The muffins were light and crisp, the potatoes looked far more tempting in their pale-yellow, well-brushed skins than they usually do, and altogether the breakfast was as dainty a meal as heart could sigh for.
CHAPTER V.
HOW TO MANAGE THE FAT THAT HAS BEEN USED FOR FRYING—CUP CAKE.
When breakfast was on the table, Molly directed Marta to go up-stairs with pail and cloth and to bring down the soiled water, fill the ewer with fresh, etc. As Harry rose to put on his coat, Molly ran up-stairs and put on her hat and gloves. “I am going to the depot with you, Harry,” she said, when she reappeared ready for walking, “and I shall do my marketing as I return.”
“That is a good idea, Molly; the walk will be good for you.”
Before leaving the house, Molly passed through the kitchen, and told Marta, after she had finished her breakfast, to wash the breakfast things, but to leave the fat (that she had herself removed from the stove and covered, so that the fumes might not fill the house, before she went in to breakfast) till she returned. “After you have washed up, if I am not here, fill the lamps and clean the chimneys.”
This Marta was doing when she got back, and while she finished, Molly took off her outdoor clothes and donned her apron. “Now, Marta, I will show you about this fat, and I want you to remember to do just as you see me do, every time you use it. This is a piece of cheese-cloth; the fat is still quite hot (Molly had left it on the iron shelf over the range), but not scalding; I put the cloth over this empty lard-pail, and without shaking the fat, pour it through the cloth. You see all this fine black sediment that remains on the cloth and in the saucepan? That, if it were not strained out, would discolor whatever you fried in it. When it is strained each time, you can use it a dozen times; so you see it is not extravagant to fry in deep fat. Now you have a very greasy cloth and saucepan, but pour a quart of boiling water and a piece of washing-soda as big as a walnut on them, stir them, and you see you have no more grease, only some nice soapy water and a clean saucepan!”
Marta’s interest had been all alive since she had seen the chops, and she explained how often she had seen cooks in Germany bread cutlets, and they came out of the pan only breaded here and there. Never had she seen them all over alike, except at a restaurant where she had been dish-washer, and where there was a man cook.
“The crumbs come off for one of two reasons,—either they were too large (when I use bread instead of cracker I sift them), or the fat had not been hot enough; two or three large crumbs would spoil the whole, for they would fall off, bring others with them, and leave bare pale spots.”