Standard Paper-Bag Cookery

Turnip Balls. — Peel fine grained turnips, then cut into balls, using a vegetable scoop. Put into a wellgreased bag with a light seasoning of salt, a little sugar, a dusting of pepper, a tablespoonful of butter or vegetable oil and a quarter cupful of hot water, seal, and cook half an hour until tender, but not brown. Take up, add a half cupful hot cream sauce, stir lightly in it, sprinkle with minced parsley and serve very hot. Stuffed Vine Leaves or Dolmas. — Choose tender vine leaves and scald them, after which roll a little of the following stuffing in each leaf, making it round and firm so that the stuffing will not come out when the balls are boiled. Chop three onions, put a teacupful of good salad oil in a stewing-pan, and, when it is boiling hot, throw in the chopped onion. As soon as this begins to cook, add a small cupful of Carolina rice, some chopped parsley and mint, salt and pepper and a tablespoonful of currants and mix well on the fire till the rice begins to brown. Then take a vine leaf in your left hand and wrong side upward and put a little of this prepared rice into it. Put some of the coarse vine leaves at the bottom of the paper bag and arrange each little ball beside its neighbor, packing them rather tightly. When this is done, put in sufficient water just to cover the dolmas, add a little oil, seal the bag and bake till the rice is soft and the water is all absorbed. This is a very delicate and characteristic dish, but will be a failure if the vine leaves are not tender or the oil is rancid. Serve with lemon. CHAPTER XVIII. WARM BREADS, BISCUITS, MUFFINS, ETC. Baking Powder Bread. — SIFT together, five times over, four quarts of flour, six rounded teaspoonfuls baking powder and four level teaspoonfuls salt. Have the oven quite hot. Add to the sifted flour enough milk and water in nearly equal proportions, to make a moist, not wet, dough, stiff enough to handle, then divide into four portions, mould lightly into shape and put into brick shaped pans. Brush over the tops with milk, put into bags and bake an hour. Bannocks. — Sift together one pint of corn meal, one tablespoonful of sugar and a teaspoonful of salt. Pour over the mixture enough milk or milk and water to moisten. Let stand until cool, then add three well-beaten eggs, spread half an inch thick in well-greased bag. Seal and bake in hot oven. Cut into squares, split and serve hot and well-buttered. Baking Powder Biscuits. — Sift together three times over one quart of flour, two rounded teaspoonfuls baking powder, and a teaspoonful of salt. Rub in with the tips of the fingers one rounding tablespoonful vegetable shortening or butter, and when the flour feels mealy, add slowly a cup and a half of milk or milk and water mixed. Mix lightly with little handling, turn out on board, roll into a sheet half an inch in thickness, stamp out with small round cutter and lay in greased bag. Brush the top of each biscuit with milk. Seal and bake twenty minutes in a very hot oven.