POTATOES, BAKED.—When potatoes are baked in the oven in their jackets the larger they are the better. The oven must not be too fierce, and ample time should be allowed. Baked potatoes require quite two hours. This only refers to those baked in their jackets. When potatoes are cut up and baked in a tin they require some kind of fat, which, of course, in vegetarian cookery must be either oil or butter.

POTATOES, MASHED.—What may be termed high-class mashed potatoes are made by mashing up ordinary boiled potatoes with a little milk previously boiled, a little butter, and passing the whole through a wire sieve, when a little cream, butter and salt is added.

In private houses mashed potatoes are generally made from the remains of cold boiled potatoes, or when the cook, in boiling the potatoes, has made a failure. Still, of course, potatoes are boiled often expressly for the purpose of being mashed. This is often the case where old potatoes have to be cut into all sorts of shapes and sizes in order to get rid of the black spots. As soon as the potatoes are boiled they are generally moistened in the saucepan with a little drop of milk. It is undoubtedly an improvement, and also entails very little extra trouble, to boil the milk first. There is a difference in flavour, which is very marked, between milk that has been boiled and raw milk. Suppose you have coffee for breakfast, add boiling milk to one cup and raw milk to another, and then see how great a difference there will be in the flavour of the two. A little butter should be added to mashed potatoes, but it is not really essential. Mashed potatoes can be served in the shape of a mould, that is, they can be shaped in a mould and then browned in the oven. If you serve mashed potatoes in an ordinary dish, and pile them up in the shape of a dome, the dish will look much prettier if you score it round with a fork and then place the dish in a fairly fierce even; the edges will brown, but be careful that they don't get burnt black.

POTATOES, FRIED.—The best lesson, if you wish to fry potatoes nicely, is to look in at the window of a fried fish shop, where every condition is fulfilled that is likely to lead to perfection. The bath of oil is deep and smoking hot, and in sufficient quantity not to lose greatly in temperature on the introduction of the frying-basket containing the potatoes. The potatoes must be cut up into small pieces, not much bigger in thickness than the little finger; these are plunged into the smoking hot oil, and as soon as they are slightly browned on the outside they are done. They acquire a darker colour after they are removed from the oil, and the inside will go on cooking for several minutes. It would be quite impossible to eat fried potatoes directly they are taken out of the fat, as they would burn the mouth terribly. It is best to throw the fried potatoes into a cloth for a few seconds.

POTATO CHIPS.—Potato chips are ordinary fried potatoes cut up when raw into little pieces about the size and thickness of a lucifer match. They, of course, will cook very quickly. They should be removed from the oil directly they begin to turn colour.

POTATO RIBBON.—Potato ribbon is simply ordinary fried potatoes, in which the raw potato is cut in the shape of a ribbon. You take a potato and peel it in the ordinary way. You then take this and, with not too sharp a knife, peel it like apple, making the strip as long as you can, like children sometimes do when they throw the apple peel over their shoulders to see what letter it will make. You can go on peeling the potato round and round till there is none left. These ribbons are thrown into boiling oil, and must be removed as soon as they begin to turn colour. When piled up in a dish they look very pretty, and with a little pepper and salt, and a squeeze of lemon-juice, make an excellent meal when eaten with bread.

POTATO SAUTE.—This dish is more frequently met with abroad than in England, except in foreign restaurants. It is made by taking the remains of ordinary plain-boiled potatoes that are not floury. These are cut up into small pieces about the size of the thumb, no particular shape being necessary. They are thrown into a frying-pan with a little butter, and fried gently till the edges begin to brown; they are served with chopped parsley and pepper and salt. The butter should be poured over the potatoes, and supplies the fatty element which potato lacks.

POTATOES A LA MAITRE D'HOTEL.—These are very similar to potato saute, the difference being that they are not browned at the edges. Small kidney potatoes are best for the purpose. These must be boiled till tender, and the potatoes then cut into slices. These must be warmed up with a spoonful or two of white sauce (see WHITE SAUCE), to which is added some chopped parsley and a little lemon-juice. A more common way is to boil the potatoes, slice them up while hot, and then toss them about in a vegetable-dish lightly with a lump of what is called Maitre d'hotel butter. This is simply a lump of plain cold butter, mixed with chopped parsley, till it looks like a lump of cold parsley and butter. When tossed about squeeze a little lemon-juice over the whole and serve.

