Part 7 (1/2)

BEEF A LA MODE ROLLS.

Our lesson this morning will begin with beef _a la mode_ rolls. Use the round of the beef or the end of sirloin steak. I have here a piece of round of beef. Cut the beef in pieces about two inches wide and five long; lay these strips of meat on the cutting board and season them with salt and pepper. In the middle of each one put a little piece of salt pork about a quarter of an inch thick. Roll the meat up in such a way that the pork is inclosed in the middle of the little roll. Tie the roll to keep it in shape. You can use instead of salt pork pieces of fat from the meat. After all the little rolls are tied up put a very small quant.i.ty of beef drippings or b.u.t.ter in the bottom of the saucepan or kettle. Put the saucepan over the fire with the drippings or b.u.t.ter in it and let the fat get hot. As soon as it is hot put the little rolls of meat in it and let them brown. As soon as the little rolls of meat are brown sprinkle flour over them, a tablespoonful of dry flour to half a dozen little rolls of meat. Let the flour brown. As soon as the flour is brown pour in boiling water enough to cover the rolls; add salt. Then put the cover on the sauce pan and set the meat where it will cook very gently. Remember what I have told you about cooking meat slowly if you want it to be tender. When the meat is quite tender--and that will be in from half an hour to an hour and a half--the time will depend, of course, upon the fibre of the meat, then take off the strings and serve the rolls in the gravy in which they have been cooking. You see the brown flour and water and b.u.t.ter will have make a nice gravy for the rolls. Now if the meat is very tough remember what I have told you about the action of the vinegar on the meat fibre. For a pound of meat add about two tablespoonfuls of vinegar, when you begin to stew the meat, and let it cook with the meat; that will make it tender. You can vary the dish by cooking with it vegetables of any kind that you like to use.

Add potatoes when it is within half an hour of being done, turnips peeled, cut in small pieces; carrots peeled and sliced.

CARAMEL CUSTARD.

I will make a caramel custard next. For caramel custard use a plain tin mould, oval or square in shape, that will hold about three pints. Put a teaspoonful of sugar in the bottom of the mould and set the mould on the top of the stove where the sugar will brown. You may want to shake the mould a little to scatter the sugar evenly over the bottom. When the sugar is brown set the mould off the fire on the table where the burnt sugar will get cold; that forms what is called a caramel or coat of burnt sugar on the bottom of the mould. Make a custard by beating together six eggs, a quarter of a pound of sugar and a pint of milk.

After the custard is made pour it into the mould and set the mould in a sauce pan with boiling water that will come half way up the sides of the mould, and steam the custard until it is firm. When the custard is firm you can turn it out of the mold and use it hot or leave it until it is quite cold and use it cold. I have used granulated sugar this time. You can make the same custard, preparing it just exactly as for steaming, but bake it, if you like, only you would set the mould in the dripping pan with water in it, baking it just until it is firm, in a moderate oven. You could make it in teacups; in that case you would burn the sugar in an iron-spoon or in the frying pan and while it still is liquid put just a little in the bottom of each cup, because you remember it hardens directly. Then bake the cups of custard in a pan of water. Use the custard in the cups either hot or cold. If the custard is to be used cold leave it in the mould; it will stand better than if it is turned out hot. But it is stiff enough to retain its form even when it is hot.

And the sugar that is in the mould forms a little sauce around it on the dish.

TOMATO SOUP.

Next take a recipe for tomato soup. A can of tomatoes; put them over the fire. In the summer use about two quarts of fresh tomatoes. You will find that about two quarts will be sufficient. After the fresh tomatoes are peeled and sliced (you will remember canned tomatoes are already peeled), put them over the fire and stew them gently for about half an hour, or until they are tender. If the canned tomatoes are entirely solid you may need to add a little liquid, but I find there is generally more liquid in the can than you need. When the tomatoes are tender enough to rub through a sieve, put them through the sieve with a potato masher. That gives you pulp, or _puree_, of tomatoes. And you will add to the tomatoes, after they have been pa.s.sed through the sieve, half a salt spoon of baking soda, and then milk enough to thin them to the proper consistency of soup. Season with salt and pepper, and let them boil, and serve the soup. If you want a thick soup, add to the tomatoes a quart of milk, and thicken the soup with cracker dust, very finely powdered and sifted. Thicken as much as you like, beginning with two heaping tablespoonfuls; add more if you want it. Of course you can put b.u.t.ter in either of these soups, but it is not necessary. The way I shall make the soup to-day will be to thicken it with b.u.t.ter and flour after the tomatoes have been pa.s.sed through the sieve. Do not confuse these two recipes. You have got one of thin soup; you have got another with milk, salt and pepper, thickened with cracker dust. Now a third: Put a tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter and a tablespoonful of flour in a saucepan. Stir them over the fire until they are melted together, then put in a pint of water gradually--a pint of hot water--stirring it smooth; and the tomato pulp. If that does not make the soup as thin as you desire--and it should be about the consistency of good cream--add a little more boiling water. Season with salt and pepper, and stir it until it boils, and then it is ready to use.

