ALBERT R. MANN LIBRARY Cornell University Gift of Thomas Bass From Home Bakings, by Edna Evans San Francisco, 1912. 3 1924 087 275 883 ES Bread Sponge and Breakfast Breads Other Breakfast Bieads, Eggi, Broiled and Fried Meats, Boiled MeaU, What to do with Left Oven, Other Dinner Dishes, Meals, Vegetables, Desserts, Cake Making, Soups, Jellies, Creams and other Fancy Dishes ' (or Luncheons, Teas, or Supper Parties. How to Make Tea and Coffee, Etc .\ BY MARION HARLAND Author of "Common Sense in ihe Household." "The Dinner Year Book." "The Cottage Kitchen," &c. INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING COMPANY NEW YORK CITY Weights and Meaeares,, eAXCVT lay it on a clean board, some hours before cooking it, and hack it on both sides, criss-cross, with a tolerably sharp knife, taking care not to cut too deeply. Rub both sides very well with the strained juice of a lemon, and set the meat in a cold place until you are ready to cook it. Do this over night, if you want it for breakfast. Very tough, fibrous meat is some- times made eatable by this process. Mutton or Lamb Ohops. Cut off most of the fat and all the skin. A clean bone an inch in length will project from the smaller end when you have pared away the tallow and skin which would have cooked into rankness and leather. BROILED MEATS. 59 Put as many chops on the broiler as it will conveniently hold, and broil as you would beefsteak. Cut into the largest to see if it is done. If it is, lay the chops on a heated dish set over a pot oi boiling water ; butter, pepper and salt them, and cover them up while you cook the rest. Serve as soon as the last is cooked, as they lose flavor with standing. Lay sprigs of parsley around the edges of the dish and scatter a few over the chop? which must be arranged in neat rows, a small end next to a large. Broiled Ham. Cut even slices from a cold boiled Ferris & Co.'s "Trade Mark" ham. Divide these into obJong pieces about an inch and a half in width, and broil quickly over clear coals until a deli- cate brown touches the slices here and there. Lay in order on a hot dish. Broiled ham is appetizing, and §hould be accompanied by dry toast, lightly buttered FEIED MEATS. Larded Liver. 'TT^HE butcher will slice the liver, or show •*- you how to do it. When it is cut up, , lay it in cold water in which has been stirred a teaspoonful of salt. This will draw out the blood. Cut fat, raw salt pork into strips a finger long and a quarter of an inch thick and wide. In half an hour's time take the liver from the water, spread it out on a clean dry cloth, lay another cloth over the slices and pat gently to dry them thoroughly. Make holes an inch apart in the liver with a pen-knife or 60 FRIED MEATS. 61 sharp skewer, and stick in the pork strips. They should protrude an equal distance on both sides. As fast as they are ready, lay them in a clean, warm {not hot) frying-pan. When all are in, set it over the fire, and let it fry rather slowly in the fat that will run out from the pork "lardoons." In five minutes turn the slices, and again ten minutes later. Let the liver heat quite slowly for the first ten minutes. If cooked fast it is hard and indigestible. Allow about twenty-five minutes for frying it. Take it up with a fork, draining off every drop of grease against the side of the pan as you remove each piece, and dish on a hot platter. Put a half a teaspoonful of tomato sauce on each slice. Serve without gravy and very hot. Veal Outlets (Breaded). Whip two eggs light and pour them into a pie-plate. Turn the cutlets, one by one, over 62 Marion harland^s cook book. in this until every part is coated. In another dish spread evenly a cupful of rolled or pounded cracker, very fine and dry. Turn the " egged " cutlets over in this to encrust them well. Meanwhile four large spoonfuls of sweet lard or nice beef-dripping must be melting in a clean frying-pan at one side of the range. When the cutlets are all breaded, move the pan directly over the fire. As the fat begins a lively hiss, put in as many cutlets as can lie in it without crowding. In five minutes turn them with care, not to loosen the crumb- coating. After another five minutes of rapid frying, pull the pan to a spot where the cook- ing will go on slowly, but regularly. In ten minutes turn the cutlets a second time. In another ten minutes they should be done. Understand! The first fast cooking sears the surface of the meat and forms the breading into a firm crust that keeps in the juices. The slower work that follows cooks the veal thoroughly without hardening the fibres. PRlED MEATS. ^3 Lift the cutlets carefully from the pan, draining all the grease from each, and keep hot in a covered dish set over a pot of boiling water until all are done. Always put tomato catsup or tomato sauce, in some form, on the table with veal cutlets. Sausage Oakes. > Break off bits of sausage meat of equal size, roll them in the palms of clean hands into balls and pat them into flat cakes. Arrange them in a frying-pan and cook (not too fast) in their own fat, turning them twice until they are nicely and evenly browned. The time allowed for frying them depends on the size of the cakes. If they are not large, fifteen minutes should be enough. Serve on a hot dish, without gravy. Smothered Sausages. Prick "link" sausages — that is, those done up in skins, in fifteen or twenty places, with 64 MARION harland^s coOk book, a large needle; put them in a clean frying-pan in which is a half a teacup full of hot water. iloU ta.:. sausages over in this several times and cover closely. If you have not the lid of a pot or of o. tin-pa:l that fits the frying-pan, use a pie-dish turned upside down. Set the pan where the water wi'J bubble slowly, for ten minutes. Lift the cover then, and roll the sausages over again two or three times, to wet them thoroughly, leaving them with the sides up that were down. Cover again and cook ten minutes longer. Turn them twice more, at intervals of five minutes, cover, and let them steam four minutes before taking them up. They will be plump, whole, tender and well-done, and the bottom of the pan be almost dry. Lay in neat rows on a hot dish. Esh Balls. Soak a pound of cod-fish all night in cold water. Change it in the morning, and cover with lukewarm water for three hours more. FRIED MEATS. 68 A'^as... It, scraping off the salt and fat ; put it into a sauce-pan, cover it well with water just blood-warm, and let it simmer — that is, not quite boil, two hours. Take it up, pick out the bones and remove the skin, and set the fish aside to cool. When perfectly cold chop it fine in a wooden tray. Have ready, for a cupful of minced fish, nearly two cupfuls of potato boiled and mashed very smooth. A tablespoonful of butter. Half a teaspoonful of salt. Two tablespoonfuls of milk worked into the fish while hot. Add also, when the potato has been rubbed until free from lumps, the beaten yolk of an egg. Work this in well with a wooden or silver spoon. Now stir in the chopped fish, a little at a time, mixing all together until you have a soft mass which you can handle •asily 66 MARION HARLANd's COOK BOOK. Drop a tablespoonful of the mixture on a floured pastry board, or a floured dish. Flour your hands, roll the fish and potato into a ball, and pat it into a cake, or make it as round as a marble. Lay these as you form them on a dish dusted with flour, and when all are made out, set in a cool place until morning. Half an hour before breakfast, have five or six great spoonfuls of sweet lard hissing hot in a frying-pan or doughnut-kettle. Put in the balls a few at a time, turn as they color; take them out when they are of a tanny brown, lay them in a hot colander set in a plate, and keep warm in the open oven until all are fried. A Breakfast Stew (rery nice). Two pounds of lean beef. (The "second best cuts " may be used here.) A quarter of a medium-sized onion. A tablespoonful of browped flour. FRIED MEATS. 67 Half a teaspoonful each of minced parsley, summer savory, and sweet marjoram. As much allspice as will lie on a silver dime. One teaspoonful of Halford sauce. One saltspoonful of made mustard. One saltspoonful of pepper. Strained juice of half a lemon. Cut the meat into pieces an inch square. Put it with the chopped onion into a sauce- pan with a pint of lukewarm water; cover closely and cook slowly, at least two hours and a half. The meat should not be allowed to boil hard at any time, and when done, be so tender that it is ready to fall to pieces. Pour the stew into a bowl, add the salt and pepper, cover it and set in a cool place until next morning. Then put it back into the sauce-pan, set it over a quick fire, and when it begins to boil, stir in the spice and herbs. (The latter may 68 MARION HARLANd'S COOK BOOK. be bought dried and powdered at the druggist's if you cannot get them fresh.) Boil up sharply five minutes. The flour should be browned the day before, by spreading it on a tin plate and setting this on the stove, stirring constantly to keep it from burning black. Or a better way is, to set the tin plate in a hot oven, opening the door now and then to stir it. It is a good plan to brown a good deal — say a cupful of flour — at a time, and keep it in a glass jar for thickening gravies, etc. Wet up a heaping tablespoonful of this with three tablespoonfuls of cold water, the lemon- juice, mustard and Worcestershire sauce. Rub smooth and stir well into the stew. Boil two minutes longer to thicken the gravy and turn out into a deep covered dish. This is a good dinner, as well as breakfast dish. A teaspoonful of catsup is an improve- ment. 8 WHAT TO DO WITH " LEPT-O VEE8." A VOLUME, instead of a single chapter, ■^ ^ might be written upon the various