Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery by A. G. Payne

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Preserved vegetables are so useful that they are inseparable from civilised
cookery; for instance, what would a French cook do were he dependent for
his mushrooms upon these fresh grown in the fields? The standard dish at
vegetarian restaurants is mushroom pie, and, thanks to tinned mushrooms, we
can obtain this dish all the year round. In most restaurants peas are on
the bill of fare throughout the year. Were we dependent upon fresh grown
ones, this popular dish would be confined almost to a few weeks.

In the case of preserved goods, tinned fruits are even more valuable than
tinned vegetables. Ripe apricots and peaches picked fresh from the tree
are expensive luxuries that in this country can only be indulged in by the
rich, whereas, thanks to the art of preserving, we are enabled to enjoy
them all the year round. We will run briefly through a few of the chief
vegetables and fruits, and give a few hints how to best use them. First of
all--

ASPARAGUS, TINNED.--Place the tin in the saucepan with sufficient cold
water to cover it. Bring the water to a boil and let it boil for five
minutes; take out the tin and cut it open round the edge, as near to the
edge as possible, otherwise you will be apt to break the asparagus in
turning it out. Drain off the liquor and serve the asparagus on freshly
made hot toast. There is much less waste as a rule in tinned asparagus
than in that freshly cut. As a rule, you can eat nearly the whole of it.

PEAS, TINNED.--Put the tin before it is opened into cold water, bring the
water to a boil, and let it boil five minutes, or longer if the tin is a
large one. Cut open the tin at the top, pour out the liquor, and serve the
peas with a few sprigs of fresh mint, if it can be obtained, that have been
boiled for two or three minutes. Supposing the tin to contain a pint of
peas, add while the peas are thoroughly hot a brimming saltspoonful of
finely powdered sugar, and half a saltspoonful of salt. If the peas are to
be eaten by themselves, as is generally the case with vegetarians, add a
good-sized piece of butter.

FRENCH BEANS, TINNED.--These can be treated in exactly similar manner to
green peas, only, instead of adding mint, add a little chopped blanched
parsley; the same quantity of sugar and salt should be added as in the case
of peas. After the butter has melted, it is a great improvement, when the
beans are eaten as a course by themselves, with bread, if the juice of half
a lemon is added.

FLAGEOLETS, TINNED.--For this delicious vegetable, in England, we are
dependent upon tinned goods, as we cannot recall an instance in which they
can be bought freshly gathered. Warm up the beans in the tin by placing
the tin in cold water, bringing the water to a boil, and letting it boil
for five minutes. Drain off the liquor, add a saltspoonful of sugar, half
a one of salt, and a lump of butter. Instead of butter, you can add to
each pint two tablespoonfuls of pure olive oil. Many persons consider it a
great improvement to rub the vegetable-dish with a bead of garlic. In this
case the beans should be tossed about in the dish for a minute or two.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS, TINNED.--The tin should be made hot before it is opened,
the liquor drained off, and the sprouts placed in a dish, with a little
butter or oil, powdered sugar, salt, pepper, and a slight flavouring of
nutmeg. In France, in some parts, a little cream is poured over them.

SPINACH, TINNED.--Spinach is sold in tins fairly cheap, and, quoting from
the list of a large retail establishment where prices correspond with those
of the Civil Service Stores, a tin of spinach can be obtained for
fivepence-halfpenny. The spinach should be made very hot in the tin,
turned out on to a dish, and hard-boiled eggs, hot, cut in halves, added.
Some people add also a little vinegar, but, unless persons' tastes are
known beforehand, that is best added on the plate.

CARROTS, TINNED.--Young carrots can be obtained in tins, and, as only young
carrots are nice when served as a course by themselves, these will be found
a valuable addition to the vegetarian store-cupboard. Make the carrots hot
in the tin, and let the water boil, for quite ten minutes after it comes to
the boiling point. Drain off the liquor, and serve them with some kind of
white sauce exactly as if they were freshly boiled young carrots.

