Take a cucumber and cut it in pieces two inches long, then peel away the dark green skin for one inch, leaving the other inch as it was. Set up each piece on end, scoop it out till nearly the bottom and fill up with bits of cold salmon or lobster in mayonnaise sauce. Cold turbot or any other delicate fish will do equally well or a small turret of whipped cream, slightly salted, should be piled on top. This dish never fails to please.
Take some salt herring, a half for each person, and soak them for a day in water. Skin them, cut them open lengthwise, take out the backbone, and put them to soak in vinegar. Then before serving them let them lie for a few minutes in milk, and putting them on a dish pour over them a good mayonnaise sauce. [Mlle. Oclhaye.]
Blanch first of all half a pound of sweet almonds and three ounces of bitter, turn them into cold water for a few minutes; then you must pound them very fine in a stone mortar, if you have a marble one so much the better, and do it in a cool place.
You must add a little milk occasionally to prevent the paste from becoming oily, then add three quarts of fresh milk, stirring it in slowly, sweeten to your taste, and then putting all into a saucepan clean as a chalice, bring it to the boil.
Boil for ten minutes, and then stir till cold, strain it through finest muslin, and then add two good glasses of brandy. Bottle and keep in a dark place.
When the hawthorn is in full bloom, pick a basketful of the blooms. Take them home, and put the white petals into a large glass bottle, taking care that you put in no leaves or stalks. When the bottle is filled to the top do not press it down, but pour in gently as much good French Brandy as it will hold. Cork and let it stand for three months, then you can strain it off. This is good as a cordial, and if you find it too strong, add water, or sweeten it with sugar.
Peel finely the rinds of five large lemons, or of six small ones, then throw on it a pound of loaf sugar that you have freshly pounded, two ounces of bitter almonds, chopped and pounded; mix these with two quarts of the best Schnappes or Hollands, and add six tablespoonfuls of boiling milk.
Fill your jars with this, cover it close, and put it in a passage or hall, where people can shake it every day.
Leave it there for three weeks, and strain it through some blotting paper into another bottle. It will be ready to drink.
Take a large bottle, and put in it twelve ounces of the best spirits of wine, one essence of ambergris, twopennyworth of musk, and three drachms of oil of lavender.
Cork it tightly, put in a dark place, and shake it every day for a month. This is really lavender spirit, as no water is used.
Take half a pint of good Burgundy wine, put it to boil with two cloves, and a dust of mixed spice, sweeten to taste with some powdered sugar. If you like add a quarter of the quantity of water to the wine before boiling.
Take a fresh raw whiting, fillet it, and pass the flesh through a wire sieve.
For a small dish take four ounces of the fish, mix them lightly with four tablespoonfuls of very thick cream, adding pepper and salt. Fill an oval ring mold, and steam gently for twenty minutes, under buttered paper.
Have some marine crayfish boiled, shell the tails, cut them in pieces, removing the black line inside. Cut three truffles into thick slices, heat them and the crayfish in some ordinary white sauce, enriched with the yolk of a raw egg, pepper and salt, and one dessertspoonful of tarragon vinegar. This must not be allowed to boil. When the cream is turned out into a hot silver dish, pour the ragout into the center, and put a hot lid on.
This dish, and that on page 86-87, has been composed by a Scotch lady in honor of the King of the Belgians. Not every cook can manage the cream, but the proportions are exact, and so is the time.
[Mrs. Alex. Stuart.]
Boil up the trimmings of your fish with milk, pepper and salt. Strain it and add the yolks of eggs till you get a good custard. Pour the custard into a mold, and lay in it your fish, which must already be parboiled. If you have cold fish, flake it, and mix it with the custard. Put the mold in a double saucepan. Steam it for three quarters of an hour. Turn it out, and garnish with strips of lemon peel, and if you have it, sprigs of fennel.
