Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery by A. G. Payne

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BROCOLI.--Trim the outer leaves off a brocoli, and cut off the stalk even,
so that it will stand upright. Soak the brocoli in salt and water for some
time, in order to get rid of any insects. Throw the brocoli into boiling
water that has been salted, and boil till it is tender, the probable time
for young brocoli being about a quarter of an hour. It should be served on
a dish with the flower part uppermost; and butter sauce, sauce Allemande,
or Dutch sauce can be served separately, or poured over the surface.

When several heads of brocoli are served at once, it is important to cut
the stalks flat, as directed, before boiling. After they have been
thoroughly drained _upside down_, they should be placed on the dish, flower
part uppermost, and placed together as much as possible to look like one
large brocoli. If sauce is poured over them, the sauce should be
sufficiently thick to be spread, and every part of the flower should be
covered. Half a teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley may be sprinkled
over the top, and improves the appearance of the dish.

N.B.--We would particularly call attention to the importance of draining
brocoli and cauliflower very thoroughly, especially when any sauce is
served with the brocoli. When the dish is cut into, nothing looks more
disagreeable than to see the white sauce running off the brocoli into green
water at the bottom of the dish.

BROCOLI GREENS.--The outside leaves of brocoli should not be thrown away,
but eaten. Too often they are trimmed off at the greengrocer's or at the
market, and, we presume, utilised for the purpose of feeding cattle. They
can be boiled exactly like white cabbages, and are equal to them, if not
superior, in flavour. To boil them, _see_ CABBAGE, WHITE, LARGE.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS.--These must be first washed in cold water and all the
little pieces of decayed leaves trimmed away. Throw them into boiling
salted water; the water must be kept boiling the whole time, without a lid
on the saucepan, and if the quantity of water be sufficiently large not to
be taken off the boil by the sprouts being thrown in they will be sent to
table of a far brighter green colour than otherwise. In order to ensure
this, throw in the sprouts a few at a time, picking out the big ones to
throw in first. Sprouts, as soon as they are tender--probable time a
quarter of an hour--should be drained and served _quickly_. When served as
a dish by themselves, after being drained off, they can be placed in a
stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and lemon-juice. They
can then be served with toasted or fried bread.

CABBAGE, PLAIN BOILED.--Ordinary young cabbages should be first trimmed by
having the outside leaves removed, the stalks cut off, and then should be
cut in halves and allowed to soak some time in salt and water. They should
be thrown into plenty of boiling water; the water should be kept boiling
and uncovered. As soon as they are tender they should be strained off and
served immediately. Young summer cabbages will not take longer than a
quarter of an hour, or even less; old cabbages take nearly double that
time. It is impossible to lay down any exact rule with regard to time.
Savoys generally take about half an hour. The large white cabbages met
with in the West of England take longer and require a different treatment.

When cabbage is served as a dish by itself it will be found a great
improvement to add either butter or oil to moisten the cabbage after it is
thoroughly drained off. In order to ensure the butter not oiling, but
adhering to the cabbage, it is best after the butter is added, and while
you mix it with the cabbage, to shake the flour-dredger two or three times
over the vegetable. In Germany, many add vinegar and sugar to the cabbage.

CABBAGE, LARGE WHITE.--In the West of England cabbages grow to an immense
size, owing, probably, to the moist heat, and have been exhibited in
agricultural shows over twenty pounds in weight and as big as an eighteen
gallon cask. These cabbages are best boiled as follows:--After being cut
up and thoroughly washed, it will be found that the greater part of the
cabbage resembles what in ordinary cabbage would be called stalk, and, of
course, the leaves vary very considerably in thickness from the hard stalk
end up to the leaf. Have plenty of boiling water ready salted, now cut off
the stalk part where it is thickest and throw this in first. Wait till the
water comes to the boil again and let it boil for a few minutes. Then
throw in the next thickest part and again wait till the water re-boils, and
so on, reserving the thin leafy part to be thrown in last of all. By this
means, and this only, do we get the cabbage boiled uniformly. Had we
thrown in all at once one of two things would be inevitable--either the
stalk would be too hard to be eaten or the leafy part over-boiled. A large
white cabbage takes about an hour to boil tender, and a piece of soda
should be added to the water. When the cabbage is well drained, it can be
served either plain or moistened, and made to look oily by the addition of
a piece of butter. As the cabbage is very white, the dish is very much
improved by the addition of a little chopped parsley sprinkled over the
top, not for the sake of flavour but appearance.