POTATOES, NEW.—New potatoes should be washed and the skin, if necessary, rubbed off with the fingers; they should be thrown into boiling water, slightly salted, and as a rule require from fifteen to five-and-twenty minutes to boil before they are done. During the last few minutes throw in one or two sprigs of fresh mint, drain them off and let there dry, and then place them in a vegetable-dish with the mint and a little piece of butter, in which the potatoes should be boiled to give them a shiny appearance outside.

New potatoes can also be served with a little white sauce to which has been added a little chopped parsley.

POTATO BALLS.—Mash some boiled potatoes with a little butter, pepper, salt, chopped parsley, chopped onion, or still better, shallot, and add a few savoury herbs. Mix up one or two or more well-beaten eggs, according to the quantity of potato, roll the mixture into balls, flour them, and fry them a nice brown colour, and serve.

POTATO CROQUETTES OR CUTLETS.—These are very similar to potato balls, only they should be smaller and more delicately flavoured. The potatoes are boiled and mashed, and, if the croquettes are wished to be very good, one or two hard-boiled yolks of eggs should be mixed with them. The mixture is slightly flavoured with shallot, savoury herbs or thyme, chopped parsley, and a little nutmeg. One or two fresh well-beaten-up eggs are now added, the mixture then rolled into small balls no bigger than a walnut. These are then dipped in well-beaten-up egg, and then bread-crumbed. The balls are fried a nice golden-brown colour and served.

Potato cutlets are exactly the same, only instead of shaping the mixture into a little ball, the ball is flattened into the shape of a small oval cutlet. These are then egged, bread-crumbed, and fried, but before being sent to table a small piece of green parsley stalk is stuck in one end to represent the bone of the cutlet. These little cutlets, placed on an ornamental sheet of white paper, at the bottom of the silver dish, look very pretty. A small heap of fried parsley should be placed in the centre of the dish.

POTATO PIE.—(See SAVOURY DISHES, p. 112.)

POTATO CHEESECAKE.—(See CHEESECAKES, p. 169.)

POTATO SALADS.—(See SALADS, p. 101.)

POTATO, BORDER OF.—A very pretty dish can be made by making a border of mashed potatoes, hollow in the centre, in which can be placed various kinds of other vegetables, such as haricot beans, stewed peas, &c. The mashed potato should be mixed with one or two well-beaten-up eggs, and the outside of the border can be moulded by hand, to make it look smooth and neat; a piece of flexible tin, flat, will be found very useful, or even a piece of cardboard. If you wish to make the border ornamental, you can proceed exactly as directed under the heading Rice Borders, and if it is wished to make the dish particularly handsome, it can be painted outside, before being placed in the oven, with a yolk of egg beaten up with a tiny drop of hot water. When this is done, the potato border has an appearance similar in colour to the rich pastry generally seen outside a pie, or vol au vent. The inside of the potato border after it has been scooped out can be filled with plain boiled macaroni mixed with Parmesan cheese, and ornamented with a little chopped parsley on the top and a few small baked red ripe tomatoes. Again, it can be filled with white haricot beans piled up in the shape of a dome, with some chopped parsley sprinkled over the top. There are, perhaps, few dishes in vegetarian cookery that can be made to look more elegant.

POTATO BISCUITS (M. Ude's Recipe).—Take fifteen fresh eggs, break the yolks into one pan and the whites into another. Beat the yolks with a pound of sugar pounded very fine, scrape the peel of a lemon with a lump of sugar, dry that and pound it fine also; then throw into it the yolks, and work the eggs and sugar till they are of a whitish colour. Next whip the whites well and mix them with the yolks. Now sift half a pound of flour of potatoes through a silk sieve over the eggs and sugar. Have some paper cases ready, which lay on a plafond with some paper underneath. Fill the cases, but not too full; glaze the contents with some rather coarse sugar, and bake the whole in an oven moderately heated.

