PEA SOUP WITH CRUSTS.
Next take the recipe for pea soup. Some of the ladies who were at the Monday afternoon lesson will need only to make one or two notes, and the others will take the full recipe. For pea soup, four quarts, use a cupful of dried peas, yellow split peas. Pick them over, wash them in cold water, put them over the fire in two quarts of cold water and let them heat slowly. As the water heats it softens the peas. When it is boiling add half a cupful more of cold water and let that heat; then add more cold water; continue to add cold water, half a cupful at a time, until you have used two quarts more of cold water in addition to the first two quarts. The object of adding cold water slowly is to soften the peas, by reducing the heat of the water and then gradually increasing it again you soften the peas so that you can cook them in from an hour and a half to two hours. Boil them very slowly without the addition of salt until they are soft enough to rub through a sieve with a potato masher. After they are rubbed through the sieve put them again into the soup kettle with a tablespoonful of butter and a tablespoonful of flour rubbed to a smooth paste. Stir the soup over the fire until the butter and flour are entirely dissolved; then season the soup palatably with salt and pepper and let it boil for two or three minutes. While it is boiling cut two slices of stale bread—bakers’ bread is the best, or very light home-made bread—in little dice about half an inch square. Put a couple of tablespoonfuls of butter in a frying pan over the fire and let the butter begin to brown, then throw the dice of stale bread into the butter and stir the bread until it is brown. Take it out of the butter with a skimmer, if it has not absorbed all the butter, and lay it for a moment on brown paper, and then put it on a hot dish to send to the table with the soup. Do not put the bread into the soup unless you are going to serve at once, because it will soften a little; but you will find that fried bread will soften less quickly than toasted bread. A great many people put small squares of toast in the pea soup, but that softens at once. If you have a frying kettle which you use for doughnuts or fritters, or anything of that sort, partly full of frying fat, you can heat it and fry the bread in that instead of frying it with the butter in a frying pan. Have the fat smoking hot; the bread browns very quickly; take it out on a skimmer and lay it on a brown paper for a moment; then it is ready for the soup. These little fried crusts of bread are called croutons or crusts in the cookery books. I am going to add an onion fried in butter to the soup to-day. Put that in, if you use it, when you first begin to cook the soup. One onion, peeled, sliced, and fried light brown in a tablespoonful of butter. You could also use the bones from ham, cold roast ham, cold boiled ham, or the bones of beef either raw or cooked, in the place of the onion, or in addition to the onion, as you like. Remember all those things give distinct flavors to the pea soup. If you put any kind of bones in, put them in with the peas at the beginning and boil them with the peas.
SALT CODFISH, STEWED IN CREAM.
Next take the recipe for salt codfish, stewed in cream. First, to freshen salt codfish; that, of course, is always the first thing you do with salt codfish, no matter how you finish. You can do that by soaking it over night in cold water; if it has any skin on it be sure to have the skin side up. If you put it in the water with the skin side down, the salt which soaks out of the fibre of the fish simply falls against the skin and stays there. The fish does not get any fresher. A great deal of codfish in these days is sent to the market without either skin or bone. Supposing we have the regulation dried codfish, we skin and bone it, then soak it over night in cold water, and next morning put it over the fire in more cold water, plenty of it, and put the kettle or pan containing the fish and the cold water on the back part of the stove, where it will heat very gradually. Do not let it boil at all, but keep it at a scalding heat. Do not more than let it simmer. The effect of the boiling on any salted fibre, whether it is fish or meat, is simply to harden it. Keep it at a scalding heat until the fish is tender. Of course that will depend upon