40 



POPULAR SCIENCE NEWS. 



[March, 1889. 



a cup of sweet cream. With this soup serve crackers 

 or small squares of buttered toast. 



Russian Mushroom Sauce. — Clean, quickly 

 wash, and slice a heaping plateful of mushrooms. 

 To a cupful of melted butter add the sliced mush- 

 rooms, and let simmer for 15 minutes. Then dredge 

 with flour, add salt and pepper to taste, and a cupful 

 of sour cream. If the sauce is preferred thinner, 

 add sour cream until it is of the desired consistency. 



Mushroom Sauce. — Clean, quickly wash, and 

 chop fine the mushrooms; add salt and a finely 

 chopped onion. In a closely covered kettle let sim- 

 mer until quite dry — shaking freely to prevent burn- 

 ing. Then add a table-spoon of butter, white pepper 

 to taste, and a piece of lemon-rind. Let simmer 

 slowly for 10 — 15 minutes. To this add 2 cups of 

 s trong meat broth, and a butter-ball of one tablespoon 

 of butter and flour, let simmer 5 minutes longer, and 

 add 3 yolks' of eggs, well beaten. Before serving 

 sprinkle with finely chopped parsley. 



ON STEWING, BOILING, AND SIMMERING. 



Few people understand the difference between 

 stewing, simmering, and boiling. 



Stewing and simmering are more akin, but, nev- 

 ertheless, there is a great diflference, and that differ- 

 ence is, that meat simmered has to be eaten by it- 

 self — that is, that the water or stock in which it is 

 simmered is required for something else, and the 

 meat taken out when suflSciently cooked ; and that 

 meat is stewed, when both meat and liquor are to 

 be eaten together. 



Stewing is very much favored by foreign cooks, 

 the French in particular. It is certainly the most 

 economical method of cooking meat, not only on 

 account of the small quantity of firing required to 

 keep up the gentle simmering, but also because food 

 may often be rendered tender even if coarse and 

 hard, as a very low temperature in a very long time 

 helps to make tough meat not merely eatable but 

 palatable. 



The stew-pan should have its lid fitting very tight, 

 and, if possible, it should never be removed during 

 the stewing. It is a good plan to put a weight on 

 the lid to keep it down, and the process is best car- 

 ried out on a stove with a gentle fire. The stew 

 should be constantly watched, and never allowed to 

 approach boiling point, and the ebullition, though 

 gentle, should be continuous. One of the best 

 plans for stewing is, to put the meat into a jar with 

 its lid tightly fixed, and stand it in a saucepan of 

 fast-boiling water, when all the real goodness and 

 juices of the meat are extracted. Buckmaster, the 

 great authority on these things, says stewing is a 

 gradual simmering. It may be done in a saucepan 

 over the fire or in a stone jar which will stand the 

 fire, with a lid fitting steam-tight; meat should be 

 selected free from blood, and the quantity of water 

 should be about a quart to a pound of meat, the 

 liquor of which would be very rich, and could easily 

 be reduced, if necessary, with warm water; a spoon- 

 ful of salt to a quart of water should be added at the 

 end of the cooking. To quote his own words, he 

 says, — " Bring the water gradually to the boil, re- 

 move all scum, and let the contents simmer till the 

 flavor of the meat is absorbed in the liquor. Re- 

 move all the fat. All and every kind of meat will do 

 for a stew, They may be used together or sepa- 

 rately. The better the meat the better the stew." All 

 the gristly parts, feet, shanks, knuckles, should be 

 stewed. There is no other way of cooking these 

 parts to advantage. They require time, which is 

 often the difficulty and an objection. Those pieces 

 known in butchers shops as "block ornaments" 

 make a most delicious stew. The vegetables, as a 

 rule, except potatoes, may be cut into slices and 



cooked in the stew, or they may be cooked sepa- 

 rately and added afterwards. 



In boiling the great thing is not to let the meat 

 boil. This may appear a curious contradiction, but 

 nevertheless it is right. When the water in a sauce- 

 pan bubbles at the top and steams ithboiling. Sim- 

 mering is keeping the water nearly boiling, and lit- 

 tle tiny bubbles every now and then come up at the 

 edges, and it must never be allowed to go beyond 

 this state. 



In boiling a leg of mutton it should be put into 

 fast-boiling water, and allowed to boil for five min- 

 utes, to make the outside hard and prevent the 

 juices escaping. Just sufficient cold water should 

 be added to reduce the temperature, and then bring 

 it gently to the boil, and when on the point of boil- 

 ing skim it carefully (which is most important) ; 

 then draw to the side of the stove, and let it simmer 

 slowly. Meat boiled quickly is always hard and 

 tasteless, and it should be remembered that a very 

 large quantity of water takes the goodness out of 

 the meat. A saucepan only sufficiently large to hold 

 the joint easily should be used, and just cover the 

 meat with water. The time for boiling should be 

 from a quarter of an hour to twenty minutes to each 

 pound of meat, counting from the time the water 

 boils. 



Puddings should be plunged into plenty of boil- 

 ing water, and kept boiling quickly till done. 



Salt meat must be put into cold water, which 

 should then be slowly brought up to the simmering 

 point. 



