Hints for Housekeepers

Keep the cover on for all dry vegetables, and off for all green vegetables.

Cook all green vegetables quickly over good fire.

Do not let them stand, but serve at once, or they will lose their color and taste watery.

Let the spinach and string beans frolic in plenty of boiling water.

Waters in which vegetables have been boiled can be used in cooking, except potato water and cucumber water. They have been known to poison a dog.

Good soups can be made with rice water by adding well-cooked tomatoes, an onion, parsley, salt and pepper. The same is true of string bean water, and a delicious soup can be made of spinach water by adding spinach, onion, parsley and a mashed potato.

An excellent soup can be made by boiling a can of corn in one quart of milk and water, equal proportions. Season with salt, pepper and butter. After it has boiled ten minutes, stir in three well-beaten eggs. Serve hot with a little toasted cracker added just before sending to table.

Cooking is like gardening—always something to learn. The proper quantity of salt for rice is a teaspoonful to every large cupful of rice.

You can get much nutrition from cracked bones, but be careful to strain them, and get all the small bones out of your juice, which can then be added to gravies.

Always hang your fowls by the legs, it makes them more tender.

Green vegetables must be cooked in boiling water (by "green" vegetables are meant all those growing above ground), throwing the vegetables in it, salted, and not covered. Dry vegetables, or those under ground, are cooked in cold water, and not salted at first, but when half cooked. If you salt your vegetables too soon they become hard, and are difficult to cook.

The flesh of fowls should be wiped with a dry or moist cloth, as need be, and never washed under a spigot, as that destroys the individual taste of the fowl.

Wash your green vegetables quickly in plenty of water. Do not let them soak.

The great secret of a good cuisine is to leave to every dish its own particular taste, and not to put indiscreetly mace, cloves and aromatic herbs in everything, or they will all taste alike.

Salting draws out the nutritive part of fish, as it does of meats, and salt fish should be used as a relish only. The juices of fish, especially shellfish, are of an alkaline nature, and this renders lemon juice or vinegar desirable as a neutralizing agency.

Only use the best of sweet oil, and the sweetest, freshest butter and lard, and the very best of everything. If you have any doubts about any article of food throw it away, and do not risk making any one ill! That is poor economy!

Do not throw away the bones of turkey or chicken. Crack them and let them boil for two or three hours in a little water. Put in also any nice bits of fowl that are left, particularly the wings. To this add any soup stock you have, and with a little barley or rice or sago you have a nourishing soup. Season with salt, pepper and any aromatic herbs—any vegetable you have on hand.

With a remnant of cold chicken, cut it up with celery and cold potatoes, season with French dressing, ornament with lettuce leaves.

Botanically, potatoes belong to the same poisonous order as tomatoes and contain an acid juice which is unpleasant to the taste and renders them indigestible. This lies in and near the skin of the potato. It is drawn out by heat. When potatoes are baked, it escapes in the steam, if they are opened at once, and when they are boiled it is absorbed in the water. It is best to peel the potatoes before using them, and to let them soak in cold water, covered by the water. New potatoes are watery, as the starch is not fully developed. They have a very thin skin, which may be rubbed off or brushed off.

Put in a flat dish what remains of hominy from breakfast, smooth it flat with the back of a spoon an inch thick; cut it up in diamond shape when cold two or three inches square. Salt and fry in hot lard. Do not let it stand. Serve hot.

To any rice left over add sweet milk to soften it. Let it stand. Add enough flour to keep it together. Salt. Let it stand half an hour. Roll a spoonful of it in your hands, flatten it down and fry in hot lard. Some persons add eggs.

From page 76 of the 1904 edition.

Original pages from the book