POTATO BREAD.—In making bread, a portion of mashed potato is sometimes added to the flour, and this addition improves the bread very much for some tastes; it also keeps it from getting dry quite so soon. At the same time it is not so nutritious as ordinary home-made bread. Boil the required quantity of potatoes in their skins, drain and dry them, then peel and weigh them. Pound them with the rolling-pin until they are quite free from lumps, and mix with them the flour in the proportion of seven pounds of flour to two and a half pounds of potatoes. Add the yeast and knead in the ordinary way, but make up the bread with milk instead of water. When the dough is well risen, bake the bread in a gentle oven. Bake it a little longer than for ordinary bread, and, when it seems done enough, let it stand a little while, with the oven-door open, before taking it out. Unless these precautions are taken, the crust will be hard and brittle, while the inside is still moist and doughy. This recipe is from "Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery."

POTATO CAKE.—Take a dozen good-sized potatoes and hake them in the oven till done, then peel and put them into a saucepan with a little salt and grated lemon-peel; set them upon the stove and put in a piece of fresh butter and stir the whole; add a little cream and sugar, still continuing to stir them; then let them cool a little and add some orange-flower water, eight yolks of eggs and four only of whites, whisked into froth; heat up the whole together and mix it with the potato puree. Butter a mould and sprinkle it with bread-crumbs; pour in the paste, place the pan upon hot cinders, with fire upon the lid, and let it remain for three-quarters of an hour, or it may be baked in an oven.

POTATO CHEESE.—Potato cheeses are very highly esteemed in Germany; they can be made of various qualities, but care must be taken that they are not too rich and have not too much heat, or they will burst. Boil the potatoes till they are soft, but the skin must not be broken. The potatoes must be large and of the best quality. When boiled, carefully peel them and beat them to a smooth paste in a mortar with a wooden pestle. To make the commonest cheese, put five pounds of potato paste into a cheese-tub with one pound of milk and rennet; add a sufficient quantity of salt, together with caraways and cumin seed sufficient to impart a good flavour. Knead all these ingredients well together, cover up and allow them to stand three or four days in winter, two to three in summer. At the end of that time knead them again, put the paste into wicker moulds, and leave the cheeses to drain until they are quite dry. When dry and firm, lay them on a board and leave them to acquire hardness gradually in a place of very moderate warmth; should the heat be too great, as we have said, they will burst. When, in spite of all precautions, such accidents occur, the crevices of the burst cheeses are, in Germany, filled with curds and cream mixed, some being also put over the whole surface of the cheese, which is then dried again. As soon as the cheeses are thoroughly dry and hard, place them in barrels with green chickweed between each cheese; let them stand for about three weeks, when they will be fit for use.

POTATOES A LA BARIGOULE.—Peel some potatoes and boil them in a little water with some oil, pepper, salt, onions, and savoury herbs. Boil them slowly, so that they can absorb the liquor; when they are done, brown them in a stew-pan in a little oil, and serve them to be eaten with oil and vinegar, pepper and salt.

POTATOES, BROILED.—Potatoes are served this way sometimes in Italy. They are first boiled in their skins, but not too long. They are then taken out and peeled, cut into thin slices, placed on a gridiron, and grilled till they are crisp. A little oil is poured over them when they are served.

POTATOES A LA LYONNAISE.—First boil and then peel and slice some potatoes. Make some rather thin puree of onion. (See SAUCE SOUBISE.) Pour this over the potatoes and serve.

Another way is to first brown the slices of potatoes and then serve them with the onion sauce, with the addition of a little vinegar or lemon-juice.

POTATOES A LA PROVENCALE.—Put a small piece of butter into a stew-pan, or three tablespoonfuls of oil, three beads of garlic, the peel of a quarter of a lemon, and some parsley, all chopped up very fine; add a little grated nutmeg, pepper and salt. Peel some small potatoes and let them stew till they are tender in this mixture. Large potatoes can be used for the purpose, only they must be cut tip into pieces. Add the juice of a lemon before serving.

