VEGETABLES. Rules Applicable to the Cooking of all Vegetables.

1. Have them as fresh as possible. Stale and withered ones are unwholesome and unpalatable. Summer vegetables should be cooked on the same day they are gathered, if possible.

2. Pick over and wash well, cutting out all decayed or unripe parts.

3. Lay them, when peeled, in cold water for some time before cooking.

4. If you boil them, put a little salt in the water.

5. Cook them steadily after you put them on.

6. Be sure they are thoroughly done. Rare vegetables are neither good nor fashionable.

7. Drain well.

8. Serve hot!

POTATOES.

Boiled Potatoes (with the skins on.)

Boil in cold water with a pinch of salt. Have them of uniform size, and cook steadily until a fork will pierce easily to the heart of the largest. Then pour off the water, every drop; sprinkle with salt and set back on the range, a little to one side, with the lid of the pot off. Let them dry three or four minutes; peel very quickly and serve in an uncovered dish.

Without the Skins.

Pare very thin. The glory of a potato is its mealiness, and much of the starch, or meal, lies next the skin—consequently is lost by slovenly paring, which likewise defaces the shape. Lay in cold water for half an hour, have ready a pot of boiling water slightly salted, drop in the potatoes, and keep at a rapid boil until tender. Drain off the water, sprinkle with fine salt, and dry as just described.

And here comes a conflict of authorities. Says my kind friend and neighbor, Mrs. A., an excellent housewife—“I boil my potatoes in cold water always—with a pinch of salt, of course, and when half-done, throw away the boiling water and fill up with cold, then boil again. This makes the potatoes mealy.” Mrs. B., whose reputation as a housekeeper and cook is in every kitchen, interposes:—“I have tried both ways. My experience is that potatoes melt into a sort of starchy gruel when boiled in cold water. The philosophy of the operation is to heat quickly and thoroughly, and, the instant they are done, to dry out every drop of water. And—” with a touch of pardonable pride—“we generally have delightful potatoes.” This is true, but remembering that Mrs. A.’s are like snow hillocks, ready to crumble at a breath, I come home and try the cold water plan. My cook, unlike most of her tribe, is too sensible to suppose that she knows everything, and willingly abets me. The result of our experiments stands somewhat thus—Garnet, White Mountain, and Early Rose potatoes are apt to dissolve in cold water, giving off their starch too readily, perhaps. We boil them in hot water. Peach Blows, Prince Alberts, and other late varieties are best cooked as Mrs. A. recommends—always pouring off the water the instant they are done, and letting the potatoes dry for a few minutes. My housewifely friends can decide for themselves which method is preferable.

Mashed Potatoes. ✠

Old potatoes are best mashed. Pare, and let them lie in cold water from half to three-quarters of an hour. A longer time will not hurt them. Boil in hot or cold water, according to the toughness of texture. A coarse, waxy potato is best cooked in cold water. In either case, put in a pinch of salt. Drain thoroughly when done, sprinkle with salt, and mash them in the pot with a potato-beetle, or whip with a split spoon, working in a tablespoonful of butter and enough milk to make the paste about the consistency of soft dough. Leave no lumps in it, and when smooth, dish. Form into a mound with a wooden spoon, and leave dots of pepper here and there on the surface, as large as a half-dime.

Or,

Brown by setting in the oven until a crust is formed. Glaze this with butter, and serve.

To Boil New Potatoes.

If very young, rub the skin off with a rough towel. If almost ripe, scrape with a blunt knife. Lay in cold water an hour, cover with cold water slightly salted, boil half an hour. Drain, salt, and dry for two or three minutes. Send to table plain.

Or,

You may crack each by pressing lightly upon it with the back of a wooden spoon, lay them in a deep dish, and pour over them a cupful of cream or new milk, heated to a boil, in which a great spoonful of butter has been dissolved.

To Stew Old Potatoes. ✠

This is a good way to cook potatoes which are so rank and tough as hardly to be eatable in any other form.

Pare and quarter, if large. Soak in cold water one hour. Put into a pot with enough cold salted water to cover them. When almost done, turn off the water, add a like quantity of milk, and bring to a boil. Before taking up, stir in a heaping tablespoonful of butter, a little salt, a handful of chopped parsley, and thicken slightly with flour previously wet in cold milk. Boil one minute, and pour all into a deep dish.

Stewed Potatoes for Breakfast. ✠

Pare, cut into dice, and soak in cold water half an hour. Stew in enough hot salted water to cover them. Before taking up, and when they are breaking to pieces, drain off half the water, and pour in a cupful of milk. Boil three minutes, stirring well; put in a lump of butter the size of an egg rolled in flour, a little salt and a pinch of pepper; add a little parsley; boil up well and turn into a covered dish.

This is an excellent family dish. Children are usually fond of it and it is very wholesome.

Baked Potatoes.

Wash and wipe some large ripe potatoes, and bake in a quick oven until tender, say from three-quarters of an hour to an hour, if of a good size. Serve in a napkin with the skins on. Tear or cut a hole in the top when you eat them, put in a bit of butter with salt and pepper. They are good for boys’ cold fingers at supper-time on winter nights.

Potato Puff. ✠

Take two cupfuls of cold mashed potato, and stir into it two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, beating to a white cream before adding anything else. Then put with this two eggs whipped very light and a teacupful of cream or milk, salting to taste. Beat all well, pour into a deep dish, and bake in a quick oven until it is nicely browned. If properly mixed, it will come out of the oven light, puffy, and delectable.

Potatoes Warmed Over—alias au Maître d’Hôtel.

Slice cold boiled potatoes a quarter of an inch thick, and put into a saucepan, with four or five tablespoonfuls of milk, two or three of butter, pepper, salt, and some chopped parsley. Heat quickly, stirring all the time until ready to boil, when stir in the juice of half a lemon. This last ingredient entitles the dish to the foreign title. Pour into a deep dish, and serve very hot.

Potato Croquettes. ✠

Season cold mashed potato with pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Beat to a cream, with a tablespoonful of melted butter to every cupful of potato. Bind with two or three beaten eggs, and add some minced parsley. Roll into oval balls, dip in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, and fry in hot lard or drippings.

Pile in a pyramid upon a flat dish, and serve.

Fried Potatoes. ✠

Pare, wash, and slice some raw potatoes as thin as wafers. This can be done with a sharp knife, although there is a little instrument for the purpose, to be had at the house-furnishing stores, which flutes prettily as well as slices evenly. Lay in ice-water for half an hour, wipe dry in two cloths, spreading them upon one, and pressing the other upon them. Have ready in the frying-pan some boiling lard or nice dripping, fry the potatoes to a light brown, sprinkle with salt, and serve in a napkin laid in a deep dish and folded over them. To dry them of the fat, take from the frying-pan as soon as they are brown, with a perforated skimmer, put into a cullender and shake for an instant. They should be crisp and free from grease.

Or,

Chop cold boiled potatoes into bits, season with pepper and salt, and fry lightly in dripping or butter, turning them constantly until nicely browned.

Potato Ribbon.

Pare and lay in ice-water for an hour. Choose the largest and soundest potatoes you can get for this dish. At the end of the hour, pare, with a small knife, round and round in one continuous curling strip. There is also an instrument for this purpose, which costs but a trifle, and will do the work deftly and expeditiously. Handle with care, fry—a few at a time, for fear of entanglement—in lard or clarified drippings, drain, and arrange neatly upon a hot flat dish.

