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Cooking of True Proteids, Tissue Builders, Milk and Cheese: Junket
JUNKET A similar thickening of milk takes place when it is acted upon by rennin; this thickening may be hastened by warming the milk slightly. When thus prepared, the sour taste is not present, and by the addition of appropriate flavors and a little sugar, milk may be presented in a variety of tasty and attractive dishes. These are junket or junket custards. Rennin is a ferment secreted in the glands of the stomach, and, for use in cooking, is prepared from the stomach of the calf. It may be obtained in liquid or tablet form; the latter is the most convenient for use.
PLAIN JUNKET WITH WHIPPED CREAM Crush one-fourth a junket tablet and let it dissolve in a tablespoonful of cold water. Heat one cup of rich milk and two or three level tablespoonfuls of sugar to about 90 deg F. As milk heats to this degree very quickly, the safest way is to set a thermometer into it on putting it over the fire. Remove from the fire, take out the thermometer, and stir in half a teaspoonful of vanilla or a tablespoonful or two of sherry wine and the dissolved tablet. A few grains of salt, less than one-fourth a teaspoonful, may improve the dish for some. Pour the preparation into two glass cups; let stand in a warm place till it jellies, then set aside in a cool place, to become chilled. A short time before serving put a tablespoonful of sugar and a few drops of flavoring into one-third a cup of double cream and beat it solid to the bottom of the bowl. With a bag and tube, or a spoon, put the cream on to the top of the junket. CARAMEL JUNKET Stir two level tablespoonfuls of sugar over the fire until the sugar is dissolved and becomes a rich caramel color; add three or four tablespoonfuls of water and let cook to a thick syrup; add the syrup, a tablespoonful of sugar and a few grains of salt to a cup of milk and heat to 90 deg F.; add one-fourth a junket tablet, dissolved as above, and finish in the same way. CHOCOLATE JUNKET Dissolve one-fourth an ounce of chocolate over hot water; add three tablespoonfuls, each, of sugar and boiling water, and heat to the boiling point; add a cup of milk and half a teaspoonful of vanilla, test with the thermometer and, if the mixture is not at 90 deg F., heat it to that degree; add one-fourth a junket tablet, dissolved as before, and finish in the same manner. These are simple, inexpensive deserts that admit of many variations. Coffee, crumbs of sponge cake or brown bread, spices, preserved ginger, cooked figs or dates, etc., etc., are among the articles suitable for this use. Other recipes for use of junket will be given in the chapter on ices. QUESTIONS 1. Why is milk called a "perfect food?" 2. Are cane sugar and milk sugar identical? 3. Is butter a tissue builder? Why? 4. Is butter a strength giver? Why? 5. What is the office of butter? 6. With what foods would you eat butter? 7. With which, rice or cornmeal, would you eat the most butter? 8. Would butter be needed with bacon and potatoes? 9. Which is preferable for making a sauce, second grade of butter, or fat from boiled poultry or beef? 10. Which do you consider the more economical form of fat to buy, cream or butter? 11. Why should milk be eaten from a teaspoon rather than drunk hastily from a glass?
CHEESE The nitrogenous portion of the milk, as also some of the fat separated from the water (whey) and treated in a manner to preserve it for a longer or a shorter time is called cheese. Thus cheese is a compact, concentrated food, corresponding to eggs, lean meat and fish. On account of its density cheese is not always easy of digestion. It should never be given to young children. Some varieties of cheese, notably such as are soft or contain a goodly portion of the fat of milk, are more readily digested than others. Edam cheese, probably from the method of manufacture, rarely disagrees with any one. Most varieties of cheese, and particularly the common factory cheese, are more wholesome if grated or cut in thin shavings, mixed with cooked ingredients, and then softened with gentle heat. Vegetables, macaroni or bread crumbs, all foods of a starchy nature, are the articles usually introduced into cheese dishes, to lessen the density. As cheese, like all proteid substances, is hardened by high heat, care must be taken that the articles combined with it be thoroughly cooked before the combination is made.
HOT TOASTED WAFERS, CREAM CHEESE, ETC.
