Food and health

Mashed potato can be very poor when wet and lumpy. Do not use new, poor, or very old potatoes. See that the boiled potatoes are as dry as can be with every particle of water steamed away. Mash thoroughly with the wire masher; add butter or butterine, salt, and milk in about the proportions given for potato in the half shell. Use a tablespoonful or so of cream if you have it. Beat vigorously. The mealiness of Courtesy of Department of Foods and Cookery, Teachers College, Columbia University. Fig. 58. — A dish of mashed potato daintily served and browned in the oven. the potato and the beating make mashed potato perfect. The mashed potato should be light and moist, but not wet. Reheat in the kettle. Pile lightly in a hot dish and serve; or smooth and brown the top before serving. L. Scalloped potato. Scalloped potato is a good supper dish. Wash, pare, and slice the potatoes in J inch pieces. Grease an earthen or enameled baking dish. Cover the bottom of the dish with a layer of the slices, sprinkle the slices lightly with flour, and put on two teaspoonfuls of butter, or butterine, in small bits. Continue until the dish is nearly full. Pour in milk to barely cover the potatoes, put a cover on the dish, and set the dish in a moderate oven. Remove the cover in time to allow the top to brown. Allow rather more than half an hour for the baking. 5. Creamed potato. Here is an easy way. Chop cold baked or boiled potatoes with the chopper. Allow i tablespoonful of butter to i pint of chopped potato. Melt the butter in a saucepan. Stir in the potatoes. Shake from the dredger the same amount as a tablespoonful of flour, stirring the potato with one hand as you shake with the other. Pour in enough milk to barely cover the chopped potato. Set the saucepan in the coolest spot on the range, or on an oil stove with low flame, upon an asbestos mat; or turn all into an earthenware jar or baking dish, and bake slowly until it becomes creamy. 6. Potatoes warmed over in fat. This is an old-fashioned way and a good one. Have only a little fat in the frying pan ; and that very hot. The slices of potato will become brown as you turn them from side to side. 7. Hashed brown potato. This is a delicious way to warm up cold potatoes. Chop the potatoes. To a quart of chopped potato add a tablespoonful of flour. Heat a frying pan and melt in it two tablespoonfuls of beef fat. Stir the potato thoroughly into the fat. Press the mixture firmly down and set the pan where the potatoes will brown on the bottom. It is better to do this slowly, and you should allow half an hour. Turn the potatoes out on a large plate. There should be a nice brown crust, just as you have it in corned-beef hash. 1. Make a list of the foodstuffs in potato, with the percentages. 2. Make a list of the different ways of cooking potatoes. 3. Explain why potatoes, meat, and meat gravy containing fat make a good meal. 4. Then, when you put other foods with potato to make a meal, what should the other foods contain ? 5. Can you now add to or change the definition of cooking that you made in the lesson before ? Lesson ij griddlecakes and sweet cake Are griddlecakes and sweet cake wholesome for supper and other meals ? The quick breads are convenient for any meal when there is time enough to bake them ; especially in cold weather, when there is more likely to be a steady fire.