Cook's Recipes: A Backward Glance (4)

Topic: Tomato Toast With Poached Eggs, Chicken Curry with Curried Rice, Potato Pancakes (1897 & 1898) #4

Tomato Toast With Poached Eggs

Place one can tomatoes in a saucepan over the fire, add one teaspoonful salt, one quarter teaspoonful pepper, one tablespoonful butter and the same of sugar; cook fifteen minutes. In the meantime cut six thin slices of bread, cut off the corners so as to give them a nice round shape, toast the bread to a fine golden color and butter it, lay the toast on a long platter, pour over the tomatoes and lay a poached egg in center of each piece of toast.

Poached Eggs

Place a large frying pan with boiling water over the fire; and half teaspoonful salt and two tablespoonsful vinegar, as soon as the water boils, crack an egg and hold it close to the water, open the shell and let the egg slip into the water, continue until all the eggs are in the pan, then draw the pan to side of stove, where it stops boiling. As soon as the white is firm take them out carefully with a flat skimmer and lay one egg on each piece of toast and serve. (B.D.E. 1/26/1897)

Chicken Curry

Clean, wash and cut a nice, plump chicken of three and a half pounds in weight into ten pieces, place in a saucepan, cover with boiling water, add one tablespoonful salt, half teaspoonful pepper, a bouquet and two medium sized white onions; cover and cook till tender. Then melt two ounces butter in a saucepan, add two tablespoonfuls flour, stir and cook two minutes; add one tablespoonful curry powder, mix it well with the butter and flour; then strain the chicken broth; add it to the butter and flour, stir and cook till smooth, mix the yolks of two eggs with one tablespoonful lemon juice; add it to the sauce. Arrange the chcken on a hot dish; pour over the sauce, and lay a border of rice around it or garnish with rice timbales.

Curried Rice

Wash one pound best rice, place it in a saucepan, cover with two quarts of boiling water, and one teaspoonful of salt, cover and cook till the rice is soft but not broken: drain off the water, rinse off several times with cold water, return the rice to the saucepan, put on the lid and set the saucepan for a half hour on side of stove to dry. Shortly before serving place a saucepan with two tablespoonfuls butter and two medium sized fine chopped white onions over the fire, stir and cook about five minutes, not allowing the onions to obtain any color; then add one heaping tablespoonful curry powder, stir and cook five minutes over a slow fire; then place the rice in a dish, pour over the curry sauce and mix it well with two forks, then serve.

Potato Pancakes

Pare, wash and grate twelve large, raw potatoes; mix with one teaspoonful salt and the yolks of three eggs; beat the whites to a stiff froth; add the potatoes slowly to the whites. Place a large frying pan with one tablespoonful fat over the fire; as soon as hot, put small portions from the mixture with a spoon into the hot fat, to form cakes the size of a saucer; bake light brown on both sides; transfer them to a hot plate and serve with apple sauce or any kind of stewed fruit. (B.D.E. 3/27/1898)

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