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Some Kitchen Kinks: Hash

Vegetable Hash.-Hash may be made with one or many cooked vegetables, the vegetable or vegetables being used alone or combined with meat or fish. Potato is the most useful vegetable for a hash, as it combines well with the animal food or with other vegetables.

The conditions essential to a good hash are that the vegetables shall be cut fairly fine, but not so fine that the pieces shall lose their shape or stick together-that is, the particles should drop apart readily when shaken on a fork. Each vegetable must be cut up separately, then all be mixed. The vegetables, or vegetable, and meat or fish must be well seasoned with salt and pepper, and if liked there may be added a little minced onion, chives, parsley, APPENDIX chervil, or green pepper finely minced. The hash must be moistened a little with meat broth, milk, or water (not more than half a cupful for a quart of hash). When the hash is mixed, seasoned, and moistened put a tablespoonful of butter or savory drippings in a frying pan.

When this is melted put in the hash, and spread evenly and lightly in the pan. Over this put little dots of butter or savory drippings, using about one tablespoonful in all. Cover the pan and place where the hash will not burn, but where the heat is fairly good, and cook half an hour, then fold and turn on a hot platter. A rich brown crust will have formed on the bottom of the hash if the heat was sufficient. Serve very hot. The plates on which hash is served should be hot.

Rice. Wash 1 cupful of rice in several waters, rubbing the grains between the hands to remove all the dirt. Put the washed rice in a stewpan with 21/2 cupfuls of water and 1 teaspoonful of salt. Cover and place where the water will boil. Cook for twenty minutes, being careful not to let it burn. At the end of this time put the stewpan on a tripod or ring and cover the rice with a fold of cheese cloth. Let it continue to cook in this manner an hour, then turn into a hot vegetable dish. The rice will be tender, dry, and sweet, and each grain will be separate. During the whole process of cooking the rice must not be stirred. If a tablespoonful of butter is cut up and sprinkled over the rice when it has cooked twenty minutes the dish will be very much improved. - Hominy and Corn Meal. The large hominy, which is so common in the southern part of the United States, is frequently served as a vegetable, either boiled or fried in drippings. Fine hominy, which is more common in the northern part of the country, and which is often served as a vegetable, should be thoroughly washed, and cooked in boiling water in the proportion of 1 gill of hominy to a pint of water, to which a half teaspoonful of salt has been added. When cold, the boiled hominy may be cut in slices and fried. The slices will brown more readily if they are first rolled in flour.

Fried corn-meal mush is often served as a vegetable, with chicken and other meats, and is very palatable and useful when fresh vegetables are not common. It is interesting to note that in the Southern States rice and hominy are much oftener used as starchy vegetables in place of potatoes than in other parts of the country.