To make cottage cheese effectively, with an aroma and delicacy equal to its nourishment, a rich milk which has not lost time in souring should be put in an earthenware or stone jar with the lid on, and placed in hot water over a very slow fire until it is well heated with the curd clotted from the whey. When it begins to steam the curd is drained a very short period through cheese cloth. Well mixed with salt and butter and pepper it is an ideal muscle and tissue maker.
Cottage cheese is much more easily turned into brawn, brain and bone than any of the less porous, less ripe cheeses. In fact the curious uncomfortably bloated sensation experienced by many who eat other varieties of cheese is uncommon with cottage cheese.
Faulty mastication, peculiar susceptibilities to casein and an excess of other solid foods often causes the distress which follows cheese eating. If well emulsified with saliva by the teeth or mixed with water and not gulped down, cottage cheese serves every sort of food purpose.
ALBUMINOUS BEVERAGES
The following recipes were kindly contributed by Alida Frances Pattee, author of "Practical Dietetics," an invaluable book for the home.
When a large amount of nutriment is required the albuminized drinks are valuable.
The egg is a fluid food until its albumen is coagulated by heat. Often the white of egg, dissolved in water or milk, and flavored, is given when the yolk cannot be digested, as 30 per cent. of the yolk is fat. Egg-nog is very nutritious, and is extensively prescribed in certain non-febrile diseases, especially for the forced alimentation of phthisis and melancholia. There are occasional cases of bilious habit, in which eggs to be digested must be beaten in wine. But the combination of egg, milk and sugar with alcohol, which constitutes egg-nog, is apt to produce nausea and vomiting in a feeble stomach, especially in fever. For this reason whole eggs are unfit for fever patients, and the whites only should be used.
Albuminized drinks are most easily prepared cold. When a hot liquid is used, it must be poured very slowly into the well-beaten egg, stirring constantly, so that lumps of coagulated albumen do not form.