CABBAGE AND CREAM.--Ordinary cabbages are sometimes served stewed with a
little cream. They should be first parboiled, then the moisture squeezed
from them, and then they must be put in a stew-pan with a little butter,
pepper, salt and nutmeg, and a spoonful of flour should be shaken over the
cabbage in order to prevent the butter being too oily. When the cabbage is
stewed till it is perfectly tender, add a few spoonfuls of cream, stir up,
and make the whole thoroughly hot, and serve with fried or toasted bread.

CABBAGE, RED.--Red cabbages are chiefly used for pickling. They are
sometimes served fresh. They should be cut across so that the cabbage
shreds, boiled till they are tender, the moisture thoroughly extracted, and
then put into a stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, and salt, and a few
shakes of flour from the flour-dredger. After stirring for ten minutes or
a quarter of an hour, squeeze the juice of a lemon over them and serve.

CARROTS, BOILED.--When carrots are boiled and served as a course by
themselves, they ought to be young. This dish is constantly met with
abroad in early summer, but is rarely seen in England, except at the tables
of vegetarians. The carrots should be trimmed, thoroughly washed, and, if
necessary, slightly scraped, and the point at the end, which looks like a
piece of string, should be cut off. They should be thrown into fast
boiling water (salted) in order to preserve their colour. When tender they
can be served with some kind of good white sauce, or sauce Allemande or
Dutch sauce. Perhaps this latter sauce is best of all, as it looks like
rich custard. Part of the red carrot should show uncovered by any sauce.
They are best placed in a circle and the thick sauce poured in the centre;
a very little chopped blanched parsley can be sprinkled on the top of the
sauce. In making Dutch sauce for carrots use lemon-juice instead of
tarragon vinegar.

CARROTS, FRIED.--Fried carrots can be made from full-grown carrots. They
must be first parboiled and then cut in slices; they must then be dipped in
well-beaten-up egg, and then covered with fine dry bread-crumbs and fried a
nice brown in smoking hot oil in a frying-basket. The slices of carrot
should be peppered and salted before being dipped in the egg.

CARROTS, MASHED.--When carrots are very old they are best mashed. Boil
them for some time, then cut them up and rub them through a wire sieve.
They can be pressed in a basin and made hot by being steamed. A little
butter, pepper and salt should be added to the mixture. A very pretty dish
can be made by means of mixing mashed carrots with mashed turnips. They
can be shaped in a basin, and with a little ingenuity can be put into red
and white stripes. The effect is something like the top of a striped tent.

CAULIFLOWER, PLAIN BOILED.--Cauliflowers can be treated in exactly the same
manner as brocoli, and there are very few who can tell the difference.
(_See_ BROCOLI.)

CAULIFLOWER AU GRATIN.--This is a very nice method of serving cauliflower
as a course by itself. The cauliflower or cauliflowers should first be
boiled till thoroughly tender, very carefully drained, and then placed
upright in a vegetable-dish with the flower part uppermost. The whole of
the flower part should then be _masked_ (_i.e._, covered over) with some
thick white sauce. Allemande sauce or Dutch sauce will do. This is then
sprinkled over with grated Parmesan cheese and the dish put in the oven for
the top to brown. As soon as it _begins_ to brown take it out of the oven
and finish it off neatly with a salamander (a red-hot shovel will do), the
same way you finish cheese-cakes made from curds.

CAULIFLOWER AND TOMATO SAUCE.--Boil and place the cauliflower or flowers
upright in a dish as in the above recipe. Now mask all the flower part
very neatly, commencing round the edges first, with some tomato conserve
previously made warm, and serve immediately. This is a very pretty-looking
dish.

CELERY, STEWED.--The secret of having good stewed celery is only to cook
the white part. Throw the celery into boiling water, with only sufficient
water just to cover it. When the celery is tender use some of the water in
which it is stewed to make a sauce to serve with it, or better still, stew
the celery in milk. The sauce looks best when it is thickened with the
yolks of eggs. A very nice sauce indeed can be made by first thickening
the milk or water in which the celery is stewed with a little white roux,
and then adding a quarter of a pint of cream boiled separately. Stewed
celery should be served on toast, like asparagus; a little chopped blanched
parsley can be sprinkled over the white sauce by way of ornament, and fried
bread should be placed round the edge of the dish.

Stewed celery can also be served with sauce Allemande or Dutch sauce.

