Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit Part 30

Aunt Sarah frequently added an equal quant.i.ty of fine, dried bread crumbs and flour and a little extra salt to a thin batter of bread sponge (before all the flour required for bread had been added), made about as stiff a dough as for ordinary loaves of bread; molded them into b.a.l.l.s. When sufficiently raised, boiled them either in water or meat broth in the same manner as she prepared dumplings; made _only_ of _flour_.

This is a small economy, using _bread crumbs_ in place of _flour_, and these are delicious if prepared according to directions. Remember to have a large quant.i.ty of rapidly boiling water in which to cook the dumplings, not to allow water to stop boiling an instant and to keep cook pot closely covered for 20 minutes before removing one, and breaking apart to see if cooked through. These are particularly nice served with stewed apricots.

"LEBER KLOSE" OR LIVER DUMPLINGS

Boil a good-sized soup bone for several hours in plenty of water, to which add salt and pepper to taste and several small pieces of celery and sprigs of parsley to flavor stock. Strain the broth or stock into a good-sized cook pot and set on stove to keep hot.

For the liver dumplings, sc.r.a.pe a half pound of raw beef liver with a knife, until fine and free from all veins, etc. Place the sc.r.a.ped liver in a large bowl, cut three or four good-sized onions into dice, fry a light brown, in a pan containing 1 tablespoonful of lard and b.u.t.ter mixed. Cut into dice 3/4 to a whole loaf of bread (about 2 quarts). Beat 2 eggs together, add 1 cup of sweet milk, season well with salt and pepper, and mix all together with 1 large cup of flour.

If not moist enough to form into b.a.l.l.s when mixed together, add more milk. Keep the mixture as soft as possible or the dumplings will be heavy. Flour the hands when shaping the b.a.l.l.s, which should be the size of a sh.e.l.led walnut. Stand the pot containing stock on the front of the stove, where it will boil, and when boiling, drop in the dumplings and boil, uncovered, for 15 minutes. When cooked, take the dumplings carefully from the stock on to a large platter, pour the stock over the dumplings and serve.

These are excellent, but a little troublesome to make. One-half this quant.i.ty would serve a small family for lunch.

FRAU SCHMIDT'S "OLD RECIPE FOR SCHNITZ AND KNOPF"

Place a cook pot on the range, containing the end piece of a small ham; partly cover with water. This should be done about three hours before serving, changing the water once. Soak sweet, unpared, sliced, dried apples over night in cold water. In the morning cook the dried apples (or schnitz) in a small quant.i.ty of the ham broth, in a separate stew-pan, until tender. Remove ham from broth one-half hour before serving. Sweeten the broth with a small quant.i.ty of brown sugar, and when the broth commences to boil add raised dumplings of dough, which had been shaped with the hands into round b.a.l.l.s about the size of an ordinary biscuit. Cook 25 minutes. Do not uncover the cook-pot after the dumplings have been dropped into the broth until they have cooked the required length of time. When the dumplings have cooked a sufficient time carefully remove to a warm platter containing the cooked apple schnitz. Thicken the broth remaining with a little flour, to the consistency of cream. Pour over the dumplings and serve at once.

Dumplings--At 9.30 in the evening set a sponge consisting of 1 cup of lukewarm milk, 1 tablespoonful sugar, 1 tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter, 1 egg, 3/4 of an yeast cake, add flour enough to form a sponge (as stiff as may be stirred with a mixing spoon). Set to raise in a warm place over night. In the morning add more flour to the risen sponge until nearly as stiff as for bread. Form into round dumplings, place on a well-floured bake-board to rise slowly. Twenty-five minutes before serving drop dumplings into the hot broth in a large cook-pot.

There should be only one layer of dumplings, otherwise they will be heavy.

"BROD KNODEL," OR BREAD DUMPLINGS

3 cups of stale bread (cut like dice).

3/4 cup of flour.

1/2 teaspoonful baking powder.

3/4 cup milk.

2 tablespoonfuls b.u.t.ter.

1 egg.

1 teaspoonful of finely-minced parsley.

1/2 teaspoonful finely-minced onion (if liked).

Pinch of salt.

