A little girl's cookery book

by Caroline French Benton; Mary Florence Hodge

FISH

One day some little fish came home from market, and Margaret felt sure they must be meant for her to cook. They were called smelts, and, on looking, she found a recipe for cooking them, just as she had expected.

FRIED SMELTS

Put a deep kettle on the fire, with two cups of lard in it, to get very hot. Wipe each smelt inside and out with a clean wet cloth, and then with a dry one. Have a saucer of flour mixed with a teaspoonful of salt, and another saucer of milk. Put the tail of each smelt through its gills—that is, the opening near its mouth. Then roll the smelts first in milk and then in flour, and shake off any lumps. Throw a bit of bread into the fat in the kettle, and see if it turns brown quickly; it does if the fat is hot enough, but if not you must wait. Put four smelts in the wire basket, and stand it in the fat, so that the fish are entirely covered, for only half a minute, or till you can count thirty. As you take them out of the kettle, lay them on heavy brown paper in a pan in the oven, to drain and keep hot, and leave the door open till all are done. Lay a folded napkin on a long, narrow dish, and arrange the fishes in a row, with slices of lemon and parsley on the sides.

FISH CAKES

2 eggs, bread-crumbs, and cold fish.

They are made from any cold fish, by making a nice white sauce, very thick. Take all the fish from the bones and mash up with salt and pepper, then put it into the sauce. Stir all up together, turn out in a dish, and let it get quite cold and hard.

Have ready your boiling fat; roll the fish mixture in your hands the shape you want the cakes; beat up 2 eggs and brush them over with the eggs and place in the bread-crumbs. This must be done twice, as then the fish cakes will not burst. Cook for five minutes.

SCALLOPED FISH

The fish is done just as the fish cakes are, in sauce, but it is turned out into a dish or pie-dish, which must be buttered, and a layer of bread-crumbs sprinkled over, with bits of butter put on the top. Place in an oven till it browns on the top.

PICKLED HERRINGS OR MACKEREL

Split open four or five herrings. Wash them and remove the back-bone. Roll up from the head end, with their roes inside. Place in a dish, cover them with vinegar, two bay-leaves, and a few peppercorns and a few slices of onions; put in the oven with a plate over the dish and cook till the onion is done; turn them out in any dish and pour the liquor over them.

DRIED HADDOCK

Place your haddock in a baking-tin and cover it with half milk and half water. If there is no milk use only water. Put a plate or dish over the top and put in the oven until it is done. Do not boil it over the fire, as you lose half the flavour.

SCOTCH DRIED HADDOCK

Hold the haddock in front of the fire till it is warm, then remove the skin at the back, beginning at the tail. Put it into a grill and let it cook in front of the fire for five or six minutes. Put butter and pepper; serve very hot.

FRIED PLAICE OR SOLE

Have the plaice filleted. Wash and dry it, then brush it over with raw eggs and place it in bread-crumbs. Have your frying fat boiling and put the plaice in to cook for five minutes. Take out and put on kitchen paper to drain the fat off. Serve on hot dish, with fish paper under, and decorate with parsley.

FILLETS OF SOLES WITH WHITE WINE SAUCE

Boil the fillets of soles till done, then make the white sauce. Add a sherry glass of wine, then put the fillets into the sauce. Allow them to simmer two or three minutes, then add the yolk of an egg to the sauce and serve.

HOW TO GRILL ANY FISH FOR BREAKFAST

Split them open. Wash and dry any fish, such as herrings, mackerel, fresh haddock; kippers are also done this way. Place in the grill and do in front of the fire; put butter and pepper on to taste. They will take about ten minutes.

HOW TO BOIL FISH

Rub the skin of the fish with lemon and put salt in water. Wash the fish first and place it in the fish-kettle with enough water to well cover it. Let it come up to the boil and afterwards let it gently simmer until cooked.

FRIED BACON

Margaret’s mother believed there was only one very nice way to cook bacon. It was like this: Slice the bacon very, very thin, and cut off the rind. Put the slices in a hot frying-pan for about three minutes. When both sides are cooked, lay it on a hot dish.

GRILLED CHOPS

Rub the grill with some of the fat, so that the chops will not stick. Lay in the chops and put over a clear, red fire without flame, and toast one side first and then the other; do this till they are brown. Lay on a hot dish, and dust both sides with salt and a tiny bit of pepper. Put bits of lemon and parsley round, and send to the table very hot.

