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

of potatoes when you have finished creaming them in this way, by putting a layer of them in a deep buttered baking-dish, with a layer of white sauce over the top, and break-crumbs and bits of butter for a crust. Brown well in a hot oven. When you do this, remember to make the sauce with three cups of milk and two tablespoonfuls of flour and two of butter, and then you will have enough for everything.

Hashed Browned Potatoes

Chop four cold potatoes fine, and add one teaspoonful of salt and a very little pepper. Put a tablespoonful of butter in the frying-pan, and turn it so it runs all over; when it bubbles put in the potatoes, and smooth them evenly over the pan. Cook till they are brown and crusty on the bottom; then put in a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and fold over like an omelette.

Saratoga Potatoes

Wash and pare four potatoes, and rub them on the potato-slicer till they are in thin pieces; put them in ice-water for fifteen minutes. Heat two cups of lard very hot, till when you drop in a bit of bread it browns at once. Wipe the potatoes dry and drop in a handful. Have a skimmer ready, and as soon as they brown take them out and lay on brown paper in the oven, and put in another handful.

Potato Cakes

Take two cups of mashed potato, and mix well with the beaten yolk of one egg, and make into small flat cakes; dip each into flour. Heat two tablespoonfuls of nice dripping, and when it is hot lay in the cakes and brown, turning each with the cake-turner as it gets crusty on the bottom.

Fried Sweet Potatoes

Take six cold boiled sweet-potatoes, slice them and lay in hot dripping in the frying-pan till brown. These are especially nice with veal cutlets.

Toast

Toast is very difficult for grown people to make, because they have made it wrong all their lives, but it is easy for little girls to learn to make, because they can make it right from the first.

Cut bread that is at least two days old into slices a quarter of an inch thick. If you are going to make only a slice or two, take the toasting-fork, but if you want a plateful, take the wire broiler. Be sure the fire is red, without any flames. Move the slices of bread back and forth across the coals, but do not let them brown; do both sides this way, and then brown first one and then the other afterward. Trim off the edges, butter a little quickly, and send to the table hot. Baker's bread makes the best toast.

Milk Toast

Put one pint of milk on in a double boiler and let it heat. Melt one tablespoonful of butter, and when it bubbles stir in one small tablespoonful of corn-starch, and when these are rubbed smooth, put in one-third of the milk. Cook and stir till even, without lumps, and then put in the rest of the milk and stir well; add half a teaspoonful of salt, and put on the back of the stove. Make six slices of toast; put one slice in the dish and put a spoonful of the white sauce over it, then put in another and another spoonful, and so on till all are in, and pour the sauce that is left over all. If you want this extra nice, do not take quite so much butter, and use a pint of cream instead of the milk.

Baking-powder Biscuit

Margaret's Other Aunt said little girls could never, never make biscuit, but this little girl really did, by this rule:

1 pint sifted flour. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt. 4 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. 3/4 cup of milk. 1 tablespoonful of butter.

Put the salt and baking-powder in the flour and sift well, and then rub the butter in with a spoon. Little by little put in the milk, mixing all the time, and then lift out the dough on a floured board and roll it out lightly, just once, till it is one inch thick. Flour your hands and mould the little balls as quickly as you can, and put them close together in a shallow pan that has had a little flour shaken over the bottom, and bake in a hot oven about twenty minutes, or till the biscuits are brown. If you handle the dough much, the biscuits will be tough, so you must work fast.

Grandmother's Corn Bread

1 1/2 cups of milk. 1 cup sifted yellow corn-meal. 1 tablespoonful melted butter. 1 teaspoonful sugar. 1 teaspoonful baking-powder. 2 eggs. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt.

Scald the milk—that is, let it boil up just once—and pour it over the corn-meal. Let this cool while you are separating and beating the eggs; let these wait while you mix the corn-meal, the butter, salt, baking-powder, and sugar, and then the yolks; add the whites last, very lightly. Bake in a buttered biscuit-tin in a hot oven for about half an hour.

Because grandmother's corn bread was a little old-fashioned, Margaret's Other Aunt put in another recipe, which made a corn bread quite like cake, and most delicious.

Perfect Corn Bread

1 large cup of yellow corn-meal. 1 small cup of flour. 1/2 cup of sugar. 2 eggs. 2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. 3 tablespoonfuls of butter. 1 teaspoonful of salt. Flour to a thin batter.

Mix the sugar and butter and rub to a cream; add the yolks of the eggs, well beaten, and then half a cup of milk; then put in the baking-powder mixed in the flour and the salt, and then part of the corn-meal, and a little more milk; next fold in the beaten whites of the eggs, and if it still is not like ``a thin batter,'' put in a little more milk. Then bake in a buttered biscuit-tin till brown, cut in squares and serve hot. This is particularly good eaten with hot maple syrup.

Popovers

Put the muffin-tins or iron gem-pans in the oven to get very hot, while you mix these popovers.

2 eggs. 2 cups of milk. 2 cups of flour. 1 small teaspoonful of salt.

