Woman's Institute Library of Cookery Volume V Part 4

69. BAKED PEARS.--Although pears are rather mild in flavor, they are delicious when baked if lemon is added. Wash thoroughly pears that are to be baked, cut them into halves, and remove the cores. Place them in a shallow pan, fill the holes in the center with sugar, dot with b.u.t.ter, and place a thin slice of lemon over each piece. Pour a few spoonfuls of water into the pan, set in the oven, and bake until the pears can be easily pierced with a fork. Remove from the oven and serve hot or cold.

PLUMS

70. PLUMS are among the very strong acid fruits. Some varieties of them seem to be more tart after they are cooked than before, but, as already explained, this condition is due to the fact that the acid contained in the skin and around the seeds is liberated during the cooking. This fruit, of which there are numerous varieties, is generally used for canning, preserving, etc. It does not make jelly successfully in all cases unless some material containing pectin is added. Very firm plums may have the skins removed by blanching if it seems advisable to take them off.

71. STEWED PLUMS.--Because of the many varieties of plums with their varying degrees of acidity, it is difficult to make a recipe with a quant.i.ty of sugar that will suit all kinds. The recipe given here is suitable for medium sour plums, such as egg plums and the common red and yellow varieties. Damsons and green gages will probably require more sugar, while prune plums may require less.

STEWED PLUMS (Sufficient to Serve Eight)

1-1/2 qt. plums 1 lb. sugar 3/4 c. water

Wash the plums and p.r.i.c.k each one two or three times with a fork. Bring the sugar and water to the boiling point and, when rapidly boiling, add the plums. Cook until they are tender, remove from the fire, cool, and serve.

QUINCES

72. QUINCES are one of the non-perishable fruits. They mature late in the fall and may be kept during the winter in much the same way as apples. While quinces are not used so extensively as most other fruits, there are many uses to which they may be put and much can be done with a small quant.i.ty. For instance, various kinds of preserves and marmalades may be made entirely of quinces or of a combination of quinces and some other fruit. They also make excellent jelly. As their flavor is very strong, a small quant.i.ty of quince pulp used with apples or some other fruit will give the typical flavor of quinces. When combined with sweet apples, they make a very delicious sauce.

The skin of quinces is covered with a thick fuzz, which can be removed by wiping the fruit with a damp cloth. A point that should be remembered about quinces is that they are extremely hard and require long cooking to make them tender and palatable.

73. STEWED QUINCES AND APPLES.--The combination of quinces and apples is very delicious. Sweet apples, which are difficult to use as a cooked fruit because of a lack of flavor, may be combined very satisfactorily with quinces, for the quinces impart a certain amount of their strong flavor to the bland apples and thus the flavor of both is improved.

STEWED QUINCES AND APPLES (Sufficient to Serve Six)

1 qt. sweet apples 1 pt. quinces 1 lb. sugar 1 c. water

Wash, peel, core, and quarter the fruit. Add the sugar to the water and place over the fire until it conies to a rapid boil. Then add the quinces and cook until they are partly softened. Add the sweet apples and continue the cooking until both are tender. Remove from the fire, cool, and serve.

RHUBARB

74. RHUBARB is in reality not a fruit, but it is always considered as such because it is cooked with sugar and served as a fruit. It has the advantage of coming early in the spring before there are many fruits in the market. As it contains a large quant.i.ty of oxalic acid, it is very sour and must be cooked with considerable sugar to become palatable, the addition of which makes the food value of cooked rhubarb very high.

Rhubarb is much used for pies and is frequently canned for sauce. It is also used as a cheap filler with a more expensive fruit in the making of marmalades, conserves, and jams.

The stems of some varieties of rhubarb are characterized by a great deal of red color, while others are entirely green. The red rhubarb makes a more attractive dish when it is cooked and served than the green, but it has no better flavor. The outside of the stem has a skin that may be removed by catching hold of it at one end with a knife and stripping it off the remainder of the stem. It is not necessary to remove the skin from young and tender rhubarb, but it is often an advantage to remove it from rhubarb that is old. It should be remembered that the stems of rhubarb contain considerable water and so require very little liquid in their cooking.

75. STEWED RHUBARB.--Two methods of stewing rhubarb are in practice, the one to select depending on the way it is preferred. In one method, which keeps the pieces whole, the sugar and water are brought to the boiling point before the rhubarb is added, while in the other, the rhubarb is cooked with water until it is soft and the sugar then added.

STEWED RHUBARB (Sufficient to Serve Six)

2 c. sugar 1/2 c. water 1 qt. cut rhubarb

Mix the sugar and water in a saucepan and bring to the boiling point.

Wash the stems of the rhubarb and cut into inch lengths. Add the rhubarb to the sirup and cook until it is tender enough to be pierced with a fork. If desired, a flavoring of lemon peel may be added. Turn into a dish, allow to cool, and serve.

If the other method is preferred, cook the rhubarb with the water until it is soft and then add the sugar.