Hake, which is not one of the most delicate fish, can be made excellent if stewed in the following sauce: A quart of milk to which you have added a dessertspoonful of any of the good English sauces; thicken it with a knob of butter rolled in flour, which stir in till all is smooth. When it boils take off the fire, and put in your pieces of hake, set it back by the side of the fire to keep very hot, without boiling, for twenty-five minutes. Meanwhile mash some potatoes, and put it as a purée round a dish, pour the fish in the center, sprinkle on it chopped parsley. The liquor ought to be much reduced.
Take skate, or indeed any fish that rolls up easily, make into fillets, dry them well, and sprinkle on each fillet, pepper, salt, a dust of mixed spice, and chopped parsley. Roll each fillet up tightly, and pack them tightly into a dish, so that they will not become loose. Take vinegar and beer in equal quantities, or, if you do not like to use beer, you must add to the vinegar some whole black pepper, and a good sprinkle of dried and mixed herbs with salt. Pour over the fish, tie a piece of buttered paper over the top, and bake for an hour and a quarter (for a medium pie dish) in a moderate oven.
A large quantity of these may be bought cheaply and kept for some weeks by this method. Put on to warm equal quantities of vinegar and water, what you think sufficient to cover your sprats, allowing for wastage; and stir in for every quart of liquor a small saltspoonful of mixed spice, four bay leaves, a shallot minced, a small bunch of bruised thyme, the thin rind of a half lemon, salt and pepper; if you can use tarragon vinegar so much the better. Clean the sprats, remove tails and heads, and lay them in a deep dish. Take your liquor and pour it over the fish, tie a large paper over all, and let them bake in a cool oven for two or three hours; or cook them in a double saucepan; in any case do them very slowly. Put aside to cool, and take out the fish to use as required. They will keep good four weeks.
It sometimes happens that you can get a great quantity of this fish, very fresh, cheaply, and wish to use it later on.
Pickle it thus: Boil a pint of vinegar with six peppercorns, four cloves, four bay leaves, a scrap of mace, a saltspoonful of salt, and the same of made mustard. When this is boiled up put it to cool. Lay your mackerel prepared ready for eating, and sprinkle on each piece some salt, and minced thyme. It may be an hour before using.
Then fry the fish, lifting each piece carefully into the hot fat. When fried lay the fish in a deep dish, and pour on each piece your vinegar liquor till all is covered.
Cover over with paper such as you use for jam pots, well tied down. You can afterwards heat the fish as you require.
Take your fish, which should be herring or mackerel, relieve it of the bones, skin and fins, which you must put to boil for three quarters of an hour in water, with pepper and salt. After that time strain off the liquor, and add to it enough browning to color it well.
Then brown quarter of a pound of butter and knead into it two tablespoonfuls of flour, add it, when well mixed, to your liquor, with salt and pepper, a piece of lemon peel, and a dust of mixed spice. Bring all this to the boil and drop in your fish. (Cut in neat fillets.) Let them simmer for twenty minutes, and if too dry pour in some darkly colored gravy. Just before you wish to serve add a good wine glass of claret, or of Burgundy, take out the lemon peel, and pour all on a hot dish. If you do not wish to put wine, the flavor of the sauce is very excellent if you stir into it a dessertspoonful of mushroom ketchup, or a teaspoonful of soy. This brown fish is nice to follow a white soup.
Take all the trimmings of two good sized haddocks, cover them with milk and water, and put them to simmer. Add chopped parsley, a chopped shallot, pepper and salt.
Cut each fish in half across, and lay them in the bottom of a pie dish, sprinkle breadcrumbs, pats of butter, pepper and salt, between and on each piece. Fill up the dish with water or milk, adding the simmered and strained liquor from the trimmings.
Bake gently for an hour, and when brown on top add more breadcrumbs, and pats of butter.
Boil the filleted soles in water. Make a sauce with butter. One spoonful of flour—milk, pepper and salt, powdered cheese (Cheddar). Boil it, adding some washed and chopped mushrooms and a little cream. Put the filets on a dish and pour them over the sauce. Leave it about a quarter of an hour in the oven, so that it becomes slightly browned.
