Part 17 (1/2)
BAKED PEARS.--Hard pears make an excellent dessert when baked.
Pare, halve, remove seeds, and place in a shallow earthen dish, with a cup of water to each two quarts of fruit. If the pears are sour, a little sugar may be added. Bake, closely covered, in a moderate oven until tender. Serve with sugar and cream. Tart pears are the best for baking, as the sweet varieties are often tasteless.
BAKED QUINCES.--Pare and remove the cores. Fill the cavities with sugar, put in a shallow earthen dish, and add water to cover the bottom; bake till soft, basting often with the syrup. If the syrup dries out before the fruit is perfectly tender, add a little more hot water.
PIPPINS AND QUINCE.--Pare and quarter nice golden pippins, and cook in boiling water until reduced to a jelly. Add two or three quinces sliced, and simmer slowly in the jelly until the quince is tender. Add sugar to taste. Serve cold.
BAKED APPLE SAUCE.--Pare, core, and quarter apples to fill an earthen crock or deep pudding dish, taking care to use apples of the same degree of hardness, and pieces of the same size. For two quarts of fruit thus prepared, add a cup of water, and if the apples are sour, a cup of sugar. Cover closely, and bake in a moderate oven several hours, or until of a dark red color.
Sweet apples and quinces in the proportion of two parts of apple to one of quince, baked in this way, are also good. Cut the apples into quarters, but slice the quinces much thinner, as they are more difficult to cook. Put a layer of quince on the bottom of the dish, alternating with a layer of apple, until the dish is full. Add cold water to half cover the fruit, and stew in the oven well covered, without stirring, until tender.
Pears may be cooked in a similar way, and both apples and pears thus cooked may be canned while hot and kept for a long period.
BAKED APPLE SAUCE NO. 2.--Prepare nice tart apples as for No. 1.
Bake, with a small quant.i.ty of water, in a covered pudding dish, in a moderate oven, until soft. Mash with a spoon, add sugar, and when cold, a little grated orange rind.
APPLES STEWED WHOLE.--Take six large red apples, wash carefully, and put in a fruit kettle with just enough boiling water to cover. Cover the kettle, and cook slowly until the apples are soft, with the skins broken and the juice a rich red color. After removing the apples, boil the juice to a syrup, sweeten, and pour over the apples.
STEAMED APPLES.--Select pound sweets of uniform size, wipe, cut out the blossom-ends, and pack in a large pudding dish. Pour in a cupful of water, cover the dish closely, set in a moderate oven, and steam till the apples are tender. Remove from the dish, and pour the liquor over them frequently as they cool.
COMPOTE OF APPLES.--Pare and extract the cores from moderately tart, juicy apples. Place them in a deep pudding dish with just enough water to cover them. Cover, place in a moderate oven, and stew until they are tender. Remove the apples and place in a deep dish to keep hot.
Measure the juice and pour it into a saucepan, add a few bits of lemon rind, and boil up until thickened almost like a jelly. While the juice is boiling, heat some sugar, one tablespoonful to each cup of juice, in the oven, and add to the juice when thickened. Pour scalding hot over the apples, and cover until cold.
APPLE COMPOTE NO. 2.--Pare eight or ten rather tart, finely flavored and easy-cooking apples, carefully removing the cores, and put them into a broad, shallow, granite-ware saucepan with just enough hot water to cover the bottom. Cover tightly and place over the fire. The steam will cook the apples tender in a short time. Do not allow them to fall to pieces. Make a syrup by dissolving one cup of sugar in a pint of hot water. Add three teaspoonfuls of the juice of canned pineapple, and pour over the apples while both are hot.
STEWED PEARS.--Select some fine Bartlett pears which are ripe, but have hardly begun to soften; remove the skins, cut in halves or quarters, and take out the seeds. Put loosely in a granite-ware kettle, and add a pint of water for three and a half quarts of fruit. Cover closely, and when it begins to boil, set it where it will just simmer until the top pieces are tender. Serve cold. Sugar will not be necessary if the fruit is of good quality.