CITRUS FRUITS

CHARACTERISTICS

76. Fruits that contain citric acid are grouped together and are known as CITRUS FRUITS. All of these are similar in structure, although they differ in size, as will be observed from Fig. 4. Here the citrus fruits most commonly used are ill.u.s.trated, the large one in the center being a grapefruit; the two to the left, oranges; the two to the right, lemons; and the two in the front, tangerines.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 4]

All varieties of these fruits are tropical or semitropical and are s.h.i.+pped to the North in boxes that contain various numbers, the number that can be packed in a box depending on the size of the fruit. The south, southeastern, and western parts of the United States supply practically all of these fruits that are found in the northern markets.

They stand storage well and keep for long periods of time if they are packed before they are too ripe. These characteristics, together with the fact that they are at their prime at different times in different localities, make it possible to market such fruits during the entire year, although they are much better at certain seasons than at others.

77. The majority of citrus fruits contain a fair amount of sugar and a great deal of water; consequently, they are very juicy and refres.h.i.+ng. A few of them, however, such as lemons and limes, contain very little sugar and considerable acid and are therefore extremely sour. In the use of such varieties, sugar must be added to make them palatable.

The greatest use made of citrus fruits is that of serving them raw.

However, they are also used in the making of marmalades, conserves, and such confections as candied fruits. Then, too, the juice of a number of them, such as lemons, oranges, and limes, makes very refres.h.i.+ng beverages, so these varieties are much used for this purpose.

GRAPEFRUIT

78. Grapefruit, also known as _shaddock_, is a large, pale-yellow fruit belonging to the citrus group. One variety, known as the _pomelo_, is the kind that is commonly found in the market. It is slightly flattened on both the blossom and stem ends.

Grapefruit has a typical flavor and a slightly bitter taste and contains neither a great deal of sugar nor a large amount of acid. Because of its refres.h.i.+ng, somewhat acid pulp and juice, it is highly prized as a fruit to be eaten at breakfast or as an appetizer for a fruit c.o.c.ktail. It is also much used in the making of fruit salads.

79. SELECTION OF GRAPEFRUIT.--Grapefruit should be selected with care in order that fruit of good quality may be obtained. Some persons think that to be good grapefruit should be large, but it should be remembered that size is not the factor by which to judge the quality. The fruit should be heavy for its size and the skin should be fine-grained and even. Coa.r.s.e-grained skin, as a rule, is thick and indicates that the pulp is rather pithy and without juice.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 5]

80. PREPARATION OF GRAPEFRUIT.--Different ways of serving grapefruit are in practice, and it is well that these be understood. This is generally considered a rather difficult fruit to eat, but if care is exercised in its preparation for the table it can be eaten with comfort. For preparing grapefruit, a narrow, sharp-bladed paring knife may be used.

As is well known, a grapefruit is always cut apart half way between the stem and the blossom ends and a half served to each person.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 6]

81. One method of preparing grapefruit consists in cutting the skin in such a way that the seeds can be taken out and the pulp then easily removed with a spoon. To prepare it in this way, cut the grapefruit into halves, and then, with a sharp knife, cut around the pithy core in the center, cutting off the smallest possible end of each of the sections.

With this done, remove the seeds, which will be found firmly lodged near the core and which can be readily pushed out with the point of the knife. Then cut down each side of the skin between the sections so as to separate the pulp from the skin. Around the edge next to the outside skin, cut the pulp in each section with a single jab of the knife, taking care not to cut the skin between the sections. The entire pulp of each section, which will be found to be loose on both sides and ends if the cutting is correctly done, can then be readily removed with a spoon.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 7]

82. In another method of preparing this fruit for the table, all the skin inside of the fruit is removed and nothing but the pulp is left.

This method, which is ill.u.s.trated in Figs. 5 to 10, inclusive, requires a little more time and care than the previous one, but the result justifies the effort. After cutting the grapefruit into halves, remove the seeds with a sharp knife, as shown in Fig. 5. Then, with the same knife, cut the grapefruit from the skin all the way around the edge, as in Fig. 6; also, cut down each side of the skin between the sections, so as to separate the pulp from the skin, as in Fig. 7. With the pulp loosened, insert a pair of scissors along the outside edge, as in Fig.

8, and make a slanting cut toward the core.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 8]

Then, as in Fig. 9, cut the core loose from the outside skin. Repeat this operation for each section. If the cutting has been properly done, the core and skin enclosing the sections may be lifted out of the grapefruit, and, as shown in Fig. 10, will then be in the form of a many-pointed star. As only the pulp remains in the outside skin, the grapefruit can be eaten without difficulty.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FIG. 9]

83. SERVING GRAPEFRUIT.--When grapefruit has been properly ripened, it is rather sweet, so that many persons prefer it without sugar; but when sugar is desired, the fruit is very much more delicious if it is prepared some time before it is to be served, the sugar added to it, and the fruit placed in a cool place. If this is done in the evening and the grapefruit is served for breakfast, a large amount of very delicious juice will have collected through the night. At any rate, grapefruit is best if it is sweetened long enough before it is served to give the sugar a chance to penetrate.