Things Mother Used to Make

Front matter

THINGS MOTHER USED TO MAKE

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK·BOSTON·CHICAGO·DALLAS ATLANTA·SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN & CO., Limited LONDON·BOMBAY·CALCUTTA MELBOURNE THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, Ltd. TORONTO

THINGS MOTHER USED TO MAKE

Introduction

INTRODUCTION

The Things Mother Used To Make consist of old fashioned recipes, which have been for the most part handed down by word of mouth from one generation to another, extending over a period of nearly one hundred years. The author, a New England woman, has during her life tested out in her own kitchen the greater part of these recipes, which represent the best cookery of those times.

This material was originally published in Suburban Life, where it obtained such recognition as seemed to warrant its preservation in book form. The original material has accordingly been amplified, and it is here presented as one of the volumes in the series of Countryside Manuals.

Frank A. Arnold

New York

September 15, 1913

Author’s Foreword

AUTHOR’S FOREWORD

Good food depends as largely upon the judgment of the cook, as upon the materials used. These recipes and Household Hints are written very plainly, for those who have had no experience, no practice and possibly have little judgment.

They are very simple, not expensive, and if followed closely, will ensure success. It is the hope of the writer of this book that the young and inexperienced housekeeper may find it a real help.

L. M. Gurney.

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Breads

THINGS MOTHER USED TO MAKE

BREADS

Make the mixture stiff enough to drop from a spoon. Drop mixture, size of a walnut, into boiling fat. Serve warm, with maple syrup.

Stir the meals and salt together. Beat the soda into the molasses until it foams; add sour milk, mix all together and pour into a tin pail which has been well greased, if you have no brown-bread steamer. Set the pail into a kettle of boiling water and steam three or four hours, keeping it tightly covered.

Put the meals and flour together. Stir soda into molasses until it foams. Add salt and milk or water. Mix all together. Bake in a tin pail with cover on for two and a half hours.

When your dough for yeast bread is risen light and fluffy, cut off small pieces and roll as big as your finger, four inches long. Fold and twist to two inches long and fry in deep fat. Serve hot with coffee.

Stir the flour and meal together, adding cream of tartar, soda, salt and sugar. Beat the egg, add the milk to it, and stir into the other ingredients. Bake in a gem-pan twenty minutes.

Stir cream of tartar, soda, salt and lard into the flour; mix with milk or water, handling as little as possible. Roll and cut into rounds. Baking-powder can be used in place of soda and cream of tartar.

Use the recipe for doughnuts, adding one egg and a little more butter. Roll a small piece of the dough to the size of your finger, and eight inches long, double it, and twist the two rolls together. Fry in boiling fat.

Cut slices of bread, one-half inch thick; toast each side to a delicate brown. Dip these into hot, salted milk, letting them remain until soft. Lay them on a platter and spread a little butter over each slice. Take one quart of milk more or less according to size of family; heat in a double boiler, salt to taste. Wet two tablespoonfuls of flour with a little water; stir until smooth, and pour into the milk when boiling. Make this of the consistency of rich cream; add a piece of butter the size of a walnut, and pour over the toasted bread. Serve hot.

Beat the egg and sugar together and add the milk and butter. Stir the soda and cream of tartar into the flour, dry; mix all together, with the flour and salt. Cut into rings and fry in deep fat. Lay them on brown paper when you take them from the fat.

After frying pork or bacon, put into the fat slices of stale bread. As it fries, pour over each slice a little milk or water and salt to taste, turn and fry on the opposite side. This is a very appetizing dish.

Beat together one egg, one cupful of milk, and a little salt. Dip slices of stale bread into this mixture, and fry on a griddle in butter or pork fat. Serve hot with butter and maple syrups.

Stir the soda into the molasses until it foams, add sour milk, ginger, salt and melted butter. Last of all, add flour enough for quite a stiff batter, and bake. This makes one sheet.

Pick over and wash and flour well one cupful of fresh huckleberries. Add these to the batter for soft gingerbread. Serve hot, with butter.

Stir soda into the molasses, add sour milk and salt; add all to the meal, beating well. Sweet milk will do with a little less soda. Bake thirty minutes, or according to heat of the oven. A moderate oven is best.

