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RECIPES FOR COOKING COMMON FOODS
By Dr. Mary E. Lapham

PREPARATION OF MEATS

Roast Beef.—The problem of roasting beef is to have it sufficiently cooked in the center without hardening and over-cooking the outside. Burned edges and a raw center testify to a lack of intelligence.

The English way of baking beef is to allow nine minutes to the pound for a rib-roast and eight minutes for a sirloin. Sprinkle pepper and salt over the meat and sprinkle with flour. Pour a little boiling water into the pan and bake in an oven hot enough to crisp and brown peeled raw potatoes cooked in the same pan. Do not forget to baste often. This method gives a rich flavor to the beef and the gravy, but the outside is apt to be cooked too hard while the inside is not enough cooked. Too hot a fire tends to make meat tough and dry.

The French have a safer way, especially for small roasts. The beef is cooked in a cool oven—so cool that a peeled, raw potato will cook tender without browning. Allow about an hour and a quarter for a four-pound rib-roast. In this way the heat penetrates to the center without hardening the outside. When properly done the outside is very little more cooked than the inside, and the roast throughout is tender, rare, and juicy, with no hard-burned edges. This way of baking makes inferior beef more tender and juicy than the English way. It has the disadvantage of not leaving any gravy in the pan. When baked after the English method the fat fries out into the pan, and a delicious, rich, brown gravy may be made by adding flour and water. Strain the juice through a fine sieve and allow to stand a few minutes so as to be able to skim or pour off all the grease. Do not serve gravies with half an inch of pure grease on top. It does not require a scientific education nor a herculean effort to remove the grease.

Pot Roast.—If the beef is of an inferior quality, the best way to cook it is in a heavy iron kettle, preferably with a sloping bottom. Sprinkle the meat with salt and pepper; place a little fat in the bottom of the kettle—enough to keep the meat from sticking—and allow the roast to brown slowly for half an hour. Now put a pint of boiling water in the pot. Cover very closely and let it simmer on the back of the stove for about four hours, adding small quantities of hot water as necessary, and turning often. When cooked take up the meat; skim the fat from the gravy and thicken with flour.

Hamburg Steaks.—Another way of preparing inferior cuts of beef is to make Hamburg steaks. Chop the meat in fine pieces. Season with salt, pepper and a little onion juice, and shape into thin cakes. Put three or four slices of fat salt pork into a frying-pan, and when brown remove it and place the steaks in the fat. Fry four minutes; turn, and fry three more, and serve on a hot platter. Put a tablespoonful of flour into the fat and stir until brown. Gradually add a cupful of water or preferably milk and boil three minutes; season well, pour over the meat, and serve immediately.

Broiled Beef.—Broiling is the simplest, easiest, and most delicious method of cooking meats, but, as a rule, ignorance instinctively turns to the frying-pan, and broiling is unknown in many homes. This is partly due to not knowing how to manage the fire. It seems so much easier to fry on top of the stove than to plan beforehand an adequate preparation of the coals. It is necessary to have a bed of clear, hot coals with no smoke. Have the steak cut three-quarters of an inch thick; place in a wire broiler; put over the coals and cover with a baking-pan. Turn every minute or two until the meat is sufficiently cooked. When done, place on a hot platter, and season well with salt, pepper, and butter. Serve immediately. It should take about ten minutes to cook a steak or thick mutton chop.

Fried Beef.—If beef must be fried, have a hot fire; heat a thick iron frying-pan and grease it just enough to keep the meat from sticking. Have the meat three-quarters of an inch thick; place in the hot pan and turn as soon as it is well seared. Turn often until done and then season well and serve at once. There should be no gravy in the pan; all the juices should be in the meat.

Beef Hash.—Take equal parts of beef and cold potatoes, chopped moderately fine. Chop a small onion and fry in plenty of butter until brown; add the meat and potatoes and just enough milk to keep from sticking. Cook for half an hour, stirring frequently. Serve with thin, dry toast or toasted crackers. Poached eggs are a very nice addition.

