of cold water or stock. Mix them together. Place the saucepan in a pan of hot water and stir the mixture over the fire until it has thickened to the consistency of cream. When ready to serve remove it from the fire, and after it has cooled a little add very slowly the juice of half a lemon.

MAÎTRE D’HÔTEL BUTTER

Whip, with a fork, a quarter of a cupful of butter until it is very light, add a tablespoonful of parsley chopped very fine, one half teaspoonful each of salt and pepper, and lastly add slowly a tablespoonful of lemon juice. Smooth it over and set it in the ice-box to harden. Dip a teaspoon in hot water, wipe it quickly, and then draw it lightly over the hardened butter, taking up a thin layer which will curl over as the spoon is drawn along. Turn it off the spoon in egg-shaped pieces. Heat the spoon again and repeat the operation, laying the pieces in a pile as they are made. Place them in the ice-box to harden.

GLAZE

Glaze is a clear soup stock boiled down to the consistency of thick cream. It is applied with a brush to the surface of meats to give them a smooth and shining surface. It is used also for adding richness to sauces. A very little glaze often improves a sauce and does not thin it as stock would do. The prepared extract of beef which comes in small jars can be used as a glaze.

TO MAKE GLAZE

Put in a soup pot bits of fat cut from meat and let them try out enough to moisten the bottom of the pot; or use a tablespoonful of butter for this purpose. Add four pounds of lean beef cut into pieces and let them brown, turning them a few times, then add a half cupful of hot water and let the whole cook until the juices are reduced to a glaze in the 105bottom of the pot. This is to give color to the stock. Add six quarts of cold water and the knuckle of veal, and let the mixture simmer for six hours. If the water is allowed to boil the lime will be extracted from the bone and the stock will be clouded. After three hours’ simmering add the soup vegetables, consisting of two stalks of celery, one onion, a few sprigs of parsley, a piece of carrot, three cloves, a bay-leaf, a saltspoonful each of thyme and marjoram, fifteen peppercorns, and a tablespoonful of salt. After six hours’ simmering strain the stock through a cloth laid on a colander, and let it cool. You have now a soup stock. The next day remove the grease, turn the stock into a saucepan carefully so that no sediment goes in, and let it boil, uncovered, until reduced to a thin paste. The stock is now glaze. Be careful toward the end of the cooking that the stock does not burn. Turn the glaze into a small jar and put a little melted butter over the top to exclude the air. When ready to use it heat a little of the glaze to soften it and apply it with a brush.

SWEET SAUCES FOR PUDDINGS

HARD SAUCE

Use twice the quantity of sugar that you have of butter. Beat them together for a long time, or until they are very light and white, then add the flavoring and put it in the ice-box to harden. The yolk of an egg or the whipped white of an egg may be added to white sauce.

To half a cupful of butter and a cupful of sugar add for flavoring one tablespoonful of wine, or two teaspoonfuls of lemon juice, and one teaspoonful of grated lemon-rind, or six drops of vanilla.

No. 1. Use the same proportions of butter and sugar as for hard sauce. Add a little wine, or milk, or hot water. Stir the whole over the fire until the sugar and butter are melted.

Any of the water-ices can be made into punches by adding to them when half frozen the whipped whites of two eggs which have had a tablespoonful of hot sugar syrup stirred into them to cook the eggs. The eggs must be cold when added to the ice, and the freezing continued until the ice is sufficiently stiff. At the moment of serving pour over each glassful a teaspoonful or a tablespoonful of liquor.

BRANDY PEACHES

Serve brandied peaches in individual glasses before the game course. Keep the jar of peaches on ice for several hours before serving them, so they will get very cold. Serve one peach in a glass.

CHEESE CROQUETTES

Grate half a pound of American cheese. Mix in it a scant tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of milk, an egg beaten enough to break it, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a dash of paprika. Mix to a smooth paste and mold into small croquettes, using a tablespoonful of the paste for each croquette. The above proportions will make eight croquettes.

Add a little milk to the yolk of an egg and roll the croquettes in this and then in cracker dust. Then fry them for a minute in smoking-hot fat. They should have a delicate brown color and be soft inside. Serve them as soon as they are fried or the cheese will harden.

Cut slices of bread one inch thick. Stamp the slices into rounds with a biscuit-cutter. With a smaller stamp cut a round half through the center of each one of the large rounds and take out the bread, leaving a box of bread. Spread these with butter and put them in the oven to brown. Fill the centers with the same cheese mixture as given for cheese croquettes and place them in the oven just long enough to soften the cheese. Serve at once.

GNOCCHI À L’ITALIENNE

Put into a saucepan one cupful of milk, one cupful of water, one tablespoonful of butter, one half teaspoonful of salt, and a dash of paprika. When this boils add a cupful of hominy and stir until it is thickened a little, then set the saucepan into a second one containing hot water and continue cooking until the hominy is soft. Add a little more hot water if the mixture gets dry before the hominy is cooked. Take it off the fire, add a tablespoonful of grated cheese, and spread the mixture in a smooth layer one half inch thick on a buttered tin. Set it aside to cool. When the layer of hominy has hardened cut it into rounds with a small biscuit-cutter. Place the rounds, overlapping, in a baking-dish which can be sent to the table. Moisten the tops with melted butter, sprinkle them with grated cheese, and set them in the oven to brown.

GNOCCHI À LA ROMAINE

Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan; when it is melted add four tablespoonfuls of flour, one half teaspoonful of salt, and a cupful of milk gradually. When it is well thickened add the beaten yolk of one egg and two tablespoonfuls 111of grated cheese. Pour the mixture into a baking-dish, making a layer half or three quarters of an inch thick. Let it get cold. Sprinkle the top with grated cheese and put it in the oven to brown. Serve it hot.

GNOCCHI À LA FRANÇAISE

Add to a quart of boiling milk four tablespoonfuls of farina and half a teaspoonful of salt. Cook it about thirty minutes, or until soft. Turn it on to a dish, making a layer about half an inch thick. When it is cold and hardened cut it into sharp, triangular pieces. Arrange the pieces on a flat, round dish in a double circle as in illustration. Add to two tablespoonfuls of the hot boiled farina, one tablespoonful of butter, two tablespoonfuls of grated cheese, and a dash of paprika or red pepper. Pile this mixture in the center of the dish, filling the vacant space in the middle of the pieces of farina, and sprinkle it with grated cheese, not letting any cheese get on the farina. Place the dish in the oven to brown and serve at once.

QUAILS BROILED

Split the quails down the back, and broil them for four minutes on each side. Spread them with butter, pepper, and salt. Serve them on toast.

QUAILS ROASTED

Lay thin slices of salt pork over well-trussed birds. Bake them in a hot oven for fifteen to twenty minutes. Have in the baking-pan a little water, pepper, and salt, and baste the quails frequently.

SQUABS

SALADS

FRENCH DRESSING

Mix the salt and pepper with the oil, then add slowly the vinegar, stirring all the time. It will become a little white and thickened.

To the yolk of an egg add oil very slowly until the mixture becomes very thick, then add alternately vinegar and oil. Lastly add salt and pepper.

The proportions are one cupful of oil to one yolk, one half teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and one and a half tablespoonfuls of vinegar or lemon juice. More or less oil may be used, but it must be added very slowly at first or the mixture will curdle. Have all the ingredients cold before beginning to mix the dressing. (See “Century Cook Book,” page 288.)

CREAM DRESSING

Add whipped cream to mayonnaise or plain cream to French dressing at the moment of mixing them with the salad. The proportions need not be exact: a little more or less cream can be used as convenient.

Note.—An onion rubbed on the dish in which lettuce is to be served improves the salad.

PREPARING SALADS

It is essential that leaf salads and celery be dry. Oil and water do not mix, and if the salad is wet the dressing will run off it and also lose its flavor. They should also be crisp and clean. Divest them of imperfect portions and wash to free them of dust and grit. Examine lettuce for a small green insect and celery for a small white worm which infest them, then place them in cold water to refresh and crisp them.

Dry them carefully, shaking lettuce or watercress in a wire basket, or carefully dry each piece in a clean napkin. Celery may be drained or wiped. The salad may be dried sometime before using it, and if kept near the ice will retain its 117crispness, but the dressing must not be put on until the moment of serving, as it wilts the leaves. The same rule applies to vegetables used as salads: they should be dry and cold.

There need be no waste in lettuce. The imperfect and hard leaves may be boiled and used as directed on page 55 for green eggs. The rejected outside leaves of one head will be enough for one or two eggs, or they may be used with other odds and ends of vegetables to give a macedoine garnishing to a meat dish.

SALADS

Of the many articles used for salad, lettuce is preëminently first in favor. It is the king of salads; and, whatever else is used, lettuce usually forms part of the dish to make it complete. A plain lettuce is always acceptable and can be served in several forms. Combined with one or more articles equally common, a number of bouquet salads can easily be made, giving dishes attractive both in taste and color. The bouquet salads should be placed on flat dishes in order to show the arrangement, color, and variety of articles used.

A variety in salads is desirable; and, as they can be eaten every day, a little change in the combinations will give variety.

The use of nasturtium blossoms is recommended. They are not only beautiful to look at and decorative, but have a piquant flavor. Combinations of green such as are obtained by lettuce and watercress are pleasing.

In the illustrations a number of combinations are given which will suggest others.

No. 1. Plain lettuce salad. The lettuce here is arranged to resemble a cabbage. For this a head of cabbage lettuce is used. The leaves are taken apart, carefully 118washed and dried, and the stalks flattened by cutting a little slice off the bottom to make them stand upright. They are then put together again in the natural form, but more spread open, and placed on a round platter. Just before serving a French dressing is poured over them with a spoon, to have each leaf moistened, care being taken not to disarrange the leaves.

No. 2. Lettuce hearts. Divest a head of Boston cabbage lettuce of the outer leaves down to the hard head. With a sharp knife cut the head into quarters and arrange them on a dish with the stalk ends toward the center. Sprinkle over them, or not, a little celery cut into small dice. If celery is used, place a little in the center of the dish and between the quarters. At the moment of serving pour French dressing, using a spoon, into the lettuce hearts, moistening them well.

The outside leaves taken from the head can be broken into small pieces or cut into ribbons and used as shown in other illustrations.

No. 3. Bouquet salad. Break crisp lettuce leaves into pieces, arrange them on a flat dish, and place in the center a bunch of watercress or of nasturtium blossoms. Just before serving moisten the lettuce with French dressing, and the watercress also if it is used.

No. 4. Bouquet salad. Place a number of crisp lettuce leaves together, and with a sharp knife cut them across into strips about a quarter of an inch wide. Pile the ribbons in the center of the dish and place slices of hard-boiled eggs around them. Moisten with French dressing at the moment of serving.

119No. 5. Bouquet salad. Use a good head of cabbage lettuce. Arrange the white leaves, in a bunch resembling the natural head, in the center of a flat dish. Garnish with slices of tomato and hard-boiled eggs. Just before serving cover the whole with plain French dressing. Use a spoon and pour the dressing on carefully so that all the parts will be moistened without being disarranged.

Mayonnaise may be used on the eggs and tomato if preferred, in which case the dressing should be put on the eggs in the cups under the yolks.

Illustrations Nos. 94, 95, 96, 97. Bouquet salads arranged as explained in legends under the illustrations.

No. 10. Daisy salad. Select tender green leaves of lettuce. Cut the stalks so that the leaves will lie straight and keep in place. Put a spoonful of mayonnaise in each leaf, then arrange on each one in rosette form the white of a hard-boiled egg cut lengthwise into strips, and place a whole yolk in the center.

No. 12. Salad of artichoke bottoms. Take artichoke bottoms as they come from the can. Rinse them off with cold water. Spread each one with mayonnaise and pile on it as many vegetables as it will hold. Use green peas, string beans, flowerets of cauliflower, or any mixture of vegetables that may be convenient. Place a little mayonnaise on top of the vegetables, and place the artichoke cups on leaves of lettuce arranged around a bed of mayonnaise. Or a glass or cup filled with mayonnaise can be placed in the 120center of the dish and the individual portions arranged around it.

No. 13. Vegetable salad. Mix together equal portions of cold boiled string beans, cut in half-inch lengths, and lima beans. Pile them on a flat dish with a surrounding border of lettuce leaves. Pour over them slowly plenty of French dressing.

This is a good hot-weather salad to serve with cold meats on hot days when hot dishes are not acceptable.

No. 14. Macedoine of vegetables. Boil small portions of as many different kinds of vegetables as convenient, and keep them in separate dishes. When they are cold, and shortly before serving, moisten them with French dressing. Just before serving mix them together, adding some mayonnaise.

Peas, string beans, lima beans, flageolets, carrots, cut into dice, and beets cut into dice, make a good combination.

No. 15. Aspic of vegetables en bellevue. Fill individual timbale molds with any or with different kinds of vegetables, then turn in enough aspic (see page 125) to cover them, and place them in the ice-box to set.

Use these forms on cold fish or meat dishes with mayonnaise under them. They require a dressing, but if it were mixed with the vegetables it would cloud the jelly.

No. 16. Cucumber and tomato salad. Peel the tomatoes, cut them in two, and cover each piece with mayonnaise. Place them on one side of a vegetable-dish, and on 121the other side place sliced cucumbers moistened with French dressing. Separate the two with crisp leaves of lettuce.

No. 17. Tomato and green pepper salad. Cut peeled tomatoes into slices three eighths of an inch thick. Cover them with a thick layer of chopped green peppers. Place them in the center of the dish with a border of crisp lettuce leaves. Moisten the whole with French dressing.

