Flaked Potatoes.
Rub some nicely-cooked floury potatoes through a wire sieve into a hot vegetable dish. This must be done quickly, that the potatoes may be served quite hot.
[Rice for a Curry.]
Well wash some Patna rice. Throw it into plenty of quickly-boiling water with salt in it, and boil until the rice is nearly cooked, but not quite. This will take from eight to ten minutes. Strain the rice on a sieve and pour hot water over it, rinsing it well. Then put it in the saucepan again, cover it and let it stand in a hot place to finish cooking in its own steam.
[SOUPS.]
These are very valuable preparations, and are useful to the poor as well as to the rich, as many of the most nutritious soups are the cheapest. Pea soup, haricot soup, and lentil soup are all rich in nourishment, and may be made at a trifling cost, stock not being necessary for their manufacture. The boilings from meat, when not too salt, may be used with advantage in making these soups; but if this is not available, they may be made quite well with water; and, if carefully prepared, will have all the flavour of a meat soup.
In making stock for meat soups, it must be borne in mind that in order to extract the juices from the meat it must be put into cold water, which should be heated very gradually, and only allowed to simmer. In this way a rich stock is procured, as all the virtue of the meat is drawn into the water. Boiling would produce a poor and flavourless stock, as the extreme heat applied, by hardening the albumen, would tend to keep in the juices of the meat instead of drawing them out.
In making stock from bones, the method to be pursued is quite the opposite. Bones must be boiled, otherwise the gelatine in them will not be extracted; simmering would be of little use. The gelatine can only be thoroughly extracted when they are boiled at higher pressure than is possible in ordinary cookery. Bones contain so much gelatine that after they have been once used in stock they should be broken up in pieces and again boiled, so that the gelatine from the inside may also be extracted.
An economical cook will often make excellent stock for soup from bones alone, with the addition of suitable vegetables for flavouring.