American Cookery Part 7

By Janet M. Hill and Mary D. Chambers

In all recipes where flour is used, unless otherwise stated, the flour is measured after sifting once. Where flour is measured by cups, the cup is filled with a spoon, and a level cupful is meant. A tablespoonful or a teaspoonful of any designated material is a LEVEL spoonful. In flour mixtures where yeast is called for, use bread flour; in all other flour mixtures, use cake or pastry flour.

Potage Parmentier

Cook the well-washed, white stalks of two or three leeks, sliced lengthwise, in two tablespoonfuls of fat in a saucepan, and allow to remain over the fire for five or six minutes, or until slightly colored.

Add four large potatoes, pared and sliced, one quart of cold water, and two teaspoonfuls of salt, cover, and cook for twenty minutes after the water boils. Strain out the potatoes and leeks and press through a colander. Thicken the water by adding one-fourth a cup of flour, blended with two tablespoonfuls of b.u.t.ter or a subst.i.tute; stir until it has boiled for one minute; add one-half a teaspoonful of white pepper, stir into it the potato puree, and let the whole come to a boil. Pour into the tureen, and add one-half a cup of rich cream, a cup of well-browned croutons, and a few chervil leaves, or the green leaves of cress or any preferred herb. The addition of the half-cup of rich cream is essential to the soup "parmentier."

Potato-and-Peanut Sausages

Mix one cup of roasted and fine-ground peanuts with one cup and one-half of highly seasoned mashed potatoes. Add one beaten egg, and form the mixture into small sausage-shaped rolls, rolling each one in flour. Roll on a hot pan, greased with bacon fat, or bake in a very hot oven, until the outside of the sausages is lightly browned. Pile in the center of a dish, and garnish with curls of toasted bacon, placed on a border of shredded lettuce.

Roast Turkey

Clean, stuff and truss a twelve-pound turkey, that, when cooked, may rest on the wings level on the platter, the drumsticks close to the body. Rub all over with salt and dredge with flour. Cover the breast with thin slices of salt pork. Set on a rack in a baking-pan (a "double roaster" gives best results). Turn often, at first, to sear over and brown evenly. For the first half hour the oven should be hot, then lower the heat and finish the cooking in an oven in which the fat in the pan will not burn. Cook until the joints are easily separated. It will require three hours and a half. Add no water or broth to the pan during cooking. For basting use the fat that comes from the turkey during cooking.

Turkey Stuffing

Add one teaspoonful of salt, one-fourth a teaspoonful of pepper and one tablespoonful and one-half of poultry seasoning to three cups of cracker crumbs; mix thoroughly and add three-fourths a cup of melted b.u.t.ter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ROAST TURKEY]

Garnish the Roast Turkey with Stuffed Onions

Parboil eight choice onions about one hour. Remove from the water and cut out a circular piece from the top of each to form cups. Chop, fine, the pieces of onion; add an equal measure of cold, cooked ham, salt and pepper to season, one-fourth a cup, each, of fine, soft crumbs and melted b.u.t.ter and mix thoroughly. Season the inside of the cups with salt, then stuff with the prepared mixture. Bake slowly about half an hour, basting with melted b.u.t.ter. Serve decorated with celery tips.

Oyster-and-Onion Puree

Steam one pound of white onions, and when tender sift through a colander. Cook one quart of oysters in their liquor until the gills separate; strain, and chop the oysters in a chopping bowl. Return the liquor to the saucepan, and cook with three tablespoonfuls of flour and three tablespoonfuls of softened b.u.t.ter, rubbed together, stirring constantly until well thickened and smooth. Season with one teaspoonful and one-half of salt and one-half a teaspoonful of pepper. Sift into the onion-pulp one-fourth a cup of flour, and stir until blended; add one-fourth a teaspoonful of celery seed and one bayleaf, and mix with the thickened oyster liquor. Stir until the whole comes to a boil and the puree is thick as porridge. Add the chopped oysters and one pint of thin cream, let heat through, and serve with oysterettes, saltines or other plain crackers.

Salmon a la Creole

Clean and scale a small salmon, stuff with one-half a loaf of stale bread moistened with hot water, seasoned with one-fourth a cup of b.u.t.ter, salt and pepper to taste, and one-half a cup of capers. Mix all well, and bind with one beaten egg. Place the salmon on the rack of a baking-pan in a very hot oven, cover with thin slices of bacon, and let cook until done. Serve on a bed of chopped fresh mushrooms, cooked in a little bouillon, and garnish the dish with small fresh tomatoes.