No. 18. Turnip cups with celery. Select turnips of uniform size and not too large. Cut off the tops to give a flat surface for the bottom of the cups. Cut a slice about two inches thick from each turnip. With a fluted knife pare the outside into rounding shape, then with a potato-scoop take out the centers and form a cup.

Leave the cups in water until ready to use; they will keep twenty-four hours or more in this way. Chop some parsley very fine and spread it on a board. Moisten the edges of the cups and press them on the parsley. This will give a green edge around the tops. Fill the cups with celery mayonnaise, or with any vegetable salad.

No. 19. Celery and apple salad. Cut a bunch of crisp white celery into small bits, add a chopped green pepper and a teaspoonful of chopped pimento. Mix it with mayonnaise. Cut into dice one quarter as much apple as you have of celery. Just before serving mix it with the celery, and the whole with whipped cream.

Pile the salad in a mound on a flat dish and garnish 122it with lettuce or other leaves and radishes. For one bunch of celery there will be needed two apples and a half pint of cream.

The celery is quickly prepared by cutting the stalks into strips one quarter of an inch thick, then laying them together in a pile and cutting them all together into lengths of one quarter of an inch or less. Tart apples of good flavor should be used. Remove the seeds and ribs of the green pepper and cut it into fine bits. Pimentos are Spanish red peppers and are very mild. They come in cans and can be bought at the grocer’s.

No. 20. Individual apple salad. Select apples that are best both in color and flavor. Take out the core carefully, using a pointed knife, and make the hollow on the stem end. An apple-corer can be used, in which case the end piece should be put back again to plug the bottom. The wall of the apple should be half an inch thick. Fill the hollowed out apple with creamed celery and apple mixture, as given on page 121, omitting the green pepper and pimento. Serve on individual plates with one white lettuce leaf at the side of each apple.

No. 21. Cabbage salad. Add to a cupful of cream the beaten yolks of two eggs, one teaspoonful of mustard, one half teaspoonful each of salt, pepper, and sugar, and half a tablespoonful of celery seeds. Put all this in a double boiler and stir until it thickens. Let it cool. When ready to serve add to the dressing a tablespoonful of vinegar and mix it with cabbage chopped fine. Serve in cabbage leaves as shown 123in illustration. Cold slaw may be served in the same way.

No. 22. Mashed potato salad. To a quart or a little more of mashed potatoes add three tablespoonfuls of oil, a teaspoonful each of onion juice and salt, a dash of nutmeg, one half teaspoonful of pepper, a tablespoonful of pickled beets chopped fine, a tablespoonful of cucumber pickle chopped fine, and a tablespoonful of vinegar taken from the pickled-beet jar. Beat all together until the potato is light. The beet vinegar will color it pink. If a deeper color is wanted add a little more of the red vinegar. The potato should be a moist purée. If the salad is too dry after the ingredients are in add a little soup stock or water. Shape into a mound without pressing it, and garnish it with slices of beets, pickles, and lettuce.

No. 23. Shad roe salad. Wash the roe carefully and place it in salted water. The water must not boil or it will break the skin. Simmer it for twenty minutes. After cooling cut it with a sharp knife into slices quarter of an inch thick. Place the slices, overlapping, on a dish. Garnish with lettuce leaves. Pour over the roe a plentiful amount of French dressing.

No. 24. Chicken salad. Cut cold chicken into half-inch dice, using both white and dark meat. Moisten it with French dressing. Cut tender celery into small dice and mix it with the chicken, using two thirds as much celery as there is of chicken. Mix the whole with mayonnaise. Form it into a mound. Cover it with mayonnaise. Decorate the mound as follows:

124Begin at the top and form four lines of chopped pickled beet, dividing the form into four sections. Follow the lines of beet with lines of chopped white of hard-boiled eggs. This will leave triangular spaces. Make another line of beets and fill the spaces left with the crumbed yolks of hard-boiled eggs. Outline the small triangular spaces with capers and finish the top with an olive and sprigs of parsley. Place lettuce leaves and slices of hard-boiled egg around the dish. Veal instead of chicken may be used in the same way. Lobster salad should be mixed with lettuce instead of celery.

No. 25. Chestnut salad. Mix together two cupfuls each of tart apples cut into half-inch dice, celery cut into small pieces, and boiled chestnuts cut into half-inch pieces.

Beat all this well together and stir until thickened. After it has cooled and just before serving add the dressing and a cupful of whipped cream to the salad mixture.

No. 26. Fruit salads. Fruits are sometimes mixed with mayonnaise and used as a salad.

The following mixtures may be used: Pineapple, oranges, and apples. Grape-fruit, oranges, and canned pears. Pineapple and banana. Apple and grape-fruit. Garnish with lettuce leaves.

CHICKEN ASPIC

Make a chicken stock as for chicken consommé, page 46. Use a knuckle of veal and as many quarts of water as you have pounds of meat. Remove the breast of the fowl when it is tender. Clarify the stock, and if it has not made a jelly firm enough to stand add a little gelatine,—a tablespoonful of granulated gelatine to a quart of stock will perhaps be more than enough, for the jelly must not be too hard, and the jellied stock may need but very little extra stiffness to make it hold its shape when molded.

Ornament the bottom of a ring-mold with slices of the white of hard-boiled egg cut into diamond-shaped pieces. Lay the pieces, with thin strips of egg between them, in a manner to imitate a wreath of leaves. A long pin will be useful in arranging the pieces of egg. Put the mold in a bowl of cracked ice, and with a spoon add a very little liquid jelly, taking care not to use enough to float the pieces of egg. When it has set sufficiently to hold the decoration in place add enough more jelly to make a layer a quarter of an inch thick. When the layer has stiffened, put in a layer of chicken breast cut into inch lengths, so the jelly will not be torn apart when being served, but place the pieces close together so they appear like large pieces. Add more jelly, letting it rise a quarter of an inch above the chicken; when that has stiffened, add another layer of chicken and fill the mold with jelly. Let the mold be level and have a smooth layer of gelatine on top, so when unmolded it will stand firm and even.

Fill the center of the ring with celery mayonnaise, or a macedoine vegetable salad.

ASPIC OF PÂTÉ DE FOIE GRAS

Make a chicken aspic as directed above. When a mold is used which has projections on top, as in illustration, the jelly must be made a little firmer than for a plain mold. Pour into the mold a layer of jelly, let it stiffen, and then add a layer of pâté de foie gras and a little jelly to set it. Then fill the mold with jelly. Care must be taken in unmolding this form, for if held a moment too long in hot water the points will fall off or lose shape.

CHICKEN MOUSSE

Put through a chopper cooked chicken, using the white or the dark meat, or both. Grind it a second time, if necessary, to make it very fine. If a meat-chopper is not at hand, chop it by hand, pound it to free the meat from the fiber, and rub it through a purée sieve.

Heat a cupful of chicken stock, pour it over the beaten yolks of three eggs, add a teaspoonful each of salt and celery salt, a dash of pepper and of paprika. Return it to the fire and stir until it has thickened like a boiled custard; add two tablespoonfuls of granulated gelatine which has soaked for an hour in a quarter cupful of cold chicken stock. When the gelatine has dissolved, remove it from the fire and add one and one half cupfuls of the fine chicken meat. When the mixture begins to thicken stir it perfectly smooth and fold in a half pint of cream whipped to a stiff froth. Turn it into a brick mold. The cream must not be added until the mixture begins to set, or the ingredients will settle into layers.

Line a pint brick mold with thin slices of larding pork. Pour in liver timbale mixture given on page 78. Fill the mold to within a quarter of an inch of the top. Cover it with slices of pork. Set it in a pan of water and cook in a slow oven for one hour, or until firm to the touch.

COLD SLICED MEATS

Illustration No. 109 shows an attractive way of serving cold meats. On the right are overlapping slices of cold tongue; on the left, slices of beef. A slice of tongue cut round is placed in the center to cover the spot where they meet. Slices of cold chicken are placed at right angles to the tongue and beef. Aspic jelly is placed in the four angles. The garnishing is sliced pickled beets cut into stars and hearts, and small pickles or gherkins sliced down to nearly the end, then spread into leaf shapes. The stars are placed on the sliced meat, the hearts on the dish in front of the jelly, with a slice of pickle on each side, and the leaf-like gherkins are in the center.

The aspic used in this dish was jellied stock made a little stiffer with gelatine.

Cold meats may also be attractively served by placing a socle made of hominy in the center of the dish, the top of the hominy ornamented with aspic or any garnishes, and the sliced meats laid around and against the socle.

GLAZED TONGUE

Boil a smoked or a fresh tongue until tender, then skin and trim it. While it is flexible skewer it into a good shape. Paint it with glaze (page 104).

Whip some butter with a fork until it is soft and very 128light. Place the whipped butter in a pastry-bag with star tube and press it through, outlining a figure on the sides of the tongue and down the middle.

Garnish the dish with parsley and a hard-boiled egg. Cut the white of the egg in strips lengthwise, leave the yolk whole, and arrange the pieces so they resemble a daisy.

Keep the garnished tongue in a cold place until ready to serve, in order to harden the butter.

BOILED HAM

Soak the ham overnight, with the rind side up. Thoroughly wash and scrape off any bad parts. Put it in sufficient cold water to cover it well. Add a bunch of soup vegetables and two bay-leaves. Boil it slowly, allowing twenty minutes to the pound, counting from the time the water begins to boil. It is done when the meat around the bone is tender. Place it on a board, peel off the skin, and by trimming make it smooth and shapely. Take a slice off the bottom, if necessary, to make it stand firmly. Serve it hot or cold.

In illustration No. 111 the ham after being trimmed is covered with cracker dust and sugar and placed in the oven to brown. The bone is covered with a pleated paper frill, and a lemon cut to imitate a pig (see page 16) is set on top.

In illustration No. 112 black pepper is placed in spots on the fat, and then with the finger is rubbed into regular circles. A whole clove is stuck in the center of each spot of pepper. If the ham is to be served cold the parts not covered by fat can be concealed with a layer of butter; the butter should be whipped until smooth and soft and then spread evenly with a knife. In this way the whole ham can be made smooth and the spots of pepper can be extended entirely over it.

129The bone is covered with a paper frill (page 14). The dish is garnished with slices of pickled beets stamped into rounds.

BONED HAM

Boil the ham as directed above. While it is still hot strip off the skin, then turn it over and remove the bone. If the ham is thoroughly cooked, the bone will come out easily. Make a cut down to and along the bone in the center of the under side, then work the knife around and close to the bone until the latter is loosened enough to be pulled out.

Lay the boned ham on a cloth, draw it together and sew the cloth around it, pressing the ham firmly together, and giving it a good shape. Place a board and heavy weights on the ham, and let it cool while under this pressure.

Remove the cloth. Trim it again, if necessary. Cover it with a meat glaze (see page 104). Garnish with a wreath of watercress.

COLD FISH

Garnished cold fish makes an ornamental and useful dish for buffet luncheons, and for summer service, when cold dishes of any kind are acceptable. Illustration No. 114 shows a bluefish boiled in upright position, covered with jellied mayonnaise and garnished with pickled beets, cranberries, and gherkins. It is placed on a layer of bread to raise it on the dish. To prepare the dish, place a carrot inside the fish to give it stability, then tie and prop it with vegetables on the kettle-strainer, in the position desired. Boil it slowly, allowing ten minutes to the pound. Put soup vegetables, a bay-leaf, and two tablespoonfuls of vinegar in the water. When cooked, lift the fish out carefully and let it get cold before removing it from the strainer.

Take off the skin and cover it with a mayonnaise made as 130follows: Heat a cupful of clear beef or chicken stock, and dissolve in it one and a half tablespoonfuls of granulated gelatine which has soaked for an hour in half a cupful of cold water. When it has cooled add half a cupful of oil, a tablespoonful of vinegar or of lemon juice, half a teaspoonful of salt, a dash of pepper, and the beaten yolk of an egg. When it begins to set spread it over the fish with a knife. It will give a smooth, polished yellow covering. Garnish with slices of pickled beets stamped into various shapes.

Bass, salmon, bluefish, and halibut are good varieties to serve cold. They may be masked with the aspic mayonnaise given above, or with a plain, thick mayonnaise, or with tartare sauce, or with maître d’hôtel butter. The covering should be spread with a knife to make it smooth, and the fish kept in a cool place until the time of serving. Hard-boiled eggs, capers, pickles, lettuce, watercress, and parsley are suitable garnishes.

JELLIED CUTLETS

Cut cold boiled sheepshead or other fish into flat, even pieces, each piece a size suitable for one portion. Lay them in a pan, leaving spaces between them. Place on each piece a thin slice of hard-boiled egg, then pour over them just enough aspic jelly to cover them. The aspic should have a little lemon juice or vinegar mixed with it to make it tart. When the jelly is set, cut the pieces apart with a sharp knife and arrange them on a dish with creamed horseradish sauce.

FISH IN THE GARDEN

Skin a cold boiled trout, bass, or other fish. Cover it with mayonnaise, or with maître d’hôtel butter. Garnish it with aspic jelly and surround it with vegetables molded in jelly as in illustration No. 6. Use peas, beans, celery, etc.

Cover a thick piece of boiled halibut with mayonnaise. Sprinkle the top with chopped capers. Garnish it with potato salad, the potatoes being cut into balls.