Potatoes à la Crème. ✠

Put into a saucepan three tablespoonfuls of butter, a small handful of parsley chopped small, salt and pepper to taste. Stir up well until hot, add a small teacupful of cream or rich milk, thicken with two teaspoonfuls of flour, and stir until it boils. Chop some cold boiled potatoes, put into the mixture, and boil up once before serving.

Stuffed Potatoes. ✠

Take large, fair potatoes, bake until soft, and cut a round piece off the top of each. Scrape out the inside carefully, so as not to break the skin, and set aside the empty cases with the covers. Mash the inside very smoothly, working into it while hot some butter and cream—about half a teaspoonful of each for every potato. Season with salt and pepper, with a good pinch of grated cheese for each; work it very soft with milk, and put into a saucepan to heat, stirring, to prevent burning. When scalding hot, stir in one well-beaten egg for six large potatoes. Boil up once, fill the skins with the mixture, replacing the caps, return them to the oven for three minutes; arrange upon a napkin in a deep dish, the caps uppermost; cover with a fold of the napkin, and eat hot.

Or,

You may omit the eggs and put in a double quantity of cheese. They are very good.

Potato Scallops.

Boil, and mash the potatoes soft with a little milk. Beat up light with melted butter—a dessertspoonful for every half-pint of the potato—salt and pepper to taste. Fill some patty-pans or buttered scallop shells with the mixture, and brown in an oven, when you have stamped a pattern on the top of each. Glaze, while hot, with butter, and serve in the shells.

If you like, you can strew some grated cheese over the top.

Browned Potatoes.—(Whole.)

Boil and peel some large, ripe potatoes, and three-quarters of an hour before a piece of roast beef is removed from the fire, skim the fat from the gravy; put the potatoes in the dripping-pan, having dredged them well with flour. Baste them, to prevent scorching, with the gravy, and when quite brown, drain on a sieve. Lay them about the meat in the dish.

Browned Potato.—(Mashed.)

This is also an accompaniment to roast beef or mutton. Mash some boiled potatoes smoothly with a little milk, pepper, salt, and a boiled onion (minced); make into small cones or balls; flour well, and put under or beside the meat, half an hour or so before you take it up. Skim off all the fat from the gravy before putting them in. Drain them dry when brown, and lay around the meat when dished.

These are nice with roast spare-rib, or any roast pork that is not too fat.

Broiled Potatoes.

Cut whole boiled potatoes lengthwise, into slices a quarter of an inch thick, and lay upon a gridiron over a hot, bright fire. Brown on both sides, sprinkle with pepper and salt, lay a bit of butter upon each, and eat very hot.

Potato Cakes.

Make cold mashed potato into flat cakes; flour and fry in lard, or good sweet dripping, until they are a light-brown.

Roast Sweet Potatoes.

Select those of uniform size, wash, wipe, and roast until you can tell, by gently pressing the largest between the finger and thumb, that it is mellow throughout. Serve in their jackets.

Sweet, as well as Irish potatoes, are very good for pic-nic luncheon, roasted in hot ashes. This, it will be remembered, was the dinner General Marion set before the British officer as “quite a feast, I assure you, sir. We don’t often fare so well as to have sweet potatoes and salt.”

The feast was cleansed from ashes by the negro orderly’s shirt-sleeve, and served upon a natural trencher of pine-bark.

Boiled Sweet Potatoes.

Have them all as nearly the same size as possible; put into cold water, without any salt, and boil until a fork will easily pierce the largest. Turn off the water, and lay them in the oven to dry for five minutes. Peel before sending to table.

Or, ✠

Parboil, and then roast until done. This is a wise plan when they are old and watery. Boiling is apt to render them tasteless. Another way still is to boil until they are almost done, when peel and bake brown, basting them with butter several times, but draining them dry before they go to the table.

Fried Sweet Potatoes ✠

Parboil them, skin, and cut lengthwise into slices a quarter of an inch thick. Fry in sweet dripping or butter.

Cold boiled potatoes may be cooked in this way. Or you can chop them up with an equal quantity of cold Irish potatoes, put them into a frying-pan with a good lump of butter, and stir until they are hot and slightly brown.

CABBAGE.

Boiled Cabbage.

Pick off the outer green leaves, quarter, examine carefully to be sure there are no insects in it, and lay for an hour in cold water. Then put into a pot with plenty of boiling water, and cook fifteen minutes. Throw away the water, and fill up the pot from the boiling tea-kettle. Cook until tender all through. Three-quarters of an hour will do for a good-sized cabbage when young. Late in the season you must be guided by the tenderness of the stalk. Drain well, chop, and stir in a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, and salt. Serve very hot. If you boil corned beef or pork to eat with cabbage, let the second water be taken from the pot in which this is cooking. It will flavor it nicely.

Always boil cabbage in two waters.

Bacon and Cabbage.

This, I need hardly say, is a favorite country dish at the South. The old-fashioned way of preparing it was to boil meat and cabbage together, and serve, reeking with fat, the cabbage in quarters, soaking yet more of the essence from the ham or middling about which it lay. In this shape it justly earned a reputation for grossness and indigestibility that banished it, in time, from many tables.

Yet it is a savory and not unwholesome article of food in winter, if the cabbage be boiled in two waters, the second being the “pot liquor” from the boiling meat. Drain thoroughly in a cullender, pressing out every drop of water that will flow, without breaking the tender leaves; and when the meat is dished, lay the cabbage neatly about it, and upon each quarter a slice of hard-boiled egg.

When you eat, season with pepper, salt, and vinegar.

Stuffed Cabbage.

Choose for this purpose a large, firm cabbage. Take off the outer leaves, and lay in boiling water ten minutes, then in very cold. Do this several hours before you are ready to stuff it. When perfectly cold, bind a broad tape about it, or a strip of muslin, that it may not fall apart when the stalk is taken out. Remove this with a thin sharp knife, leaving a hole about as deep as your middle-finger. Without widening the mouth of the aperture, excavate the centre until you have room for four or five tablespoonfuls of the force-meat—more, if the head be large. Chop the bits you take out very small; mix with some cold boiled pork or ham, or cooked sausage-meat, a very little onion, pepper, salt, a pinch of thyme, and some bread-crumbs. Fill the cavity with this, bind a wide strip of muslin over the hole in the top, and lay the cabbage in a large saucepan with a pint of “pot-liquor” from boiled beef or ham. Stew gently until very tender. Take out the cabbage, unbind carefully, and lay in a dish. Keep hot while you add to the gravy, when you have strained it, pepper, a piece of butter rolled in flour, and two or three tablespoonfuls rich milk or cream. Boil up, and pour over the cabbage.

“Collards,” or Cabbage-Sprouts.

Pick over carefully, lay in cold water, slightly salted, half an hour; shake in a cullender to drain, and put into boiling water, keeping at a fast boil until tender. A piece of pork seasons them pleasantly. In this case put the meat on first, adding the greens when it is parboiled, and cooking them together. Boil in an uncovered vessel. Drain very well; chop and heap in a dish, laying the meat on top.

Ladies’ Cabbage. ✠

Boil a firm white cabbage fifteen minutes, changing the water then for more from the boiling tea-kettle. When tender, drain and set aside until perfectly cold. Chop fine, and add two beaten eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, salt, three tablespoonfuls rich milk or cream. Stir all well together, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish until brown. Eat very hot.