HARICOT BEANS.—It is very much to be regretted that haricot beans are not more used in this country. There are hundreds of thousands of families who at the end of a year would be richer in purse and more healthy in body if they would consent to deviate from the beaten track and try haricot beaus, not as an accompaniment to a dish of meat, but as an article of diet in themselves. The immense benefit derived in innumerable cases from a diet of beans is one of the strongest and most practical arguments in favour of vegetarianism. Meat-eaters often boast of the plainness of their food, and yet wonder that they suffer in health. It is not an uncommon thing for a man to consult his doctor and to tell him, "I live very simply, nothing but plain roast or boiled."

Medical men are all agreed on one point, and that is that haricot beans rank almost first among vegetables as a nourishing article of diet. In writing on this subject, Sir Henry Thompson observes, "Let me recall, at the close of these few hints about the haricot, the fact that there is no product of the vegetable kingdom so nutritious, holding its own, in this respect, as it well can, even against the beef and mutton of the animal kingdom."

This is a very strong statement, coming as it does from so high an authority, and vegetarians would do well to hear it in mind when discussing the subject of vegetarianism with those who differ from them. Sir Henry proceeds as follows:—"The haricot ranks just above lentils, which have been so much praised of late, and rightly, the haricot being to most palates more agreeable. By most stomachs, too, haricots are more easily digested than meat is; and, consuming weight for weight, the eater feels lighter and less oppressed, as a rule, after the leguminous dish, while the comparative cost is very greatly in favour of the latter."

To boil haricot beans proceed as follows. We refer, of course, to the dried white haricot beans, the best of which are those known as Soissons. The beans should be soaked in cold water overnight, and in the morning any that may be found floating on the top of the water should be thrown away. Suppose the quantity be a quart; place these in a saucepan with two quarts of cold water, slightly salted. As soon as time water conies to the boil, move it so that the beans will only simmer gently; they must then continue simmering till they are tender. This generally takes about three hours, and if the water is hard, it is advisable to put in a tiny piece of soda. This is the simple way of cooking beans usually recommended in cookery-books when they are served up with a dish of meat, such as a leg of mutton a la Bretonne, where the beans are served in some rich brown gravy containing fat. In vegetarian cookery, of course, we must proceed entirely differently, and there are various ways in which this nourishing dish can be served, as savoury and as appetising, and indeed more so, than if we had assistance from the slaughter-house. We will now proceed to give a few instances.

In the first place, it will greatly assist the flavour of the beans if we boil with them one or two onions and a dessertspoonful of savoury herbs. Supposing, however, we have them boiled plain. Take a large dry crust of bread and rub the outside well over with one or two beads of garlic. Place this crust of bread with the beans after they have been strained off, and toss them lightly about with the crust without breaking the beans. Remove the crust and moisten the beans while hot with a lump of butter, add a brimming dessertspoonful of chopped blanched parsley; squeeze the juice of a lemon over the whole, and serve. Instead of butter we can add, as they always do in Italy, two or three tablespoonfuls of pure olive oil. Those who have conquered the unreasonable English prejudice against the use of oil will probably find this superior to butter.

If the beans are served in the form of a puree, it is always best to boil a few onions with them and rub the onions through the wire sieve with the beans, taking care that the quantity of onion is not so large that it destroys and overpowers the delicate and delicious flavour of the beans themselves.

Next, we would call attention to the importance of not throwing away the water in which the beans were boiled. This water contains far more nourishment than people are aware of, and throughout the length and breadth of France, where economy is far more understood than in this country, it is invariably saved to assist in making some kind of soup, and as our soup will, of course, be vegetarian, the advantage gained is simply incalculable.

FLAGEOLETS.—These are haricot beans in the fresh green state, and are rarely met with in this country, though they form a standing dish abroad. They are exceedingly nice, and can be cooked in a little butter like the French cook green peas. They are often flavoured with garlic, and chopped parsley can be added to them. Those who are fond of this vegetable in the fresh state can obtain them in tins from any high-class grocer, as the leading firms in this country keep them in this form for export.