methods of preparing what the French call "rechauffes" and we speak of, usually con- temptuously, as " warmed-over " meats. Cold meat is seldom tempting except to the very hungry. Cold tongue, ham and poultry are well enough on picnics and as a side-dish at tea. At breakfast they are barely admissible ; for a simple luncheon tolerable; for dinner hardly excusable. At the first and last meal of the day, the stomach craves something hot and relishable. A ''dfe told me, once, with strong disgust 70 MARION HARLANd's COOK BOOK. in the remembrance, that when her husbanci took her on the wedding-trip to visit his mother, a frugal Massachusetts matron, they were set down within half an hour after their arrival, to lunch on a cold eel-pie left from the day before. The daughter-in-law, forty years later, spoke feelingly of the impression of niggardliness and inhospitality made on her mind by the incident. "If she had even warmed it up, I should not have felt so forlornly homesick," she said. "But cold eel-pie! Think of it!" I confess to heartfelt sympathy with the complainant. There is a suggestion of friendli- ness and home-comfort in the " goodly smell " of a steaming-hot entrie set before family or guest. It argues forethought for those who are to be fed. We have the consciousness that we are expected and that somebody has cared enough for us to make ready a visible wel- come. Pale slices of cold mutton, and thin slabs of corned beef cannot, with the best WHAT TO DO WITH " LEFT-OVERS." 71 intentions on the part of the caterer, convey this. The summing up of this lecture, is: Neither despise unlikely fragments left over from roast, baked or boiled, nor consider them good enough as they are without "rehabilitation." We will begin with a dish the mention of which provokes a sneer more often than any other known to civilization. EasL Rid cold corned or roast beef of fat, skin and gristle, and mince it in a wooden tray with a sharp chopper until the largest piece is not more than an eighth of an inch square. With two cupfuls of this mix a cupful of mashed potato rubbed smooth with a potato beater or wooden spoon. Season well with pepper and salt if the beef be fresh, if corned use the salt sparingly and pepper well. 72 MARION HARLAND's COOK BOOK. Set a clean frying-pan on the stove with a cupful of beef gravy in it from which you have skimmed all the fat. Clear soup will do if you have no gravy. If you have neither, pour into the pan a half-pint of boiling water and stir into this three tablespoonfuls of but- ter. When the butter-water (or gravy) reaches the boil, add a half-teaspoonful of made mustard. Then put in the meat and potato and stir — scraping the bottom of the pan to prevent sticking — for five minutes, or until you have a bubbling-hot mass, not stiff, nor yet semi- liquid. It must have been brought to boiling heat and kept at it about five minutes, cook- ing so fast that you have to stir and toss constantly lest it should scorch. Heap on a hot dish, and eat from hot plates. Hash Oakes. Having prepared the hash as above set it ^side until cold, when mould into flat cakes WHAT TO DO WITH "LEFT-OVERS." 73 as you would sausage meat, and roll in flour. Heat nice beef-dripping to a boil in a frying- pan, lay in the cakes, and fry to a light brown on both sides. Beef OroqnetttB. You can make these of the cold hash by moulding it into rolls about three and a half inches long, and rather more than an inch in diameter. Roll these over and over on a floured dish or board to get them smooth and regular in shape; flatten the ends by setting each upright on the floury dish, and put enough dripping in the pan to cover them as they lie on their sides in it. It should be very hot before they go in. Roll over carefully in the fat as they brown, not to spoil the shape. Do not put too many in the pan at once ; as fast as they are done take them up and lay in a hot colander until all are ready. Arrange jieatly on ^ heated flat ^ish and serve. 74 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. A Mutton Stew. Cut slices of cold mutton half an inch thick, trim away fat and skin and divide the lean meat into neat squares about an inch across. Drop a piece of onion as large as a hickory- nut in a cupful of water and boil fifteen minutes. Strain the water through a bit of muslin, squeezing the onion hard to extract the flavor. Allow this cupful of water to two cupfuls of meat. If you have less mutton use less water; if more increase the quantity of liquid. Pour the water into a clean saucepan and when it boils add two full tablespoonfuls of butter cut into bits and rolled over and over in browned flour until no more will adhere to the butter. Stir this in with a little pepper and salt, a pinch of mace and a teaspoonful of lemon- juice. Boil up once and drop in the meat. Cover closely and let it simmer at one side WHAT TO DO WITH " LEIT-OVERS." 75 oi the stove, almost, but never quite boiling, for ten minutes. Turn into a deep dish and serve very hot. Minoed ICatton on Toast. Trim off skin and fat from slices of cold mutton and mince in a chopping-tray. Season witn pepper and salt. Into a clean frying-pan, pour a cupful of mutton-gravy which has been skimmed well, mixed with a little hot water and strained through a bit of coarse muslin. When this boils, wet a teaspoonful of browned flour with three tablespoonfuls of cold water, and a teaspoonful of tomato or walnut catsup, or half a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce. Rub out all the lumps and stir into the gravy in the frying-pan. Boil up once well before putting in the mutton. As soon as the mixture bubbles and smokes all over, draw it to one side of the range where it will keep hot. but not quite boil; 76 MARION HARLANDS COOK BOOK. cover it closely, and let it stand iive minutes. Warmed-over mutton becomes insipid when cooked too much. Before the mince is put into the pan, toast the bread. Cut thick slices frora a stale loaf, and trim off the crust. If you would have them look particularly nice, cut them round with a cake or biscuit-cutter. Toast to a light- brown, and keep hot until the mince is cooked. Then lay the toast on a heated platter; butter the rounds well on both sides, and pour on each a tablespoonful of boiling water. Heap a great spoonful of the minced mutton on each piece. The mince should not be a stiff paste, nor yet so soft as to run all over the dish. A cupful of gravy will be enough for three cupfuls of meat. Some people fancy a little green pickle or chow chow chopped very fine and mixed in with the mince while cooking. Others WHAT TO DO WITH "LEFT-OVERS." 7^ think the dish improved by the addition of a teaspoonful of lemon-juice put in just before taking it from the fire. Devilled Untton. Cut even slices of cold mutton, not too fat. Stir together and melt in a clean frying- pan two tablespoonfuls of butter and one of currant or grape jelly. When it hisses lay in the mutton and heat slowly — turning several times — for five minutes, or until the slices are soft and very hot, but not until they begin to crisp. Take out the meat, lay on a warmed dish, cover and set over boiling water. To the butter and jelly left in the pan add three tablespoonfuls of vinegar, A small teaspoonful of made mustar«l. A quarter spoonful of salt. 78 MARION HAELAND S COOK BOOK. Half as much pepper as you have salt. Stir together over the fire until they boil, and pour on the meat. Cover three minutes over boiling water, and serve. Devilled, or Barbecued Ham. Slice cold Ferris & Co.'s "Trade Mark" ham, lean and fat together, and lay in a clean frying- pan. Fry gently in the grease that runs from it as it heats, until the lean is soft, the fat clear and beginning to crisp at the edges. Take out the slices with a fork, lay on a warmed dish ; keep hot over boiling water. Add to the fat left in the frying-pan: Four tablespoonfuls of vinegar. A small teaspoonful of made mustari. As much pepper as will lie easily on a silver half-dime. Stir until it boils, then pour on the ham. Let it stand covered over the boiling water for five minutes before sending to the table. WHAT TO DO WITH " LEFT-OVER? ' 79 Ohioken Oroqaettes. One cup of cold chicken, minced fine. One quarter cup of pounded cracker. One teaspoonful of cornstarch, wet up in a little cold water. One egg. One tablespoonful ot butter. Half a tablespoonful of salt. A good pinch of pepper. Half a cupful of boiling water. Mix minced chicken and crumbs together in a bowl with salt and pepper. Put the boiling water in a clean saucepan, add the butter and set over the fire. When the butter is melted stir in the wet corn starch. Boil and stir until it thickens. Have the egg beaten light in a bowl and pour the hot mixture upon it. Beat well, and mix with the minced chicken. Let it get per- fectly cold and make into croquettes as di- rected for beef croquettes. 80 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. But oil these in a well-beaten egg, then in fine cracker-crumbs instead of flour, and fry, a few at a time, in a mixture half-butter, half-lard enough to cover them well. Drain off every drop of fat from eaeh croquette as you take it up, and keep hot until all are done, Serve bot and at once. DINNEE DISHES. T AM amused and yet made tho'ightful by ■*• the fact that so many young housekeepers write to me of their pleasure in cake-making and their desire to learn how to compound what are usually known as " fancy-dishes," some sending excellent receipts for loaf-cake, cookies and doughnuts, while few express the least interest in soups, meats and vegetables. The drift of the dear creatures' thoughts re- minds me of a rhymed — "If I had ! " which I read years ago, setting forth how a little boy would have if he could, a house built of pastry, floored with taffy, ceiled with sugar- plums, and roofed with frosted gingerbread. 