In boiling fish a\\ large white fish, should be placed 

 in cold water, and then brought gradually to the boil- 

 ing point, and then allowed to simmer gently. The 

 water should be very carefully skimmed ; a table- 

 spoonful of salt should be put into every half-gallon 

 of water. Small fish should be put into warm water, 

 and salmon and trout into boiling water. Pork, 

 ham, and bacon, should be boiled in cold water 

 brought slowly to the simmering point. Poultry, 

 &c., should be placed in warm water, and then sim- 

 mered. 



A great thing to be observed, though it is men- 

 tioned last, is to have a clear, bright fire ; it should 

 be built up gradually with small nieces of coal, and 

 great care must be taken not to have the fire smoky, 

 or the meat mnst be smoked. Start with a good 

 Jire, and keep it up by adding occasionally small coal, 

 to prevent smoke. — The Practical Confectioner. 



+♦* 



TRANSMUTATION OF COTTON SEED. 



Was there ever, says the Banker's Monthly, such 

 a history as that of the cotton seed .' For seventy 

 years despised as a nuisance, and burned or dumped 

 as garbage, then discovered to be the very food for 

 which the soil was hungering, and reluctantly ad- 

 mitted to the rank of utilities, shortly afterwards 

 found to be nutritious food for beasts as well as for 

 soil, and thereupon treated with something like 

 respect. Once admitted to the circle of farm indus- 

 tries, it was found to hold thirty-five gallons of pure 

 oil to the ton, worth in its crude state $14 to the 

 ton, or $40,000,000 for the whole crop of seed. But 

 then a system was devised for refining the oil up to 

 a value of $1 a gallon, and the frugal Italians placed 

 a cask of it at the root of every olive tree, and then de- 

 fled the Borean breath of the Alps. And then ex- 

 perience sh«wed that the ton of cotton seed was a 

 better fertilizer and a better stock food when robbed of 

 its thirty-five gallons of oil than before, that the 

 hulls of the seeds made the best of fuel for feeding 

 the oil-mill engine, that the ashes of the hulls 

 scooped from the engine's draught had the highest 

 commercial value as potash, and that the " refuse" 

 of the whole made the best and purest soap stock, to 

 carry to the toilet the perfv^n^^s of Lubin of Colgate. 



TO FORETELL FROST. 

 For the benefit of farmers General Greely gives 

 the following simple and definite method by which 

 in clear, cool weather, near the period of early or 

 late frosts, a person may determine with considera- 

 ble accuracy if frost will occur the following night : 

 "The approach of local frost can be foretold with 

 very considerable accuracy from the readings of 

 properly exposed dry and wet thermometers. A 

 safe and simple rule to follow when the temperature 

 is at 50 degrees, or below, is to multiply the differ- 

 ence between the readings of the thermometers by 

 2.5, and when the sum thus obtained is subtracted 

 from the reading of the dry thermometer, it leaves 

 the approximate degrees to which the temperature 

 of the air will fall the coming night, unless change 

 of wind to a moister quarter, or increase of cloudi- 

 ness interferes. The value and importance of ob- 

 servations of this kind have not been sufficiently 

 impressed upon farmers cultivating crops of a kind 

 susceptible to frost and capable of protection." It 

 may be stated in this connection that the "wet ther- 

 mometer" mentioned above, is an instrument the 

 bulb of which is kept moist by its contact with a bit 

 of lamp-wick fed from a small reservoir of water. 



GLEANINGS. 



Indian Corn or Maize is actually grown as a 

 window plant in London. It is not a bad one, by 

 any means, wherever, as in England, corn does not 

 succeed in field culture. 



Beans are peculiarly liable to injury by moisture, 

 and should never be hoed except in dry weather. If 

 soil touches the leaves, when wet by rains or dews, it 

 injures them by causing rust. This is especially 

 true after blossoming begins, and it it is Wetter to 

 have all the work of cultivation and hoeing finished 

 before that time. 



To Protect Fruit krom Birds. — It is said 

 that pans of water placed in fruit and berry patches 

 will keep birds from eating the fruit. An English 

 naturalist claims that the reason birds eat cherries 

 and strawberries is because in the blazing heat they 

 get dreadfully thirsty. If the birds can easily get at 

 water they soon leave off' taking the fruit. 



A Rat Proof House. — It is an easy matter to 

 keep them out of the poultry-house, by the use of 

 half-inch wire mesh, laid under the floor of the 

 house. On a ground floor, dig out to a depth of six 

 inches, lay down the wire, and replace the dirt. 

 The edges of the wire may be turned up and tacked 

 to the sills. Rats cannot cut through wire, and so 

 they will soon leave the place. 



Warm Food for Poultry. — A raiser of poul- 

 try says: — "In a large pot, standing on the stove 

 day and night, the refuse of every vegetable pre- 

 pared for the table is thrown. The outside leaves of 

 Cabbage, Potato, Apple peelings, etc., all go in 

 together, where they are boiled until tender, then 

 chopped fine, and thickened with wheat bran or 

 corn meal. While many declare milk unwhole- 

 some for fowls, ours drink nothing else and no 

 flock can be healthier." 



Sunlight FOR Hens — Sunlight is healthful, and it 

 is necessary to provide it in winter without exposure 

 to the cold. As good a way as any is to have a 

 room separate from their roost and laid with dust 

 and coal ashes, but filled at least on its east, south 

 and west sides with large windows. Here the hens 

 may be fed and watered in the morning, and then 

 allowed to roll in the dust in the sunlight. The 

 eft'ect of this treatment in promoting winter egg 

 production is really wonderful. Many hens do not 

 lay in winter because they are kept in the dark and 

 not stirring around enough. 



