2. THE PREPARATIONS
Food usually needs some preparation for the processes of cooking. Though it requires nothing more, it is almost invariably first washed in clean, fresh water.
Meat.—Fresh meat should be rinsed quickly in cold water. Meat which has been smoked or salted often needs scrubbing with a brush as well as rinsing, and salt meat frequently requires to be soaked for several hours.
Poultry.—Poultry is usually sent to the market killed and plucked, and is sometimes "drawn" before it is sent from the market to the buyer. In country places it is often brought to the housewife alive and though this has inconveniences it has also the great advantage that the poultry can then be drawn immediately after it is killed, which seems the more clean and more reasonable method.
To the housewife who finds herself in the predicament of having a live chicken when she needs a dead one, I can say from experience that beheading is the least offensive method for the unskilled to employ. Use a sharp axe or hatchet and strike hard. Do not be distressed by the convulsive movements which follow, they do not indicate suffering. They happen because the intense throbbing thing, we call life cannot be snuffed out like a candle. Even in a small creature it is a tremendous rush and swirl which cannot be stopped on the instant. This is a piece of work which it is not necessary for a housekeeper to learn to do; she need only know that she can do it if she must. I have found in my own housekeeping that it is more economical to hire my neighbour, black Caroline to kill the chickens, because she can walk out of the kitchen door with two chickens in her hand, kill them, and come back again without interrupting the camp-meeting hymn she is singing and I am afraid I must admit that I cannot do the same thing without shivering and tears.
A few minutes after the poultry is killed it should be plucked. Some people scald it to make the feathers come out more easily; others, on reasonable grounds, heartily disapprove of this performance and insist on "dry picking." Hold the fowl by the feet and pull the feathers out toward the head, unless the skin proves to be very tender; in that case pull the other way. Carefully remove all the little black pin-feathers. Put a screw of paper on the stove, light it and singe the chicken quickly to remove hairs and down. If the head has not previously been removed, cut it off about an inch from the body. Just below where the neck and body join you will feel through the skin a rough movable lump. This is the crop and should be removed by loosening the skin from the neck and drawing up the crop between the two. Cut it off close to the body. Cut off the legs at the joint and cut out a little oil bag which you will find on top of the tail.
When chickens are split down the back for broiling, or cut into pieces for fricasseeing or frying, it is a simple matter to remove the internal organs. If, however, they must be drawn for roasting, it takes some skill to do it. It is an assistance to remember that the organs lie more or less bound together in the cavity of the body, somewhat as the seeds lie in the cavity of a cantaloupe. The organs should be disordered as little as possible in the removal, as some of them, notably the gall-bag of the liver, contain substances which affect the taste of the meat if they touch it. As the chicken lies breast up, make a short crosswise slit in it a little distance from the tail. Put one or two fingers into this opening keeping them close to the walls of the cavity, and gently loosen the organs, gradually working them out at the slit. Some strength is needed for this, but it should be applied gently.
Be sure that all the organs are removed, then wash the fowl under the faucet or in a pan of cold water. Wipe it dry with a clean cloth. The washing should be done with especial thoroughness if the fowl has remained long undrawn.
Carefully separate the heart, liver and gizzard from the other organs. Cut the veins from the heart. Trim the fat from the gizzard, cut a slit in the thick part and draw the slit open; the inner lining must be removed, unbroken if possible. Wash these giblets carefully, put them at once on the fire in cold water and simmer until tender.
Eggs.—Eggs should be washed when they are brought into the house; the shells are then clean to be used for clearing coffee or soup.
When preparing eggs for cooking, do not break them one after another into the bowl in which they are to be beaten, but put each one into a cup and them slip it into the bowl. If this precaution is not taken, an egg unfit for use may be dropped into a bowl with several fresh ones and all will be wasted.
Some people separate the white of an egg from the yolk by cracking a small piece from one end and pouring out the white, leaving the yolk in the shell until last; others break the egg through the middle by striking it on the edge of the cup and pass the yolk back and forth from one half-shell to the other until all the white has run into the cup. Whatever method is used, care must be taken that no yolk runs into the white as this prevents the white from frothing. It is on this account that the whites and yolks are beaten separately when we want eggs especially frothy. Eggs also froth better when they are very cold.
