The art of cookery

To Prepare Potatoes. — If the potatoes are to be baked or boiled in their skins, wash clean, using a small brush to scrub them with, and remove, with a knife, all specks or blemishes. In paring potatoes use a small, thin-bladed, sharp-pointed knife, drop the potatoes as soon as pared into cold water, and let them remain there until needed for cooking. This keeps them from exposure to the air, and prevents their becoming discolored. To Prepare Turnips, Carrots, Etc. — Cut or slice the turnips in pieces before paring, unless they are to be cooked whole. Instead of scraping the skin from carrots, parsnips, and salsify it is easier and better to remove a thin paring by cutting from the top, lengthwise of the vegetable. Carrots, parsnips, and salsify should, like potatoes, be dropped in water as soon as pared. To Prepare Squashes. — Squashes of the hard-shelled variety should be washed or scrubbed until perfectly clean, and then be cut with a saw into pieces the size desired for baking or steaming. Pumpkins and squashes Preparation of Food Materials. 25 of the soft-shelled varieties should be divided into pieces easily handled, before they are pared. To Shell Peas. — Pick up the pods with the left hand and press the thumb of the right hand upon the front of the lower end of the pod — the forefinger of the right hand supporting the pod beneath — until it splits open. Then slip the thumb into the opening, run it up the entire length of the pod, and scrape out the peas into a dish or pan beneath the hand. Shelled peas should not be allowed to drop into the dish containing the pods. To String Beans. — To remove the strings from green snap beans bend the sharp point at the lower end of the pod backward until it breaks, and, with it still attached, remove the string along the back of the pod, breaking off with it the stem at the opposite end. Instead of breaking the pods separately between the fingers, a handful of them may be taken at a time and cut with a knife upon a board much more expeditiously. To Wash Asparagus. — Take each stalk by the cut end and swash it back and forward in a large pan of water. Tie the washed stalks in bunches of six or eight in each bunch, with a white cotton string; place the green tips evenly together and cut off the opposite ends of the stalks, thus making the bunches of a uniform length. To Prepare Cabbage or Cauliflower. — Cut off the roots and remove the outside leaves, then divide the heads into quarters and lay face downward in cold salted water for half an hour before cooking. Salt water is said to induce worms and bugs to come from their hiding places in vegetables and float upon the water. To Prepare Spinach, Etc. — Cut off the roots and 26 The Art of Cookery. pick off the dead leaves from spinach, dandeUon, and other greens, carefully examine for insects and worms, throw into salted water, let remain for half an hour, then wash each bunch or head singly in a large pan of clean water. Spinach, dandelions, and other greens washed by the handful and crowded together in quantities in the water when washed are usually gritty and unpalatable when cooked. To Prepare Celery. — Remove the coarse outside stems and pare the root. Divide the stalk into halves — - if large into quarters — and trim off all leaves that are not ornamental or edible.