TURNIPS, TINNED.--Proceed exactly the same as in the case of carrots.

FOND D'ARTICHOKE.--These consist of the bottom part only of French
artichokes. They should be made hot in the tin, and served up with some
good butter sauce, and cut lemon separate, as many prefer the artichokes
plain.

MACEDOINES.--This, as the word implies, is a mixture of various vegetables,
the chief of which are generally chopped-up carrot and turnip with young
green peas. A very nice dish which can be served at a very short notice,
if you have curry sauce in bottles, is a dish of vegetable curry. The
macedoines should be made hot in the tin, the liquor drained off, and the
curry sauce, made hot, should be poured into a well made in the centre of
the macedoines in the dish. Macedoines are also very useful, as they can
be served as a vegetable salad at a moment's notice, as the vegetables are
sufficiently cooked without being made hot.

TINNED FRUITS.--Tinned fruits are ready for eating directly the tin is
opened. All we have to bear in mind is to turn them all out of the tin on
to a dish immediately. Do not leave any in the tin to be used at another
time. Most tinned fruits can be served just as they are, in a glass dish,
but a great improvement can be made in their appearance at a very small
cost and with a very little extra trouble if we always have in the house a
little preserved angelica and a few dried cherries. As these cost about a
shilling or one and fourpence per pound, and even a quarter of a pound is
sufficient to ornament two or three dozen dishes, the extra expense is
almost nil.

APRICOTS, TINNED.--Pile the apricots up, with the convex side uppermost, in
a glass dish, reserving one cup apricot to go on the top, with the concave
side uppermost. Take a few preserved cherries, and cut them in halves, and
stick half a cherry in all the little holes or spaces where the apricots
meet. Cut four little green leaves out of the angelica about the size of
the thumb-nail, only a little longer; the size of a filbert would perhaps
describe the size better. Put a whole cherry in the apricot cup at the
top, and four green leaves of angelica round it. Take the white kernel of
the apricot--one or two will always be found in every tin--and cut four
white slices out of the middle, place these round the red cherry, touching
the cherry, and resting between the four green leaves of angelica; the top
of this dish has now the appearance of a very pretty flower.

PEACHES, TINNED.--These can be treated in exactly a similar way to the
apricots.

PEACHES AND APRICOTS, WITH CREAM.--Place the fruit in a glass dish, with
the concave side uppermost; pour the syrup round the fruit, and with a
teaspoon remove any syrup that may have settled in the little cups, for
such the half-peaches or apricots may be called. Get a small jar of
Devonshire clotted cream; take about half a teaspoonful of cream, and place
it in the middle of each cup, and place a single preserved cherry on the
top of the cream. This dish can be made still prettier by chopping up a
little green angelica, like parsley, and sprinkling a few of these little
green specks on the white cream.

PINE-APPLE, TINNED.--Pine-apples are preserved in tins whole, and are very
superior in flavour to those which are sold cheap on barrows, which are
more rotten than ripe. They require very little ornamenting, but the top
is greatly improved by placing a red cherry in the centre, and cutting
eight strips of green angelica like spikes, reaching from the cherry to the
edge of the pine-apple. They should be cut in exact lengths, so as not to
overlap. The top of the pine-apple looks like a green star with a red
centre.