Mix flour and meal together and rub in lard, sugar and salt. Add yeast cake which has been dissolved in one-half cup of cold water. Mix with warm water at night. Set in a warm place to rise. In the morning stir and let rise to twice its bulk. Knead and put in baking pans. Raise again and bake forty-five minutes.

Put the salt into the flour and soda into the molasses. Stir all together and mix with milk or water. Drop into muffin tins and bake twenty minutes.

Stir the soda and salt into the milk and add flour enough to make thin batter. Fry on a well-greased griddle. One spoonful for each cake. Serve hot with butter and maple syrup.

Mix soda and cream of tartar with flour. Beat the egg, add milk and stir into flour. Fry in small cakes on a griddle.

Stir salt, soda and cream of tartar into the dry flour. Beat the egg, add sugar and butter, stir into the flour and mix with enough milk to make batter as thick as a cake. Bake in a moderate oven. To be eaten hot with butter.

Add enough milk or water to make a thin batter, and bake.

Dissolve the yeast in a half-cupful of cold water. Scald the milk and, when nearly cold, add the yeast, half the sugar, and flour enough to make a thin batter; let it rise to twice its bulk. When light and foamy, add the rest of the ingredients; sprinkle a little flour over the currants, stir the soda into the flour, using flour enough to make stiff dough. Set again, then roll, cut with a cooky-cutter, about an inch thick, and let rise again. Bake in a moderate oven twenty-five minutes. Mix in the morning, if wanted for the evening meal. When done, brush over the top, while warm, with equal parts of milk and molasses.

Beat egg and sugar together, then add milk and salt. Sift the baking-powder into the dry flour, and put all the ingredients together. Add the nuts last, covering with a little flour, to prevent falling, and bake in a moderate oven one hour.

Let the rolled oats and boiling water stand until cool, then add the molasses, salt, and yeast cake which has been dissolved in cold water. Stir in flour enough to make a stiff dough. Let it rise over night. In the morning, stir it down and let it rise again. Mold into loaves and let rise again.

Bake forty-five minutes in a moderate oven.

This will make three small loaves.

Scald the milk. When nearly cold add the yeast cake which has been dissolved in one-half cup of cold water. Rub into the flour, the lard, sugar and salt. Stir all together with a knife and knead. Let rise to twice its bulk and knead. Let rise again and knead. Roll half an inch thick, cut into rounds, spread with butter and double over. Rise again, bake twenty minutes in a hot oven. Mix at ten o’clock in the morning if wanted for supper, a little earlier in cold weather.

Beat the egg, and stir flour and milk in slowly, a little flour, then a little milk. Salt a little. This will make a very thin batter. Drop into well-buttered muffin pan, bake in a very hot oven and serve with hot sauce for a pudding, or eat with butter.

Mix with warm water at night. In the morning add one-quarter teaspoonful of soda, dissolved in two tablespoonfuls of boiling water; stir well. Bake in a gem-pan for twenty or thirty minutes.

Mix salt, sugar, cream of tartar and soda, with the flour. Beat the egg, stir into it the melted butter and milk. Stir all together and bake in a muffin pan, fifteen or twenty minutes.

Put lard and salt into the flour and soda with the sour milk. Mix together, roll thin and cut into rounds. Bake twenty minutes.

Put the soda, salt and cream of tartar into the dry flour. Rub in the lard and mix with water into a soft dough. Roll to the size of the spider or griddle. When the spider is hot and well greased with lard, lay on the cake and cover. Bake ten minutes on one side, then ten on the other. This can be made quickly without waiting for the oven to heat. Serve hot with butter.

Rub sugar, salt and lard into the flour. Dissolve the yeast in half a cupful of cold water. Put all together and mix to a stiff dough with milk or water, at night. In the morning, push it down and let rise again. Then knead and place in a pan. Let it rise to twice its bulk and bake thirty minutes.

Cakes

CAKES

Roll thin and cut with a cooky-cutter.

Cook this until thick, being careful not to burn it. Place cookies in a well-buttered pan, spread on a teaspoonful of the filling and cover with another cooky. Bake in a moderate oven.