I can conscientiously recommend this dish even to those who are not fond of any of the ordinary preparations of cabbage. It is digestible and palatable, more nearly resembling cauliflower in taste than its coarser and commoner cousin—German.

Fried Cabbage.

Chop cold boiled cabbage, and drain very dry, stirring in a little melted butter, pepper, and salt, with three or four tablespoonfuls of cream. Heat all in a buttered frying-pan, stirring until smoking hot; then let the mixture stand just long enough to brown slightly on the under-side. It is improved by the addition of a couple of beaten eggs. Turn out by putting a flat dish above the pan, upside-down, and reversing the latter. This is a breakfast dish.

Sauerkraut.

Shred or chop the cabbage fine. Line a barrel, keg, or jar with cabbage-leaves on the bottom and sides. Put in a layer of the cut cabbage, three inches in depth; press down well and sprinkle with four tablespoonfuls of salt. When you have packed five layers in this way, press hard with a board cut to fit loosely on the inside of the barrel or jar. Put heavy weights on this, or pound with a wooden beetle until the cabbage is a compact mass, when remove the board and put in more layers of salt and shred cabbage, repeating the pounding every four or five layers, until the vessel is full. Cover with leaves, and put the board on the top of these with a heavy weight to keep it down. Set all away to ferment. In three weeks remove the scum, and if need be, cover with water. Keep in a cool, dry cellar. It can be eaten raw or boiled, and seasoned with pork.

This is the mode simple if not pure of preparing this, to nostrils unaccustomed to it, malodorous compound. Some add to the salt whole black peppers, cloves, garlic, and mace,—“then put it away,” as a mild, motherly Teuton dame once told me, “in the cellar to r—”—“Rot!” interpolated a disgusted bystander, anticipating her deliberate utterance. “No, my dear,” drawled the placid Frau, “to ripen.”

CAULIFLOWER.

Boiled Cauliflower.

Pick off the leaves and cut the stalk close to the bottom of the bunch of flowers. Lay in cold water for half an hour. Unless very large, do not cut it; if you do, quarter neatly. Tie a close net of coarse bobbinet lace or tarlatan about it to prevent breaking or bruising; put into boiling water salted, and cook until tender. Undo and remove the net, and lay the cauliflower in a hot dish. Have ready a large cupful of nice drawn butter and pour over it. A little lemon-juice makes of this a sauce tartare.

Cut with a silver knife and fork in helping it out, and give a little of the sauce to each person. Take it out of the water as soon as it is done, serve quickly, and eat hot. It darkens with standing.

Stewed Cauliflower.

Use for this dish the smaller and more indifferent cauliflowers. Cut them into small clusters; lay in cold salt and water half an hour, and stew fifteen minutes in boiling water. Turn most of this off, leaving but half a teacupful in the saucepan. Add to this a half-cupful of milk thickened with a very little rice or wheat flour, and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, pepper, and salt. Shake the saucepan over the fire gently until it boils; take out the cauliflowers with a perforated skimmer, lay in order upon a dish, and pour the sauce over them.

Scalloped Cauliflower.

Boil until tender, clip into neat clusters, and pack—the stems downward—in a buttered pudding-dish. Beat up a cupful of bread-crumbs to a soft paste with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and six of cream or milk; season with pepper and salt, bind with a beaten egg, and with this cover the cauliflower. Cover the dish closely and bake six minutes in a quick oven; brown in five more, and serve very hot in the dish in which they were baked.

Broccoli and Brussels Sprouts.

Pick over, wash carefully, cut off the lower part of the stems and lay in cold water, slightly salted, half an hour. Cook quickly in boiling water, with a little salt, until tender. This will be in twelve or fifteen minutes. Cook in an uncovered saucepan. Drain well, lay in a neat pile lightly heaped in the centre of a dish, and pour drawn butter over them, or serve this in a tureen.

Broccoli and Eggs.

Boil two or three heads of broccoli until tender. Have ready two cupfuls of butter drawn in the usual way, and beat into it, while hot, four well-whipped eggs. Lay buttered toast in the bottom of a hot dish, and on this the largest head of broccoli whole, as a centre-piece. Arrange close about this the others cut into clusters, the stems downward, and pour the egg-sauce over all.

Mashed Turnips.

Peel and lay in cold water, slightly salted, until the water boils in the saucepan intended for them. Put them in and boil until very tender. The time will depend upon their age. Drain and mash in the cullender with a wooden spoon, stirring in at the last a tablespoonful of butter with pepper and salt to taste, and serve hot.

If eaten with boiled corned beef, you may take a little of the liquor from the pot in which the meat is cooking; put it into a saucepan, boil up once to throw off the scum, skim clean, and cook the turnips in this.

Or,

If the turnips are young, rub them when tender through the cullender; add a little milk, butter, pepper, and salt; heat to boiling in a clean saucepan and serve.

Young Turnips Boiled Whole.

Pare smoothly, and trim all into the same size and shape. Lay in cold water half an hour. Put on in boiling water, with a tablespoonful of butter, and stew until tender. Drain dry, without crushing or breaking them; pile in a deep dish, and cover with a white sauce made of butter drawn in milk. Turnips should be eaten very hot always.

Boiled Spinach.

In respect to quantity, spinach is desperately deceitful. I never see it drained after it is boiled without bethinking myself of a picture I saw many years since, illustrative of the perils of innocent simplicity. A small (lucky) boy and big (unlucky) one have been spending their holiday in fishing. While the former, well satisfied with the result of his day’s sport, is busy putting up his rod and tackle, the designing elder dexterously substitutes his own string of minnows for the other’s store of fine perch. The little fellow, turning to pick it up, without a suspicion of the cruel cheat, makes piteous round eyes at his fellow, ejaculating, “How they have swhrunk!”

A young housekeeper of my acquaintance, ordering a spring dinner for herself and husband, purchased a quart of spinach. When it should have appeared upon the table, there came in its stead a platter of sliced egg, she having given out one for the dressing. “Where is the spinach?” she demanded of the maid of all work. “Under the egg, ma’am!” And it was really all there.

Moral.—Get enough spinach to be visible to the naked eye. A peck is not too much for a family of four or five.

Pick it over very carefully; it is apt to be gritty. Wash in several waters, and let it lie in the last half an hour at least. Take out with your hands, shaking each bunch well, and put into boiling water, with a little salt. Boil from fifteen to twenty minutes. When tender, drain thoroughly, chop very fine; put into a saucepan with a piece of butter the size of an egg, and pepper to taste. Stir until very hot, turn into a dish and shape into a flat-topped mound with a silver or wooden spoon; slice some hard-boiled eggs and lay on top.

Or,

Rub the yolks of the eggs to a powder; mix with butter, and when your mound is raised, spread smoothly over the flat top. Four eggs will dress a good-sized dish. Cut the whites into rings and garnish, laying them on the yellow surface. This makes a pleasant dressing for the spinach.

Spinach à la Crème.

Boil and chop very fine, or rub through a cullender. Season with pepper and salt. Beat in, while warm, three tablespoonfuls melted butter (this is for a large dish). Put into a saucepan and heat, stirring constantly. When smoking hot, add three tablespoonfuls of cream and a teaspoonful white sugar. Boil up once, still stirring, and press firmly into a hot bowl or other mould. Turn into a hot dish and garnish with boiled eggs.