FRIED CHOPS

If the fire is not clear, so that you cannot grill the chops, you must fry them. Take a frying-pan and make it very hot indeed; then lay in the chops and cook one side very quickly, and then the other, and after that let them cook more slowly. When they are done—you can tell by picking open a little place in one with a fork and looking in the inside—put them on a dish as before, with pepper and salt. If they are at all greasy, put on kitchen paper in the oven first, to drain, leaving the door of the oven open. Be careful not to let them get cold.

LIVER AND BACON

Buy half a pound of calf’s liver and half a pound of bacon. Cut the liver in thin slices and pour boiling water over it, and then wipe each slice dry. Slice the bacon very thin and cut off the rind; put this in a hot frying-pan and cook very quickly, turning it once or twice. Just as soon as it is brown take it out and lay it on a dish. Take a saucer of flour and mix in it a teaspoonful of salt and a very little pepper; dip the slices of liver in this, one at a time, and shake them free of lumps. Lay them in the hot fat of the bacon in the pan and fry till brown. Put on a hot dish, and then put one slice of bacon on each slice of liver. Put parsley all round, and sometimes use slices of lemon, too, for a change.

BACHELOR BREAKFAST

Two slices of bacon fried. Place on them a fried egg and on the top a cooked tomato which has been fried in a little butter.

GRILLED STEAK

See that the fire is clear and red, without flames. Trim off most of the fat from the steak, and rub the wires of the grill with it and heat it over the coals. Then put in the meat and turn over and over as it cooks, and be careful not to let it get burnt. When brown, put it on a hot dish, dust over with salt and a very little pepper, and dot it with tiny lumps of butter. Put parsley round. Steak ought to be pink inside; not brown and not red. Put a fork in as you did with the chops, and twist in a little, and you can see when it gets the right colour.

VEAL CUTLET

Dust the meat over with salt, pepper, and flour. Put a tablespoonful of dripping in a hot frying-pan, and let it heat till it smokes a little. Lay the meat in and turn it over twice as it cooks, until it is brown, for veal cutlets must not be eaten red or pink inside. Put in a hot oven and cover it up while you make the gravy, by putting one tablespoonful of flour into the hot fat in the pan, stirring it till it is brown. Then put in a cup of boiling water, half a teaspoonful of salt, and a very little pepper; put this through the strainer, pressing it with a spoon, and pour over the meat. Put parsley round the cutlet, and send hot to the table.

Margaret’s father said he could not possibly manage without potatoes for breakfast, so sometimes Margaret made something nice out of the cold potatoes she found in the larder.

CREAMED POTATOES

Cut cold boiled potatoes into pieces as large as the end of your finger; put them into a pan on the back of the stove, with enough milk to cover them, and let them stand till they have drunk up all the milk; perhaps they will slowly cook a little as they do this, but that will do no harm. In another saucepan, or in the frying-pan, put a tablespoonful of butter, and when it bubbles put in a tablespoonful of flour, and stir till they melt together; then put in two cups of hot milk, and stir till it is all smooth. Put in one teaspoonful of salt, and lastly the potatoes, but stir them only once while they cook, for fear of breaking them. Add one teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and put them in a hot covered dish. You can make another sort of potatoes when you have finished creaming them in this way, by putting a layer of them in a deep buttered baking-pan, with a layer of white sauce over the top, and bread-crumbs and bits of butter for a crust. Brown well in a hot oven. When you do this, remember to make the sauce with three cups of milk and two tablespoonfuls of flour and two of butter, and then you will have enough for everything.

HASHED BROWNED POTATOES

Chop four cold potatoes fine, and add one teaspoonful of salt and a very little pepper. Put a tablespoonful of butter in the frying-pan, and turn it so that it runs all over; when it bubbles put in the potatoes, and smooth them evenly over the pan. Cook till they are brown and crusty on the bottom; then put in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and fold over like an omelette.

CHIPPED POTATOES

Wash and peel four potatoes and cut them into thin pieces. Heat two cups of lard very hot, till when you drop in a bit of bread it browns at once. Wipe the potatoes dry and drop in a handful. Have a slice ready, and as soon as they brown take them out and lay on brown paper in the oven, and put in another handful.