[Mdlle. Spreakers.]
Brown two onions in butter, and add a spray of parsley, half a pound of tomatoes and a claret glassful of white wine. Let this simmer for half an hour, and then pass it through the tammy. Then fry half a pound of mushrooms, and add them and their liquor to the sauce, thickening it, if necessary, with a little cornflour. A great improvement is a little liebig. Place your fish in the oven, and cook it gently in butter, with pepper and salt. When it is done, serve it with the sauce poured over it.
[Madame Vandervalle.]
Cut your cod in slices, and roll them in flour. Put them to fry in a good piece of butter, adding chopped parsley, pepper and salt, and the juice of one lemon. This is very good, if served in the dish that it is cooked in.
Take some Dutch, or some salted herrings, and remove the skin, backbones, etc. Lay the fish in milk for at least twenty-four hours to get the salt out. Make a mayonnaise sauce, adding to it the roe from the herrings, in small pieces; wipe and drain the fish, and pour over them the sauce.
Take your fish, and remove all bones and skin. Put some butter to brown in a saucepan, and when it is colored, add the cod, sprinkling in pepper and salt and a good thickening of grated breadcrumbs. Let this all heat gently by the fire and turn it into paper cases, with chopped parsley on the top.
The above recipe can be followed for making fish rissoles, but, after having mixed it well, let it grow cold. Then form into balls, roll them in breadcrumbs, and throw them into boiling fat.
Take all the remains of the fish and heat them in butter. Make some mashed potatoes, and add to them some white sauce, made of flour, milk and butter. Mix this with the fish, so that it is quite moist, and do not forget salt and pepper. Place the mixture in a fireproof dish and sprinkle breadcrumbs over it. Bake for fifteen minutes, or till it is hot through, and serve as it is.
[Mdlle. M. Schmidt, of Antwerp.]
The second half of this little book is composed chiefly of recipes for dishes that can be made in haste, and by the inexperienced cook. But such cook can hardly pay too much attention to details if she does not wish to revert to an early, not to say feral type of cuisine, where the roots were eaten raw while the meat was burnt. Because your dining-room furniture is Early English, there is no reason why the cooking should be early English too. And it certainly will be, unless one takes great trouble with detail.
Let us suppose that at 7:30 P.M. your husband telephones that he is bringing a friend to dine at 8. Let us suppose an even more rash act. He arrives at 7:15, he brings a friend: you perceive the unexpressed corollary that the dinner must be better than usual. In such a moment of poignant surprise, let fly your best smile (the kind that is practiced by bachelors' widows) and say "I am delighted you have come like this; do you mind eight or a quarter past for dinner?" Then melt away to the cook with this very book in your hand.
I take it that you consider her to be the junior partner in the household, you, of course, being the senior, and your husband the sleeping partner in it. Ask what there is in the house for an extra dish, and I wager you the whole solar system to a burnt match that you will find in these pages the very recipe that fits the case. A piece of cold veal, viewed with an eye to futurity, resolves itself into a white creamy delightfulness that melts in your mouth; a new-laid egg, maybe, poached on the top, and all set in a china shell. If you have no meat at all, you must simply hoodwink your friends with the fish and vegetables.
You know the story of the great Frenchwoman:
"Hèlas, Annette, I have some gentlemen coming to dine, and we have no meat in the house. What to do?"
"Ah! Madame, I will cook at my best; and if Madame will talk at her best, they will never notice there is anything wrong."
But for the present day, I would recommend rather that the gentlemen be beguiled into doing the talking themselves, if any shortcoming in the menu is to be concealed from them, for then their attention will be engaged.
