Scientific cooking with scientific methods

Chop in the lard, add water to make a paste that will roll easily, toss on floured board, pat and shape, and it is ready for use. It is always an improvement to paste to fold a few times and rest the paste, and cut with knife and keep paste in layers; it will be more flaky and light. Cut pieces from end, and shape with rolling-pin into pieces large enough to cover the pie-tin easily, as you should not stretch pie paste, but instead lift and let all air from under and fill into the pan as much as it will hold before trimming off the edges. Add the filling. Wet the edges, put on top, and press together with the fingers or a pastry jagger made for the purpose. Some chefs use the best beef suet, rendered and mixed with lard for shortening. Entire Wheat Paste for Salads. 1 cup of entire wheat flour. i^ cup butter. % cup white pastry flour. % cup lard. 1 teaspoon salt. Cold water. Add salt to flour, and mix all well together. Chop in the lard and butter. Water to make a paste. Roll to one-fourth inch thick, cut into finger-shaped pieces, and brush with egg white and little water. Sprinkle with chopped nuts and serve with salad. CHAPTER XXII. PASTE for pies should be rolled to one-fourth of an inch thick, always rolling the piece larger than the pan to allow for the shrinking in the baking. In dividing the paste allow more for the upper than the under crust. Perforate the upper crust that the steam may escape. The method is left to the taste of the cook. There is a funnel which we find on the market supposed to act as a flue to carry off the steam from the fruit pie that is so hard to keep from cooking over in the oven. Flat rims should be cut in strips from one-half to three-fourths of an inch wide, and the under crust be brushed with cold water before placing the rim on, and flute the rim with pastry- j agger or with the fingers. The pastry- j agger gives a very nice scalloped edge to the paste. When juicy fruits are used to fill the pie-tins it is hard to brown the under crust, and many remedies have been resorted to, such as brushing the inside of the crust with w^hite of egg, etc., but the best way out of the difficulty is the baking of an under crust first, then filling with cooked and sweetened fruit. The best methods of cooking the under crust is to invert a pie-tin cover outside with the crust and bake; return to inside of the pie-tin, fill and place on top crust, and cook until top is nice and brown, or the fruit may be cooked and sweetened, and bake a top crust by cutting a piece of the paste a trifle larger than the tin and pricking with a fork. Place in oven and bake to nice brown. Place the bottom crust on plate, fill and put on top crust. I simply suggest this as one of the methods they gave us in the school, but I myself prefer to have the fruit put in the pan uncooked, and cook and bake crust at same time. And I find, by having the heat strong to begin with to puff the paste, and lower as soon as the paste is well puffed before it begins to brown, that I can cook both paste and fruit together and have a better pie.