Peas may be greatly improved by boiling with them two or three lumps of loaf-sugar, and a sprig of mint to be taken out before they are dished. This is an English way of cooking green peas, and is to most tastes a very good one.
TO BOIL ONIONS.
Take off the tops and tails, and the thin outer skin; but no more lest the onions should go to pieces. Lay them on the bottom of a pan which is broad enough to contain them without piling one on another; just cover them with water, and let them simmer slowly till they are tender all through, but not till they break.
Serve them up with melted b.u.t.ter.
TO ROAST ONIONS.
Onions are best when parboiled before roasting. Take large onions, place them on a hot hearth and roast them before the fire in their skins, turning them as they require it. Then peel them, send them to table whole, and eat them with b.u.t.ter and salt.
TO FRY ONIONS.
Peel, slice them, and fry them brown in b.u.t.ter or nice dripping.
Onions should be kept in a very dry place, as dampness injures them.
TO BOIL ASPARAGUS.
Large or full grown asparagus is the best. Before you begin to prepare it for cooking, set on the fire a pot with plenty of water, and sprinkle into it a handful of salt. Your asparagus should be all of the same size. Sc.r.a.pe the stalks till they are perfectly nice and white; cut them all of equal length, and short, so as to leave them but two or three inches below the green part.
To serve up asparagus with long stalks is now becoming obsolete.
As you sc.r.a.pe them, throw them into a pan of cold water. Then tie them up in small bundles with ba.s.s or tape, as twine will cut them to pieces. When the water is boiling fast, put in the asparagus, and boil it an hour; if old it will require an hour and a quarter.
When it is nearly done boiling, toast a large slice of bread sufficient to cover the dish (first cutting off the crust) and dip it into the asparagus water in the pot. Lay it in a dish, and, having drained the asparagus, place it on the toast with all the heads pointed inwards towards the centre, and the stalks spreading outwards. Serve up melted b.u.t.ter with it.
SEA KALE.
Sea kale is prepared, boiled, and served up in the same manner as asparagus.
POKE.
The young stalks and leaves of the poke-berry plant when quite small and first beginning to sprout up from the ground in the spring, are by most persons considered very nice, and are frequently brought to market. If the least too old they acquire a strong taste, and should not be eaten, as they then become unwholesome. They are in a proper state when the part of the stalk nearest to the ground is not thicker than small asparagus. Sc.r.a.pe the stalks, (letting the leaves remain on them,) and throw them into cold water. Then tie up the poke in bundles, put it into a pot that has plenty of boiling water, and let it boil fast an hour at least. Serve it up with or without toast, and send melted b.u.t.ter with, it in a boat.
STEWED TOMATAS.
Peel your tomatas, cut them in half and squeeze out the seeds.
Then put them into a stew-pan without any water, and add to them cayenne and salt to your taste, (and if you choose,) a little minced onion, and some powdered mace, Stew them slowly till they are first dissolved and then dry.
BAKED TOMATAS
Peel some large fine tomatas, cut them up, and take out the seeds.
Then put them into a deep dish in alternate layers with grated bread-crumbs, and a very little b.u.t.ter in small bits. There must be a large proportion of bread-crumbs. Season the whole with a little salt, and cayenne pepper. Set it in an oven, and bake it. In cooking tomatas, take care not to have them too liquid.
MUSHROOMS.
Good mushrooms are only found in clear open fields where the air is pure and unconfined. Those that grow in low damp ground, or in shady places, are always poisonous. Mushrooms of the proper sort generally appear in August and September, after a heavy dew or a misty night. They may be known by their being of a pale pink or salmon colour on the gills or under side, while the top is of a dull pearl-coloured white; and by their growing only in open places. When they are a day old, or a few hours after they are gathered, the reddish colour changes to brown.
The poisonous or false mushrooms are of various colours, sometimes of a bright yellow or scarlet all over; sometimes entirely of a chalky white stalk, top, and gills.
It is easy to detect a bad mushroom if all are quite fresh; but after being gathered a few hours the colours change, so that unpractised persons frequently mistake them.
It is said that if you boil an onion among mushrooms the onion will turn of a bluish black when there is a bad one among them. Of course, the whole should then be thrown into the fire. If in stirring mushrooms, the colour of the silver spoon is changed, it is also most prudent to destroy them all.
TO STEW MUSHROOMS.
For this purpose the small b.u.t.ton mushrooms are best. Wash them clean, peel off the skin, and cut off the stalks. Put the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs into a small sauce-pan with just enough water to keep them from burning, and, covering them closely, let them stew a quarter of an hour. Then strain the liquor, and having put the mushrooms into a clean sauce-pan, (a silver one, or one lined with porcelain,) add the liquid to them with a little nutmeg, pepper and salt, and a piece of b.u.t.ter rolled in flour. Stew them fifteen minutes, and just before you take them up, stir in a very little cream or rich milk and some beaten yolk of egg. Serve them hot.
While they are cooking, keep the pan as closely covered as possible.
If you wish to have the full taste of the mushroom only, after washing, tr.i.m.m.i.n.g, and peeling them, put them into a stew-pan with a little salt and no water. Set them on coals, and stew them slowly till tender, adding nothing to them but a little b.u.t.ter rolled in flour, or else a little cream. Be sure to keep the pan well covered.
BROILED MUSHROOMS.
For this purpose take large mushrooms, and be careful to have them freshly gathered. Peel them, score the under side, and cut off the stems. Lay them one by one in an earthen pan, brushing them over with sweet oil or oiled b.u.t.ter, and sprinkling each with a little pepper and salt. Cover them closely, and let them set for about an hour and a half. Then place them on a gridiron over clear hot coals, and broil them on both sides.
Make a gravy for them of their tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs stewed in a very little water, strained and thickened with a beaten egg stirred in just before it goes to table.
BOILED RICE.
Pick your rice clean, and wash it in two cold waters, not draining off the last water till you are ready to put the rice on the fire.
Prepare a sauce-pan of water with a little salt in it, and when it boils, sprinkle in the rice. Boil it hard twenty minutes, keeping it covered. Then take it from the fire, and pour off the water.
Afterwards set the sauce-pan in the chimney-corner with the lid off, while you are dishing your dinner, to allow the rice to dry, and the grains to separate.
Rice, if properly boiled, should be soft and white, and every grain ought to stand alone. If badly managed, it will, when brought to table, be a grayish watery ma.s.s.
In most southern families, rice, is boiled every day for the dinner table, and eaten with the meat and poultry.
The above is a Carolina receipt.
TO DRESS LETTUCE AS SALAD.
Strip off the outer leaves, wash the lettuce, split it in half, and lay it in cold water till dinner time. Then drain it and put it into a salad dish. Have ready two eggs boiled hard, (which they will be in twelve minutes,) and laid in a basin of cold water for five minutes to prevent the whites from turning blue. Cut them in half, and lay them on the lettuce.
Put the yolks of the eggs on a large plate, and with a wooden spoon mash them smooth, mixing with them a table-spoonful of water, and two table-spoonfuls of sweet oil. Then add, by degrees, a salt-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of mustard, and a tea-spoonful of powdered loaf-sugar. When these are all smoothly united, add very gradually three table-spoonfuls of vinegar. The lettuce having been cut up fine on another plate, put it to the dressing, and mix it well.
If you have the dressing for salad made before a dinner, put it into the bottom of the salad dish; then (having cut it up) lay the salad upon it, and let it rest till it is to be eaten, as stirring it will injure it.
You may decorate the top of the salad with slices of red beet, and with the hard white of the eggs cut into rings.