CHAPTER XIII.
VEGETABLES.
ALL vegetables should be put in boiling water when set on the stove to cook. Peas, asparagus, potatoes, and all delicately flavored vegetables should be only covered with water, but those with a strong flavor, like carrots, turnips, cabbage, onions, and dandelions, should be cooked in a generous quantity of boiling water. All green vegetables should be cooked with the cover partially off the stewpan. It gives them a better color and a more delicate flavor.
The average housekeeper is careless as to the time of cooking vegetables, yet a vegetable is as much injured by too much or too little cooking as is a loaf of bread or cake. When vegetables are underdone they are hard and indigestible, and when overdone they become dark, strong-flavored, and indigestible.
Now, although a potato will be hard if not cooked enough, even two minutes’ cooking after the proper time will injure it. If potatoes be covered with boiling water and placed on the fire they will cook in thirty minutes. If they be very small, they may get done in twenty-eight minutes, and if they be large it may take thirty-two to cook them sufficiently. They should be kept boiling all the time after they once begin, but not at a furious rate, as a too rapid boiling breaks the surface of the potato before the centre is cooked. The time of cooking is to be counted from the moment the boiling water is poured over the potatoes. When the potatoes are done, the water should be poured off and the steam allowed to escape. Should it be necessary to keep them warm after that, cover them with a coarse towel, never with the pot cover; for if the steam does not have a chance to escape it will be absorbed by the potatoes, which will become sodden, dark, and strong-flavored. Baked potatoes take about forty-five minutes for cooking. A great deal depends upon the oven. If it be necessary to keep a baked potato warm, break it open, wrap it in a towel and put it in a warm place.
Now, as to turnips. The small white ones should be boiled, if cut in thin slices, for thirty minutes, but if they be cooked whole, forty minutes’ time will be needed. Yellow turnips, when sliced, need forty-five minutes’ cooking.
Carrots should be cooked for forty-five or fifty minutes; cauliflower, only thirty minutes; with peas and asparagus much depends upon the state of freshness and tenderness when picked, and the time varies from twenty to thirty-five minutes; indeed, peas sometimes require fifty minutes’ cooking.
It is a pity that it is the fashion to serve such vegetables as peas and asparagus in a sauce. They have so delicate a flavor that only a little salt and good butter should be added to them. This is true, also, of turnips. Cauliflower, onions, and carrots, however, need a sauce.
Boiled Potatoes.
Pare five or six potatoes and let them stand in cold water for an hour or more. Forty minutes before dinner time put them in a kettle and pour boiling water over them,—enough to cover. Put the cover on the kettle and cook the vegetables for half an hour, counting from the moment the water is poured over them. When they have been cooking for fifteen minutes, add one teaspoonful of salt. At the end of the half-hour pour off all the water and set the pan on the back part of the range. Cover the potatoes with a clean, coarse towel. At serving time put the potatoes in a hot dish, and cover with a napkin. Never put the china cover on the dish. Cooked in the way described, the potatoes will be mealy and have a fine flavor.