Reform Cookery Book (4th edition): Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century. — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Reform Cookery Book (4th edition): Up-To-Date Health Cookery for the Twentieth Century.
John Stuart Mill · en
Prepare a quantity of strong, clear, highly-flavoured stock of a
greenish-brown colour. The colour can be obtained by boiling some winter
greens or spinach along with the other things. A few chopped gherkins,
capers, or chillies will give the required piquancy. Have 4 ozs. tapioca
soaked overnight, add to the boiling stock and cook gently till perfectly
clear. Some small quenelles may be poached separately and put in tureen.
Tomato Soup.
When this soup is well made it is a general favourite, but it must be well
made, for it is impossible to appreciate the greasy, yellow,
dish-water-looking liquid which is sometimes served in that name.
Put in a saucepan 2 ozs. butter, and into that shred finely 1/2 or 1 lb.
onions. Add half or more of a tin of tomatoes or about 1 lb. fresh ones
sliced, and a cup of water or stock. Simmer very gently for an hour and rub
through a wire sieve, pressing with the back of a wooden spoon to get all
the pulp through. _Everything_ should go through except the skin and
seeds. Return to clean saucepan with stock or water, and two tablespoonfuls
of tapioca, previously soaked for at least an hour. Stir till it boils and
is quite clear. This soup may be varied in many ways, as by substituting
for the tapioca, crushed vermicelli, ground rice, cornflour, &c. Some
chopped spring onions, chives or leeks, added after straining are a great
improvement, also chopped parsley, while many people like the addition of
milk or cream.
SAVOURIES.
"We live not upon what we eat, but upon what we digest."
We come now to consider the middle courses of dinner in which lies the crux
of the difficulty to the aspirant who wishes to contrive such without
recourse to the flesh-pots. This is where, too, we must find the answer to
those half-curious wholly sceptical folks who ask us, "Whatever _do_
you have for dinner?" Most of them will grant that we _may_ get a few
decent soups, though no doubt they retain a sneaking conviction that at best
these are "unco wersh," and puddings or sweets are almost exclusively
vegetarian. But how to compensate for that little bit of chicken, ox, or
pig--no one now-a-days owns to taking much meat!--is beyond the utmost
efforts of their imagination. Of course we can't have everything. When a
"reformed" friend of mine was asserting that we could have no end of
delicacies, one lady triumphantly remarked "Anyhow, you can't have a leg of
mutton." That is true, but then we must remember that it's not polite to
speak of "legs," especially with young ladies learning cooking. Liver or
kidneys are not particularly nice things to speak about either, and I am
sure if we reflected on what their place is in the economy of the body, we
should think them still less nice to eat.