School and Home Cooking Part 30

(_d_) Covering it, thus keeping it free from dust.

Utensils for holding milk should be of gla.s.s, earthenware, or smooth, bright tin. They should be washed, scalded, or even better, boiled, and placed in the sun for two or three hours. In the home, milk should not be used after long standing, even though it is sweet. It is well to buy milk in small quant.i.ties and in bottles. The upper rim of a milk bottle should be washed before pouring milk from it. Because milk readily absorbs odors and flavors, it should be kept away from any substance having a strong odor or flavor.

RICE DAINTY

3/4 cupful cooked rice 3/4 cupful fruit, cut into pieces 3/4 cupful powdered sugar 1/2 to 3/4 cupful cream, whipped

Mix the rice, fruit, and sugar, then fold in the whipped cream. Pineapple, shredded or diced; bananas cut into pieces (not slices); dates, seeded and cut into pieces; or cooked apricots are desirable fruits for this dessert.

CREAM OF RICE PUDDING

1 quart milk _or_ 1 quart milk and water 1/3 cupful rice 1/2 teaspoonful salt 1/3 cupful sugar Grated rind of 1/2 lemon

Wash rice; put it and all the other ingredients into a b.u.t.tered pudding dish. Bake in a _slow_ oven (250 degrees F.) until firm. This usually takes three hours. While baking, stir the mixture occasionally.

If desired, one half cupful of raisins may be added to the mixture, and 1 teaspoonful vanilla or 1/4 teaspoonful nutmeg may be subst.i.tuted for lemon rind.

QUESTIONS

From your knowledge of the effect of intense heat upon milk, explain why Cream of Rice Pudding should be baked in a slow oven.

What change in quant.i.ty takes place in the milk of this pudding during long cooking? What change in quant.i.ty takes place in the rice during long cooking? From this explain why so much milk when combined with a little rice forms a solid mixture.

What is the price per pint of thin or coffee cream?

What is the price per pint of heavy or whipping cream?

What is the least quant.i.ty of cream that can be purchased?

Explain why it is that scalded milk does not sour as soon as uncooked milk (see _Care of Milk_).

Why should utensils that have held milk be scalded or boiled?

LESSON XLIX

CREAM SOUPS (A)

THICK SOUPS.--Milk combined with various vegetables, grains, and fish is used in making Cream Soups and Purees. The vegetables are cooked and mashed or forced through a strainer and combined with a liquid,--usually milk or milk with vegetable stock. In order to have the vegetable pulp uniformly mixed through the liquid, it is necessary to thicken the liquid with a starchy material. Flour with b.u.t.ter or subst.i.tute, mixed and cooked as in White Sauce, is used for this purpose. It is said to "bind" the vegetables and the liquid. Thus, Cream Soups and Purees are simply White Sauces to which vegetable pulp is added.

GENERAL PROPORTIONS.--_The usual proportion of vegetable pulp or puree to liquid is:_ One part of vegetable pulp or puree to 2 parts of liquid, _i.e._ milk, vegetable stock, or meat stock.

_The proportion of flour to liquid is:_ 1/2 tablespoonful flour to 1 cupful liquid, if a starchy vegetable is used, or, 1 tablespoonful flour to 1 cupful liquid, if a vegetable having little thickening property, as celery, is used.

Sometimes an egg or two is added to soup for thickening or flavor, and to increase the food value.

Different kinds of vegetables are sometimes mixed for a soup, as: Peas and beans, or corn and beans.

POTATO SOUP

3 potatoes 1 tablespoonful flour 1 pint milk _or_ 1 pint milk and potato stock 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls salt 1/8 teaspoonful pepper 2 slices of onion Celery salt 3/4 tablespoonful b.u.t.ter or subst.i.tute 2 teaspoonfuls chopped parsley

Cook and mash the potatoes, heat the milk and onion in a double boiler, then add them to the mashed potatoes. Press the potato mixture through a strainer and use it as the liquid for a White Sauce, using all other ingredients except the parsley in the sauce. If necessary, add more liquid, or evaporate to the desired consistency. Add the chopped parsley just before serving.

"Left over" mashed potatoes may be utilized in making this soup.

CROUTONS

Cut stale bread into half-inch cubes. Bake _slowly_ in the oven until a golden brown. Stir often. Serve with soups.

Save the crusts and prepare Dried Bread Crumbs with them.

QUESTIONS

What is the proportion of flour and liquid in one cup of White Sauce for Vegetables?

How does the proportion of flour and liquid for one cup of Cream Soup differ from the above proportion?

Why are the potatoes pressed through a strainer _after_ rather than _before_ adding the hot milk?

Why should the cubes of stale bread be baked slowly (see _Toast_)?

LESSON L

CREAM SOUPS (B)

FOOD VALUE OF CREAM SOUPS.--Since thin or clear soups contain much liquid, their food value is not as high as most solid foods. Cream Soups, however, are as concentrated as a potato; they are the most nourishing of all soups. The use of milk instead of water or stock and of flour and fat, to say nothing of vegetable pulp, increases their food value. Cream Soups are more suitable to serve at a meal of few courses such as luncheon or supper rather than at dinner where there is a greater variety of foods.

Thick soups may serve as a valuable part of a meal; a hot liquid taken into an empty stomach is easily a.s.similated, acts as an appetizer, and thus prepares for the digestion of the remainder of the meal.

CORN SOUP

1 can of corn 1 pint water l 1/2 tablespoonfuls b.u.t.ter or subst.i.tute 1 slice onion 2 tablespoonfuls flour 1 teaspoonful salt 1/8 teaspoonful white pepper 1 pint milk

Add the water to the canned corn and _simmer_ 20 minutes. Melt the fat, add the onion, and cook until light brown. To this add the dry ingredients and proceed as in making White Sauce. Add the cooked corn and strain.

Reheat before serving, if necessary.

NOTE.--The method of adding onion flavor to this soup (_i.e._ browning onion in fat) is often used in the preparation of other foods, especially meats and sauces.

SOUP STICKS