The American Pictorial Home Book
or Housekeeper's Encyclopedia - online book

A reference manual of household management in Victorian times.

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364
COOKING FOR INVALIDS.
from the syrup and eat dry; while stewing some add either port, sherry or claret wine and water.
Cooking Raisins.—When scalded allow them to cook in a tightly covered vessel not opened until done ; they are plumper and more palatable, and can be eaten without injury to most dyspeptics.
Toast.—Is much lighter and better made from a loaf that is 24 hours old or more. It is preferable to cut lengthwise of the loaf, leaving the crust, bottom and top, than around the edges of the slices. A fire for toasting should be free from smoke and flame, but clear and bright. The bread should be held on an iron fork with 2 or 3 tines and a long handle, so that you can stand off and hold the bread near enough to toast briskly, and moving it about so as to toast it evenly and prevent its burning in one part before the rest is done. Plates should be had hot in readiness, one on which to but­ter the toast and the other to slip it on after it has been buttered. It should be buttered on both sides and served as quickly as possi­ble, and not piled one on another, each round being on a separate plate. For buttering toast and hot rolls good salt butter answers very well, but for company fresh is far preferable. Toast for butter­ing cold or eaten dry should be cut thinner and baked drier than for buttering hot. The moment taken from the fire it should be put in a bread rack for the steam to evaporate, and to prevent its being moist, for if the slices are laid down for a moment and come in contact, they lose all their crispness, and will not be so much relished.
Dutch Egg Soup.—Beat up th^yolk of an egg in a pint of wa­ter, put in a little butter, 2 or 3 lumps of sugar, stir the whole all the time it is on the fire; when it begins to boil pour it backwards and forwards between the sauce pan and the basin till it is smooth and has gained a froth. It is good when cold.
Scotch Broth.—One teaspoonful of pearl barley into 1 gallon of cold water and let it boil; add 2 onions, 2 turnips, 2 carrots cut in dice and 1 grated carrot, 2 pounds of scrag or back of mutton, or thin flank of beef; boil slowly for 3 hours, add salt and pepper to taste before removing from the fire.
Soup a la Cantatrice—An excellent soup ; very beneficial for the voice.—3 ounces of sago, 1-2 pint of cream, the yolks of 2 eggs, 1 lump of sugar and seasoning to taste ; 1 bay leaf, if liked, 2 quarts of medium stock. Having washed the sago in boiling water, let it be gradually added to the nearly boiling stock, simmer for 1-2 hour; when it shall be well dissolved Beat up the yolks of the eggs, add to them the boiling cream, stir these quick in the soup and serve im­mediately. Do not let the soup boil, or the eggs will curdle; forty minutes to cook it; seasonable at any time ; sufficient for 8 persons.
N. B. This is a soup, the principal ingredients of which, sago and