GIRL***


This eBook was prepared by Stewart A. Levin.



A LITTLE COOK-BOOK FOR A LITTLE GIRL




by
CAROLINE FRENCH BENTON
Author of ``Gala Day Luncheons''
Boston, The Page Company, Publishers


Copyright, 1905
by Dana Estes & Company


For
Katherine, Monica and Betty
Three Little Girls
Who Love To Do
``Little Girl Cooking''


  Thanks are due to the editor of Good Housekeeping for
permission to reproduce the greater part of this book
from that magazine.





INTRODUCTION




Once upon a time there was a little girl named Margaret, and she
wanted to cook, so she went into the kitchen and tried and tried,
but she could not understand the cook-books, and she made dreadful
messes, and spoiled her frocks and burned her fingers till she just
had to cry.

One day she went to her grandmother and her mother and her Pretty
Aunt and her Other Aunt, who were all sitting sewing, and asked
them to tell here about cooking.

``What is a roux,'' she said, ``and what's a mousse and what's an
entrée?  What are timbales and sautés and ingredients, and how do
you mix 'em and how long do you bake 'em?  Won't somebody please
tell me all about it?''

And her Pretty Aunt said, ``See the flour all over that new frock!''
and her mother said, ``Dear child, you are not old enough to cooks
yet;'' and her grandmother said, ``Just wait a year or two, and
I'll teach you myself;'' and the Other Aunt said, ``Some day you
shall go to cooking-school and learn everything; you know little
girls can't cook.''

But Margaret said, ``I don't want to wait till I'm big; I want to
cook now; and I don't want to do cooking-school cooking, but little
girl cooking, all by myself.''

So she kept on trying to learn, but she burned her fingers and
spoiled her dresses worse than ever, and her messes were so bad
they had to be thrown out, every one of them; and she cried and cried. 
And then one day her grandmother said, ``It's a shame that child
should not learn to cook if she really wants to so much;'' and her
mother said ``Yes, it is a shame, and she shall learn!  Let's get
her a small table and some tins and aprons, and make a little
cook-book all her own out of the old ones we wrote for ourselves
long ago,--just the plain, easy things anybody can make.'' And both
her aunts said, ``Do! We will help, and perhaps we might put in
just a few cooking-school things beside.''

It was not long after this that Margaret had a birthday, and she
was taken to the kitchen to get her presents, which she thought
the funniest thing in the world.  There they all were, in the
middle of the room: first her father's present, a little table
with a white oilcloth cover and casters, which would push right
under the big table when it was not being used.  Over a chair her
grandmother's present, three nice gingham aprons, with sleeves and
ruffled bibs.  On the little table the presents of the aunties,
shiny new tins and saucepans, and cups to measure with, and spoons,
and a toasting-fork, and ever so many things; and then on one corner
of the table, all by itself, was her mother's present, her own
little cook-book, with her own name on it, and that was best of all.

When Margaret had looked at everything, she set out in a row the big
bowl and the middle-sized bowl and the little wee bowl, and put the
scalloped patty-pans around them, and the real egg-beater in front of
all, just like a picture, and then she read a page in her cook-book, and
began to believe it was all true.  So she danced for joy, and put on a
gingham apron and began to cook that very minute, and before another
birthday she had cooked every single thing in the book.

This is Margaret's cook-book.





PART I.

THE THINGS MARGARET MADE FOR BREAKFAST

A LITTLE COOK BOOK FOR A LITTLE GIRL




CEREALS


1 quart of boiling water.
4 tablespoonfuls of cereal.
1 teaspoonful of salt.

When you are to use a cereal made of oats or wheat, always begin
to cook it the night before, even if it says on the package that
it is not necessary.  Put a quart of boiling water in the outside
of the double boiler, and another quart in the inside, and in this
last mix the salt and cereal.  Put the boiler on the back of the
kitchen range, where it will be hardly cook at all, and let it
stand all night.  If the fire is to go out, put it on so that it
will cook for two hours first.  In the morning, if the water in
the outside of the boiler is cold, fill it up hot, and boil hard
for an hour without stirring the cereal.  Then turn it out in a
hot dish, and send it to the table with a pitcher of cream.

The rather soft, smooth cereals, such as farina and cream of rice,
are to be measured in just the same way, but they need not be cooked
overnight; only put on in a double boiler in the morning for an hour. 
Margaret's mother was very particular to have all cereals cooked a
long time, because they are difficult to digest if they are only
partly cooked, even though they look and taste as though they were done.


Corn-meal Mush

1 quart of boiling water.
1 teaspoon of salt.
4 tablespoons of corn-meal.

Be sure the water is boiling very hard when you are ready; then
put in the salt, and pour slowly from your hand the corn-meal,
stirring all the time till there is not one lump.  Boil this half
an hour, and serve with cream.  Some like a handful of nice plump
raisins stirred in, too.  It is better to use yellow corn-meal in
winter and white in summer.