Next take directions for boiling vegetables, so that the color is perfectly kept. I told you yesterday that we should have spinach if we could get it, if not, that we would use lettuce. I think that next week, in the course of the lessons, I shall succeed in having some spinach from Cleveland. However, I shall use lettuce to-day. First, thoroughly wash it in salted water. For a quart of water use a tablespoonful of salt. As I told you the other day, the salt in the water is for the purpose of killing any little insects that are in the leaves, especially of the lettuce. You know that it is very troublesome to dislodge them, but the salt kills them, and of course you can wash them out. As long as they are alive they cling there. If you sprinkle salt on the leaves it will wither them, but if you put it in the water it will not. Salted water is intensely cold, you know, and it would restore the freshness of the leaves of lettuce, even if they were wilted, unless they were really on the verge of decay. If you will remind me, after I have finished giving the recipe for cooking the vegetables, I will tell you how to keep lettuce fresh. After your vegetables, whatever they may be, whether lettuce, or spinach, or asparagus, or string beans, are washed perfectly clean--I do not say wash peas, and I will tell you after a little the reason why--after they are thoroughly washed put them over the fire in enough boiling salted water to more than cover them--plenty of water, so that they can float about--the water to be salted with a tablespoonful of salt in a quart of water, and to be actually boiling when you put in the vegetables. This same rule applies to the cooking of peas, only that the peas are treated a little differently in the cleaning, but they are cooked in the same way. Boil the vegetable (whatever it is) in salted water, fast, just till they are tender. Remember what I said about boiling carrots yesterday. As soon as the vegetables are tender, drain them and throw them into plenty of cold water. Leave them in the cold water until you want to use them. Then, if peas or beans, drain them, heat them quickly, with a little salt and pepper and b.u.t.ter, very quickly, or any sauce or gravy you wish to serve them in, and serve them hot. If lettuce or spinach, to make a _puree_, after having boiled in boiling salted water and then put in cold water, rub them through a sieve with a potato masher. After they are rubbed through the sieve they are ready to be used in different ways. In Europe the _puree_ of lettuce is served as a vegetable, just as the _puree_ of spinach is. We do not often cook it in that way, but it is very nice; it is such an exceedingly tender vegetable that it takes proportionately more than of spinach. After the lettuce or spinach is rubbed through the colander or sieve with a potato masher it is ready to be seasoned with salt, pepper and vinegar, or any sauce you like, and used as a vegetable, or used in soup. You remember what I told you about spinach soup yesterday--_puree_ of spinach with cream soup, colored green with spinach. Put in just enough spinach to cover it. If I succeed in getting spinach next week I shall make, at one of the lessons, spinach soup, and also boil and serve some as a vegetable.

Now about peas. I spoke about was.h.i.+ng string beans but not was.h.i.+ng peas.

If the sh.e.l.ls of the peas are at all dirty, and sometimes they are so that they blacken your fingers in sh.e.l.ling, wash the sh.e.l.ls of the peas before you begin to sh.e.l.l them, but do not wash the peas after they are sh.e.l.led. Of course the inside of the pod is perfectly clean, and if your hands are clean and the sh.e.l.ls are clean, you do not need to wash them.

In using green peas in summer time it is well to have a quant.i.ty of them, perhaps twice as many as you are likely to use for one meal, and sh.e.l.l them, because you know they are of different sizes always. Sh.e.l.l them and separate them into two different sizes, the smallest and the largest, and then cook one size for one day, putting the others in a very cool place, or refrigerator, and cook them the next day, because if you have the large and small ones mixed they do not cook evenly. You will find them very much nicer; if you keep them in a cool place it will not hurt to keep them.

The length of time that it takes to boil lettuce or spinach depends somewhat on the time of the year. The tenderer the spinach is, of course, the quicker it will boil; when it is very young and tender it will boil in two or three minutes; when it is older it may take as long as ten minutes. Ladies very often make the mistake in boiling spinach that they do in boiling cabbage. They boil it sometimes until the leaves are destroyed, in order to soften the stalk. The better way is to tear away the stalk and use only the leaf. Of course, that gives you a smaller quant.i.ty of spinach than if you use the stalk, but when you use the tough, woody stalk you waste the leaf in boiling. Lettuce usually boils in a couple of minutes. One of the ladies speaks about cooking spinach without any water. You can do that if you wish. Just put in a sauce pan, after having carefully picked it over and washed it; stir it a little once in a while to be sure that the uncooked top goes down to the bottom. There is no special advantage in it, because if you boil it as I tell you, only until it is tender, the water has no effect upon it except to cook it more quickly. It is the English way to cook it without water. If you use boiling salted water, as I told you, it cannot possibly affect the nutriment of the vegetable. It is when you boil vegetables a long time, and boil them away before you take up the dish, that you waste the nutriment. These rules apply to every vegetable that has color in it except beets. Beets have to be cooked without cutting the skin or tr.i.m.m.i.n.g them in any way, in order to keep the color.