PEARS, TINNED.--Tinned pears are exceedingly nice in flavour, but the
drawback to them is their appearance. They look like pale and rather dirty
wax, while the syrup with which they are surrounded resembles the water in
which potatoes have been over-boiled. The prettiest way of sending them to
table is as follows:--Take, say a teacupful of rice, wash it very
carefully, boil it, and let it get dry and cold. Take the syrup from the
pears and taste it, and if not sweet enough add some powdered sugar. Put
the rice in a glass dish, and make a very small well in the centre, and
pour all the syrup into this, so that it soaks into the rice at the bottom
of the dish without affecting the appearance of the surface. In the
meantime, place the pears themselves on a dish, and let the syrup drain off
them, and if you can let them stand for an hour or two to let them dry all
the better. Now, with an ordinary brush, paint these waxy-looking pears a
bright red with a little cochineal, and place these half-pears on the white
rice, slanting, with the thick part downwards and the stalk end uppermost.
Cut a few sticks of green angelica about an inch and a half long and of the
thickness of the ordinary stalk of a pear, and stick one of these into the
stalk end of each pear. The red pear, with the green stalk resting on the
snow-white bed of rice, looks very pretty. A little chopped angelica can
be sprinkled over the white rice, like chopped parsley.

FRUITS, BOTTLED.--When apricots and peaches are preserved in bottles, they
can be treated exactly in a similar manner to those preserved in tins. It
will be found advisable, however, to taste the syrup in the bottle, as it
will be often found that it requires the addition of a little more sugar.
Ordinary bottled fruits, such as gooseberries, currants, raspberries,
rhubarb, damsons, cranberries, etc., can be used for making fruit pies, or
they can be sent to table simply as stewed fruit. In this case some
whipped cream on the top is a very great improvement. Another very nice
way of sending these bottled fruits to table is to fill a border made with
rice, as described in Chapter III.

CHAPTER X.

JELLIES (VEGETARIAN) AND JAMS.

By vegetarian jelly we mean jellies made on vegetarian principles. To be
consistent, if we cannot use anchovy sauce because it is made from fish, on
the same principle we cannot use either gelatine or isinglass, which, of
course, as everybody knows, is made from fishes. For all this, there is no
reason why vegetarians should not enjoy jellies quite equal, so far as
flavour is concerned, to ordinary jelly. The simplest substitute for
gelatine, or what is virtually the same thing, isinglass, is corn-flour.
Tapioca could be used, but corn-flour saves much trouble. Some persons may
urge that it is not fair to give the name of jelly to a corn-flour pudding.
There is, however, a very great difference between a corn-flour pudding
flavoured with orange, and what we may call an orange jelly, in which
corn-flour is only introduced, like gelatine, for the purpose of
transforming a liquid into a solid.

We also have this advantage in using corn-flour: it is much more simple and
can be utilised for making a very large variety of jellies, many of which,
probably, will be new even to vegetarians themselves. We are all agreed on
one point, _i.e._, the wholesomeness of freshly picked ripe fruit. We will
suppose the season to be autumn and the blackberries ripe on the hedgerows,
and that the children of the family are nothing loth to gather, say, a
couple of quarts. We will now describe how to make a mould of--

BLACKBERRY JELLY.--Put the blackberries in an enamelled saucepan with a
little water at the bottom, and let them stew gently till they yield up
their juice, or they can be placed in a jar in the oven. They can now be
strained through a hair sieve, but, still better, they can be squeezed dry
in a tamis cloth. This juice should now be sweetened, and it can be made
into jelly in two ways, both of which are perfectly lawful in vegetarian
cookery. The juice, like red currant juice, can be boiled with a large
quantity of white sugar till the jelly sets of its own accord; in this case
we should require one pound of sugar to every pint of juice, and the result
would be a blackberry jelly like red currant jelly, more like a preserve
than the jelly we are accustomed to eat at dinner alone. For instance, no
one would care to eat a quantity of red currant jelly like we should
ordinary orange or lemon jelly--it would be too sickly; consequently we
will take a pint or a quart of our blackberry juice only and sufficient
sugar to make it agreeably sweet without being sickly. We will boil this
in a saucepan and add a tablespoonful of corn-flour mixed with a little
cold juice to every pint to make the juice thick. This can be now poured
into a mould or plain round basin; we will suppose the latter. When the
jelly has got quite cold we can turn it out on to a dish, say a silver
dish, with a piece of white ornamental paper at the bottom. We now have to
ornament this mould of blackberry jelly, and, as a rule, it will be found
that no ornament can surpass natural ones. Before boiling the blackberries
for the purpose of extracting their juice, pick out two or three dozen of
the largest and ripest, wash them and put them by with some of the young
green leaves of the blackberry plant itself, which should be picked as
nearly as possible of the same size, and, like the blackberries, must be
washed. Now place a row of blackberry leaves round the base of the mould,
with the stalk of the leaf under the mould, and on each leaf place a ripe
blackberry touching the mould itself. Take four very small leaves and
stick them on the top of the mould, in the centre, and put the largest and
best-looking blackberry of all upright in the centre. This dish is now
pretty-looking enough to be served on really great occasions. We consider
this dish worthy of being called blackberry jelly, and not corn-flour
pudding.