They are beaten before they are used because we sometimes wish to put air into a mixture by this means.
Fish.—Large fish are usually prepared and sold in pieces by the fish dealer. Small fish are usually left whole and should be cleaned as soon as possible after they are bought. First remove the scales by scraping them toward the head with the back of a knife. Hold the knife flat that it may slip under the scales. Have a pan of cold water at hand in which to rinse the knife frequently. Cut off the head just below the gills. Slit the body at the thinner edge and remove the entrails. Run the point of the knife along the backbone to remove the blood which lies there. Cut off the tail last, as it is a convenient handle. Shad containing roe must be slit very carefully, that the roe may not be cut or broken. Fish which are to be served with heads and tails on are slit from the gills half way down the body and the entrails removed as before described.
After fish are cleaned, wash them carefully in cold water—some people prefer to use salted water—then salt inside and out and lay them on a plate in a cool place—not the refrigerator—until it is time to cook them. Wash off the salt and season them again before cooking.
If a piece of fish which is to be boiled is wrapped in a thin cloth the motion of the water will not break it.
Shell-Fish.—Receipts for cooking oysters or clams which begin, "Open the oysters"—or "Take two dozen clams from the shells"—are rather amusing when one remembers what an exaggerated pleasure in retirement these creatures take. They do not open their shells when one reads a receipt at them.
Oysters.—When oysters are cooked in their shells heat opens them; otherwise, some one must open them by hand. A small thin knife with an iron handle is best for this work. The hand in which the oyster is held should be protected with a heavy glove or mitten. If you can find no place where the thin point of the knife can be pushed between the shells, rap the edge of the oyster with the handle of the knife until some little crack is made into which the point can be thrust, then gently but firmly work the shells apart. Put the oysters into a bowl. The opening should be as cleanly a performance as possible, for the oysters are the better for not being washed. Instead of washing them, lift them one or two at a time from one bowl to another, looking them over carefully for any bits of shell. It is better to wash them if they have not been opened in the house. If oysters are to be cooked or served in their shells, the shells must be thoroughly scrubbed.
Clams.—Clams, whether thin shell, or hard shell, should be scrubbed, rinsed, and laid in a pot with not more than a half-cupful of water. Not more, because the juice from the clams should be diluted as little as possible. Cover the pot closely. As soon as the shells open the clams are cooked. When hard shell clams are taken from the shells, clip off with scissors the hard rim from each one. The clam juice should be saved and put aside to settle, the clear liquor can then be poured off. It is used to some extent in nearly all dishes made from clams.
If an oyster or a clam has its shells open, pick it up in your hand. If it closes it is all right, if it remains open throw it away for it is dead. Only death prevents these creatures from shutting their doors.
Scallops.—Scallops as we see them on the table or as they come prepared from the market, are really the muscles of the scallop which hold its shells together. Whole scallops are boiled and the muscle removed when the shells open.
Lobsters.—Lobsters are sometimes bought alive, sometimes already boiled. They are not exactly green or brown or blue when alive, but are bright red when cooked. A boiled lobster is opened by splitting the body and tail lengthwise and cracking the claws. The firm white and red meat and a bit called the "coral" are the parts to be eaten. The head, a sand-pouch near the throat, the stomach and intestines and the tough, feathery gills on the under side of the body must not be used.
Crabs.—Hard shell crabs are cooked by plunging them into salted boiling water for fifteen or twenty minutes. They change in colour as lobsters do. If you wish to open them, first remove the little flap which folds down on the under shell, then, placing your thumbs at the place where the flap was fastened on, draw the upper and lower shells apart. A little, grayish sand pocket sometimes adheres to one shell, sometimes to the other. This and the gray, spongy fingers attached to the lower shell should be removed and thrown away.