81 82 Marion harland's cook book. In engaging a cook one does not ask, first of all, " Can you get up handsome desserts ? " but, " Do you understand bread-making and baking, and the management of meats, soups, and other branches of plain cookery?" The same "plain cookery" is the pivot on which the family health and comfort rest and turn. If you would qualify yourselves to be- come thorough housewives, it is as essential that you should master the principles of this, as that a musician should be able to read the notes on the staff. Some people do play tolerably by ear, but they are never ranked as students, much less as professors of music. "Fancy" cookery is to the real thing what embroidery is to the art of the seamstress. She who has learned how to use her needle deftly upon "seam, gusset and band," will find the acquisition of ornamental stitches an easy matter. Skill in Kensington and satin stitch is of little value in fitting one to do "fine," which, is also useful sewing. DINNER DISHES. 8') I am sorry to add that my observation goes to prove that more American housekeep- ers can make delicate and rich cake thir excellent soups. Sonp Stock. Two pounds coarse lean beef, chopped almos; as fine as sausage-meat. One pound of lean veal — also chopped. Two pounds of bones (beef, veal, or mut ton) cracked in several places. Half an onion chopped. Two or three stalks of celery, when yov can get it. Five quarts of cold water. Meat and bones should be raw, but if yoii jve bones left from underdone beef or mut- on, you may crack and add them. Put all the ingredients (no salt or pepper) in a large clean pot, cover it closely and set at one side of the range where it will not get really hot under two hours. This gives the water time 84 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. to draw out the juices of the meat. Then remove to a warmer place, stir up well from the bottom, and cook slowly five hours longer. It should never boil hard, but "bubble- bubble" softly and steadily all the while. Fast boiling toughens the fibres and keeps in the juice of the meat which should form the body of the soup. When the time is up, lift the pot from the fire, throw in a heaping table- spoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of pepper, and pour out into your "stock-pot." This should be a stout stone crock or jar, with a cover, and be used for nothing else. See that it is free from grease, dust and all smell, scald out with hot water and soda, then with clean boiling water just before pour- ing in the soup, or the hot liquid may crack it. Put on the cover and set in a cold place until next day. Then take off every particle of the caked fat from the top. You can use this as drip- ping for frying. Soup that has globules of DINNER DISHES. 85 grease floating on the surface is unwholesome and slovenly. Strain the skimmed liquid through a colander, squeezing the meat hard to extract every drop of nutriment Throw away the tasteless fibfes and bones when you have wrung them dry. This process should give you about three quarts of strong " stock." Rinse your jar well and pour back the strained stock into it to be used as the foun- dation of several days' soups. Season it highly and keep in a cold place — in warm weather on the ice. I hope you will not fail to set up a "stock- pot." Every family should have one. It makes the matter of really good soups simple and easy. Olear Soup with Sago or Tapioca. Soak half a cup of German sago or pearl tapioca four hours in a large cup of cold water. An hour before dinner put a quart 86 MARION HARLAND's COOK BOOK. of your soup-stock on the stove and bring quickly almost to a boil. When it is hot, stir in the raw white and the shell of an egg, and, stirring frequently to prevent the egg from catching on the bottom of the pot, boil* fast ten minutes. Take off and strain through a clean thick cloth, wrung out in hot water and laid like a lining in your colander. Do not squeeze the cloth, or you will muddy the soup. Return the liquid, when strained, to the saucepan, which must be perfectly clean ; stir in the soaked tapioca and a teaspoonful of minced parsley, and simmer half an hour on the side of the range. If necessary, add a little more seasoning. When you have made nice clear soup once, irou may, if you like, color the second supply ■ffith a little " caramel- water." This is made by putting a tablespoonful of sugar in a tin cup and setting it over the fire until it breaks up into brown bubbles, then DINNER DISHES. 87 pouring si few tablespoonfuls of boiling water on it and stirring it until dissolved. A table- spoonful of this in a quart of clear soup will give a fine amber color and not injure the lavor. Send all soups in to table very hot. Jnlieime Soup. One quarter of a firm white cabbage, shred as for cold slaw. One small turnip, peeled and cut into thin dice. One carrot, peeled and cut into strips like inch-long straws. One teaspoonful of onion shred fine. Three raw tomatoes, peeled and cut into bits. One tablespoonful of minced parsley, and, if you can get it, three stalks of cel- ery cut into thin slices. Use a sharp knife for this work and bruise the vegetables as little as possible. 88 MARION HARLAND S COOK BOOK. When all are prepared, put them in hot water enough to cover them, throw in a tea- spoonful of salt and cook gently half an hour. Clear a quart of soup-stock as directed in the last receipt, and color it with a teaspoon- ful of Halford sauce, or walnut catsup. When the vegetables are tender, turn them into a colander to drain, taking care not to mash or break them. Throw away the water in which they were boiled, and add the vege-, tables to the clear hot soup. Taste, to determine if it needs more pepper or salt, and simmer all together gently twenty minutes before turning into the tureen. White Ohicken Sonp (Delicions). A tough fowl can be converted into very delicious dishes by boiling it first for soup and mincing it, when cold, for croquettes. In boiling it, allow a quart of cold water for each pound of chicken, and set it where it will heat very slowly. DINNER DISHES. 89 If the fowl be quite old do not let it reach a boil under two hours, then boil very gently four hours longer. Throw in a tablespoonful of salt when you take it from the fire, turn chicken and liquor into a bowl and set in a cold place all night. Next day skim off the fat, strain the broth from the chicken, shaking the colander to do this well, and put aside the meat for cro- quettes or a scallop. Set three pints of the broth over the fire with a teaspoonful of chopped onion, season with salt and pepper, and let it boil half an hour. Line a colander with a thick cloth, and strain the liquid, squeezing the cloth to get the flavor of the onion„ Return the strained soup to the saucepan, with a tablespoonful of minced parsley, and bring to a boil. Meanwhile, scald in a farina kettle a cupful of milk, dropping into it a bit of soda tlie size of a pea. Stir into this when hot^ a tablespoonful ol 90 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. cornstarch wet up with cold milk. Wh it thickens scrape it out into a bowl in which you have two eggs whipped light. Beat all together well, and stir in, spoonful by spoonful, a cupful of the boiling soup. Draw the soup pot to one side of the range, stir in the contents of the bowl, and let it stand — but not boil — three minutes J'-^'fore pouring into the tureen. Ohickeu and Bioe Sonp [s made as white chicken soup, but with the addition di four tablespoonfuls of rice, boiled soft, and added to the chicken liquor at the same time with the parsley. Then proceed as directed, with milk, eggs, etc. Tomato Soap. Add a quart of raw tomatoes, peeled and sliced, or a can of stewed tomatoes, and half a small onion to a quart of stock, and stew slowly one hour. DINNER DISHES. 91 Strain and rub through a colander ^nd sel again over the fire. Stir in a tablespoonful of butter cat up and rubbed into a tablespronful oi flour. A tablespoonful of cornstarch wet up with cold water. Season to taste with pepper and salt, boil once more and pour out. Bean Soap. Soak one pint of dried beans all night la lukewarm water. In the morning add three quarts of cold water, half a pound of nice salt pork, cut into strips, half an onion chopped, and three stalks of celery, cut small. Set at one side of the fire until it is very hot, then where it will cook slowly, and let it boil four hours. Stir up often from the bottom, as bean-soup is apt to scorch. An hour before dinner, set a colander over anothw pot and rub the bean porridge througk 92 MARION HARLANDS COOK BOOK. the holes with a stout wooden spoon, leaving the skins in the colander. Return the soap to the fire, stir in a table- spoonful of butter rubbed in a tablespoonful of flour, and simmer gently fifteen minutes longer. Have ready in the tureen a double handful of strips or squares of stale bread, fried like doughnuts in dripping, and drained dry. Also, half a lemon, peeled and sliced very thin. Pour the soup on these and serve. A Soup Maigre (without Meat). Twelve mealy potatoes, peeled and sliced. One quart of tomatoes — canned or fresh. One half of an onion. Two stalks of celery. One tablespoonful of minced parsley. Four tablespoonfuls of butter, cut up and rolled in flour. One tablespoonful of cornstarch wet and dissolved in cold water. DINNER DISHES. 