Common Sense in the Household 38

Common Sense in the Household 38

GREEN PEAS.

 

Shell and lay in cold water until you are ready to cook them. Put into

salted boiling water, and cook from twenty minutes to half an hour.

If young and fresh, the shorter time will suffice. If just gathered

from your own vines and tender, season only with salt. Market peas are

greatly improved by the addition of a small lump of white sugar. It

improves taste and color. The English always put it in, also a sprig

of mint, to be removed when the peas are dished. Drain well, and dish,

with a great lump of butter stirred in, and a little pepper. Keep hot.

 

 

PEA FRITTERS OR CAKES. ✠

 

Cook a pint or three cups more peas than you need for dinner. Mash

while hot with a wooden spoon, seasoning with pepper, salt, and butter.

Put by until morning. Make a batter of two whipped eggs, a cupful of

milk, quarter teaspoonful soda, a half teaspoonful cream tartar, and

half a cup of flour. Stir the pea-mixture into this, beating very hard,

and cook as you would ordinary griddle-cakes.

 

I can testify, from experience, that they make a delightful morning

dish, and hereby return thanks to the unknown friend to whom I am

indebted for the receipt.

 

 

ASPARAGUS (_boiled._)

 

Cut your stalks of equal length, rejecting the woody or lower portions,

and scraping the white part which remains. Throw into cold water as

you scrape them. Tie in a bunch with soft strings—muslin or tape—and

put into boiling water slightly salted. If very young and fresh, it is

well to tie in a piece of coarse net to protect the tops. Boil from

twenty to forty minutes, according to the age. Just before it is done,

toast two or three slices of bread, cutting off the crust; dip in the

asparagus liquor, butter, and lay in a hot dish. When you take up the

asparagus, drain, unbind the bundle, and heap it upon the toast, with

bits of butter between the stalks.

 

 

ASPARAGUS AND EGGS.

 

Cut twenty-five or thirty heads of asparagus into bits half an inch

long, and boil fifteen minutes. Have a cupful of rich drawn butter in a

saucepan, and put in the asparagus when you have drained it dry. Heat

together to a boil, seasoning with pepper and salt, and pour into a

buttered bake dish. Break five or six eggs carefully over the surface;

put a bit of butter upon each; sprinkle with salt, and pepper, and put

in the oven until the eggs are set.

 

 

_Or,_ ✠

 

You may beat the eggs—yolks and whites separately—to a froth; season

with butter, pepper, and salt; stir them together, with the addition

of three tablespoonfuls of milk or cream, and pour evenly over the

asparagus mixture in the dish. This is decidedly the better way of the

two, although somewhat more troublesome.

 

 

ASPARAGUS IN AMBUSH. ✠

 

Cut off the tender tops of fifty heads of asparagus; boil and drain

them. Have ready half a dozen (or more) stale biscuit or rolls, from

which you have cut a neat top slice and scraped out the crumb. Set them

in the oven to crisp, laying the tops beside them that the cavities

may be well dried. Meanwhile, put into a saucepan a sugarless custard

made of a pint—if you need so much—of milk, and four well-whipped eggs.

Boil the milk first, before beating in the eggs; set over the fire and

stir until it thickens, when add a great spoonful of butter, a little

salt and pepper; lastly, the asparagus tops, minced fine. Do not let

it boil, but take from the fire so soon as the asparagus is fairly

in; fill the rolls with the mixture, put on the tops, fitting them

accurately; set in the oven three minutes, and arrange on a dish, to be

eaten hot.

 

The number of rolls will depend upon their size. It is better to have

them small, so that one can be served to each person. They will be

found extremely nice.

 

 

BOILED ONIONS.

 

Cut off tops and tails, and skin them. Lay in cold water half an hour,

then put into a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them. Cook

fifteen minutes and drain off the water, re-covering them with more

from the boiling tea-kettle. Boil until a straw will pierce them; drain

and put into a dish with pepper, salt, and plenty of butter. Send

around drawn butter with them. Never cook onions in an iron pot.

 

 

STEWED ONIONS. ✠

 

Young onions should always be cooked in this way. Top, tail, and skin

them, lay them in cold water half an hour or more, then put into a

saucepan with hot water enough to cover them. When half done, throw off

all the water, except a small teacupful—less, if your mess be small;

add a like quantity of milk, a great spoonful of butter, with pepper

and salt to taste. Stew gently until tender, and turn into a deep dish.

