A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Domestic Economy and Cookery

beefsteak makes a nice brown stew, treated in this same way. _Question._ Do you skim the stew? MISS CORSON. No. Not unless you are going to make a perfectly clear soup need you ever skim; because, as I explained this morning, the scum which rises on the surface in boiling meat is not dirt, it is albumen and blood, with the same nutritious properties as the meat itself, and you do not want to remove them. If the water boils away in cooking soups and stews always add a little more; it will save time if you add boiling water, unless as in the case of peas, you add cold water for the purpose of softening them. You will find, if you are trying to cook dried beans, that it will be well to add cold water, and boil them gradually. _Question._ In cooking beans isn't it a good way to let the beans come to a boil and then pour off the water and put on more cold? MISS CORSON. That is simply a question of taste. It is not necessary to do it. If you pour away the first water in which they come to a boil, you pour away a certain amount of their nourishment, which already has escaped in the water. Some people say that they like to pour away that first water, because it carries off the strong taste of the beans. That is a question for any one to settle individually. The water would not have the strong taste of the beans if there were not some of the nourishment of the beans in it. While we are on the subject of beans I might tell you a good way to cook beans plainly, a favorite way in the south of France, the beans to be served with roast mutton. Cook them in just water enough to cover them, after having first washed them, adding only water enough to keep them covered all the time. They are dried white beans. Then at the last, when the beans are tender, leave off the cover of