Beat the butter, sugar and egg together, add the milk, stir the cream of tartar and soda into the flour dry. Stir all together and roll.

Stir the soda into the cream; beat the eggs; add sugar, salt, flour and cream; last of all, the flavoring.

Stir the soda into the sour milk, add melted butter and sugar, salt and spices. Put the flour over the raisins and stir all together. This will make one loaf or twelve little cakes in gem-pans.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Add the well-beaten eggs, then the milk. Beat together. Put soda and cream of tartar into the flour, dry. Stir all together with the flavoring. This will make two small loaves.

Boil the molasses five minutes. Remove from the fire, and add soda, butter and ginger. When cooled a little, stir in the flour until thick enough to roll, then roll thin as a postage-stamp. Cut with a cooky-cutter, and bake in a hot oven, being careful not to burn. Shut in a tin pail. These will keep for a long time.

Cream butter and sugar together. Add the well-beaten eggs, milk, flavoring and flour into which the cream of tartar and soda have been stirred. Bake thirty minutes in a moderate oven.

Cream the butter and sugar together, beat the eggs, add to the butter and sugar, then stir in the molasses, milk and spices. Add the raisins which have been covered with flour, and, last of all, the flour into which the dry soda has been sifted. Roll thin and cut with cooky-cutter.

Cream together the butter and sugar. Stir into the well-beaten egg. Add milk. Stir cream of tartar and soda into the flour, dry. Beat all together and flavor. Cut into rings and bake in a well-greased pan.

Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the well-beaten eggs and milk and put the soda and cream of tartar into the flour. Stir all together, adding nut meats, covered with flour, last.

Cream the butter and sugar together and add the well-beaten eggs. Add the remainder of the ingredients and drop on a well-greased baking-pan. Bake in a moderate oven, from fifteen to twenty minutes.

Cream the butter and sugar together and add the well-beaten eggs; beat all and add milk; beat again. Sift the cream of tartar and the soda into the flour; stir all together. Bake in a slow oven. This will make two loaves.

Cream the butter and sugar together, and add the well-beaten eggs and the milk. Mix the salt, soda and cream of tartar, with the flour. Stir all together. Put half of this mixture into two oblong pans. To the remainder add one tablespoonful of molasses, one large cupful of raisins, stoned and chopped, a quarter of a pound of citron sliced thin, one teaspoonful of cinnamon and cloves, a little nutmeg, and one tablespoonful of flour. Bake in two pans of the same size as used for the first half. Put the sheets together while warm, alternately, with jelly between.

Beat together eggs and sugar, add salt and extract. Stir into the dry flour the soda and cream of tartar. Mix all together. Bake in a moderate oven, in a large pan, and turn out, when done, on a clean towel, which has been sprinkled with powdered sugar. Spread with jelly and roll while warm.

Cream together the butter and sugar, add milk and flavoring. Stir cream of tartar and soda into dry flour. Last of all add whites of eggs, beaten to a stiff froth. To make a very good cake, the butter and sugar should be creamed with the hand. Citron also makes it very nice.

Beat eggs and sugar together, add water and salt, then put soda and cream of tartar into the dry flour. Beat all together. Bake slowly.

Beat the eggs ten minutes, add sugar, and beat again. Then add the flour, into which has been stirred the baking-powder. Stir all together and flavor. Bake in a moderate oven.

Some Old-Fashioned Candies

SOME OLD-FASHIONED CANDIES

Stir the sugar, flour and grated chocolate into the molasses and milk. When hot add the butter. Boil until it strings. Pour into buttered tin. When nearly cold mark into squares.

Put the molasses, vinegar and butter into a saucepan. Boil until it strings when dropped from a spoon, or until it is brittle when dropped into cold water. Stir the soda in briskly and pour into a buttered tin. When nearly cold, pull until nearly white. Cut into small pieces or sticks and lay on buttered platter.

Boil until it strings. Pour into buttered tin and when cold break into pieces. This is very nice when cooled on snow.

Boil together until it strings and then stir in a pinch of soda. Put this over a quart dish full of popped corn. When cool enough to handle squeeze into balls the size of an orange.

