Carla Kelly (45 page)

Carla Kelly:
Julia preferred powdered sugar, but Mr. Otto's sweethearts didn't care.

Cecils with Tomato Sauce

1 cup cold roast beef or rare steak finely chopped

Salt and pepper

Onion juice

Worcestershire sauce

¼ cup flour

2 Tbsp. bread crumbs

1 Tbsp. melted butter

1 egg yolk, slightly beaten

Season beef with salt, pepper, onion juice and Worcestershire sauce; add remaining ingredients, shape after the form of small croquettes, pointed at ends. Roll in flour, egg, and crumbs, fry in deep fat, drain, and serve with Tomato Sauce. If you're on the Double Tipi and cook for cowboys, substitute ketchup.

Cream of Watercress Soup

2 cups white stock

2 bunches watercress

3 Tbsp. butter

2 Tbsp. flour

½ cup milk

1 egg yolk

Salt and pepper

Finely cut leaves of watercress; cook five minutes in 2 tablespoons butter, add stock, and boil five minutes. Thicken with remaining butter and flour cooked together. Add salt and pepper. Just before serving, add milk and egg yolk, slightly beaten. Serve with slices of French bread, browned in oven.

White Stock

4 lbs. knuckle of veal

2 quarts boiling water

1 Tbsp. salt

½ tsp. peppercorns

1 onion

2 stalks celery

Blade of mace

Wipe meat, remove from bone, and cut in small pieces. Put meat, bone, water, and remaining ingredients in kettle. Heat gradually to boiling point, skimming frequently. Simmer four or five hours and strain. If scum has been carefully removed and soup is strained through a double thickness of cheese cloth, stock will be quite clear.

Potato Croquettes

2 cups hot riced or mashed potatoes

2 Tbsp. butter

½ tsp. salt

1/8 tsp. pepper

¼ tsp. celery salt

Few drops onion juice

Yolk 1 egg

1 tsp. finely chopped parsley

Mix ingredients in order given, and beat thoroughly. Shape and dip in crumbs, egg and crumbs again, fry one minute in deep fat and drain on brown paper.

Carla Kelly:
Miss Farmer does not say what kind of crumbs, but I suggest fine bread crumbs. The egg mentioned would be in addition to the yolk of one egg mentioned in the recipe.

Potatoes en Surprise

Make Potato Croquette mixture, omitting parsley. Shape in small nests and fill with creamed chicken, shrimp, or peas. Cover nests with Croquette mixture, then roll in form of croquettes. Dip in crumbs, egg, and crumbs again; fry in deep fat, and drain on brown paper.

Duchess Potatoes

To two cups hot riced potatoes, add two tablespoons butter, ½ teaspoon salt, and yolks of three eggs slightly beaten. Shape, using a pastry bag and tube, in form of baskets, pyramids, crowns, leaves, roses, and so on. Brush with beaten egg diluted with one teaspoon water and brown in a hot oven.

Carla Kelly:
Most cooks then understood a hot oven to be around 400°. Miss Farmer also does not indicate a specific time, so watch them.

Warm Liver Salad

6 rashers of bacon, in ½-inch pieces

12 oz. chicken livers

3 slices white bread, cut into ½-inch cubes

1 Tbsp. garlic, wine, or perry vinegar (vinegar made with pears)

3 Tbsp. olive oil

2 tsp. sugar

1 head lettuce, torn into bite-sized pieces

½ lb. spinach leaves, torn in bite-sized pieces

1 Tbsp. chives, finely chopped

Fry bacon until crisp. Drain. Fry the chicken livers in bacon fat for about five minutes or until firm and well browned on the outside, but pink in middle. Drain and keep warm. Fry bread cubes in garlic and oil until golden and crisp. Drain and keep warm. Heat bacon fat and add sugar and vinegar. Cook gently until sugar dissolves. Arrange chicken livers and bacon on top of lettuce and spinach. Pour warm dressing on this, top with croutons and chives. Serve immediately.

String Bean Salad

Marinate two cups cold string beans with French Dressing. Add one teaspoon finely cut chives. Pile in center of salad dish and arrange around base thin slices of radishes, overlapping one another. Garnish top with radish cut to represent a tulip.

Tomatoes in Aspic

Peel six small, firm tomatoes and remove pulp. Have opening in tops as small as possible. Sprinkle insides with salt, invert, and let stand thirty minutes. Fill with vegetable or chicken salad. Cover tops with mayonnaise to which has been added a small quantity of dissolved gelatin, and garnish with capers and sliced pickles. Place a pan in ice water, cover bottom with aspic jelly mixture, and let stand until jelly is firm. Arrange tomatoes on jelly garnished side down. Add more aspic jelly mixture, let stand until firm, and so continue until all is used. Chill thoroughly, turn onto a serving dish, and garnish around base with parsley.

Cheese Straws

Roll puff or plain paste ¼-inch thick, sprinkle one-half with grated cheese to which has been added a few grains of salt and cayenne. Fold, press edges firmly together, fold again, pat, and roll out ¼-inch thick. Sprinkle with cheese and proceed as before; repeat twice. Cut in strips 5 inches long and ¼-inch wide. Bake eight minutes in hot oven. Parmesan cheese or equal parts of Parmesan and Edam cheese may be used. Cheese straws are piled log cabin fashion and served with cheese or salad courses.

