A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl, Caroline French Benton [good books for 7th graders TXT] 📗

deep dish, which has been made very hot, and lay the eggs in the folds of the napkin; this prevents their breaking, and keeps them warm.

Poached Eggs

Take a pan which is not more than three inches deep, and put in as many muffin-rings as you wish to cook eggs. Pour in boiling water till the rings are half covered, and scatter half a teaspoonful of salt in the water. Let it boil up once, and then draw the pan to the edge of the stove, where the water will not boil again. Take a cup, break one egg in it, and gently slide this into a ring, and so on till all are full. While they are cooking, take some toast and cut it into round pieces with the biscuit cutter; wet these a very little with boiling water, and butter them. When the eggs have cooked twelve minutes, take a cake-turner and slip it under one egg with its ring, and lift the two together on to a piece of toast, and then take off the ring; and so on with all the eggs. Shake a very little salt and pepper over the dish, and put parsley around the edge. Sometimes a little chopped parsley is nice to put over the eggs, too.

Poached Eggs with Potted Ham

Make the rounds of toast and poach the eggs as before. Make a white sauce in this way: melt a tablespoonful of butter, and when it bubbles put in a tablespoonful of flour; shake well, and add a cup of hot milk and a small half-teaspoonful of salt; cook till smooth. Moisten each round of toast with a very little boiling water, and spread with some of the potted ham which comes in little tin cans; lay a poached egg on each round, and put a teaspoonful of white sauce on each egg.

If you have no potted ham in the house, but have plain boiled ham, put this through the meat-chopper till you have half a cupful, put in a heaping teaspoonful of the sauce, a saltspoonful of dry mustard, and a pinch of red pepper, and it will do just as well.

Scrambled Eggs

4 eggs. 2 tablespoonfuls of milk. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt.

Put the eggs in a bowl and stir till they are well mixed; add the milk and salt. Make the frying-pan very hot, and put a tablespoonful of butter in it; when it melts, shake it well from side to side, till all the bottom of the pan is covered. Put in the eggs and stir them, scraping them off the bottom of the pan until they begin to get a little firm; then draw the pan to the edge of the stove, and scrape up from the bottom all the time till the whole looks alike, creamy and firm, but not hard. Put them in a hot, covered dish.

Scrambled Eggs with Parsley

Chop enough parsley to make a teaspoonful, and mince half as much onion. Put the onion in the butter when you heat the pan, and cook the eggs in it; when you are nearly ready to take the eggs off the fire, put in the parsley.

After Margaret had learned to make these perfectly, she began to mix other things with the eggs.

Scrambled Eggs with Tomato

When Margaret found a cupful of tomato in the refrigerator, she would take that, add a half-teaspoonful of salt, two shakes of pepper, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and simmer it all on the fire for five minutes; then she would cook half a teaspoonful of minced onion in the butter in the hot frying-pan as before, and turn in the eggs, and when they were beginning to grow firm, put in the tomato. In summer-time she often cut up two fresh tomatoes and stewed them down to a cupful, instead of using the canned.

Scrambled Eggs with Chicken

Chop fine a cup of cold chicken, or any light-colored meat, and heat it with a tablespoonful of water, a half-teaspoonful of salt, two shakes of pepper, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley. Cook a half-teaspoonful of minced onion in the butter you put in the hot frying-pan, and turn in the eggs, and when they set mix in the chicken.

Sometimes Margaret used both the tomato filling and the chicken in the eggs, when she wanted to make a large dish.

Creamed Eggs

Cook six eggs twenty minutes, and while they are on the fire make a cup of white sauce, as before: one tablespoonful of butter, melted, one of flour, one cup of hot milk, a little salt; cook till smooth. Peel the eggs and cut the whites into pieces as large as the tip of your finger, and put the yolks through the potato-ricer. Mix the eggs white with the sauce, and put in a hot dish, with the yellow yolks over the top. Or, put the whites on pieces of toast, which you have dipped in part of the white sauce, and put the yolks on top, and serve on a small platter.

Another nice way to cream eggs is this: Cook them till hard, and cut them all up into bits. Make the white sauce, and into it stir the beaten yolk of one egg, just after taking it from the fire. Mix the eggs with this, and put in a hot dish or on toast. You can sprinkle grated cheese over this sometimes, for a change.

Creamed Eggs in Baking-Dishes

Cut six hard-boiled eggs up into bits, mix with a cup of white sauce, and put in small baking-dishes which you have buttered. Cover over with fine, sifted bread-crumbs, and dot with bits of butter, about four to each dish, and brown in the oven. Stick a bit of parsley in the top of each, and put each dish on a plate, to serve.

