A Little Cook Book for a Little Girl | Page 2

before, even if it says on the package that it is not
necessary. Put a quart of boiling water in the outside of the double
boiler, and another quart in the inside, and in this last mix the salt and
cereal. Put the boiler on the back of the kitchen range, where it will be
hardly cook at all, and let it stand all night. If the fire is to go out, put it
on so that it will cook for two hours first. In the morning, if the water in
the outside of the boiler is cold, fill it up hot, and boil hard for an hour

without stirring the cereal. Then turn it out in a hot dish, and send it to
the table with a pitcher of cream.
The rather soft, smooth cereals, such as farina and cream of rice, are to
be measured in just the same way, but they need not be cooked
overnight; only put on in a double boiler in the morning for an hour.
Margaret's mother was very particular to have all cereals cooked a long
time, because they are difficult to digest if they are only partly cooked,
even though they look and taste as though they were done.
Corn-meal Mush
1 quart of boiling water.
1 teaspoon of salt.
4 tablespoons of
corn-meal.
Be sure the water is boiling very hard when you are ready; then put in
the salt, and pour slowly from your hand the corn-meal, stirring all the
time till there is not one lump. Boil this half an hour, and serve with
cream. Some like a handful of nice plump raisins stirred in, too. It is
better to use yellow corn-meal in winter and white in summer.
Fried Corn-meal Mush
Make the corn-meal mush the day before you need it, and when it has
cooked half an hour put it in a bread-tin and smooth it over; stand away
overnight to harden. In the morning turn it out and slice it in pieces half
an inch thick. Put two tablespoons of lard or nice drippings in the
frying-pan, and make it very hot. Dip each piece of mush into a pan of
flour, and shake off all except a coating of this. Put the pieces, a few at
a time, into the hot fat, and cook till they are brown; have ready a heavy
brown paper on a flat dish in the oven, and as you take out the mush lay
it on this, so that the paper will absorb the grease. When all are cooked
put the pieces on a hot platter, and have a pitcher of maple syrup ready
to send to the table with them.
Another way to cook corn-meal mush is to have a kettle of hot fat ready,
and after flouring the pieces drop them into the fat and cook like
doughnuts. The pieces have to be rather smaller to cook in this way

than in the other.
Boiled Rice
1 cup of rice.
2 cups of boiling water.
1 teaspoonful of salt.
Pick the rice over, taking out all the bits of brown husk; fill the outside
of the double boiler with hot water, and put in the rice, salt, and water,
and cook forty minutes, but do not stir it. Then take off the cover from
the boiler, and very gently, without stirring, turn over the rice with a
fork; put the dish in the oven without the cover, and let it stand and dry
for ten minutes. Then turn it from the boiler into a hot dish, and cover.
Have cream to eat on it. If any rice is left over from breakfast, use it the
next morning as--
Fried Rice
Press it into a pan, just as you did the mush, and let it stand overnight;
the next morning slice it, dip it in flour, and fry, either in the pan or in
the deep fat in the kettle, just as you did the mush.
Farina Croquettes
When farina has been left from breakfast, take it while still warm and
beat into a pint of it the beaten yolks of two eggs. Let it then get cold,
and at luncheon-time make it into round balls; dip each one first into
the beaten yolk of an egg mixed with a tablespoonful of cold water, and
then into smooth, sifted bread-crumbs; have ready a kettle of very hot
fat, and drop in three at a time, or, if you have a wire basket, put three
in this and sink into the fat till they are brown. Serve in a pyramid, on a
napkin, and pass scraped maple sugar with them.
Margaret's mother used to have no cereal at breakfast sometimes, and
have these croquettes as a last course instead, and every one liked them
very