CHEESE

CREAM CHEESE WITH BAR-LE-DUC CURRANTS

Beat with a fork a square of Philadelphia cream cheese, or of domestic Neufchâtel, until it is light and smooth. Whip three tablespoonfuls of cream to a stiff froth. Mix the cheese and whipped cream together lightly and pile the mixture on a dish in which it is to be served. Put it in a cool place. Just before serving pour over it a glassful of Bar-le-Duc red currants.

FARINA CROQUETTES

Put two cupfuls of milk and half a teaspoonful of salt into a double boiler. When the milk is hot add half a cupful of farina, and moisten with a little milk to make it smooth. Cook about twenty minutes, or until it is well thickened, then add the yolk of an egg. When it is cold mold it into small croquettes. Roll the croquettes in egg and white bread crumbs, or cracker dust, and fry in smoking-hot fat to a bright yellow color.

HUCKLEBERRY PUDDING

Mix well the sugar, salt, and baking powder with the flour, then rub in a teaspoonful of butter, and stir in quickly enough milk to make a batter which will drop from the spoon. Add the berries well floured, and turn the mixture into a greased quart pudding-mold. Steam or boil it for half an hour.

136It should be mixed quickly and the water should not be allowed to fall below the boiling-point while the pudding is cooking. Serve with any pudding sauce.

CHOCOLATE BREAD PUDDING

Scald the milk and turn it over the bread, broken into small pieces. Let it soak until the bread is soft, then beat it with a fork to a smooth pulp and add the chocolate, melted, the sugar, vanilla, and yolk of the egg, also a dash of salt. Lastly fold in the white of the egg whipped to a stiff froth.

COCOANUT BREAD PUDDING

Pour a cupful of scalded milk over a cupful of broken bits of crumb of bread. Let the bread soak until softened, then beat it to smoothness. Add a cupful of grated cocoanut, half a cupful of sugar, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, and the yolks of two eggs. Mix well, and then add the whites of the eggs whipped to a stiff froth. Bake in a moderate oven for thirty minutes. Serve hot or cold.

FIG PUDDING

Weigh three eggs; take the same weight of butter, sugar, figs, and of crumb of bread. Chop the figs, put a little hot water on them, and cook them to a pulp. Grate the bread to very fine crumbs. Mix together the butter and sugar, 137add the yolks of the eggs, then the figs and the crumbs, and lastly the whites of the eggs whipped to a stiff froth. Turn the mixture into a covered quart mold, and steam for two and a half hours; or put it into individual timbale molds, set them into a pan of water, cover them with a greased paper, and cook in an oven for thirty minutes, or until firm to the touch. At the moment of serving pour over them a little rum or brandy and light it with a taper.

GREEN-GAGE PUDDING

Butter well a quart granite-ware basin. Arrange on the bottom a layer of green-gage plums (California canned plums), then fill the dish heaping full of the crumb of stale bread cut into dice. Beat two eggs enough to break them, and mix them with two cupfuls of milk. Pour the egg and milk mixture slowly over the bread with a spoon, so the bread will soak up the liquid. Set the pudding-dish in a pan of water and bake in a moderate oven for thirty minutes. Let it stand a few minutes, then invert it on a dish and do not lift it off the tin for a few minutes longer. Serve with a sauce made of a cupful of juice from the can, with a heaping tablespoonful of sugar added to it and then boiled until clear.

TAPIOCA PUDDING WITH PRUNES

Soak three tablespoonfuls of tapioca in cold water for two hours. Use two and a half cupfuls of water. Stew dried prunes until they begin to swell. Add to the soaked tapioca (there should be four heaping tablespoonfuls of it) three tablespoonfuls of sugar, one teaspoonful of butter, and two cupfuls of milk or water. Spread a layer of prunes over the bottom of a quart pudding-dish, then fill the dish with 138the tapioca mixture and bake it twenty-five to thirty-five minutes in a slow oven.

SAUTÉD BANANAS

Select bananas that are not quite ripe. Peel and cut them in two lengthwise. Put a tablespoonful of butter in a sauté-pan; when it bubbles add a tablespoonful of sugar and lay in the bananas. When the bananas are tender take them out carefully and lay them in an even row on a hot dish. Add half a cupful of cream to the pan and mix it well with the butter and sugar. The sugar should be cooked enough to give a caramel flavor. Add two or three tablespoonfuls of sherry, or just enough to take away the very sweet taste. Pour this sauce over the bananas.

BAKED BANANAS, No. 1

Select bananas that are not quite ripe, detach the skins. Bake the bananas in the skins for twenty to thirty minutes, or until tender but not soft. Turn them out of the skins, lay them in an even row on a hot dish, and pour over them some melted currant jelly.

BAKED BANANAS, No. 2

Mix two tablespoonfuls of butter with three tablespoonfuls of sugar and two tablespoonfuls of lemon juice, and place it on the fire to melt the butter. Peel bananas and lay them uncut in a baking-pan; pour over them the buttered mixture and bake them until tender, basting them frequently. Place them in an even row on a flat dish and pour over them the liquor from the pan.

BAKED QUINCES

Peel and core the quinces, then cut them in halves and bake them in a pan with a very little water until tender.

139When they are cooked, spread the tops with butter and a plentiful amount of sugar. Serve hot. Pass butter and sugar.

SOUFFLÉS

Soufflés are one of the most elegant dessert dishes. They are esteemed for their delicacy rather than their richness, and the difficulty in making them gives them distinction, as they are usually presented only from the hand of an expert cook. There is no reason, however, that any one should not succeed in making a perfect soufflé, though it is one of the popular delusions that they are very difficult to make. With intelligent care about the heat of the oven, a soufflé can be made with less trouble than is given to many other simple desserts. The whites of eggs must be beaten until filled with air. They are then placed in a moderate oven, where the heated air expands and puffs up the whole mass. The baking is continued until the air-cells are enough hardened to support the weight, and the dish must be served at once and before the imprisoned air cools and the mass collapses.

STRAWBERRY SOUFFLÉ

Beat to a stiff, dry froth the whites of as many eggs as needed, allowing one white for each person and one for the dish, then fold in lightly enough strawberry jam to sweeten it; or use strawberry pulp and sugar. Turn it into a pudding-dish and bake in a moderate oven for twenty minutes. Serve at once. The soufflé must go directly from the oven to the table.

FRUIT AND OTHER SOUFFLÉS

To the whipped whites of eggs may be added half the number of yolks and powdered sugar enough to sweeten, or chocolate, or any jam, or softened jelly, or fruit juice, or 140the pulp of any fruit with the juice drained off. Fruit must be pressed through a purée sieve to make the pulp fine and soft.

BURNING PEACHES

Place California canned whole peaches and the juice in a deep dish. Just before serving pour over them some brandy or rum and light it with a taper.

BURNING CHERRIES

COLD DESSERTS

APPLES RICHELIEU

Take out the cores of well-flavored apples and cut them crosswise into halves. Simmer them in sugar and water until tender. Let them cool. Lay several pieces of sliced blanched almonds straight, at regular intervals, upon the flat sides of the apples. Sprinkle them with powdered sugar and set them in the oven a minute to brown the sugar. Place candied cherries cut in halves upon the apples between the almonds. Just before serving put spoonfuls of whipped cream at intervals on a flat dish and place the cold apples upon the cream; or press the cream through a pastry-bag in circles around the apples.

STEWED APPLES, No. 1

Select apples of uniform size and shape. Remove the cores and peel them carefully. Put them into hot water with sugar 141and lemon juice. Cook them slowly until tender, but not so long that they lose shape. When they are cold fill the centers with sweetened and flavored boiled rice and cover them with apricot or any jam. Sprinkle them with blanched almonds cut in strips.

STEWED APPLES, No. 2

Prepare the apples as for No. 1. Fill the centers with well-flavored apple purée, or with apple jelly mixed with chopped raisins. Sprinkle them with granulated sugar and stick into them blanched almonds cut into strips and slightly browned.

Apple purée and apple jelly can be made from the parings and cores of the apples. Put these trimmings in a saucepan with a little water and cook them to a pulp. Press the pulp through a sieve for the purée, or strain it through a cloth for the juice. Return the juice to the fire, let it boil a minute, then add half a pound of hot sugar to a cupful of juice. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, and boil until a few drops put on a cold plate jelly. Turn it into glasses to set.

BAKED APPLES

Peel and core good-flavored, tart apples. Put a small piece of butter in each one and sprinkle them with sugar so they will brown well. Put them in a pan with a little water and bake until tender, then remove and put on each one two drops of almond extract. Add a little sugar to the water in the pan and cook it down to a thick syrup, then strain it slowly over the apples to glaze them; or stick three cloves into each apple before baking them, and omit the almond extract; or fill the centers with the sugar, lemon peel, and stick cinnamon before baking, or with blanched almonds and raisins after baking.

Put a pound of pulled figs in a bowl and cover them with water. Let them soak for several hours, or until they are softened and expanded, then press each one into natural shape and pile them on a dish. Take the water in which they were soaked, add enough sugar to sweeten it, and a thick slice of lemon. Boil it until it is a good syrup, then pour it over the figs. Let the figs cool before serving. Or to each cupful of fig water add a cupful of sugar and boil it to the crack, then pour it slowly over the figs. This will give them a coating of sugar. Serve with whipped cream flavored with kirsch.

The figs, being very sweet, are improved by using a flavoring which is sharp like lemon or kirsch. If lemon is used, pour the juice over the figs, as it will curdle the cream if mixed with it.

COMPOTE OF APRICOTS

Prepare dried apricots the same as directed for compote of pears. Place half a blanched almond in the center of each piece to imitate a pit.

COMPOTE OF PEARS

Soak dried California pears in water overnight, or for several hours until they swell to natural shape. Arrange them symmetrically on a dish, or around a form of rice, as in illustration. To the water in which the pears were soaked add enough sugar to make it sweet, and boil it down to a syrup, then add a teaspoonful of lemon juice. Pour the hot syrup over the fruit. Serve cold.

Cut bananas into slices one quarter of an inch thick. Arrange them in a pile in the center of the dish and place around them spoonfuls of whipped cream. The cream may be flavored with sherry or vanilla, but use no sugar, as the fruit is sweet enough without it.

STRAWBERRIES AND CREAM

Mix enough sugar with cream to sweeten it thoroughly, and then whip it until it is stiff and dry. A half pint of cream is enough for a quart of berries. When ready to serve, mix the berries in the cream and serve them piled on a flat dish.

PEACHES AND CREAM

Cut peeled peaches into slices and put them in the ice-box. Add as much sugar to a half pint of cream as will be needed to sweeten the peaches. Whip the cream to a stiff froth. At the moment of serving, mix together lightly the peaches and cream; or an hour or more before serving, mix the cream and fruit, put it in a covered mold, and pack in ice and salt. Use but little salt, for the object is to make the peaches very cold, but not to freeze them.

BREAD AND JAM TARTLETS

Cut very light bread into slices one quarter of an inch thick. Stamp these pieces into rounds with a biscuit-cutter. Put them in a sauté-pan with a little butter, and brown them on both sides. When they are cool, spread them with any kind of jam or preserved fruit, and just before serving ornament them with whipped cream pressed through a pastry-bag and star tube.

Cut quarter-inch slices of bread into rounds and moisten them with sherry or maraschino. Pile chopped pineapple in cone shape on each round of bread. Canned, fresh, or stewed pineapple may be used. Dilute the juice strained from the fruit with a little water, and sweeten it to taste. Add a teaspoonful of arrowroot moistened with cold water to a cupful of pineapple liquor. Boil it until thickened, then with a spoon pour it slowly over the cones. Serve hot or cold.

CORNSTARCH PUDDINGS

Dissolve two heaping tablespoonfuls of cornstarch in a little cold water or milk and turn it slowly, stirring all the time, into a pint of scalding milk in a double boiler; add three tablespoonfuls of sugar and a dash of salt. Stir until it is thickened, then let it cook for half an hour, or until it has lost the raw taste of the starch, then add the whipped whites of two eggs and a half teaspoonful of vanilla, and cook it a few minutes longer to set the eggs.

No. 1. The cornstarch is molded in cups; when unmolded a piece is taken out of the top of each one, and the holes are filled with currant jelly, and jelly is placed on the dish around the individual puddings. This gives a good sauce as well as a nice effect of color. Any jelly, jam, or preserved fruits may be used in place of the currant jelly.

No. 2. Lay a line of seeded raisins on the bottom of a ring-mold before turning in the cornstarch; or mix with the cornstarch some chopped citron, currants, and raisins. Fill the center of the ring with whipped cream, or with plain boiled custard.

145No. 3. Mold the cornstarch in a bowl. Decorate it with candied cherries and angelica. Serve with it cream, sweetened milk, custard, or preserved fruit.

No. 4. Add to the cornstarch two squares of melted chocolate and a tablespoonful of sugar. Decorate the mold with split blanched almonds. Dip the almonds in a little half-set gelatine to make them adhere to the mold. Put the mold into hot water for a second to soften the gelatine before unmolding the pudding. Serve with whipped cream or sweetened milk.

PEACH PUDDING

Cover the bottom of a pudding-dish with canned peaches. Take half the juice from the can, add to it two tablespoonfuls of sugar, and boil it to a thick syrup.

Make a custard, using two cupfuls of milk, the yolks of two eggs, and a heaping tablespoonful of cornstarch. Cook in a double boiler for half an hour, or until it is quite thick and the raw taste of the cornstarch is gone, then add a little of the peach syrup to sweeten it, and a few drops of almond extract. Sprinkle the peaches with blanched almonds cut in pieces, pour over them the syrup, then the custard. Cover the top with meringue made of the whites of two eggs and three tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Brown the meringue. Serve the pudding hot or cold.

