Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Vegetables, Cooking of.— Few persons know how to cook vegetables. The rule is simple, and should never be forgotten. Every kind of vegetable intended to be served whole should, when put to boil, be placed at once in boiling water; and this applies especially to potatoes and vegetables from which the outer covering has been removed. Now it often happens that potatoes, &c., are, to save time, placed in cold water, and left to boil gradually. It is just this which allows the nutritious matter to escape, and renders a meal from vegetables unsatisfying. When, on the contrary, the water boils from the moment that the vegetable is immersed in it, the albumen is partially coagulated near the surface, and serves to retain the virtue of the vegetable. The reverse is of course the rule for making soup, or any dish from which the water will not be drained. By placing the vegetables in cold water, the albumen is slowly dissolved, and actually mixes with the water — a process most necessary for the production of nutritious soup. Vegetables, Dried, for Julienne and Clear Soups. — As vegetables for soups are rather troublesome to cut, especially for those unaccustomed to the work, and as fresh choice vegetables are not always to be had, the cook will find it both convenient and economical to have at hand a small quantity of dried vegetables, which may be bought at various foreign warehouses. These vegetables are light in weight, and in appearance something like chips. They need only to be soaked in cold water for three-quarters of an hour, then put into a saucepan over the fire, still in cold water slightly salted, and boiled like fresh vegetables. . The clear soup should then be poured over them, and the whole boiled VEG ( 1073 ) VEG together for a quarter of an hour. They will have the flavour and appearance of fresh turned vegetables. Probable cost, Is. 6d. per pound. Sufficient, a table-spoonful of dried vegetables for a quart of soup. Vegetables, Eggs Poached for.— Put into a saucepan or kettle about a hand's depth of water ; as soon as it boils, take some new-laid, or at least very fresh, eggs, and break them one after the other into the boiling water in such a manner that they shall stand close together. When the white is tolerably well set, take them quickly out of the water with a spoon, and lay them in cold water. These eggs must not, however, be boiled hard ; also, before taking them out of the saucepan, they may be flavoured with vinegar, which to many will render them very agreeable. With old eggs the whites run together, and the result is not so good; also care must be taken to keep the eggs from becoming attached to the bottom of the saucepan by means of a spoon. The eggs are left in the cold water till required for use, when they are trimmed and cut round for the table. Vegetables, Fresh, Treatment of.—