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Cereals and Flour Paste
CEREALS Include the grain foods from cultivated grasses, containing every variety from oatmeal to macaroni, which is a paste made of wheat flour rich in gluten. Among them are most valuable foods-rice, for instance, which is the staff of life for certain nations. In what we call breakfast cereals we have a number of foods that are unusually rich in nitrogenous matter and mineral substances, therefore making an excellent morning meal with no further addition than milk or cream, for all cereals are lacking in fat. Unless cereals can be subjected to the long, slow cooking which is necessary, they had better not be eaten, for nothing is so indigestible as half-raw oatmeal. Twenty years ago, when most of our oatmeal was the oldfashioned steel-cut oats, it needed interminable cooking-ten hours was none too long for it; to-day most of the cereals put up in packages, so the directions say, can be cooked in half an hour. That is not possible; few of them, except the fine-grained wheat foods, are fit to eat till they have had at least one hour's cooking in a double boiler. If they can have longer, they are so much the better.
Always add the proper amount of salt to a cereal-1 teaspoonful to a quart of water-and let it dissolve before the grains are put in, so it will flavor the whole mass. The best way to cook any rough-grained cereal is to drop it slowly into water which is boiling briskly in the upper part of a double boiler. After cooking for a few minutes on the stove, set it over the water and allow the grains to swell slowly so the food is stiff enough to be chewed. Cornmeal demands a long time for cookingat least six hours and it swells so it should have six times the same measurement of water. Granular cereals, farina, for instance, should be mixed with a little cold water and stirred smooth before being added to the necessary amount of boiling water; this prevents it from becoming lumpy.
Never stir any cereal after it has been put to cook, until just before it is turned out. This treatment makes oatmeal pasty and sticky. Store cereals in glass cans with tight-fitting lids instead of the pasteboard boxes in which they are sold. It keeps them fresher and safe from the invasion of moths or mice.
Cereal with Fruit. cupful wheat germ, cupful cold water, 2 cupfuls boiling water, 1 teaspoonful salt, pound dates, stoned and cut in pieces.
Mix cereal, salt, and cold water; add to boiling water in a saucepan.
Boil five minutes, steam in double boiler thirty minutes; stir in dates, and serve with cream. Serve for breakfast or as a simple dessert- FANNIE M. FARMER.
Hasty Pudding. 1 cupful cornmeal, 2 tablespoonfuls flour, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 cupful milk, 2 cupfuls boiling water.
MRS. CURTIS'S COOKBOOK Mix the meal, flour, and salt with the milk; when smooth, stir in the boiling water. Cook in a double boiler one hour or more; or over direct heat one half hour. Serve with cream and sugar, or turn into tins to cool if wanted for sautéing. Cut into slices, dip in flour, and sauté in drippings or butter. Hominy Mush. cupful fine hominy, teaspoonful salt, 3 cupfuls boiling water.
Put all together in a double boiler, and cook three hours. Add more water if mush seems stiff; all preparations of corn absorb a great deal - of water in cooking, and hominy usually needs a little more than four times its bulk.
Oatmeal Porridge. 1 cupful granulated oatmeal, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 scant quart boiling water.
Put the oatmeal and salt in a double boiler, pour on the boiling water, and cook three or four hours Remove the cover just before serving and stir with a fork to let the steam escape. If the water in the boiler be strongly salted, the oatmeal will cook more quickly.
Rolled Oats. 1 cupful rolled oats, 23 cupfuls boiling water, teaspoonful salt.
Mix ingredients, and cook in double boiler one hour. Steamed Rice. 1 cupful rice, 1 teaspoonful salt, 3 cupfuls boiling water.
Pick over the rice and wash in three or four waters. Put it with the salt and boiling water in upper part of double boiler. Cook over boiling water. Do not stir while cooking. Steam until the grains are tender.
Boiled Rice. 1 cupful rice, 1 teaspoonful salt, 4 cupfuls boiling water.
Wash rice thoroughly and gradually add to boiling water, care being taken that the water does not stop boiling. Cover and cook twenty minutes, or until grains are soft. Turn into a strainer and drain, put in oven a few moments to dry, with oven door open.
