Handbook of practical cookery

Onions are exceedingly indigestible, unless soaked for twelve hours before cooking. Fried onions cannot therefore be recommended for dyspeptics. Lima Beans. — Take one pint of shelled lima beans, two ounces of butter, one tea-spoonful of salt, one half tea-spoonful of white pepper. Put the shelled beans into a bowl, and pour over them some boiling water. Leaving them in this water five minutes, take them out and drain them ; then placing them in a sauce-pan of boiling water in which the salt has been dissolved, allow them to boil for twenty minutes. When done pour them into a colander, and when thoroughly drained pour them into a vegetable dish, sprinkle over them the pepper, and melting the butter, pour it also over them, and serve. NOTE. — Succotash may be made from the boiled lima beans by adding to them an equal quantity of canned green corn, and an equal quantity of milk and water, seasoned with pepper, salt, and a lump of butter, being poured over the mixture while warming. Cabbage a-la-Mode. — Provide one head of cabbage, one quarter pound of cold chicken, two ounces of cold pork, one quarter pound of rice, three ounces of butter, one half ounce of flour, one pint of brown stock, one tea-spoonful of salt, one tea-spoonful of pepper, one Bermuda onion. A close firm head of cabbage should be selected, and this well washed in cold water, after which it must be placed in a large sauce-pan of boiling water, and boiled over a brisk fire for fifteen minutes. At the end of this time, take the cabbage from the water, place it upon a platter to cool a little, and while this is cooling, put into a chopping bowl, and chop very finely the chicken and pork ; chop the onion also, and mix it with the meat ; season all with the pepper and salt ; wash well the rice, and mix it with the pork, fowl, and onion ; open the BOILED PARSNIPS — LEEKS AU GRATIN. 113 leaves of the cabbage gently, and inserting this mixture between them, bind the cabbage around with a piece of twine, and melting in a large sauce-pan the butter, fry the cabbage in it until thoroughly brown. Mix the flour with a little of the stock in a bowl, and when the lumps are all beaten out, add the remainder of the stock. Pour this over the browned cabbage, and let all stew very slowly for three hours thereafter. When done, serve in a vegetable dish with the sauce poured around. NOTE. — Cold roast beef or lean roast mutton may be substituted when chicken is not convenient. Boiled Parsnips. — Prepare ten medium-sized parsnips, three ounces of butter, three gills of milk, one table-spoonful of salt, one half tea-spoonful of pepper, one salt-spoonful of grated nutmeg. Wash the parsnips as cleanly as possible in cold water, when they must be put into a sauce-pan of boiling water in which the salt has been dissolved. Boil them from half an hour to three quarters of an hour, as their age and size may demand ; and when boiled until tender take them from the water, one by one, rubbing each in a clean towel to remove the skin, which will have become loosened by boiling. Place them in a heated vegetable dish, and when the butter has been melted, the milk added thereto, together with the pepper and nutmeg, and all boiled, this should be poured over the parsnips, and all immediately served.