The art of cookery

of the spider with a spoon, let it cook slowly until nicely browned on the under side, then fold like an omelet, and serve on a warm platter. To Saute Hash. — Mix together a half pint of cold cooked fresh meat, or corned beef hashed, and half a pint of cold hashed potato. The fresh meat may be either broiled, roasted, boiled, or stewed, and the potatoes either boiled or baked. Season the mixture to taste with salt and pepper, moisten with four tablespoonfuls of broth, gravy, milk, or cream, brown in a spider, with two tablespoonfuls of butter, fold like an omelet, and serve on a warm platter garnished with breakfast bacon. Serve with it sour baked or stewed apples. To Saute Fish Cakes. — Mix together half a pint of boiled codfish freed from bones and skin, half a pint of mashed, boiled potato, two tablespoonfuls of sweet milk, and one tablespoonful of butter. Season to taste with salt and pepper, form into cakes half an inch thick, and brown in a spider in hot butter, or the drippings of salt pork or breakfast bacon. To Saute Sausage. — Form the prepared sausage meat into small cakes half an inch in thickness. Lay in a spider or on a griddle, without grease, and as soon as the under side is browned turn over and brown the upper side, then cover the spider, shove it to the back of the range, and let the sausage simmer five minutes. To cook sausage in skins, pierce the skins in several places with a skewer or fork, put in a spider, add a few spoonfuls of boiling water, cover closely, simmer gently for twenty minutes, then remove the cover and let the sausage become brown before serving it. Frying. 155 To Saute Calf's Liver.— Remove the skin from the liver, cut in slices half an inch in thickness, soak in salted cold water half an hour, dry on a towel, dust lightly with pepper and freely with flour, and cook gently in a spider in a little clarified butter, or drippings from salt pork or breakfast bacon, until thoroughly done. Serve crisp slices of breakfast bacon or salt pork with the liver. CHAPTER XIII. SICK-ROOM COOKERY. Cookery for invalids and sick-room cookery, as indicating a particular kind of cookery, are misleading terms, if not gross misnomers. Nearly all articles of food that are suitable for people in ordinary health are suitable, under certain conditions, for invalids at some periods of their sickness or convalescence. For the principles that govern the scientific preparation of food apply in all cases — whether the food be prepared for invalids or for persons in robust health. The province of a physician is to prescribe the articles of diet best adapted to the special needs of each patient. To prepare those articles according to the most approved culinary methods is the duty of the nurse. Therefore, to be a good nurse one must understand the principles of cookery and be able to apply them practically in the preparation of such articles as are prescribed by the physician. There are, however, a number of simple gruels, beverages, and toasts, seldom relished by people in health, that are craved by invalids, and may be beneficial to them. Most of these are permissible in all sick rooms, and can be used, at suitable times, by a judicious nurse without consulting a physician or without fear of their proving detrimental to the patient. To indicate the gen- Sick- Room Cookery. 157