Veal.—Veal, when properly cooked, is delicious and delicate. Like pork it should be cooked slowly for a long time to develop its full flavor. Unfortunately it is usually half-cooked, tough, and insipid. The housewife who can cook veal properly has a distinct advantage over her less fortunate neighbor.

Leg Roast of Veal.—Take out the bone and fill the space with stuffing made as follows: Take one half-cupful of chopped fat pork, or unsmoked bacon, and fry with a finely chopped onion until delicately brown. Add two cupfuls of bread crumbs; season with salt and pepper and moisten with a little milk. Tie the veal closely; sprinkle with pepper and salt; rub thoroughly with flour and cover with buttered paper. Into the baking-pan put a generous number of thin slices of unsmoked bacon, an onion and half a can of tomatoes. Add just enough boiling water to steam the veal. Cook gently in a moderate oven, allowing twenty-five minutes to the pound, and baste very frequently, turning the meat about every half-hour. When done, put it on a hot platter in the warming oven, and add enough water to make the requisite amount of gravy. Thicken with browned flour, strain, and pour over the roast.

Fried Veal.—Fried veal steak or cutlets are delicious, but very difficult to prepare properly. As a usual thing veal cutlets are either half raw, or cooked until dry and hard. When properly cooked veal should be spongy, soft, and velvety. The chops should be not quite a half inch thick. Melt a little lard in a hot frying-pan; sprinkle some salt and pepper on the veal and fry quickly until brown on both sides. Then cover tightly, and place on the back of the stove and steam until thoroughly tender. It requires from forty to forty-five minutes to fry veal.

Broiled Veal.—The veal should be cut thin, broiled quickly until brown, and seasoned with salt, pepper, and melted butter, to which a little chopped parsley and lemon juice have been added. Serve on a hot platter and eat at once. If the veal is fat, tender and nicely broiled, it is almost as good as game.

Veal Stew or Pot-pie.—Cut the meat from a knuckle of veal into pieces not too small; put them into a pot with some small pieces of salt pork, and plenty of pepper and salt; pour over enough hot water to cover it well, and boil until the meat is thoroughly done. While the water is still boiling drop in, by the spoonful, a batter made as follows: Two eggs well beaten, two and a half or three cupfuls of buttermilk, one even teaspoonful of soda, and flour enough to make a thick batter. Cover the pot, and as soon as the batter is well cooked serve it.

Veal Stew.—This is an exceedingly nutritious, economical, and appetizing dish. Cut the veal into small pieces about an inch square; add three or four thin slices of salt pork; one or two onions and potatoes cut up fine, and a little turnip, carrot, parsley and celery, if you have them. Cover well with boiling water and cook over a brisk fire until the meat is tender and the water pretty well cooked away. This will require about an hour. Cover the meat well with fresh milk; season to taste with pepper, salt, and a generous quantity of butter; let the mess simmer on the back of the stove about twenty minutes, and serve it in a hot covered dish.

Jellied Veal.—Jellied veal gives the impression of an expensive preparation, and yet nothing is cheaper or simpler. Put a knuckle of veal into a pot that can be tightly covered; season well with two or three slices of unsmoked bacon, the heart of an onion, salt, pepper and a little butter, adding just enough water to steam the meat thoroughly (replenishing it from time to time as needed), and cook over a slow fire until tender—probably about four hours. When done there should be about two teacupfuls of broth. Prepare three cold hard-boiled eggs. Cut the veal into pieces the size of a walnut. Now choose a dish just large enough to hold the meat, the eggs and the broth. Slice the eggs and place a few pieces on the bottom of the dish. Now put in a layer of veal; then more egg and continue in this way until the veal is used. Strain the broth over the veal and set it away in a cool place, preferably on ice, until quite firm. When about to serve it, loosen by slipping a knife, warmed in water, between the meat and the dish. Garnish with parsley or lettuce, and serve with salad of any kind.