the dryness of the fish. It may take a half hour, it may take an hour. That is one way to freshen fish. Another way—the way I am doing now—is accomplished more quickly by putting the fish over the fire in plenty of cold water, enough to cover it; set it on the stove where it will heat gradually. When the water is nearly hot on the fish pour it off and put more cold water on. Let that get scalding hot; do not let it boil at all; simply let it get scalding hot—that is, let the steam begin to rise from it. Change the water as often as it gets scalding hot, until the fish is tender. If you are careful to change the water often enough, that is, if you do not let it begin to boil, probably the fish will be tender in half an hour—from half to three-quarters of an hour. The time will depend upon the dryness of the fibre of the fish. Generally in about half an hour it will be tender. As soon as the fish is tender drain it, and then it is ready to dress in any way you wish to use it. To-day I shall make a little cream sauce, and heat the fish in it. That will be codfish stewed in cream sauce. Boiled codfish you would serve with boiled potatoes, and the white sauce is made either with water or milk and hard-boiled eggs. That is the old New England salt fish dinner. Usually, with a salt codfish dinner there were boiled parsnips and sometimes boiled beets; and it is very nice if you like codfish. For codfish hash, the old-fashioned codfish hash, use simply boiled codfish torn apart, forked in little fine flakes or chopped in fine flakes; of course all the skin and bone is taken off, mixed with an equal quantity of boiled potatoes, either mashed or chopped fine, palatably seasoned with pepper; of course the fish would be salt enough, usually; for a pint bowl full of fish and potatoes, use a tablespoonful of butter. The fish and potatoes are thoroughly mixed, then put into a frying pan, with just enough butter or drippings to keep it from burning. You may put, for the quantity I have given you, a heaping tablespoonful of butter in the frying pan, and let it melt; then put in the fish, and continue stirring it. Remember there is some butter in the hash already, and that will melt with the heat and probably be enough; but if you need any more to prevent its burning, add a tablespoonful. Stir the hash until it is scalding hot; then push it to one side of the frying pan with the knife you are stirring it with, and form it into a little oval cake at one side of the frying pan. When the hash is thoroughly hot, the butter in it will begin to fry out of it, and there probably will be butter enough to prevent its burning. Let it stand in the little cake at the side of the pan until it is browned on the bottom. You want to watch it a little, and now and then run a knife under it and loosen it from the pan, to make sure that it is not burning. Then, when the bottom is browned, hold a plate in one hand and the frying pan in the other, and turn the fish out in a little cake on the plate or dish.
CODFISH CAKES.
To make codfish cakes, first make the fish fine; after freshening it and taking off the skin and bone, chop it or tear it in fine flakes; mix it with an equal quantity of potato either mashed or chopped—mashed potato is rather better for codfish cakes because you can pack it a little more closely in the form of cakes. To a pint bowlful of codfish hash add a tablespoonful of butter, a palatable seasoning of pepper and the yolk of one raw egg. That is, half codfish, half potato, a tablespoonful of butter and the yolk of one raw egg, and a palatable seasoning of pepper. Then dust your hands, with dry flour; take a tablespoonful of this mixture up in your hand and either form it in the shape of a round ball or flat cake, as you like. Have ready a frying kettle or deep frying pan with enough fat or drippings, or lard, in it to cover three or four of the codfish cakes or balls, when you drop them into it. So that if you use a frying pan you must have a deep frying pan. You may make in that case codfish cakes, not balls. If you have a frying kettle you can make little round balls. When the fat is smoking hot drop the codfish cakes or balls into it and fry them just a golden brown, light brown. Take them out of the fat with a skimmer and lay them on brown paper for a moment to free them from grease, then serve them hot.