Desserts

DESSERTS

Roll rich pie crust thin as for pies. Cut into rounds, pinch up the edge half an inch high and place in muffin rings. Put into each one a tablespoonful of apple sauce and bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes. Beat the white of an egg to a stiff froth and add two tablespoonfuls of sugar. Drop a spoonful on the top of each and brown quickly in a hot oven.

Take good, sour apples; greenings are best. Scoop out the cores, wash and place in a baking-pan. Fill the hole with sugar, and a tablespoonful for each apple besides. Pour over these a generous supply of cold water. Bake in a hot oven, until light and fluffy. These make a delicious dessert, if served with cream.

Wash, core and quarter sour apples. Put them into an earthen crock. Cover with cold water, adding a cup and a half of sugar to six apples, or sweeten to taste. Bake three or four hours, until they are a dark amber color.

Wash clean, fair, sweet apples. Put these into a baking-pan, with a little cold water and a half-cup of molasses, if four to six apples are used. Bake slowly until you can stick a fork through them. Years ago, people ate these, with crackers and milk. Baked apples and milk was a favorite dish.

Take rich pie crust, roll thin as for pie and cut into rounds as large as a tea plate. Pare and slice fine, one small apple for each dumpling. Lay the apple on the crust, sprinkle on a tiny bit of sugar and nutmeg, turn edges of crust over the apple and press together. Bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes. Serve hot with cold sauce.

Pare and slice apples and fry in hot fat. When removed from the fire, sprinkle over them a little sugar. Bananas are nice cooked in the same way.

Beat the egg, add sugar, salt, lemon juice and grated rind. Roll cracker fine, chop raisins and mix all together. Roll the crust thin, cut into rounds. Put a spoonful of filling between two rounds and pinch the edges together. Prick top crust with fork. Bake in iron pan for twenty minutes.

Put the water and butter, into a dish on the stove. When boiling, stir in the dry flour, into which you have put the salt and soda. Stir until smooth and thick. When nearly cool, add three eggs, one at a time. Drop on a buttered pan and bake twenty minutes in a hot oven. This will make twelve cakes. When they are cold, make a slit in the side with a sharp knife, and fill with whipped cream or the following mixture:

One pint of milk, one egg, two-thirds of a cupful of sugar, one large spoonful of flour. Beat the egg, sugar, flour, and a little salt together till smooth and stir into the boiling milk. Flavor with lemon.

Put the milk on the stove and heat to nearly the boiling point. Whip whites of the eggs to a stiff froth and drop them by spoonfuls into the hot milk for a few minutes to cook. With a skimmer remove these islands to a plate. Beat the yolks of the eggs with sugar, salt and cornstarch. Stir into the milk until it boils. Flavor and cool. Turn into a glass dish and lay the “islands” on top of the custard. Serve cold.

Mix ingredients together with water until thick enough to roll. Cut into rounds an inch thick as for biscuits. Boil one quart of huckleberries in one-half pint of water and one-half cupful of sugar. Drop in the dumplings. Boil for twenty minutes. Serve with cold sauce or cream and sugar.

Soak the gelatine in cold water for fifteen minutes. Stir into the coffee and add sugar, salt and water, then vanilla. Pour into a mould and set away to cool. Serve with sweetened whipped cream.

Soak gelatine in the cold water for half an hour. Add boiling water, sugar and juice of lemons. Stir well and strain into mould or small cups.

Put the salt, soda, lard and cream of tartar, into the dry flour, mix with milk (water will do), divide into halves and roll large enough for a Washington pie tin. Spread butter over one, lay the other on top, bake twenty minutes. Hull and wash and mash the berries and sweeten to taste. Separate the two cakes, butter, and place the berries between. Serve hot.

Cream together the butter and sugar and add the well-beaten egg and milk. Stir the cream of tartar and soda into the dry flour and beat all together. Bake in two Washington pie tins. Hull, wash, mash and sweeten to taste, the berries. Put half of these between the two loaves, the other half on top, with whipped cream on top of all.