Green Peas.

Shell and lay in cold water until you are ready to cook them. Put into salted boiling water, and cook from twenty minutes to half an hour. If young and fresh, the shorter time will suffice. If just gathered from your own vines and tender, season only with salt. Market peas are greatly improved by the addition of a small lump of white sugar. It improves taste and color. The English always put it in, also a sprig of mint, to be removed when the peas are dished. Drain well, and dish, with a great lump of butter stirred in, and a little pepper. Keep hot.

Pea Fritters or Cakes. ✠

Cook a pint or three cups more peas than you need for dinner. Mash while hot with a wooden spoon, seasoning with pepper, salt, and butter. Put by until morning. Make a batter of two whipped eggs, a cupful of milk, quarter teaspoonful soda, a half teaspoonful cream tartar, and half a cup of flour. Stir the pea-mixture into this, beating very hard, and cook as you would ordinary griddle-cakes.

I can testify, from experience, that they make a delightful morning dish, and hereby return thanks to the unknown friend to whom I am indebted for the receipt.

Asparagus (boiled.)

Cut your stalks of equal length, rejecting the woody or lower portions, and scraping the white part which remains. Throw into cold water as you scrape them. Tie in a bunch with soft strings—muslin or tape—and put into boiling water slightly salted. If very young and fresh, it is well to tie in a piece of coarse net to protect the tops. Boil from twenty to forty minutes, according to the age. Just before it is done, toast two or three slices of bread, cutting off the crust; dip in the asparagus liquor, butter, and lay in a hot dish. When you take up the asparagus, drain, unbind the bundle, and heap it upon the toast, with bits of butter between the stalks.

Asparagus and Eggs.

Cut twenty-five or thirty heads of asparagus into bits half an inch long, and boil fifteen minutes. Have a cupful of rich drawn butter in a saucepan, and put in the asparagus when you have drained it dry. Heat together to a boil, seasoning with pepper and salt, and pour into a buttered bake dish. Break five or six eggs carefully over the surface; put a bit of butter upon each; sprinkle with salt, and pepper, and put in the oven until the eggs are set.

Or, ✠

You may beat the eggs—yolks and whites separately—to a froth; season with butter, pepper, and salt; stir them together, with the addition of three tablespoonfuls of milk or cream, and pour evenly over the asparagus mixture in the dish. This is decidedly the better way of the two, although somewhat more troublesome.

Asparagus in Ambush. ✠

Cut off the tender tops of fifty heads of asparagus; boil and drain them. Have ready half a dozen (or more) stale biscuit or rolls, from which you have cut a neat top slice and scraped out the crumb. Set them in the oven to crisp, laying the tops beside them that the cavities may be well dried. Meanwhile, put into a saucepan a sugarless custard made of a pint—if you need so much—of milk, and four well-whipped eggs. Boil the milk first, before beating in the eggs; set over the fire and stir until it thickens, when add a great spoonful of butter, a little salt and pepper; lastly, the asparagus tops, minced fine. Do not let it boil, but take from the fire so soon as the asparagus is fairly in; fill the rolls with the mixture, put on the tops, fitting them accurately; set in the oven three minutes, and arrange on a dish, to be eaten hot.

The number of rolls will depend upon their size. It is better to have them small, so that one can be served to each person. They will be found extremely nice.

Boiled Onions.

Cut off tops and tails, and skin them. Lay in cold water half an hour, then put into a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them. Cook fifteen minutes and drain off the water, re-covering them with more from the boiling tea-kettle. Boil until a straw will pierce them; drain and put into a dish with pepper, salt, and plenty of butter. Send around drawn butter with them. Never cook onions in an iron pot.

Stewed Onions. ✠

Young onions should always be cooked in this way. Top, tail, and skin them, lay them in cold water half an hour or more, then put into a saucepan with hot water enough to cover them. When half done, throw off all the water, except a small teacupful—less, if your mess be small; add a like quantity of milk, a great spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt to taste. Stew gently until tender, and turn into a deep dish.

If the onions are strong and large, boil in three waters, throwing away all of the first and second, and reserving a very little of the third to mix with the milk.

It ought to be more generally known that the disagreeable odor left by any of the onion family upon the breath may be removed by chewing and swallowing a few grains of roasted coffee. No more nutritious vegetable ever finds its way to our tables, and it is greatly to be regretted that the unpleasant result just named should deter so many from eating it. It is especially beneficial to brain-workers and nervous invalids—the very people who are least likely to taste it.

Baked Onions.

The large Spanish or Bermuda onions are the only kinds which are usually baked. Wash clean, but do not remove the skins. Boil an hour—the water should be boiling when they are put in, and slightly salt. Change it twice during this time, always replenishing with more, boiling-hot. Turn off the water, take the onions out and lay upon a cloth, that all the moisture may be absorbed or evaporate. Roll each in a round piece of buttered tissue-paper, twisting it at the top to keep it closed, and bake in a slow oven nearly an hour. When tender all through, peel them, put them into a deep dish, and brown slightly, basting with butter freely. This will take perhaps a quarter of an hour more. Serve in a vegetable dish, and pour the melted butter over them when you have sprinkled with pepper and salt.

Stuffed Onions.

Wash and skin very large Bermuda onions. Lay in cold water an hour. Parboil in boiling water half an hour. Drain, and while hot extract the hearts, taking care not to break the outer layers. Chop the inside thus obtained very fine, with a little cold fat pork or bacon. Add bread-crumbs, pepper, salt, mace, and wet with a spoonful or two of cream. Bind with a well-beaten egg, and work into a smooth paste. Stuff the onions with this; put into a dripping-pan with a very little hot water, and simmer in the oven for an hour, basting often with melted butter. When done, take the onions up carefully, and arrange the open ends uppermost in a vegetable dish. Add to the gravy in the dripping-pan the juice of half a lemon, four tablespoonfuls of cream or milk, and a little browned flour wet with cold milk. Boil up once, and pour over the onions.

Stewed Tomatoes. ✠

Loosen the skins by pouring scalding water upon them; peel and cut them up, extracting the cores or hard parts of the stem end, and removing all unripe portions. Stew in a saucepan (tin or porcelain) half an hour, when add salt and pepper to taste, a teaspoonful of white sugar, and a tablespoonful of butter. Stew gently fifteen minutes longer, and serve.

Some cooks thicken the tomatoes with a little grated bread. A minced onion—a small one—improves the flavor. Another pleasant variety is to put a quarter as much green corn as you have tomatoes into the saucepan when it is first set on the fire, and stew gently.

Stuffed Baked Tomatoes. ✠

Choose large, smooth tomatoes, and cut a thin slice from the blossom end of each, laying it aside for further use. Scoop out the inside, and chop fine with a little grated bread, some green corn, salt, pepper, a teaspoonful white sugar, and a tablespoonful butter. Mix well, and stuff the hollowed tomatoes. Fit the tops on neatly, place in circular rows in a deep dish and bake three-quarters of an hour, to a light brown. Fill the interstices with the force-meat if you have any left, before you bake. Do not peel them.

Scalloped Tomatoes. ✠

Peel and cut in slices a quarter of an inch thick. Pack in a pudding-dish in alternate layers, with a force-meat made of bread-crumbs, butter, salt, pepper, and a little white sugar. Spread thickly upon each stratum of tomatoes, and when the dish is nearly full, put tomatoes uppermost, a good bit of butter upon each slice. Dust with pepper and a little sugar. Strew with dry bread-crumbs, and bake covered half an hour; remove the lid and bake brown.

