Cooking pot

“ If potatoes baked in the meat pan will not brown, they can be browned in a frying pan on top of the stove.
When water has boiled off vegetables and they are burning, remove the pot from the stove and turn the contents quickly and lightly into another pot. Let everything which is inclined to stick, stick. Put hot water on the vegetables and return them to the [357] stove if they need more cooking. Put water and a tablespoonful of baking soda into the burnt pot. ”

“ Such poor men's cooking-stoves exist, on a large scale, in all modern-built lodging-houses. Also, a three-gallon iron pot with a lid to it, a one-gallon saucepan, a two-quart ditto, a frying-pan, a gridiron, and a strong tin baking-dish. ”

“ A large number of cooking bowls and pots were obtained, but these are of less interest, as they are in all cases plain black vessels without ornamentation of any kind. They generally resemble the old-fashioned cast-iron cooking pot used by Europeans. Occasionally one is found which is provided with legs, in imitation probably of the skillet or pots used by the Mexicans of that country. ”

“ Fruit pot-pies are easier made and cooked, than fruit puddings or dumplings. We recommend them highly for plain tables. They require more sugar when they are dished. A large bain-marie is excellent for cooking any sort of pot-pie, the water being all in the outside kettle.
PLAIN BAKED CUSTARD.— Boil a quart of milk, with a small bunch of green peach leaves in it, or a half dozen of peach kernels broken up. When the milk has boiled well strain it into a broad pan, and set it away to cool. In a shallow pan beat six eggs till very light, thick, and smooth. ”

“ For cooking purposes an earthen pot is used, costing between 3 and 10 cuartos; which, in cooking rice, is closed firmly with a banana-leaf, so that the steam of a very small quantity of water is sufficient. No other cooking utensils are used by the poorer classes ”

“ For cooking you will need an iron pot and boiling kettle, tin kettles fitting inside of one another, a frying-pan with a handle like the kettle, a coffee-pot, some knives and tin plates, cups, spoons, forks and deep dishes, and above all an oyster broiler. ”

“ Of all the vegetables, onions and potatoes are the most desired and the oftenest used, when anything more than the 'old regulation' is had. Instead of an oven, fireplace or cooking stove, a rude hole is dug in the ground and a fire made therein, and the coffee pot, the camp kettle and the skillet are his only culinary articles used. ”

“ Cut the butter into little bits, place them on the top of the potatoes, fill the dish with hot water, and bake the hot-pot for 2 hours or more in a hot oven. Add a little more hot water if necessary while baking to make up for what is lost in the cooking. ”

“ Take two pullets being finely cleansed, cut them to pieces, and put them in a narrow mouthed pitcher pot well glazed, stop the mouth of it with a piece of paste and set it a boiling in a good deep brass pot or vessel of water, boil it eight hours, keep it continually boiling, and still filled up with warm water; being well stewed, strain it, and blow off the fat; when you give it to the party, give it warm with the yolk of an egg, dissolved with the juyce of an orange. ”

“ To bake beans, remove the pork from the drained, partially cooked beans, score it across the top and replace it in the pot in midst of and extending a trifle above the surface of the beans, add 1 cup of hot water and securely cover the top of the pot with a lid or some substitute. Sink the pot well into the glowing coals and shovel hot coals over all. ”

“ Farther to the east, along the coast, the pottery is highly decorated, but it is much more crude in form, and has no fine rim. The pots are dried in the sun for several days, and then they are turned over to the “bakers,” whose fires are blazing in every street. There are two methods of baking. One is to lay the pot on a heap of hot ashes; the other to build the fire right round it. The vessel is watched through the whole process, and is continually turned on the fire with a little stick thrust into the mouth. ”

“ Scrub the celery with a small brush, remove the strings, cut it in one-half-inch pieces and drop it into the boiling salted water. When it is boiling, set the pail or pan into a cooker-pail of boiling water and put it into the cooker for from two to four hours or longer, depending upon the toughness of the stalks. It will not be injured by long cooking. When tender, drain it, saving one-half cupful of the water to use in making the sauce. Serve with one cupful of Sauce for Vegetables. ”