PEAS, DRIED.—Dried peas, like dried beans, contain a very great amount of nourishment. Indeed, in this respect, practically, dried beans, dried peas, and lentils may be considered equal. Dried peas are met with in two forms—the split yellow pea and those that are dried whole, green. Split peas are chiefly used in this country to make pea soup, or puree of peas and peas pudding. We have already given recipes for the two former, and will now describe how to make—

PEAS PUDDING.—Soak a quart of peas in water overnight, throwing away those in the morning that are found floating at the top. Drain them off and tie them up in a pudding-cloth, taking care to leave plenty of room for the peas to swell; put them into cold water, and boil them till they are tender. This will take from two to three hours. When tender, take them out, untie the cloth, and rub them through a colander, or, better still, a wire sieve. Now mix in a couple of ounces of butter with some pepper and salt, flour the cloth well and tie it up again and boil it for another hour, when it can be turned out and served. Peas pudding when eaten alone is improved by mixing in, at the same time as the butter, a dessertspoonful of dried powdered mint, also, should you have the remains of any cold potatoes in the house, it is a very good way of using them up. A few savoury herbs can be used instead of mint.

PEAS "BROSE."—Dr. Andrew, in writing to the "Cyclopaedia of Domestic Medicine," says, "In the West of Scotland, especially in Glasgow, 'peas brose,' as it is called, is made of the fine flour of the white pea, by forming it into a mass merely by the addition of boiling water and a little salt. It is a favourite dish with not only the working classes, but it is even esteemed by many of the gentry. It was introduced into fashion chiefly by the recommendation of Dr. Cleghorn, late Professor of Chemistry in Glasgow University. The peas brose is eaten with milk or butter, and is a sweet, nourishing article of diet peculiarly fitted for persons of a costive habit and for children."

PEAS, DRIED WHOLE, GREEN.—This is perhaps the best form with which we meet peas dried. When the best quality is selected, and care taken in their preparation, they are quite equal to fresh green peas when they are old. Indeed, many persons prefer them.

Soak the peas overnight, throwing away those that float at the top; put them into cold water, and when they boil let the peas simmer gently till they are tender. The time varies very much with the quality and the size of the peas, old ones requiring nearly three hours, others considerably less. When the peas are tender, throw in some sprigs, if possible, of fresh mint, and after a minute strain them off; add pepper, salt, and about two ounces of butter to a quart of peas—though this is not absolutely necessary—and nearly a dessertspoonful of white powdered sugar.

If you wish to have the peas as bright a green as freshly gathered ones, after you strain them off you can mix them in a basin, before you add the butter, with a little piece of green vegetable colouring (sold in bottles by all grocers). The peas should then be put back in the saucepan for a few minutes to be made hot through, and then finished as directed before.

PEAS, DRIED, GREEN, WITH CREAM.—Boil the peas as before directed till they are quite tender, then strain them off and put them in a stew-pan with one ounce of butter to every quart of peas and toss them lightly about with a little pepper, salt, and grated nutmeg. Add to each quart of peas a quarter of a pint of cream and a dessertspoonful of powdered sugar; surround the dish with fried or toasted bread.

LENTILS.—Lentils are, comparatively speaking, a novel form of food in this country, though they have been used abroad for many years, and a recipe for cooking them will be found in a well-known work, published in Paris in 1846, entitled "La Cuisiniere de la Campagne et de la Ville; ou, Nouvelle Cuisine Economique," one of the most popular French cookery-books ever published, and which in that year had reached a circulation of 80,000 copies.

Recipes for boiled lentils and lentil soup are given in "Cassell's Dictionary of Cookery," published in 1875; but it is stated in the introductory remarks that lentils are little used in England except as food for pigeons, and adds, "They are seldom offered for sale." Since that date lentils have become an exceedingly popular form of food in many households, and vegetarians generally regard them as one of the most nourishing forms of food served at the table. There are two kinds of lentils, the German and Egyptian. The Egyptian are red and much smaller than the German, which are green. The former kind are generally used on the Continent, in Italy and the South of France, while, as the name implies, the green lentils are more commonly used in Eastern Europe. Either kind, however, can be used for making soup and puree, recipes of which have already been given, as well as for the recipes in the present chapter.

