A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl by Caroline French Benton (most interesting books to read TXT) 📖

cut these off, too, scraping the pulp carefully, so as not to waste it. Take out all the seeds; lay the pieces on lettuce, and pour the dressing over. White grapes, cut in halves, with the seeds taken out, are nice mixed with this, and pineapple, grapes, and oranges, with a little banana, are delicious.

Mayonnaise

Yolk of 1 egg. 1/2 cup of olive-oil. 1 tablespoonful of lemon juice or vinegar. 1/2 teaspoonful of salt. Pinch of red pepper.

Put the yolk of the egg into a very cold bowl; it is better to put the bowl, the egg, the oil, and the beater all on the ice a half-hour before you need them, for then the mayonnaise comes quicker. With a Dover egg-beater beat till the yolk is very light indeed; then have some one else begin to put in the oil, one drop at a time, till the mayonnaise becomes so thick it is difficult to turn the beater; then put in a drop or two of lemon or vinegar, and this will thin it so you can use the oil again; keep on doing this till you have nearly a cup of the dressing; if you need more oil than the rule calls for, use it, and toward the last add it two or three drops at a time. When you have enough, and it is stiff enough, put in the pepper and salt and it is done. Never use mustard except with lobster, as this will spoil the taste. Some salads, especially fruit and vegetable, need very thick mayonnaise, and then it is better to make it with lemon juice, while a fish salad, or one to use with meats, may be thinner, and then the vinegar will do; the lemon juice makes it thick. Always taste it before using it, to see if it is just right, and, if not, put in more salt, or whatever it needs. You will soon learn. Most people think mayonnaise is very difficult to make, but, really, it is as easy as baking potatoes, after you have once learned how. Every salad given before is just as nice with mayonnaise as with French dressing, and you can try each one both ways; then there are these, which are better with mayonnaise.

Chicken Salad

1 cup of chicken cut in large bits. 1/2 cup of celery, cut up and then dried. 2 hard-boiled eggs, cut into good-sized pieces. 6 olives, stoned and cut up. 1/2 cup mayonnaise.

Mix all very lightly together, as stirring will make the salad mussy; put on lettuce.

Lobster Salad

1 cup of lobster, cut in large bits. 2 hard-boiled eggs, cut in pieces. 1/2 teaspoonful of dry mustard, stirred in. 1/2 cup of mayonnaise.

Mix and put on lettuce.

Celery Salad

2 heads of celery. 3 hard-boiled eggs (or else 1 cup of English walnuts). 1/2 cup very stiff mayonnaise.

Wash, wipe, and cut the celery into pieces as large as the first joint of your little finger, and then rub it in a clean towel till it is as dry as can be. Cut up the eggs, sprinkle all with salt, and add the mayonnaise and lay on lettuce. Or mix the celery and the walnuts and mayonnaise; either salad is nice.

Celery and Apple Salad

2 sweet apples. 1 head of celery. 1/2 cup of English walnuts, broken up. 1/2 cup mayonnaise.

Peel the apples and cut into very small bits; chop the celery and press in a towel; chop or break up the walnuts, but save two halves for each person besides the half-cupful you put in the salad. Mix all together, lay on white hearts of lettuce on plates, and then put the walnuts on top, two on each plate.

Cabbage Salad

1/2 a small cabbage. 1 cup very stiff mayonnaise. 1 teaspoonful celery-seed.

Cut the cabbage in four pieces and cut out the hard core; slice the rest very fine on the cutter you use for Saratoga potatoes; mix with the mayonnaise and put in the salad-dish; sprinkle over with celery-seed, when you wish it to be very nice, but it will do without this last touch.

Cabbage Salad in Green Peppers

Wipe green peppers and cut off the small end of each. Take out the seed and the stem; fill each pepper with the cabbage salad, letting it stand out at the top; put each one on a plate on a leaf of lettuce.

Stuffed Tomato Salad

1 cup of cut-up celery. 1/2 cup of English walnuts. 6 small, round tomatoes. 1/2 cup of mayonnaise.

Peel the tomatoes and scoop out as much of the inside as you can, after cutting a round hole in the stem end; make a salad with the celery, the cut-up walnuts, and the mayonnaise, and fill the tomatoes, letting it stand up well on top. Serve on plates, each one on a leaf of lettuce.

Potato Salad

3 cold boiled potatoes. 3 hard-boiled eggs. 1/2 cup English walnuts. 12 olives.

Break up the walnuts, saving a dozen halves unbroken. Cut the potatoes and eggs into bits of even size, as large as the tip of your finger; stone the olives and cut them up, too; mix them together in a bowl, but do not stir them much, or you will break the potatoes; sprinkle well with French dressing, and put on the ice; when it is lunch or supper time, mix quickly, only once, with stiff mayonnaise, and put on lettuce; this is a delicious salad to have with cold meats.

Margaret's mother liked to have gingerbread or cookies for lunch often, so those things came next in the cook-book.

Gingerbread

1 cup molasses. 1 egg. 1 teaspoonful of soda. 1 teaspoonful of ginger. 1 tablespoonful melted butter. 1/2 cup of milk. 2 cups of flour.

Beat the eggs without separating, but very light; put the soda into the molasses, put them in the milk, with the ginger and butter, then one cup of flour, measure in a medium-sized cup and only level, then the egg, and last the rest of the flour. Bake in a buttered biscuit-tin. For a change, sometimes add a teaspoonful of cloves and cinnamon, mixed, to this, and a cup of chopped almonds. Or, when the gingerbread is ready for the oven drop over halves of almonds.