ENDIVE.--Endive is generally used as a salad, but is very nice served as a
vegetable, stewed. White-heart endives should be chosen, and several heads
will be required for a dish, as they shrink very much in cooking. Wash and
clean the endives very carefully in salt and water first, as they often
contain insects. Boil them in slightly salted water till they are tender,
then drain them off, and thoroughly extract the moisture; put them in a
stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, let them stew for
some little time; add the juice of a lemon, and serve. It will make the
dish much prettier if you reserve one head of endive boiled whole. Place
the stewed endive on a dish, and sprinkle some chopped blanched parsley
over it, then place the single head of endive upright in the centre, and
place some fried bread round the edge.

LEEKS, STEWED.--Leeks must be trimmed down to where the green part meets
the white on the one side, and the root, where the strings are, cut off on
the other. They should be thrown into boiling water, boiled till they are
tender, and then thoroughly drained. The water in which leeks have been
boiled is somewhat rank and bitter, and, as the leeks are like tubes, in
order to drain them perfectly you must turn them upside down. They can be
served on toast, and covered with some kind of white sauce, either ordinary
white sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce.

LEEKS, WELSH PORRIDGE.--The leeks are stewed and cut in slices, and served
in some of the liquor in which they are boiled, with toast cut in strips,
something like onion porridge. Boil the leeks for five minutes, drain them
off, and throw away the first water, and then stew them gently in some
fresh water. In years back, in Wales, French plums were stewed with and
added to the porridge.

LETTUCES, STEWED.--As lettuces shrink very much when boiled, allowance must
be made, and several heads used. This is also a very good way of utilising
the large old-fashioned English lettuce resembling in shape a gingham
umbrella. They should be first boiled till tender. The time depends
entirely upon the size. Drain them off, and thoroughly extract the
moisture; put them into a stew-pan, with a little butter, pepper, salt, and
nutmeg. Let them stew some little time, and add a little vinegar, or,
still better, lemon-juice.

LETTUCES STEWED WITH PEAS.--A border of stewed lettuces can be made as
above, and the centre filled up with some fresh-boiled young green peas.

ONIONS, PLAIN BOILED.--When onions are served as a dish by themselves,
Spanish onions are far best for the purpose. Ordinary onions, as a rule,
are too strong to be eaten, except as an accompaniment to some other kind
of food. When onions are plain boiled, they are best served on dry toast
without any sauce at all. Butter can be added when eaten on the plate if
liked. Large Spanish onions will require about three hours to boil tender.

ONIONS, BAKED.--Spanish onions can be baked in the oven. They are best
placed in saucers, with a very little butter to prevent them sticking, with
which they can also be basted occasionally. Probable time about three
hours. They should be of a nice brown colour at the finish.

ONIONS, STEWED.--Place a large Spanish onion in a saucer at the bottom of
the saucepan, and put sufficient water in the saucepan to reach the edge of
the saucer; keep the lid of the saucepan on tight, and let it steam till
tender. A large onion would take about three hours. The water from the
onion will prevent the necessity of adding fresh water from time to time.

PARSNIPS.--Like young carrots, young parsnips are often met with abroad as
a course by themselves. They should be trimmed and boiled whole, and
served with white sauce, Allemande sauce, or Dutch sauce; a little chopped
blanched parsley should be sprinkled over the sauce, and fried bread served
round the edge of the dish.

PARSNIPS, FRIED.--Boil some full-grown parsnips till they are tender, cut
them into slices, pepper and salt them, dip them into beaten-up egg, and
cover them with bread-crumbs, and fry these slices in some smoking hot oil
till they are a nice brown colour.

PARSNIPS, MASHED.--When parsnips are very old they are best mashed. Boil
them for an hour or more, then cut them up and rub them through a wire
sieve. The stringy part will have to be left behind. Mix the pulp with a
little butter, pepper, and salt; make this hot, and serve. A little cream
is a great improvement.

PARSNIP CAKE.--Boil two or three parsnips until they are tender enough to
mash, then press them through a colander with the back of a wooden spoon,
and carefully remove any fibrous, stringy pieces there may be. Mix a
teacupful of the mashed parsnip with a quart of hot milk, add a teaspoonful
of salt, four ounces of fresh butter, half a pint of yeast, and enough
flour to make a stiff batter. Put the bowl which contains the mixture in a
warm place, cover it with a cloth, and leave it to rise. When it has risen
to twice its original size, knead some more flour into it, and let it rise
again; make it into small round cakes a quarter of an inch thick, and place
these on buttered tins. Let them stand before the fire a few minutes, and
bake them in a hot oven. They do not taste of the parsnip. Time, some
hours to rise; about twenty minutes to bake.

