Practical Suggestions for Mother and Housewife Part 11

SALT PORK WITH MILK GRAVY

Cut salt or cured pork into thin slices. If very salt, cover with hot water and allow it to stand for ten minutes. Score the rind of the slices and fry slowly until they are a golden brown. Make a milk gravy by heating flour in the fat that has been tried out, allowing two tablespoonfuls of fat and two tablespoonfuls of flour to each cup of milk. This is a good way to use skim milk, which is as rich in protein as whole milk. The pork and milk gravy served with boiled or baked potatoes makes a cheap and simple meal, but one that most people like very much. Bacon is often used in place of salt pork in making this dish.

"SALT-FISH DINNER"

1/2 pound salt pork.

1 pound codfish.

2 cups of milk (skim milk will do).

4 tablespoonfuls flour.

A speck of salt.

Cut the codfish into strips, soak in lukewarm water and then cook in water until tender, but do not allow the water to come to the boiling point except for a very short time as prolonged boiling may make it tough. Cut the pork into one-fourth inch slices and cut several gashes in each piece. Fry very slowly until golden brown, and remove, pouring off the fat. Out of four tablespoonfuls of the fat, the flour, and the milk make a white sauce. Dish up the codfish with pieces of pork around it and serve with boiled potatoes and beets. Some persons serve the pork, and the fat from it, in a gravy boat so it can be added as relished.

SAUCES

The art of preparing savory gravies and sauces is more important in connection with the serving of the cheaper meats than in connection with the cooking of the more expensive.

There are a few general principles underlying the making of all sauces or gravies whether the liquid used is water, milk, stock, tomato juice, or some combination of these. For ordinary gravy 2 level tablespoonfuls of flour or 1-1/2 tablespoonfuls of cornstarch or arrow root is sufficient to thicken a cupful of liquid. This is true excepting when, as in the recipe on page 23 the flour is browned. In this case about one-half tablespoonful more should be allowed, for browned flour does not thicken so well as unbrowned. The fat used may be b.u.t.ter or the drippings from the meat, the allowance being 2 tablespoonfuls to a cup of liquid.

The easiest way to mix the ingredients is to heat the fat, add the flour, and cook until the mixture ceases to bubble, and then to add the liquid. This is a quick method and by using it there is little danger of getting a lumpy gravy. Many persons, however, think it is not a wholesome method and prefer the old-fashioned one of thickening the gravy by means of flour mixed with a little cold water. The latter method is, of course, not practicable for brown gravies.

The good flavor of browned flour is often overlooked. If flour is cooked in fat until it is a dark brown color a distinctive and very agreeable flavor is obtained. This flavor combines very well with that of currant jelly, and a little jelly added to a brown gravy is a great improvement.

The flavor of this should not be combined with that of onions or other highly flavored vegetables. A recipe for a dish which is made with brown sauce follows:

MOCK VENISON

Cut cold mutton into thin slices and heat in a brown sauce, made according to the following proportions:

2 tablespoonfuls b.u.t.ter.

2 tablespoonfuls flour.

1 tablespoonful of bottled meat sauce (whichever is preferred).

1 tablespoonful red-currant jelly.

1 cupful water or stock.

Brown the flour in the b.u.t.ter, add the water or stock slowly, and keep stirring. Then add the jelly and meat sauce and let the mixture boil up well.

CHAPTER XV

HOUSEHOLD RECIPES.

(Arranged Alphabetically)

"The woman's work for her own home is to secure its order, comfort, and loveliness."--JOHN RUSKIN--_Sesame and Lilies_.

The following recipes are tried and approved ones, useful for housecleaning, laundry work, etc. In a number of instances they give instruction in the making of commodities, such as soap, which are usually purchased in the stores, but which, if made at home will cost less money, and be of better quality. They are arranged alphabetically for ease of reference:

ANTS--TO GET RID OF

Wash the shelves with salt and water; sprinkle salt in their paths. To keep them out of safes, set the legs of the safe on tin cups; keep the cups filled with water.

BARRELS--TO CLEAN

The ordinary way of washing a barrel is with boiling water, and when cool examining it with a light inside. If there be any sour or musty smell, however, lime must be used to remove it. Break the lime into lumps, and put it in the cask dry (it will take from 3 to 4 lbs. for each cask), then pour in as many gallons of boiling water as there are pounds of lime, and bung. Roll the cask about now and then, and after a few hours wash it out, steam it, and let it cool.

BED-BUGS--TO KILL

For bed-bugs nothing is so good as the white of eggs and quicksilver.

A thimbleful of quicksilver to the white of each egg; heat until well mixed; apply with a feather.

FEATHER-BEDS--TO CLEANSE WITHOUT EMPTYING

On a hot, clear summer day, lay the bed upon a scaffold; wash it well with soap-suds upon both sides, rubbing it hard with a stiff brush; pour several gallons of hot water upon the bed slowly, and let it drip through. Rinse with clear water; remove it to a dry part of the scaffold to dry; beat, and turn it two or three times during the day. Sun until perfectly dry. The feathers may be emptied in barrels, washed in soap-suds, and rinsed; then spread in an unoccupied room and dried, or put in bags made of thin sleazy cloth, and kept in the sun until dry.

The quality of feathers can be much improved by attention of this kind.

CLOTHES--TO BLEACH

Dissolve a handful of refined borax in ten gallons of water; boil the clothes in it. To whiten brown cloth, boil in weak lye, and expose day and night to the sun and night air; keep the clothes well sprinkled.

BOOKS--TO KEEP MICE FROM

Sprinkle a little Cayenne pepper in the cracks at the back of the shelves of the bookcase.

BOARDS--TO SCOUR

Mix in a saucer three parts of fine sand and one part of lime; dip the scrubbing-brush into this and use it instead of soap. This will remove grease and whiten the boards, while at the same time it will destroy all insects. The boards should be well rinsed with clean water. If they are very greasy, they should be well covered over in places with a coating of fuller's earth moistened with boiling water, which should be left on 24 hours before they are scoured as above directed. In washing boards never rub crosswise, but always with the grain.

BOOKS--TO PRESERVE FROM DAMP

A few drops of strong perfumed oil, sprinkled in the bookcase will preserve books from damp and mildew.

BOOKS--TO CLEAN

Books may be cleaned with a little dry bread crumbled up and rubbed gently, but firmly, over with the open hand. Cloth covers may be washed with a sponge dipped in a mixture made from the white of an egg beaten to a stiff froth and afterwards allowed to settle. To clean grease marks from books, dampen the marks with a little benzine, place a piece of blotting-paper on each side of the page, and pa.s.s a hot iron over the top.

BRa.s.s--TO CLEAN

Dissolve 1 oz. of oxalic acid in one pint of soft water. Rub it on the bra.s.s with a piece of flannel, and polish with another dry piece. This solution should be kept in a bottle labelled "poison," and the bottle well shaken before it is used, which should be only occasionally, for in a general way the Bra.s.s should be cleaned with pulverized rottenstone, mixed into a liquid state with oil of turpentine. Rub this on with a piece of soft leather, leave for a few minutes; then wipe it off with a soft cloth. Bra.s.s treated generally with the latter, and occasionally with the former mode of cleaning will look most beautiful. A very good general polish for bra.s.s may be made of 1/2 a lb. of rottenstone and 1 oz. of oxalic acid, with as much water as will make it into a stiff paste. Set this paste on a plate in a cool oven to dry, pound it very fine, and apply a little of the powder, moistened with sweet oil, to the bra.s.s with a piece of leather, polishing with another leather or an old silk handkerchief. This powder should also be labelled "poison."

BRITANNIA METAL--TO CLEAN