The Rural cook book

Vegetable Cream Soups. — Scald three cupfuls of milk. Rub together one tablespoonful of butter and two tablespoonfuls of flour, cook until it bubbles ; add the hot milk gradually to this, and cook for five minutes, Stirring until thick and smooth. Blend some of this cream with a cupful of cooked vegetable, mashed to a smooth pulp, mix all together, and simmer for five minutes, seasoning appropriately. Potato soup should have a little celery and onion cooked in the milk, and when ready to serve some finely-chopped parsley should be scattered on top. Celery, asparagus, green peas or beans, carrots, spinach, cucumbers and lettuce are all good in such soup; all must first be cooked and reduced to a smooth pulp. Bread cut into dice and browned in butter is often added when the soup is ready to serve. CHAPTER n. FISH. All small fish are best fried, and many large lish are excellent cooked in the same way. The fish should be well cleaned; if small left whole, if large cut into neat pieces. Beat an egg with a tablespoonful of cold water; dip the fish in this, then roll in bread crumbs or cornmeal. Cook in plenty of fat, which must be boiling hot when put in. Baking and bciling are both excellent methods of cooking fish, but very soft fish should never be boiled. The recipes given below refer mainly to canned and salt fish, because these are more helpful in an emergency. Clam Chowder.— Take the liquor from fifty clams, put it on the stove to heat. Cut into dice Yt pound salt pork, brown it in the frying pan, and add to the clam liquor. Feel and cut into dice three quarts of ripe tomatoes and half the quantity of potatoes. Cut up 50 clams, and let all the ingredients boil slowly for two or three hours. Half hour before serving add half a dozen large crackers rolled tine. Clam Gumbo. — In one large tablespoonful of lard fry one finely chopped onion, add one cupful of chopped cooked ham, one tablespoonful of chopped, green pepper, four tomatoes, skinned and cut in pieces, one pint of okra, stemmed and sliced, one scant teaspoonful of salt and one quart of water or broth. Simmer for an hour, add one dozen finely chopped clams, simmer 15 minutes, and serve. Clam Pie.— From a half pound of rather fat salt pork trim off the rind and cut in slices, then in dice. Slowly fry this, and when the fat is well drawn out and just beginning to color add half of a small onion cut fine. When golden brown add one quart of raw, diced potatoes, one pint of boiling water and one-quarter of a teaspoonful of black pepper. Cover and cook slowly until the potatoes are almost tender. Take from the fire, add one solid pint of raw clams cut in quarters and their strained juice. Turn into a deep well-greased baking dish. While this mixture is cooking mix and sift together one pint and a half of flour, a .half teaspoonful of salt and two teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Mix to a soft dough with sweet milk, and roll out not over a half inch thick. Cut in small round biscuits. Place these close together over the top of the pie, brush with milk and bake in a hot oven for 35 minutes. Roast Gams, — Wash the clams and drain them in a colander for a few minutes, then lay them in a large dripping pan and put the pan into a verjr hot ovca Aa footi it tbc (belb b^o to open, the dam* tn