Brother Jonathan

Make a mush of yellow cornmeal, and mould in cylindrical moulds, such as baking powder boxes or brown bread moulds. Let stand until next day, and cut into slices. Arrange the slices on a large porcelain pie-plate in pyramidal form, sprinkling each layer with some sharp, hard cheese, grated, and seasoned with a very little red pepper. Sift b.u.t.tered crumbs freely over the whole; brown in a hot oven, and serve as a vegetable with fish, with sour grape jelly melted and poured over it.

Plymouth Succotash

Boil, separately, one chicken and four pounds of corned beef. The next day remove meat and fat from both kettles of liquid, combine liquids, season with salt (if needed) and pepper; when boiling add five quarts of hulled corn; remove to slow fire and let simmer three hours. Have ready three pints of New York pea beans that have been soaked twelve hours, boiled until soft and strained through a sieve; add to soup (for thickening). Boil one yellow turnip (or two white turnips), and six potatoes; when done add to succotash. This recipe makes eight quarts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLYMOUTH SUCCOTASH]

[Ill.u.s.tration: NEW ENGLAND SALAD]

New England Salad

Dress flowerets of cold, cooked cauliflower with oil, salt, pepper and vinegar. From cold, cooked beets remove the top and center portions to make beet cups. Arrange the prepared cauliflower to fill cups, pour over boiled salad dressing and arrange a heart of celery in each filled beet-cup.

Guinea Chickens

Clean and truss two guinea chickens; place on a bed of sliced, uncooked carrots, potatoes and celery, arranged in the bottom of a ca.s.serole--(a large bean-pot serves as well). Sprinkle the chicks with salt and pour over them melted b.u.t.ter; set the cover in place. Bake in a moderate oven one hour and one-quarter, basting every fifteen minutes with melted b.u.t.ter. Add no water to the ca.s.serole.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GUINEA CHICKENS]

Rib Roast of Beef with Yorkshire Pudding

Place a rib roast of beef on a rack in a dripping pan; dredge with flour and sear over the outside in a hot oven, then add salt and pepper and drippings and let cook at a low temperature until done, basting every ten minutes. Remove to a platter and serve with Yorkshire pudding.

Yorkshire Pudding

Sift together one cup and a half of flour, and one-third a teaspoonful of salt; gradually add one cup and one-half of milk, so as to form a smooth batter; then add three eggs, which have been beaten until thick and light; turn into a small, hot dripping pan, the inside of which has been brushed over with roast beef drippings; when well risen in the pan, baste with the hot roast beef drippings. Bake about twenty minutes. Cut into squares and serve around the roast.

Apple Mint Jelly for Roast Lamb

Cut the apples in quarters, removing imperfections. Barely cover with boiling water, put on a cover and let cook, undisturbed, until soft throughout. Turn into a bag to drain. For a quart of this apple juice set one and one-half pounds of sugar on shallow dishes in the oven to heat. Set the juice over the fire with the leaves from a bunch of mint; let cook twenty minutes, then strain into a clean saucepan. Heat to the boiling point, add the hot sugar and let boil till the syrup, when tested, jellies slightly on a cold dish. Tint with green color-paste very delicately. Have ready three to five custard cups on a cloth in a pan of boiling water. Let the gla.s.ses be filled with the water; pour out the water and turn in the jelly. When cooled a little remove to table.

(English recipe.)

Marinaded Cutlets

Cut a pound of the best end of neck of mutton into cutlets, allowing two cutlets for each bone, beat them with a cutlet bat and trim them neatly. Let them soak for an hour in a marinade made by mixing six tablespoonfuls of red wine vinegar, one tablespoonful of olive oil, half a teaspoonful of salt, six bruised peppercorns, a minced onion, a sprig of thyme, and a bayleaf. At the end of the hour drain the cutlets, and dredge them with flour to dry them. Brush over each one with beaten egg, and roll it in bread-crumbs; repeat the egging and breadcrumbing a second time, and, if possible, leave them for an hour for the crumbs to dry on. Half fill a deep pan with frying-fat, and when it is heated, so as to give off a pale blue vapor, place the cutlets carefully in the pan, and when they float on top of the fat and are of a rich brown color, they are sufficiently cooked, and must be taken from the fat and drained on kitchen paper before being served _en couronne_, or on a mound of mashed potatoes, green peas, French beans, or Brussels sprouts.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RIB ROAST WITH YORKSHIRE PUDDING]

Veal cutlets, fillets of beef, fillets of white fish, or cutlets of cod or hake, are excellent when prepared by the same method. (English recipe.)

Thanksgiving Corn Cake

Sift together two cups of corn meal, two cups of white flour, four _heaping_ teaspoonfuls of baking powder, one LEVEL teaspoonful of soda, one teaspoonful of salt, and one-half a cup of sugar. Add one cup of sour milk (gradually), three-fourths cup of sour cream, four eggs and one-third a cup of melted b.u.t.ter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THANKSGIVING CORN CAKE]