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Some Kitchen Kinks: Bean

Dried Bean Soup. 1 pint dried beans. 4 quarts water. 1 large onion, minced fine.

APPENDIX 4 tablespoonsful sweet drippings or butter which gives a better flavor. 3 tablespoonsful flour. 1 tablespoonful minced celery or a few dried celery leaves. 1/2 teaspoonful pepper. 2 teaspoonsful salt.

Wash the beans and soak them over night in cold water. In the morning pour off the water and put them in the soup pot with 3 quarts of cold water. Place on the fire and when the water comes to the boiling point pour it off (throw this water away).

Add 4 quarts of boiling water to the beans and place the soup pot where the contents will simmer for four hours. Add the celery the last hour of cooking. Cook the onion and drippings slowly in a stewpan for half an hour. Drain the water from the beans (save this water) and put them in the stewpan with the onions and drippings. Then add the flour and cook half an hour, stirring often. At the end of this time mash fine and gradually add the water in which the beans were boiled until the soup is like thick cream. Then rub through a purée sieve and return to the fire; add the salt and pepper and cook twenty minutes or more. Any kind of beans may be used for this soup; the Lima beans give the most delicate soup, but the large or small white beans are very satisfactory and are less expensive than the Limas.

In cold weather the quantities of beans and flavorings may be doubled, but only 6 quarts of water are used.

The resulting thick soup can be kept in a cold place and a portion boiled up as required and thinned with meat stock or milk.

Cream of Bean Soup.

Make as above, but add only enough of the water in which the beans were cooked to make the mixture like thin mush. Have this very hot and add boiling hot milk to make it like thick cream, about a quart of milk to 3 pints of the bean purée.

Boil up at once and serve. It spoils a cream soup to let it cook many minutes after the milk is added.

Seasonings and Sauces for Vegetables. Much of the excellence of well-cooked vegetables depends upon the proper use of seasonings and sauces. The seasoning selected should undoubtedly be suitable for the dish, but so much depends upon custom that only general suggestions can be made. The Italians and some other races are much fonder of garlic than Americans, the Germans of summer savory or "bohnenkraut" in string beans, and the English of mint with peas.

Each housewife must select the seasonings which her family prefers and endeavor to use them in such a way that the special flavors may be most satisfactorily brought out.

Time of Cooking Flavorers.

When a soup, sauce, or vegetable is to be flavored with a herb or another vegetable the flavorer should be added toward the end of the cooking period. Since the oils and other bodies which give seasoning vegetables and herbs their flavor are volatile they are either driven off by longcontinued cooking or rendered much less delicate in flavor. Herbs that are to be left in the dish or served with the dish must be added just before the food is served. The herbs generally served with the dish are chervil, parsley, tarragon, and chives.

Burnet, thyme, summer savory, sage, and sweet basil are cooked with the dish a short time, not over twenty minutes, and are then removed.

The little bunch of mixed herbs, the "bouquet garni," so often referred to in cook books, is made with two branches of parsley, a sprig each of thyme and summer savory, a small leaf of sage, and a small bay leaf, all tied together. This is cooked with the dish from ten to twenty minutes, then removed. The bay leaves must be purchased at the grocer's. Turnips, carrots, parsnips, celery, leeks, cibol, onions, etc., when used just as flavorers, should be tied in a bunch and cooked twenty or thirty minutes in the dish and then be removed.

When shallot and garlic are used they should never be cut, but separated into "cloves." One clove will be enough for a small quantity of soup, sauce, or ragout. Never fry shallot or garlic. Cook in the dish to be flavored about ten minutes, then remove.

Fried Vegetables for Seasoning.

Vegetables when used raw as a seasoning give a strong flavor, and only a little of each should be used. For flavoring soups, sauces, stews, etc., fried vegetables are far superior to the raw. To prepare them for use, clean and peel or scrape the vegetables, then cut them into small pieces, and put in a saucepan with butter or sweet fat, allowing two generous tablespoonsful of butter to a pint of vegetables. Place on a hot part of the range and stir until the butter and vegetables become hot. Partially cover the saucepan and set back, where the vegetables, which should be stirred often, will cook slowly for half an hour. At the end of this time place the pan on a hot part of the range and stir the contents until the butter begins to separate from the vegetables. Drain the butter, saving it with savory drippings, which every housewife should always have on hand and add the vegetables to the dish they are to flavor.

Fine Herbs.

In its broadest sense, the term "fine herbs" includes all the delicate, savory herbs, such as burnet, sweet basil, tarragon, and chervil. As commonly understood, three herbs enter into the seasoning known to cooks as "fine herbs"; these are parsley, chervil, and chives. They are minced fine and added to the sauce, soup, omelet, etc.

For an omelet, they are stirred into the beaten eggs in the proportion of a teaspoonful to three eggs. When added to sauces, the herbs must be added just as they are about to be served. These three herbs combine well with almost any vegetable, fish, or meat. In general, herbs should be washed, placed on a clean board, and cut with a sharp knife.

Chervil and tarragon when employed in soup or salad should be torn leaf by leaf into small pieces.