It takes away from the made-in-a-hurry look of a dish if it is decorated, and there are plenty of motifs in that way besides parsley. One can use beetroot, radishes, carrots cut in dice, minced pickles, sieved egg; and for sweets, besides the usual preserved cherries and angelica, you can have strips of lemon peel, almonds pointed or chopped, stoned prunes cut in halves, wild strawberries, portions of tangerine orange. There is a saying,
and a very simple chocolate shape may be made attractive by being garnished with a cluster of pointed almonds in the center, surrounded by a ring of tangerine pieces, well skinned and laid like many crescents one after the other. There is nothing so small and insignificant but has great possibilities. Did not Darwin raise eighty seedlings from a single clod of earth taken from a bird's foot?
It is to be regretted that Samuel Johnson never wrote the manual that he contemplated. "Sir," he said, "I could write a better book of cookery than has ever yet been written. It should be a book on philosophical principles."
Perhaps the pies of Fleet Street reminded him of the Black Broth of the Spartans which the well-fed Dionysius found excessively nasty; the tyrant was curtly told that it was nothing indeed without the seasoning of fatigue and hunger. We do not wish a meal to owe its relish solely to the influence of extreme hunger—it must have a beautiful nature all its own, it must exhibit the idea of Thing-in-Itself in an easily assimilable form.
I am convinced, anyhow, that this little collection (formed through the kindness of our Belgian friends) will work miracles; for there are plenty of miracles worked nowadays, though not by those romantic souls who think that things come by themselves. Good dinners certainly do not, and I end with this couplet:
Which, being interpreted, means that if you want a man to stay at home, you must agree with him and so must his dinner.
Take some salt herrings, one for each person, and soak them for a day in water. Skin them, cut them open lengthways, take out the backbone, and put them to soak for a day in vinegar. Then before serving them, let them lie for a few minutes in milk, and, putting them on a dish, pour over them a good mayonnaise sauce.
[Mme. Delhaye.]
Wash and scrape a pound of carrots, slice them, treat two medium sized potatoes in the same manner, add a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme and a chopped onion. Cook all with water, add salt, pepper, and cook gently till tender, when pass it through a sieve. Put in a pan a lump of butter the size of an egg, with a chopped leek and a sprig of chervil. Let it cook gently for three or four minutes, then pour on the puree of carrots and let it all come to the boil before taking it off to serve.
[Madame Stoppers.]
Take a quart of bouillon or of meat extract and water. Fry in butter a carrot, a turnip, an onion, a small cabbage, all washed and chopped, and add half a teaspoonful of castor sugar. Put your soup to it and set on the fire. Let it simmer for twenty minutes, add any seasoning you wish and a little more water, and let it simmer for another half hour. Then shred a bit of basil or marjoram with a handful of well washed sorrel, throw them in, cook for five minutes, skim it, pour it into a soup tureen, and serve.
There are many varieties of this soup to be met with in the different hotels, but it is a white soup, made of fish pieces and trimmings, strained, returned to the pot, and with plenty of cream and oysters added before serving. It should never boil after the cream is put in. A little mace is usual, but no onions or shallot. A simple variety is made with flour and milk instead of cream, the liquor of the oysters as well as the oysters, and a beaten egg added at the last moment.
[Esperance.]
Take a tablespoonful of breadcrumbs, moisten them in milk in a pan, then add as much water as you require. Throw in three medium potatoes, a handful of well washed sorrel, and a sprig or two of chervil, a lump of butter, pepper, and salt. Bring to the boil, simmer for quarter of an hour, pass through a tammy, heat again for ten minutes and serve burning hot.
[Esperance.]
Into a quart of boiling water throw lightly four tablespoonfuls of semolina, so that the grains are separated. Let it boil for a quarter of an hour, with pepper and salt. Take the tureen and put the yolk of an egg in it with a bit of butter the same size, mix them with a fork and pour in a teacupful of hot water with extract of meat in it, as strong as you wish. Quickly pour in the semolina soup and serve it at once. This is a quickly made and inexpensive dish, besides which it is a nice one.
[Madame Alphonse F.]