TAPIOCA PUDDING

146Soak the tapioca in cold water for several hours or overnight. Boil the soaked tapioca in the milk until it is soft, then add the beaten yolks of the eggs, the sugar, cream, and wine, and lastly the whipped whites of the eggs.

Turn the mixture into a pudding-dish. Set the dish in a pan of water and bake twenty to twenty-five minutes. Serve cold.

RICE PRUNE PUDDING

Spread stewed prunes over the bottom of a basin or mold, then fill the mold with boiled rice. Press the rice in just hard enough to make it hold its shape. Turn it out of the mold and serve it hot or cold, with the sweetened juice of the prunes as sauce; or press the rice into a bowl or mold, and arrange the prunes around the form after it is unmolded, as in illustration No. 129; or arrange it as in illustration No. 130.

JELLIED APPLE PUDDING

Add to one and a half cupfuls of strained stewed apples the juice of an orange, the grated rind and juice of half a lemon, three tablespoonfuls of sherry, three quarters of a cupful of sugar, and two tablespoonfuls of granulated gelatine which has been soaked for an hour in half a cupful of cold water and then dissolved in half a cupful of hot water. Stir the mixture until it begins to thicken, then fold in the whites of three eggs whipped to a stiff froth, or a half-pint of whipped cream. Turn it into a mold.

PINEAPPLE PUDDING

Grate a pineapple fine. Mix well together a cupful of sugar and four eggs, then mix them with the pineapple pulp. Turn the mixture into a mold, set the mold into a pan of water and bake it slowly until stiffened like a baked custard. 147When cold unmold it and decorate it with whipped cream.

SAVARINS

Take some brioche dough (page 209) and add enough milk to make it almost soft enough to drop from the spoon. Add sugar, raisins, chopped citron, and a little lemon juice. Work all well together.

Butter some earthen cups, sprinkle them with sliced blanched almonds, half fill the cups with the savarin dough, and let it rise to double in size. Bake in a hot oven.

Turn them out of the molds, and while they are warm dip them in a syrup made of one cupful of sugar syrup, three tablespoonfuls each of kirsch, maraschino, and curaçao, or flavor with any other liqueurs preferred. When the savarins are well soaked place them on a sieve to drain.

BABAS

Take brioche dough prepared as for savarins, and mix with it candied fruits cut into small dice. Butter baba-molds, fill them half full of the mixture, let them rise to double in size, and bake in a hot oven.

Soak the babas in sugar syrup flavored with rum and drain. Place a candied cherry on each one.

COFFEE MOUSSE

148Soak the gelatine in the cold water for an hour, then dissolve it in the hot water and add the sugar. When the sugar is dissolved add a cupful of cold, strong, clear coffee. Put the mixture on ice and whip it until it becomes light and frothy and has begun to stiffen, then add the whipped cream and turn it into a mold. The gelatine must be thoroughly whipped, as for snow pudding, and the liquid drained from the whipped cream must not go in. This will make about one and one half quarts of mousse.

PEACH MOUSSE

Use fresh or canned peaches. Mash and rub them through a colander. Add to a cupful of peach pulp half a teaspoonful of lemon juice, a few drops of almond extract, and enough sugar to sweeten it. Dissolve in quarter of a cupful of hot peach juice one and three quarter tablespoonfuls of granulated gelatine which has been soaked for an hour in half a cupful of cold water. Add the gelatine to the peach mixture. When it begins to set, mix it until smooth, then fold in a half pint of cream whipped to a stiff froth, and turn it into a mold. Serve with whipped cream. The cream can be used to decorate the dish by pressing it through a pastry-bag.

Boil for five minutes a pound of French chestnuts, drain off the water and remove the shells and skins. Return the chestnuts to the fire and boil them until tender. Put the boiled chestnuts in a mortar, and pound them to a paste, then add a teaspoonful of vanilla and a teaspoonful of lemon juice. Make a thick sugar syrup, and beat it into the paste, using enough to sweeten to taste. Grease a ring-mold with oil, and put into it a lining half an inch thick of the 150chestnut paste pressed through a pastry-bag with a tube of small opening so it will come out vermicelli-like in form. Fill the rest of the mold with plain paste. Turn it on to a layer of sponge-cake. Just before serving fill the center of the ring with whipped cream flavored with almond.

CHESTNUT BAVARIAN

Prepare chestnuts as directed for chestnut purée. To two cupfuls of the purée add one ounce of gelatine which has been soaked for an hour in half a cupful of cold water and then dissolved in half a cupful of hot water. Mix well, and when it begins to stiffen add a pint of cream whipped to a stiff froth, and turn the mixture into a ring-mold to harden. Fill the center with whipped cream, or with chestnuts boiled in sugar and water until they look clear.

CHARLOTTE RUSSE

Mix the sugar with the yolks of the eggs. Scald the milk and pour it over them. Place it on the fire and stir until the eggs are cooked, but not thickened like a custard, then add the gelatine, which has been soaked for an hour in half a cupful of cold water. When the gelatine is dissolved remove it from the fire, add the vanilla, and let it get cold. When the mixture begins to thicken add the cream whipped to a stiff froth, and turn it into a mold lined with lady-fingers or with slices of sponge-cake.

STRAWBERRY CHARLOTTE RUSSE, No. 1

Soak the gelatine in the water for an hour, then set it in a pan of hot water to dissolve. Add to the crushed berries the powdered sugar, lemon juice, and gelatine. Put it aside for a while. When it begins to stiffen, beat it until it is light and spongy, then mix in the whipped cream, being careful not to pour in any of the liquid cream that may have drained to the bottom of the dish. Turn the mixture into a charlotte-mold lined with lady-fingers. When it is unmolded garnish it with whole strawberries.

STRAWBERRY CHARLOTTE RUSSE, No. 2

Line a china or earthen bowl or mold with strawberries cut in halves, and with the flat side of the berries placed close together against the mold. Arrange one or two rows at a time, and then turn in the mixture to keep them in place. Fill the mold with the same mixture used in No. 1; or fill the mold with plain charlotte-russe filling, or with Bavarian cream.

HOW TO MAKE MERINGUES

Put a dash of salt into the whites of five or six eggs and whip them until very stiff and dry, then add slowly a quarter of a cupful of sifted powdered sugar for each egg. The sugar should be placed, a little at a time, at the end of the platter, and gradually whipped in. Continue to whip until 151the mixture is firm enough to stand without spreading, and any little point left by the beater remains erect. Success depends on the eggs being sufficiently beaten.

The mixture can be made into various shapes with a spoon, but is better molded by being pressed through a pastry-bag. The tops can be smoothed and any irregularities effaced with a clean wet knife. The shapes should be arranged on paper placed on inverted baking-tins, and set in a moderate oven to form a thin crust, and to color lightly the tops, and then placed on the hot shelf of the range to dry. If the meringues stick to the paper, they can be easily removed by wetting the paper slightly.

MERINGUE RING

Place meringue mixture (see above) in a pastry-bag with star-tube. Draw on heavy paper two rings four to six inches in diameter, according to size desired. Any round utensil of right size can be used for guide. Press the meringue through the tube, following the circles marked on the paper. One of the rings—the top one—should be made more ornamental than the other. This is easily done by moving the tube while the mixture is passing through it. With a wet knife make a narrow, smooth, flat surface on the top of the under ring. Lay the papers holding the rings on inverted baking-tins, and put them in a moderate oven for a few minutes to color them and form a crust. Watch carefully that they do not get too brown. When lightly colored, remove them to the hot shelf to dry. When they are sufficiently firm take them carefully off the paper, turn them over, break in the bottoms, then return them to the shelf to continue the drying. Place one ring on top of the other, and just before serving fill the center with whipped cream.

Meringues may be kept for some time, but in that case should be freshened by heating before being used.

152If preferred, the upper piece can be made into a cover as in illustration No. 139.

MERINGUE CREAM TART, No. 1

Make meringues (see page 150) of oblong shape, three inches long and two inches wide. After the tops are firm, break in the bottoms in order to dry the insides.

Trim the edges of a round layer of sponge-cake, spread it with jam of any kind, arrange the meringues around it, and at the moment of serving fill the center of the tart with whipped cream. Flavor the cream, if desired. It will take a dozen meringues to make the crown.

Arrange the crown as follows: Put half a cupful of sugar and a quarter cupful of hot water into a saucepan and stir until the sugar dissolves, then let it cook, without stirring, until a little dropped into cold water is brittle; it is then boiled to the crack. Draw the saucepan to the side of the range, so the sugar will be kept hot without cooking any more.

Dip the end of a meringue into the sugar and place it on the cake; hold it in place while you dip a second meringue and place it under the first one. Proceed in this way until all are placed, then put a drop of the boiled sugar on the top of each one where it touches the next one. The whole will then be held firmly in place.

MERINGUE CREAM TART, No. 2

Make meringue mixture into small kisses, leaving the point left by the tube erect.

Spread a layer of cake with jam as in No. 1. Stick a candied cherry on the point of each kiss and arrange them as shown in illustration. Fill the center with whipped cream.

Make oblong-shaped meringues, as for cream tart No. 1. Just before serving, fill them with whipped cream, or with ice cream, and press two together. If necessary, use a little white of egg on the edges to make them adhere.

CHOCOLATE CREAM

Scald two cupfuls of milk. Melt on a dry pan two squares of unsweetened chocolate, add the hot milk slowly to the chocolate, stirring all the time. Let it come to the boiling-point. Beat two whole eggs and two yolks with four tablespoonfuls of sugar, stir the milk and chocolate into the eggs, add half a teaspoonful of vanilla and a dash of salt. Turn the mixture into a mold, set it into a pan of hot water, and cook in a slow oven until it is firm. In order to have it smooth and solid it must bake slowly. Test it by running in the point of a knife; if it is not cooked, it will coat the knife with milk.

CHOCOLATE SPONGE

Make the same mixture as for chocolate cream. Instead of cooking it slowly, put it into a hot oven and cook it until the whey appears. By cooking in a hot oven it will be full of holes and have a sponge-like appearance. When cold, unmold it and let the whey escape. Serve with whipped cream.

BAVARIAN CREAM GARNISHED WITH CREAM-CAKES

Make a Bavarian cream (see “Century Cook Book,” page 400), and turn it into a flat tin to harden. Have it about half an inch thick. When it is set, cut it into pieces two and 154a half to three inches square, and arrange them, overlapping, in the center of a dish. Place around them small cream-cakes of one inch in diameter.

Cornstarch pudding, jelly, or any mixture firm enough to be sliced can be served in this way. Left-over jelly can be melted and molded again in a layer, or it may be combined with custard, cream, crumbed cake, or anything suitable that may be at hand, and turned into a layer-tin to stiffen; then cut and serve as above. Any small cakes or sliced cake cut into rounds may be substituted for the cream-cakes.

Chocolate Bavarian garnished with small cakes covered with white icing makes a good combination.

PIES AND TARTS

PUFF-PASTE

Puff-paste is made of equal weights of butter and flour. The flour is made into a paste, the butter is worked until it is flexible, and they are then rolled together and folded several times so that many distinct layers of butter and paste are obtained. During the rolling air is imprisoned, and in baking the air-cells expand, separate the layers, and so inflate the pastry.

In order to effect this result, it is necessary to keep the pastry dry and cold, and the butter cold, so that they will not mix in rolling, but be pressed into thin sheets. Careful handling is necessary. Many failures are the result of pressing the paste in spots with the fingers, which prevents its rising evenly, if at all. A marble slab is desirable for rolling the paste on, as it helps to keep it cold.

Put the flour on the slab, chop into it, using a knife, one sixth of the butter, then moisten it with the water into which has been stirred the beaten white of one egg. The exact amount of water cannot be given, as that depends upon the dryness of the flour, but care must be taken to have the paste of the right consistency. It should be neither too hard to roll easily, nor so soft that it will stick, but have a flexible, dry consistency. Work it for a few minutes with the hands to a perfect smoothness. Roll it to a rectangular shape (a little longer than broad), and about a half inch in thickness. The paste can be handled with impunity at this stage, and care should be taken to roll it to an even thickness and to have the edges straight and the corners square. When just right, fold it over, wrap it in a napkin, put it in a pan, and place the pan upon ice.

Work the butter with a spoon or a pat until it is smooth and flexible, and press out as much of the water it contains as possible, as this wets the paste and may make it sticky. Mold the butter into a smooth, flattened square cake and set it on ice.

When the paste and the butter are perfectly cold lay the paste on the slab, place the cake of butter in the center, and fold the paste over it, first on the sides, and then the ends. 156The paste should be long enough to fold the end pieces entirely across the cake of butter. Roll it out into a strip three times longer than broad. Rolling is made easier by lightly pounding as well as rolling the paste. Keep the edges even, and finish by having the corners square and the whole of uniform thickness. Fold the strip twice, making three even layers, and place it on the ice again, wrapped in a napkin, to prevent it from gathering moisture. When it is entirely cold, roll it out again and fold it in the same way. Strike the edges to keep the folds from separating, and turn the paste so as to roll it in the opposite direction from the previous time. Endeavor to keep the edges straight and corners square, so the layers will be even. After each folding and rolling, it is said to have one “turn,” and the pastry is not finished until it has had six to eight turns. The rolling becomes more difficult as the layers get thinner, and great care must be used not to let the butter break through. This will happen if it is not kept very cold; so, unless the rolling is done in a very cold room, it is safer to put it on the ice after each turn. If the butter shows signs of coming through, cover the spot with flour, and set it away at once.