Scallop of Tomatoes and Green Corn. ✠

This is made as above, substituting for the bread-crumbs in the force-meat, green corn cut from the cob, and seasoning with some fat pork chopped very fine, a minced shallot, pepper, salt, and sugar. Let the top layer be tomatoes, butter and season, and sift grated bread-crumbs over it to brown the scallop. Bake covered half an hour; uncover and leave in the oven as much longer. This time is for a large dishful.

Broiled Tomatoes.

Select large, firm ones, and do not peel. Slice half an inch thick, and broil upon an oyster gridiron. A few minutes will suffice to cook them. Have ready in a cup some hot butter, seasoned with pepper, salt, a little sugar, and a half a teaspoonful of made mustard. As soon as the tomatoes are done, dip each piece in this mixture and lay upon a hot chafing-dish. When all are dished, heat what remains of the seasoning to a boil, pour upon them, and serve at once.

Broiled tomatoes are much liked by those who have eaten them cooked in this manner.

Baked Tomatoes (Plain.)

Peel and slice a quarter of an inch thick. Pack in a pudding-dish, seasoning each layer with salt, pepper, butter, and a very little white sugar. Bake covered half an hour, remove the lid, and brown for fifteen minutes. Five minutes before taking from the oven, pour over the top three or four tablespoonfuls of cream whipped up for a few minutes with melted butter.

Raw Tomatoes.

Do not loosen the skins with scalding water. It impairs the flavor and destroys the crispness. Pare with a keen knife, slice and lay in a glass dish. Season with pepper, salt, and vinegar, stirring a piece of ice rapidly around in the dressing before pouring it over the tomatoes, and setting the dish in the refrigerator until wanted.

There is no salad, excepting, perhaps, lettuce and cucumbers, that is more improved by the use of ice than tomatoes.

Raw Cucumbers.

Pare neatly from end to end, and lay in ice-water one hour. Wipe them and slice thin. Season with pepper, salt and vinegar—and oil, if you wish—laying some bits of ice among them, with thin slices of onion. Cucumbers should be gathered while the dew is on them, and eaten the same day. Leave them in a cool place until you are ready to pare them.

Fried Cucumbers. ✠

Pare and lay in ice-water half an hour. Cut lengthwise, into slices nearly half an inch thick, and lay in ice-water ten minutes longer. Wipe each piece dry with a soft cloth, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and dredge with flour. Fry to a delicate brown in sweet clarified dripping, nice lard, or butter.

Many declare that cucumbers are never fit to eat unless fried, and they are assuredly far more wholesome than when served raw.

Stewed Cucumbers.

Pare, lay in ice-water an hour; then, slice a quarter of an inch thick. Pick out the seeds with a penknife, and put into a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover them. Stew fifteen minutes, and drain off the water. Add enough from the boiling tea-kettle to keep them from burning; season with salt and pepper, and stir carefully in a tablespoonful of butter—or two, should the quantity of cucumber be large. Stew gently ten minutes, and add half a cupful of rich milk; thicken with a little flour, boil up, and serve in a deep dish, squeezing some lemon-juice in at the last.

This is a popular English dish, although it seems a strange one to American ideas.

Boiled Green Corn.

Choose young sugar-corn, full grown, but not hard; test with the nail. When the grain is pierced, the milk should escape in a jet, and not be thick. Clean by stripping off the outer leaves, turn back the innermost covering carefully, pick off every thread of silk, and recover the ear with the thin husk that grew nearest it. Tie at the top with a bit of thread, put into boiling water salted, and cook fast from twenty minutes to half an hour, in proportion to size and age. Cut off the stalks close to the cob, and send whole to table wrapped in a napkin.

Or, you can cut from the cob while hot, and season with butter, pepper and salt. Send to table in a vegetable dish.

Corn and Tomatoes.

Take equal quantities of green corn cut from the cob, and tomatoes sliced and peeled. Stew together half an hour; season with pepper, salt, and a very little sugar. Stew fifteen minutes longer, and stir in a great lump of butter. Five minutes later, pour out and serve.

Succotash.

This is made of green corn and Lima beans, although you can substitute for the latter string or butter beans. Have a third more corn than beans, when the former has been cut from the cob and the beans shelled. Put into boiling water enough to cover them—no more—and stew gently together until tender—perhaps half an hour—stirring now and then. Pour off nearly all the water, and add a large cupful of milk. Stew in this, watching to prevent burning, for an hour; then stir in a great lump of butter, a teaspoonful of flour wet with cold milk, pepper and salt to taste. Boil up once, and pour into a deep vegetable-dish. If you use string-beans, string and cut up into half-inch lengths before cooking.

Green Corn Pudding. ✠

1 quart milk.

5 eggs.

2 tablespoonfuls melted butter.

1 tablespoonful white sugar.

1 dozen ears of corn—large ones.

Grate the corn from the cob; beat the whites and yolks of the eggs separately. Put the corn and yolks together, stir hard, and add the butter; then the milk gradually, beating all the while; next the sugar and a little salt; lastly the whites. Bake slowly at first, covering the dish, for an hour. Remove the cover, and brown finely.

This is a most delicious accompaniment to a meat course, when properly mixed and baked. Warm up what is left from dinner for breakfast, by moistening it with a little warm milk, and stirring in a saucepan until smoking hot. You can make this pudding from canned corn in winter, chopping the corn fine.

Green Corn Fritters or Cakes. ✠

Grate the corn, and allow an egg and a half for every cupful, with a tablespoonful of milk or cream. Beat the eggs well, add the corn by degrees, beating very hard; salt to taste; put a tablespoonful of melted butter to every pint of corn; stir in the milk, and thicken with just enough flour to hold them together—say a tablespoonful for every two eggs. You may fry in hot lard, as you would fritters, but a better plan is to cook upon a griddle, like batter cakes. Test a little first, to see that it is of the right consistency.

Eaten at dinner or breakfast, these always meet with a cordial welcome.

Stewed Green Corn.

Cut from the cob, and stew fifteen minutes in boiling water. Turn off most of this, cover with cold milk, and stew until very tender, adding, before you take it up, a large lump of butter cut into bits and rolled in flour. Season with pepper and salt to taste. Boil five minutes, and serve.

Cold corn left from dinner should be cut from the cob and stewed a few minutes in a little milk, adding seasoning as above. Or, you can mix it with chopped cold potatoes—Irish or sweet; heat a piece of butter or beef-dripping in a frying-pan, and stir in the mixture until smoking-hot. Never throw away a good ear of sweet corn.

Roasted Green Corn.

Turn back the husks upon the stalk, pick off the silk, recover with the husks as closely as possible, and roast in the hot ashes of a wood-fire. Eat with butter, salt, and pepper, out of doors, in the forest, or on the beach.

Salsify or Oyster-Plant. (Stewed.) ✠

Scrape the roots, dropping each into cold water as soon as it is cleaned. Exposure to the air blackens them. Cut in pieces an inch long, put into a saucepan with hot water enough to cover them, and stew until tender. Turn off nearly all the water, and add a cupful of cold milk. Stew ten minutes after this begins to boil; put in a great lump of butter, cut into bits, and rolled in flour; pepper and salt to taste. Boil up once, and serve. The taste is curiously like that of stewed oysters.

