Miss Parloa's New Cook Book Part 8

Sugar.

The fine-granulated sugar is the best and cheapest for general family use. It is pure and dry; therefore, there is more in one pound of it than in a damp, brown sugar, besides its sweetening power being considerably greater. The price of sugar at wholesale is not much less than at retail, but time and trouble are saved by purchasing by the barrel.

Spice.

It is well to keep on hand all kinds of spice, both whole and ground.

They should not be in large quant.i.ties, as a good cook will use them very sparingly, and a good house-keeper will have too much regard for the health of her family and the delicacy of her food to have them used lavishly. For soups and sauces the whole spice is best, as it gives a delicate flavor, and does not color. A small wooden or tin box should be partly filled with whole mace, cloves, allspice and cinnamon, and a smaller paste-board box, full of pepper-corns, should be placed in it. By this plan you will have all your spices together when you season a soup or sauce.

English Currants.

These keep well, and if cleaned, washed and _well_ dried, will improve in flavor by being kept.

Raisins.

In large families, if this fruit is much used, it is well to buy by the box. Time does not improve raisins.

Soda, Cream of Tartar, Baking Powder.

There should not be so much of these articles used as to require that they be purchased in large quant.i.ties. Cream of tartar is expensive, soda cheap. If one prefers to use baking powders there will be no need of cream of tartar, but the soda will still be required for gingerbread and brown bread, and to use with sour milk, etc. The advantage of baking powder is that it is prepared by chemists who know just the proportion of soda to use with the acid (which should be cream of tartar), and the result will be invariable if the cook is exact in measuring the other ingredients. When an inexperienced cook uses the soda and cream of tartar there is apt to be a little too much of one or the other. Just now, with the failure of the grape crops in France, from which a greater part of the crystals in use come, cream of tarter is extremely high, and subst.i.tutes, such as phosphates, are being used.

To be Always Kept on Hand.

Besides the things already mentioned, housekeepers should always have a supply of rice, pearl barley, dried beans, split peas, tapioca, macaroni, vermicilli, tea, coffee, chocolate, corn-starch, mola.s.ses, vinegar, mustard, pepper, salt, capers, canned tomato, and any other canned vegetables of which a quant.i.ty is used. Of the many kind of mola.s.ses, Porto Rico is the best for cooking purposes. It is well to have a few such condiments as curry powder (a small bottle will last for years), Halford sauce, essence of anchovies and mushroom ketchup.

These give variety to the flavoring, and, if used carefully, will not be an expensive addition, so little is needed for a dish.

CARE OF FOOD.

A great saving is made by the proper care and use of cooked and uncooked food. The first and great consideration is perfect cleanliness. The ice chest and cellar should be thoroughly cleaned once a week; the jars in which bread is kept must be washed, scalded and dried thoroughly at least twice a week. When cooked food is placed in either the ice chest or cellar it should be perfectly cool; if not, it will absorb an unpleasant flavor from the close atmosphere of either place. Meat should not be put directly on the ice, as the water draws out the juices. Always place it in a pan, and this may be set on the ice. When you have a refrigerator where the meat can be hung, a pan is not needed. In winter, too, when one has a cold room, it is best to hang meats there. These remarks apply, of course, only to joints and fowl. The habit which many people have of putting steaks, chops, etc., in the wrapping paper on ice, is a very bad one. When purchasing meat always have the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs sent home, as they help to make soups and sauces. Every sc.r.a.p of meat and bone left from roasts and broils should be saved for the soup-pot. Tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs from ham, tongue, corned beef, etc., should all be saved for the many relishes they will make. Cold fish can be used in salads and warmed up in many palatable ways. In fact, nothing that comes on the table is enjoyed more than the little dishes which an artistic cook will make from the odds and ends left from a former meal. By artistic cook is meant not a professional, but a woman who believes in cleanliness and hot dishes, and that there is something in the appearance as well as in the taste of the food, and who does not believe that a quant.i.ty of b.u.t.ter, or of some kind of fat, is essential to the success of nearly every dish cooked. The amount of food spoiled by b.u.t.ter, _good_ b.u.t.ter too, is surprising.

One should have a number of plates for cold food, that each kind may be kept by itself. The fat tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs from beef, pork, veal, chickens and fowl should be tried out while fresh, and then strained. The fowl and chicken fat ought to be kept in a pot by itself for shortening and delicate frying. Have a stone pot for it, holding about a quart, and another, holding three or four quarts, for the other kinds. The fat that has been skimmed from soups, boiled beef and fowl, should be cooked rather slowly until the sediment falls to the bottom and there is not the shadow of a bubble. It can then be strained into the jar with the other fat; but if strained while bubbles remain, there is water in it, and it will spoil quickly. The fat from sausages can also be strained into the larger pot. Another pot, holding about three quarts, should be kept for the fat in which articles of food have been fried. When you have finished frying, set the kettle in a cool place for about half an hour; then pour the fat into the pot through a fine strainer, being careful to keep back the sediment, which sc.r.a.pe into the soap-grease. In this way you can fry in the same fat a dozen times, while if you are not careful to strain it each time, the crumbs left will burn and blacken all the fat. Occasionally, when you have finished frying, cut up two or three uncooked potatoes and put into the boiling fat. Set on the back of the stove for ten or fifteen minutes; then set in a cool place for fifteen minutes longer, and strain. The potatoes clarify the fat. Many people use ham fat for cooking purposes; and when there is no objection to the flavor, it is nice for frying eggs, potatoes, etc. But it should not be mixed with other kinds. The fat from mutton, lamb, geese, turkey or ducks will give an unpleasant flavor to anything with which it is used, and the best place for it is with the soap-grease. Every particle of soup and gravy should be saved, as a small quant.i.ty of either adds a great deal to many little dishes. The quicker food of all kinds cools the longer it keeps. This should be particularly remembered with soups and bread.