Roast Pork.—Pork should be thoroughly cooked in a medium hot oven. For the leg or the shoulder allow twenty-five minutes to the pound. For the spareribs allow fifteen minutes. Sprinkle the spareribs well with salt, pepper, sage, and a little chopped onion, or bake a few onions in the same dish. Put a little water in the pan and add to it as it cooks away. The leg, the loin, and the shoulder may be stuffed with well-seasoned sage stuffing. To make this, cut a few strips of fat pork into small dice and fry over a slow fire. Add a finely chopped onion and cook until brown. Crumble as many slices of dry bread as you will need, and fry with the onion and pork over a slow fire until nicely browned. Moisten a little with milk or cream, and fill the space left by removing the bones. Sew tightly together and bake thoroughly. Peeled, raw potatoes are very nice baked in the same dish with the pork. A medium sized potato will require a little over an hour to bake in a moderate oven. Apple sauce, sauerkraut, or cabbage cooked with a little vinegar, are nice to serve with pork.

Broiled Pork.—Very thin slices cut from a leg of pork, or the cutlets, or the chops, are extremely nice and delicate when broiled. They must be cut thin; the coals must be bright and hot; and the meat turned very often. Serve on a hot platter.

Fried Pork.—For frying, pork should not be cut over a half an inch thick: Cook slowly from forty minutes to an hour, with the pan closely covered, to keep in the steam. Pork requires a long, slow process to develop its flavor and tenderness. Nearly everyone cooks it too fast, and for too short a time. When thoroughly steamed and nicely seasoned with salt, pepper, sage and a little onion, well fed pork is as toothsome and dainty as turkey. Make a brown gravy and pour over the meat. Serve with apple sauce.

Boiled Pork.—Take a leg of pork, or a shoulder, and remove the bones. Tie closely together and let it cook slowly in a tightly covered pot for half an hour, adding a little fat if necessary to keep the meat from sticking. Now sprinkle with salt, pepper and sage. Put two whole onions in the pot, and just enough boiling water to thoroughly steam the meat. Place it on the back of the stove and cook over a slow fire for four or five hours until thoroughly tender and velvety. When done put on a hot platter in the warming-oven. Thicken the gravy with flour, adding a little water or milk if necessary, then let it boil for five minutes and strain. When properly cooked this is delicious cold, and almost as good for salad as chicken or turkey. If desired, peeled raw potatoes may be browned in the pot with the meat. These will take about an hour to cook.

Curing Ham and Bacon.—To have good ham and bacon the meat must first be properly cured so that the lean part is pink, tender and soft to the touch, while the fat is clear and white. In many country homes the lean meat is about as tough, hard, and indigestible as sole leather. A good recipe for curing is as follows: For every gallon of water take two pounds of coarse salt and one-half ounce of soda. Boil all together and skim well, and, while hot, pour over the meat. Put in a cold dry place with a stone to keep the meat well below the water. After three weeks, hang the meat and let it dry for two or three days before smoking.

Broiled Ham.—Nothing is more appetizing for supper than broiled ham, served with mashed potatoes, milk toast, or a poached egg on dry toast. Cut the ham as thin as possible, and broil quickly over hot coals, turning constantly until the fat begins to shrivel. Have everything else ready so that it can be eaten immediately. Cold cabbage salad is nice with this.

Boiled Ham.—If quite salty, soak the ham twenty-four hours. Put it in a large kettle with a generous supply of water, and allow twenty-five minutes to the pound for boiling. Take the pot from the fire and let the meat remain in the water until nearly cold. Sprinkle with pepper and rub thoroughly with brown sugar; put the ham and the fat from the liquor into a baking-pan and brown for about an hour in the oven. Cut as thin as possible when serving.

Frying Ham.—Cut the ham in the thinnest possible slices, with a large, sharp knife. Have the frying-pan hot, and cook the meat just enough to give the fat a delicate brown, turning frequently. To cook ham too much is to make it tough, hard, dry, and indigestible. Put the ham on a hot platter in the warming oven. Add a cupful, or more, of fresh milk to the grease and thicken with flour. Serve with boiled potatoes. Instead of making a gravy, eggs may be fried in the fat. To do this nicely the fat must not be burned. The eggs should be dropped in one by one, allowing them plenty of room to spread out. Cook slowly and with a spoon baste the yolks with the hot fat until they sear, being careful not to cook the egg too hard. These eggs are very nice served on thin, dry toast, or one may be placed on each slice of ham.