The paste should also be very cold when cut into shapes, so that the edges will not stick together; and again, it should be very cold before being put into the oven.

The oven should be hot. A simple test of the heat is to place a piece of writing-paper in the oven for ten minutes. If at the end of that time the paper is a light yellow, the heat is right for vol-au-vent and large pieces. If it is a light-brown color, it is about the heat used for baking bread, and is right for patty-shells.

After a little practice the making of puff-paste becomes an easy matter. The rolling need not be done all in one day, for if the paste is kept dry and cold, and not allowed to form a crust, it will keep for several days. So many high-class 157dishes can be made of puff-paste, it is desirable to accomplish the art of making it.

JAM TART

Tart cases may be prepared the same as vol-au-vent cases, page 71, except that the paste should be rolled not more than half an inch thick when ready to be cut; or, instead of cutting the border in the paste, as for vol-au-vents, a strip of paste one inch wide may be laid around the edge. The strips should be cut diagonally on the ends, and these edges moistened so they will stick together where joined. Lay the strip carefully around the slightly moistened border of the bottom piece, paint the top with egg, and bake in a hot oven for thirty minutes. Remove carefully the top of the center, and take out any uncooked paste, return it to the oven to dry the inside.

Before using, heat the tart again to make it crisp, and when cool spread the inside with a layer of any kind of jam or preserved fruit, put on the center piece, which was taken off to get out the uncooked paste, and cover the entire center with jam. Serve it on a lace paper.

TARTLET SHELLS

Use puff-paste trimmings. Roll the paste thin, shape it to the pans, being careful to press the paste as little as possible. Trim the edges with a sharp knife. Put a piece of paper in the bottom of each one, and fill the tartlet cases with dried peas, beans, or rice, and bake in a hot oven ten to fifteen minutes. When well browned, remove the filling, being particularly careful, if rice is used, that every grain is picked off the crusts. Return the shells to the oven for a minute to dry the insides.

158These shells can be kept for some time, but should be freshened before using by being heated again. Fill them, just before serving, with any kind of jam or preserve, or with any freshly stewed fruits, or with creamed minced meat.

STRAWBERRY TARTLETS

Use tartlet shells made of any good pastry, puff-paste trimmings preferred. Just before serving, freshen the shells by heating them, if they have been kept some time, and fill with stewed fresh strawberries. Serve the juice separately in a sauce-dish.

To prepare the strawberries, put them in a saucepan and cover them with enough sugar to sweeten them. Let them stand in a warm place until the juice moistens the sugar. Cook them slowly until the berries are softened, but not so long that they lose their shape.

FRANGIPANE TARTLETS

Line patty-pans with puff-paste rolled one quarter of an inch thick. Cut the paste an inch larger than the pans, and fit it as carefully as possible, pressing it lightly with the broad finger into the flutings. Prick the bottom crust and lay on it a slice of bread cut to the size of the bottom of the pan. This is to prevent the bottom crust from rising and to leave the sides to puff, as the light pastry is an important part of these tartlets. Bake in a hot oven about fifteen minutes. When done remove any uncooked paste and fill with frangipane cream. Cover the whole top with meringue, piling it high in the center, and smooth it with a wet knife. Make a border one half an inch wide of chopped almonds which have been blanched and browned. Place in the center a half cherry and two pieces of angelica to imitate a flower.

Put the cream and flour in a small saucepan and stir until smooth, place on the fire a few minutes to cook the flour, stirring all the time. Remove from the fire, and when it is a little cooled add all the other ingredients. Set the saucepan in a second saucepan containing hot water and cook, stirring all the time, until the mixture has become a thick cream.

FRUIT TARTLETS

Prepare tartlet shells as for frangipane tartlets. Half fill the shells with frangipane cream, cover each one with half a California canned peach or apricot, and decorate around the outside of the fruit with meringue pressed through a pastry-bag.

JALOUSIES

Roll puff-paste trimmings into a sheet one eighth of an inch thick. Cut it into strips three inches wide. Lay half of the strips on a baking-sheet and spread them with a layer of well-seasoned and quite dry apple sauce. Cover them with the remaining strips, which have been slashed into triangular openings by being folded over and cut on the folded side an inch deep in diagonal lines. Egg the tops and bake in a 160hot oven. When done, sprinkle with sugar and return them to the oven for a minute to glaze. Cut the strips after they are baked into pieces three inches long.

CRANBERRY PIE

Add to half a cupful of hot water a cupful of sugar and a tablespoonful of cornstarch diluted with a little water. Stir until the water boils, then add half a cupful of molasses, half a tablespoonful of butter, a saltspoonful of salt, and a pint of chopped cranberries. Cook for a few minutes, then turn it into the pastry and bake with or without an upper crust.

COCOANUT PIE

Grate a cocoanut. Mix it with an equal weight of sugar and the beaten yolks of four eggs. Mix together and scald a cupful of milk and the milk of the cocoanut. Add a tablespoonful of cornstarch diluted with a little water, and stir it until it is a little thickened. Remove it from the fire, add the cocoanut mixture, and lastly the whipped whites of four eggs. Turn it into a deep pie-paste and bake very slowly for half an hour, or until firm to the touch. Serve cold.

The cocoanut filling should be one and a half or one and three quarter inches thick. A kitchen basin may be used for the baking-dish, or the crust can be built up around a pie-dish to make it deeper.

CURRANT PIE

Add to a cupful of mashed currants a cupful of sugar, half a teaspoonful of butter, the yolk of an egg, and if there is much juice a tablespoonful of flour. Bake with an under-crust only, and cover the top with meringue.

Beat together the yolks of three eggs and the white of one egg, then add, in the following order, the sugar, the flour, the butter, and the milk. Lastly, add very slowly the juice and grated rind of lemon. Turn the mixture into a pie-dish lined with a bottom crust and bake it slowly until it is set like a custard. Do not let it cook too long, or, like custard, it will become watery.

Make a meringue of the whites of two eggs. Beat them to a stiff froth, then add slowly two tablespoonfuls of sugar. Spread the meringue roughly over the pie when it is taken from the oven, and return it to the oven for a minute to color the meringue. The top may be made more ornamental by pressing the meringue through a pastry-bag on to the pie.

LEMON PIE, No. 2

Put into a saucepan on the fire one cupful of sugar and one cupful of water. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then add two cupfuls of grated crumb of bread and the juice and grated rind of two lemons. Stir until the mixture is smooth, then add the beaten yolks of two eggs and remove it from the fire. Turn the mixture into a baked under-crust, and bake the pie for ten to fifteen minutes.

Cover the top with meringue made of the whites of three eggs and three tablespoonfuls of sugar.

Make two layers of sponge-cake, trim the edges, cover them with well-selected strawberries set close together, sprinkle with sugar, and place one layer on the other. Pass cream in a pitcher.

Prepare the cake as in No. 1, but cover the top with whipped cream pressed through a pastry-bag.

Use a single layer of cake, cover it with meringue, then with strawberries placed close together, and decorate with meringue pressed through a pastry-bag with star-tube, making a border, or a border and stars between the berries.

For the meringue use the whites of three eggs and four tablespoonfuls of sugar. Flavor it with a few drops of vanilla. Prepare the cake just before serving it.

CURRANT SHORTCAKE

This shortcake will be liked as well as, if not better than, one made of strawberries. The latter has an established reputation, which is based largely upon its attractive appearance, but, as a rule, it is disappointing to the taste. Shortcake can be made quite as inviting with currants as with strawberries, and the tartness of the fruit gives it a flavor which is especially grateful in hot weather, when currants are in season.

Make a biscuit dough as follows: Sift together twice two cupfuls of flour, one and a half teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, and a half teaspoonful of salt (they must be thoroughly mixed). When this is done, rub in one rounded teaspoonful of butter or lard or cottolene, then add enough milk to make a soft dough. Use a fork to stir in the milk. Mix it lightly and quickly together, making the paste a little too soft to 163roll. Turn it into a well-greased pie-tin, smooth the top with a wet knife, and put it at once into a hot oven to bake for thirty minutes. When it is taken from the oven trim the edges and split the biscuit in two, using two forks so as to tear, not cut, it apart. Spread each half with butter while it is still hot.

Stem a box of currants. Reserve a few of the finest ones to decorate the top of the shortcake. Put the rest of the currants into a bowl and mash them, add enough sugar to sweeten to taste, and let them stand an hour or more before using them.

Spread the mashed currants over one half of the buttered biscuit, lay the other half on it. Cover the top with meringue made of the whipped whites of two eggs sweetened with two tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar. Decorate with whole currants as shown in illustration.

It can be more elaborately decorated by pressing the meringue through a pastry-bag and tube into ornamental shapes, and placing currants on it as the fancy dictates.

Mix the eggs with the sugar, then scald the milk and turn it over them. Place the whole on the fire in a double boiler and cook for a few minutes to set the eggs, but not so long that the mixture thickens like a custard. Remove from the fire and add the cream and vanilla. When it is cold, freeze and mold it.

HOT CHOCOLATE SAUCE FOR ICE CREAM

Put four squares of unsweetened chocolate into a saucepan. Set the saucepan into a second one containing hot water, let the chocolate melt on the dry pan, then remove it and stir in first a cupful of sugar and then half a cupful of hot water. Return it to the fire and stir until the sugar is dissolved and the mixture is smooth, then cook without stirring until a little dropped into cold water can be taken up and rolled into a ball between the fingers. Do not let it cook any farther, but keep the pan in hot water until ready to serve, then turn it into a hot sauce-dish. It will harden and form a crust when turned over the cream.

168It is essential to prepare it exactly as directed. If the chocolate is not first melted on a dry pan it will be grainy, and if the water is added first it will harden.

HOT MAPLE SAUCE FOR ICE CREAM

Mix half a cupful of cream with two cupfuls of maple syrup and let it cook without stirring until it threads, or a little dropped into water can be taken up and rolled into a soft ball between the fingers. Do not let it cook any farther, but set the pan in hot water and keep it warm until the moment of serving.

STRAWBERRY ICE CREAM

Mix the crushed berries with half of the sugar and let them stand for several hours, then squeeze out the juice.

Scald the milk with the other half of the sugar, let it cool, half freeze it, then add the cream and the fruit juice and finish the freezing.

MELON ICE CREAM

Scrape out the soft center of a muskmelon, press it through a colander, add half the sugar to it, and let it stand several hours, then strain out the juice.

Scald the milk with the other half of the sugar, let it cool, mix in the cream and half freeze it, then add the melon 169juice and finish the freezing. Serve it in the melon rind or mold it. To mold, line a melon-mold with a layer one inch thick of the frozen cream, colored green, and fill the center with the plain cream.

PEACH ICE CREAM

Add half of the sugar to the peach pulp and let it stand for two or three hours, then press it again through a sieve or colander.

Scald the milk with half of the sugar, let it cool, half freeze it, and then add the cream and peach pulp and finish freezing.

WATER-ICES

Express the juice from any fruit, dilute it with a little water, or leave it pure, make it very sweet with sugar, or, preferably, sugar syrup, and add a very little lemon juice. Freeze the mixture.

Water-ices are difficult to mold, so it is better to serve them in glasses or in individual dishes.

LEMON ICE

Boil the sugar and water for ten minutes, then add the fruit juice, strain it, and when it is cold freeze it.

Boil the sugar and water for ten minutes, add the fruit juice, strain it, and when it is cold freeze it.

STRAWBERRY ICE

Crush the berries and let them stand in part of the sugar for two to three hours, then strain out the juice. Boil the water with the rest of the sugar for ten minutes, add the fruit juice, and when it is cold freeze it by turning the crank for five minutes, then stopping for five minutes, and so on until it is frozen. Serve in individual glasses.

APRICOT ICE

Chop, mash, and press through a sieve a canful of California canned apricots. To the pulp add the juice from the can, two cupfuls of water, and enough sugar to make it quite sweet. Freeze and serve in glasses.

PINEAPPLE ICE

Cut off the top of a pineapple and take out the center, being careful to leave the rind uninjured. Grate the pineapple, and to the pulp and juice add a cupful of water, the juice of a lemon, and enough sugar to make it very sweet, as it loses sweetness in freezing. Freeze it and serve it in the shell of the pine.

Half fill glasses with mixed fruits cut in pieces, using any combination of summer or winter fruits that may be convenient, such as oranges, bananas, grapes, canned peaches, canned cherries, and candied cherries; or fresh peaches and pears, grapes, and preserved strawberries; or fresh strawberries and cherries and sweet apples. Cover the fruit with a water-ice made of any fruit juice.

Serve as an ice for dessert, or serve in small glasses as a sherbet before the game course. In the latter case a mixture of oranges, grape-fruit, and grapes with lemon or orange ice would be suitable, and a teaspoonful of rum or sherry should be poured over the ice just before serving.

CAFÉ FRAPPÉ

To a quart of strong coffee add a pint of cream or milk and a cupful of sugar; freeze it and serve it in glasses, or freeze the sweetened coffee and serve it in glasses with whipped cream on top. In the latter case the coffee must not be quite as strong as when mixed with the cream.

Note.—For other ices, parfaits, and directions for freezing, see “Century Cook Book,” page 488.

This is a well-selected pine called the sugar-loaf on account of its tapering to a point on top. The top and bottom are cut off square, and then the rind on the sides. The inside is cut into slices quarter of an inch thick, and left together in natural shape. The rind is then fitted around it and, if necessary, held in place with wooden toothpicks used as skewers. These will not show, and can be easily removed at the time of serving. Use the pine as a table ornament or centerpiece.

