Luncheons: A Cook's Picture Book

by Mary Ronald

VEGETABLES AND CEREALS USED AS VEGETABLES

NO. 77. STUFFED BAKED POTATOES.

STUFFED BAKED POTATOES

Select potatoes of the same size and shape. After carefully washing them, bake them until tender, then cut them in two lengthwise and remove the pulp of the potato, leaving the skins uninjured. Season the potato with butter, salt, and a little milk. Beat it well and replace it in the potato skins. Smooth the top with a knife, brush them with yolk of egg, and set in the oven to brown.

NO. 78. POTATO PURÉE.

POTATO PURÉE

Mash and season the potatoes and add enough milk or hot water to make them quite soft. Take up a spoonful of potato at a time and place it on a flat dish in a regular order. Place a small sprig of parsley on each spoonful.

RICE À LA MILANESE

Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan with a teaspoonful of onion chopped fine. Cook for a minute, but do not brown. Add half a cupful of clean, unwashed rice, and stir until it is a light yellow, then add two cupfuls of stock and cook without stirring for twenty minutes. The rice should be tender and the stock should be absorbed. Add a tablespoonful of grated cheese and a little salt. Turn it lightly together, using a fork, so as not to break the rice. Cover the top with grated cheese.

Serve as a vegetable-dish or as a course for luncheon. In the latter case brush the inside of a ring-mold with glaze, add to the rice a teaspoonful of butter in small bits, and a dash of paprika. Press it lightly into the mold and set it in the oven for a few minutes.

A brown or a tomato sauce may be served with it if desired.

BAKED HOMINY

To two cupfuls of cold boiled hominy add a beaten egg, three quarters of a cupful of milk, and a half teaspoonful of salt. Beat it until perfectly smooth. Put it into a baking-dish, smooth the top, pour over it a teaspoonful of melted butter, and bake it until it forms a golden surface.

Serve it in the baking-dish in place of a vegetable.

QUENELLES OF CORNMEAL

Put a cupful of milk and a cupful and a half of water in a saucepan and add a teaspoonful of salt. When it boils stir in slowly half a cupful of yellow meal and cook for fifteen to twenty minutes, and until the mixture is well thickened. Then take it off the fire. When it is cold and stiffened take it up in spoonfuls and lay the egg-shaped pieces formed by the spoon in a baking-dish. Place the pieces in the dish symmetrically. Pour over them a little melted butter and set them in the oven to brown slightly. Serve as a vegetable.

BOILED LETTUCE

Wash thoroughly whole heads of lettuce. Tie the tops so the leaves will lie together. Place the heads in a large pan so they do not touch and boil them in salted water until tender. Remove them carefully and let them drain on a sieve, pressing each one to free it of water. Lay them in a row on a flat dish and pour over them a sauce made of melted butter, pepper and salt, and a little vinegar; or use a plain white sauce.

TOMATO FARCI

Select tomatoes of equal size, and if they are small use them whole, if large cut them in two. Peel them. Arrange them close together in a flat earthen baking-dish which can be sent to the table. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Spread over the top a mixture of chopped mushrooms, bread crumbs, chopped parsley, and sufficient butter to moisten the bread. Bake about thirty minutes, or until the tomatoes are softened. Set the hot baking-dish on a second dish when serving.

BROILED TOMATOES

Without removing the skin, cut fresh tomatoes into slices three eighths of an inch thick. Sprinkle the slices with pepper and salt and dip them first in melted butter or in oil and then in cracker or bread crumbs, then broil them over hot coals until they are softened. Do not let them cook so much that they fall apart.

SPINACH

Boil carefully washed and carefully picked over spinach until it is tender, drain it, chop it very fine, and press it through a purée sieve. Season it with white sauce made of half milk and half stock (page [102]). Use enough of the sauce to make it quite creamy. If it is to be molded it cannot be quite as soft as when it is to be served in a vegetable-dish.

No. 1. Fill thoroughly buttered individual timbale molds with spinach and press it down quite hard. After a few minutes, turn the spinach out of the molds on to rounds of browned bread. Cover the tops with chopped whites of hard-boiled eggs and place in the center a spot of the crumbed yolks.

Serve alone or use as a garnish on a meat-dish.

This is a good way to utilize a small amount of leftover spinach. Spinach is improved rather than injured by recooking.

No. 2. Make a mound of spinach by pressing it into a buttered bowl. Ornament the top with a hard-boiled egg, the whole yolk standing on slices of the white cut lengthwise.

No. 3. Ornament a thoroughly buttered tin basin or any mold with half rings of hard-boiled eggs as shown in illustration [No. 5]. The egg will stick to the butter and be held in place. Fill the mold with spinach, putting it in carefully with a spoon so as not to displace the ornamentation, and press it down firmly. After a few minutes turn it out of the mold and garnish it with croutons.

Croutons are slices of bread browned (sautéd) in butter.

NO. 81. BEAN CROQUETTES.

BEAN CROQUETTES

Boil until tender a pint of dried beans which have been soaked overnight. Boil an onion in the water with the beans. Press the beans through a purée sieve. Season the purée with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, two beaten eggs, a little pepper and salt, and a tablespoonful of parsley chopped very fine. If the mixture is still too dry add a little stock. Mold the purée into small croquettes. Cover the croquettes with egg and bread crumbs and fry them in smoking-hot fat. Serve with tomato sauce.