Bread and cake must be thoroughly cooled before being put into box or jar. If not, the steam will cause them to mold quickly. Crusts and pieces of stale bread should be dried in a slow oven, rolled into fine crumbs on a board, and put away for croquettes, cutlets or anything that is breaded. Pieces of stale bread can be used for toast, griddle- cakes and puddings and for dressing for poultry and other kinds of meat. Stale cake can be made into puddings; The best tub b.u.t.ter will keep perfectly well without a brine if kept in a cool, sweet room. It is more healthful and satisfactory to buy the choicest tub b.u.t.ter and use it for table and cooking purposes than to provide a fancy article for the table and use an inferior one in the preparation of the food.

If, from any cause, b.u.t.ter becomes rancid, to each pint of it add one table-spoonful of salt and one teaspoonful of soda, and mix well; then add one pint of cold water, and set on the fire until it comes to the boiling point Now set away to cool, and when cool and hard, take off the b.u.t.ter in a cake. Wipe dry and put away for cooking purposes. It will be perfectly sweet.

Milk, cream and b.u.t.ter all quickly absorb strong odors; therefore, care must be taken to keep them in a cool, sweet room or in an ice chest. Cheese should be wrapped in a piece of clean linen and kept in a box. Berries must be kept in a cool place, and uncovered.

KITCHEN FURNIs.h.i.+NG.

Stove, or Range?

The question often arises, even with old housekeepers, Which shall it be--a stove or a range? There are strong points in favor of each. For a small kitchen the range may be commended, because it occupies the least s.p.a.ce, and does not heat a room as intensely as a stove, although it will heat water enough for kitchen and bath-room purposes for a large family. That the range is popular is evident from the fact that nearly every modern house is supplied with one; and thus the cost of, and cartage for, stoves is generally saved to tenants in these days.

There are these advantage of a stove over a set range: it requires less than half as much fuel and is more easily managed--that is, the fire can be more quickly started, and if it gets too low, more easily replenished and put in working order; and the ovens can be more quickly heated or cooled. But, although you can have a water-back and boiler with most modern stoves or, as they are now called, portable ranges, the supply of hot water will not be large. And you cannot roast before the fire as with a range.

So near-perfection have the makers of ranges and stoves come that it would be difficult to speak of possible improvements, especially in stoves. This can be said not of a few, but of a great many manufacturers, each having his special merit. And where the products are so generally good, it is hard to mention one make in preference to another. When purchasing, it is well to remember, that one of simple construction is the most easily managed and does not soon get out of order. No single piece of furniture contributes so much to the comfort of a family as the range or stove, which should, therefore, be the best of its kind.

Gas and Oil Stoves.

During the hot weather a gas or oil stove is a great comfort. The "Sun Dial," manufactured by the Goodwin Gas Stove Co., Philadelphia, is a "perfect gem," roasting, baking, broiling, etc., as well as a coal stove or range. Indeed, meats roasted or broiled by it are jucier than when cooked over or before coals. The peculiar advantage of oil and gas stoves is that they can be coveniently used for a short time, say for the preparation of a meal, at a trifling expense. The cost of running a gas stove throughout the day is, however, much greater than that of a coal stove, while an oil stove can be run cheaper than either.

There are a great many manufacturers of oil stoves, and as a natural consequence, where there is so much compet.i.tion, the stoves are nearly all good. One would not think of doing the cooking for a large family with one or, indeed, two of them; but the amount of work that can be accomplished with a single stove is remarkable. They are a great comfort in hot weather, many small families doing their entire cooking with them.

Refrigerators.

The trouble with most refrigerators is that the food kept in them is apt to have a peculiar taste. This is owing in a great measure to the wood used in the construction of the interior and for the shelves. On the inside of the Eddy chest-shaped refrigerator there is not a particle of wood, and the food kept in it is always sweet. It is simply a chest, where the ice is placed on the bottom and slate shelves put on top. With this style of refrigerator the waste of ice is much greater than in those built with a separate compartment for ice, but the food is more healthful.

Utensils.

The following is a list of utensils with which a kitchen should be furnished. But the housekeeper will find that there is continually something new to be bought. If there be much fancy cooking, there must be an ice cream freezer, jelly and charlotte russe moulds and many little pans and cutters. The right way is, of course, to get the essential articles first, and then, from time to time, to add those used in fancy cooking:

Two cast-iron pots, size depending upon range or stove (they come with the stove).

One griddle.

One porcelain-lined preserving kettle.

One fish kettle.

Three porcelain-lined stew-pans, holding from one to six quarts.

One No. 4 deep Scotch frying kettle.

One waffle iron.

Three French polished frying-pans, Nos. 1, 3 and 6.

Four stamped tin or granite ware stewpans, holding from one pint to four quarts.

One double boiler, holding three quarts.

One Dover egg-beater.

One common wire beater.