POTATO CAKES

Take two cups of mashed potato, and mix well with the beaten yolk of one egg, and make into small flat cakes; dip each into flour. Heat two tablespoonfuls of nice dripping, and when it is hot lay in the cakes and brown, turning each with the slice as it gets crusty on the bottom.

TO KEEP FRYING FAT

The fat can be used to fry in a great many times if strained after using, and put in a clean jar.

How to know when fat is boiling: Drop a few bread-crumbs in the fat. They should turn brown at once.

BUTTERED TOAST

Toast is very difficult for grown-up people to make, because they have made it wrong all their lives, but it is easy for little girls to learn to make, because they can make it right from the first.

Cut bread that is at least two days old into slices a third of an inch thick. Be sure the fire is red, without any flames. Take the toasting-fork and move the slices of bread backwards and forwards across the coals, but do not let them brown; do both sides this way, and then brown first one and then the other afterward. Trim off the edges, butter a little quickly, and send to the table hot.

BAKING-POWDER BISCUIT

Margaret’s Other Aunt said little girls could never, never make biscuits, but this little girl really did, in this way:

1 pint of sifted flour.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
4 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.
¾ cup of milk.
1 tablespoonful of butter.

Put the salt and baking-powder in the flour and sift well, and then rub the butter in with a spoon. Little by little put in the milk, mixing all the time, and then lift out the dough on a floured board and roll it out lightly, just once, till it is one inch thick. Flour your hands and mould the little balls as quickly as you can, and put them close together in a shallow pan that has had a little flour shaken over the bottom, and bake in a hot oven about twenty minutes, or till the biscuits are brown. If you handle the dough much, the biscuits will be tough, so you must work fast.

MUFFINS

2 cups of sifted flour.
2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
1 cup of milk.
2 eggs.
1 large teaspoonful of melted butter.

Mix the flour, salt, and baking-powder, and sift. Beat the yolks of the eggs, put in the butter with them and the milk, then the flour, and last the stiff whites of the eggs. Have the muffin-tins hot, pour in the batter, and bake fifteen or twenty minutes. These must be eaten at once, or they will fall.

There was one little recipe in Margaret’s book which she thought must be meant for the smallest girl who ever tried to cook, it was so easy. But the little biscuits were good enough for grown people to like. This was it:

CREAM CRACKERS

Quarter-pound of flour, yolks of two eggs; beat them well with a quarter of a pint of cream and pinch of salt. Stir into the flour, roll out very thin, cut into any shape with a knife, prick with a fork, and bake a few at a time in a good oven. They must be straw colour. In a good oven they should take five minutes. Put on a sieve till cold.

GRIDDLE-CAKES

2 eggs.
1 cup of milk.
1½cups of flour.
2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder.
½ teaspoonful of salt.

Put the eggs in a bowl without separating them, and beat them with a spoon till light. Put in the milk, then the flour mixed with the salt, and last the baking-powder all alone. Bake on a hot, buttered griddle. This recipe makes delicious cakes, especially if eaten with sugar and thick cream.

Last of all the things Margaret learned to make for breakfast came coffee, and this she could make in two ways; sometimes she made it this first way, and sometimes the other, which is called French coffee.

COFFEE

First be sure your coffee-pot is shining clean; look in the spout and in all the cracks, and wipe them out carefully, for you cannot make good coffee except in a perfectly clean pot. Then get three heaped tablespoonfuls of ground coffee, and mix in one tablespoonful of cold water. Pour in one quart of boiling water, and let it boil up once. Then stir down the grounds which come to the top, put in two tablespoonfuls of cold water, and let it stand for a minute on the back of the stove, and then strain it into the silver pot for the table. This pot must be made very hot, by filling it with boiling water and letting it stand on the kitchen table while the coffee is boiling. If this recipe makes the coffee stronger than the family like it, take less coffee, and if it is not strong enough, take more coffee.

FRENCH COFFEE

Get one of the pots which are made so that the coffee will drip through; put three tablespoonfuls of very finely powdered coffee in this, and pour in a quart of boiling water. When it has all dripped through, it is ready to put in the hot silver pot.

PART II
LUNCHEON OR SUPPER DISHES

So many things in this part of Margaret’s book called for white sauce, or cream sauce, that the recipe for that came first of all.