Fried Salsify, or Mock Oysters. ✠

Scrape the roots thoroughly, and lay in cold water ten or fifteen minutes. Boil whole until tender, drain, and when cold, mash with a wooden spoon to a smooth paste, picking out all the fibres. Moisten with a little milk; add a tablespoonful of butter, and an egg and a half for every cupful of salsify. Beat the eggs light. Make into round cakes, dredge with flour, and fry brown.

Fried Egg-Plant. ✠

Slice the egg-plant at least half an inch thick; pare each piece carefully, and lay in salt and water, putting a plate upon the topmost to keep it under the brine, and let them alone for an hour or more. Wipe each slice, dip in beaten egg, then in cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot lard until well done and nicely browned.

Stuffed Egg-Plant. ✠

Parboil for ten minutes. Slit each down the side, and extract the seeds. Prop open the cut with a bit of clean wood or china, and lay in cold salt and water while you prepare the force-meat. Make this of bread-crumbs, minute bits of fat pork, salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley, and a very little onion, chopped up together. Moisten with cream, and bind with a beaten egg. Fill the cavity in the egg-plant with this; wind soft pack-thread about them to keep the slit shut, and bake, putting a little water in the dripping-pan. Baste with butter and water when they begin to cook. Test with a straw when they are tender, and baste twice at the last with butter. Lay the egg-plants in a dish, add two or three tablespoonfuls of cream to the gravy, thicken with a little flour, put in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, boil up once, and pour over the vegetable.

Boiled Carrots.

Wash and scrape well, and lay in cold water half an hour. If large, split them, or cut across in two or three pieces. Put into boiling water, slightly salted, and boil until tender. Large ones will require nearly an hour and a half to cook. Young carrots should only be washed before they are boiled, and the skin be rubbed off with a cloth afterward. Butter well, and serve hot.

Stewed Carrots.

Scrape, and lay in cold water half an hour or more. Boil whole three-quarters of an hour, drain, and cut into round slices a quarter of an inch thick. Put on in a saucepan with a teacupful of broth—veal, or beef, or mutton; pepper and salt to taste, and stew gently half an hour. Just before they are done, add four tablespoonfuls cream or milk, and a good lump of butter cut into bits, and rolled in flour. Boil up and serve.

If you have not the broth, use water, and put in a tablespoonful of butter when the saucepan is set on the fire, in addition to the quantity I have specified.

Another Way.

Scrape and boil until nearly done. Cut into small squares, and put into a saucepan, with two small onions, minced; a little chopped parsley, pepper and salt to taste, and half a cup of rather thin drawn butter. They will require half an hour’s simmering. Serve hot.

Mashed Carrots.

Wash, scrape, and lay in cold water a while. Boil very tender in hot water, slightly salted. Drain, and mash with a beetle or wooden spoon, working in a large spoonful of butter, with pepper and salt. A little cream will improve them. Mound as you would mashed potatoes, and stamp a figure upon them, or mark in squares with a knife.

French, or String or “Snap” Beans.

Break off the tops and bottoms and “string” carefully. Then pare both edges with a sharp knife, to be certain that no remnant of the tough fibre remains. Not one cook in a hundred performs this duty as deftly and thoroughly as it should be done. I have heard several gentlemen say that they could always tell, after the first mouthful, whether the mistress or the hireling had “strung” the beans. It is a tedious and disagreeable business, this pulling bits of woody thread out of one’s mouth when he wants to enjoy his dinner.

Cut the beans thus cleared of their troublesome attachés, in pieces an inch long, and lay in cold water with a little salt for fifteen or twenty minutes. Drain them, and put into a saucepan of boiling water. Boil quickly, twenty minutes if well-grown—less if small—at any rate, until tender. Drain in a cullender until the water ceases to drip from them. Dish with a great spoonful of butter stirred in.

To my taste, beans need to have a bit of bacon boiled with them—whole, or chopped into bits that dissolve in the boiling. It mellows the rank taste you seek to remove by boiling.

Lima and Butter Beans.

Shell into cold water; let them lie a while; put into a pot with plenty of boiling water and a little salt, and cook fast until tender. Large ones sometimes require nearly an hour’s boiling. The average time is forty minutes. Drain and butter well when dished, peppering to taste.

Kidney and other Small Beans.

Shell into cold water, and cook in boiling until tender. A small piece of fat bacon boiled with them is an advantage to nearly all. If you do this, do not salt them.

Dried Beans.

Wash and soak over night in lukewarm water, changing it several times for warmer. If this is done they will require but two hours’ boiling. Drain very thoroughly, pressing them firmly, but lightly, in the cullender with a wooden spoon; salt, pepper and mix in a great lump of butter when they are dished.

Boiled Beets.

Wash, but do not touch with a knife before they are boiled. If cut while raw, they bleed themselves pale in the hot water. Boil until tender—if full-grown at least two hours. When done, rub off the skins, slice round if large, split if young, and butter well in the dish. Salt and pepper to taste.

A nice way is to slice them upon a hot dish, mix a great spoonful of melted butter with four or five of vinegar, pepper and salt, heat to boiling, and pour over the beets.

Instead of consigning the cold ones “left over” to the swill pail, pour cold vinegar upon them and use as pickles with cold or roast meat.

Stewed Beets.

Boil young, sweet beets, until nearly done; skin and slice them. Put into a saucepan with a minced shallot and parsley, two tablespoonfuls melted butter, a like quantity of vinegar, some salt and pepper. Set on the fire and simmer twenty minutes, shaking the saucepan now and then. Serve with the gravy poured over them.

Boiled Parsnips.

If young, scrape before cooking. If old, pare carefully, and if large, split. Put into boiling water, salted, and boil, if small and tender, from half to three-quarters of an hour, if full-grown, more than an hour. When tender, drain and slice lengthwise, buttering well when you dish.

Fried Parsnips. ✠

Boil until tender, scrape off the skin, and cut in thick lengthwise slices. Dredge with flour and fry in hot dripping or lard, turning when one side is browned. Drain off every drop of fat; pepper, and serve hot.

Parsnip Fritters. ✠

Boil tender, mash smooth and fine, picking out the woody bits. For three large parsnips allow two eggs, one cup rich milk, one tablespoonful butter, one teaspoonful salt, three tablespoonfuls flour. Beat the eggs light, stir in the mashed parsnips, beating hard; then the butter and salt, next the milk, lastly the salt. Fry as fritters, or as griddle-cakes.

Mashed Parsnips.

Boil and scrape them, mash smooth with the back of a wooden-spoon, or a potato beetle, picking out the fibres; mix in three or four spoonfuls of cream, a great spoonful of butter, pepper and salt to taste. Heat to boiling in a saucepan, and serve. Heap in a mound as you would potato cooked in the same way.

Buttered Parsnips.

Boil tender and scrape. Slice a quarter of an inch thick lengthwise. Put into a saucepan with three tablespoonfuls melted butter, pepper and salt, and a little chopped parsley. Shake over the fire until the mixture boils. Lay the parsnips in order upon a dish, pour the sauce over them, and garnish with parsley. It is a pleasant addition to this dish to stir a few spoonfuls of cream into the sauce after the parsnips are taken out; boil up, and pour upon them.

Boiled Sea-kale.

