Miss Leslie's New Cookery Book Part 28

STEWED PUMPKIN.--No pumpkin is too large to be good, but they may be too old. Cut a good deep-colored pumpkin in half, and empty out all the seeds, &c. Then cut it into pieces, and pare them. Put the pieces of pumpkin into a pot with barely sufficient water to keep them from burning. When they are thoroughly done or soft all through, take them up; drain, mash, and press them through a cullender. They must be _very_ dry. Put the stewed pumpkin into a dish, and mix it with a small portion of b.u.t.ter. Season it with black pepper, and eat it with boiled corned beef, or corned pork, or bacon.

Stewed pumpkin is chiefly used for pies and puddings.

YANKEE PUMPKIN PUDDING.--Take a pint of stewed pumpkin. Mix together a pint of _West India_ mola.s.ses and a pint of milk, adding two large table-spoonfuls of brown sugar, and two table-spoonfuls of ground ginger. Beat three eggs very light, and stir them, gradually, into the milk and mola.s.ses. Then, by degrees, stir in the stewed pumpkin. Put it into a deep dish, and bake it without a crust. This is a good farm-house pudding, and _equally_ good for any healthy children.

For a large family, double the quant.i.ties of ingredients--that is, take a quart of milk, a quart of mola.s.ses, four spoonfuls of brown sugar, four spoonfuls of ginger, six eggs, and a quart of stewed pumpkin.

You had best have at hand _more than a quart_ of pumpkin, lest when mixed it should not hold out. This pudding is excellent made of winter squash.

STEWED MUSHROOMS.--Peel and wash a quart of very fresh mushrooms, and cut off all the stems. b.u.t.ton mushrooms are best; but if you can only procure large ones, quarter them. Sprinkle them slightly with salt and pepper, and put them into a stew-pan with a quarter of a pound of nice fresh b.u.t.ter, cut in pieces and slightly dredged with flour. Keep the lid closely covered all the time. When quite tender, put the mushrooms into a deep dish, in the bottom of which is laid a nice toast that has had all the crust pared off, and been dipped for a minute in hot water, and slightly b.u.t.tered. Serve up the mushrooms closely covered. They require no seasoning.

BAKED MUSHROOMS.--Take large fine fresh mushrooms. Peel them and remove the stems. Lay them on their backs in a large dish, (not letting them touch each other) and put into each mushroom, (as in a cup) a bit of the best fresh b.u.t.ter. Set the dish in an oven and bake them. Send them to table in the same dish; or transfer them to another, with a large toast at the bottom. There is no better way of cooking mushrooms than this.

If you cannot procure good b.u.t.ter, cook them in nice olive oil.

TO BOIL INDIAN CORN.--Corn for boiling should be full grown, but young and tender, and the grains soft and milky. If its grains are becoming hard and yellow, it is too old for cooking. Strip the ears of their leaves and the silk. Put them into a large pot of boiling water, and boil it rather fast for half an hour or more, in proportion to its size and age. When done, take it up, drain it, dish it under a cover, or napkin, and serve it up hot. Before eating it, rub each ear with salt and pepper, and then spread it with b.u.t.ter. Epicures in corn consider it sweetest when eaten off the cob. And so it is; but _before company_ few persons like to hold an ear of indian corn in their hands, and bite the grains off the cob with their teeth. Therefore, it is more frequently cut off the cob into a dish; mixed with salt, pepper, and b.u.t.ter, and helped with a spoon.

It is said that young green corn will boil sufficiently in ten minutes, (putting it, _of course_, into a pot of boiling water.) Try it.

_Another way._--Having pulled off the silk, boil the corn without removing any but the outside leaves. With the leaves or husk on, it will require a longer time to cook, but is sweeter and more nutritious.

HOMINY.--Hominy is white indian corn, sh.e.l.led from the cob, divested of the outer skin by scalding in hot lye, and then winnowed and dried. It is perfectly white. Having washed it through two or three waters, pour boiling water on it; cover it, and let it soak all night, or for several hours. Then put it into a pot or sauce-pan, allow two quarts of water to each quart of hominy, and boil it till perfectly soft. Then drain it, put it into a deep dish, add some b.u.t.ter to it, and send it to table hot, (and _uncovered_,) to eat with any sort of meat; but particularly with corned beef or pork. What is left may be made next day into thick cakes, and fried in b.u.t.ter. To be _very good_, hominy should boil four or five hours.

CAROLINA GRITS OR SMALL HOMINY.--The small-grained hominy must be washed and boiled in the same manner as the large, only allow rather less water for boiling. For instance, put a pint and a half of water to a quart of small hominy. Drain it well, send it to table in a deep dish _without a cover_, and eat it with b.u.t.ter and sugar, or mola.s.ses. If covered after boiling, the vapor will condense within the lid, and make the hominy thin and watery.

