THE CEREALS: BARLEY, OATS, RICE AND BUCKWHEAT.
The cereals furnish the cook materials for many of her most valuable articles of food. Wholesome, easily prepared, and inexpensive, their use on the table can not be too strongly commended. Barley is not in general use among Americans, but the pearled barley ought to form an indispensable article in every larder. In soups it is excellent. The stock for barley soup should be made with the greatest care. Into your soup-kettle—every housewife needs one—put a carefully washed beef bone, and with it all your scraps of cold meat, trimmings from steaks, and bones of chickens, turkey and beefsteak. Put your meat into cold, clear water and for the first half hour allow it but a moderate heat; after that the pot should be placed on the back of the stove, allowing the soup to simmer for four or five hours. This low heat extracts all the juices from the meat, and, this done, the liquor should be strained and allowed to cool. When ready to use the thick layer of grease which forms on the top of the stock should be removed, and the vegetables—the more the better—which are to flavor the soup added. Allow this to simmer until the vegetables have given up their juices, then strain, and into your soup put pepper and salt, with a cup and a half of barley, and allow the whole to come to a boil. Serve hot. Cold and greasy soup is detestable. To prepare the barley for use it should be soaked for several hours and cooked until soft over a slow fire.
Beef with Barley.—Beef is nice served with barley. A beef roast may be garnished with barley which has been boiled, and a steak is oftentimes served in barley. Pieces of cold beef may be warmed over with this cereal in the following way: Mince into dice the scraps of meat, butter a sauce pan thoroughly, pour in a little water and add equal quantities of the minced meat and cold boiled barley. Stir until hot, then pour in two eggs slightly beaten, and stir until the eggs are cooked; season with salt and pepper. Cold mutton may be prepared with rice in the same way.
Barley for the Sick.—“From the times of Hippocrates[1] and Galen,”[2] says a writer, “barley drinks have been in high repute in febrile and inflammatory complaints. They possess mild, soothing qualities, while at the same time they impart nourishment.” For barley water the following is a standard recipe: Wash pearled barley in four waters, rub two or three pieces of sugar on a lemon cut open and put them in a jug with the washed barley and a few slices of lemon; then pour boiling water over the whole and cover it until it is cold. Barley gruel is made by boiling two ounces of the pearled barley in half a pint of water; strain off this water and put the barley into three pints and a half of salted boiling water, and let it boil half away, then strain it for use.
Oatmeal.—Of the good qualities of this Scottish favorite, most of us are aware. “Oatmeal is,” says one authority, “when eaten with milk, a perfect food, having all the requisites for growing children and the young generally. Oatmeal requires much cooking to effectually burst its starch cells, but when it is well cooked it will thicken liquid much more than equal its weight in wheaten flour. The oats of this country are superior to those grown on the continent and in the southern parts of England, but certainly inferior to the Scotch, where considerable pains is taken to cultivate them; and it is needless to point out that the Scotch are an example of a strong and robust nation, which result is justly set down as being derived from the plentiful use of oatmeal. Dr. Guthrie has asserted that his countrymen have the largest heads of any nation in the world—not even the English have such large heads—which he attributes to the universal use of oatmeal.” The almost universal method of using oatmeal is in porridge, or mush, as we almost always call this excellent dish. There are two methods of preparing mush: To one quart of boiling water add one teaspoonful of salt; take a heaping cupful of oatmeal and sprinkle it slowly in with one hand while it is stirred with the other. When the meal has been all put in it should not be stirred more than is necessary to keep it from burning at the bottom. If much stirred the porridge will be starchy and flavorless. A better porridge may be made by stirring at night into two pints of salted boiling water half a pint of oatmeal. Let it boil for two or three minutes, then cover closely and place on the back of the range where it may simmer until breakfast time. Oatmeal may also be steamed. Fried oatmeal is a nice breakfast dish. Take steamed oatmeal when it is cold, cut it in thin slices, and fry until it is brown in a little lard or butter.
Oatmeal Gruel.—A valuable item on an invalid’s bill of fare is oatmeal gruel. “Take two tablespoonfuls of oatmeal, half a blade of mace, a piece of lemon peel, three gills of milk, and a little sugar. Mix two spoonfuls of oatmeal until smooth in a little milk, and stir it gradually into the remainder of the milk; add the lemon peel and blade of mace; set it over the fire for fifteen minutes, stirring it constantly. Then strain it and add sugar to taste.”
Rice.—For simply boiling rice we have an excellent “black man’s recipe” given in one of our favorite cook books by an old sea-captain friend of ours. Here it is just as it was told the “captain:” “Wash him well; much wash in cold water; the rice, flour, make him stick; water boil already very fast; throw him in, rice can’t burn, water shake him too much; boil quarter of an hour or a little more; rub one rice in thumb and finger; if all rub away him quite done; put rice in cullender, hot water run away; pour cup of cold water on him, put back rice in saucepan, keep him covered near the fire, then rice all ready; eat him up.”
Equally good is rice cooked by steaming. After washing thoroughly, soak for an hour in warm water, three pints of water to one of rice. Set the dish containing the rice and water in which it has been soaking into the steamer and allow it to steam for an hour. It should be salted after put to steam and stirred frequently. Milk may take the place of part of the water.