PEAS, GREEN.--By far the best and nicest way of cooking green peas when
served as a course by themselves is to stew them gently in a little butter
without any water at all, like they do in France. The peas are first
shelled, and then placed in a stew-pan with a little butter, sufficient to
moisten them. As soon as they are tender, which will vary with the size
and age of the peas, they can be served just as they are. The flavour of
peas cooked this way is so delicious that they are nicest eaten with plain
bread. When old peas are cooked this way it is customary to add a little
white powdered sugar.

PEAS, GREEN, PLAIN BOILED.--Shell the peas, and throw them into boiling
water slightly salted. Keep the lid off the saucepan and throw in a few
sprigs of fresh green mint five minutes before you drain them off. Young
peas will take about ten to twenty minutes, and full-grown peas rather
longer. Serve the peas directly they are drained, as they are spoilt by
being kept hot.

PEAS, STEWED.--When peas late in the season get old and tough, they can be
stewed. Boil them for rather more than half an hour, throwing them first
of all into boiling water; drain them off, and put them into a stew-pan
with a little butter, pepper, and salt. Young onions and lettuces cut up
can be stewed with them, but young green peas are far too nice ever to be
spoilt by being cooked in this way.

SCOTCH KALE.--Scotch kale, or curly greens, as it is sometimes called in
some parts of the country, is cooked like ordinary greens. It should be
washed very carefully, and thrown into fast-boiling salted water. The
saucepan should remain uncovered, as we wish to preserve the dark green
colour. Young Scotch kale will take about twenty minutes to boil before it
is tender. When boiled, if served as a course by itself, it should be
strained off very thoroughly and warmed in a stew-pan with a little butter,
pepper, and salt.

SEA KALE.--Sea kale possesses a very delicate flavour, and in cooking it
the endeavour should be to preserve this flavour. Throw the sea kale when
washed into boiling water; in about twenty minutes, if it is young, it will
be tender. Serve it on plain dry toast, and keep all the heads one way.
Butter sauce, white sauce, Dutch sauce, or sauce Allemande can be served
with sea kale, but should be sent to table separate in a boat, as the
majority of good judges prefer the sea kale quite plain.

SPINACH.--The chief difficulty to contend with in cooking spinach is the
preliminary cleansing. The best method of washing spinach is to take two
buckets of water. Wash it in one; the spinach will float on the top whilst
the dirt settles at the bottom. Lift the spinach from one pail, after you
have allowed it to settle for a few minutes, into the other pail. One or
two rinsings will be sufficient. Spinach should be picked if the stalks
are large, and thrown into boiling water slightly salted. Boil the spinach
till it is tender, which will take about a quarter of an hour, then drain
it off and cut it very small in a basin with a knife and fork, place it
back in a saucepan with a little piece of butter to make it thoroughly hot,
put it in a vegetable dish and serve.

Hard-boiled eggs cut in halves, or poached eggs, are usually served with
spinach. A little cream, nutmeg, and lemon-juice can be added. Many cooks
rub the spinach through a wire sieve.

VEGETABLE MARROW.--Vegetable marrows must be first peeled, cut open, the
pips removed, and then thrown into boiling water; small ones should be cut
into quarters and large ones into pieces about as big as the palm of the
hand. They take from fifteen to twenty minutes to boil before they are
tender. They should be served directly they are cooked and placed on dry
toast. Butter sauce or white sauce can be served with them, but is best
sent to table separate in a boat, as many persons prefer them plain.

VEGETABLE MARROWS, STUFFED.--Young vegetable marrows are very nice stuffed.
They should be first peeled very slightly and then cut, long-ways, into
three zigzag slices; the pips should be removed and the interior filled
with either mushroom forcemeat (_see_ MUSHROOM FORCEMEAT) or sage-and-onion
stuffing made with rather an extra quantity of bread-crumbs. The vegetable
marrow should be tied up with two separate loops of tape about a quarter of
the way from each end, and these two rings of tape tied together with two
or three separate pieces of tape to prevent them slipping off at the ends.
The forcemeat or stuffing should be made hot before it is placed in the
marrow. The vegetable marrow should now be thrown into boiling water and
boiled till it is tender, about twenty minutes to half an hour. Take off
the tape carefully, and be careful to place the marrow so that one half
rests on the other half, or else it will slip.