LEMON JELLY.--Take six lemons and half a pound of sugar, and rub the sugar
on the outside of three of the lemons; the lemons must be hard and yellow,
the peel should not be shrivelled. Now squeeze the juice of all six lemons
into a basin, add the sugar and a pint of water. Of course, the
lemon-juice must be strained. (If wine is allowed, add half a pint of good
golden sherry or Madeira.) Bring this to the boil and thicken it with some
corn-flour in the ordinary way, allowing a tablespoonful of corn-flour for
every pint of fluid. Pour it into a mould and when it is set turn it out.
A lemon jelly like this should be turned on to a piece of ornamental paper
placed at the bottom of a silver or some other kind of dish. The base of
the mould should be ornamented with thin slices of lemon cut in half, the
diameter touching the base of the mould and the semicircular piece of peel
outside. If a round basin has been used for a mould, place a corner of a
lemon on the top in the middle, surrounded with a few imitation green
leaves cut out of angelica. This improves the dish in appearance and also
shows what the dish is made of.

ORANGE JELLY.--Take six oranges, two lemons, and half a pound of lump
sugar; rub the sugar on the outside of three of the oranges, squeeze the
juice of the six oranges into a basin with the juice of two lemons, strain,
add the sugar and a pint of water. The liquid will be of an orange colour,
owing to the rind of the orange rubbed on to the sugar. (If wine be
allowed, add half a pint of golden sherry or Madeira.) Bring the liquid to
boiling point and then thicken it with corn-flour, and pour it while hot
into a mould or plain white basin; when cold, turn it out on to a piece of
ornamental paper placed at the bottom of a dish; surround the bottom of the
mould with thin slices of orange cut into quarters and the centre part
pushed under the mould; place the small end of an orange on the top of the
mould with some little leaves or spikes of green angelica placed round the
edge.

BLACK CURRANT JELLY.--The juice of black currants makes excellent jelly in
the ordinary way if we boil a pint of black currant juice with a pound of
sugar till it sets; but a mould of black currant jelly suitable to be used
as a sweet at dinner can be made by adding less sugar and thickening the
juice with corn-flour, allowing about a tablespoonful to every pint, and
pouring it into a mould or plain round basin. The mould can be ornamented
as follows, and we will suppose a pudding-basin to be used for the purpose.
We will suppose the mould of jelly to have been turned out on to a clean
sheet of white paper. Pick some of the brighter green black-currant leaves
off the tree, and place these round the base of the mould with the stalk of
the leaf pushed underneath and the point of the leaf pointing outwards.
Now choose a few very small bunches of black currants, wash these and dip
them into very weak gum and water, and then dip them into white powdered
sugar. They now look, when they are dry, as if they were crystallised or
covered with hoar-frost. Place one of these little bunches, with the stalk
stuck into the mould of jelly, about an inch from the bottom, so that each
bunch rests on a green leaf. Cut a small stick of angelica and stick it
into the top of the mould upright, and let a bunch of frosted black
currants hang over the top. If we wish to make the mould of jelly very
pretty as a supper dish, where there is a good top light, we can dip the
green leaves into weak gum and water and then sprinkle over them some
powdered glass.