Fried Bacon.—Cut the bacon into very thin slices, and cook in a hot frying-pan just long enough to turn the fat to a delicate brown. If cooked too long it is hard and indigestible, besides losing its delicacy of flavor. A very nice way to cook bacon, instead of frying it, is to roll the slices up into curls, skewer them with toothpicks, and place them in a baking-pan on the grate of a hot oven until they are slightly brown. Serve on dry toast. They should be eaten at once.

Broiled Bacon.—Bacon can be broiled like ham. A very nice way to serve it, especially for an invalid, is to toast it before the fire; split a hot biscuit and make a sandwich with the bacon. Bacon toasted this way and eaten when very hot has a peculiarly appetizing flavor.

Unsmoked Bacon.—Cut in thin slices; roll in flour or meal; dust lightly with pepper; fry over a moderately hot fire until delicately brown and crisp, and put on a warm platter in the warming closet. Add sufficient fresh milk to the fat to make the requisite amount of gravy. Season with a little salt and pepper, and thicken with flour. Do not pour over the meat. Serve in separate dish.

Boiled Mutton.—Mutton should be cooked very much like beef,—just enough to leave a faint pink, but not enough to make it hard and develop a strong taste. For boiled mutton allow ten minutes to the pound. Add a little rice to make the meat whiter and tenderer. Cover with boiling water and cook rapidly for fifteen minutes; then place on the back of the stove where it will simmer nicely for two hours. Young turnips, boiled with the mutton are a very nice addition.

Mutton Cutlets.—The chops should be thick. Grease the bottom of a hot frying-pan just enough to keep the chops from sticking; place over a hot fire, and turn the meat constantly to keep it from burning until the center is a faint pink. Season with salt, pepper, and melted butter to which a little lemon juice and parsley may be added.

Roast Mutton.—The French roast mutton in a slow oven in order that the heat may penetrate to the center without injuring the outside. Allow twenty minutes to the pound, or, if a very large roast, twenty-five minutes may not be too much, providing the oven is not too hot. Season with salt and pepper, and put a generous supply of boiling water in the pan. Baste frequently, and turn the meat every half hour. Place two or three peeled raw potatoes in the pan, and watch them; if they begin to brown, the oven is too hot. The potatoes should keep pace with the mutton, and when the latter is half done the former should be cooked to the same degree.

Broiled Mutton Chops.—The chops should be cut an inch thick. Trim off the fat and scrape the bones. Roll in a little melted butter or oil, and broil over a hot fire, turning constantly until just pink within. Have ready a mound of hot mashed potatoes and lay the chops around it. Pour a little melted butter over them and serve with green peas.

PROPER COOKING OF CEREALS.

Starchy foods in any form must be well cooked. Gluey, slimy oatmeal, full of hard lumps of half-cooked grains, the whole forming a raw, horrid mass, is very different from the smooth, well cooked, easily digestible, oatmeal prepared by a good cook. Rolled oats are more easily cooked than oatmeal, as they are already prepared. For four people, put a quarter of a teaspoonful of salt into four cups of hot water and stir in slowly one cup of rolled oats, being careful not to allow lumps to form. Cook for an hour in a double boiler.

Hominy.—Hominy is seldom well cooked. It is often lumpy and raw, and yet has a burned taste which comes from being cooked in too little water, while if too much is used it goes all to soup and can never be made good. Salt a quart of boiling water, and very carefully stir into it a cup of hominy. Stir often and add a little water from time to time if it gets too dry. Cook until every grain is thoroughly done.

Rice.—Rice is rarely well prepared, the greatest trouble being to get each grain well cooked without making it mushy. When properly cooked each grain will be firm and distinct, and at the same time soft and tender. Wash half a cupful of rice thoroughly, put it in a quart of boiling salted water, and let it boil for half an hour; then drain it thoroughly and steam it in a colander for an hour.