No. 1. The rind is removed from the pine shown in illustration No. 158; it is then covered with sugar and passed.

No. 2. The pineapple has been cut into slices quarter of an inch thick, and then in halves. The half slices are stood on edge and powdered sugar is placed in the center of the circle.

Pineapple is much better in thick slices. The less taste of the knife the better. Cut in this way, there is no difficulty about the pieces standing in place as shown in illustration.

No. 3. Cut the pineapple into slices quarter of an inch thick, and then into quarters. Arrange the quarters, standing on edge, diagonally around the mound of boiled rice. Place the sprout of the pine in the center of 176the mound of rice. Have the rice sweetened and flavored. Sherry or maraschino are good flavorings to use.

Cornstarch pudding, blancmange, or any simple jelly, can be used instead of the rice.

No. 4. Cut a pineapple into slices quarter of an inch thick. With a small biscuit-cutter stamp out the hard centers, leaving the pineapple in rings. Arrange the rings, overlapping, in a circle. Sprinkle them with granulated sugar, and garnish with a small leaf of the pine laid in each hole.

Pulled pineapple. This is a delicious way of serving the pine when it is very ripe.

Cut off the rind, and with a small, pointed knife take out the eyes. Put a fork in the hard core to hold it, and with a second fork tear off the soft pulp. Pile the pieces in a glass dish and sprinkle them plentifully with sugar. Let it stand a few minutes to extract the juice before serving.

CHERRIES

No. 1. Tie the cherries together by the stems into bunches resembling bunches of grapes. If convenient, have bunches of red and white cherries on the same dish.

No. 2. Turn lace papers into cornucopias and fill them with cherries tied into even bunches; let the stems turn to the points of the cornucopias, so the fruit only shows in the opening.

Note.—For other arrangements of fruits, see “Century Cook Book,” page 529.

GINGERBREAD WITH CHOCOLATE GLAZE

Mix the spices with the molasses. Dissolve the soda in a little boiling water and add it to the coffee. Cream together the butter and sugar, add the eggs, one at a time, and beat each one well. Add the molasses, then the coffee and flour, a little at a time, alternately. Bake in two bread-tins in a moderate oven forty to sixty minutes, or until the cake leaves the sides of the pans.

CHOCOLATE GLAZE

Put into a double saucepan two ounces or squares of chocolate. When it is melted remove it from the fire and stir into it half a cupful of sugar, then add a quarter cupful of hot water. Return it to the fire, stir it until the sugar 180is dissolved, and continue to cook it without stirring until a little dropped in water can be taken up and rolled between the fingers into a soft ball. Pour it over the top of the cake.

No. 2. With whipped cream. Use the same receipt as No. 1, substituting a cupful of boiling water for the coffee, and using half butter and half lard; or two cupfuls of molasses may be used, and the sugar omitted. In the latter case two teaspoonfuls of soda instead of one should be dissolved in a cupful of boiling water. Serve the cake very fresh, and cover the top just before serving with whipped cream.

The cake may be broken into squares, and the pieces fitted together and covered entirely with whipped cream. It can then be passed with a fork and spoon, as a dessert.

Warm the molasses and mix it with the butter, add the ginger and salt, then the beaten eggs, and lastly the flour and water, a little at a time, alternately. Bake in a square pan. Break the cake into square pieces. Open each piece and spread between the halves some icing, No. 1 or No. 2, mixed with chopped preserved ginger; or use a chocolate icing.

First beat the yolks and sugar together thoroughly, then add the orange juice and grated peel, then the flour and water, a little at a time, alternately, and lastly the whites of three eggs whipped to a stiff froth.

Bake in a moderate oven about twenty minutes, or until the cake leaves the sides of the pan. Cut the layer into pieces with a crescent-shaped cutter, and cover the tops with icing No. 1, page 191, made of confectioners’ sugar and with water strained from grated peel. Arrange the crescents as shown in illustration.

The amount of mixture given in above receipt will make a long layer which can be cut into eight crescents, and two round layers one inch thick and six inches in diameter. Spread the tops of the round layers with same icing and place one on top of the other; or use cocoanut cream filling in place of the icing, as in illustration No. 171.

ORANGE-CAKE, No. 2, or PLAIN CUP-CAKE

182Beat together the butter and sugar, add the yolks of the eggs and the flavoring, then alternately, a little at a time, the milk and the flour which has been mixed with the baking-powder by sifting them together. Lastly fold in the whites of the eggs beaten to a stiff froth. Bake in a moderate oven. If flavored with orange, cover the loaf with orange icing, or bake it in layers and spread the icing between the layers as well as on top. The icing should be mixed with the juice of an orange and the part put between the layers should have some of the grated peel in it.

CHOCOLATE-CAKE

Shave four squares of unsweetened chocolate, add half a cupful of milk and half a cupful of sugar. Boil until thickened, then add a teaspoonful of vanilla.

Mix half a cupful of butter and half a cupful of sugar, stir them to a cream, then add the beaten yolks of three eggs and the chocolate mixture, then alternately, a little at a time, two cupfuls of sifted flour mixed with a teaspoonful of baking-powder, and half a cupful of milk. Lastly, fold in the whites of two eggs. Bake in loaves or in layers in a moderate oven. This amount of mixture will make two loaves.

Cover with chocolate icing No. 13. If in layers, use the same icing between the layers.

COCOANUT-CAKE

Make two layers of cake, using any cake mixture. Spread cream filling between the layers. Cut the edges even, using a sharp knife. Cover the whole with icing and before it hardens sprinkle it with a plentiful amount of grated cocoanut.

Mix them and let them come to the boiling-point, then add slowly a heaping tablespoonful of cornstarch, moistened with a tablespoonful of milk, and stir until the mixture is thickened. Remove it from the fire and add the beaten yolk of an egg. When it cools and is beginning to set, spread it over the tops of both layers of cake and place one on the other. Trim the edges. Sprinkle the top with powdered sugar or with grated cocoanut.

The cake in the illustration has in the center a confectioner’s rose. Various kinds of sugar flowers can be bought at bakers’ supply stores.

CAKE DECORATED WITH STAR

Paint the surface of an inverted loaf of any kind of cake with white of egg, then sift over it while it is moist enough powdered sugar to whiten it. Place a star stencil on top, get it exactly in the center, and sift powdered cocoa into the opening.

The star could be made of granulated sugar, colored pink, if preferred, or a space could be filled with small candies called “hundreds and thousands.”

TO MAKE STENCIL

Place a piece of stiff paper over the bottom of the inverted pan in which the cake was baked and crease it enough to indicate 184the circle. Outline the circle with a pencil and draw inside of it two other circles, the first half an inch and the second one and a half inches inside the outer one. Draw two lines across the circles at right angles, then two more lines at equal distances between the others, then draw pointed lines in the eight spaces between the second and third circles.

CAKE DECORATED IN TWO SHADES OF WHITE ICING

The illustration shows a simple pattern for decorating a loaf of cake. The cake can be made of any mixture. It is first covered with icing No. 3, page 192, which gives a clear icing and makes a good background for the white lines. If it does not run evenly dip a knife in water and smooth it. Most irregularities can be smoothed out with a clean, wet knife. The lines are made of decorating icing, which is white (No. 16, page 195), pressed through a pastry-bag with tube of small opening. Each one of the center figures of the pattern holds a small silvered pellet of candy.

ICED CAKE DECORATED WITH PINK BOW-KNOT

Cover the cake with a smooth, hard icing (No. 2 or No. 4). Put decorating icing (No. 16), colored pink with cochineal, into a pastry-bag with tube of plain, small opening, and trace a bow-knot with it. Fill the space between the outlines with pink icing, and flatten it, to look like a ribbon, with a wet knife.

If the tracing is not satisfactory, take it off with a knife, wipe the cake with a dry cloth, and make another trial. A little practice with a pencil, drawing a knot of the right size on paper, will enable one to trace more easily the outlines on the cake.

No. 1. Cover a loaf of cake with icing flavored with rose-water or extract. Scatter over it candied pink rose-leaves.

No. 2. Make a loaf of orange-cake. Cover it with white icing, and arrange around it candied violets forming two wreaths.

CAKE-BASKET HOLDING MERINGUE MUSHROOMS

Make a loaf of any kind of cake, cup- or sponge-cake preferred. Bake it in a fluted pan.

Soften a long piece of macaroni in boiling-hot water. It must be pressed carefully and gradually into the water as the ends soften. When the macaroni is sufficiently softened, pour cold water over it, lay it on a board, and bend it into the shape of a handle of suitable size for the cake. Let it dry, then brush it with the white of egg and sprinkle it with granulated sugar.

Cut little holes in the top of the cake and insert the handle. Cover the top of the cake with mushroom-shaped meringues (see page 189).

SMALL CAKES

No. 1. Jelly-roll. Make a layer of sponge-cake, and while it is still hot cut off the edges, spread it with jelly, and roll it together. Then roll it in a stiff paper and tie it. If the cake is not over-baked and is rolled while hot it will not crack. The paper will keep it in shape. Cover the top and ends with icing. Decorate it with tracings of icing, candied cherries, and angelica.

186No. 2. Daisy cakes. Drop separate spoonfuls of sponge-cake mixture at intervals on a baking-sheet. Bake in a hot oven for a few minutes only, and watch carefully that the edges do not burn. The cakes will spread, rising in the center, and be thin on the edges.

Spread the flat sides with an icing colored green. Blanch some almonds, split them, and cut them in strips. Arrange them in a circle, and place in the center a little icing mixed with yolk of egg to color it yellow; or the icing can be white and the almonds colored in the oven to a light yellow.

No. 3. Medallion fruit-cakes. Use a sponge- or a cup-cake mixture and bake it in gem-pans. If they rise in the center cut off the tops to even them. Invert them, and with a small cutter stamp a circle in the center of each one and take out a thin layer of the cake. Cover the rest of the cakes with icing, or the cakes may be moistened with water and then rubbed over with powdered sugar to whiten them. Place in the center of each, where the piece was removed, a piece of preserved peach or other fruit, cut with the same stamp previously used, so the fruit will exactly fit the opening.

CUP-CAKES WITH DECORATION OF FLOWER DESIGN

Make a cup-cake mixture and bake it in gem-pans. Invert the cakes and cover them with icing Nos. 1, 2, or 3. Place on top of each one half a candied cherry, the flat side down, two pieces of angelica cut into diamond shape to imitate leaves, and a thin strip of angelica to imitate a stem.

No. 1. Cherry-cakes. Cut a layer of any kind of cake into pieces three inches long and two and a quarter wide. Ice them, lay on candied cherries cut in halves, small strips of angelica imitating stems, and angelica cut in diamond-shaped pieces imitating leaves.

The cakes in illustration are made of sponge-cake; the two on the outside are covered with icing No. 4, the other two with maple icing No. 5.

No. 2. Domino cakes. Cut a layer of cake into two pieces. Cover one with chocolate icing and the other with white icing. While the icing is still soft cut the cake, using a sharp knife, into pieces three inches long and one and a half inches wide.

Put a little decorating icing (No. 16) into a pastry-bag with plain tube of small opening, and press it through on to the cakes in dots and lines to imitate dominoes. Use white icing for the chocolate pieces, and the same icing mixed with cocoa powder for the white pieces.

No. 3. Marble cakes. Drop any cake mixture from a spoon on to a floured baking-sheet, using about a dessertspoonful of mixture for each cake, and leaving enough space for the cakes to spread. Place on the flat sides icings of three colors and let them run together irregularly to give a marble-like appearance.

188Cream together the butter and sugar, add the yolks and flavoring, and then the flour. Make it into balls one inch in diameter, by rolling small portions of the mixture between the hands. Roll the balls in powdered sugar and place them on a floured tin. They will flatten in baking and leave the shape of hemispheres. Bake them in a moderate oven ten to fifteen minutes. Cover the flat sides with icing of different colors and ornament with decorating icing pressed through a tube of small opening.

In the illustration some of the cakes have only the decorating icing in rings with a spot of jelly in the center, others have pistache with decoration, and others have plain icing with a spot of jelly in the center.

CREAM-CAKES

To a cupful of hot water add a tablespoonful of butter, a tablespoonful of sugar, and a dash of salt. When the sugar is dissolved and the butter melted add a cupful and a quarter of flour. Cook it, stirring all the time, until it is a smooth paste that leaves the sides of the pan. Let it cool a few minutes and then add three or, if necessary, four eggs, beating in well one at a time. The paste should have sufficient consistency to hold its shape without spreading when dropped from a spoon.

Put the paste into a pastry-bag with a plain tube of half-inch opening and press it through into balls from three quarters of an inch to two and a half inches in diameter, according to the size of cakes wanted. Brush the tops with egg and bake in a slow oven for thirty to forty minutes, or until the cakes are puffed and feel light.

If they are to be used for plain cream-cakes, open them on one side and put in a spoonful of cream filling made as follows:

Beat together the yolks of five eggs, half a cupful of sugar, and a heaping tablespoonful of cornstarch, add a pint of scalding milk and stir over the fire until it is well thickened, then add half a teaspoonful of vanilla or other flavoring.

CREAM-CAKES, ICED

Make cream-cakes two inches in diameter, fill them with charlotte russe filling, or with apricot or other jam, and whipped cream. Cover them with icing No. 1 or 2; or fill them with cream filling flavored with coffee and cover them with icing No. 1 made with coffee.