Boiled Onions

Put onions in cold water and remove skins while under water. Drain and put in a saucepan, and cover with boiling salted water; boil five minutes, drain, and again cover with boiling salted water. Cook one hour or until soft but not broken. Drain and add a small quantity of milk. Cook five minutes, and season with butter, salt, and pepper.

Onions in Cream

Prepare and cook as Boiled Onions, changing the water twice during the boiling; drain, and cover with Cream or Thin White Sauce.

Welsh Rarebit or Rabbit

1 Tbsp. butter

1 tsp. cornstarch

½ cup thin cream

½ lb. mild soft cheese cut in small pieces

¼ tsp. salt

¼ tsp. mustard

Few grains cayenne

Toast

Melt butter, add cornstarch, and stir until well mixed. Then add cream gradually and cook two minutes. Add cheese, and stir until cheese is melted. Season, and serve on bread toasted on one side, rarebit being poured over untoasted side.

Beefsteak with Oyster Blanket

Wipe a sirloin steak, cut 1½ inches thick, and broil 5 minutes, and then remove to platter. Spread with butter and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Clean one pint oysters, cover steak with same, sprinkle oysters with salt and pepper, and dot with butter. Place on grate in hot oven, and cook until oysters are plump.

Julia's variation:
Make a Yorkshire pudding, and add oysters as above. Cover finished roast with this blanket and bake an additional twenty minutes in hot oven.

Snow Cake

¼ cup butter

1 cup sugar

½ cup milk

1 2/3 cups flour

2½ teaspoons baking powder

2 eggs whites

½ teaspoon vanilla or ¼ teaspoon almond extract

Follow recipe for mixing butter cakes. Bake 45 minutes in a deep, narrow pan.

Lemon Queens

¼ lb. butter

½ lb. sugar

Grated rind one lemon

2/3 tsp. lemon juice

4 eggs yolks

5 oz. flour

¼ tsp. soda

¼ tsp. salt

½ tsp. baking powder

egg whites of the four eggs

Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and continue beating. Then add grated rind, lemon juice, and yolks of eggs, beaten until thick and lemon colored. Mix and sift flour, soda, salt, and baking powder; add to first mixture and beat thoroughly. Add whites of eggs, beaten stiff. Bake from twenty to twenty-five minutes in small tins.

Currant Cake

½ cup butter

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 egg yolk

½ cup milk

2 cups flour

3 tsp. baking powder

1 cup currants mixed with 1 Tbsp. flour

Cream the butter, add sugar gradually, and eggs and egg yolk, well beaten. Then add milk, flour mixed and sifted with baking powder, and currants. Bake forty minutes in a buttered and floured cake pan.

Imperial Cake

½ lb. butter

½ lb. sugar

5 egg yolks

5 egg whites

Grated rind of ½ lemon

2 tsp. lemon juice

½ lb. raisins, seeded and cut in pieces

½ cup walnut meat, broken in pieces

½ lb. flour

¼ tsp. soda

Mix same as pound cake, creaming the butter, adding sugar gradually. Add egg yolks and continue beating. Beat egg whites until they are stiff and dry, then fold those in. Combine flour and soda in a separate bowl and then add gradually to the creamed mixture, along with lemon rind and lemon juice. Add raisins dredged with flour and nuts at the last. Bake in a deep pan 1¼ hours in a slow oven; or if to be used for fancy ornamental cakes, bake 30–35 minutes in a dripping pan.

Queen Cake

2/3 cup butter

2 cups flour (scant)

¼ tsp. soda

6 egg whites

1¼ cups powdered sugar

1½ tsp. lemon juice

Cream the butter, add flour gradually, mixed and sifted with soda, and then add lemon juice. Beat whites of eggs until stiff; add sugar gradually, and combine the mixtures. Bake fifty minutes in a long shallow pan. Cover with Opera Caramel Frosting.

Opera Caramel Frosting

1½ cups brown sugar

½ Tbsp. butter

¾ cup thin cream

Boil ingredients together until a ball can be formed when mixture is tried in cold water. It takes about forty minutes for boiling. Beat until of right consistency to spread.

Ornamental Frosting

2 cups sugar

1 cup water

3 egg whites

¼ tsp. tartaric acid

Boil sugar and water until syrup, when dropped from tip of spoon it forms a long thread. Pour syrup gradually on beaten whites of eggs, beating constantly; then add acid and continue beating. When stiff enough to spread, put on a thin coating over cake. Beat remaining frosting until cold and stiff enough to keep in shape after being forced through a pastry tube. After first coating on cake has hardened, cover with a thicker layer, and crease for cutting. If frosting is too stiff to spread smoothly, thin with a few drops of water. With a pastry bag and variety of tubes, cake may be ornamented as desired.

With the exception of Sonofagun Stew, Bear Sign, and Rocky Mountain Oysters—range classics—these recipes appeared in Fannie Merritt Farmer's 1896 cook book.
The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book
was the first such book to use actual graduated measurements: scientific cooking.