Soft Gingerbread, to Be Eaten Hot

1 cup of molasses. 1/2 cup boiling water. 1/4 cup melted butter. 1 1/2 cups flour. 3/4 teaspoonful soda. 1 teaspoonful ginger. 1/2 teaspoonful salt.

Put the soda in the molasses and beat it well in a good-sized bowl, then put in the melted butter, ginger, salt, and flour, and beat again, and add last the water, very hot indeed. Have a buttered tin ready, and put it at once in the oven; when half-baked, it is well to put a piece of paper over it, as all gingerbread burns easily.

You can add cloves and cinnamon to this rule, and sometimes you can make it and serve it hot as a pudding, with a sauce of sugar and water, thickened and flavored.

Ginger Cookies

1/2 cup butter. 1 cup molasses. 1/2 cup brown sugar. 1 teaspoonful ginger. 1 tablespoonful mixed cinnamon and cloves. 1 teaspoonful soda, dissolved in a tablespoonful of water. Flour enough to make it so stiff you cannot stir it with a spoon.

Melt the molasses and butter together on the stove, and then take the saucepan off and add the rest of the things in the recipe, and turn the dough out on a floured board and roll it very thin, and cut in circles with a biscuit-cutter. Put a little flour on the bottom of four shallow pans, lift the cookies with the cake-turner and lay them in, and put them in the oven. They will bake very quickly, so you must watch them. When you want these to be extra nice, put a teaspoonful of mixed cinnamon and cloves in them and sprinkle the tops with sugar.

Grandmother's Sugar Cookies

1 cup of butter. 2 cups of sugar. 2 eggs. 1 cup of milk. 2 teaspoonfuls of baking-powder. 1/2 teaspoonful of vanilla. Flour enough to roll out easily.

Rub the butter and sugar to a cream; put in the milk, then the eggs beaten together lightly, then two cups of flour, into which you have sifted the baking-powder; then the vanilla. Take a bit of this and put it on the floured board and see if it ``rolls out easily,'' and, if it does not, but is soft and sticky, put in a handful more of flour. These cookies must not be any stiffer than you can help, or they will not be good, so try not to use any more flour than you must.

They usually had tea for luncheon or supper at Margaret's house, but sometimes they had chocolate instead, so these things came next in the cook-book.

Tea

1/2 teaspoonful of black tea for each person. 1/2 teaspoonful for the pot. Boiling water.

Fill the kettle half-full of fresh, cold water, because you cannot make good tea with water which has been once heated. When it is very hot, fill the china teapot and put it where it will keep warm. When the water boils very hard, empty out the teapot, put in the tea, and put on the boiling water; do not stand it on the stove, as too many people do, but send it right to the table; it will be ready as soon as it is time to pour it—about three minutes. If you are making tea for only one person, you will need a teaspoonful of tea, as you will see by the rule, and two small cups of water will be enough. If for more, put in a half-teaspoonful for each person, and one cup of water more.

Iced Tea

Put in a deep pitcher one teaspoonful of dry tea for each person and two over. Pour on a cup of boiling water for each person, and cover the pitcher and let it stand five minutes. Then stir well, strain and pour while still hot on large pieces of ice. Put in a glass pitcher and serve a bowl of cracked ice, a lemon, sliced thin, and a bowl of powdered sugar with it. Pour it into glasses instead of cups.

Lemonade

Sometimes in the afternoon Margaret's aunts had tea and cakes or wafers, and in summer they often had iced tea or lemonade. This is the way Margaret made lemonade:

Squeeze four lemons, and add ten teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar; stir till it dissolves. Add six glasses of water, and strain. Pour in a glass pitcher, and serve with glasses filled half-full of cracked ice. If you want this very nice, put a little shredded pineapple with the lemons. Sometimes the juice of red raspberries is liked, also.

Lemonade with Grape-juice

Make the lemonade as before, and add half as much bottled grape-juice, but do not put in any other fruit. Serve with plenty of ice, in small glasses.

Chocolate

2 cups boiling water. 2 cups of boiling milk. 4 teaspoonfuls grated chocolate. 4 teaspoonfuls of sugar.

Scrape the chocolate off the bar, mix it with the boiling water, and stir till it dissolves; mix the milk and sugar in them and boil for one minute. If you wish to have it nicer, put a small teaspoonful of vanilla in the chocolate-pot, and pour the hot chocolate in on it when it is done, and have a little bowl of whipped cream to send to the table with it, so that one spoonful may be put on top of each cup.

Cocoa

6 teaspoonfuls of cocoa. 1 1/2 cups of boiling water. 1 1/2 cups of boiling milk. 1 tablespoonful powdered sugar.

Put the cocoa into the boiling water and stir till it dissolves, then put in the boiling milk and boil hard two minutes, stirring it all the time; take from the fire and put in the sugar and stir again. If you like it quite sweet, you may have to use more sugar.

PART III. THE THINGS MARGARET MADE FOR DINNER

At first, of course, Margaret could not get dinner all alone; indeed, it took her almost a year to learn how to cook everything needed,—soup, vegetables, meat, salad, and dessert; but at first she helped Bridget, and each day she cooked something. Then