Boil some globe artichokes in salted water till they are tender. Take out the center leaves, leaving an even fringe of leaves on the outside. Remove as much of the choke as you can. Put them back in a steamer. Toss some cooked peas in butter, then mix them in cream and taking up your artichokes again put in your cream and peas in the center of each, as much as you can get in. The cream is not necessary for this dish to be a good one, but the artichokes and peas must both be young. As a rule people cut their fruit too soon and their vegetables too late.
[Chef reconnaissant.]
Quarter of an hour will suffice to prepare and cook this savory surprise, once the potatoes are baked. Take three large potatoes of symmetrical size, clean and bake them; cut each in two and remove the inside without injuring the skin. Melt half an ounce of butter by the fire, add two ounces of potato passed through a sieve, a teaspoonful of grated parmesan, pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of milk. Then stir in the yolk of an egg and presently the white, well beaten. Fill the empty potato skins with the mixture which ought to rise and puff out in ten or twelve minutes.
Sometimes one has a few leeks, a half cauliflower, a handful each of peas and beans. Instead of currying these vegetables (which removes all distinctive flavor from them) cook them gently, and toss them when cold in a good salad dressing. If you can give the yolk of an egg to it, so much the better. Any cold meat is improved by a side dish of this sort. The vegetables that one can curry with advantage are large marrows, cut into cubes, turnips, potatoes, parsnips.
[Marguerite Leblanc.]
Take some fine firm tomatoes, not very ripe. Turn them with the stalk side up and cut a slice off the top with a sharp knife. Take out the inside with a teaspoon. Break into each tomato a pullet's egg, sprinkle with pepper and salt. The inside of the tomato you will pass through a fine wire sieve and it will be a thick liquor; mix it with bread-crumbs, salt, pepper, and some grated cheese till quite thick. Put this mixture on the top of each egg and place all in the oven for three or four minutes, so that the eggs are only just set and no more.
[Amie inconnue.]
Take some good sized carrots, and after washing them well and cutting off the green tuft, cut each one across about two and a half inches from the leaves. Scoop out the inside yellow part, leaving a case of the redder part and a piece to form the bottom, at the smaller end. Then stew the cases very gently till a little tender, but not quite soft. Take them out of the water, drain them, and then placing each on its small end, fill up with hot chopped mushrooms, that have been tossed in butter. Arrange in a circle on a dish, and garnish with small sprigs of carrot leaves. The insides that you have scooped out are to be used for soup flavoring.
[Pour la Patrie.]
One should not let the tips of this vegetable touch the water. Take your bundle, dip the stalks in warm water to remove any dust, and the tips also, if it is necessary. Then tie the bundle round with tape, keeping the ends of stalks even so that it will stand upright. Place them in boiling water with the heads just sticking out, and keep them like that. In this way the heads, which are very tender, will be cooked in the steam and will not drop off.
[Pour la Patrie.]
Butter a pie-dish, preferably a fireproof china dish. Open a tin of tomatoes and remove as much skin as you can if they are the unpeeled kind. Put a handful of crumbled brown bread in the dish with lumps of butter, then pour on that some tomatoes, dust with pepper and salt, then more bread, and so on, finishing at the last with lumps of butter, and a thick sprinkling of grated cheese. Bake for twenty minutes.
[Pour la Patrie.]
Put on some water to boil. Take your lettuce, and choose the round kind, and wash it well. Take out neatly with your fingers the center leaves, and fill up instead with a sheep's kidney which you have lightly dusted with flour, pepper, and salt. Tie the lettuce round very firmly and set it in a pan of boiling water that covers up only three quarters of the vegetable. Boil for eighteen minutes. Take out the lettuce, untie it, drain it, and serve at once. Kidneys are good when they are placed inside large Spanish onions and gently stewed, in which case a dab of made mustard is given them.
Put on your rice to boil. Make a tomato sauce by stewing them gently, and then rubbing them through a sieve; this makes a purée, which you must put back to heat with pepper and salt and a small quantity of made mustard. Then grate some parmesan, or failing that, some Gruyère cheese. Take off the rice, drain it, keeping it hot, put it on a dish and pour over it your purée. Then sprinkle the grated cheese thickly on top of all.
