Page:The story of milk.djvu/186

 Creamed Dishes.—The same sauce may be used to cream cold chicken, lamb, veal, chipped beef, and cold boiled or baked fish, canned salmon, lobster or shrimps, according to the following recipe:

Creamed Chicken

2 cups cold cooked chicken cut into dice 3 tablespoons butter 3     "      flour 1½ cups milk Salt and pepper

Melt butter and add the flour and milk. Bring to the boiling point and add diced chicken. Season with salt and pepper.

Many grate a small onion into the sauce before adding the chicken. The writer does not favor indiscriminate use of onion as it tends to make all dishes taste alike. It seems better to use sometimes a little celery or celery salt, sometimes an onion, and again frequently no flavor but the chicken or meat or fish. One's cooking is thus more distinctive and varied.

If the creamed mixture is turned into a baking dish, covered with buttered bread or cracker crumbs and browned in the oven, the result is even more pleasing.

Such a sauce flavored with cheese makes a good and very nutritious gravy to pour over cauliflower and cabbage or to serve with boiled rice or hominy or poured over toast.

CREAMED VEGETABLES

In creaming vegetables the proportion is usually 1 cup of sauce to 2 cups of vegetables. Potatoes, asparagus, cauliflower, boiled onions, beans, and carrots, beets or peas are all delicious served in this way.