Baked beans

“ Beans are a nice winter vegetable, but cooked with pork as "baked beans," are too strong for daily use, but are a desirable article of food cooked more plainly. Choose the small white beans, put them in a saucepan with as much cold water, as will cover them well and a small pinch of baking soda; when they have simmered a few minutes drain off the water and replace it with hot water and a little salt; if possible let them cook without boiling hard; when tender drain, and dish with a liberal piece of butter and a dust of pepper. ”

“ If pork is disliked, use a large spoonful of butter instead. Cold baked beans can be warmed in a frying-pan with a little water, and are even better than at first, or they can be used in a soup as in directions given. A teaspoonful of made mustard is sometimes stirred in, and gives an excellent flavor to a pot of baked beans. Double the quality if the family is large, as they keep perfectly well in winter, the only season at which so hearty a dish is required, save for laborers. ”

“ For stewed and baked beans the cooking must stop when the skins begin to crack. For beans served with a sauce they should cook until perfectly tender, but they must not be broken or mushy. For purées and soups they should be cooked until very soft.
SWEET SOUR BEANS AND LINZEN Soak overnight and drain the beans, boil in salted water until tender; drain and prepare by adding salt and pepper to taste, thicken with one tablespoon of drippings in which has been browned one tablespoon of flour and some soup stock. ”

“ BAKED BEANS WITH TOMATO SAUCE
Prepare the beans as for plain baked beans; put into the jars to bake; cover with a mixture of strained stewed tomatoes and water in equal proportions; a little butter or olive oil may be added.
SUCCOTASH Fresh shelled lima beans, 2 cups. Sweet corn, 2 ears. Cream, 1⁄2 cup. Butter, size of an egg. Salt.
Put beans in pot with cold water, rather more than will cover them. Scrape the kernels from twelve ears of young sweet corn. Put the cobs in with the peas, boiling from thirty to forty-five minutes. Take out the cobs and put in the scraped corn. ”

“ Add sufficient water, nut or dairy cream or milk to mashed beans, peas or lentils to make of the consistency of a thick batter. No sauce is required.
★ Rich Baked Beans
Wash beans and get them into boiling salted water, in the bean pot, as quickly as possible. For each pint of beans use 11⁄4 to 13⁄4 teaspn. of salt. Add plenty of water at first, perhaps three times the quantity of beans. Put into a hot oven until they begin to boil, then reduce the temperature to such a degree as will keep them just simmering for from 12 to 24 hours. ”

“ And not to serve at one time a dish of rice, cheese and macaroni, baked beans and potatoes. Serve instead with one of these dishes fruit, a vegetable or salad. She said, "beans have a large percentage of nutriment and should be more commonly used." She also said graham and corn bread are much more nutritious than bread made from fine white flour, which lacks the nutritious elements. Indian corn is said to contain the largest amount of fat of any cereal. ”

“ Salt and pepper to taste. Put all in greased paper bag and cook forty-five minutes. A wooden cookery dish can be employed to advantage.
Boston Baked Bean Cakes.—These are made of left-over baked beans. Heat with a little water to moisten, rub through a colander, season with salt, pepper and mustard. Put a tablespoonful of pork drippings or butter in a frying pan, and cook in it, when hot, a tablespoonful of minced onion, taking care not to let it blacken. Add to the beans, make into cakes and lay in well-greased bag. Cook twenty minutes and serve with tomato sauce. ”

“ A little salt and some molasses, the quantity depending on the taste, will complete the list. Pour in enough hot water to cover the beans. Put on the cover of the pot, and set in the hot ashes of the bean hole, just before you go to bed. Rake the coals over it, put a few sticks on top, so the ashes will keep hot, and go to bed. In the morning rake out the bean pot, and you will find them nicely baked, and redolent of that aroma so dear to every Yankee. If you do not relish it, so much the worse for you, and so much the better for the rest of the party, for there will be more for them. ”