N.B.--If you place the stuffing inside cold, the vegetable marrow will
break before the inside gets hot through.

TURNIPS, BOILED.--When turnips are young they are best boiled whole. Peel
them first very thinly, and throw them into cold water till they are ready
for the saucepan. Throw them into boiling water slightly salted. They
will probably take about twenty minutes to boil. They can be served quite
plain or with any kind of white sauce, butter sauce, sauce Allemande, or
Dutch sauce. In vegetarian cookery they are perhaps best served with some
other kind of vegetable.

TURNIPS, MASHED.--Old turnips are best mashed, as they are stringy. Boil
them till they get fairly tender; they will take from half an hour to two
hours, according to age; then rub them through a wire sieve and warm up the
pulp with a little milk, or still better, cream and a little butter; add
pepper and salt.

N.B.--If the pulp be very moist let it stand and get rid of the moisture
gradually in a frying-pan over a very slack fire.

TURNIPS, ORNAMENTAL.--A very pretty way of serving young turnips in
vegetarian cookery is to cut them in halves and scoop out the centre so as
to form cups; the part scooped out can be mixed with some carrot cut up
into small pieces, and some green peas, and placed in the middle of a dish
in a heap; the half-turnips forming cups can be placed round the base of
the dish and each cup filled alternately with the red part of the carrot,
chopped small and piled up, and a spoonful of green peas. This makes a
very pretty dish of mixed vegetables.

TURNIP-TOPS.--Turnip-tops, when fresh cut, make very nice and wholesome
greens. They should be thrown into boiling water and boiled for about
twenty minutes, when they will be tender. They should then be cut up with
a knife and fork very finely and served like spinach. If rubbed through a
wire sieve and a little spinach extract mixed with them to give them the
proper colour, and served with hard-boiled eggs, there are very few persons
who can distinguish the dish from eggs and spinach.

VEGETABLE CURRY.--A border made of all kinds of mixed vegetables is very
nice sent to table with some good thick curry sauce poured in the centre.

NETTLES, TO BOIL.--The best time to gather nettles for eating purposes is
in the early spring. They are freely eaten in many parts of the country,
as they are considered excellent for purifying the blood. The young
light-green leaves only should be taken. They must be washed carefully and
boiled in two waters, a little salt and a very small piece of soda being
put in the last water. When tender, turn them into a colander, press the
water from them, put them into a hot vegetable-dish, score them across
three or four times, and serve. Send melted butter to table in a tureen.
Time, about a quarter of an hour to boil.

SALSIFY.--Scrape the salsify and throw it into cold water with a little
vinegar. Then throw it into boiling water, boil til tender, and serve on
toast with white sauce. Time to boil, about one hour.

CHAPTER IX.

PRESERVED VEGETABLES AND FRUITS.

Vegetables and fruits are preserved in two ways. We can have them
preserved both in bottles and tins, but the principle is exactly the same
in both cases, the method of preservation being simply that of excluding
the air. We will not enter into the subject of how to preserve fruit and
vegetables, but will confine ourselves to discussing as briefly as possible
the best method of using them when they are preserved.

Unfortunately there exists a very unreasonable prejudice on the part of
many persons against all kinds of provisions that are preserved in tins.
This prejudice is kept alive by stories that occasionally get into print
about families being poisoned by using tinned goods. We hear stories also
of poisoning resulting from using copper vessels. Housekeepers should
endeavour to grasp the idea that the evil is the result of their own
ignorance, and that no danger would accrue were they possessed of a little
more elementary knowledge of chemistry. If a penny be dipped in vinegar
and exposed to the air, and is then licked by a child, a certain amount of
ill effect would undoubtedly ensue, but it does not follow that we should
give up the use of copper money. So, too, if we use tinned goods, and
owing to our own carelessness or ignorance find occasionally that evil
results ensue, we should not give up the use of the goods in question, but
endeavour to find out the cause why these evil results follow only
occasionally.

All good cooks know, or ought to know, that if they leave the soup all
night in a saucepan the soup is spoilt. Again, all housekeepers know that
although they have a metal tank, they are bound to have a wooden lid on
top, there being a law to this effect. The point they forget in using
tinned goods is this, so long as the air is excluded from the interior of
the tin no chemical action goes on whatever. When, therefore, they open
the tin, if they turn out the contents at once no harm can ensue.
Unfortunately, there are many thousands who will open a tin, take out what
they want, and _leave the remainder in the tin_. Of course, they have only
themselves to blame should evil result.

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