Every vegetable is almost lacking in fat; the legumes have the largest proportion, and they average only three per cent. Therefore, fat in some form is added to every vege table dish. We beat cream or butter into mashed potatoes, bake beans with a bit of pork on t,op of them, and pour oil over salads.
Now to the various methods of preparation and cooking of vege tables. Probably root vegetables are used most largely in every household. Keep two utensils for their thorough cleaning, a small stiff brush, and a square of rough burlap. The brush scrubs earth from every crevice. Bur lap is also a splendid cleaner. Put your vegetables into cold water and rub them thoroughly with it. It will bring the skin off clean from new potatoes. Carrots, parsnips, and sal sify require scraping after they have had a rubbing with the burlap. Tur nips, kohl-rabi, and celeriac should be pared. Beets must be well cleansed, but not broken anywhere, not even have the tops cut, or they will " bleed," thus losing their fine sweet flavor. With most of the root vege tables, except potatoes, white and sweet, the only method for cooking is to boil them by dropping them into water at a bubbling boil. Turnips, carrots, parsnips, kohl-rabi, and ce leriac will cook in half an hour if they are young and fresh; winter vegetables require from forty to sixty minutes. Young beets take an hour; old beets require boiling all day. The best way to cook them is to consign them to the fireless cooker. You can make these root vegetables as palat able as skilled French cooks do by the simple process of blanching.
Blanching means bleaching; it re moves from winter vegetables their strong, acrid flavor. Then it improves their quality. Let us blanch turnips, for instance; then you can apply the same process to a variety of vegeta bles. Have a large saucepan with 2 quarts water at a rapid boil; add 1 tablespoonful salt; drop into it the pared turnips and bring the water back to the boiling point as quickly as possible. Cook rapidly, uncovered, for thirty minutes. Drain off the wa ter, put the turnips in a strainer, and cool them under the cold-water faucet; then set away in a covered dish until you are ready to prepare them for the table. Cut them into rather large pieces, put in a saucepan with a ta blespoonful butter, a dash pepper, a teaspoonful salt, and 4 tablespoonfuls meat stock or milk. Cook over a hot fire until the vegetables have absorbed both seasonings and liquid. Serve at once.
Blanching of vegetables means a. saving of time, because they may be cooked in the leisurely hours of the morning, then quickly reheated when dinner is being prepared. Cabbage,
cauliflower, Brussels sprouts, string beans, peas, onions, celery, kohl-rabi, carrots, parsnips, spinach, Swiss chard, artichokes, and salsify are vegetables which may be blanched be fore the final cooking.
Before using vegetables which form heads, such as lettuce, cabbage, cauli flower, kale and Brussels sprouts, cleanse thoroughly by soaking half an hour, head down, in cold, salted water, with a few tablespoonfuls vine gar in it. This makes insects or worms concealed among the curly leaves crawl out. Spinach requires no end of washing. The best way to cleanse it is to keep filling two pans with cold water and washing the greens till not a grain of sand settles in the bottom. Celery also requires thorough washing, as considerable dirt clings to both stalks and roots dur ing the blanching process.
Different vegetables require differ ent methods of boiling. All of them should be dropped into water which is vigorously bubbling. For a few minutes, the process will be inter rupted, but set it over a hot part of the stove, where it will begin to boil again rapidly. This must be con tinued for herbaceous vegetables, young peas, and beans. Root vege tables and cauliflower require gentler treatinent. To quote a French cook, "Do not let the water grin; keep it smiling." As soon as vegetables are tender, lift them off the fire and drain, never allowing anything to stay in hot wa ter a minute after it has been cooked. This soaking process is what so often makes vegetables indigestible, when, if properly treated, they would be perfectly wholesome. While cooking vegetables of any kind, lea,ve the saucepan uncovered; volatile bodies liberated by heat pass off in steam. Cabbage and onions closely lidded are sure to fill the house with an un pleasant odor as soon as they are un covered; if cooked without a lid, odors are scarcely noticeable. When peas and beans are so rire as to be slight ly tough, they may still be made ap petizing and digestible if teaspoon ful soda is added to the vvater. This helps to make them tender as well as retain the color, but beware of adding too much soda; it will give the food an exceedingly nasty flavor. When possible, a skilled cook boils every vegetable in distilled water. The country cook who bas clean, soft, cis tern water at her command, should always use it in boiling vegetables. The housewife who is compelled to use very hard water to cook vegeta bles should soften it slightly by add ing a dash of soda.