Before soft shell crabs are cooked, the sand-pocket and spongy substances under the edges of the shell should be removed. The upper shell is soft enough to be turned back for this purpose.
Vegetables.—Almost without exception, vegetables are prepared for cooking by being washed and laid in cold water to be freshened. Some kinds require no other preparation; others must be also scraped or peeled or shelled or husked.
Those vegetables which require no preparation for cooking except washing and freshening are: asparagus, beets, cabbage, cauliflower, spinach and sweet potatoes.
Cress, celery, endive, lettuce and radishes require this same preparation, but are not usually cooked.
One must be careful not to break the skins of beets and not to cut their tops too close, that the juices may not flow out and leave the beet colourless and tasteless.
Salt should be put in the water in which cabbage and cauliflower are freshened and the cabbage heads should be divided into quarters that the small insects which these vegetables are apt to contain may be driven out.
The washing of spinach requires especial care. It is well to use two pans that the spinach may be lifted back and forth from one to the other and the sand left in the bottom of the pans. A little salt should be put into one of the waters to expel insects.
Vegetables which require also to be scraped are, carrots, oyster plant, parsnips and new potatoes.
Vegetables which require to be peeled as well as to be washed and freshened are: cucumbers, egg plant, mushrooms, onions, white potatoes, squash, turnips and tomatoes.
Egg plant is sliced, but the slices are not always peeled. It is freshened in salted water.
Cucumbers and tomatoes are laid in water before they are peeled instead of afterward. Thick pieces should be cut from the ends and sides of cucumbers as the skin contains unwholesome juices.
Onions are less unpleasant to peel if held under water during the process.
Vegetables which also require shelling or husking are: lima beans, green peas and green corn.
Corn silk may easily be removed from the ears with a brush.
Dried beans and peas require many hours of soaking to make them ready to be cooked.
String beans are prepared by a process peculiar to themselves. Some people cut a thin strip from each side of the pod; others cut the pointed end toward one side, the stem end toward the other and draw away the strings with the cut pieces. The point of importance is to get rid of the strings absolutely.
Rice is prepared by thorough washing. A good way to accomplish this is to put the rice in a coarse strainer and lower it into a pan of water. Lift and stir the rice, then raise the strainer from the pan, change the water and repeat the washing process. Continue to repeat this until the water remains clear.
Fruit and Berries.—Fruit should be washed and wiped dry when it is brought from the market. It is then ready for use in any way that may be desired. Thick skinned fruits such as pears and apples are peeled before they are cooked. Dried fruit is usually soaked before it is cooked.
It is desirable that berries which come from the market or store should be washed. This can best be accomplished by putting them in a coarse sieve or colander and holding them under a gently running faucet. It is a good thing to spread them on a clean paper or cloth to dry. When berries are picked in the garden, one may have the luxury of eating them unwashed.
Mixtures.—There are certain articles of food, different and differently prepared from any hitherto mentioned, which might be called as a class, mixtures. They are dishes made by mixing several food substances together, and are called bread, cake, pudding, pastry, sauces and many other names.
Bread.—Of these mixtures bread is the most important and the most difficult to make. Receipts for bread are the simplest ones we have, yet a detailed description of bread-making might easily fill a book. To read such a description for the first time would very probably shock a careful housewife. She has learned to protect her stores of food from any processes of fermentation; she regards the growth of fungus in the cellar or of mould on the back of the refrigerator as an indication of unhealthful dampness, perhaps of dirt; she probably has some terror of germs and bacteria. Is it not rather shocking then, to learn that, without fermentation, fungus and bacteria, she could not make the sweet, clean bread which she bakes every two or three days. When she has thought out these puzzling facts, she will find that each one of her bakings is a sermon from the text that all things work together for good if one knows the secret of their use.
Yeast is a form of bacteria—a germ—a microscopic fungus which floats about in the air. I find that a Government Report on the subject calls this "wild yeast." One cannot resist following out the idea thus suggested, and saying that this wild species may be caught by the housewife in mixtures of warm hops, potato and flour and "domesticated" for use in bread making.