Tie up in bunches when you have picked it over carefully, and lay in cold water for an hour. Put into salted boiling water, and cook twenty or thirty minutes until tender. Lay some slices of buttered toast in the bottom of a dish, clip the threads binding the stems of the sea-kale, and pile upon the toast, buttering it abundantly. Or, you can send around with it a boat of drawn butter.

Stewed Sea-kale.

Clip off the stems, wash well, tie in neat bunches, and when it has lain in cold water an hour or so, put into a saucepan of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil fifteen minutes, drain well, clip the threads, and return to the saucepan, with a little rich gravy if you have it. If not, pour in three or four tablespoonfuls of butter drawn in milk, pepper and salt, and simmer eight or ten minutes.

Artichokes.

Strip off the outer leaves, and cut the stalks close to the bottom. Wash well and lay in cold water two hours. Immerse in boiling water, the stalk-ends uppermost, with an inverted plate upon them to keep them down. Boil an hour and a half, or until very tender. Arrange in circles upon a dish, the tops up, and pour drawn butter over them.

Summer Squash or Cymbling.

There are many varieties of this vegetable, but the general rules for cooking them are the same. Unless they are extremely tender, it is best to pare them, cutting away as little as possible besides the hard outer rind. Take out the seeds, when you have quartered them, and lay the pieces in cold water. Boil until tender throughout. Drain well, pressing out all the water; mash soft and smooth, seasoning with butter, pepper, and salt. Do this quickly, that you may serve up hot.

Winter Squash.

Pare, take out the seeds, cut into small pieces, and stew until soft and tender. Drain, press well, to rid it of all the water, and mash with butter, pepper, and salt. It will take much longer to cook than the summer squash, and before you put it into hot water, should lie in cold at least two hours.

Stewed Pumpkin.

Cut in two, extract the seeds, slice, and pare. Cover with cold water for an hour; put over the fire in a pot of boiling water and stew gently, stirring often, until it breaks to pieces. Drain and squeeze, rub through a cullender, then return to the saucepan with a tablespoonful of butter, pepper, and salt to taste. Stir rapidly from the bottom until very hot, when dish, rounding into a mound, with “dabs” of pepper on the top.

Baked Pumpkin.

Choose the richest pumpkin you can find; take out the seeds, cut in quarters or eighths, pare, and slice lengthwise half an inch thick. Arrange in layers—not more than two or three slices deep—in a shallow but broad baking-dish. Put a very little water in the bottom, and bake very slowly until not only done, but dry. It requires a long time, for the heat should be gentle. Butter each strip on both sides when you dish, and eat hot with bread and butter for tea.

I have been assured, by people who have tried it, that this is a palatable dish to those who are fond of the flavor of pumpkin. I insert it here upon their recommendation—not my own.

Poke Stalks.

When the young stalks are not larger than a man’s little finger, and show only a tuft of leaves at top a few inches above ground, is the time to gather them. They are unfit for table-use when larger and older. Scrape the stalks, but do not cut off the leaves. Lay in cold water, with a little salt, for two hours. Tie in bundles, as you do asparagus, put into a saucepan of boiling water, and cook fast three-quarters of an hour. Lay buttered toast in the bottom of a dish, untie the bundles, and pile the poke evenly upon it, buttering very well, and sprinkling with pepper and salt. This is a tolerable substitute for asparagus.

Mushrooms.

Imprimis.—Have nothing to do with them until you are an excellent judge between the true and false. That sounds somewhat like the advice of the careful mother to her son, touching the wisdom of never going near the water until he learned how to swim—but the caution can hardly be stated too strongly. Not being ambitious of martyrdom, even in the cause of gastronomical enterprise, especially if the instrument is to be a contemptible, rank-smelling fungus, I never eat or cook native mushrooms; but I learned, years ago, in hill-side rambles, how to distinguish the real from the spurious article. Shun low, damp, shady spots in your quest. The good mushrooms are most plenty in August and September, and spring up in the open, sunny fields or commons, after low-lying fogs or soaking dews. The top is a dirty white,—par complaisance, pearl-color,—the under side pink or salmon, changing to russet or brown soon after they are gathered. The poisonous sport all colors, and are usually far prettier than their virtuous kindred. Those which are dead-white above and below, as well as the stalk, are also to be let alone.

Cook a peeled white onion in the pot with your mushrooms. If it turn black, throw all away, and be properly thankful for your escape. It is also deemed safe to reject the mess of wild pottage, if in stirring them, your silver spoon should blacken. But I certainly once knew a lady who did not discover until hers were eaten and partially digested, that the silver had come to grief in the discharge of duty. It was very dark, and required a deal of rubbing to restore cleanliness and polish; but the poison—if death were, indeed, in the pot—was slow in its effects, since she lived many years after the experiment. It is as well perhaps, though, not to repeat it too often.

To re-capitulate.—The eatable ones are round when they first show their heads in a critical world. As they grow, the lower part unfolds a lining of salmon fringe, while the stalk and top are dirty white. When the mushroom is more than twenty-four hours old, or within a few hours after it is gathered, the salmon changes to brown. The skin can also be more easily peeled from the edges than in the spurious kinds.

Stewed Mushrooms.

Choose button mushrooms of uniform size. Wipe clean and white with a wet flannel cloth, and cut off the stalks. Put into a porcelain saucepan, cover with cold water, and stew very gently fifteen minutes. Salt to taste; add a tablespoonful of butter, divided into bits and rolled in flour. Boil three or four minutes; stir in three or four tablespoonfuls of cream whipped up with an egg, stir two minutes without letting it boil, and serve.

Or,

Rub them white, stew in water ten minutes; strain partially, and cover with as much warm milk as you have poured off water; stew five minutes in this; salt and pepper, and add some veal or chicken gravy, or drawn butter. Thicken with a little flour wet in cold milk, and a beaten egg.

Baked Mushrooms.

Take fresh ones,—the size is not very important,—cut off nearly all the stalks, and wipe off the skin with wet flannel. Arrange neatly in a pie-dish, pepper and salt, sprinkle a little mace among them, and lay a bit of butter upon each. Bake about half an hour, basting now and then with butter and water, that they may not be too dry. Serve in the dish in which they were baked, with maître d’hôtel sauce poured over them.

Broiled Mushrooms.

Peel the finest and freshest you can get, score the under side, and cut the stems close. Put into a deep dish and anoint well, once and again, with melted butter. Salt and pepper, and let them lie in the butter an hour and a half. Then broil over a clear, hot fire, using an oyster-gridiron, and turning it over as one side browns. Serve hot, well buttered, pepper and salt, and squeeze a few drops of lemon-juice upon each.

Celery.

Wash and scrape the stalks when you have cut off the roots. Cut off the green leaves and reject the greenest, toughest stalks. Retain the blanched leaves that grow nearest the heart. Keep in cold water until you send to table. Serve in a celery glass, and let each guest dip in salt for himself. (See Celery Salad.)

Stewed Celery. ✠

1 bunch of celery—scraped, trimmed, and cut into inch lengths.

1 cup milk.

1 great spoonful of butter, rolled in flour.

Pepper and salt.

Stew the celery in clear water until tender. Turn off the water, add the milk, and as soon as this boils, seasoning and butter. Boil up once and serve very hot.

Radishes.