 

If the onions are strong and large, boil in three waters, throwing away

all of the first and second, and reserving a very little of the third

to mix with the milk.

 

It ought to be more generally known that the disagreeable odor left by

any of the onion family upon the breath may be removed by chewing and

swallowing a few grains of roasted coffee. No more nutritious vegetable

ever finds its way to our tables, and it is greatly to be regretted

that the unpleasant result just named should deter so many from

eating it. It is especially beneficial to brain-workers and nervous

invalids—the very people who are least likely to taste it.

 

 

BAKED ONIONS.

 

The large Spanish or Bermuda onions are the only kinds which are

usually baked. Wash clean, but do not remove the skins. Boil an

hour—the water should be boiling when they are put in, and slightly

salt. Change it twice during this time, always replenishing with more,

boiling-hot. Turn off the water, take the onions out and lay upon a

cloth, that all the moisture may be absorbed or evaporate. Roll each

in a round piece of buttered tissue-paper, twisting it at the top to

keep it closed, and bake in a slow oven nearly an hour. When tender

all through, peel them, put them into a deep dish, and brown slightly,

basting with butter freely. This will take perhaps a quarter of an hour

more. Serve in a vegetable dish, and pour the melted butter over them

when you have sprinkled with pepper and salt.

 

 

STUFFED ONIONS.

 

Wash and skin very large Bermuda onions. Lay in cold water an hour.

Parboil in boiling water half an hour. Drain, and while hot extract

the hearts, taking care not to break the outer layers. Chop the inside

thus obtained very fine, with a little cold fat pork or bacon. Add

bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, mace, and wet with a spoonful or two of

cream. Bind with a well-beaten egg, and work into a smooth paste.

Stuff the onions with this; put into a dripping-pan with a very little

hot water, and simmer in the oven for an hour, basting often with

melted butter. When done, take the onions up carefully, and arrange

the open ends uppermost in a vegetable dish. Add to the gravy in the

dripping-pan the juice of half a lemon, four tablespoonfuls of cream or

milk, and a little browned flour wet with cold milk. Boil up once, and

pour over the onions.

 

 

STEWED TOMATOES. ✠

 

Loosen the skins by pouring scalding water upon them; peel and cut them

up, extracting the cores or hard parts of the stem end, and removing

all unripe portions. Stew in a saucepan (tin or porcelain) half an

hour, when add salt and pepper to taste, a teaspoonful of white sugar,

and a tablespoonful of butter. Stew gently fifteen minutes longer, and

serve.

 

Some cooks thicken the tomatoes with a little grated bread. A minced

onion—a small one—improves the flavor. Another pleasant variety is to

put a quarter as much green corn as you have tomatoes into the saucepan

when it is first set on the fire, and stew gently.

 

 

STUFFED BAKED TOMATOES. ✠

 

Choose large, smooth tomatoes, and cut a thin slice from the blossom

end of each, laying it aside for further use. Scoop out the inside, and

chop fine with a little grated bread, some green corn, salt, pepper,

a teaspoonful white sugar, and a tablespoonful butter. Mix well, and

stuff the hollowed tomatoes. Fit the tops on neatly, place in circular

rows in a deep dish and bake three-quarters of an hour, to a light

brown. Fill the interstices with the force-meat if you have any left,

before you bake. Do not peel them.

 

 

SCALLOPED TOMATOES. ✠

 

Peel and cut in slices a quarter of an inch thick. Pack in a

pudding-dish in alternate layers, with a force-meat made of

bread-crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and a little white sugar. Spread

thickly upon each stratum of tomatoes, and when the dish is nearly

full, put tomatoes uppermost, a good bit of butter upon each slice.

Dust with pepper and a little sugar. Strew with dry bread-crumbs, and

bake covered half an hour; remove the lid and bake brown.

 

 

SCALLOP OF TOMATOES AND GREEN CORN. ✠

 

This is made as above, substituting for the bread-crumbs in the

force-meat, green corn cut from the cob, and seasoning with some fat

pork chopped very fine, a minced shallot, pepper, salt, and sugar.

Let the top layer be tomatoes, butter and season, and sift grated

bread-crumbs over it to brown the scallop. Bake covered half an hour;

uncover and leave in the oven as much longer. This time is for a large dishful.