Principles of cookery

If pared before cooking and all bad places removed, average potatoes will lose from twenty to twenty-five per cent, or one of the four potatoes in a pound. From selected potatoes the government experts scraped the skins, removing as little flesh of the potato as possible. This was about eleven per cent of the weight. In potatoes as usually purchased, the green ends, decayed places, and the potatoes gashed with the hoe easily bring the total loss up to the higher percentage. It may be a profitable loss to pare old and inferior potatoes before cooking. The main point to notice in the cooking of the potato is to let out the steam, or to Beans Potatoes Loss in Preparing Potatoes with Meat Combinations Cooking Vegetables pour off the water as soon as the fibre and starch are softened. Because the potato is lacking in protein and fat, the instinct of man has taught him to eat it with meat, since it gave him the food principles the meat lacked, and also the bulk desirable for the process of digestion. The art of the cook has devised many methods of combining butter, oil, milk and eggs with the potato and other vegetables to supply protein and fat. The fried potato absorbs fat while cooking; the white sauce of creamed potato adds both fat and protein; a potato soup is creamed potato with more milk; the potato croquette contains egg and is cooked in fat; a potato salad has oil and often eggs. Such additions, though increasing the cost of the food,, make the result equivalent to vegetables with a moderate allowance of meat. Hence vegetable soufflees, or croquettes, may be served when the meat supply is limited. Almost any vegetable, by due combination with milk, butter, and eggs may appear as soup, fritters, croquettes, soufflees, or salads. For these complicated dishes, it is essential that the vegetable first shall be perfectly cooked in a simple fashion. The methods of cookery applied to vegetables are similar to those used for meat, but must be adapted to the composition and condition of the individual specimen. It is impossible to give the exact time for cooking any variety of vegetable, for every sample will differ. They are unpalatable when underdone and also at the other extreme. There is usually some way of cooking best for each vegetable, but if one kind only is available it is necessary to serve it in a variety of ways. This, perhaps, explains why the average cook book gives more recipes for the potato than for all other vegetables. Suitable utensils are essential ; vegetables should not be cooked in iron kettles when others are attainable ; strainers, mashers, cutters, ricers and presses are desirable. Strong flavors frequently are due to careless preparation. Careful trimming and thorough washing are essential. Wilted vegetables are improved, as has been said, by soaking. Salad plants need especial care in washing to remove parasites and insecticides. Any portion of a root or tuber grown above ground becomes green and strong flavored and will impart its flavor to other portions with which it may be cooked. A decayed bit, or the scorching where the water evaporates, may often ruin the flavor of all.