“ When it is well skimmed, draw the pot to the corner of the fire, and let it simmer very gently until done. Remove the tape and skewers, which should be replaced by a silver one; pour over a little of the pot-liquor, and garnish with carrots. (See coloured plate 2.) Carrots, turnips, parsnips, and sometimes suet dumplings, accompany this dish; and these may all be boiled with the beef. The pot-liquor should be saved, and converted into pea-soup; and the outside slices, which are generally hard, and of an uninviting appearance, may be out off before being sent to table, and potted. ”

“ Fast boiling toughens the fibres and keeps in the juice of the meat which should form the body of the soup. When the time is up, lift the pot from the fire, throw in a heaping tablespoonful of salt, and a teaspoonful of pepper, and pour out into your “stock-pot.” ”

“ They should always be boiled in a sauce-pan by themselves, and have plenty of water; if meat is boiled with them in the same pot, they will spoil the look and taste of each other.
If you wish to have vegetables delicately clean, put on your pot, make it boil, put a little salt in it, and skim it perfectly clean before you put in the greens, &c.; which should not be put in till the water boils briskly: the quicker they boil, the greener they will be. When the vegetables sink, they are generally done enough, if the water has been kept constantly boiling. ”

“ As a convincing proof of this, if the liquor that any kind of meat is boiled in remains in the pot till the next day, the fat at the top will be quite green, and the liquor of course very pernicious. Iron pots, saucepans, &c., are the most wholesome, but they spoil the colour of many articles of cookery, and therefore are not much used; but they are useful for anything that would not be discoloured. Pots lined with earthenware are certainly preferable to any other kind, but they are very expensive.
The broth to be used for soups and gravies should be kept separate ”

“ When the pot has been well scummed, and no more scum to be seen, set in such a situation on, or by, the fire, that it may continue to boil gently and regularly, for the time required; and see that it do not stop boiling altogether at one time, and then be hurried to a wallop at another time, for this dries up the juices, hardens the meat, and tears it. A kettle of boiling water should be at hand, in order to replenish the pot, as the quantity diminishes, taking heed not to exceed the original quantity, namely, enough to cover the meat, for the less water, the better the broth will be. ”

“ If it boils too fast at first, nothing will afterwards make it tender. The fire must be steady, and moderate, that the heat may penetrate all through, slowly and equally. The pot must be kept closely [146] covered, unless for a minute when the scum is taken off, and that must be done frequently. The beef should, while boiling, be turned several times in the pot. It is much the best way to boil it without any vegetables in the same pot; they imbibe too much of the fat, particularly cabbage. ”

“ Your meat must be well cooked, and after cutting it into small pieces throw it into the liquor in the pot, and let it boil for 3⁄4 hour. The pepper-pot is now fit for use, but you will find it better and more palatable when many days old. You can from day to day add any broken pieces of meat left from table, taking care to warm your pot every day, to see that the meat is always covered with gravy, and never to put fish into it. You may put hard-boiled eggs and cooked meats of all sorts, whether fresh or salted; the greater the variety, the sweeter your pot. ”

“ In case more than one pan is to go in at once, and two stones will not supply enough heat, hot flatirons or stove lids may be used to supplement them. It is often convenient, when the oven is heated for baking one article, to put other things in to cook at the same time, even though they may not require browning. For instance: A chicken or roast may be cooking between two stones, while on top of the upper stone the giblets may be stewing in water, or some vegetables be boiling. ”

“ It was better when very small potatoes were used; they became more jellied, and the purée altogether had less of the granular texture of mashed potatoes. I found it necessary to conduct the whole of the cooking myself; the inveterate kitchen superstition concerning simmering and boiling, the belief that anything rapidly boiling is hotter than when it simmers, and is therefore cooking more quickly, compels the non-scientific cook to shorten the tedious three-hour process by boiling. This boiling drives the water from below, bakes the lower stratum of the porridge, and spoils the whole. ”