93 One lump of white sugar. Three quarts of cold water will be needed. Parboil the sliced potatoes fifteen minutes in enough hot water to cover them well. Drain this off and throw it away. Put pota- toes, tomatoes, onion, ceiery and parsley on in three quarts of cold water, and cook gently two hours. Then rub them all through a colander, re- turn the soup to the pot, drop in the sugar, season to taste with pepper and salt, boil up once and take off the scum before adding the floured butter, and when this is dissolved, the cornstarch. Stir two minutes over the fire, and your soup is ready for the table. Very good it will prove, too, if the directions be exactly followed. When celery is out of season, you can use instead of it, a little essence of celery, or, what is better, celery salt. MEATS. ONE of the most comico-pathetico true stories I know is that of a boy, the youngest of a large family, who, having always sat at the second table, knew nothing experi mentally of the choicer portions of chicken oi turkey. Being invited out to dinner as tht; guest of a playmate, he was asked, first of al5 present, "what part of the turkey he pre ferred." "The carker" (carcass), "and a little of the stuff" (stuffing), "if you please," replied the poor Mttle fellow, with prompt politeness. It was his usual ration, and in his igno- rance, he craved nothing better. 94 MEATS. 95 ITie pupil in cookery who enjoys lossing up entries, and devising dainty rechauffes, but can- not support the thought of handling raw chickens and big-boned joints of butcher's meat, is hardly wiser than he. It is a common fallacy to believe that this branch of the culinary art is uninteresting drudgery, fit only for the hands of the very plain hired cook. Anotner mistake, almost as prevalent, lies in supposing that she can, of course, perform the duty properly. There is room for intelligent skill in so simple a process as roasting a piece of meat, nor is the task severe or repulsive. Practically, it is far more important to know how to do this well, than to be profi- cient in cake, jelly, and pudding making. Boait Beef. Have a steady, moderate fire in the stove- grate. Increase the heat when the mea<- is thoroughly warmed. 96 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. Lay the beef, skin side uppermost, in a clean baking-pan, and dash all over it two cups of boiling water in which a teaspoonful of salt has been dissolved. This sears the surface slightly, and keeps in the juices. Shut the oven door, and do not open again tor twenty minutes. Then, with a ladle or iron spoon dip up the salted water and pour it over the top of the meat, wetting every part again and again. Eight or ten ladlefuls should be used in this "basting," which should be repeated every fifteen minutes for the next hour. Allow twelve minutes to each pound of meat in roasting beef. Do not swing the oven door wide while you baste, but slip your hand (protected by an old glove or a napkin) into the space left by the half-open door, and when you have wet the surface of the roast quickly and well, shut it up again to heat and steam. A little care in this respect will add much to the flavor and tenderness of the beef. MEATS. 97 Should one side of it, or the back, brown more rapidly than the rest, turn the pan in the oven, and should the water dry up to a few spoonfuls, pour in another cupful from the tea-kettle. About twenty minutes before the time for the roasting is up, draw the pan to the oven- door, and sift flour over the meat from a flour dredger or a small sieve. Shut the door until the flour browns, then baste abundantly, and dredge again. In five minutes, or when this dredging is brown, rub the top of the meat with a good teaspoonful of butter, dredge quickly and close the door. If the fire is good, in a few minutes a nice brown froth will encrust the surface of the cooked meat. Lift the pan to the side table, take up the beef by slipping a strong cake-turner cr broad knife under it, holding it firmly with a fork, and transfer to a heated platter. 98 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. Set in the plate-warmer, or over boiling water, while you make the gravy. Gravy (brown). Set the pan in which the meat was roasted, on the range when the beef has been removed to a dish. Scrape toward the centre the browned flour from sides and bottom and dust in a little more from your dredger as you stir. If the water has boiled away until the bottom of the pan is exposed, add a little, boiling hot, directly from the teakettle and stir until the gravy is of the consistency of rich cream. Pepper to taste and pour into a gravy boat. While I give these directions, I may remark that few people of nice taste like made thick- ened gravy with roast beef. Many prefer, in- stead, the red essence which follows the carver's knife and settles in the dish. The carver should give each person helped hir ~'- her choice in this matter. MEAtS. d& I am thus explicit with regard to roasting beef because the process is substantially the same with all meats. Dash scalding water over the piece put down for cooking in this way : heat rather slowly at first, increasing the heat as you go on ; baste faithfully ; keep the oven open as little as may be and dredge, then baste, alternately, for twenty minutes, or so, before dishing the meat. Boast Mutton. Cook exactly as you would beef: but if you wish a made gravy, pour it first from the baking-pan into a bowl and set in cold water five minutes, or until the fat has risen to the top. Skim off all of this that you can remove without disturbing the dregs. It is " mutton- tallow" — very good for chapped hands, but not for human stomachs. Return the gravy to the fire, thicken, add boiling water, if needed, and stir until smooth. loo MARION HARLAND^S COOK BOOk, Always send currant, or grape jelly, around with mutton and lamb. Boast Lamb. Cook two minutes less in the pound than you would mutton. Instead of gravy, you can send in with it, if you choose Mint Sauce. To two tablespoonfuls of chopped mint, add a tablespoonful of white sugar and nearly two thirds of a cup of vinegar. Let them stand together ten minutes in a cool place before sending to table. Boast Veal Must be cooked twice as long as beef or mutton, and very well basted, the flesh being fibrous and dry. To the made gravy add two teaspoonfuls of stewed and strained tomato, or one tablespoonful of tomato catsup, and cook one minute before pouring into the gravy-boa MEATS. lOr Roast Turkey, Chicken or Duck. It would not be possible for me to write such directions as would enable you to pre- pare a fowl for cooking. Yet I advise you to learn how to draw and dress poultry. Watch the process clobcly, if you have opportunity, or else ask some experienced friend to instruct you. For the present we will suppose that our fowl is ready for the roasting pan. Lay it in tenderly, breast uppermost, pour a bountiful cup of boiling water, slightly salted, over it, if it be a chicken or duck, two cupfuls, if a turkey, and roast, basting often, about twelve minutes for each pound. When the breastbone browns, turn the fowl on one side, and as this colors, on the other, that all may be done evenly. Dredge once with flour fifteen minutes before taking up the roast, and when this browns, rub all over with a tablespoonful of butter. Shut up ten minutes longer and it ready for dishing. Chop the liver and soft parts of the gizzard — which have been roasted with the fowl—- 102 MARION HARLANd's COOK BOOK. fine, and stir into the gravy while you are making it Fricasseed Ohicken. Cut up a full-grown fowl into joints, divid- ing the back and breast into two pieces each. Lay these in cold water, slightly salted, for half an hour. Wipe dry with a clean cloth. In the bottom of a pot scatter a handful of chopped fat salt pork, with half a teaspoon- ful of minced onion. On this lay the pieces of chicken. Sprinkle a double handful of pork on the top with another half teaspoonful of onion, pour in carefully, enough cold water to cover all, fit on a close top, and set the pot where it will heat slowly. It should not boil under one hour at least. Increase the heat, then, but keep at a very gentle boil for another hour, or until the chicken is tender. The time needed for cooking will depend on the age of the fowl. Fast stewing will harden and toughen it. When done, take out the chicken with a fork and arrange on a warm dish, covering MEATS. 103 and keeping it hot in the plate warmer or over boiling water. Add to the gravy left in the pot two tablespoonfuls of chopped parsley, a heaping tablespoonful of butter cut up in the same quantity of flour, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of pepper. Stir to a boil. Meanwhile, beat up an egg in a bowl, add a teaspoonful of corn- starch, and a small cupful of milk, and when these are mixed, a cupful of the boiling gravy. Beat hard and pour into the pot where is the rest of the gravy. Bring to a quick boil, take at once from the fire and pour over the chicken. Cover and let it stand over hot water three minutes before sending to table. Smothered Ohicken. The chicken must be split down the back as for broiling, washed well and wiped dry. Lay it, breast upward, in a baking pan; pour in two cups of boiling water, in which has been dissolved a heaping tablespoonful of butter, 104 MARION HARLAND S COOK BOOK. and CLVv,r with another pan turned upside down and fitting exactly the edges of the lower one. Cook slowly half an hour, lift the cover and baste plentifully with the butter water in the pan; cover again and leave for twenty mintues more. Baste again, and yet once more in another quarter of an hour. Try the chicken with a fork to see if it is done. An hour and ten minutes should be enough for a young fowl. Baste the last time with a tablespoonful of butter; cover and leave in the oven ten minutes longer before transfer- ring to a hot dish. It should be of a fine yellow brown all over, but crisped nowhere. Thicken the gravy with a tablespoonful of browned flour, wet up in a little water, salt and pepper to taste, boil up once and pour a cupful over the chicken, the rest into a gravy boat. There is no more delightful preparation of chicken than this. MEATS. 