Corn-Bread.—Corn-bread should be something like rice: every particle thoroughly cooked and soft, and yet not sticking together, so that the inside is dry and crumbly while the outside is crisp and nutty. The thinner corn-bread is baked the more perfectly it cooks. It should not be more than an inch thick and preferably less. A cannon-ball of raw meal, with only the thinnest of surfaces decently baked, is an insult to a man's intelligence as well as to his digestion. This is the way to prepare it properly. Sift a teaspoonful of baking powder into a pint of corn meal. Mix in a piece of butter the size of a walnut and add sweet milk until you get a dough that can be kneaded into a cake. Bake in a hot oven until brown and well done. A little richer corn-bread is made by heating a pint of sweet milk and pouring it over a pint of corn-meal. Melt a piece of butter the size of a walnut, beat two eggs, add a little salt, and mix well into the meal. Put in a shallow dish, and bake about a half hour in a quick oven.

Biscuits.—Biscuits should be thin, crisp, delicately browned and free from flour. The inside of a biscuit should be flaky and dry. Thick, soggy, heavy biscuits impose a severe task upon digestion. Make the biscuits about two inches in diameter, and three-quarters of an inch thick. Bake them brown on both the top and the bottom. It is much easier to make light, wholesome biscuits with baking-powder than with soda. Buttermilk biscuits are very delicate and palatable, but not quite so certain to turn out well. If soda is not properly used you will have a yellow, evil-smelling compound, or else there will not be enough soda to make the biscuits rise, and they will be dangerously heavy. To make soda-biscuits sift one level teaspoonful of soda, one half-teaspoonful salt, and one quart of flour together three times so as to get the soda thoroughly well mixed in. Now rub two tablespoons of lard into the flour and add enough buttermilk to make a soft dough. Roll out into a sheet, cut into small thin biscuits and bake in a hot oven until well browned. Baking-powder biscuits are made in the same way, by using two teaspoonfuls of baking-powder in place of the soda, and sweet milk instead of buttermilk.

Yeast.—Put three hops in a pot containing two quarts of cold water. Place on the stove and see that it boils twenty minutes. Have a pint of flour in a large bowl and mix into it a tablespoonful of sugar, one of salt and a teaspoonful of ginger. Strain the water from the hops into this, stirring constantly. Allow it to cool. When lukewarm put in a cup of yeast or a yeast-cake.

Rolls.—At night take one half-cup of lukewarm water, one half-teaspoonful of salt, three-quarters of a cup of yeast, and enough flour to make a thin batter. In the morning add to this a pint of milk, a teaspoonful of sugar, a half-cup of butter and beat in flour until it is no longer sticky. Set it in a warm place to rise and when well up knock back. Repeat this process, and when it comes up the third time make it into rolls. Let it rise once more and then bake it.

METHODS WITH CHICKEN.

The simplest and easiest way to cook chicken is to fry it. A poorly fed chicken is better stewed. For baking and broiling the chicken must be fat. In whatever way the chicken is cooked there is danger of its being tough, dry, stringy, and tasteless. Plain, artless, boiling results in insipidity. Quick, superficial frying means tough stringy fibres; and a hot oven frequently dries the meat until it is not fit to eat.

Fried Chicken.—All housewives think they can fry chicken, but the results are vastly different, according to the way it is done. You may have a tender, rich, delicious morsel, or tough masses of meat, stringy, tasteless and almost impossible to chew. Of course the condition of the chicken has a great deal to do with the results. A tender, well-fed chicken will fry far better and much more quickly than a thin, scrawny one. The thinner the chicken the greater the necessity for care in cooking it. It must be cooked slowly, over a moderate fire, in a tightly covered pan, until it is perfectly tender. Melt a little fat in the frying-pan; flour, salt, and pepper the pieces of chicken and fry them in the fat until nicely browned on both sides. Now cover closely and place on the back of the stove where the chicken will steam for half an hour. When tender take up on a hot platter and put in the warming oven. Make a rich, brown gravy and pour over it.