Turkish Pilaf. cupful rice, cupful tomatoes, stewed and strained, 1 cupful brown stock, lightly seasoned, 3 tablespoonfuls butter.
Add tomato to stock, and heat to boiling point; add rice, and steam till soft; stir in butter with a fork, and keep uncovered that steam may escape. Serve in place of a vegetable, or as a border for curried or fricasseed meat.- FANNIE M. FARMER. Rice Timbales. 1 cupful rice, teaspoonful salt, 1 egg, 1 teaspoonful butter.
Place the rice in a double boiler over the fire, cover with cold water, boil five minutes, then drain it on a sieve, rinse off with cold water, return to saucepan again, cover with pint water, add the salt and boil till tender; add the egg and butter to the mixture, fill the rice in small timbale forms, set them in a pan of water so the water reaches halfway up the forms, place the pan in a hot oven, and bake ten minutes. Unmold and set the timbales in a circle.
Rice à la Creole (Southern recipe). 1 onion, 1 slice cooked ham, Courtesy, The Kellogg Fruit Co.
CEREALS AND FLOUR PASTE 1 tablespoonful butter, 1 cupful cooked rice, 1 can tomatoes, 1 teaspoonful salt, Dash of McIlhenny's Tabasco Sauce.
Chop the onion and ham fine; put in a saucepan with the butter; add the rice and tomatoes, salt, and paprika. Mix and heat thoroughly. Then put in a baking dish, cover with bread crumbs, and put in the oven for fifteen minutes. The tomatoes should be stewed until thick before mixing.
Manana Land (Mexican recipe). 1 tablespoonful olive oil, 1 sliced onion, 8 green peppers, 1 cupful uncooked rice, can tomatoes.
Fry in the olive oil the onion and green peppers, chopped fine; to this add the uncooked rice, and stir constantly until the rice is nicely browned; then put in the tomatoes, fill up the skillet with rich soup stock, and cook slowly, without stirring for an hour.-MAY E. SOUTH- WORTH.
Rice Milanaise Fashion. 1 cupful rice, 2 tablespoonfuls butter, 1 onion, 1 quart stock, 1 teaspoonful salt, 2 tablespoonfuls butter, cupful grated cheese.
Cook the rice in a quart of cold water, stir until the boiling point is reached, and let boil three or four minutes, then drain and rinse in cold water and turn on a cloth to dry for a few minutes. Put the butter into a stewpan; cook in it until softened and slightly yellowed, a slice of onion chopped fine; then add the rice and stock and salt; cook until the rice is tender and the liquid absorbed; add the, butter and grated cheese. Lift the rice with two forks to mix the butter and cheese evenly. Vary the dish occasionally by adding a cup of strained tomato with the broth and two tablespoonfuls chopped green pepper with onion.
Spaghetti à la Italien (Neapolitan recipe). cupful dried mushrooms, 1 tablespoonful butter, 1 onion, 1 clove garlic, 1 pound chuck steak, 2 slices bacon, 1 cupful tomatoes, Salt, Paprika, Pepper, 1 package spaghetti.
Soak the mushrooms in a cup of tepid water for fifteen minutes; put the butter into a frying pan; when melted, add the onion and garlic, cut fine. Let this cook to a straw color, then add the meat and bacon, cut into finger lengths. Let this cook about five minutes, add the tomatoes and simmer slowly for about fifteen minutes. Then add the mushrooms, together with the water in which they have been soaked. Season very lightly with salt, pepper, and paprika. Let this simmer slowly for an hour and a half. During this time cook the spaghetti in about 2 quarts boiling water to which 2 tablespoonfuls salt have been added. Cook twenty minutes, then pour in a colander and blanch with warm water. When the sauce has cooked sufficiently, take a large platter, spread half of the spaghetti upon it, and pour over it some of the sauce.
Now sprinkle upon this grated cheese.
Add the remainder of the spaghetti, finish with sauce and cheese, and serve.