“ Season with salt and pepper, add one bouquet garni, one-half pint of brandy, one pint of white wine, and fill the remainder of the space in the pot with water. Put a cover on the pot and seal with any kind of paste or dough, so that no air or steam can escape. Then put the pot in a moderate oven and leave for about eight hours; then take out of oven, take off the cover, and remove the bouquet garni. If there should be too much fat on top a little may be taken off. Ordinarily there will not be too much. ”

“ Potatoes bake nicely when laid on the ledge, and beans, stews, roasts, bread—in fact the whole food list—may be cooked there. But one must be careful not to have too hot a fire. I burned several things before I learned that even a few red coals in the fire-pot will be sufficient for practically everything. ”

“ If you wish to make a pot pie instead of a baked pie, you have only to line the bottom of a porridge pot with paste, lay in your meat, season and moisten it in the same way, cover it with paste, and keep it slowly stewing about the same time that the other takes. ”

“ Bake or stew them in their own juice. (See recipe for Vegetarian Irish Stew.) At the least, steam them. A little of the valuable vegetable salts are lost in the steaming, but not much. Better still, use a double boilerette. A very little water is put into the inner pan and soon becomes steam, so that by the time the vegetable is cooked it has all disappeared.
No exact time can be given for cooking vegetables, as this varies with age and freshness. The younger—always supposing it has just come to maturity—and fresher the vegetable, the quicker it cooks. ”

“ Such vegetables as asparagus, peas, lima beans, etc., which have a delicate flavour, must be cooked with very little water; usually in a smaller pail or pan set into a larger cooker-pail of water. All vegetables should be washed before cooking, and such as potatoes, beets, turnips, etc., should be scrubbed with a small scrubbing-brush, kept for that purpose. Few vegetables are injured by overcooking in a fireless cooker. ”

“ In cleaning copper pans, attend to the following directions:—If there are any lemon skins left from cooking, boil them in salt and water, dip a piece of flannel in the liquid, and rub your pan well. Then rinse with cold water, and dry with a linen cloth. Every pan must be rinsed or dusted out before being used, for the smallest speck of dirt will destroy a whole panful of sauce; and good sauces are the foundation of good cooking.
Cooks cannot be too careful in keeping their sauce-pans scrupulously clean. ”

“ Cereals should always be cooked in a double boiler; and soaking over night in the water in which they are to be cooked, where it is not possible to secure the necessary time for long cooking, will prove a distinct advantage. ”

“ Use saucepans with tightly fitting lids and short handles. Those made of aluminum or earthenware are preferable. [161] Jam jars or large tins tightly covered may be used.
Bring the food to boiling point on the gas cooker or kitchen range and while boiling place it at once in the box. Some foods require a certain amount of cooking previous to being placed in the Fireless Cooker. (See table below.)
Wrap the cooking utensil in newspaper, and place in the prepared nest in the Fireless Cooker. ”

“ Let the fat be entirely melted; and when it has cooled a little, strain it through a sieve into the pot, and tie it down. Turn the pot upside down, that no rats or mice may get at it, and it will keep a long time, and make good puff paste, or crust for puddings.
POTTED HARE. An old hare will do well for this purpose, likewise for soup and pie. After seasoning it, bake it with butter. When cold, take the meat from the bones, and beat it in a mortar. If not high enough, add salt, mace, pepper, and a piece of fresh butter melted in a spoonful or two of gravy that came from the hare. ”

“ When your oatmeal or your stew, or your chicken, or your vegetables have boiled ten or fifteen minutes on the stove in your agate pail, clap on its cover, set it into the nest, push the cushion into the top of the cooker, clamp down the lid, and your work is done, for the cooking will go merrily on all alone by itself in your fireless cooker. ”

“ Wine increases the taste of salt, therefore, where wine is used for flavoring, very little salt should be put in until after the wine is used, when more can be added if necessary.
Dishes which are to be frozen need an extra amount of sweetening.
Raisins. Flour raisins before adding them to a mixture in order to prevent their settling to the bottom.
Baking. Never slam the oven door, or jar any rising material while it is baking.
Anything being cooked for the second time needs a hot oven.
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CARE OF UTENSILS
A very essential thing in doing nice cooking is to have clean utensils. ”