1 teaspoonful of mustard.
Method.—Wash, and soak the beans in cold water over night. Pour off any water that remains. Put the beans into the kettle, cover with cold water, add the soda, and cook gently until the beans are slightly softened. The soda aids the softening. Pour off the water again, and put the beans into the pot. Mix the molasses and mustard with a pint of water, and pour this over the beans, adding more water if the beans are not covered. Place the pork or other fat upon the beans, and cover the pot. If fat other than pork is used, salt must be added to the beans. The beans should bake slowly, for from 6 to 8 hours, and even longer in a very slow oven. A stove of the type shown in Fig. 17 is good for this purpose. They
can be baked in the ordinary gas oven, if only one burner is used, and that is turned very low.
Laboratory management.—The last experiment is the only one not easily performed in the school kitchen. The process, can begin perhaps on one day, and be finished the next. If there is some apparatus that cooks at a low temperature, the practical difficulties may be overcome.
Vegetable, or “cream” soups.
These are of two classes: the purées (porridge), or thick soups, with vegetable pulp as the thickening material, and the cream soups, which are somewhat thinner, the juices of some vegetable giving the flavor.
Potato purée, or soup, is an example of the first; cream of tomato of the second. The line is not sharply drawn between the two in many cook books. Milk is an important ingredient in these soups, so that they are sometimes known as milk soups. Butter and flour are used in both,—the flour in the purée “binds” the mixture and makes it smoother; in the cream soup the flour is used for thickening as well.
Dried beans, peas, or lentils make a delicious purée, the secret of success being long slow cooking in some low temperature apparatus. They are brought to perfection in the Atkinson Cooker.
10. Potato Pureé.
Ingredients.