The little yeast plants multiply quickly when they find something which they like to feed upon, and it happens that they like a mixture of flour and water which is neither very hot nor very cold. Therefore, when we put yeast into dough the little plants feed and multiply and in doing so change the character of the dough. They cause it to ferment, just as grape or apple juice ferments. When the carbohydrate substances in the flour, that is, the starches and sugars, ferment they change, and in the change form alcohol and carbon dioxide. When this performance is at its height, we put the dough into the oven, the yeast plant is killed by the heat and a stop thus put to its activities. Another result of putting the bread into the oven is that the bubbles of gas formed by fermentation expand with the heat. The gas escapes, but not before the walls of the bubbles have been hardened sufficiently by heat to make the bread full of tiny holes—"porous" we call it, and "light."
The following receipt is a usual one for a small batch of bread:
2 quarts of flour.
1 tablespoonful of salt.
1 " " sugar.
1 " " lard.
1 half cake of yeast soaked in a cup of milk.
2 cups of milk or water.
The sugar and the lard are not necessary to bread making but are frequently used; the lard because it makes bread tender and moist, the sugar to take the place of some of the sugar in the flour which is used up in fermentation.
Without the other four ingredients, flour, salt, "wetting" and yeast, we could not have bread.
The yeast is either a little compressed cake of useful bacteria, or it is a liquid in which this bacteria has congregated.
The flour is a nourishing but unattractive substance which we wish the yeast plant to change into spongy, pleasant-flavoured, digestible food.
The salt assists in making the pleasant flavour and also helps to prevent fermentation from going beyond the desired point. Unless the fermentation of bread stops at the right time, changes occur in the dough like those which take place in milk when it sours, and in cider when it turns to vinegar.
Milk or water are necessary to give the flour the moist consistency which is agreeable to the growth of yeast plants. It is sometimes necessary to heat the "wetting" a little, for the temperature of the dough to be favourable to the activity of the yeast must be not less than 70° F. nor more than 90° F.
Directions for mixing bread frequently tell you to "set a sponge." This is done by mixing all the ingredients except the flour, and then stirring into them just enough flour to make a thick batter. This mixture is set in a temperature between 70° and 90° and allowed to ferment. The "sponge" is a more watery mixture than dough and in it the yeast has an especially easy opportunity to develop. The setting of a sponge also serves as a test of the yeast. If the yeast does not greatly increase the quantity of the sponge and make it full of bubbles, it will not be strong enough to affect the stiffer dough.
When the sponge has increased to about twice its size in the beginning, enough flour is stirred in to make kneading possible. The object of kneading is that the yeast may be distributed through the flour so evenly that its effect upon all parts of the dough will be the same.
After the kneading the bread is "set to rise," that is it is put in a comfortably warm place, out of the way of draughts, and left while the yeast plants multiply and ferment the bread.
When the dough has increased to about twice its original size, it is kneaded a little more, chiefly to break the bigger bubbles which would make holes in the bread. It is then moulded into loaves and rolls and set to rise again, this last because in the moulding it has acquired a little more flour and its sponginess has been somewhat compressed. It is finally baked, as has been said, to stop fermentation and preserve the porous character of the bread. Baking also forms the pleasant-flavoured crust.
A person of inquiring mind may observe in the table of food values given in the previous chapter that the nourishing constituents are greater in quantity in flour than, with a slight exception in fat and ash, they are in bread. The natural question will then be, why take all this trouble to cultivate yeast plants in flour when the result furnishes less nourishment than flour? Why not mix flour and water and bake it? This would be "unleavened bread" which is somewhat like crackers, somewhat like macaroni, both of which register higher in nourishing constituents than bread. Nevertheless, they do not serve our purpose as well as bread, because they are much more hard to digest and more quickly create distaste. The body must not only have nourishment supplied to it, it must have it supplied in forms which it can use without serious difficulty. It is quite possible, therefore, to obtain more actual nourishment from digestible, appetizing bread which contains a smaller per cent. of nutriment, than from a crude and insipid flour mixture which contains a greater per cent.