CREAM-CAKES WITH JAM AND WHIPPED CREAM

Make cream-cakes one to one and a half inches across. Open and spread the inside with apricot or any jam, and then fill them with whipped cream. Boil a little sugar and water to the crack; that is, until a little of the boiling sugar dropped into water will be brittle enough to break with a snap. Pour this over the cakes, and sprinkle them with chopped blanched almonds.

LITTLE CREAM-CAKES WITH CARAMEL ICING

Make cream-cakes of one inch diameter. Fill them with cream filling, and cover them with sugar boiled to the crack, as directed above. Place each one in a little paper box and serve with other fancy cakes.

MERINGUE MUSHROOMS

Place meringue mixture (see page 150) in a pastry-bag with a plain tube, and press it through into shapes like mushroom caps. This is done by holding the tube still until 190enough of the egg is pressed through to form a cap of the size desired and high in the center. With a wet knife lightly press down the point left by the tube, and, if necessary, smooth the whole top. On another paper make forms resembling mushroom stems, and with a wet knife flatten the tops. Place all in a cool oven for a few minutes to form a crust, but do not let them color. When a little firm place them on the hot shelf to dry. Sprinkle the tops of the caps with powdered cocoa, and with the finger darken an edge around the flat under surface to represent the gills of a mushroom. Moisten the tops of the stems with white of egg and stick them on the caps.

COCOANUT MERINGUES

Place meringue mixture (page 150) in a pastry-bag with plain tube of one-half inch opening, and press it through on to paper in pieces about three inches long. Cut the meringue from the tube to give clean ends. Sprinkle the tops with as much grated cocoanut as will adhere. Desiccated cocoanut can be used. Place in a moderate oven to color it lightly, then remove to the hot shelf of the range to dry.

GALETTES

Roll puff-paste trimmings as thin as possible. Stamp it all over with some rough surface which will pierce the paste (a wooden meat-pounder was used for those in illustration). Then cut with a plain biscuit-cutter into round or oblong shapes. Lay these on a baking-sheet, paint the tops all over evenly with egg, and sprinkle them with powdered sugar. Bake in a medium oven until lightly colored.

Every scrap of paste can be utilized for these cakes, which are very nice with ice-cream or for afternoon tea-cakes.

191There is a utensil for making these cakes, but it is too expensive for general use. It is a metal plate with raised pattern, and over this the thin paste is rolled.

PASTRY FINGERS

Roll puff-paste to one-eighth inch thickness. Cut it into strips one inch wide and three inches long. Spread one half of the strips with a thin layer of any kind of jam, and cover with the remaining strips, making sandwich-like pieces. Bake in a hot oven for ten minutes, or until done, then paint the tops with white of egg and sprinkle with powdered sugar and chopped blanched almonds. Return to the oven to glaze and slightly color the nuts.

If not used at once place the fingers in the oven a few minutes to freshen them before serving.

ICINGS

No. 1. Using confectioners’ sugar. This is XXXX sugar, and is exceedingly fine.

Mix confectioners’ sugar with enough water to make it spread evenly. A little flavoring of any kind may be put in the water, but is not necessary. This makes a soft, clear icing, which is very nice and is the easiest of all icings to prepare and handle.

For orange icing. Use strained orange juice instead of water, or soak the grated peel in hot water for a little while, and then strain it through a cloth and use the water.

For yellow icing. Dilute the yolk of an egg with a little water, and flavor with mandarin orange extract.

192For pistache icing. Color the water with green coloring paste, and flavor it with one teaspoonful of orange-flower water and one quarter teaspoonful of bitter-almond extract.

For pink icing. Use strawberry juice, or color water with a little cochineal.

No. 2. Hard, white icing. Take the unbeaten white of an egg, dilute it with a very little water and flavor it. Stir in powdered sugar until it is of the consistency to spread.

No. 3. Boiled icing. Put a cupful of granulated sugar and a half cupful of hot water into a saucepan and stir until the sugar is dissolved, then let it boil without stirring until it threads or, if dropped into water, it can be taken up and rolled between the fingers into a soft ball. Remove it from the fire and stir until it slightly clouds, then immediately pour it over the cake.

This makes a clear icing, and is a good covering for cakes which are to be decorated, as it gives, with the decorating icing, two colors.

No. 4. Boiled icing, No. 2. Cook, without stirring, after the sugar is dissolved, one cupful of granulated sugar and one quarter cupful of hot water until it threads, then pour it slowly over the whipped white of one egg. Beat the mixture all the time, and until it is cool enough to spread.

193No. 5. Maple icing. Boil to the thread or soft-ball stage a cupful of maple sugar with a quarter of a cupful of hot water to dissolve it, or use maple syrup. Pour it slowly over the whipped white of one egg as in No. 4.

No. 6. Caramel icing. Boil a cupful of granulated sugar, a half cupful of milk, and a teaspoonful of butter to the thread or soft-ball stage. Flavor with a few drops of vanilla and stir until it begins to grain.

No. 7. Crystal icing. Spread any icing over a cake, and while it is still moist sprinkle over it the coarse grains of granulated sugar obtained by sifting.

No. 8. Powdered sugar. Moisten with a brush the surface of a cake with the white of an egg diluted with a tablespoonful of water and stirred just enough to break the stringiness; then dust it thickly with powdered sugar, using a sifter. After the egg has dried, shake off the sugar that does not adhere.

No. 9. Whipped cream. Flavor a half pint of cream with a few drops of vanilla and whip it until it is stiff and dry. Just before serving the cake ornament it with the whipped cream pressed through a pastry-bag and star-tube.

No. 10. Whipped cream with maple flavor. Heat two tablespoonfuls of maple syrup and dissolve in it one teaspoonful of granulated gelatine which has been soaked in a tablespoonful of cold water. Let the 194syrup cool so it will not heat the cream, but before it sets stir it into a half pint of cream. Whip the cream to a stiff froth and press it through a pastry-bag and tube on to the cake in an ornamental pattern.

No. 11. Butter. Whip a half pound of butter until it is smooth and light, sweeten it with thick sugar syrup flavored, and add a level tablespoonful of cornstarch. Press it through a pastry-bag and tube on to the cake in ornamental designs.

No. 12. Mocha cream. Whip half a pound of butter, using a fork, until it is smooth and light. Flavor it with syrup made of a half cupful of sugar and a quarter cupful of strong coffee. Add a level tablespoonful of cornstarch to give the butter more stability. Press it through a pastry-bag and tube.

No. 13. Chocolate icing, No. 1. Dissolve one and a half ounces of unsweetened chocolate in one third cupful of cream or milk, and add half a teaspoonful of butter. When this mixture is a little cool add the beaten yolk of one egg, one half teaspoonful of vanilla, and enough confectioners’ sugar to make it spread.

No. 14. Chocolate icing, No. 2. Melt two ounces of unsweetened chocolate on a hot pan, remove it from the fire, and add half a cupful of sugar, one teaspoonful of butter, and lastly a quarter cupful of milk. Replace it on the fire and cook until a little dropped into water will form a soft ball. Pour it over the cake.

195No. 15. Tutti frutti icing. Cook a cupful of sugar and a quarter cupful of water to the thread or soft-ball stage. Turn it slowly on to the whipped white of one egg. Beat them together and add a tablespoonful each of chopped blanched almonds, citron cut in small pieces, seeded raisins, candied cherries cut into pieces, and angelica cut into bits. Spread it roughly over the cake. Any combination of fruits may be used instead of those given above. As this is a rich icing, it should be used on a plain cake, such as cup- or sponge-cake.

No. 16. Decorating icing. Whip the whites of two eggs to a very stiff froth, then add slowly powdered sugar until the mixture is so stiff that every point and thread left by the beater will hold its place. It requires beating a long time. It is the same as meringue mixture, except that it is made hard with sugar instead of by drying, and takes about a half cupful of sugar to each egg.

Note.—Sprinkle a cake that is going to be frosted with flour as soon as it is taken from the pan. Before icing, wipe off the flour. This prevents the icing from running so much, and makes it easier to spread.

Note.—Smooth icings with the broad side of a wet knife. Wipe the blade clean, and dip it in water each time it is drawn over the icing. In this way very rough surfaces can be smoothed.

Note.—Icing left over will keep any length of time, if excluded from the air and not allowed to dry. Put it in a cup, cover the cup with a wet cloth, double several times, and cover the cloth with a saucer.

Have the water warm, not hot. Stir into the water the sugar, salt, softened butter, and the yeast, which has been dissolved in a tablespoonful of water (yeast is more easily dissolved in a small quantity of water), then stir in enough flour to make a batter as thick as can be stirred easily. Stir and beat the batter well for about ten minutes. Cover the bread-pan and set it in a warm place (eighty degrees is the right temperature). When the dough is light, or about doubled in bulk, stir it down, and beat it well for a few minutes. Let it rise a second time, and again beat it, then turn it into the pans, filling them half full. The tops of the loaves can be made smooth by brushing them with a pastry-brush dipped in water.

The stirring gives a fine texture. The dough rises quickly after the first rising, and must be watched that it does not get light enough to sour. Let the loaves rise in the baking-pans to double in size, then bake in a hot oven for one hour.

Bread made in this way is very light and spongy, and is much better than that which is made so thick with flour 200that it can be kneaded. It has also the other advantages of being easier to make, the results are more reliable, and the objection of too much handling is removed. It requires an experienced hand to knead bread without making it too heavy with flour.

WATER BREAD

Place the flour on the hot shelf to get thoroughly warm. Let it be warm to the hand. Dissolve the yeast in a tablespoonful of water, and add it, with the salt, to a quart of warm water. Turn the liquid into the flour, reserving enough flour to use on the molding-board. Mix it thoroughly. Turn it on to the board and form it into well-shaped loaves. This quantity of material will make three loaves. Let it rise in the pans to double in size, which will take about one and a half hours. Bake for one hour.

This bread is made in about three hours. It is the most simple receipt possible, and gives excellent results. Some judgment must be used about the quantity of flour, as it takes a little more or less according to its dryness.

WHOLE WHEAT BREAD

Add the salt to the water. Mix the molasses with part of the water and with the yeast, which has been dissolved in a 201little water. Stir the liquid into the flour, and add enough more water to make a thick batter. Beat it for some time, or until it is well mixed and the batter is smooth. Let it rise overnight. Early in the morning stir it down, and turn it into the pans. Let it rise in the pans to double in size, and bake for one hour. The above quantities will make two loaves.

ROUND LOAF AND BAKING TIN

Any bread mixture may be baked in this pan. The fancy form is its only recommendation. Round slices are attractive for a change, and made into toast give also an agreeable variety.

The pan is filled barely half full of dough. It is left to rise for one hour, and is baked for one hour.

UNLEAVENED BREAD-CHIPS

Mix into a quart of graham, or of white, or of whole wheat flour one tablespoonful of butter and one level tablespoonful of salt, then add about one and a quarter cupfuls of milk and water, half and half, or enough to make a stiff dough. Flour the molding-board and roll the mixture thin, fold it together twice and roll it again. Again fold it, and again roll it very thin. Mark it off, using a pastry-wheel, into strips one and a quarter inches wide and four to five inches long. Bake it in a moderate oven for twenty minutes, or until the chips are cooked through and are brittle, but not very brown.

This bread is recommended for dyspeptics and people of delicate digestion, on the theory that the yeast-plant is not thoroughly destroyed when baking bread, and that it continues to ferment in the stomach.

These cakes should be made of meal ground finer than any we are able to get in our markets; therefore, one must resort to the expedient of pounding in a mortar the finest meal obtainable, and sifting it through a coarse mesh.

Add to one cupful of fine meal one teaspoonful of salt and enough hot water to make a stiff dough. Sift some of the meal on to the molding-board, and roll the mixture into a thin cake. Bake it slowly on a griddle until it is thoroughly dried.

PULLED BREAD

Take a loaf of freshly baked bread. Cut through the crust around the loaf at intervals of two inches, then pull the thick slices apart. Remove the crumb from the crusts, leaving it in ragged pieces. Place it in a slow oven to color and crisp, turning it often enough to have it dry and color on every side.

THE BREAD-CUTTER

The bread-plane can be adjusted to cut slices of any thickness. It will cut fresh bread very thin. Bread which is a day old it will cut as thin as lace. For cutting bread for sandwiches it is especially useful.

LACE TOAST OR ZWIEBACK

Use stale bread, and with the bread-plane shave off slices as thin as lace. Spread the slices on pans and place them in the oven for a minute to brown, or place them on a toaster on top of the range.

203This toast can be served with soup, or at any time in place of cracker biscuits. It is a form of toast much liked by people who do not eat starchy foods and so abstain from bread.

SWISS ROLLS

Scald one cupful of milk to which have been added one tablespoonful of sugar and two tablespoonfuls of butter. When it has partly cooled add one half a cake of compressed yeast. Stir in well about three quarters of a quart of flour. Put it in a moderately warm place to rise. When it is light, place it in the ice-box for at least three hours, or overnight. When ready to use, turn the raised dough on a well-floured board, and roll it to a half-inch thickness. Spread the top with butter, and roll the sheet of dough like a jelly-cake roll. See illustration No. 194. Cut from the end of the roll slices three quarters of an inch in thickness.

Place the slices in pans, leaving plenty of room between each one, so they will not touch in rising. Let them rise slowly until they are very light, and more than doubled in size. Bake in a quick oven about twenty minutes.