105 Boiled Com Beef, Lay in clean cold water for five or six hours when you have washed off all the salt. Wipe and put it into a pot and cover deep in cold water. Boil gently twenty-five minutes per pound. When done, take the pot from the fire and set in the sinlc with the meat in it, while you make the sauce. Strain a large cupful of the liquor into a saucepan and set it over the fire. Wet a tablespooniul of flour up with cold water, and when the liquor boils, stir it in with a great spoonful of butter. Beat it smooth before adding the juice of a lemon. Serve in a gravy- dish. Take up the beef, letting all the liquor drain from it, and send in on a hot platter, (Save the pot-liquor for bean soup.) Boiled Mntton. Sew up the leg of mutton in a stout piece of mosquito net or of "cheese cloth;" lay it in a pot and coyer several inches deep with 106 MARION HARLANd's COOK BOOK. boiling water. Throw in a tablespoonful of salt, and cook twelve minutes to the pound. Take up the cloth with • the meat in it and dip in very cold water. Remove the bag and dish the meat. Before taking up the mutton, make your sauce, using as a base a cupful of the liquor dipped from the pot. Proceed with this as you did with the drawn butter sauce for the corned beef, but instead of the lemon juice, add two tablespoonfuls of capers if you have them. If not, the same quantity of chopped green pickle. 11 VEGETABLES. f N attempting to make out under the above J. heading, a list of receipts, I have laid down my pen several times in sheer discour- agement. The number and variety of esculents supplied by the American market-gardener would need for a just mention of each, a trea- tise several times larger than our volume. I have, therefore, selected a few of the vege- tables in general use on our tables, and given the simplest and most approved methods of preparing them. As a preface I transcribe from "Common Sense in the Household" "Rules applicablb TO TBB COOKING OF AU. VeGBTABLBS." 107 108 MAKION HARLANDS COOK BOOK. Have them as fresh as possible. Pick over, wash well, and cut out all de- cayed parts. Lay them when peeled in cold water before cooking. If you boil them put a little salt in the water. Cook steadily after you put them on. Be sure they are thoroughly done. Drain well. Serve hot! Potatoes (boiled). Pare them thin with a sharp knife. The starch or meal lies, in greatest quantities, nearest to the skin. Lay in clean cold water for one hour, if the potatoes are newly gath- ered. Old potatoes should be left in the watei for several hours. If very old, they will be the better for soaking all night. New potatoes require half an hour for boiling, and the skins 'are rubbed off with a coarse cloth before caey VEGETABLES. 109 are cooked. Those stored for winter use should be boiled forty-five minutes. Wipe each dry before dropping them into a kettle of boiling water, in which has been mixed a heaping tablespoonful of salt. Boil steadily until a fork will go easily into the largest. Turn off the water by tipping the pot over on its side in the sink, holding the top on with a thick cloth wrapped about your hand, and leaving room at the lowest edge of the .cover for the water to escape, but not for a potato to slip through. Set the pot uncovered on the range; sprinkle a tablespoonful of salt over the potatoes, shak- ing the pot as you do this, and leave it where they will dry off, but not scorch, for five minutes. Mashed Potatoes. Boil as directed in last receipt, and when the potatoes have been dried off, remove the no MARION HARLAND^S COOK BOOK. pot to the sink, or table, break and whip them into powder with a four-tined fork, or a split spoon. When fine, add a great spoonful of butter, whipped in thoroughly, salting to taste as you go on. Have ready a cup of milk almost boiling, and beat in until the potato is soft and smooth. Heap in a deep dish for the table. Onions (boiled). Remove the outer layers until you reach the sleek, silvery, crisp skins. Cook in plenty of boiling, salted water, until tender. Forty minutes should be sufficient, unless the onions are very old and large. Turn off all the water; add a cupful from the tea-kettle with one of warm milk and stew gently ten min- utes. Heat, meanwhile, in a sauce-pan, half a cup- ful of milk with a large tablespoonful of butter. Drain the onions in a hot chem colander. VEGETABLES. IH turn them into a heated deep dish, salt and pepper lightly, and pour the boiling milk and butter over them. Onions cooked thus are not nearly so rank of flavor as when boiled in but one water. Tomatoes (stewed). Put ripe tomatoes into a pan, pour boiling water directly from the kettle, upon them, and cover closely for five minutes. The skins will then come off easily. When all are peeled, cut them up, throwing away "the unripe parts and the cores, and put them into a clean saucepan with half a tea- spoonful of salt. Stew twenty minutes before adding a heap- ing tablespoonful of butter, one teaspoonful of white sugar (for a dozen large tomatoes) and a little pepper. Stew gently fifteen minutes, and serve. Scalloped Tomatoes. Scald, skin, and cut each crosswise, into 112 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. two or three pieces. Jtist melt a teaspoontul of butter in a pie-plate, or pudding-dish, and put into this a layer of tomatoes. Lay a bit of butter on each slice, sprinkle lightly with salt, pepper, and white sugar, and cover with fine dry cracker, or bread crumbs. Fill the dish with alternate layers of tomato crumbs, having a thick coating of crumbs on the top, and sticking tiny "dabs" of butter all over it. Bake, covered, half an hour. Take off the tin pan, or whatever you have used to keep in the steam, and brown nicely before sending to table. Beets. Wash well, taking care not to scratch the skin, as they will " bleed " while in cooking if this is cut or broken. Cook in boiling water an hour and a half if young, three, four or five hours as their age increases. Drain, scrape off the skins, slice quickly with a sharp knife ; put into a vegetable dish, VEGfiTAfiLES. 113 and pour over them a half a cupful of vinegar, with two tablespoonfuls of butter, heated to boiling, and a little salt and pepper. Let them stand three minutes covered in a warm place before serving. Green Peas. Shell and leave in very cold water fifteen minutes. Cook in plenty of boiling, salted water. They should be done in half an hour. Shake gently in a hot colander to get rid of the water; turn into a heated deep dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir in fast and lightly with a fork, two tablespoonfuls of butter. Eat while hot String Beans. Do not cook these at all unless you are wil- ling to take the trouble of "stringmg" them. With a small sharp knife cut off the stem and blossom-tips, then trim away the tough Il4 Marion harland*s cook fioOK. fibres from the sides carefully, and cut each bean into inch-lengths. Lay in cold water for half an hour. Cook one hour in salted boiling water, or until the beans are tender. Drain, butter and season as you would peas. String beans half-trimmed and cut into slovenly, unequal lengths are a vulgar-looking, unpopular dish. Prepared as I have directed, they are comely, palatable and wholesome. SqnasL Pare, quarter, take out the seeds, and lay in cold water for half an hour. Boil in hot salted water thirty minutes for summer squash ; twice as long if the " Hub- bard " or other varieties of winter squash are used. Take up piece by piece, and squeeze gently in a clean cloth, put back into the empty dried pot, and mash quickly and smoothly with a wooden spoon. VEGETABLES. 115 Stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter for one large squash, or two small ones. Season with pepper and salt ; heat and stir until smoking hot, then dish and serve. Oanliflower. Trim oS leaves and cut the stalk short. Lay in ice-cold water for half an hour. Tie it up in a bit of white netting. Put into a clean pot, cover deej> with salted boiling water. Boil steadily, not hard, one hour and ten minutes. Before taking it from the fire, put a cupful of boiling water in a sauce-pan. Wet a heaping teaspoonful of corn-starch with cold water, and stir into the boiling until it thickens. Then add two tablespoonfuls of but- ter, and when this is well stirred in, the strained juice of a lemon. Remove the net from the cauliflower, lay in 116 MARION HARLAND's COOK BOOK. a deep dish, and pour over it the drawn butter made by the addition of the lemon juice into satice tartare. Egg Plant. Slice it crosswise, and about an inch thick; lay in strong salt water for one hour with a plate on the topmost slice to keep it under the brine. This will draw out the bitter taste. Put a cupful of pounded crackers into a flat dish and season with salt and pepper. Beat the yolks of two eggs in a shallow bowl. Wipe each slice of the egg plant dry, dip it in the egg, and roll it over and over in the crumbs. Have ready heated in a frying- pan, some sweet lard, and fry the vegetables in it to a fine brown. As each slice is done, lay it in a hot colander set in the open oven, that every drop of grease may be dried off. Serve on a hot platter. VEGETABLES. 