Fried Corn-meal Mush

Make the corn-meal mush the day before you need it, and when it
has cooked half an hour put it in a bread-tin and smooth it over;
stand away overnight to harden.  In the morning turn it out and
slice it in pieces half an inch thick.  Put two tablespoons of
lard or nice drippings in the frying-pan, and make it very hot.
Dip each piece of mush into a pan of flour, and shake off all
except a coating of this.  Put the pieces, a few at a time, into
the hot fat, and cook till they are brown; have ready a heavy brown
paper on a flat dish in the oven, and as you take out the mush lay
it on this, so that the paper will absorb the grease.  When all
are cooked put the pieces on a hot platter, and have a pitcher of
maple syrup ready to send to the table with them.

Another way to cook corn-meal mush is to have a kettle of hot fat ready,
and after flouring the pieces drop them into the fat and cook like
doughnuts.  The pieces have to be rather smaller to cook in this way
than in the other.


Boiled Rice

1 cup of rice.
2 cups of boiling water.
1 teaspoonful of salt.

Pick the rice over, taking out all the bits of brown husk; fill
the outside of the double boiler with hot water, and put in the
rice, salt, and water, and cook forty minutes, but do not stir it.
Then take off the cover from the boiler, and very gently, without
stirring, turn over the rice with a fork; put the dish in the oven
without the cover, and let it stand and dry for ten minutes.  Then
turn it from the boiler into a hot dish, and cover.  Have cream
to eat on it.  If any rice is left over from breakfast, use it the
next morning as--


Fried Rice

Press it into a pan, just as you did the mush, and let it stand
overnight; the next morning slice it, dip it in flour, and fry,
either in the pan or in the deep fat in the kettle, just as you
did the mush.


Farina Croquettes

When farina has been left from breakfast, take it while still warm
and beat into a pint of it the beaten yolks of two eggs.  Let it
then get cold, and at luncheon-time make it into round balls;
dip each one first into the beaten yolk of an egg mixed with a
tablespoonful of cold water, and then into smooth, sifted bread-crumbs;
have ready a kettle of very hot fat, and drop in three at a time,
or, if you have a wire basket, put three in this and sink into the
fat till they are brown.  Serve in a pyramid, on a napkin, and pass
scraped maple sugar with them.

Margaret's mother used to have no cereal at breakfast sometimes, and
have these croquettes as a last course instead, and every one liked them
very much.


Rice Croquettes

1 cup of milk.
Yolk of one egg.
1/4 cup of rice.
1 large tablespoonful of powdered sugar.
Small half-teaspoonful of salt.
1/2 cup of raisins and currants, mixed.
1/2 teaspoonful of vanilla.

Wash the rice and put in a double boiler with the milk, salt and
sugar and cook till very thick; beat the yolks of the eggs and
stir into the rice, and beat till smooth.  Sprinkle the washed
raisins and currants with flour, and roll them in it and mix these in,
and last the vanilla.  Turn out on a platter, and let all get very
cold.  Then make into pyramids, dip in the yolk of an egg mixed
with a tablespoonful of water, and then into sifted bread-crumbs,
and fry in a deep kettle of boiling fat, using a wire basket.
As you take these from the fat, put them on paper in the oven with
the door open.  When all are done, put them on a hot platter and
sift powdered sugar over them, and put a bit of red jelly on top
of each.  This is a nice dessert for luncheon.  All white cereals
may be made into croquettes; if they are for breakfast, do not
sweeten them, but for luncheon use the rule just given, with or
without raisins and currants.


Hominy

Cook this just as you did the rice, drying it in the oven; serve
one morning plain, as cereal, with cream, and then next morning fried,
with maple syrup, after the rest of the meal.  Fried hominy is
always nice to put around a dish of fried chicken or roast game,
and it looks especially well if, instead of being sliced, it is
cut out into fancy shapes with a cooky-cutter.

After Margaret had learned to cook all kinds of cereals, she went on
to the next thing in her cook-book.



EGGS


Soft Boiled

Put six eggs in a baking-dish and cover them with boiling water;
put a cover on and let them stand where they will keep hot, but
not cook, for ten minutes, or, if the family likes them well done,
twelve minutes.  They will be perfectly cooked, but not tough,
soft and creamy all the way through.

Another way to cook them is this:

Put the eggs in a kettle of cold water on the stove, and the moment
the water boils take them up, and they will be just done.  An easy
way to take them up all at once is to put them in a wire basket,
and sink this under the water.  A good way to serve boiled eggs
is to crumple up a fresh napkin in a deep dish, which has been made
very hot, and lay the eggs in the folds of the napkin; this prevents
their breaking, and keeps them warm.


Poached Eggs

Take a pan which is not more than three inches deep, and put in
as many muffin-rings as you wish to cook eggs.  Pour in boiling
water till the rings are half covered, and scatter half a teaspoonful
of salt in the water.  Let it boil up once, and then draw the pan
to the edge of the