Elements of the theory and practice of cookery

Cook the onion with the tomato fifteen minutes. Mix butter and flour together. Strain the tomato and add it to the butter and flour. Cook all together for ten minutes, or until smooth, then add salt and pepper. Spaghetti with Tomato Sauce Spaghetti, K of a box. Salt, 1 tablespoonful. Boiling water, 2 quarts. Tomato sauce, Xy^ cupfuls. Hold the sticks of spaghetti in a bunch, and dip the ends into the boiling salted water. As they soften and bend, lower them into the water, letting them coil around in the saucepan. The spaghetti may thus be BREAD 121 cooked without breaking. Boil for twenty minutes, or until soft, drain, rinse with cold water (to remove starch that might make it sticky), and mix with the tomato sauce. Recipe for Baked Macaroni with Cheese Macaroni broken in one-inch pieces, ^ cupful. Boiling water, 2 quarts. Salt, 1 tablespoonful. Grated cheese, >( to ^ cupful. White sauce (made from 2 tablespoonfuls of butter, l^^ tablespoonfuls of flour, 1 cupful of milk, and yi teaspoonful of salt). Buttered crumbs, ^ cupful. Boil the macaroni in the water for twenty minutes, or until soft, adding salt when nearly cooked. Drain in a strainer, and rinse with cold water. Put a layer of macaroni in a buttered baking-dish, sprinkle with cheese ; repeat until all the cheese and macaroni have been used ; pour the white sauce over the top. Cover with buttered crumbs, and bake until these are brown. Section 4. Yeast Bread; Yeast Remember thy bread and bake it well, for he will not be kept well who eateth his bread as dough. 223. The perfect loaf of bread is regular in shape, has a crisp crust, evenly browned, and a tender, but rather firm crumb of even grain. It tastes sweet and nutty, smells fresh, and keeps good for several days. How may we make such a loaf ? The ingredients are 122 THEORY AND PRACTICE OF COOKERY few, the process is simple, and with care, skill is not hard to acquire. Recipes (Plate VII, facing p. 102) White Bread Flour, From 3 to 3}4 cupfuls. Cold water, J4 cupful. Milk, }4 cupful. Lukewarm ^ water, 2 tablespoonfuls. Compressed yeast, }4 cake. Salt, }4 teaspoonfiil. Mixing. — Scald the milk ; sift and measure the flour (three and one-half cupfuls) ; put the salt in a bowl and pour the milk upon it. Add the cold water, then the yeast mixed smoothly with the lukewarm water. Having stirred all together, stir in enough flour (about two and three-fourths cupfuls) to make a drop-batter. Beat this batter until it is full of bubbles ; then beat in gradually enough more flour to make a rather soft dough. When too stiff to beat, rub a little flour on the moulding-board, and turn the dough out. Kneading. — Dust a little flour on the dough and on the palms of your hands. Fold the edge of the dough farthest from you toward the centre of the mass, imme- diately pressing the dough down and away from you with a gentle rolling motion of the palms of the hands, twice repeated. Turn the dough so that what was the right-hand part of it shall be farthest away from you ; fold over and knead as before ; continue to do this, turning the dough and flouring your hands, the board, 1 Of the same temperature as your hand, 98° F. BREAD 123