117 Spinaoh. Wash very carefully, leaf by leaf, to get rid of sand and dust. Lay in very cold water until you are ready to cook it Boil forty-five minutes; drain in a coiander and chop fine in a wooden tray. Beat then three great table- spoonfuls of butter (this for a peck of spinach), a teaspoonful of white sugar, and half as much salt, with a little pepper. Whip all to a soft green mass and return to the empty pot. As you stir it over the fire add a cupful of rich milk — cream, if you have it — whip up hard and turn into a deep dish. Cut two hard-boiled eggs into thin slices, and lay in order on the spinach when dished. 12 DESSEETS. TTNGLISH cooks would call this "A Chap- -■— ' ter on Sweets." "Dessert" with them is usually applied to fruits, nuts, etc. Webster defines the word thus : "A service of pastry, fruit or sweetmeats at the close of an entertainment; the last course at the table after the meat." Without dwelling upon the fact that when fruit and coffee are served they follow pastry or puddings or sweetmeats, we take advantage of the elastic definition and assume that the dessert of the family dinner is a single prep- aration of " sweets." The too-universal fie will not appear on our 118 DESSERTS. 119 menu. I am tempted to wish its manufacture might soon be numbered among the lost arts. Bayard Taylor once said that "If Rum had slain its thousands in America, Pork-fat (fried) and Pies had slain their ten thousands." The average pastry of our beloved land would drive a Patrick Henry to self-exile if he were obliged to eat it every day. Nor could one of a dozen inexperienced cooks manipulate puff-paste as it should be handled in order to be flaky and tender. Dexterity of motion and strength of wrist are needed for this operation, such as belong only to the trained cook. The more wholesome and daintier jellies, custards and trifles, and plain puddings we have selected from the vast variety of sweet things known \o our housewives, are adapted to the powers of novices in cookery, and not unworthy the attention of adepts. Boiled Oastard. I'his IS the base of so many nice "fancy 120 MARION HARLANd'S COOK BOOK. dishes," and is itself so excellent and popular that we may properly lay the knowledge how to prepare it properly as the foundation-stone of dessert making. One quart of fresh, sweet milk. Five eggs. One cup of sugar. One quarter teaspoonful of salt. One teaspoonful of essence of vanilla, lemon or bitter almond. Heat the milk to a boil in a farina kettle, or in a tin pail set in a pot of boiling water. In warm weather put a bit of soda no larger than a pea in the milk. While it is heating beat the eggs in a bowl. When the milk is scalding, add the salt and sugar, and pour the hot liquid upon the eggs, stirring all the while. Beat up well and return to the inner vessel, keeping the water in the outer at a hard boil. Stir two or three times in the first five minutes ; afterward, almost constantly. DESSERTS. 121 hx _ quarter of an hour it ou^Ai to be done, but of this you can only judge by close obser- vation and practice. The color changes from deep to creamy yellow ; the consistency to a soft richness that makes it drop slowly and heavily from the spoon, and the mixture tastes like a custard instead of uncooked eggs, sugar and milk. When you have done it right once, you recognize these signs ever afterward. If underdone, the custard will be crude and watery ; if overdone, it will clot or break. Take it when quite right — just at the turn — directly from the fire, and pour into a bowl to cool, before flavoring with the essence. With a good boiled custard as the beginning we can make scores of delightful desserts. First among these we may place Onp Onstard. Fill small glasses nearly to the top with cold custard. 122 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK, Whip the whites of three eggs stiff. Beat in three teaspoonfuls of bright-colored jelly-currant, if you have it. Heap a tablespoon of this mMngue on the surface of each glassful. Set in a cold place until it goes to table. Floating Island. Fill a glass bowl almost to the top with cold boiled custard and cover with a mMngue made as in last receipt. Do not whip in the jelly so thoroughly as to color the frothed whites. It is a prettier dish when the bright red specks just dot the snowy mass. Frosted Oustard. Make a nice custard ; let it get perfectly cold, and pile on it, instead of the whipped egg, a large cupful of grated cocoanut, sprinkling it on carefully, not to disturb the custard. Eat with sponge cake. DESSERTS. 123 Blano-mange. Like custard, this is the base — the central idea, or fact — of numberless elegant com- pounds, and is delightful in its simplest form. One package of Cooper's gelatine. Three pints of fresh, sweet milL One even cupful of white sugar. One half teaspoonful of salt. One teaspoonful of vanilla or other essence. Soda as large as a pea, put into the milk. Soak the gelatine three hours in a cupful of cold water. Then heat the milk (salted) in a farina kettle. When it is scalding, stir in without taking the vessel from the fire, the sugar and soaked gelatine. Stir three minutes after it is boiling hot, and strain through a coarse cloth into a bowl. Let it get almost cold before adding the flavoring. Wet a clean mould with cold water ; pour in the blanc-mange and set on ice, or in a cold place until firm. 124 MARION HARLANDS COOK BOOK. Dip a cloth in liot water, wring until it will not drip, wrap about the mould, turn bottom upward on a flat dish, and shake gen- tly to dislodge the contents. Eat with powdered sugar and cream. Chocolate Oustard. Five minutes before taking the custard from the fire, add to it three heaping tablespoonful of grated Baker's chocolate rubbed to a paste with a little cold milk. Stir until the mixture is of a rich coffee color. Turn out, and when cold, flavor with va- nilla and put into glasses. Whip the whites of three eggs to a smooth meringue, beat in three tablespoonfuls of pow- dered sugar, and heap upon the brown mix- ture. Chocolate Blanc-mange. (Our French scholars will say that this should be termed " Brun-mange") Mix with the soaked gelatine four heaping DESSERTS. 125 tablespoonfuls of Baker's chocolate, grated, and stir into the scalding milk, and treat as above di- rected. In straining, squeeze the bag hard to extract all the coloring matter. Flavor with vanilla Ooffee Blano-mange. Soak the gelatine in a cupful of strong, clear black coffee, instead of the cold water, and proceed as with plain blanc-mange, using no other flavoring than the coffee. Tea Blanc-mange Is made in the same way by substituting for the water very strong, mixed tea. Eat with powdered sugar and cream. Pineapple Trifla One package of gelatine. Two cups of white sugar. One small pineapple, peeled and cut into bits. One-half teaspoonful of nutmeg. 126 MAKION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. Juice and grated peel of a lemon. Three cups of boiling water. Whites of four eggs. Soak the gelatine four hours in a cup of cold water. Put into a bowl with the sugar, nutmeg, lemon-juice, and rind and minced pineapple. Rub the fruit hard into the mixture with a wooden spoon, and let all stand together, covered, two hours. Then pour upon it the boiling water and stir until the gelatine is dissolved. Line a colander with a double thickness of clean flannel, and strain the mixture through it, squeezing and wringing the cloth hard, to get the full flavor of the fruit. Set on ice until cold, but not until it is hard. It should be just "jellied" around the edges, when you begin to whip the whites of the eggs in a bowl set in ice water. When DESSERTS, 127 they are quite stiff, beat in a spoonful at a time the gelatine. Whip a minute after ad- ding each supply to mix it in perfectly. Half an hour's work with the "Dover" will give you a white spongy mass, pleasing alike to eye and taste. Wet a mould with cold water, put in the sponge and set on ice until you are ready to turn it out. This is a delicious dessert For pineapple substitute strawberries, raspberries, or peaches. A Simple Snsao. Two cups of fine, dry bread cruniba. Three cups of chopped apple. One cup of sugar. One teaspoonful of mace, and half as much allspice. Two teaspoonfuls of butter. One tablespoonful of salt Butter a pudding-dish and cover the bottom 128 MARION HARLANd's COOK BOOK. with crumbs. Lay on these a thick layfe* ai minced apple, sprinkled lightly with salt and spices — more heavily with sugar. Stick nits of butter over all. Then more crumbs, going on in this order until all the ingredients are used up. The top layer should be crumbs. Cover closely, and bake half an hour. Re- move the cover and set on the upper grating of the oven until nicely browned. Send to table in the dish in which it was baked. Sanoe for the Above. Two cupfuls of powdered sugar. Two tablespoonfuls of butter. Half teaspoonful of mace or nutmeg. Juice (strained) of a lemon. Two tablespoonfuls of boiling water. Melt the butter with the hot water and beat in, with egg whisk or "Dover," the sugar, a little at a time, until the sauce is like a cream. Add lemon juice and nutmeg, DESSERTS. 129 mould into a mound on a glass dish, or a deep plate, and set in a cold place until it is firm. This is a good "hard sauce" for any hot pudding. Oottage Pudding. Two eggs. One cup of milk. One cup of sugar. One tablespoonful of butter. Three cups of prepared flour. If you have not the prepared, use family flour with two tablespoonfuls of baking powder, sifted twice with it. One tablespoonful of salt. Put the sugar in a bowl, warm the butter slightly, but do not melt it, and rub it with a wooden spoon into the sugar until they are thoroughly mixed together. Beat the eggs light in another bowl, stir in the sugar and butter, then the milk, the salt, and lastly tha flour. 