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Cooking with a Gas Range

Cooking with a Gas Range image

For all using gas we are fortunate in securing the following written for this book by Emily Marion Colling, Mrs. Rohrer's well known associate in the cooking school.

Keeping Eggs Fresh

Keeping Eggs Fresh image

"All it is necessary to do to keep eggs through summer is to procure small, clean wooden or tin vessels, holding from ten to twenty gallons, and a barrel, more or less, of common, fine-ground land plaster. Begin by putting on the bottom of the vessel two or three inches of plaster, and then, having fresh eggs, with the yolks unbroken, set them up, small end down, close to each other, but not crowding, and make the first layer. Then add more plaster and enough so the eggs will stand upright, and set up the second layer; then another deposit of plaster, followed by a layer of eggs, till the vessel is full, and finish by covering the top layer with plaster. Eggs so packed and subjected to a temperature of at least 85 degrees, if not 90 degrees, during August and September, came out fresh, and if one could be certain of not having a temperature of more than 75 degrees to contend with, I am confident eggs could be kept by these means all the year round. Observe that the eggs must be fresh laid, the yolks unbroken, the packing done in small vessels, and with clean, fine ground land plaster, and care must be taken that no egg so presses on another as to break the shell."

Eggs may be kept good for a year in the following manner:
To a pail of water, put of unslacked lime and coarse salt each a pint; keep it in a cellar, or cool place, and put the eggs in, as fresh laid as possible. It is well to keep a stone pot of this lime water ready to receive the eggs as soon as laid; make a fresh supply every few months. This lime water is of exactly the proper strength; strong lime water will cook the eggs. Very strong lime water will eat the shell.

To Tell Good Eggs

To Tell Good Eggs image

Put them in water--if the large end turns up, they are not fresh. This is an infallible rule to distinguish a good egg from a bad one.

To Make Lard

To Make Lard image

Take the leaf fat from the inside of a bacon hog, cut it small, and put it in an iron kettle, which must be perfectly free from any musty taste; set it over a steady, moderate fire, until nothing but scraps remain of the meat; the heat must be kept up, but gentle, that it may not burn the lard; spread a coarse cloth in a wire sieve, and strain the liquid into tin basins which will hold two or three quarts; squeeze out all the fat from the scraps. When the lard in the pans is cold, press a piece of new muslin close upon it, trim it off at the edge of the pan, and keep it in a cold place. Or it may be kept in wooden kegs with close covers. Lard made with one-third as much beef suet as fat, is supposed by many persons to keep better.

Convenient Measures

Convenient Measures image

Wheat flour, one pound is one quart.
Butter, when soft, one pound is one quart.
Granulated sugar, one pound and one ounce is one quart.
Brown sugar, one pound and two ounces is one quart.
Ten average sized eggs are one pound.
Four large tablespoonfuls make one-half a gill.
Sixteen large tablespoonfuls make one-half a pint.
A common sized tumbler holds one half a pint.
Twenty-five drops are equal to one teaspoonful.

In calculating for company allow one quart of oysters to every three persons for soup. One gallon of ice cream to every twenty persons. Five chickens or a ten pound turkey boiled and minced and fifteen heads of celery for chicken salad for fifty persons. For twenty guests, four dozen biscuits.

To Get Rid of Black Ants

To Get Rid of Black Ants image

Get five cents worth of tartar emetic, mix in an old saucer with sugar and water and place it where the ants trouble you. In twenty-four hours every ant will have left the premises. The same dish of tartar emetic answers as well the second year as the first; as the water dries add more.

Furniture Polish

Furniture Polish image

Half a gallon of raw linseed oil, one pint of turpentine, half a pint of aqua ammonia, half a pint of benzine, half a pint of alcohol, one and one-half pints of cider vinegar.

To Preserve Eggs

To Preserve Eggs image

Fourteen quarts of unslacked lime, two tablespoons each of salt, cream tartar and salt petre. Stir two or three times and let stand twenty-four hours before using. Dip off as close as you can without roiling, then add four quarts of lime, the same amount of other ingredients as above, let settle and use as above directed. After which begin anew.

This is a valuable recipe.

The liquor is dipped off into the crock in which you wish to pack your eggs.

Pastilles---For Deodorizing Rooms

Pastilles---For Deodorizing Rooms image

Two ounces of willow charcoal, one-quarter ounce of pulverized benzoine, one-quarter ounce of Cascarilla, one ounce of pulverized nitre, one pinch of myrrh, one-fourth ounce of benzoic acid, one-half ounce of mixed oils (lemon, geranium, cinnamon, orange, lavender, neroli, citronella, burgamot, clove, sandalwood, rosemary, and bitter almond.) Dissolve enough gum tragacanth to mix with the ingredients and to make a paste the consistency of putty. Mould with the fingers into little cones the size of a thimble and set away to dry. Light with a match when ready for use and let smoke.

Equal parts of powdered alum and salt placed in the cavity of an aching tooth will give relief immediately.

A cloth wrung out of very hot water and frequently renewed, applied to the part affected will prevent or remove discoloration from a bruise.

A gill of fresh made coffee poured upon the breakfast platter alter it is ready to serve, will give it a rich color and flavor.

To Make a Rose Scent Jar

To Make a Rose Scent Jar image

Gather the rose petals in the morning. Let them stand in a cool place, tossed up lightly, for one hour to dry off, then put in layers with salt sprinkled between them, into a large covered dish. You can add to this for several mornings till you have stock enough; from one pint to one quart. Stir every morning and let the whole stand ten days. Then transfer it to a glass fruit jar, in the bottom of which you have placed two ounces of coarsely ground allspice, and as much broken up stick cinnamon. This may stand six weeks closely covered, when it is ready for the permanent jar, which may be as pretty as your means can purchase. Have ready one ounce each of allspice, cloves, cinnamon and mace, all coarsely ground, one ounce of bruised orris root, two ounces of lavender flowers, and a small quantity of any other sweet scented dried flowers. Mix together and put into the jar in alternate layers with the rose stock and a few drops of oil of rose, geranium, or violet, and pour over the whole one gill of good cologne.
This will last for years, though from time to time you may add a little lavender or orange flower water, and some seasons fresh rose petals.