RED CURRANT JELLY.--Red currant jelly can be made in exactly a similar
manner, substituting red currants for black.

RASPBERRY JELLY.--The raspberries should be picked very ripe, and two or
three dozen of the best-looking ones of the largest and ripest should be
reserved for ornamenting. If possible, also gather some red currants and
mix with the raspberries, on account of the colour, which otherwise would
be very poor indeed. It will be found best to rub the raspberries through
a hair sieve, as the addition of the pulp very much improves the flavour of
the jelly. The sieve should be sufficiently fine to prevent the pips of
the raspberries passing through it. The juice and pulp from the
raspberries and currants can now be thickened with corn-flour as directed
in the recipe for blackberry jelly. Raspberry leaves should be placed
round the base of the jelly and a ripe raspberry placed on each. The
best-looking raspberry can be placed on the top of the mould in the centre
of two or three raspberry leaves stuck in the jelly.

APPLE JAM AND APPLE JELLY.--The following recipe is taken from "A Year's
Cookery," by Phyllis Brown:--"The best time for making apple jelly is about
the middle of November. Almost all kinds of apples may be used for the
purpose, though, if a clear white jelly is wanted, Colvilles or
orange-pippins should be chosen; if red jelly is preferred, very
rosy-cheeked apples should be taken, and the skins should be boiled with
the fruit. Apple jam is made of the fruit after the juice has been drawn
off for jelly. Economical housekeepers will find that very excellent jelly
can be made of apple parings, so that where apples in any quantity have
been used for pies and tarts the skins can be stewed in sufficient water to
cover them, and when the liquor is strongly flavoured it can be strained
and boiled with sugar to a jelly. To make apple jelly, pare, core and
slice the apples and put them into a preserving-pan with enough water to
cover them. Stir them occasionally and stew gently till the apples have
fallen, then turn all into a jelly-bag and strain away the juice, but do
not squeeze or press the pulp. Measure the liquid and allow a pound of
sugar to a pint of juice. Put both juice and sugar back into the
preserving-pan, and, if liked, add one or two cloves tied in muslin, or two
or three inches of lemon-rind. Boil gently and skim carefully for about
half an hour, or till a little of the jelly put upon a plate will set.
Pour it while hot into jars, and when cold and stiff cover down in the
usual way. If yellow jelly is wanted a pinch of saffron tied in muslin
should be boiled with the juice. To make apple jam, weigh the apple pulp
after the juice has been drawn from it, rub it through a hair sieve, and
allow one pound of sugar to one pint of pulp, and the grated rind of a
lemon to three pints of pulp. Boil all gently together till the jam will
set when a little is put on a plate. Apple jam is sometimes flavoured with
vanilla instead of lemon."

DAMSON JELLY.--Damson jelly can be made in two ways. The juice can be
boiled with sugar till it gets like red currant jelly, or the juice of the
damsons can be sweetened with less sugar and thickened with corn-flour. In
order to extract the juice from damsons they should be sliced and placed in
a jar or basin and put in the oven. They are best left in the oven all
night. If the mould of jelly is made in a round basin, a single whole
damson can be placed on the top of the mould and green leaves placed round
the base.

PINE-APPLE JELLY.--The syrup from a preserved pine, should the pine-apple
itself be used for mixing with other fruits, or for ornamental purposes,
can be utilised by being made into a mould of jelly and by being thickened
with corn-flour. It will bear the addition of a little water.

APRICOT JELLY.--The juice from tinned apricots can be treated like that of
pine-apple. When a mixture of fruits is served in a large bowl, the syrup
from tinned fruits should not be added, but at the same time, of course,
should be used in some other way.