Now to keep lettuce fresh. I have kept it fresh, even in the summer time, for two or three days in this way: When it first comes in from the market wash it thoroughly in plenty of cold salted water. You do not need to tear it apart. You know I told you the other day about separating the leaves slightly from the head of the lettuce and shaking it in cold salted water. Trim off the outside wilted leaves. Wash it thoroughly in cold salted water, then wet a towel and lay the lettuce in it, fold it loosely up over the roots and if you have ice lay the towel on the cake of ice in the refrigerator or by the side of the cake of ice. If you haven't any ice and have a cold cellar, after you have washed the lettuce and wrapped it in the wet towel, put it in a box; a tight wooden box is the best, or a thick pasteboard box if it is not broken; and put it in the cellar in the coldest place you can find. If you wrap it in a wet towel and put it on the ice you do not want to look at it. It will keep fresh at least two days, and sometimes longer; but if you put it in the cellar you will have to wet the towel thoroughly twice a day, morning and night; and you will find that you will have to take away some of the leaves that have wilted, but if you have it upon the ice the chances are that you will not lose any leaves. And it is very much nicer than it is to let it wilt and then try to restore it by soaking it in water.

FRIED PICKEREL.

Next take a recipe for fried pickerel. Some of the ladies will remember that a few days ago we were talking about frying fish in this way with salt pork. If any of the ladies have the recipe, of course they do not need to take it again. For fried fish of any kind, enough salt pork to cover the bottom of the frying pan that you are going to use for the fish. You find you have three or four pounds of fish; you will need at least half a pound of salt pork. Cut the pork in very thin slices; fat salt pork is the best. Put it in the frying pan and fry it until it is light brown. While the pork is being fried get ready the fish, having it thoroughly cleaned by was.h.i.+ng it in cold water. If the fish is small you do not need to cut it; if it is large, cut it in pieces about three or four inches square. After the fish has been cleaned dry it in a towel; season some Indian meal with salt and pepper, roll the fish in the Indian meal. When the pork is brown take it out of the fat and put the fish into the drippings and fry the fish brown, first on one side and then on the other. When the fish is browned nicely serve it in a dish with the pork--fried pork and fish in one dish. This fish will not get very brown to-day, because it is still frozen. It did not come in long enough ago for us to get it thawed out, so, of course, there will be a little water in the fat, and it will not get quite so brown.

LECTURE TENTH.

CHEAP DISHES AND REWARMED FOODS.

We begin our lesson this afternoon with a dish of rice,--piloff of rice,--any cold meat cut in small squares, an onion peeled and chopped fine, and if you have tomatoes, either canned, fresh, or cold stewed tomatoes, a cupful. Sometimes the dish is made with tomatoes, sometimes without. Put the onion in the sauce pan with a tablespoonful of drippings; set it over the fire and let it get light brown. When it is light brown put with it a cupful of rice, picked over and washed and dried by the fire. After the onion begins to brown put the rice with it and stir until the rice is light brown; then put in a quart of hot water, the meat and tomatoes and a palatable seasoning of salt and pepper. Of course, the quant.i.ty of salt and pepper that you use will depend on the seasoning of the meat, and this may be any kind of meat.

Then cover the sauce pan in which you have all these things and let the rice, meat, tomatoes and water all cook together gently. Every ten minutes you must look to see whether the rice has absorbed all the water. If it has you must add a little more water, not more than half a cupful at a time, keeping the rice just moist until it is tender. You will find that probably in about half an hour the rice will be tender, and when the dish is done it should not have the gravy about it; it simply needs to be moist, so you will have to add water cautiously after the first quart.

If the meat that you use is very fat,--and sometimes beef like this is very fat,--you may cook the meat, fat and lean together in with the onion in the first place instead of the tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter or drippings. If you have no meat you can make the dish in the same way using tomato, onion and rice; and if you have cold gravy of any kind put that in it.

FRENCH HASH.

Next take the recipe for a dish called French hash. There is no potato in it, it is simply meat and gravy, so that you must not let the name mislead you. Little slices of cold meat, fat and lean together. For a pint bowlful of meat use about a tablespoonful of chopped onion. First slightly brown the onion with a tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter or drippings or fat from the meat; then when the onion begins to brown put in the meat and let that brown. Next a tablespoonful of dried flour; stir the flour with the brown meat and onion until the flour is quite brown; then cover the meat with pork gravy or boiling water. After you have covered the meat with water or cold gravy just let the water or gravy boil, then season it palatably with salt and pepper; of course, the seasoning will depend upon whether you have used gravy or broth or water. If you have used gravy or broth that already will have been seasoned, so that you want to taste for the seasoning. After the gravy is both boiled and seasoned take the sauce pan off the fire and stir in the yolk of one raw egg with it and dish at once. You must not put the hash back on the fire after putting the egg in. If you do you will curdle it. Do not stir the egg in till you are ready to serve it, on toast or plain.