You will notice that I always tell you in frying everything to take it out of the fat and lay it for a moment on brown paper, because then you are sure to free it from grease. Not necessarily very coarse paper; just ordinary brown wrapping paper. I do not mean manila paper, but the common brown wrapping paper that comes around groceries and meat, that tradesmen generally use. The paper must be porous so that the grease will be easily absorbed. That is the only point you have to remember. The usual way of frying codfish cakes is simply to put fat enough in the pan to keep them from sticking, and in that way they are not browned all over, that is, they are not browned on the sides. They are simply browned on the top and on the bottom, and the fat has, of course, generally soaked into them so that you get them thoroughly greasy unless you have fat enough to cover them and have the fat smoking hot when you put them in. In frying it is very easy to use the fat repeatedly, if you only remember one thing. The fat you fry fish in you want to keep always for fish; then you can fry anything else, meat, chicken, fritters or doughnuts, in the other fat. Generally keep two jars or crocks of fat, and take care only to let the fat get smoking hot in frying, and as soon as you have done frying set the kettle off the stove so that the fat does not burn; let it cool a very little, then strain it through a cloth into an earthen bowl and let it get cold. Wash the frying kettle out and clean it thoroughly, and then you can put the fat back in it, and it will be ready for the next time, if you use a porcelain-lined kettle; if you use a metal kettle for frying, tin or anything of that sort, do not put the fat in it till you are ready to use it again, because it might rust it a little. If you strain it through an ordinarily thick towel there will be no sediment. If you strain it through a sieve there will be a little sediment that will settle to the bottom of the fat, and you can turn the cake of fat out of the bowl when it is cold and scrape that off. The best way is to strain through a cloth in the first place. If you are careful with the fat you can use it repeatedly,—use it a dozen times or more, until it really is nearly used up. But if you are careless and let it burn, of course you very soon get it so dark in color that it colors anything directly you put it in, before it is cooked, and it has a burnt taste. But if you use it at the heat I tell you, just smoking hot, and do not let it burn, you can use it repeatedly. Sometimes you can lift it out in one solid cake when it is cold; sometimes you will have to break it and take it off in more than one piece. On the bottom of the cake you will find a little brownish sediment which you must scrape off. Then you have the fat clarified and ready for use. For ordinary frying purposes the straining through the towel will answer. An earthen bowl is the best for keeping the fat in the kitchen, very much better than metal of any kind.
STEWED CARROTS.
Next take the recipe for stewed carrots. Carrots, peeled, as many as you wish to make a dishful; cut them in rather small slices, a quarter of an inch thick, put them over the fire in salted boiling water enough to cover them; boil them steadily until they are tender. That will be in perhaps half or three-quarters of an hour; if the carrots are young and fresh they will boil in half an hour; longer as the season advances and the carrots grow denser in their fibre. Late in the winter it may take an hour or even an hour and a half if they are very large and woody. Boil them until they are tender. Then drain them and throw them into plenty of cold water, and let them get thoroughly cold. While they are cooling make a sauce of water or of milk, as you like. If you have an ordinary vegetable dish full of carrots you want about a pint of sauce. In that case you will make the sauce as I have told you several times: a tablespoonful of butter, and a tablespoonful of flour for a pint of sauce; melt the butter and flour together over the fire, stirring them constantly until they bubble and are smoothly mixed; then begin to add half a cupful at a time the milk or water that you are going to use in making the sauce; stir each half cupful in smooth before you add any more water. If the milk or water is hot, of course the sauce will be cooked all the more quickly. Let the sauce boil for a minute, stirring all the time, then season with a level teaspoonful of salt for a pint of sauce, a quarter of a saltspoonful of pepper, remembering what I have said about using white pepper. Drain the carrots from the cold water and put them into the sauce to heat. While they are heating—and that will only take three or four minutes—chop a tablespoonful of parsley fine, and stir it among the carrots; then serve them as soon as they are hot. You may make the addition of parsley or not, as you like, but it is very nice. In some seasons of the year you can not have the parsley. If you have not parsley, and have made the sauce of water, you will improve the dish very much if you stir the yolk of a raw egg into the sauce and carrots when you take them off the fire, just before you dish them. I will do that to-day. I will make a sauce of water and add the yolk of an egg. You had better put two or three tablespoons of sauce into a cup with the egg and mix it, and then pour that into the sauce and stir it well. In chopping parsley use just the leaves, not the stalks; put them in the chopping bowl and chop them fine. If you chop on a board steady the point of a knife with one hand and use an up-and-down motion with the other hand. Of course you can understand that using a long knife in chopping you can chop very much more quickly than you could in a chopping bowl, where you only get a circular cut. One of the ladies asks me the object of putting the carrots in cold water. They are put first in boiling salted water-to set their color. The action of the salt in the boiling water slightly hardens the surface so that the color does not boil out. Then if you take them at the point when they are tender you check the boiling at once by the cold water and secure the color entirely. Of course you will understand that by draining them and throwing them into cold water you check the heat at once. If you simply let them stand in the water and gradually soften and soak, letting the water keep warm, you would soak the color out. That follows with all boiled vegetables. Where we want to preserve the color this is the simplest and easiest way to do it.
Question. Can the color of beets be preserved in the way you speak of?