Mix such portion of a cream or Neufchatel cheese as is desired with cream, a few grains of salt and a dash of paprika to make a soft mixture but one firm enough to hold its shape. When ready to serve, toast some wafers or heat them in the oven, put a spoonful of the cheese on each with a slice of a pimola above. With a pastry bag and tube the cheese may be given a star shape. SAVORY CHEESE Beat one-fourth a cup (two ounces) of butter to a cream; gradually beat into this one-fourth a pound of common, factory cheese (grated), a tablespoonful of grated onion, a teaspoonful of Worcestershire sauce, a tablespoonful of tomato catsup, half a chilli pepper, chopped exceedingly fine, and a teaspoonful of fine-chopped parsley. Mix all together thoroughly, then press into a cup. Serve, turned from the cup, with toasted crackers or pulled bread and crisp celery, or, lettuce with French dressing.
Three junkets built on the same short formula: warm milk, dissolved rennet, no motion until set. The instructions are sound, but the shopping and the milk itself have changed.
- Rennet, not gelatin"Junket tablets" are rennet tablets, still sold for cheesemaking and dessert use. Dosage varies enormously by type: dessert rennet tablets are commonly dosed at about one tablet per pint of milk, while cheesemaking tablets are far stronger and a quarter tablet would set much more than the cup called for here. Check the package rather than assuming the book's proportion transfers.
- The hinge: do not disturb itOnce the dissolved rennet goes in, stir only enough to distribute it, pour immediately, and then leave the cups absolutely still until set. Any movement during coagulation breaks the curd and you get a grainy mass sitting in whey rather than a clean jelly.
- Milk temperatureThe book's 90F is on the cool side; most rennet packages now specify lukewarm milk around 100-110F, which sets faster and more reliably. What matters more is the ceiling: above roughly 130-140F the enzyme is destroyed and the milk will never set, so scalded or boiled milk must be cooled first. That applies to the chocolate version, where the mixture is deliberately brought to a boil before the milk goes in.
- Avoid UHT milkUltra-pasteurized and shelf-stable milk coagulates poorly or not at all, because the heat treatment alters the casein. Use ordinary pasteurized whole milk; "rich milk" here means whole milk, or whole milk with a little cream added.
- Double creamIn this period "double cream" is simply cream rich enough to whip, i.e. modern heavy or whipping cream at 36 percent or more. Beating it "solid to the bottom of the bowl" means to firm peaks, not soft.
- Chocolate quantityOne-fourth ounce of chocolate means unsweetened baking chocolate, about a quarter of a standard 1-oz square. Cocoa powder is not a direct substitute in this proportion.
- Caramel stepThe sugar is melted dry, without water, and will go from amber to burnt in seconds. Adding water to hot caramel spatters violently; add it off the heat with the pan held away from you, then return it to dissolve the hardened sugar.
- Yield and setting timeEach recipe makes two small glass cups, one per person. Reckon on 10-20 minutes at warm room temperature to set, then at least an hour in the refrigerator; junket is served cold but does not improve after a day, as it slowly weeps whey.
- Odds and ends in the cheese notesA "pimola" is an olive stuffed with pimiento. Neufchatel in American usage means a soft fresh cheese much like a lighter cream cheese, not the French bloomy-rind Neufchatel. "Common factory cheese" is plain American cheddar.
Junket is a long-established sweet in English cookery, a milk pudding set with rennet rather than eggs or starch; the name is usually connected with a word for a rush basket or mat of the kind soft curds were drained on, though the exact route -- Old French jonquette or Italian giuncata -- is not settled. What made it a fixture of American home cooking around 1900 was the commercial rennet tablet; standardised rennet extract was developed in the 1870s in the Copenhagen laboratory of the Danish chemist Christian Hansen, and rennet for dessert use was later sold in the United States under the brand name Junket, which turned an unpredictable farm process into a measured teaspoon-and-thermometer operation. That is exactly why it sits here, in a chapter on "true proteids" followed by a list of study questions: this is a domestic-science textbook, and junket let the author demonstrate coagulation of casein by enzyme against the sour, acid-set milk described just before it. The insistence on a thermometer in the milk, and the closing question about eating milk from a teaspoon rather than drinking it from a glass, both belong to the same era's conviction that digestion could be managed by technique.