Boiled Chicken.—Chickens may be boiled whole or cut into pieces. To boil whole place a few pieces of unsmoked bacon in a stew-pan that is deep enough to hold the chicken and can be tightly covered. Cook slowly for an hour without adding water, turning it often until it is evenly browned. Now add a small onion, some raw peeled potatoes not larger than an egg, and a little boiling water. Cook over a brisk fire for three-quarters of an hour. Salt and pepper the chicken and put it and the potatoes in a baking-dish in a hot oven while making the gravy. A couple of hard-boiled eggs chopped very fine, and a little chopped parsley, improve the gravy.

Baked Chicken.—A properly baked chicken is tender, juicy, and has a rich flavor, while one improperly baked is tough, dry, stringy, and tasteless. To bake a chicken properly the oven must not be too hot; the chicken must be repeatedly basted, and cooked until it is tender, but not until all dried up. Stuffing the chicken improves the flavor. To make the dressing, melt enough of any kind of wholesome fat in a hot frying-pan to keep the bread crumbs from sticking, and fry in it a large onion, chopped fine, until it is tender. Place the dry bread-crumbs into the fat, and cook for half an hour over a slow fire, stirring often to keep from sticking, until the crumbs are slightly browned and well dried. Season with salt, pepper and a little celery-salt, and moisten with just enough milk to make it stick together. Always taste the dressing to see if it is properly seasoned. A well-fed chicken can be baked more rapidly than a thin one. If the chicken is thin add plenty of fat to the water in the baking-pan; cover closely and cook slowly and carefully until it is tender, turning very often; if it is fat and well-fed put plenty of wholesome grease in the baking-dish, and without covering it, cook in a hot oven, basting frequently. A young, fat chicken will bake in an hour. An older fowl may require two or three hours. It is a good plan to allow the chicken plenty of time and then, if done too soon, to cover it closely and keep it warm on the back of the stove. Use just enough water while baking to keep the fat from sputtering. If the water is cooked out towards the end, and the chicken is thoroughly basted, the skin will take on a rich, thick glazing that is highly creditable to the skill of the cook. Delicious gravy can be made of the fat by adding milk and thickening with flour.

Smothered Chicken.—Use a frying-size chicken. Split it down the back and rub with a little salt. Put it in a pan with a slice of bacon and a pint of water. Cover the pan closely and let it simmer on top of the stove from one to two hours, or until the chicken is thoroughly tender. When done sprinkle with flour and baste well. Add a small tablespoon of butter, and put in the oven and cook until brown.

Broiled Chicken.—A young, tender, fat chicken is better broiled than any other way. It has a finer flavor; is tenderer, more juicy and more easily digested; in fact broiled chicken is one of the most delicious dishes that can be served. There is no earthly use, however, in trying to broil a chicken that is not fat and nice. If the chicken is a little too old to broil whole the breast will still be tender. Flatten the chicken by pounding it. Have a bed of clear, bright coals and a hot gridiron well greased to prevent sticking. Cover with a baking-dish and turn often, allowing the bony side to stay down longer than the other side. From fifteen to twenty minutes should be enough, but it is always best to test with a fork by pulling the fibres apart to see that they are not raw. As soon as the raw look has disappeared the chicken is done. The least over-cooking injures the flavor. Serve on a hot platter. Pour over a little melted butter, seasoned with lemon juice and chopped parsley.

To bake or boil a turkey proceed the same as for chicken, simply allowing more time. An eight-pound turkey will require three hours to roast.

MAKING GOOD SOUPS.

Vegetable Soups.—The simplest and most easily prepared soups are those made from peas, beans, tomatoes, asparagus, celery, carrots, onions, and potatoes. They require neither meat nor any previous preparation, but can be made and eaten at once. These soups are somewhat paradoxical because they are both cheap and rich; deliciously simple and simply delicious. Take enough of any of these vegetables to furnish sufficient soup after they have been rubbed through a strainer and thinned with milk or cream. Cook the vegetables thoroughly until perfectly soft, so that they can be easily rubbed through a coarse strainer. Add enough milk to this purÉe to make it about the thickness of cream. Season with salt, pepper, and a little celery-salt, and serve with bits of bread browned crisp in the oven.