SAMP.--This is indian corn skinned, and then pounded or ground till it is still smaller and finer than the Carolina grits. It must be cooked and used in the same manner. It is very nice eaten with cream and sugar.

For invalids it may be made thin, and eaten as gruel.

HOMINY CAKES.--A pint of small hominy, or Carolina grits; a pint of white indian meal, sifted; a salt-spoonful of salt, three large table-spoonfuls of fresh b.u.t.ter; three eggs or three table-spoonfuls of strong yeast; a quart of milk. Having washed the small hominy, and left it soaking all night, boil it soft, drain it, and while hot mix it with the indian meal; adding the salt, and the b.u.t.ter. Then mix it gradually with the milk, and set it away to cool. Beat the eggs very light, and add them gradually to the mixture. The whole should make a thick batter.

Then bake them on a griddle, in the manner of buckwheat cakes, rubbing or sc.r.a.ping the griddle always before you put on a fresh cake. Trim off their edges nicely, and send them to table hot. Eat them with b.u.t.ter.

Or you may bake them in m.u.f.fin rings.

If you prefer making these cakes with yeast, you must begin them earlier, as they will require time to rise. The yeast should be strong and fresh. If _not_ very strong, use four table-spoonfuls instead of two. Cover the pan, set it in a warm place; and do not begin to bake till it is well risen, and the surface of the mixture is covered with bubbles.

CORN PORRIDGE.--Take young corn, and cut the grains from the cob.

Measure it, and to each heaping pint of corn allow not quite a quart of milk. Put the corn and milk into a pot, stir them well together, and boil them till the corn is perfectly soft. Then add some bits of fresh b.u.t.ter dredged with flour, and let it boil five minutes longer. Stir in at the last, four beaten yolks of eggs, and in three minutes remove it from the fire. Take up the porridge and send it to table hot, and stir some fresh b.u.t.ter into it. You may add sugar and nutmeg.

CORN OYSTERS.--Three dozen ears of large young indian corn, six eggs; lard and b.u.t.ter in equal portions for frying. The corn must be young and soft. Grate it from the cob as fine as possible, and dredge it with wheat flour. Beat very light the six eggs, and mix them gradually with the corn. Then let the whole be well incorporated by hard beating. Add a salt-spoon of salt.

Have ready, in a frying pan, a sufficient quant.i.ty of lard and fresh b.u.t.ter mixed together. Set it over the fire till it is boiling hot, and then put in portions of the corn mixture, so as to form oval cakes about three inches long, and nearly an inch thick. Fry them brown, and send them to table hot. In taste they will be found to have a singular resemblance to fried oysters, and are universally liked if properly done. They make nice side-dishes at dinner, and are very good at breakfast.

SUMMER SACCATASH.--String a quarter of a peck of young green beans, and cut each bean into three pieces, (not more,) and do not split them. Have by you a pan of cold water, and throw the beans into it as you cut them.

Have ready over the fire a pot or sauce-pan of boiling water; put in the beans, and boil them hard near twenty minutes. Afterwards take them up, and drain them well through a cullender. Take half a dozen ears of young but full-grown indian corn, (or eight or nine if they are not all large) and cut the grains down from the cob. Mix together the corn and the beans, adding a very small tea-spoonful of salt, and boil them about twenty minutes. Then take up the saccatash, drain it well through a sieve, put it into a deep dish, and while hot mix in a large piece of b.u.t.ter, (at least the size of an egg,) add some pepper, and send it to table. It is generally eaten with salted or smoked meat.

Fresh Lima beans are excellent cooked in this manner, with green corn.

They must be boiled for half an hour or more, before they are cooked with the corn.

Dried beans and dried corn will do very well for saccatash, but they must be soaked all night before boiling. The water poured on them for soaking should be hot.

WINTER SACCATASH.--This is made of dried sh.e.l.led beans and hard corn, soaked over night in separate pans, and boiling water poured over them in the morning, after pouring off the first water. Then boil both together till they are _quite soft_. Drain them dry in a sieve, put them into a deep dish, and mix in a large piece of b.u.t.ter, seasoned with pepper. This is a good accompaniment to corned pork or beef. The meat must be boiled in a separate pot.