Eggs

EGGS

Put your eggs into a bowl which can be sent to the table. Pour boiling water over them and let stand eight or ten minutes. It is essential that the water be boiling. This way of boiling eggs, though so simple, is going out of fashion, unfortunately, as it makes a wonderful difference in the appearance of the egg when broken open, and above all, in its digestibility. Eggs should never be boiled in any other way for invalids.

Toast as many slices of bread as desired. Butter well and pour over these just enough salted water to soften. Have ready a dish of boiling water. Stir it round and round with a spoon or fork, break the egg and drop into this swirling water. Remove from the water in from four to six minutes, as preferred, and place one on each slice of bread. Serve hot, with a dash of pepper, if liked.

Beat whites and yolks separately. Put together, salt, and add water. Pour onto a hot buttered frying pan and fry one side until it is puffed up, then turn half over and serve at once.

Make a plain omelette and add two-thirds of a cupful of chopped boiled ham. Pour into the hot frying pan and cook both sides.

Break the eggs into a sauce pan with milk, salt and butter. Cook until they thicken, stirring constantly. Remove from fire before it wheys. Serve hot with a dash of pepper.

Fish

FISH

Beat the egg and half the milk, adding the flour gradually, to make the batter smooth. Salt, and add the last half-cupful of milk. Put one clam into one teaspoonful of batter and drop into boiling lard. Serve hot.

Put the fish into a piece of cheese-cloth, let cold water run over it, and squeeze dry. Mix ingredients all together. Take a little flour in the hand and roll half a tablespoonful of the mixture between the palms, to the size of a small peach. Fry in deep fat.

Have a large kettle on the fire with plenty of boiling water, deep enough to cover the lobster well. Put into this one cupful of salt, if you cannot get the sea-water. When the water is galloping, put in the lobster, head foremost, and keep it under water. Boil from twenty to thirty-five minutes according to size.

Crack the shell of the claws carefully, remove the meat and place on a platter. Turn the lobster on its back, lay a heavy knife on the middle of the tail, all the way up to the body. Give it a gentle blow with a hammer, then with both hands turn back the shell and draw out the tail intact. Twist off the claws from the under side of the body and remove the body from the shell. Open and remove the stomach and sandbags. Open the tail in length, halfway through, on the under side, remove the black vein from the body to the end. Dress with parsley and serve.

Split open the mackerel, remove head and insides, wash clean, and lay in a baking-pan on a well-buttered paper or cheese-cloth, the skin side down. Spread over this slices of salt pork and a little salt. Bake in moderate oven for twenty minutes, or half an hour. This is much nicer than fried mackerel.

Toast as many slices of bread as you require. Wipe enough oysters to cover them and season with pepper and salt. Put a little hot water over the bread and place in a very hot oven, until the edges of the oysters curl. Serve hot, with a white sauce.

Make a nice dressing of five or six crackers, according to size of family (bread crumbs will do). Roll fine, or soak until soft in milk (water will do). Season to taste with poultry dressing, salt and add a small piece of butter. Wash the shad and stuff. Have a large sheet of white paper, well buttered, or a piece of cheese-cloth. Put into a baking-pan and set in the oven. Bake one hour. Spanish mackerel is fine baked in the same way.

Meat Dishes

MEAT DISHES

Take three pounds of a cheap cut of beef. Wash, put into an iron pan, sprinkle over it salt to taste. Pare six onions, more or less, according to size of family, and prepare four or five small white turnips sliced thin. Lay these around the meat, and pour over all a quart of cold water. Put into the oven and bake three hours. Pare potatoes enough for the family, putting them in an hour and a half before serving. This is a most delicious way to cook beef. As the water cooks away, add more. Thicken the gravy, with flour wet with water, as you would with any roast meat.

Cut the meat into small pieces; cover with cold water, salt and put into the oven; cut the onion into small pieces and add. Bake three hours in an earthen dish. Half an hour before serving, put over the top a crust, made of two cupfuls of flour, two heaping teaspoonfuls of baking-powder, one-half teaspoonful of salt, and one tablespoonful of lard. Wet with water or milk, as for biscuits.

