Original White House Cookbook

Beat the white of an egg, put to it a small lump of butter and pour the coffee into it gradually, stirring it so that it will not curdle. It is difficult to distinguish this from fresh cream. Many drop a tiny piece of sweet butter into their cup of hot coffee as a substitute for cream. TO MAKE TEA. Allow two teaspoonfuls of tea to one large cupful of boiling water. Scald the teapot, put in the tea, pour on about a cupful of boiling water, set it on the fire in a warm place where it will not boil, but keep very hot, to almost boiling ; let it steep or “draw ’’ ten or twelve minutes. Now fill up with as much boiling water as is required. Send hot to the table. It is better to use a china or porcelain teapot, but if you do use metal let it be tin, new, bright and clean ; never use it when the tin is worn off and the iron exposed. If you do you are drinking tannate of iron. To make tea to perfection, boiling water must be poured on the leaves directly it boils. Water which has been boiling more than five minutes, or which has previously boiled, should on no account be used. If the water does not boil, or if it be allowed to overboil, the leaves of the tea will be only half-opened and the tea itself will be quite spoiled. The water should be allowed to remain on the leaves from ten to fifteen minutes. A Chinese being interviewed for the Cook says : Drink your tea plain. Don’t add milk or sugar. Tea-brokers and tea-tasters never do ; epicures never do ; the Chinese never do. Milk contains fibrin, albumen or some other stuff, and the tea a delicate amount of tannin. Mixing the two makes the liquid turbid. This turbidity, if I remember the cyclopaedia aright, is tannate of fibrin, or leather. People who put milk in tea are therefore drinking boots and shoes in mild disguise. ICED TEA Is NOW served to a considerable extent during the summer months. It is of course used without milk, and the addition of sugar serves only to destroy the finer tea flavor. It may be prepared some hours in advance, and should be made stronger than when served hot. It is bottled and placed in the ice chest till required. Use the black or green teas, or both, mixed, as fancied. CHOCOLATE. Allow half a cupful of grated chocolate to a pint of water and a pint of milk. Eub the chocolate smooth in a little cold water and stir into the boiling water. Boil twenty minutes, add the milk and boil ten minutes more, stirring it often. Sweeten to your taste. The French put two cupfuls of boiling water to each cupful of chocolate. They throw in the chocolate just as the water commences to boil. Stir it with a spoon as soon as it boils up, add two cupfuls of good milk, and when it has boiled sufficiently, serve a spoonful of thick whipped cream with each cup. I COCOA. Six tablespoonfuls of cocoa to each pint of water, as much milk as water, sugar to taste. Eub cocoa smooth in a little cold water; have ready on the fire a pint of boiling water ; stir in grated cocoa paste. Boil twenty minutes, add milk and boil five minutes more, stiring often. Sweeten in cups so as to suit different tastes. BUTTERMILK AS A DRINK.