When the vegetables can be got fresh from the garden nothing is more delicious than these soups, and in winter, canned peas and dried beans make excellent substitutes. In making potato purÉe two onions boiled with the potatoes improve the flavor. Potato soup without onion is tasteless; a little celery boiled in with the potatoes and onion, makes it still nicer. Tomato soup is also better slightly flavored with onion and a little carrot. A little cold boiled rice, simmered for a half-hour in the soup after the milk has been added, is an excellent addition. These soups are also delicious when made rather thin with milk and then thickened by putting the well-beaten yolks of two eggs into the hot soup-tureen, and stirring vigorously while adding the soup; this last soup must be served at once, as it cannot stand after the eggs are added.

Meat Soups.—These soups should always be made the day before required in order to thoroughly remove the fat, which cannot be done until it hardens on the top of the soup. Nothing is more disgusting than greasy soup. The foundation for an infinite variety of soups is made by boiling about a pound of meat in three pints of water. After the meat is cooked to pieces strain it out and keep the well-skimmed liquor, or “stock,” as it is called, in a stone jar in a cool place. It should form a jelly, and in order to prepare a different soup for each day, it is only necessary to heat some of the jelly and flavor it differently. For instance: Chop fine one small onion to each person and fry it in butter, or in some of the grease taken off the soup, until tender and slightly brown. Pour over enough stock and let stand for half an hour. Serve with a little grated cheese. Cabbage soup is made in the same way except that it takes longer to cook the cabbage. Instead of one vegetable several may be used. Turnips, cabbage, onions, and carrots in about the same proportion, chopped fine and fried tender, without any water, and added to the soup, make what is known in France as Julienne soup.

EGGS IN SEVERAL FORMS.

Coddled Eggs.—The most delicate way to cook an egg is to coddle it. Put six into a vessel that will hold two quarts. Fill with boiling water, cover closely, and let it stand in a warm place for ten minutes. If you desire them better cooked let them stay in the water longer. If you want to do but one egg, put it in a quart of boiling water, cover and let stand five minutes.

Shirred Eggs.—To shirr an egg break it into a saucer or any small dish that has been well greased. Put into a hot oven and leave until glazed. Season and serve at once.

Scrambled Eggs.—Heat a teaspoonful of milk to each egg in a sauce-pan not more than a quarter of an inch deep and about the right size to hold the quantity of eggs desired. Add a little salt, pepper, and butter. When hot put in the eggs, and as they lie on the bottom of the pan, scrape off with a spoon letting the raw part take the place of those portions already cooked, and continue this until a creamy custard is formed. Be careful not to cook the eggs so long that this custard is changed to a hard mass.

PROPER COOKING OF VEGETABLES.

The general tendency in cooking vegetables is to use altogether too much water so that they become soaked and tasteless. The ideal way to cook most vegetables is to use as little water as possible; just a little in the bottom of the pot so that the vegetables will not stick and burn, but steam through in their own juices until thoroughly tender and full of their own flavor. The fire should not be too hot; the pot should be tightly covered; a sufficient amount of butter must be added when the vegetable is about half done; and plenty of time given to allow it to simmer and steam until thoroughly flavored. Onions, beans, carrots, and cabbage are most delicate when chopped fine, cooked until tender in a very little water, seasoned with salt, pepper, and butter, covered with milk, and allowed to stand on the back of the stove for twenty minutes until the flavor is thoroughly developed.

Boiled Potatoes.—Potatoes should not be peeled before boiling, but should be thoroughly washed and rinsed. They should be put in an abundance of boiling water, well salted, and covered tightly. When tender pour off all the water, cover the pot with a towel and let it stand on the back of the stove for ten minutes.

Baked Potatoes.—If baked potatoes stand they lose their flavor. A baked potato, eaten as soon as done, is sweet, dry and mealy. Allow them to stand even for ten minutes and the flavor is lost, and they become wet and tasteless. A pleasant change is to peel the potatoes before baking. These must be eaten as soon as they come from the oven or they lose their crispness.

