CELERY
Stewed celery (No. 1)
Wash the celery, cut into half-inch bits, and stew tender in slightly-salted boiling water. Drain this off and add a cupful of milk. Cook for three minutes, stir in a teaspoonful of butter rubbed into a teaspoonful of flour, boil up once, season to taste, and serve.
Stewed celery (No. 2)
A bunch of indifferent celery may be utilized for this dish. I have rescued stalks frosted accidentally through the cook’s carelessness, laid them in ice-cold water for two hours, prepared them as I shall direct, and presented as palatable food that whose end would otherwise have been the garbage pail.
After stewing tender and draining, transfer to another saucepan in which you have heated a cupful of milk (with a pinch of soda in it), thicken it with a tablespoonful of butter rubbed in a teaspoonful of flour, and stir to a boil. Mix the celery well with this, season with pepper and salt, heat all together for one minute, and dish.
Brown stew of celery
Wash and cut into small bits a bunch of celery. Put it into a saucepan and pour over it a pint of cleared beef stock. Stew until tender. Drain the celery and set aside while you return to the saucepan the stock in which it was cooked. Thicken this with a paste made by rubbing a heaping teaspoonful of browned flour into one teaspoonful of butter. When you have a smooth brown sauce, stir in the celery, and when this is very hot, season and serve.
Savory celery
Scrape, cut into inch-lengths, lay in cold water for an hour; cook tender in salted hot water. Drain, and return the celery to the saucepan. Have ready heated a cupful of weak stock, or gravy, strained through a cloth, seasoned with paprika, salt and onion juice, then thickened with a tablespoonful of browned flour rolled in the same quantity of butter. Pour this over the celery, heat all together for one minute, and dish.
The outer green stalks of celery may be used thus, and more satisfactorily than a tyro might think possible.
Fried celery
Scrape and boil as directed in foregoing recipes; drain, and spread upon a cloth in a very cold place. They must be dry and firm before you dip each piece in beaten egg, then in seasoned bread or cracker-dust. Set again in the cold for an hour, and fry in deep cottolene or other fat to a golden brown. Drain in a hot colander and serve.
Stewed celery roots
Wash and scrape the roots of celery and stew in salted water until very tender. Drain and cut into small dice. Have ready in a saucepan a pint of hot milk, thicken this with a teaspoonful of flour rubbed into one of butter, turn a cupful (heaping) of the celery dice into this sauce, stir until very hot, season to taste and serve.
Besides being a palatable dish when thus cooked, celery root is an admirable nervine, and therefore indicated as beneficial diet for brain-workers and nervous invalids.
GREEN CORN
Boiled corn
Strip husk and silk from the ear and put over the fire in plenty of boiling water, slightly salted. Boil hard for twenty minutes if the corn be young and fresh.
Send to table wrapped in a napkin.
Stewed corn
Cut from the cob with a sharp knife; put over the fire in just enough boiling salted water to cover it. Stew gently ten minutes; turn off the water and add a cupful of hot milk (with a pinch of soda in it). Cook ten minutes more, stir in a tablespoonful of butter rubbed up with a teaspoonful of flour; boil one minute and turn into a hot, deep dish.
Green corn pudding (No. 1)
Grate the grains from twelve ears of corn; beat into the corn the whipped yolks of four eggs until thoroughly incorporated; stir in now two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and one tablespoonful of powdered sugar; salt to taste, and add the whites of the eggs whipped to a froth. Lastly stir in a tiny pinch of soda; turn into a buttered pudding-dish and bake, covered, half an hour. Uncover, brown quickly, and send to table at once.
If this delicious “soufflé” be made of canned corn, chop it very fine.
Green corn pudding (No. 2)
Mix together two cupfuls of grated corn, two beaten eggs, a half pint of milk, a pinch of soda, a tablespoonful of melted butter and a tablespoonful of sugar. Grease a shallow baking-dish, turn the mixture into this, sprinkle with buttered crumbs, cover and bake for half an hour, then uncover and brown.
Green corn pudding (No. 3)
Grate the kernels from twelve ears of corn and stir into them the beaten yolks of six eggs and a tablespoonful, each, of melted butter and granulated sugar. Now beat in a quart of milk, a half teaspoonful of salt and, last of all, the stiffened whites of the six eggs. Turn into a greased pudding-dish and bake, covered, for half an hour, then uncover and brown.
This, when properly made and baked in a quick oven, is a veritable soufflé and incomparable.
Corn fritters
Cut from the ears a pint of sweet corn. Beat together a cupful of milk, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, one egg, whipped light, salt to taste and enough flour to make a thin batter. Into this stir the grated corn. Beat hard and cook as you would griddle-cakes upon a soapstone griddle. They are a palatable accompaniment to roast chicken.
Green corn balls
Grate enough green corn from the cob to make two cupfuls; into this stir a beaten egg, a teaspoonful, each, of sugar and melted butter, with salt to taste. Add enough flour to enable you to form the mixture into balls, roll these in flour and fry in deep fat.