130 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. Butter a tin cake mould well, pour in the batter and bake about forty minutes in a steady oven. Should it rise very fast, cover the top with white paper as soon as a crust is formed, to prevent scorching. When you think it is done stick a clean, dry straw into the thickest part. If it comes up smooth and not sticky the loaf is ready to be taken up. Loosen the edges from the mould with a knife, turn out on a plate, and send hot to table. Cut with a keen blade into slices, and eat with pudding sauce. An easy receipt and one that seldom fails to give general satisfaction. ^3 OAKE-MATTTTra. TVTEVER undertake cake unless you are ■^ ^ willing to give to the business the amount of time and labor needed to make it well. Materials tossed together " anyhow " may, once in a great while, come out right, but the manufacturer has no right to expect this, or to be mortified when the product is a failure. Before breaking an &g%, or putting butter and sugar together, collect all your ingredients. Sift the flour and arrange close to your hand, the bowls, egg-beater, cake-moulds, ready but- tered, etc. Begin by putting the measured sugar into a 131 ISii MARION HARLANd's COOK BOOK. bowl, and working the butter into it with a wooden spoon. Warm the butter slightly in cold weather. Rub and stir uutil the mixture is as smooth and light as cream. Indeed, this process is called " creavning." Now, beat the yolks of your eggs light and thick in another bowl; wash the egg-beater well, wipe dry and let it get cold before whipping the whites to a standing heap in a third vessel. Keep the eggs cool before and while you beat them. Add the yolks to the creamed butter and sugar, beating hard one minute ; put in the milk when milk is used, the spices and flavoring; whip in the whites, and lastly, the sifted and prepared flour. Beat /mm the bottom of the mixing-bowl with a wooden spoon, bringing it up full and high with each stroke, and as soon as the in- gredients are fairly and smoothly mixed, stop beating, or your cake will be tough. Let your first attempt be with cup-cake baked in small tins. Learn to manage your CAKE-MAKING. 133 oven well before risking pound or fruit-cake. Should the dough or batter rise very fast ay white paper over the top, that this may not harden into a crust before the middle is done. To ascertain whether the cake is ready to leave the oven, thrust a clean straw into the thickest part. If it comes out clean, take out the tins and set them gently on a table or shelf to cool before turning them upside down on a clean, dry cloth or dish. A Good Oap-cake. One cup of butter. Two cups of sugar — powdered. Four eggs. One cup of sweet milk. One teaspoonful of vanilla. One half-teaspoonful of mace. Three cups of prepared flour, or the same quantity of family-flour with one even teaspoonful of soda and two of cream- tartar, sifted twice with it JS4 MARION HARLANd's COOK BOOK. Two teaspoonfuls of baking powder will serve the same end. Mix as directed in " Practical Preliminaries," and bake in small tins. Jelly-cake Is made by mixing the above cup-cake, leav- ing out the flavoring, and baking it in "jelly- cake tins," turning these out when almost cold by running a knife around the edges, and spreading all but that intended for the top with a thick coating of fruit-jelly. Sift white sugar over the upper one or frost it Oieam-oake. Mix a cup-cake without spice or other flavoring, bake in jelly-cake tins, and when cold spread between the layers this filling : One egg. One cup of milk. One half cup of sugar. Two rounded teaspoonfuls of corn-starch. One teaspoonful of vanilU or other essence CAKE-MAKING. 135 ScaM the milk in a farina-kettle ; wet the cornstarch with a little cold milk and stir into that over the fire until it thickens. Have the egg ready whipped light into a bowl; beat it in the sugar ; pour the thick hot milk upon this, gradually, stirring fast, return to the kettle and boil (still stirring,) to a thick cus- tard. Let it cool before seasoning. Frost the top-cake, or sift powdered sugar over it. Oocoannt-cake. Mix and bake as for jelly-cake, flavoring with rose-water. Whip the whites of three eggs to a stiff froth. Add one cup of powdered sugar, and two thirds of a grated cocoanut. When the cakes are cold, spread betvireen the layers. ' ^ To the remaining third of the coco&^niit add four tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, and cover the top of the cake with it. 136 MARION HARLAND S COOK BOOK. Apple-cake. Mix and bake as for jelly-cake, flavoring the dough with essence of bitter almond. Beat one egg light in a bowl, and into it a cup of sugar. Add to this the strained juice and grated rind of a lemon. Peel and grate three fine pippins or other ripe, tart apples directly into this mixture, stirring each well in before adding another. When all are in, put into a farina-kettle and stir over the fire until the apple-custard is boiling hot and quite thick. Cool and spread between the cakes. A nice and simple cake. Eat the day it is baked.. Chocolate-cake. Mix and bake as for jelly-cake, flavoring with vanilla. For filling, whip the whites of three eggs stiff; stir in one cup and a half of sugar and four tablespoonfuls of Baker's, Vanilla Chocolate, grated. Beat hard for two minutes and spread between the layers and en fehe top of the cake. CAKE-MAKING. 137 White Onp-cake. One cup of butter. Two cups of powdered sugar. Three cups of prepared flour. One cup of sweet milk. Whites of five eggs. One teaspoonful of essence of bitter almond. Cream butter and sugar; add milk and beat hard before putting in the whites of the eggs. Stir in flavoring and, lightly and quickly, the prepared flour. Bake in small tins. Frosting for Cake. Whites of three eggs. Three cups of powdered sugar. Strained juice of a lemon. Put the whites into a cold bowl and add the sugar at once, stirring it in thoroughly. Then whip with your egg-beater until the mixture is stiff and white, adding lemon-juice as you go 138 MARION HARLAND'S COOK BOOK. on. Spread thickly over the cake, and set in the sun, or in a warm room to dry, White Lemon Oake. Make "white cup-cake," bake in jelly cake- tins and let it get cold. Prepare a frosting as above directed, but use the juice of two lemons and the grated peel of one. Spread this mixture between the cakes and on the top. Sponge Oake. Do not attempt this until you have had some practice in the management of ovens, and let your first trial be with what are some- times termed " snOw-balls," — that is, small sponge cakes, frosted. Put six eggs into a scale and ascertain their weight exactly. Allow for the sponge cake the weight of the eggs in sugar, and half their weight in flour. Grate the yellow peel from a lemop and §(^u«^«ii§ the juice upon it. Let it ststnd ven CAKE-MAKING. 139 minutes, and strain through coarse muslin, pressing out every drop. Beat the yolks of the eggs very light and then the sugar into them; the lemon-juice; the whites, which should have been whipped to a standing froth; — finally, stir in the sifted flour swiftly and lightly. Bake in a steady oven from twenty-five to thirty minutes, glanc- ing at them now and then, to make sure they are not scorching, and covering with white paper as they harden on top. This is an easy, and if implicitly obeyed, a sure receipt Nice Oingerbreadt Three eggs. One cup of sugar. One cup each of molasses, "loppered" or buttermilk, and of butter. One tablespoonful of ground ginger, a teaspoonful of cinnamon, and half as much alspice. 140 MARION HARLANDS COOK BOOK. Four and a half full cups of sifted flour. One teaspoonful of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of boiling water. Put butter, molasses, sugar and spire in a bowl, set in a pan of hot water and stir with a wooden spoon until they are like brown cream. Take from the water and add the milk. Beat yolks and whites together until light in another bowl, and turn the brown mixture gradually in upon them, keeping the egg-beater going briskly. When well-mixed, add the soda, at last, the flour. Beat hard three minutes, and bake in well-buttered pans. St^at Oookies. Two cups of sugar. One cup of butter. Three eggs, whites and yolks beaten together. CAKE-MAKING. 141 About three cups of flour sifted witn one teaspoonful of baking powder. One teaspoonful of nutmeg, and half this quantity of cloves. Cream butter and sugar, beat in the whipped eggs and spice ; add a handful at a time the flour, working it in until the dough is stiff enough to roll out. Flour your hands well and sprinkle flour over a pastry-board. Make a ball of the dough, and lay it on the board. Rub your rolling-pin also with flour and roll out the dough into a sheet about a quarter of an inch thick. Cut into round cakes ; sift granulated sugar over each and bake quickly. Ginger Snaps. Two cups of molasses. One cup of sugar. One cup of butter. Five cups of flour. 142 MARION HARLANd's COOK BOOK. One heaping teaspoonful of ground ginger, and the same quantity of alspice. Stir molasses, sugar and butter together in a bowl set in hot water, until very light. Mix in spices and flour, and roll out as directed in last receipt, but in a thinner sheet. Cut into small cakes and bake quickly. All cakes in the composition of which molasses is used, are more apt to burn than others. Watch your ginger snaps well, but opening the oven as little as may be. These spicy and toothsome cakes are better the second day than the first, and keep well for a week or more. 14 JELLIES, OEEAMS AND OTHEE FANOT DISHES POK TEA AM) LUirOHEON OE STIPPEE-PAETIES. 