Cake.—There are other methods of making food "light" besides putting yeast into it. Two of these are commonly used in making cake and fancy breads. Sponge cakes are made light by beating air into the eggs used. Cakes which contain butter, and breads which contain no yeast are made light with baking powder, which is a mixture of soda and cream of tartar, or with soda and cream of tartar put in separately. Soda is an alkali; cream of tarter is an acid. A combination of the two liberates carbonic acid gas to raise the cake and also counteracts the poisonous properties of the soda. Three rounded teaspoonfuls of baking powder produce the same effect as one level teaspoonful of soda and two rounded teaspoonfuls of cream of tartar. Therefore, if a receipt calls for soda and cream of tartar and we have only baking powder, or vice versa, we may use one for the other if we remember this equality.
One frequently finds soda and not cream of tartar called for in receipts in which sour milk or molasses is required. In such cases the acid in the milk or in the molasses will take the place of that usually furnished by cream of tartar. Soda and cream of tartar, or baking powder, should be put into the flour before it is sifted, they are thus thoroughly mixed with it and also sifted.
The ingredients of fancy breads and cake must be mixed in ways which will not interfere with the means by which they are made light.
It is usually a good plan when mixing muffins, gems, Sally Lunn or anything of the kind which does not require kneading, to put all the dry ingredients together in one bowl, all the wet ones together in another bowl, then to stir the wet ones into the dry ones and if there are eggs in the mixture fold in the beaten whites last.
Whites of eggs are nearly always the last thing to be put into any mixture, because if they are moved about more than is necessary to get them in, much of the air in them will be lost.
The ingredients of cake are usually mixed in the following order: butter and sugar beaten together to a creamy consistency; beaten yolks of eggs; milk or water and flavouring; flour and baking powder; whites of eggs.
The order for mixing a sponge cake is the same except that some of the ingredients mentioned in this list will be omitted.
The reason that flour is put in last, or next to the last, is that it contains the baking powder or the soda and cream of tartar. When these substances are wet they give off gas which is to make the cake light, therefore they should not be wet until just before the cake is ready for the oven.
Fruit is put into a cake last of all. It is floured before it is put in to keep the pieces from sticking together, and to keep the moisture they contain from injuring the cake.
Because the lightness of cake depends upon bubbles of air or gas which in the course of time collapse, cake batter should be baked as soon as mixed. That this may be possible, the fire should be put into suitable condition and the utensils and materials gathered and prepared before the mixing begins.
Pastry.—Pastry mixtures differ from bread or cake mixtures in that they are flaky instead of spongy. Things flake when they are composed of layers; the point then is to make pastry by a process which will produce layers. When a smooth dough has been made of flour, salt and cold water, it is rolled lightly to a thin sheet, tiny pieces of butter are scattered over it and a very little flour sprinkled on it. The sheet is then doubled, rolled to the former thickness, butter and flour are applied to it as before and it is again doubled. This is repeated several times. When it is finally ready for the oven it is in layers of dough and butter. When the heat of the oven melts the butter and expands the air between the layers, they separate a little, that is, they flake.
By means of this theory of pastry one can better understand the directions given in pastry receipts. For example, the ingredients must be kept cold that the butter and dough may not combine during the rolling. The pastry must be handled lightly and never pressed or pounded because this would press out the air and crush the layers into each other.
The filling of pies sometimes presents difficulties. A very juicy filling soaks the under crust. One remedy used for this is to bake the bottom crust before filling the pie; another is to brush it over with white of egg. The very best way to prevent the under crust of a pie from being soggy and indigestible is not to have one. Put the fruits into a fairly deep baking-dish and cover it with a flaky top crust. This is an English method which we should do well to follow. The result is more fruit and less crust, and none of that under crust which whatever pains you take will more or less relapse into dough.
Juicy pies must not be filled quite full, that they may not boil over in the oven. Openings cut in the crust help to prevent this; an inverted tea cup put into a deep pie is also a preventive. I am told that if the top crust is just laid over the pie and not fastened at the edges, the juice of the filling is less apt to run out.