CAROLINA WAY OF BOILING RICE.--Pick the rice carefully, and wash it through two or three cold waters till it is quite clean. Then (having drained off all the water through a cullender,) put the rice into a pot of boiling water, with a very little salt, allowing as much as a quart of water to half a pint of rice. Boil it twenty minutes or more. Then pour off the water, draining the rice as dry as possible. Lastly, set it on hot coals with the lid off, that the steam may not condense upon it and render the rice watery. Keep it drying thus for a quarter of an hour. Put it into a deep dish, and loosen and toss it up from the bottom with two forks, one in each hand, so that the grains may appear to stand alone.

TOMATOS.--Tomatos require long cooking; otherwise they will have a raw taste, and be quite too acid. Take fine tomatos that are quite ripe, put them into a pan, and scald them in very hot water. Let them remain for ten minutes, or till you can peel them without scalding your hands.

Drain them through a sieve. You may either press out all the seeds, (retaining only the pulp or liquid,) or leave the seeds in, squeezing the tomatos slightly. Put them into a stew-pan, which must on no account be of copper, as the acid of the tomatos will render it poisonous. We knew a lady who died in agonies from eating tomatos cooked in a copper vessel that had the tinning partly worn off. If the tin inside is indispensable, (which it is) why have any copper about it? A vessel of _double_ block tin only, will last as long, and stand the fire as well as if there was copper inside. For all stews, an iron pan, lined with delft (or what is called porcelain or enamel) is excellent. Best of all for stewing tomatos, and many other things, is a _bain marie_, or double kettle, with the water outside, in the outer kettle.

Having nearly filled the stew-pan with the tomatos, (cut up, if they are large) add a little salt and pepper, a piece of fresh b.u.t.ter dredged with flour, and (if approved) a very little chopped onion. If you have ready-boiled onions at hand, take one or two of them and mince it fine.

Add to the tomatos some powdered white sugar to lessen the excessive acid. Put but very few bread-crumbs--if too many, they will weaken the taste. Tomatos are an improvement to every kind of plain soups, and may be added, with advantage, after the soup is in the tureen. The cooking of tomatos should be commenced at least three hours before dinner. Put no water with them--their own juice is sufficient.

Many persons like tomatos raw, sliced like cuc.u.mbers, and seasoned with vinegar and pepper.

TO KEEP TOMATO PULP.--Having boiled them till entirely dissolved, (adding a little salt and pepper) press and strain them through a sieve, pour the liquor into pint or half-pint bottles, (which must be perfectly clean) and stand the bottles up in a large iron pot or oven, with a layer of straw in the bottom. Fill up the pot with cold water, cork them tightly, and let the water boil round the bottles for five hours.

As it boils away, fill up with more hot water. When you take them out, put a spoonful of salad oil at the top of each bottle; seal the bottles with rosin cement. This pulp will be good for tomato purposes till next summer, if kept in a cool dry place. When you open a bottle use it fast, or cork it again immediately.

BROILED TOMATOS.--Take the very largest and ripest tomatos. Wash, but do not scald or peel them. Cut the tomatos _half_ apart on four sides, extract the seeds, and fill each tomato with a nice forcemeat of stuffing, made of bread-crumbs, b.u.t.ter, minced veal or pork, mace, nutmeg, and sweet marjoram. Having stewed this stuffing in a sauce-pan, (moistening it with tomato juice, or gravy) fill all the tomatos with it, opening them out a little like the leaves of a tulip. b.u.t.ter slightly a heated gridiron, and broil them on it. Or, they may be baked in an oven.

This is a dish for company, either at dinner or breakfast.

b.u.t.tON TOMATOS.--These are the very smallest tomatos, and are excellent for pickling and preserving. If quite ripe, and free from blemishes, they will keep very well in cold vinegar, and are the easiest done of all pickles. There are two sorts of b.u.t.ton tomatos, the red and the yellow, both equally good. Wipe every tomato clean and dry, and put them into small gla.s.s jars that have a cover. Fill the jars two-thirds with the tomatos, and then fill up to the top with the best cider vinegar. On the top put a table-spoonful of salad oil, and cover them closely. They require nothing to secure their keeping well. But the taste will be improved, by putting in with them, three very small thin muslin bags, each containing mace, nutmeg, and ginger, broken small, but not powdered. Lay one bag of spice at the bottom of the jar; one about the middle, and one near the top. If done without spice, they are the cheapest of all pickles. Do not put them into soups or stews; but eat them cold with meat, like other pickles.

If kegs of these tomatos were carried to sea, and liberally served out to the crew, the scurvy would be less frequent, even on long voyages.

Large whole tomatos would do for this purpose. We wish it were the universal custom in s.h.i.+ps to take out with them plenty of tomatos kept in this way in vinegar. Tomato catchup is now much used for the army--so it should be for the navy; not only for the sick, but for the well; to keep them well.

BREAD, PLAIN CAKES, etc.