LENTILS, BOILED.—The lentils should be placed in soak overnight, and those that float should be thrown away. Suppose we have half a pint of lentils, they should be boiled in about a pint and a half of water. Boil them till they are tender, which will take about half an hour, then drain them off and put them back in the saucepan for a few minutes with a little piece of butter, squeeze over them the juice of half a lemon, and serve hot. Some people make a little thickened sauce with yolks of eggs and a little butter and flour mixed with the water in which they are boiled.

LENTILS, CURRIED.—Lentils are very nice curried. Boil the lentils as directed above till they are tender. When they are placed in a vegetable-dish make deep well in the centre and pour some thick curry sauce into it. (See CURRY SAUCE.)

LENTILS A LA PROVENCALE.—Soak the lentils overnight and put them into a stew-pan with five or six spoonfuls of oil, a little butter, some slices of onion, some chopped parsley, and a teaspoonful of mixed savoury herbs. Stew them in this till the lentils are tender, and then thicken the sauce with yolks of eggs, add a squeeze of lemon-juice, and serve.

N.B.—Haricot beans can be cooked in a similar manner.



CHAPTER VIII.

VEGETABLES, FRESH.

ARTICHOKES, FRENCH, PLAIN BOILED.—Put the artichokes to soak in some well salted water, upside down, as otherwise it is impossible to get rid of the insects that are sometimes hidden in the leaves. Trim off the ends of the leaves and the stalk, and all the hard leaves round the bottom should be pulled off. Put the artichokes into a saucepan of boiling water sufficiently deep to nearly cover them. The tips of the leaves are best left out; add a little salt, pepper, and a spoonful of savoury herbs to the water in which they are boiled. French cooks generally add a piece of butter. Boil them till they are tender. The time depends upon the size, but you can always tell when they are done by pulling out a single leaf. If it comes out easily the artichokes are done. Drain them off, and remember in draining them to turn them upside down. Some kind of sauce is generally served with artichokes separately in a boat, such as butter sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce.

ARTICHOKES, BROILED.—Parboil the artichokes and take out the part known as the choke. In the hollow place a little chopped parsley and light-coloured bread-raspings soaked in olive oil. Place the bottoms of the artichokes on a gridiron with narrow bars over a clear fire, and serve them as soon a they are thoroughly hot through.

ARTICHOKES, FRIED.—The bottoms of artichokes after being boiled can be dipped in batter and fried.

ARTICHOKES A LA PROVENCALE.—Parboil the artichokes and remove the choke, and put them in the oven in a tin with a little oil, pepper and salt, and three or four heads of garlic, whole. Let them bake till they are tender, turning them over in the oil occasionally; then take out the garlic and serve them with the oil poured over them, and add the juice of a lemon.

ARTICHOKES, JERUSALEM, BOILED, PLAIN.—The artichokes must be first washed and peeled, and should be treated like potatoes in this respect. They should be thrown into cold water immediately, and it is best to add a little vinegar to the water. If the artichokes are young, throw them into boiling water, and they will become tender in about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes. It is very important not to over-boil them, as they turn a bad colour. If any doubt exists as to the age of the artichokes, they had better be tested with a fork. Immediately they are tender they should be drained and served.

Old artichokes must be treated like old potatoes, i.e., put originally into cold water, and when they come to the boiling point allowed to simmer till tender; but these are best mashed. When the artichokes have been drained, they can, of course, be served quite plain, but they are best sent to table with some kind of sauce poured over them, such as Allemande sauce, Dutch sauce, white sauce, or plain butter sauce. They are greatly improved in appearance, after a spoonful of sauce has been poured over each artichoke, if a little blanched chopped parsley is sprinkled over them, and a few red specks made by colouring a pinch of bread-crumbs by shaking them with a few drops of cochineal.

Another very nice way of sending artichokes to table is to place all the artichokes together in a vegetable-dish, and, after pouring a little white sauce over each artichoke, to place a fresh-boiled bright green Brussels sprout between each. The white and green contrast very prettily.

