There is also another simple way of treating an old potato. Often toward the end of the year when one’s potatoes run large and we are anxious to give a dish a dainty appearance we find that the large potato served whole looks clumsy. If the potatoes are carefully peeled and any unsightly blemishes are removed such as the eye or as so often happens there are bluey patches due to a bruise perhaps on the potatoes otherwise perfectly sound, the following hint may be found both useful and economical. Take a stout teaspoon and scoop spoonfuls from the outside of a big potato. (The broken remains can be used in soup say either beef or mutton stock. Recipe for this with soups.) When you have sufficient potatoes ready you can either fry in dripping (in which case do not attempt to make them crisp) or boil them very gently, or bake them under a joint, etc. They will be best baked or fried. They can then be served laid round a dish of fish (fried or boiled) or round a dish of roast meat previously carved and laid down the centre of a dish or with kidneys and bacon or with liver and bacon.
Celery used as a vegetable will be found very palatable cooked in the following manner. Take two or three heads of celery, wash carefully in fresh cold water and a little salt, have ready any little beef, veal, or chicken stock, bring this to a boil and cook the celery in it. From 30 to 40 minutes should be long enough to render the celery soft. Serve in a vegetable dish with the gravy poured over it, sufficient only to just cover, having previously stirred a teaspoonful of cornflour mixed with cold water into it.
Beet-root may be prepared either cold to serve with cold beef or as a hot vegetable dish best served with roast mutton.
For cold, have four or five round small beet-roots washed, handling them carefully and taking the greatest care not to break off any tender shoots, and avoiding cutting the leaf-end too near the top of the beet-root. Have a saucepan large enough to take the beet-root without breaking it. Boil gently with a good piece of salt from 40 minutes to an hour, or even a little longer, according to the size. Prick with a carving fork to see if quite tender, then lay them on a strainer and when cool enough to hold in the fingers remove the peel and cut into thin rings. Lay them in a dish of vinegar (a deep glass dish is best), dust over two teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar, and allow to get thoroughly cold before serving. The object of the sugar in the vinegar is to draw the colour out of the beet-root and to remove the sourness. More or less sugar may be used according to individual taste but the proportion given is generally right.
The beet-root already boiled may be used for the following dish:
Cut into a little thicker slices, then into strips, then into little squares. Have ready in a deep enamel frying pan a quantity of melted butter, put the diced beet-root into it with a pinch of salt and a little cream (or, if not available, a little milk) and bring the mixture to a boil, taking care not to break the vegetable when stirring with a knife blade. Mix a teaspoonful of cornflour with a little milk, stir into the beet-root while on the stove, serve round the dish of sliced mutton or separately very hot.
Leeks can often be made to take the place of onions and are a very useful vegetable cooked in either of the following ways. Take from twelve to twenty leeks, wash well in cold water, being careful to remove all grit. It will be found necessary nearly always to split them, to be sure that they are quite clean. Stew them in beef stock till quite tender. (This vegetable does not require any soda in the cooking and is best cooked in stock.) Strain and serve when quite tender. Another way is to cut each leek into four, lengthwise, and bake in dripping, as directed to do with the onion.
The Drumhead or white cabbage has no appearance if cooked only as a cabbage, but a useful dish may be made in the following manner. Take a large cabbage, remove the white stiff stalk running down the leaf with a sharp knife. Put the leaves into a large saucepan of boiling water, cook as for ordinary cabbage except that the leaves will all be separate. When tender spread on a large dish to cool. Prepare some finely minced meat, beef, ham, veal or mutton, chicken or lamb, about half a teacup of freshly boiled rice salted to taste. (The value of two tablespoonfuls of rice will be enough to make half a teacup.) The rice to have been boiled in water and not too soft. Mix with the minced meat and having spread each cabbage leaf open, fill with the mixture, leaving enough of the leaf clear to roll round the meat. Have a deep frying pan on the fire half full of either beef or mutton stock, bring to a boil and place each stuffed leaf in the stock and cook for ten minutes; remove with a slice on to a deep dish and serve at once very hot.