Strange Old Cook Book
September 16th 2009 21:53
Category: No Category
Old Fashioned Books
While going through some of my cookbooks and magazines I came across some very old book type magazines that have some of the weirdest recipes I've ever read. They will say use a 1 cup of grated cheese, but forget to mention what type of cheese. Or 1/2 of 8-ounce can tomato sauce. Little things like that, it's weird. I'm not going to change any of these recipes, I'm going to put them up here exactly as the book has them. After I put it up as written I will make a couple of suggestions to maybe add some flavor. That way you can make them as directed, if you can figure out exactly as written, or you can try my way, which might be strangely different.
So, let's try the first:
Spaghetti Puff
1 1/3 cups spaghetti, broken into 1” pieces
1 cup milk, scalded
1/3 cup butter, melted
3 egg yolks, beaten
1 ½ cups cheese, grated
¼ cups onion, chopped
1 tablespoon parsley, chopped
1 tablespoon pimento, chopped
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
½ teaspoon salt
3 egg whites, stiffly beaten
Cook spaghetti in boiling, salted water and drain thoroughly in strainer.
Combine milk and butter, gradually combine with egg yolks. Add spaghetti and remaining ingredients, except egg whites. Mix thoroughly and gently fold in egg whites.
Garnish with parsley in each corner and serve with green beans and sliced tomatoes. This is a good emergency recipe for one of those times when you haven't had a chance to go to the market. You probably still have all the ingredients on hand.
First if you decide to make this recipe, try it exactly as written, well you'll have to figure out the cheese, which I almost imagine, gag, as grated American, Velveeta, or on the wild side mild Cheddar. The rest do as directed and good luck.
All righty now, let's see what could have been left out or added to the above.
How about some pepper, maybe white? What type of cheese, I'd go with a mild one but with flavor, maybe some whole milk ricotta, even though they say, grated cheese, I wouldn't add cheddar, and Parmesan is pretty rich, and heavy for this type dish, so, take your choice, do as you will. since this has very little flavor producing goodies, especially in the amounts they are talking about, you could probably add a few more onions, a touch more of the parsley and pimento (which I don't love, but...). Since it has a whole teaspoon Worcestershire sauce, it isn't might be enough or it might not. Try it that way. Also, add a touch of garlic. See what happens.
I admit that I haven't made this and if I do I'll be adding and subtracting and messing with it. If I do, I'll let you know how it works out, and give you the recipe with changes. The same goes for the next one, which is also a little weird.
Country Pie
½ of 8-ounce can tomato sauce
½ cup bread crumbs
1 pound ground beef
1 ½ teaspoon salt
¼ cup chopped bell pepper
1/8 teaspoon oregano
1/8 teaspoon pepper
Combine ingredients and mix well. Pat mixture into 9 inch pie plate and pinch flutings around edges.
Filling
1 ¼ cups Minute Rice
1 ½ (8 ounce) can tomato sauce
1 cup water
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup grated cheese
Combine all ingredient, except ½ cup grated cheese, which is reserved for topping. Spoon into pie shell. Cover closely with foil and bake 25 minutes at 350 degrees. Uncover, sprinkle the remaining ½ cup of cheese, return to oven and bake, uncovered, 15 minutes. Serve in wedges.
OK, do you see the problems here. First, as I said above if you decide to make this as written, remember they don't tell you what type of cheese, again they are probably talking grated American cheese, or Velveeta, maybe in a far distance world mild Cheddar.
Again, do you see pepper in the filling recipe? Salt in the meat mixture, I use very little salt, and to me a teaspoon and a half would be much more than I'd use unless it were sea salt, or even kosher salt, and then I'd still cut back to one teaspoon. But that's just me. Using bread crumbs, using seasoned bread crumbs just might be a touch better, and 1/8 teaspoon of oregano might be a tad light for a pound of hamburger. I'd also add some finely chopped onion to the meat mixture. Then Minute Rice cooked for 40 minutes might make it a little mushy. I don't know for sure but I'd suspect that it would take all of the texture out of the rice. I might try a better type of rice. Add some garlic to both the meat and filling mixture, either as dried garlic (ugh), or garlic powder. Me I like fresh garlic crushed.
So, there you are, two weirdly bland recipes, some strange suggestions and yes, I will make both, and yes, I'll let you know how they come out. Meanwhile if you play with them, let me know how they work out, and what you do to change the recipes.
Later with more goodies. I'm going to dig out the cookbook that was written in the 17th or 18th century, it's a reprint of course, but it's a fun one.
| 63 |
| Vote |
subscribe to this blog