Manual for army cooks

Peel by pouring boiling-hot water over them, when the skin will easily come off. Cut up the tomatoes, rejecting the unripe and hard parts; put them into a pot, preferably tin or porcelain lined ; season with butter, pepper, and salt, and, if the tomatoes are very acid, enough sugar to partially counteract the acidity, but not enough to sweeten them. Cover, and stew gently for three-quarters of an hour, frequently stirring. The stew can be thickened with bread crumbs or rolled cracker. Minced onion cooked with the tomatoes improves the flavor of the stew ; or the minced onion may be fried and then cooked with the stew. A mixture of equal quantities of tomatoes and young corn, cut from the cob, may be cooked as above. BAKED TOMATOES, No. 1. Wash, peel, and slice the tomatoes ; season them with butter, pepper, and salt, and mix thorouglily with enough bread crumbs or rolled cracker to absorb the greater portion of the juice; put the mixture into a baking dish, and bake for three-quarters of an hour or one hour, and serve in the baking dish. Minced onion, raw or fried, may be added to the seasoning. BAKED TOMATOES, No. 2. Cut a disk from the stem end of the tomato, take out the core and stuff it with a mixture of bread crumbs, butter, salt, and minced onion, and bake with a moderate heat for one hour. BOILED TURNIPS. Time, twenty minutes to an hour. Wash the turnips ; if young, peel them, and if old, pare thickly. Slice or cut them into pieces of uniform size. Soak in cold water for thirty minutes ; put them into a pot with enough boiling salt water to cover them plentifully. Cover; boil steadily until quite tender. Drain thoroughly ; season with butter, pepper, and salt. If they are boiled with meat, butter may be omitted. Young turnips may be served whole, with a drawn-butter sauce. Boiled turnips may be mashed and served like Irish potatoes. SUCCOTASH. Succotash is made with green corn and beans, the proportion being two-thirds corn to one-third beans. String beans may be used. Cut the corn from the cob and shell the beans. If string beans are used, string and cut them into half-inch pieces. Put them into a pot of boiling salt water — enough to cover them. Cover and stew gently until tender. stirring frequently. When cooked, drain. To two quarts of succotash add about one-half pint of milk, then stir in a piece of butter or dripping about the size of an egg, and one or more tablespoonfuls of blended flour. Stir it constantly until it boils up once. Season with pepper, and also salt, if necessary. Succotash may be made of dried beans and dried corn. They must be soaked over night in hot water. SAUERKRAUT.