A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House

book will be able to add to the cheerfulness of nations. JOSEPH CONRAD. CONTENTS PAGE PREFACE v A FEW INTRODUCTORY WORDS 1 ON KITCHEN REQUISITES 4 TREATMENT OF VEGETABLES 8 BREAKFAST DISHES, ENTRÉES, SAVOURIES, STUFFINGS, SAUCES, HORS D’ŒUVRES, SANDWICHES 25 SOUPS AND STOCKS 63 BEEF 71 MUTTON 78 VEAL AND PORK 84 FISH 89 FOWLS AND GAME BIRDS 96 VEGETABLES AND SALADS 102 PASTRIES, SWEETS AND CAKES 115 _A Handbook of Cookery_ _For a Small House_ A FEW INTRODUCTORY WORDS Cooking ought not to take too much of one’s time. One hour and a half to two hours for lunch, and two and a half for dinner is sufficient, providing that the servant knows how to make up the fire in order to get the stove ready for use. Most girls will quickly learn to do that and how to put a joint properly in the oven. For my part I never went into the kitchen before half-past eleven for a half-past one lunch of three dishes. But once the cooking is begun one must give all one’s attention and care to it. No dish, however simple, will cook itself. You must not leave the kitchen while the cooking is going on--unless of necessity and only for a very few minutes at a time. The bane of life in a small house is the smell of cooking. Very few are free from it. And yet it need not be endured at all. This evil yields to nothing more heroic than a simple but scrupulous care in all the processes in making food ready for consumption. That is why your constant presence in the kitchen is recommended. Unremitting care should be directed to the following points: No saucepan should be allowed of course to boil over. No frying pan should ever be put on the fire without the butter or lard being first placed in it, and that not before the pan is required for use. No joint should be placed in the oven so high as to allow the fat to splutter against the roof of the oven. No joint