Place two cups of diced bread in a bowl and pour over 3/4 cup of milk.

(Reserve 1 cup of diced bread, which brown in 1 tablespoonful of b.u.t.ter, to be added to the mixture later.) Allow milk and bread to stand 10 or 15 minutes; then add 1 tablespoonful of melted b.u.t.ter, 1 egg, flour and baking powder, and salt; fried, diced bread and parsley, and mix all together. With well-floured hands form the mixture into b.a.l.l.s size of a walnut, and drop at once into rapidly boiling salted water and cook 15 minutes. Stew pan should be closely covered. When cooked, remove to platter with perforated skimmer, and serve at once, or drop dumplings into a pan containing 1 tablespoonful of melted b.u.t.ter, and brown on all sides before serving.

"GERMAN" POT PIE

To serve a family of six or seven, place 2 pounds of beef and 4 pork chops, cut in small pieces, in a cook-pot. Season with a little chopped onion, pepper and salt. This should be done about three or four hours before dinner. One hour before serving prepare the dough for pot pie. Pare white potatoes, slice and dry on a napkin, sift 2 cups of flour with 1 teaspoonful of baking-powder, pinch of salt, cut through the sifted flour, 1 level tablespoonful of shortening. Moisten dough with 1 egg and enough milk to make dough stiff enough to handle.

(Almost 1 cup of milk, including the egg.) Cut off a small piece of dough, size of a small teacup, roll thin and take up plenty of flour on both sides. Take up all flour possible. Cut this dough into four portions or squares. Have the meat more than covered with water, as water cooks away.

Place a layer of potatoes on meat (well seasoned), then the pared potatoes and small pieces of dough alternately, never allowing pieces of dough to lap; place potatoes between. Roll the last layer out in one piece, size of a pie plate, and cover top layer of potatoes with it. Cover closely and cook three-quarters of an hour from the time it commences to boil. Then turn out carefully on a platter and serve at once.

"ZWETCHEN DAMPFNUDELN" (PRUNE DUMPLINGS)

In the evening a sponge was prepared with yeast for bread. All the flour required to stiffen the dough for loaves of bread being added at this time. The bread sponge was stood in a warm place to rise over night. In the morning, when shaping the dough into loaves, stand aside about one pint of the bread dough. Later in the morning form the pint of dough into small b.a.l.l.s or dumplings, place on a well-floured bake board and stand in a warm place until doubled in size. Then drop the dumplings into a cook pot containing stewed prunes, a small quant.i.ty of water, a little sugar and lemon peel, if liked. The dried prunes had been soaked over night in cold water, and allowed to simmer on the range in the morning. The prune juice should be hot when the dumplings are added. Cook dumplings one-half hour in a closely covered cook-pot and turn out carefully on to a warmed platter, surrounded by prune juice and prunes.

GREEN CORN FRITTERS

Grate pulp from six cars of corn; with a knife sc.r.a.pe down the pulp into a bowl, add 2 eggs, beaten separately, a couple tablespoonfuls of milk, 1 large tablespoonful of flour, 1/4 teaspoonful of baking powder and a pinch of salt. Drop with a spoon on a well-greased griddle. The cakes should be the size of a silver half dollar. Bake brown on either side and serve hot. These should not be fried as quickly as griddle cakes are fried, as the corn might then not be thoroughly cooked.

"MOULDASHA" (PARSLEY PIES)

Mash and season with b.u.t.ter and salt half a dozen boiled white potatoes, add a little grated onion and chopped parsley. Sift together in a bowl 1 cup of flour, 1 teaspoonful baking powder and a little salt. Add a small quant.i.ty of milk to one egg if not enough liquid to mix into a soft dough. Roll out like pie crust, handling as little as possible. Cut into small squares, fill with the potato mixture, turn opposite corners over and pinch together all around like small, three-cornered pies. Drop the small triangular pies into boiling, salted water a few minutes, or until they rise to top; then skim out and brown them in a pan containing a tablespoonful each of b.u.t.ter and lard. I have known some Germans who called these "Garden Birds." Stale bread crumbs, browned in b.u.t.ter, may be sprinkled over these pies when served. Serve hot.