MULBERRY JELLY.--Mullberries, of course, would not be bought for the
purpose, but those who possess a mulberry tree in their garden will do well
to utilise what are called windfalls by making mulberry jelly. The juice
can be extracted by placing the fruit in a jar and putting it in the oven;
sugar must be added, and the juice thickened with corn-flour. There are
few other ways of using unripe mulberries.

JAMS.--Home-made jam is not so common now as it was some years back. As a
rule, it does not answer from an economical point of view to _buy_ fruit to
make jam. On the other hand, those who possess a garden will find
home-made jam a great saving. Those who have attempted to sell their fruit
probably know this to their cost. In making every kind of jam it is
essential the fruit should be picked dry. It is also a time-honoured
tradition that the fruit is best picked when basking in the morning sun.
It is also necessary that the fruit should be free from dust, and that all
decayed or rotten fruit should be carefully picked out.

Jam is made by boiling the fruit with sugar, and it is false economy to get
common sugar; cheap sugar throws up a quantity of scum. Years back many
persons used brown sugar, but in the present day the difference in the
price of brown and white sugar is so trifling that the latter should always
be used for the purpose. The sugar should not be crushed. It is best to
boil the fruit before adding the sugar. The scum should be removed, and a
wooden spoon used for the purpose. A large enamel stew-pan can be used,
but tradition is in favour of a brass preserving-pan. It will be found
best to boil the fruit as rapidly as possible. The quantity of sugar
varies slightly with the fruit used. Supposing we have a pound of fruit,
the following list gives what is generally considered about the proper
quantity of sugar

APRICOT JAM.--Three-quarters of a pound.

BLACKBERRY JAM.--Half a pound; if apple is mixed, rather more.

BLACK CURRANT JAM.--One pound.

RED CURRANT JAM.--One pound.

DAMSON JAM.--One pound.

GOOSEBERRY JAM.--Three-quarters of a pound.

GREENGAGE JAM.--Three-quarters of a pound.

PLUM JAM.--One pound.

RASPBERRY JAM.--One pound.

STRAWBERRY JAM.-Three-quarters of a pound.

CARROT JAM.--If you wish the jam to be of a good colour, only use the
outside or red part of the carrots. Add the rind and the juice of one
lemon, and one pound of sugar to every pound of pulp; a little brandy is a
great improvement.

RHUBARB JAM.--To every pound of pulp add three-quarters of a pound of
sugar, and the juice of one lemon and the rind of half a lemon. Essence of
almonds can be substituted for the lemon.

VEGETABLE MARROW JAM.--Add three-quarters of a pound of sugar to every
pound of pulp. The jam can be flavoured either with ginger or lemon-juice.

CHAPTER XI.

CREAMS, CUSTARDS, AND CHEESE-CAKES.

CREAMS.--Creams may be divided into two classes--whipped cream, flavoured
in a variety of ways, and the solid moulds of cream, which when turned out
look extremely elegant, but which when tasted are somewhat disappointing.
These latter moulds owe their firmness and consistency to the addition of
isinglass, and, as this substance is not allowed in vegetarian cookery, we
shall be able to dispense with cream served in this form, nor are we losers
by so doing. The ordinary mould of cream is too apt to taste like spongy
liver, and, so far as palate is concerned, is incomparably inferior to the
more delicate whipped creams. Just in the same way a good rich custard
made with yolks of eggs is spoilt by being turned into a solid custard by
the addition of gelatine. In order to have good whipped cream, the first
essential is to obtain pure cream. This greatly depends upon the
neighbourhood in which we live. In country houses, away from large towns,
there is as a rule no trouble, whereas in London really good cream can only
be obtained with great difficulty. There is a well-known old story of the
London milkman telling the cook who complained of the quality of the cream
to stir it up, as the cream settled at the bottom. We will not enter into
the subject of the adulteration of cream in big cities, as probably many of
these stories are gross exaggerations, though it is said that pigs' brains
and even horses' brains have been used for the purpose of giving the cream
a consistency, while undoubtedly turmeric has been used to give it a
colour.

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