LUNCHEON OR DINNER ROLLS, BRAIDS, TWISTS

For these rolls, any bread dough may be used. In order to get the pieces of uniform size, mold the dough into a roll about one and a half inches in diameter. Cut the roll into pieces one and a half inches long, giving pieces the size of an egg, or make the pieces larger, if desired. Turn each piece into a ball, and then, using both hands, roll it into shape, making a roll which is thick in the center and pointed at each end. See illustration No. 196.

Place the rolls in pans, giving them sufficient room to rise without touching. When they have a little more than doubled in size, brush the tops with beaten egg diluted with 204a little milk. Bake them in a quick oven for fifteen or twenty minutes.

For making braids, roll the dough into pencil-shaped pieces about half an inch in diameter and five inches long. Brush each one with melted butter. Press the ends of three pieces together and braid them. Let them rise to double in size, brush the tops with egg and milk, and bake for fifteen to twenty minutes.

STRIPED BREAD AND BUTTER

Cut white and any kind of brown bread into slices from three eighths to half an inch in thickness. Spread each slice generously with butter which is soft enough to spread easily. Lay the slices together in alternating colors, two buttered sides coming together in each layer. When the pile of buttered slices is three and a half to four inches high, cut it into good shape, removing the crusts. Place the bread between two plates under a light weight and set it into the ice-box to harden the butter. When ready to serve, cut it into slices about as thick as the original slices, and then into strips.

CHECKERED BREAD AND BUTTER

Cut, one inch thick, three slices each of white and of brown bread. Spread a slice of the white bread with a thick layer of soft butter. Lay on it a buttered slice of brown bread, placing the buttered sides together. Cover the top of the brown slice with butter, and lay on it a buttered slice 205of white bread, the buttered sides together. You have now three layers of bread, with the brown slice in the middle. Repeat the operation, reversing the order of the white and brown slices. Trim the two piles evenly, and place them in the ice-box under a light pressure. When the butter is well hardened, cut slices an inch thick from the ends of both piles. Butter these slices as before, placing two buttered sides together, and arrange them so that the colors will alternate in squares.

The hardened butter holds the pieces together, and if the slices are evenly cut, a checkered square of bread will be the result.

Put the bread and butter under a light pressure in the ice-box, and when ready to serve cut it into thin slices.

BREAD AND BUTTER SANDWICHES

It is difficult to butter very thin slices of bread unless the butter is soft. It is well, when making plain bread and butter sandwiches, to whip the butter until it is light, soft, and smooth, and then to spread but one piece of the sandwich. Where filling is used it is not necessary to butter the bread, as oil or butter is used in the paste.

No. 1. In circles with nuts. Thin slices of buttered Boston brown bread, or of graham bread, cut with a biscuit-cutter into circles one and a half inches in diameter. The meat of one half of an English walnut is placed on the top of each one and held in place with a little butter.

No. 2. Brown and white bread combined. Cut into circles two and a half inches or less in diameter thin slices of brown and white bread. Use a buttered round of brown and of white bread for each sandwich.

For rolled sandwiches the bread should be very fresh and moist, and entirely free from crust. As it is difficult to cut fresh bread with a knife, use a loaf which is a day old if a bread-plane is not at hand. Cut it into slices one eighth of an inch thick, using a sharp knife. It will cut easier if the crust is first removed from the loaf. Arrange the slices in a pile and cut them all together into good shape. Wrap the bread in a wet cloth and let it stand in a cool place for two hours. The bread will then be moist and pliable enough to roll without breaking. The slices may be simply buttered, or they may be spread with any mixture desired. If meat or fish is used, it should be reduced to paste by chopping and pounding, and be well seasoned. (See “Century Cook Book,” page 364.) Use some butter or oil in the mixture, so the slices will not need to be buttered. Spread the slices with the paste and roll them carefully, then roll each one in a piece of paraffin paper, cut long enough to wrap the sandwich one and a half times, and wide enough to extend an inch over each end. Twist the ends of the paper.

Keep the sandwiches in the ice-box until ready to use, and serve them with the papers on. Wrapped sandwiches will keep fresh for forty-eight hours. They are especially suitable for travelers and for picnics.

LETTUCE SANDWICHES

Cut fresh bread into slices a little more than one eighth of an inch in thickness, using the bread-plane if convenient. Arrange the slices in a pile, and cut the bread into a shape about four by four and a half inches. This removes the crusts and leaves all the slices of exactly the same size. Uniformity in size and shape is one of the points to observe in making sandwiches. Spread the slices lightly with butter 207which is soft enough to spread evenly without tearing the bread. Place on each buttered slice a leaf of crisp lettuce which is large enough to extend a little over the ends of the slice, and from which the midrib has been removed. Sprinkle the lettuce plentifully with salt. Roll the slices carefully, and tie around each one a piece of paper the width of the bread.

At the time of serving, this paper is removed and the butter will then be sufficiently hardened to keep the rolls in shape.

Place the sandwiches on a plate, cover them with a wet napkin, and keep them in a cool place until ready to serve. In this way sandwiches may be kept fresh for twenty-four hours.

SANDWICH FILLINGS

Chicken and celery. Chop chicken and celery in equal quantities until they are very fine. Mix them to a paste with mayonnaise.

Egg filling. Chop hard-boiled eggs until very fine and mix them to a paste with plain French dressing, or with mayonnaise.

Ham filling. Put in a saucepan two tablespoonfuls of butter, one teaspoonful of mustard, one teaspoonful of sugar, and the yolks of two eggs. Beat them together, and add slowly, stirring all the time, three quarters of a cupful of hot vinegar. Place it on the fire and stir until the mixture is a little thickened, then add one cupful of minced ham and two thirds of a cupful of tender celery, also chopped very fine. Add salt and pepper to taste.

This preparation can be kept, to use as needed, if put into preserve glasses and covered with melted butter or lard.

Cut the bread into slices one eighth of an inch thick, and remove the crust as directed above. The filling of a sandwich should be as thick as one of the slices of bread. After the sandwiches are prepared, using the whole slices, cut them into the shapes desired. This may be small squares, fingers, triangles, circles, or hearts, as the fancy or occasion dictates. Where a variety of sandwiches are being served at the same time, each variety should be cut alike, but of a different pattern from the others, and the dish garnished distinctively. For instance, a hard-boiled egg cut lengthwise, a square of cheese, a few olives, nuts, flowers, or whatever the filling used, can be placed in the center of the plate, and the sandwiches arranged in a circle around it. A wishbone makes a good label for chicken, and parsley or gherkins would indicate meat mixtures. The brown breads make excellent sandwiches, and help to give variety. Cucumbers sliced, and watercress freed from the large stems, may be mixed with French dressing before being placed in the bread, or they may be only salted.

Olives and nuts are sliced or cut into small pieces, but should not be cut very fine, as it injures their flavor.

See “Century Cook Book,” page 364, for further directions about mixtures for fillings.

When the sandwiches are finished they should be placed between plates under a light weight, covered with a damp cloth, and kept in a cool place until the time of serving.

209Sandwiches prepared for a traveler’s luncheon should be made a little thicker and larger than directed above, as they must be hearty enough to constitute a meal. If wrapped in paraffin paper, they will keep fresh for a long time.

TOASTED CHEESE SANDWICHES

Make a filling of grated cheese, toast the sandwiches on both sides, and serve them hot.

Many kinds of sandwiches may be toasted. Sandwiches left over may be utilized in this way.

BRIOCHE

Brioche is a light bun. The mixture is also used for savarins and babas. See page 147.

Add to a cupful of tepid milk a yeast-cake and half a pound of flour. Mix it well and set it in a warm place to rise until it is very light. It will take about an hour.

Sift on to a rolling-board one pound of flour, and make a well in the center. Break seven eggs into a bowl, add a teaspoonful of salt, and beat the eggs enough to break them thoroughly. Cut three quarters of a pound of butter into pieces.

Put three tablespoonfuls of milk and two tablespoonfuls of sugar into the well of flour, add a piece of butter and some of the broken eggs. Work all these together with the hand, incorporating the flour gradually. Add the eggs and butter gradually until all are worked in, and continue the working for some time, then add the leaven and work the whole mixture for a long time, or until it does not stick. Set it aside to rise and double in size, work it again, and put it in the ice-box for twelve hours.

Mold the brioche dough into a round ball. Place it in a pan, make a depression in the top with the hand, brush it with egg diluted with a little milk, and put into it a small ball of dough. Cut slits around the large ball. Let it rise, then bake it in a hot oven.

CORN-MUFFINS

Put a cupful of milk in a saucepan on the fire and let it come to the scalding-point, then stir in the cornmeal, and continue to stir until the meal is thoroughly expanded. If a coarse meal is used, it should cook for a few minutes to destroy the grainy texture. Remove the meal from, the fire and stir into it the butter and the sugar. Let it stand until cool, then add the rest of the milk, the eggs, which have been beaten (yolks and whites together), the salt, and lastly the flour, which has been thoroughly mixed with the baking-powder by sifting. Stir the mixture to smoothness and turn it into well-buttered gem-pans. Bake in a moderate oven for about forty-five minutes.

cornmeal should be thoroughly cooked, and the baking can be continued until the muffins draw away from the sides of the pans. The baking should be slow at first, so the muffins will rise evenly, giving a flat top. This quantity of mixture will make one dozen large muffins.

211The receipt may be modified by using less sugar or less butter, or by changing the proportions of meal and flour.

CHEESE-CRACKERS

Spread any biscuits with butter, and put them in the oven to brown slightly. As soon as they are removed from the oven cover them with grated cheese, let them stand a few minutes, then shake off all the cheese that does not stick.

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Luncheons	Fontage Cups
Garnishing and Dishing	Different Ways of Preparing Butter
The Pastry-bag	Measures and Terms
Order of Courses

	Fruits
First Course	Oyster and Clam Cocktails
	Oysters and Clams on the Half Shell
	Canapés

	Meats
Sixth Course	Vegetables and Cereals used as Vegetables
	Chicken
	Sauces for Meats Sweet Sauces

First Course	Fruits
	Cocktails
	Canapés
	Oysters on the half shell
	Clams on the half shell
First or Second Course	Soup
First, Second, or Third Course	Eggs
Fourth Course	Shell-fish
	Lobsters
	Fish
Fifth or Seventh Course	Entrées
Sixth Course	Meats
	Vegetables
	Cereals used as vegetables
	Chicken
Seventh Course	Punches
	Fruit
	Cheese dishes
	Entrées
Eighth Course	Game
	Salads
	Cold service
	Cheese
34Ninth Course	Hot desserts
	Cold desserts
	Pies
	Tarts
Tenth Course	Ices
	Cake
Eleventh Course	Fruits
	Candies
Twelfth Course	Black coffee
	Tea
	Liqueurs

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Luncheons: A Cook's Picture Book

LUNCHEONS

THE BOOK

CONTENTS

CHAPTER I LUNCHEONS

GARNISHING AND DISHING MEATS

VEGETABLES

COLD DISHES

FISH

POTATOES

CREAM

CAKE

THE PASTRY-BAG

FONTAGE CUPS

DIFFERENT WAYS OF PREPARING BUTTER

MEASURES AND TERMS

ORDER OF COURSES

Chapter II FIRST COURSE

FRUITS

CLAM OR OYSTER COCKTAILS

ANCHOVY EGGS

HEART-SHAPED SALMON CANAPÉS

ANCHOVY CANAPÉS

CANAPÉS OF CAVIARE

OYSTERS OR CLAMS ON THE HALF SHELL

Chapter III SECOND COURSE

SOUPS

CONSOMMÉ OF BEEF

CONSOMMÉ OF CHICKEN

CLAM BROTH

CLAM BISQUE

CREAM OF CLAMS

CREAM OF OYSTERS

CREAM SOUPS

CREAM OF SPINACH

CREAM OF CELERY

Chapter IV THIRD COURSE

EGGS

TO POACH EGGS

TO POACH EGGS IN FRENCH STYLE

TO SCRAMBLE EGGS

PLAIN FRENCH OMELET

BEATEN OMELET

OMELET CHASSEUR

CREAMED POACHED EGGS

CREAMED EGG BASKETS

POACHED EGGS WITH GREENS

EGGS IN NESTS

SPANISH EGGS

EGGS FARCI

EGGS À L’AURORE

SCRAMBLED EGGS WITH CALVES’ BRAINS

Chapter V FOURTH COURSE

SHELL-FISH—LOBSTERS—FISH

SAUTÉD OYSTERS

FRIED OYSTERS WITH COLD SLAW

COLD SLAW

OYSTERS À LA NEWBURG

SCALLOPS

FRIED SCALLOPS

SCALLOPS ON THE SHELL

CREAMED LOBSTER

BROILED LOBSTER

BROILED SMELTS

BROILED SHAD ROE

SHAD ROE CROQUETTES

FILLETS OF FISH

FRIED FILLETS OF FISH

ROLLED FILLETS OF FLOUNDER

BAKED FILLETS OF FISH WITH SAUCE

FILLETS OF FISH WITH MUSHROOMS

CREAMED FISH GARNISHED WITH POTATOES

FISH À LA JAPONNAISE

Chapter VI FIFTH OR SEVENTH COURSE

ENTRÉES

RISSOLES

VOL-AU-VENT

SALPICON

SWEETBREADS

TO PREPARE SWEETBREADS

CHAPTER I

LUNCHEONS

Chapter II

FIRST COURSE

Chapter III

SECOND COURSE

Chapter IV

THIRD COURSE

Chapter V

FOURTH COURSE

Chapter VI

FIFTH OR SEVENTH COURSE

Chapter VII

SIXTH COURSE