“ Boston Baked Beans
1 quart beans
1/2 pound salt pork
1 tablespoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
2 tablespoons molasses
Wash and soak beans over night. Put half into bean pot; wash salt pork and place in center; add remainder of beans, salt, pepper, mustard, molasses and 4 cups cold water; cover. Put into slow oven and bake 8 hours. Add more water if needed. ”

“ DRIED BEANS AND PEAS. When parboiling dried beans for baking, the addition of 1⁄2 teaspoon of baking soda to each 2 cups soaked beans makes the beans tender in a shorter time. When baked, the beans have a much sweeter flavor than those parboiled in plain water. All dried legumes such as lima, soy, kidney or navy beans, and peas, have a better flavor if treated in this manner. ”

“ When they begin to grow soft, stew them over a hot fire several minutes, with a heaping tea spoonful of saleratus. Then take them up with a skimmer, and put them in a baking pot, gash a lb. of pork and put it down in the pot so as to have the beans just cover it, pour in cold water till you can see it at the top. They will bake in a hot oven in the course of three hours; but they will be better to remain in it five or six. Beans are very good stewed, without being baked. ”

“ Before science made its discovery, the blacks were very positive on the point of the poisonous qualities of the bean, and took measures to eliminate it. In some parts of the State the beans, after being steeped in water for several days, are dried in the sun, roasted in hot ashes, and pounded between stones into a coarse kind of meal, which may be kept for an indefinite period. When required for use the meal is mixed with water, made into a thin cake or damper, and baked in the ashes. ”

“ To bake beans successfully, a dish with a tight-fitting cover, such as the one shown in Fig. 5, is required. This is made of heavy glass, but if such a utensil is not available, very satisfactory results can be obtained by using a heavy earthen bowl, crock, or baking dish. To produce the delicious flavor that is agreeable to most persons, beans should be baked a long time. Therefore, as considerable heat is consumed in their cooking, it is a wise plan to prepare more than enough for one meal. ”

“ Add salt pork and salt to beans and simmer until beans are tender, about 11⁄2 hours. Drain; save 1⁄2 cup liquid. Place beans in a 3-quart casserole.
Combine bean cooking liquid, brown sugar, mustard, onion, and molasses. Pour over beans. Bake uncovered at 350° F. (moderate oven) 1 hour, or until beans are lightly browned on top and of desired consistency.
Menu suggestion
Serve with frankfurters or cold cuts, coleslaw, and baked apples.
[Pg 42]
Vegetables
Knowing how to prepare vegetables to retain their nutritive value and appetite appeal is a test of any good cook. ”

“ See Sanitation Recipes, 45 apples, 49 bacon, 62 baked beans, 59-60 baking powder biscuits, 55-56 boiling vegetables, 65-66 bread-making, 51 broth, 62 buckwheat cakes, 61 Chinese tea-cakes, 63 chowder, 62-63 corn bread [228] , 56-57 corn meal, 48 corn pone, 60-61 eggs, 54-55 fish, 52-53 fudge, 64-65 gingerbread, 63 macaroni, 48 mashed potatoes, 61-62 mayonnaise dressing, 66 molasses cookies, 64 mushrooms, 61-62 olive oil, 65 pancakes, 57-58 partridge, 53-54 penuche, 64 rice, 48 soups, 58, 59 stewed fruits, 65 stock, 46 vegetable stew, 49 white sauce, 63 Reflector baker, 8, 39. ”

“ Throw them into boiling water for a minute, then pour the water away. Heat for a pound of beans one and one-half pints of milk, stir in four ounces of salt butter, a very little chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Do not let the milk boil, but when it simmers put in the beans. When they have been heated for ten minutes, thicken your sauce with the yolks of two eggs and a tablespoonful of cream. Take out a bean and eat it to see if it is cooked, and if so, pour all on a hot dish. Garnish with fried sippets of bread. Old broad beans can be treated in the same way, but they must first be skinned. ”

