The new century cookery book

Cold potatoes can be used in numerous ways. They can be fried, tossed, or sauted, though boiled potatoes will never do to be reheated and served again as boiled ; for in that guise they have a very peculiar warmed-up flavour, which would tell the tale at once. Cold potatoes when rubbed through a sieve are useful for making fish cakes, meat croquettes, cold meat pies. Sliced they make an excellent salad, if properly and liberally seasoned with salad dressing. A delicious pie is made with minced meat, moistened with a nicely flavoured sauce and put in a pie dish, covered with a good layer of mashed potatoes and baked in the oven. Mashed up with leftover cold fish, moistened with the remainder of the white sauce and a little butter, a good material for a pie or croquette is available. Potato-balls and croquettes are also made from cold potatoes. Cold vegetables are used for salads, either separately or mixed with cold meat and dressing. Cold green vegetables, such as green peas, French beans, globe artichokes, asparagus, &c., make very good salads if seasoned with an ordinary vinaigrette sauce : this latter is a mixture of three parts of salad oil and one part of vinegar, salt, pepper, and chopped parsley. Again, many vegetables, especially peas, beans, sprigs of cauliflower, and artichokes, come in handy as garnitures for meat dishes and certain soups. Bones and scraps of meat, if insufficient for a special dish, and gravy left over from roast meat, should be put into the stock-pot. In order to assist the cook in exercising economy, I have introduced a number of recipes for dishes in the preparation of which cold meat, &c., may be employed. CHAPTER Y COOKING FUELS AND COOKING STOVES In this chapter I will endeavour to deal with the relative values of fuels used for the purpose of cooking, and the apparatus in which fuel is used with that object. SOLID FUELS Coal. — By far the greater amount of cooking is done by means of coal fires. The so-called mineral coal is the most concentrated of all solid fuels, and gives more heat than any other solid fuel materials. There are two kinds of coals, the hard and soft. The best example of hard coal is that known as anthracite ; it is more expensive than any other kind, but is acknowledged to be the most convenient, the cleanest, and therefore the best kind of coal to use, because it has greater heating power than any other kind. Hard and soft coals are very similar in appearance ; but the latter differ from the fact that they fuse and melt when burning, which the hard coal does not. Their heating power is about equal. Coke and Charcoal. — These are mainly used for slow cooking processes, such as braising, and sometimes for grilling. Coke mixed with ordinary coal is recommended, because it forms a more economical fuel, though the heating power becomes somewhat reduced when coke is used. Charcoal is excellent for many culinary purposes, but is rather expensive to use in this country.