Beat the eggs very lightly without separating them. Pour the milk in and beat again. Sift the salt and flour together, pour over the eggs and milk into it, and beat quickly with a spoon till it is foamy. Strain through a wire sieve, and take the hot pans out of the oven and fill each one-half full; bake just twenty-five minutes.

Cooking-school Muffins

2 cups sifted flour. 2 teaspoonfuls baking-powder. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt. 1 cup of milk. 2 eggs. 1 large teaspoonful of melted butter.

Mix the flour, salt, and baking-powder, and sift. Beat the yolks of the eggs, put in the butter with them and the milk, then the flour, and last the stiff whites of the eggs. Have the muffin-tins hot, pour in the batter, and bake fifteen or twenty minutes. These must be eaten at once or they will fall.

There was one little recipe in Margaret's book which she thought must be meant for the smallest girl who ever tried to cook, it was so easy. But the little muffins were good enough for grown people to like. This was it:

Barneys

4 cups of whole wheat flour. 3 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. 1 teaspoonful of salt. Enough water to make it seem like cake batter.

Drop with a spoon into hot buttered muffin-pans, and bake in a hot oven about fifteen minutes.

Bridget had to show Margaret what was meant by a ``cake batter,'' but after she had seen once just how thick that was, she could always tell in a minute when she had put in water enough.

Griddle-cakes

2 eggs. 1 cup of milk. 1 1/2 cups flour. 2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt.

Put the eggs in a bowl without separating them, and beat them with a spoon till light. Put in the milk, then the flour mixed with the salt, and last the baking-powder all alone. Bake on a hot, buttered griddle. This seems a queer rule, but it makes delicious cakes, especially if eaten with sugar and thick cream.

Flannel Cakes

1 tablespoonful of butter. 1 tablespoonful of sugar. 2 eggs. 2 cupfuls of flour. 1 teaspoonful of baking-powder. Milk enough to make a smooth, rather thin batter.

Rub the butter and sugar to a cream, add the eggs, beaten together lightly, then the flour, in which you have mixed the baking-powder, and then the milk. It is easy to know when you have the batter just right, for you can put a tiny bit on the griddle and make a little cake; if it rises high and is thick, put more milk in the batter; if it is too thin, it will run about on the griddle, and you must add more flour; but it is better not to thin it too much, but to add more milk if the batter is too thick.

Sweet Corn Griddle-cakes

These ought to be made of fresh sweet corn, but you can make them in winter out of canned grated corn, or canned corn rubbed through a colander.

1 quart grated corn. 1 cup of flour. 1 cup of milk. 1 tablespoonful melted butter. 4 eggs. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt.

Beat the eggs separately, and put the yolks into the corn; then add the milk, then the flour, then the salt, and beat well. Last of all, fold in the whites and bake on a hot griddle.

Waffles

2 cups of flour. 1 teaspoonful baking powder. 1 1/2 cups of milk. 1 tablespoonful butter. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt. 3 eggs, beaten separately.

Mix the flour, baking-powder, and salt; put the beaten egg yolks in the milk, and add the melted butter, the flour and last the beaten whites of the eggs. Make the waffle-iron very hot, and grease it very thoroughly on both sides by tying a little rag to a clean stick and dipping in melted butter. Put in some batter on one side, filling the iron about half-full, and close the iron, putting this side down over the fire; when it has cooked for about two minutes, turn the iron over without opening it, and cook the other side. When you think it is done, open it a little and look to see if it is brown; if not, keep it over the coals till it is. Take out the waffle, cut in four pieces, and pile on a plate in the oven, while you again grease the iron and cook another. Serve very hot and crisp, with maple syrup or powdered sugar and thick cream.

Some people like honey on their waffles. You might try all these things in turn.

Last of all the things Margaret learned to make for breakfast came coffee, and this she could make in two ways; sometimes she made it this first way, and sometimes the other, which is called French coffee.

Coffee

First be sure your coffee-pot is shining clean; look in the spout and in all the cracks, and wipe them out carefully, for you cannot make good coffee except in a perfectly clean pot. Then get three heaping tablespoonfuls of ground coffee, and one tablespoonful of cold water, and one tablespoonful of white of egg. Mix the egg with the coffee and water thoroughly, and put in the pot. Pour in one quart of boiling water, and let it boil up once. Then stir down the grounds which come to the top, put in two tablespoonfuls of cold water, and let it stand for a minute on the back of the stove, and then strain it into the silver pot for the table. This pot must be made very hot, by filling it with boiling water and letting it stand on the kitchen table while the coffee is boiling. If this rule makes coffee stronger than the family like it, take less coffee, and if it is not strong enough, take more coffee.

French Coffee

Get one of the pots which are made so the coffee will drip through; put three tablespoonfuls of very finely powdered coffee in this, and pour in a quart of boiling water. When it is all dripped through, it is ready to put in the hot silver pot.

PART II. THE THINGS MARGARET