Rice Waffles.—Into one and a half pints of flour stir a little salt, and rub in evenly a piece of butter the size of a walnut, add three beaten eggs, mixed with half a teacupful of sweet milk, one and a half pints of boiled rice and half a teacupful of sour milk, with one teaspoonful of soda; bake immediately in waffle irons. Rice pancakes may be made by adding an extra half cupful of milk. These pancakes may be served with jelly. When hot from the griddle spread them with butter and almost any kind of preserves or jelly; roll them up as you do roll jelly-cake, cut off the ends, arrange them on a platter, sprinkle sugar over the tops, and serve immediately.
Rice Served with Meat.—Rice may be used as a side dish with any kind of meat. Risotto à la Milanaise[3] is a favorite dish. Put one ounce of butter into a stew-pan and when hot mix in a quarter of a small onion minced, cook until it turns yellow; put in a cupful of uncooked rice and stir it until it has become yellow from the butter and onion; now add a pint of stock and boil slowly until the rice is tender. The stock should be nearly all absorbed; before serving add an ounce of grated cheese and stir for a few moments over the fire without letting it boil. Sprinkle a little grated cheese over the top. Another very simple side dish is prepared from rice by mixing a tablespoonful of minced parsley or shives into a pint of boiled rice. Put an ounce of butter into a sauce pan, heat it until it becomes a light brown; mix the rice in the butter and serve as a vegetable.
Desserts from Rice.—The rice pudding is undoubtedly the standard rice dessert, but it is only one of numberless wholesome and toothsome dishes which may be prepared. The simplest form of this pudding and the most delicious is a simple compound of rice, sugar and milk. To two quarts of milk add one cupful of rice and one of sugar, a small pinch of salt, and the desired flavoring. Place the mixture where it will heat very slowly. When the milk becomes boiling hot place the pudding in a slow oven and let it bake for an hour. Do not stir after placing in the oven. A more elaborate pudding is made by dissolving a tablespoonful of corn starch in three cupfuls of milk; add the yolks of two eggs beaten into three-quarters of a cupful of sugar. Put this mixture over the fire and when hot add one cupful of hot boiled rice; stir this until it thickens, then take it off the fire and add the flavoring. Put it into a pudding dish and place in the oven until it is slightly brown; remove and spread over the top the whites of two eggs beaten to a stiff froth and thickened with a little sugar, return the pudding to the oven for a few minutes until the frosting is of a delicate brown color.
Among the many other practical and excellent desserts of rice, the following from Mrs. Henderson’s “Practical Cooking” we know to be good:
Rice Cones.—Mould boiled rice, when hot, into cups which have been previously dipped in cold water; when cold turn them out on a flat dish; with a teaspoon scoop out a little of the rice from the top of each cone, and put in its place any kind of jelly. Any sauce preferred may be served with it.
Rice Cake with Peaches.—Cook the rice in a steamer with milk, and when still hot add a little butter, sugar, and one or two eggs. Butter a plain pudding mould, strew the butter with bread crumbs and put in a layer of rice half an inch thick; then a layer of peaches, and continue alternate layers of each until the mould is full. Bake this for about fifteen or twenty minutes in an oven; when done turn the cake out of the mould, and pour into the dish any desired sauce. Other fruits may be used with rice in the same way.
Orange Snow Balls.—Boil some rice for ten minutes, drain, and let it cool. Pare some oranges, taking off all the thick, white skin; spread the rice in as many portions as there are oranges, on pudding cloths. Tie the fruit, surrounded by the rice, separately in these and boil the balls for an hour; turn them carefully on a dish, sprinkle over plenty of sifted sugar, serve with sauce or sweetened cream.
Apple Snow Balls may be prepared in the same way, the apples being pared and cored without dividing them.
Rice Croquettes.—Soak a half a pound of rice three or four hours in water; drain and put into a basin with one quart of milk and a little salt. Set the basin in the steamer and cook until thoroughly done; then stir in carefully one teacupful of sugar, the yolks of two eggs, a very little butter and flavoring. When cold enough to handle, form into small balls; press the thumb into the center of each; insert a little marmalade or jelly of any kind, and close the rice well over them; roll in beaten eggs (sweetened a little) and bread crumbs. Fry in boiling hot lard.
Rice for the Sick.—Rice jelly is an excellent food for invalids. It is made from rice flour, two heaping teaspoonfuls of which are mixed with water and made into a thin paste. This paste must be stirred into a cupful of boiling water, and the whole sweetened. It should be boiled until it is transparent and then put into a mould.
Ground Rice Milk is prepared by boiling together two tablespoonfuls of ground rice with a pint of milk. Sweeten it according to taste, adding the juice of a lemon. Let it boil half an hour over a moderate fire.
Parched Rice.—Brown rice as you do coffee. Put into boiling salted water and cook thoroughly; serve with cream and sugar.
Buckwheat.—Our last cereal, buckwheat, bears the burden of many complaints. It is called the cause of much of our dyspepsia, and in many households it has been displaced by corn, rye or flannel cakes. As usually made buckwheat cakes are heavy, greasy and sour. Great quantities of butter and syrup are consumed with them to hide the taste of the cake itself, but when properly made there is little doubt but that they are as digestible as any warm breakfast cake. An unfailing recipe is the following, which if a little more troublesome than the usual method, still is worth the trouble. Add to two quarts of boiling water half a pint of corn meal, wet with a little cold water; boil until it forms a thin gruel, to which, when cool, add half a pint of wheat flour, three pints of buckwheat flour, one gill of yeast, and a little salt. The imperfect fermentation or rising of the batter causes most of the “heavy” cakes. To avoid this set your batter thus prepared at noon of the day before you use them; in the evening beat them well and let them rise in a cool place until morning. A little soda and a little warm water are the only additions which will be required before baking for breakfast.