“ Bean flour is not only thought more nutritive, but is found to be more abundant than that of oats. Beans are chiefly applied to the feeding of horses, hogs, and other domestic animals; and it is supposed that meal-men often grind them amongst wheat, the flour of which is to be made into bread. By some persons they are roasted, and adopted as a substitute for coffee. {185}With the Roman ladies bean-flour was in much repute as a cosmetic.
Garden-beans are almost wholly confined to culinary uses. What are called French-beans, and Kidney-beans, belong to a different tribe from the present. ”

“ I think these deserve to be served in a course by themselves, even more than peas. If they are served with a joint they must simply be made hot in a tin, then drained and allowed to dry, and handed round just as they are. French beans go best with a haunch of venison or roast mutton. If, however, you serve the beans as a course by themselves, you must, after making them hot and draining off the liquid, add a couple of tablespoonfuls of good white sauce, that is béchamel sauce, or if you have none, add to a tin of beans about enough fresh butter to fill a dessertspoon ”

“ If the salt is thrown in before the vegetables, they retain their color; but if salt is added after they are in hot water, they will be of a faded olive color when cooked, and not so well flavored. String-beans should cook a full hour unless very tender. When done put in your vegetable-dish some butter, allowing an even great spoonful to a pint of string-beans; add a little pepper and pour the beans upon it, with some of the water in which they were boiled. Like peas, some prefer them quite moist; those who do not can easily be suited by having theirs [Pg 451] taken out free from the liquor. ”

“ Wash peas, put into bean pot, add browned flour, tomato and salt which have been mixed together, then turn over them two or three times their quantity of boiling water. Stir well. When boiling, regulate the heat of the oven so as to keep them gently simmering for from 5 to 7 hours. Do not stir after they are first put to cooking. They require greater care than beans to keep them from breaking. However, if they do not keep their shape they will be of a jelly-like consistency not at all objectionable. ”

“ On the other hand, if one has to use a few food materials over and over, as one must in many places when the money that can be spent for food is very little, it is by slight changes in their form and flavor that one keeps them from palling on the appetite. If one has to use beans every day, it is a good thing to know a dozen different ways of preparing beans. One may have the plain bean flavor, properly toned up by a suitable amount of salt; the added flavor of onions, of tomatoes, of fat pork, of molasses, or a combination of two or three. ”

“ Before serving them, it is only needful to skin them, whereupon they may be dished up with a little chopped parsley. Send a bowl of French beans to the table with them, the vegetables having been freshly cooked, kept somewhat firm, buttered, and not cooled. Some cooks serve the beans cold, in the form of a salad, but as a rule they are preferred hot with butter, while the herrings should be very cold. ”

“ It is criminal to smother the kidney bean with melted butter at table. A little oil, vinegar, and pepper agree with him much better.
In the great continent of America, the kidney-bean seed, dried, is freely partaken of. Pork and “Borston” beans, in fact, form the national dish, and right good it is. But do not attempt any violent exercise after eating the same. The Mexicans are the largest bean-eaters in the [Pg 121] world. They fry the vegetables in oil or stew them with peppers and onions, and these frijoles form the principal sustenance of the lower orders. ”

“ Take your beans and string them, cut in two and then across, when you have done them all, sprinkle them over with salt, stir them together, as soon as your water boils put them in and make them boil up quick, they will be soon done and they will look of a better green than when growing in the garden if; they are very young, only break off the ends, them break in two and dress them in the same manner. ”

“ Method.—This favourite vegetable to be nice should be young and freshly gathered. After shelling the beans, put them into boiling water, salted to taste, and boil rapidly until tender. Drain them well in a colander; dish, and serve separately a boat of parsley sauce. Boiled bacon often accompanies this vegetable, but should be cooked separately. This dish is usually served with the beans laid round the bacon, and the parsley butter sauce in a tureen. Beans also make an excellent garnish to a ham: when used for this purpose they should have their skins removed. ”