Succotash
Cut the corn from eight ears and put it into a saucepan with a pint of young Lima beans and enough salted boiling water to cover them both. Boil until the vegetables are tender; drain and turn into a double boiler with a cupful of boiling milk. Cook for ten minutes, then stir in a tablespoonful of butter, and simmer for five minutes longer. Season to taste and serve. Large “Limas” should be cooked ten minutes before the corn is added.
Corn and tomatoes
Grate the grains from six ears of corn; pare and cut into small pieces four ripe tomatoes. Put over the fire in a saucepan; stew half an hour; season with a great spoonful of butter, a teaspoonful of sugar and one of onion juice; salt and pepper to taste. Cook five minutes more and dish.
Scallop of corn and tomatoes
Pare and cut small a dozen ripe tomatoes and turn them, or the contents of a can of tomatoes, into a chopping bowl and chop the large pieces of the vegetable into small bits; then set in a saucepan over the fire and bring to the boil. Drain the liquor from a can of corn, or grate the grains from a dozen ears, and put the corn into a bowl of fresh water. After ten minutes drain the water off, and transfer the corn to a saucepan with enough boiling water to cover it. Let it simmer for five minutes, pour off the water and add the boiling tomatoes to the corn. Let both cook together for five minutes, during which time stir into them a heaping teaspoonful of butter, two teaspoonfuls of granulated sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Pour the mixture into a greased bake-dish, sprinkle bread-crumbs and bits of butter over the top and bake for half an hour.
Green corn croquettes
Grate the corn from a dozen ears, or drain the liquor from a can of corn, and chop the kernels fine. Cook together a tablespoonful of butter and two of flour, and, when these are blended, add slowly a pint of milk into which has been stirred a pinch of soda. Cook this mixture, stirring all the time, until you have a thick white sauce; add to it the chopped corn and half a teaspoonful of powdered sugar, with pepper and salt to taste. Remove from the fire and set aside to cool. When cold, form with lightly-floured hands into croquettes, and dip each croquette in beaten egg and cracker-dust. Set all aside in a platter in the ice-chest for several hours, then fry in deep, boiling fat.
Corn omelet
Grate the corn from four ears of boiled corn. Beat four eggs well, add three tablespoonfuls of cream and cook in a hot pan. When ready to fold, sprinkle with salt and pepper, add the corn and turn out on a hot dish. Heat the corn slightly over hot water before putting into the omelet.
Creole chowder
Heat a generous lump of butter and in it brown four sliced onions. Add four peeled tomatoes, four chopped green bell-peppers, and the corn cut from four cobs. Add as much water as may be needed in cooking, season with salt and sugar and a little black pepper. A full hour’s cooking will be necessary, and the chowder must be served piping hot.
CUCUMBERS
Many persons look upon the cucumber with fear as a source of indigestion and gastric discomfort. One able dietitian has left on record his opinion that a square inch of verdant cucumber is about as fit to be put into the human stomach as would be a like quantity of Paris green.
Our cucumber, like many another abused article, is maligned because its enemies have never made the attempt to do it justice. If a few simple rules are followed it will prove less indigestible and more palatable than foes and friends imagine. When cooked, it loses many of its disturbing qualities. But, as some people enjoy the crisp freshness of its raw state, it is well to learn just how to prepare it properly.
Raw cucumbers
See to it that the cucumber is fresh and lay it on the ice until wanted. Do not be content with leaving it on the shelf of the refrigerator. It must be in actual contact with the ice. Just before sending to the table, peel quickly and slice thin, scattering crushed ice among the slices. At the table make a French dressing of one part vinegar, three parts oil, salt and pepper to taste, and pour over the cucumbers as you dish them. To allow the vegetable to lie for even fifteen minutes in the dressing is to toughen the fiber and make it as indigestible as gutta percha.
Stewed cucumbers
Peel eight medium-sized cucumbers and cut them into slices an inch thick. Lay in iced water for half an hour. Have a pint of unsalted, hot beef stock in a saucepan, drain the cucumbers and lay them in this. Stew until tender, then remove with a skimmer and lay in a vegetable-dish. Cook together a tablespoonful, each, of butter and browned flour, and pour upon them the stock in which the cucumbers were cooked. Stir until you have a smooth brown sauce; add a saltspoonful of salt, the same amount of pepper, a teaspoonful of kitchen bouquet and a half teaspoonful of onion juice. Stir all together and pour over the stewed cucumbers.
Stuffed cucumbers
Cut good-sized young cucumbers into halves, lengthwise, and remove the seeds. Fill the hollows thus left with a forcemeat made of equal parts of chopped roast beef and minced boiled ham, with half as much fine bread-crumbs. Moisten this stuffing with melted butter and season to taste. Place the halves of each cucumber carefully together and tie with soft twine. Place in a roasting-pan, pour about them a cupful of skimmed beef stock, and cook until tender. Remove the strings, transfer the cucumbers to a hot platter, thicken the gravy left in the pan and pour it about them. This is a Syrian recipe.
Baked cucumbers
Peel medium-sized cucumbers, arrange them in a bake-dish and pour about them a couple of tablespoonfuls of water in which has been melted a tablespoonful of butter. Dust with salt and pepper, and bake, covered, for half an hour. If you wish, you can scallop them by cutting them in slices, sprinkling with crumbs and basting with bits of butter. Bake, covered, until tender; uncover and brown.