JERUSALEM ARTICHOKES, FRIED.—Peel and slice the artichokes very thin; throw these slices into smoking hot oil in which a frying-basket has been placed. As soon as the artichokes are of bright golden-brown colour, lift out the frying-basket, shake it while you pepper and salt the artichokes, and serve very hot. They can be eaten with thin brown bread-and-butter and lemon-juice, and form a sort of vegetarian whitebait.

ARTICHOKES, MASHED.—These are best made from old artichokes. They must be rubbed through a wire sieve, and the strings left behind. It is best to mash them up with a little butter, and a spoonful or two of cream is a very great improvement.

ASPARAGUS, BOILED.—Cut the asparagus all the same length by bringing the green points together, and then trimming the stalks level with a sharp knife. Throw the asparagus into boiling salted water. Time, from fifteen to twenty-five minutes, according to thickness. Serve on dry toast, and send butter sauce to table separate in a tureen.

BEANS, BROAD, PLAIN BOILED.—Broad beans, if eaten whole, should be quite young. They should be thrown into boiling water, salted. They require about twenty minutes to boil before they are tender. Serve with parsley and butter sauce.

BROAD BEANS, MASHED.—When broad beans get old, the only way to serve them is to have them mashed. Boil them, and remove the skins, then mash them up with a little butter, pepper, and salt, and rub them through a wire sieve, make them hot, and serve. You can if you like boil a few green onions and a pinch of savoury herbs with the beans, and rub these through the wire sieve as well. This dish is very cheap and very nourishing. Very young beans, like very young peas, are more nice than economical.

BEANS A LA POULETTE.—Boil some young beans till they are tender, and put them into a saucepan with a little butter, sugar, pepper, and salt, and sufficient flour to prevent the butter cooking oily; stew them in this a short time, i.e., till they appear to begin to boil, as the water from the beans will mix with the butter and flour and look like thin butter sauce thicken this with one or two yolks of eggs, and serve.

BEANS A LA BOURGEOISE.—Place the beans in a saucepan, with a piece of butter, a small quantity of shallot chopped fine, and a teaspoonful of savoury herbs; toss them about in this a little time, and then add a little water, sufficient to moisten them so that they can stew; add a little sugar, and when tender thicken the water with some beaten-up egg.

BEANS, FRENCH, PLAIN BOILED.—French beans are only good when fresh gathered, and the younger they are the better. When small they can be boiled whole, in which case they only require the tips cut off and the string that runs down the side removed. When they are more fully grown they will require, in addition to being trimmed in this manner, to be cut into thin strips, and when very old it will be found best to cut them slanting. They must be thrown into boiling salted water, and boiled till they are tender. The time for boiling varies with the age; very young ones will not take more than a quarter of an hour, and if old ones are not tender in half an hour they had better be made into a puree. As soon as the beans are tender, drain them off, and serve them very hot; the chief point to bear in mind, if we wish to have our beans nice, is, they must be eaten directly they are drained from the water in which they are boiled. They are spoilt by what is called being kept hot, and possess a marvellous facility of getting cold in a very short space of time.

In vegetarian cookery, when beans are eaten without being an accompaniment to meat, some form of fat is desirable. When the beans are drained we can add either butter or oil. When a lump of Maitre d'hotel butter is added they form what the French call haricots vert a la Maitre d'hotel. In this case, a slight suspicion of garlic may be added by rubbing the stew-pan in which the French beans are tossed together with the Maitre d'hotel butter. When oil is added, a little chopped parsley will be found an improvement, as well as pepper, salt, and a suspicion of nutmeg.

French beans are very nice flavoured with oil and garlic, and served in a border of macaroni.

FRENCH BEAN PUDDING.—When French beans are very old they are sometimes made into a pudding as follows:—They must be trimmed, cut up, boiled, with or without the addition of a few savoury herbs. They must be then mashed in a basin, tied up in a well-buttered and then floured cloth, and boiled for some time longer. The pudding can then be turned out. A still better way of making a French bean pudding is to rub the beans through the wire sieve, leaving the strings behind, flavouring the pudding with a few savoury herbs, a little sugar, pepper, and salt, and, if liked, a suspicion of garlic; add one or two well-beaten-up eggs, and put the mixture in a round pudding-basin, and bake it till it sets. This can be turned out on the centre of a dish, and a few young French beans placed round the base to ornament it, in conjunction with some pieces of fried bread cut into pretty shapes.