[Pour la Patrie.]
Boil some rice till it will press closely together. Fill some teacups with it, pressing the rice well down; then leave a hole in the middle and pour into each hole a small raw egg, yolk, and white. Set the tea-cups to cook in the oven, and when the eggs are just set and no more, press on them some more rice. Turn them out of the teacups, and if you have rubbed the inside of the cups with a little butter this will be easy, and sprinkle over the top of each mold plenty of chopped parsley. Do not forget salt and pepper to season the ingredients.
[Pour la Patrie.]
Take your shelled beans, very young and tender. Throw them into boiling water for a minute, then pour the water away. Heat for a pound of beans one and one-half pints of milk, stir in four ounces of salt butter, a very little chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Do not let the milk boil, but when it simmers put in the beans. When they have been heated for ten minutes, thicken your sauce with the yolks of two eggs and a tablespoonful of cream. Take out a bean and eat it to see if it is cooked, and if so, pour all on a hot dish. Garnish with fried sippets of bread. Old broad beans can be treated in the same way, but they must first be skinned.
[Aimee.]
Beat up three eggs, to which add one tablespoonful of grated cheese, pepper, and salt, and mix thoroughly. Butter an omelette pan, and pour in the mixture, keep moving it gently with a fork while you sprinkle in with the other hand some cooked green peas. The omelette will be cooked by the time you have sprinkled in two handfuls. Slip it off on to a very hot dish, fold over, and serve at once.
[Jean O.]
Wash well some globe artichokes, and boil them in salted water. Meanwhile make a good mushroom filling, highly seasoned, of cooked mushroom, dipped into butter, pepper, salt, a few breadcrumbs, and shreds of ham. Remove the center leaves from the vegetable and as much of the choke as you can. Fill up with the mushroom force and stew gently in brown sauce flavored with a bunch of herbs.
is merely endive, washed and torn apart with red peppers added here and there as well as the ordinary salad dressing.
Belgian asparagus is done by adding to the cooked vegetable a bechamel sauce, poured over the dish, and then slices of hard boiled eggs placed on the top. The giant asparagus is used, and it is eaten with a fork.
[A Grocer's Wife.]
Cut young carrots in small pieces, blanch them in salted water; melt some butter in a stew pan, add enough water and meat extract to make sufficient to cover the carrots, season with pepper, salt and a pinch of sugar and toss the carrots in this till they are tender. Then add the yolk of an egg and a tablespoonful of cream, holding the pan just off the fire with the left hand, while you stir with the right. When it is well mixed pour all out on a vegetable dish and sprinkle over with chopped parsley.
[Amie reconnaissante.]
Make the same preparation as above, for the sauce, with the same seasonings, but add a dust of nutmeg. Then add half a pint of white stock which will be enough for a small bunch of carrots; simmer them for fifteen minutes and then break in three whole eggs, taking care that they fall apart from each other. Let them cook till nearly set (for they will go on cooking in the hot sauce after you remove them from the fire) and serve at once. This is nearly as good if you use old carrots sliced, instead of the young ones.
[M. Zoeben.]
Take two earthenware pots and put some tomatoes to stew in one, in water, pepper, and salt. Peel a cucumber, open it, remove the seeds and stuff it with any forcemeat that you have; but a white one is best. Let it cook gently in some brown stock, well covered over. When tender put the cucumber along the dish and tomatoes on each side. A puree of potatoes can surround them.
[A. Fanderverde.]
Soak some white haricot-beans over night, or stew them till tender in some weak stock. Make a tomato sauce in a saucepan, and flavor it rather strongly with made mustard, stirring well, so that it is well incorporated. When the beans are tender, drain them from the liquor (keeping them hot) and reduce that to half its quantity. Put back the beans and add the tomato sauce, heat for a couple of minutes, and serve with three-cornered pieces of toast.
[Elise et Jean.]