Jasper County Democrat, Volume 13, Number 82, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1911 — Cookery Notes [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Cookery Notes

If improperly cooked beef kidneys are a coarse dish, but when carefully prepared they make an excellent stew. Remove all superfluous fat, trim them and cut them into chunks. Let them soak in cold salted water for about an

hour. Rinse them very thoroughly and then set them over the fire in fresh cold water. When they come almost to the boiling point and begin to show scum on the surface pour off the water and add fresh cold water. A better way, if one has time, is to remove the kidneys, put them in a new pot or lay them aside a moment until the pot they were cooked in has been thoroughly washed out. Then put them back. In order to get the strong flavor out of this meat it is necessary to remove as much scum and blood from it as possible. Let them reheat in water a second time. Then pour off this second water and treat as before. It may be necessary to do it a third and a fourth time also. When the stage is reached in which the water is quite clear‘and free from scum cut up one or two onions—a good sized one for every kidney—one or two small carrots and one or two potatoes. Put them into the water around the meat and cook slowly for about two hours or until a gravy is formed. Some cooks add a little lemon juice or part of the yellow peel of a lemon to the stew. The carrots and onions may be left out and the kidneys stewed by themselves, the gravy being flavored only with a tiny glass of wine and lemon juice. Potato Cake. Two cupfuls of sugar, two cupfuls of flour, one cupful of butter, one large cupful of English walnuts, one cupful of potatoes, mashed and seasoned. ready to serve; ohe and onehalf cupfuls of chocolate, grated; onehalf cupful of milk, eggs, using all the yolks and whites of three., keeping two whites for boiled frosting; two teaspoonfuls of baking powder, one each of cloves, cinnamon, allspice and nutmeg, one each of lemon atid vanilla. Bake either in loaf or layers. Cream butter and sugar. Add milk, then yolks of eggs, beaten high; then potatoes, soft spices, chocolate and baking i>owder in flour, and add to eggs and butter. Then add beaten whites and lastly the nnts. Will keep fresh for a week or ten days. Split Pea Soup. For split pea soup, so good in this cold weather, soak a quart of split peas overnight In the morning put them on the stove in plenty of fresh cold water, about four times as much water as peas. Add a large piece of salt pork, half a good sized carrot, a good sized leek, two potatoes of medium size, one root of parsley, one teaspbonful of thyme, one large turnip, a bunch of celery tips, a large slice of bread and salt and pepper to taste. Let the soup boll all day, adding fresh water as it boils down. Strain beforeserving. . -I.’’