These are really pot pie or dumplings with potato filling. Mary's Aunt always called these "Mouldasha." Where she obtained the name or what its meaning is, the writer is unable to say.

INEXPENSIVE DROP CRULLERS

Cream together 1 cup sugar and 1 egg, then add one cup of milk alternately with 2 cups of flour, sifted with 2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Add 1/2 teaspoonful of vanilla and enough flour to make a stiff batter.

Take about 1/2 a teaspoonful of the batter at a time and drop into boiling hot fat, and brown on both sides; then drain on coa.r.s.e, brown paper and, when cool, dust with pulverized sugar. These cakes are cheap and good, and as no shortening is used are not rich. Do not make cakes too large, as they then will not cook through readily.

BATTER BAKED WITH GRAVY

The Professor's wife gave Mary this recipe, given her by an Englishwoman. The recipe was liked by her family, being both economical and good. When serving roast beef for dinner, before thickening the gravy, take out about half a cup of liquid from the pan and stand in a cool place until the day following. Reheat the roast remaining from previous day, pour the half cup of liquid in an iron fry pan, and when hot pour the following batter in the pan with the fat and bake in a moderately hot oven about 25 minutes. Or the batter may be poured in pan about 25 minutes before meat has finished roasting.

The batter was composed of 1 cup of flour, sifted with 1 small teaspoonful of baking powder and 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, mixed smooth with 1 cup of sweet milk. Add 2 well-beaten eggs. When baked cut in small pieces, surround the meat on platter, serve instead of potatoes with roast. The addition of baked dough extends the meat flavor and makes possible the serving of a smaller amount of meat at a meal.

"GERMAN" SOUR CREAM CRULLERS

One cup sugar, 1 cup sour cream, 2 eggs, 2 tablespoonfuls of b.u.t.ter, 1 teaspoonful soda, pinch of salt. About 3-1/2 cups of flour. (Use extra flour to dredge the bake-board when rolling out crullers.) This is a very good recipe for crullers, in which the economical housewife may use the cup of cream which has turned sour. This necessitates using less shortening, which otherwise would be required. Cream together sugar, b.u.t.ter, add yolks of eggs. Dissolve the soda in a small quant.i.ty of sour cream. Mix cream alternately with the flour. Add pinch of salt. Add just enough flour to roll out. Cut with small doughnut cutter with hole in centre. Fry in hot fat. Dust with pulverized sugar.

"GRANDMOTHER'S" DOUGHNUTS

Cream together 1 cup sugar and 2 teaspoonfuls b.u.t.ter, 1/2 a grated nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. Add 2 eggs, beaten without separating yolks from whites, and 1 cup of sweet milk. Then add 4 cups of flour (or 1 quart), prepared as follows: Measure 1 quart of unsifted flour and sift twice with 2 generous teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Use this to thicken the batter sufficiently to roll out and use about 1 extra cup of flour to flour the bake-board. Turn out one-half the quant.i.ty of dough on to a half cup of flour on the bake-board. Roll out dough half an inch thick. Cut out with round cutter, with hole in centre, and drop into deep, hot fat. Use 2/3 lard and 1/3 suet for deep frying; it is cheaper and more wholesome than to use all lard. When fat is hot enough to brown a small piece of bread while you count 60, it is the correct temperature for doughnuts. The dough should be as soft as can be handled. When cakes are a rich brown, take from fat, drain well on coa.r.s.e, brown paper, and when cool dust with pulverized sugar and place in a covered stone jar. Never use fat as hot for frying doughnuts as that used for frying croquettes, but should the fat not be hot the doughnuts would be greasy. These doughnuts are excellent if made according to recipe.

FINE "DROP CRULLERS"

Cream together 1-1/2 cups pulverized sugar, 3 eggs, add 1 cup sweet milk, 1/2 teaspoonful of salt, 3-1/2 cups of flour, sifted after measuring with 2 teaspoonfuls of baking powder. Drop teaspoonfuls of this carefully into boiling fat.

They should resemble small b.a.l.l.s when fried. Batter must not be too stiff, but about the consistency of a cup-cake batter.

Boil them in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar when all have been fried.

SOUPS AND CHOWDERS