SMOOTH APPLE SAUCE.--If fruit is not sufficiently perfect to be cut into uniform quarters, a good way to prepare it is to pare, core, and slice into thin slices. Cook in as small a quant.i.ty of water as possible, the fruit covered closely, so that the top portion will steam tender as soon as the bottom, and when done rub through a colander, or beat smooth with a wooden spoon or an egg beater. Let it cool before adding sugar. A little lemon peel may be added to the fruit just long enough before it is done to flavor it, if desired.
BOILED APPLES WITH SYRUP.--Halve and remove the cores of a half dozen nice apples, leaving the skins on. Boil till tender in sufficient water to cover them. Take out with a fork into a gla.s.s dish. Add to the juice three or four slices of a large lemon; boil for ten or fifteen minutes; sweeten to taste; then pour over the apples, and cool.
STEWED APPLES.--Select fine fruit of a sub-acid flavor and not over-ripe. Pare, remove the cores and all blemishes, and divide into sixths if large, into quarters if small. Put into a porcelain or granite-ware kettle with enough boiling water to cook and leave a good liquor. Cover, and simmer gently, without stirring, from one to two hours. Do not add sugar till cold. Be careful not to break the fruit in serving.
STEWED CRAB APPLES.--Select perfect fruit. Wash and stew in but little water until they are very soft. Rub through a coa.r.s.e sieve or colander to remove the seeds and skins. Sweeten to taste.
SWEET APPLE SAUCE WITH CONDENSED APPLE JUICE.--For the juice, wash, divide, and core rather tart apples and cook until softened with one cup of water for every six pounds of fruit. When soft, put into a percolater and drain off the juice or extract it with a fruit press. Boil until it is reduced one half. Skim if needed while boiling, and if not perfectly clear allow it to settle before using. A considerable quant.i.ty of the juice may be thus prepared and put into stone jars, to be used as needed. For the sauce, pare, core, and quarter sweet apples. Put into a porcelain kettle with enough of the condensed juice to cover. Cook slowly until tender.
APPLES WITH RAISINS.--Pare, core, and quarter a dozen or more medium sized sour apples. Clean thoroughly one fourth as many raisins as apples, and turn over them a quart of boiling water. Let them steep until well swollen, then add the apples, and cook until tender. Sugar to sweeten may be added if desired, although little will be needed unless the apples are very tart. Dried apples soaked over night may be made much more palatable by stewing with raisins or English currants, in the same way.
APPLES WITH APRICOTS.--Pare, core, and quarter some nice, sour apples. Put them to cook with two halves of dried apricot for each apple. When tender, make smooth by beating or rubbing through a colander, and sweeten. Dried apples may be used in place of fresh ones.
PEACHES, PLUMS, CHERRIES, BERRIES, and all small fruits may be cooked for sauce by stewing in a small amount of water, adding sugar to sweeten when done.
BAKED APPLES.--Take any good tart apples; peel, cut in halves, and remove the cores. Scatter a few spoonfuls of sugar in the bottom of a dish, and lay the apples in, flat side down; add a teacupful of cold water, and bake till tender. Let stand in the dish till cold, then take up the pieces in a vegetable dish, and poor over them what juice remains. Sweet apples are good baked in this way without sugar.
BAKED PEARS.--Peel ripe pears; cut in halves, and pack in layers in a stone ware jar. Strew a little sugar over each layer, and add a small cupful of water, to prevent burning. Cover tightly, and bake three or four hours in a well-heated oven. Let them get very cold, and serve with sweet cream.
BAKED PEACHES.--Peaches which are ripe but too hard for eating, are nice baked. Pare, remove the stones, and place in loose layers in a shallow, earthen pudding dish with a little water. Sprinkle each layer lightly with sugar, cover and bake.
CRANBERRIES.--Cranberries make an excellent sauce, but the skins are rather hard of digestion, and it is best to exclude them. Stew in the proportion of a quart of berries to a pint of water, simmering gently until the skins have all burst, and the quant.i.ty is reduced to a pint. Put through a colander to remove the skins, and when nearly cool, add for the quart of berries two thirds of a cup of sugar.