Beans.—Nothing is more valuable for winter food than beans. They give as much strength as beefsteak and are far less expensive. Soak them in plenty of water over night; add a generous piece of unsmoked bacon; let simmer on the back of the stove until they are tender and the water is well cooked away; cover with milk, and either let them stand on the back of the stove until the milk is thickened, or put them into a shallow baking-dish and bake until nearly dry. Serve either hot or cold.

SOME CAPITAL DESSERTS.

Apple Pudding.—Peel and slice enough apples to nearly fill your pudding-dish, sugar to taste, and grate over them a little nutmeg. Also add a little water. Now make a batter as follows: Three quarters of a cup of sugar; a piece of butter the size of a small egg, one half-cup of milk, one egg, a pinch of salt, a teaspoonful of baking-powder, and one and one-eighth cups of flour. This is an extremely nice, wholesome pudding, which can be served with either cream or hard sauce.

To make hard sauce take a half-cup of butter and cream it with a fork; add a cupful of sugar and beat until nicely mixed and creamy. Flavor to taste and sprinkle a little nutmeg over it.

Cottage Pudding.—One cupful of sugar, one tablespoonful of butter, one half-cupful of milk, two eggs, one and one-half cupfuls of flour, and one teaspoonful of baking-powder. For the sauce, take three and a half cupfuls of boiling water and stir in it a cupful of sugar, and a tablespoonful of either flour or corn-starch rubbed smooth with a little cold water. Cook well for two or three minutes; take the pan from the fire, add the butter and flavor as you prefer.

Batter Pudding Boiled or Baked.—One quart of milk, six eggs beaten separately, six tablespoonfuls of flour worked gradually into the yolks of the eggs, and a pinch of salt. Bake or boil about three-quarters of an hour. Serve with sauce.

Cream of Corn-starch.—One quart of milk, four eggs, one half-cupful sugar, four tablespoonfuls of corn-starch dissolved in a little milk. Into a pint of the milk put the sugar, and place on the stove to heat. When very hot gradually stir in the corn-starch and beat well. Have ready the whites of the eggs, and beat them into the milk; flavor as preferred. Take the other pint of milk, the four yolks and four light tablespoonfuls of sugar, and place them over the fire, stirring constantly. This makes a nice custard. Just before serving pour the custard over the pudding.

Caramel Custard.—One egg for each person; also one teaspoonful of milk for each person. Put the yolks and milk together with a tablespoonful of sugar to each egg. Have ready some caramel, and stir in enough to give a decided flavor. Put this into cups or baking-dishes, and set in a pan of hot water on top of the stove for twenty minutes; then in the oven until the custard sets. Serve cold. For the caramel, take two cupfuls of sugar (preferably brown) and put it in a frying-pan with a teaspoonful of water. Cook until well burned. Add a cup of water, and, when cold, put it in a bottle or fruit-jar. This quantity will last a long time.

Brown Betty Pudding.—Take a cupful of grated bread-crumbs, two cupfuls of finely chopped, tart apples, half a cupful of brown sugar, a teaspoonful of cinnamon, and one tablespoonful of butter. Butter a deep pudding-dish, and put a layer of apples on the bottom; then sprinkle with sugar, cinnamon and bits of the butter. Put in another layer of apples, and proceed as before until all the ingredients have been used. Cover the dish and bake for three-quarters of an hour in a moderate oven; remove the cover now and brown the pudding. Serve with sugar and cream.

Rice Pudding.—One cupful of boiled rice (better if still hot), three cupfuls of milk, three-quarters of a cup of sugar, a tablespoonful of corn-starch, and two eggs; add flavoring. Dissolve the corn-starch with a little of the milk, and stir it into the rest of the milk; also add the yolks of the eggs and the sugar beaten together. Put this over the fire and when hot add the rice. Stir it carefully until it begins to thicken, then take it off and add the flavoring. Put it into a pudding-dish and bake in the oven.

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