A friend of mine, after many and woful trials with “the greatest plague of life,” engaged a supercilious young lady who “only hired out in the best of families as a professed cook.” She arrived in the afternoon, and was told that tea would be a simple affair—bread-and-butter, cold meat, cake, and a dish of radishes, which were brought in from the garden as the order was given. The lady was summoned to the parlor at that moment, and remarked in leaving—“You can prepare those now, Bridget.” Awhile later she peeped into the kitchen, attracted by the odor of hot fat. The frying-pan hissed on the fire, the contents were a half-pound of butter, and the “professional” stood at the table with a radish topped and tailed in one hand, a knife in the other. “I’m glad to see ye,” thus she greeted the intruder. “Is it paled or onpaled ye’ll have them radishes? Some of the quality likes ’em fried wid the skins on—some widout. I thought I’d wait and ask yerself.”

My readers can exercise their own choice in the matter of peeling, putting the frying out of the question. Wash and lay them in ice-water so soon as they are gathered. Cut off the tops when your breakfast or supper is ready, leaving about an inch of the stalks on; scrape off the skin if you choose, but the red ones are prettier if you do not; arrange in a tall glass or a round glass saucer, the stalks outside, the points meeting in the centre; lay cracked ice among them and send to table. Scrape and quarter the large white ones.

Good radishes are crisp to the teeth, look cool, and taste hot.

Okra.

Boil the young pods, in enough salted hot water to cover them, until tender. Drain thoroughly, and when dished pour over them a sauce of three or four spoonfuls melted (not drawn) butter, a tablespoonful of vinegar, pepper, and salt to taste. Heat to boiling before covering the okras with it.

Boiled Hominy.

The large kind, made of cracked, not ground corn, is erroneously termed “samp” by Northern grocers. This is the Indian name for the fine-grained. To avoid confusion, we will call the one large, the other small. Soak the large over night in cold water. Next day put it into a pot with at least two quarts of water to a quart of the hominy, and boil slowly three hours, or until it is soft. Drain in a cullender, heap in a root-dish, and stir in butter, pepper, and salt.

Soak the small hominy in the same way, and boil in as much water, slowly, stirring very often, almost constantly at the last. It should be as thick as mush, and is generally eaten at breakfast with sugar, cream, and nutmeg. It is a good and exceedingly wholesome dish, especially for children. The water in which it is boiled should be slightly salt. If soaked in warm water, and the same be changed once or twice for warmer, it will boil soft in an hour. Boil in the last water.

Fried Hominy.

If large, put a good lump of butter or dripping in the frying-pan, and heat. Turn in some cold boiled hominy, and cook until the under-side is browned. Place a dish upside down on the frying-pan and upset the latter, that the brown crust may be uppermost.

Eat with meat.

Cut the small hominy in slices and fry in hot lard or drippings. Or, moisten to a soft paste with milk; beat in some melted butter, bind with a beaten egg, form into round cakes with your hands, dredge with flour and fry a light brown.

Hominy Croquettes. ✠

To a cupful of cold boiled hominy (small-grained) add a tablespoonful melted butter and stir hard, moistening, by degrees, with a little milk, beating to a soft light paste. Put in a teaspoonful of white sugar, and lastly, a well-beaten egg. Roll into oval balls with floured hands, dip in beaten egg, then cracker-crumbs, and fry in hot lard.

Very good!

Baked Hominy. ✠

To a cupful of cold boiled hominy (small kind) allow two cups of milk, a heaping teaspoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of white sugar, a little salt, and three eggs. Beat the eggs very light, yolks and whites separately. Work the yolks first into the hominy, alternately with the melted butter. When thoroughly mixed, put in sugar and salt, and go on beating while you soften the batter gradually with the milk. Be careful to leave no lumps in the hominy. Lastly stir in the whites, and bake in a buttered pudding-dish, until light, firm, and delicately browned.

This can be eaten as a dessert, but it is a delightful vegetable, and the best substitute that can be devised for green corn pudding.

Rice Croquettes. ✠

Half a cup of rice.

1 pint milk.

2 tablespoonfuls sugar.

3 eggs.

A little grated lemon-peel.

1 tablespoonful melted butter.

A saltspoonful salt.

Soak the rice three hours in warm water enough to cover it. Drain almost dry, and pour in the milk. Stew in a farina-kettle, or one saucepan set in another of hot water, until the rice is very tender. Add the sugar, butter and salt, and simmer ten minutes. Whisk the eggs to a froth, and add cautiously, taking the saucepan from the fire while you whip them into the mixture. Return to the range or stove, and stir while they thicken, not allowing them to boil. Remove the saucepan, and add the grated lemon-peel; then turn out upon a well-greased dish to cool. When cold and stiff, flour your hands and roll into oval or pear-shaped balls; dip in beaten egg, then in fine cracker-crumbs, and fry in nice lard.

Or,

You can make a plainer dish of cold boiled rice, moistened with milk and a little melted butter to a smooth paste. Add sugar and salt, bind with two or three beaten eggs; make into cakes or balls, and proceed as directed above. Eat hot with roast or boiled fowls. If you shape like a pear, stick a clove in the small end for the stem.

Boiled Rice.

Pick over carefully and wash in two waters, letting it stand in the last until you are ready to boil. Have ready some boiling water slightly salted, and put in the rice. Boil it just twenty minutes, and do not put a spoon in it, but shake up hard and often, holding the cover on with the other hand. When done, drain off the water, and set the saucepan uncovered upon the range, where the rice will dry, not burn, for five minutes.

Eat with boiled mutton or fowls.

Baked Macaroni. ✠

Break half a pound of pipe macaroni in pieces an inch long, and put into a saucepan of boiling water slightly salted. Stew gently twenty minutes. It should be soft, but not broken or split. Drain well and put a layer in the bottom of a buttered pie or pudding-dish; upon this grate some mild, rich cheese, and scatter over it some bits of butter. Spread upon the cheese more macaroni, and fill the dish in this order, having macaroni at the top, buttered well, without the cheese. Add a few spoonfuls of cream or milk, and a very little salt. Bake covered half an hour, then brown nicely, and serve in the bake-dish.

Stewed Macaroni—Italian Style.

Break the macaroni into inch lengths, and stew twenty minutes, or until tender. Prepare the sauce beforehand. Cut half a pound of beef into strips and stew half an hour. The water should be cold when the meat is put in. At the end of that time, add a minced onion and a pint of tomatoes peeled and sliced. Boil for an hour, and strain through a cullender when you have taken out the meat. The sauce should be well boiled down by this time. You do not want more than a pint for a large dish of macaroni. Return the liquid to the saucepan, add a good piece of butter, with pepper and salt, and stew until you are ready to dish the macaroni. Drain this well, sprinkle lightly with salt, and heap upon a chafing-dish or in a root-dish. Pour the tomato-sauce over it; cover and let it stand in a warm place ten minutes before sending to table. Send around grated cheese with it. The Italians serve the meat also in a separate dish as a ragoût, adding some of the sauce, highly seasoned with pepper and other spices.

Macaroni à la Crème. ✠

Cook the macaroni ten minutes in boiling water. Drain this off, and add a cupful of milk, with a little salt. Stew until tender. In another saucepan heat a cup of milk to boiling, thicken with a teaspoonful of flour, stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and lastly, a beaten egg. When this thickens, pour over the macaroni after it is dished.

This is a simple and good dessert, eaten with butter, sugar, and nutmeg, or sweet sauce. If set on with meat, grate cheese thickly over it, or send around a saucer of grated cheese with it.