Wash the meat, put into a kettle, cover with cold water and boil four hours. Add the salt, and more water, as it boils away. Pare the onions, wash and slice thin; put them in with the boiling meat, allowing two hours for cooking. Pare potatoes, wash, slice thin; put them in with the meat and onions, allowing three-quarters of an hour for cooking.

Roll out an inch thick and cut into round pieces. Put these on a wire plate, on top of the meat; cover and let boil twenty minutes. Lift them out, and thicken the stew with three dessertspoonfuls of flour, wet with a scant cup of water.

This consists of corned beef, white and sweet potatoes, cabbage, beets, turnips, squash, parsnips, and carrots. The quantity depends upon the size of the family. Eight pounds of meat is sufficient for a family of eight. Boil the meat four hours, the beets three hours, the cabbage one and a half hours, squash and turnips three-quarters of an hour. Boil these in one kettle, all together. Beets, carrots and parsnips should be boiled with the skin on. Pare the potatoes, pare and slice the squash and turnip. Pick the outer leaves from cabbage and cut in quarters. When done, pare parsnips and carrots. Drop the beets into cold water and slip the skin off with the hand.

Cook the chicken or lamb until tender in two quarts of water. Take from the water and chop fine. Put back in the liquor, add the corn, cut from the cob, tomatoes, onion, and potatoes all chopped, salt and pepper to taste. Cook two hours. In winter this can be made by using canned corn and tomatoes.

A piece of fresh beef weighing seven or eight pounds is sufficient for a family of eight. Wash, clean and put it in an earthen dish, twenty-four hours before cooking. Cover with cold water, and add a cup and a half of ice-cream salt. When ready to cook it, remove from the brine and wash, placing it in cold water. Cook four hours.

Chop the meat fine, add the same bulk of potatoes or a little more. Put into a saucepan or spider a lump of butter the size of an egg, and a few spoonfuls of milk or water. When bubbling, put in the meat and potatoes, and a little salt and pepper, if you like. Stir for a while, then let it stand ten or fifteen minutes, until a crust is formed at the bottom. Loosen from the pan with a cake-turner. Turn a warm platter over it. Turn pah and hash together quickly and serve. If you have a scant quantity, place it on slices of toasted bread, which have been buttered and wet with hot water.

Beat the egg and milk together, adding the salt. Dip the chops into this mixture, then into the crumbs. Fry in hot fat. Veal cutlets can be served in the same way.

Put the meat into a kettle, cover with cold water and boil slowly for three or four hours. Add salt and onions, cut fine. Put the tomato through a colander. Boil all together, and, as the water boils away, add more. Serve the meat hot. The liquor makes a delicious soup, thickened with two tablespoonfuls of flour.

Cut the veal into small pieces, a good size for serving, and season with salt and pepper. Dip into the egg. Which has been beaten light, then into the bread crumbs. Have a little pork fat (lard will do) in a frying-pan, and cook until brown. Set on the back of the stove and cook slowly for ten minutes. Cover with milk, and bake in the oven very slowly for one hour in a covered pan. The toughest veal, cooked in this way, will be as tender as chicken.

Grind or chop the veal, salt and stir into the rice with the dressing; beat the eggs, add milk, and stir all together. Drop a tablespoonful spread out thin on the griddle, and fry as you would griddle-cakes. Chicken, pork, or lamb may be used instead of veal.

Miscellaneous

MISCELLANEOUS

Pick over and wash three cupfuls of small white beans; cover with cold water and soak over night. In the morning, put them on the stove, just to scald, not boil, in the same water. Pour off the water and put into an earthen bean-pot. Add seven teaspoonfuls of sugar, one teaspoonful of salt, one half-pound of salt pork, fat and lean mixed. Cover with water, and bake from eight A. M. until six A. M. As the water boils away add more.

Take stale brown bread, no matter how dry, and boil until it is soft like pudding. Serve hot, with cream.

Take four Boston crackers, split open, toast to a delicate brown on each side. Put these into a bowl, or earthen dish of some kind, pour over them a quart of boiling water. Let it stand on the back of the stove half an hour. When cold, give two or three teaspoonfuls to the patient. It is nourishing, and the stomach will retain it when absolutely nothing else can be taken.