Birds' Nests

Sometimes when she wanted something very pretty for breakfast,
Margaret used this rule:

Open six eggs, putting the whites together in one large bowl, and the yolks in six cups on the kitchen table. Beat the whites till they are stiff, putting in half a teaspoonful of salt just at the last. Divide the whites, putting them into six patty-pans, or small baking-dishes. Make a little hole or nest in the middle of each, and slip one yolk carefully from the cup into the place. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper over them, and put a bit of butter on top, and put the dishes into a pan and set in the oven till the egg-whites are a little brown.

Omelette

Making an omelette seems rather a difficult thing for a little girl, but Margaret made hers in a very easy way. Her rule said:

Break four eggs separately. Beat the whites till they are stiff, and then wash and wipe dry the egg-beater, and beat the yolks till they foam, and then put in half a teaspoonful of salt. Pour the yolks over the whites, and mix gently with a large spoon. Have a cake-griddle hot, with a piece of butter melted on it and spread over the whole surface; pour the eggs on and let them cook for a moment. The take a cake-turner and slip under an edge, and look to see if the middle is getting brown, because the color comes there first. When it is a nice even color, slip the turner well under, and turn the omelette half over, covering one part with the other, and then slip the whole off on a hot platter. Bridget had to show Margaret how to manage this the first time, but after that she could do it alone.

Spanish Omelette

1 cup of cooked tomato. 1 green pepper. 1 slice of onion. 1 teaspoonful of chopped parsley. 1 teaspoonful salt. 3 shakes of pepper.

Cut the green pepper in half and take out all the seeds; mix with the tomato, and cook all together with the seasoning for five minutes. Make an omelette by the last rule while the tomato is cooking, and when it is done, just before you fold it over, put in the tomato.

Omelette with Mushrooms

Take a can of mushrooms and slice half of them into thin pieces. Make a cup of very rich white sauce, using cream instead of milk, and cook the mushrooms in it for one minute. Make the omelette as before, and spread with the sauce when you turn it over.

Omelette with Mushrooms and Olives

This was a very delicious dish, and Margaret only made it for company. She prepared the mushrooms just as in the rule above, and added twelve olives, cut into small pieces, and spread the omelette with the whole when she turned it.

Eggs Baked in Little Dishes

Margaret's mother had some pretty little dishes with handles, brown on the outside and white inside. These Margaret buttered, and put one egg in each, sprinkling with salt, pepper, and butter, with a little parsley. She put the dishes in the oven till the eggs were firm, and served them in the small dishes, one on each plate.

Eggs with Cheese

6 eggs. 2 heaping tablespoonfuls Parmesan cheese. 1/2 teaspoonful salt. Pinch of red pepper.

Beat the eggs without separating till light and foamy, and then add the cheese, salt, and pepper. Put a tablespoonful of butter in the frying-pan, and when it is hot put in the eggs, and stir till smooth and firm. Serve on small pieces of buttered toast.

Parmesan cheese is very nice to use in cooking; it comes in bottles, all ready grated to use.

Eggs with Bacon

Take some bacon and put in a hot frying-pan, and cook till it crisps. Then lift it out on a hot dish and put in the oven. Break six eggs in separate cups, and slide them carefully into the fat left in the pan, and let them cook till they are rather firm and the bottom is brown. Then take a cake-turner and take them out carefully, and put in the middle of the dish, and arrange the bacon all around, with parsley on the edge.

Ham and Eggs, Moulded

Take small, deep tins, such as are used for timbales, and butter them. Make one cup of white sauce; take a cup of cold boiled ham which has been put through the meat-chopper, and mix with a tablespoonful of white sauce and one egg, slightly beaten. Press this like a lining into the tins, and then gently drop a raw egg in the centre of each. Stand them in a pan of boiling water in the oven till the eggs are firm,—about ten minutes,—and turn out on a round platter. Put around them the rest of the white sauce. You can stand the little moulds on circles of toast if you wish. This rule was given Margaret by her Pretty Aunt, who got it at cooking-school; it sounded harder than it really was, and after trying it once Margaret often used it.

FISH

One day some small, cunning little fish came home from market, and Margaret felt sure they must be meant for her to cook. They were called smelts, and, on looking, she found a rule for cooking them, just as she had expected.

Fried Smelts

Put a deep kettle on the fire, with two cups of lard in it, to get it very hot. Wipe each smelt inside and out with a clean wet cloth, and then with a dry one. Have a saucer of flour mixed with a teaspoonful of salt, and another saucer of milk. Put the tail of each smelt through its gills—that is, the opening near its mouth. Then roll the smelts first in milk and then in flour, and shake off any lumps. Throw a bit of bread into the fat in the kettle, and see if it turns brown quickly; it does if the fat is hot enough, but if not you must wait. Put four smelts in the wire basket, and stand it in the fat, so that the fish are entirely covered, for only half a minute, or till you can count thirty. As you take them out of the kettle, lay them on heavy brown paper on a pan