'T^HE pleasing custom in many families is ■*■ to make the daughters responsible for " fancy cookery." Mamma turns naturally, when company is expected, to her young allies for the manufacture of cake, jellies, blanc-mange, etc., and for the arrangement of fruit and flowers, and seldom cavils at the manner in which they do the work. The difference in the appointment of feasts in houses where there are girls growing up and grown, and in those where there are none, is so marked that I need not call atten- tion to it. 143 H4 MARION. HARLANd's COOK BOOK. Lemon or Orange Jelly. One package of gelatine soaked in two cups of cold water. Two and a half cups of sugar. Juice of four lemons and grated peel of two (same of oranges). Three cups of boiling water. A quarter-teaspoonful powdered cinnamon. Soak the gelatine two hours; add lemon juice, grated peel, sugar and spice, and leave for one hour. Pour on the boiling watei", stir until dissolved, and strain through double flan- nel. Do not shake or squeeze, but let the jelly filter clearly through it into a bowl or pitcher set beneath. Wet moulds in cold water and set aside to cool and harden. Eibbon Jelly. Take one third currant jelly, one third lemon jelly, and as much plain blanc-mange. (^See Desserts.) JELLIES, CREAMS, ETC. 146 When all are cold and begin to form, wet a mould, pour in about a fourth of the red jelly and set on the ice to harden ; keep the rest in a warm room, or near the fire. So soon as the jelly is firm in the bottom of the mould, add carefully some of the white blanc- mange, and return the mould to the ice. When this will bear the weight of more jelly, add a little of the lemon, and when this forms, another line of white. Proceed in this order, dividing the red from the yellow by white, until the jellies are used up. Leave the mould on ice until you are ready to turn the jelly out. A pretty dish, and easily managed if one will have patience to wait after putting in each layer until it is firm enough not to be dis- turbed or muddied by the next supply. Buttercup Jelly. One half package of gelatine soaked in half a cup of cold water for two hours. 146 MARION harlAnd^s cook fiooK. Three eggs. One pint of milk. One heaping cup of sugar. One teaspoonful of vanilla. Bit of soda the size of a pea stirred into the milk. Heat the milk to scalding in a farina-kettle and stir in the soaked gelatine until the latter is dissolved, and strain through a coarse cloth. Beat the yolks of the eggs light, add the sugar and pour the boiling mixture gradually upon it, stirring all the time. Return to the farina-kettle and stir three minutes, or until it begins to thicken. Let it cool before you flavor it. Whip the white of one egg stiff, and when the yellow jelly coagulates around the edges, set the bowl containing the frothed white in cracked ice or in ice-water and beat the jelly into it, spoon- ful by spoonful, with the egg-whip, until it is all in and your sponge thick and smooth. JELLIES, CREAMS, ETC. 147 Wet a mould and set it on the ice to form. Lay about the base when you dish it. WMpped Oream. I have been assured by those who have made the experiment, that excellent whipped cream can be produced, and very quickly, by the use of our incomparable Dover Egg-beater. I have never tried this, but my pupils may, if they have not a syllabub-churn. Put a pint of rich, sweet cream in a pail or other wide-mouthed vessel with straight sides, and set in ice while you whip or churn it. As the frothing cream rises to the top, re- move it carefully with a spoon and lay it in a perfectly clean and cold colander, or on a hair sieve, set over a bowl. If any cream drips from it return to the vessel in which it is whipped to be beaten over again. When no more froth rises, whip a tablespoonful of powdered sugar into the white syllabub in the colander, and it is ready for use. 148 MARIOK HARLANd's COOK BOOK. Swan's Down Oream. One pint of whipped cream. Whites of three eggs beaten to a stiflf froth. One cup of powdered sugar. One teaspoonful essence bitter almond. Just before you are ready to send the dish to table, beat whipped cream, frothed whites, sugar and flavoring together in a bowl set deep in cracked ice. Heap in a glass dish and leave in the ice until it is to be eaten. Send sponge cake around with it Jellied Oranges. Cut a small round piece from the blossom end of each of six or eight oranges, and scoop out the pulp very carefully, so as not to widen the hole, or tear the inside of the fruit. Use your fingers and a small teaspoon for this purpose until the oranges are empty and clean. JELLIES, CREAMS, ETC. 149 Lay them then in very cold water while you prepare with the pulp and juice you have taken out, and the grated peel of another orange, half the quantity of orange-jelly called for by the receipt for lemon jelly. When it is quite cold, fill the orange-skins with it, and set in a cold place to harden. In serving them, cut the oranges cross-wise with a shai^ knife and arrange in a glass dish, the open sides upward. A few orange, lemon, or japonica leaves to line the edges of the dish, will give a pretty effect. Ambrosia. Peel fine, sweet oranges, and cut into small pieces, extracting the seeds. Put a layer in a glass dish and sprinkle well with sugar. In this scatter a thick coating of grated cocoa- nut, strewing this also with powdered sugar. Over the cocoanut lay thin slices of bananas, peeled and cut crosswise. Fill the dish in this order, the top being covered with banana. 150 MARION HAELAND'S COOK BOOK. A nice dessert for Sundays and warm afternoons when one dreads the heat of the stove. How to make Ooffee and Tea. If you wish to have really strong coffee, allow a cup of freshly-ground coffee to a quart of boiUng water. Put the coffee in a bowl and wet with half a cup of cold water. Stir in the white and shell of a raw egg, and turn into a clean, newly-scalded coffee-boiler. Shut down the top and shake hard up and down half a dozen times before pouring in the boiling water. Set where it will boil hard, but not run over, for twenty minutes, draw to the side of the range and check the boil sud- denly by pouring in a third of a cup of cold water. Let it stand three minutes to settle, and pour off gently into the pot which is to be set on the table. Scald the milk to be drunk with coffee, unless you can serve really rich cream with it JELUES, CREAMS, ETC. 151 Tba. First rule. The water should boil. Second rule. The water in which the tea is steeped, must be boiling. Third rule. The water used for filling the pot must be boiling. I speak within bounds when I say that I could tell on the fingers of my two hands the tables at which I have drunk really good, hot, fresh tea. Sometimes it is made with boiling water, then allowed to simmer on the range or hob until the decoction is rank, reedy and bitter. Sometimes too little tea is put in, and the beverage, while hot enough, is but faintly colored and flavored. Oftenest of all, the tea is made with un- boiled water, or with water that did boil once, but is now flat and many degrees below the point of ebullition. Scald the china, or silver, or tin teapot from which the beverage is to flow directly into the cups; put in an even teaspoonful ot tea 162 MARION harland's cook book. for each person who is to partake of it, pour in a half-cup of boiling water and cover the pot with a cozy or napkin for five minutes. Then, fill up with boiling water from the kettle and take to the table. Fill the cups within three minutes or so and you nave the fresh aroma ot the delicious herb. INDEX. BREADS. Bread Sponge 16 Breakfast Biscuits 23 Crumpets no English Muffins 28 First Loaf, The n Graham Bread 10 Graham Rolls 23 Graham Cakes 40 Griddle Cakes 37 Hominy Cakes 39 Quick Biscuits 35 Quick MufiSns 31 Sally Lunn 33 Sour Milk Cakes 38 Tea Rolls 2i CAKE. Apple Cake 136 Cup-cake ••. 133 Cream-cake ......••• . 134 Cocoanut-cake ...•••••• 135 Cbocolate-cake • . 136 IH INBEK. Gingerbread .•<<•. . . < S39 Ginger Snaps .«•»..<«• I4K Jelly-cake .••••••«•• 134 Sponge Cake : 138 Sugar Cookies . ,-»>-tmtm 140 White Cup-cake ...•.•••• 137 White Lemon Cake . ....••• 138 Frosting for Cake 137 DESSERTS. Blanc-mange 123 Blanc-mange, Chocolate 124 Blanc-mange, CofCee • . 125 Blanc-mange, Tea . • iz^ Cup Custard 121 Custard, boiled 119 Chocolate Custard 124 Custard, frosted 12;^ Cottage Pudding 129 Floating Island 122 Pineapple Trifle 125 Simple Susan 127 EGGS. Boiled Eggs 42 Bacon and Eggs 48 Baked Eggs 49 Custard Eggs 44 Dropped Eggs with white 'iauce 51 INDEX. 155 Eggs ou Toast 45 Eggs on Savory Toast 49 Omelette 25 Poached, or Dropped Eggs 44 Scrambled or Stirred Eggs 46 Scalloped Eggs 50 JELLIES. CREAMS AND OTHER FANCY DISHES. Ambrosia 149 Jelly, Buttercup 145 Jelly, Lemon 144 Jelly, Ribbon ......... 148 Jellied Oranges 144 Cream, Whipped 147 Cream, Swan's Down 148 MEATS. Beefsteak jj Beef Croquettes 73 Beef, Roast . 9^ Boiled Corned Beef 105 Breakfast Stew 66 Chicken Croquettes 79 Chicken, Turkey or Duck, Roast loi Chicken, Fricasseed 102 Chicken Smothered 103 Fish Balls 64 Ham, Broiled ......... jg Ham Deviled, or Barbecned • j t • . . 78 156 INDEX. Hash .*. fl Hash Cakes jz Lamb, Roast •... loo Liver, Larded ......... 60 Mutton or Lamb Chops 58 Mutton Boiled 105 Mutton, Deviled jj Minced Mutton on Toast ....... 7 e Mutton, Roast g^ Mutton Stew 74 Sausage Cakes ^ g Smothered Sausage , _ g Veal Cutlets g^ Veal Roast ! .' 100 Gravy, Brown ^ Mint Sauce ^ ^^^ SOUPS. Soup Stock . . . ; 83 Bean Soup 91 Chicken Soup 90 Clear Soup with Sago or Tapioca 85 Julienne Soup 87 Soup Maigre (without meat) 92 Tomato Soup . 90 White Chicken Soup 88 TEA AND COFFEE, HOW TO MAKE. CoSee 150 Tea 151 INDEX. VEGETABLES. Beets "* CauMower ''S Egg Plant i»6 Green Peas "3 Onions, boiled no Potatoes, boiled *o8 Potatoes, mashed '"9 Squash "4 String Beans. , "3 Spinach. "7 Tomatoes, Stewed "• Tomatoes, Scalloped *"