BROCOLI.—Trim the outer leaves off a brocoli, and cut off the stalk even, so that it will stand upright. Soak the brocoli in salt and water for some time, in order to get rid of any insects. Throw the brocoli into boiling water that has been salted, and boil till it is tender, the probable time for young brocoli being about a quarter of an hour. It should be served on a dish with the flower part uppermost; and butter sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce can be served separately, or poured over the surface.

When several heads of brocoli are served at once, it is important to cut the stalks flat, as directed, before boiling. After they have been thoroughly drained upside down, they should be placed on the dish, flower part uppermost, and placed together as much as possible to look like one large brocoli. If sauce is poured over them, the sauce should be sufficiently thick to be spread, and every part of the flower should be covered. Half a teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley may be sprinkled over the top, and improves the appearance of the dish.

N.B.—We would particularly call attention to the importance of draining brocoli and cauliflower very thoroughly, especially when any sauce is served with the brocoli. When the dish is cut into, nothing looks more disagreeable than to see the white sauce running off the brocoli into green water at the bottom of the dish.

BROCOLI GREENS.—The outside leaves of brocoli should not be thrown away, but eaten. Too often they are trimmed off at the greengrocer's or at the market, and, we presume, utilised for the purpose of feeding cattle. They can be boiled exactly like white cabbages, and are equal to them, if not superior, in flavour. To boil them, see CABBAGE, WHITE, LARGE.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS.—These must be first washed in cold water and all the little pieces of decayed leaves trimmed away. Throw them into boiling salted water; the water must be kept boiling the whole time, without a lid on the saucepan, and if the quantity of water be sufficiently large not to be taken off the boil by the sprouts being thrown in they will be sent to table of a far brighter green colour than otherwise. In order to ensure this, throw in the sprouts a few at a time, picking out the big ones to throw in first. Sprouts, as soon as they are tender—probable time a quarter of an hour—should be drained and served quickly. When served as a dish by themselves, after being drained off, they can be placed in a stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, salt, nutmeg, and lemon-juice. They can then be served with toasted or fried bread.

CABBAGE, PLAIN BOILED.—Ordinary young cabbages should be first trimmed by having the outside leaves removed, the stalks cut off, and then should be cut in halves and allowed to soak some time in salt and water. They should be thrown into plenty of boiling water; the water should be kept boiling and uncovered. As soon as they are tender they should be strained off and served immediately. Young summer cabbages will not take longer than a quarter of an hour, or even less; old cabbages take nearly double that time. It is impossible to lay down any exact rule with regard to time. Savoys generally take about half an hour. The large white cabbages met with in the West of England take longer and require a different treatment.

When cabbage is served as a dish by itself it will be found a great improvement to add either butter or oil to moisten the cabbage after it is thoroughly drained off. In order to ensure the butter not oiling, but adhering to the cabbage, it is best after the butter is added, and while you mix it with the cabbage, to shake the flour-dredger two or three times over the vegetable. In Germany, many add vinegar and sugar to the cabbage.

CABBAGE, LARGE WHITE.—In the West of England cabbages grow to an immense size, owing, probably, to the moist heat, and have been exhibited in agricultural shows over twenty pounds in weight and as big as an eighteen gallon cask. These cabbages are best boiled as follows:—After being cut up and thoroughly washed, it will be found that the greater part of the cabbage resembles what in ordinary cabbage would be called stalk, and, of course, the leaves vary very considerably in thickness from the hard stalk end up to the leaf. Have plenty of boiling water ready salted, now cut off the stalk part where it is thickest and throw this in first. Wait till the water comes to the boil again and let it boil for a few minutes. Then throw in the next thickest part and again wait till the water re-boils, and so on, reserving the thin leafy part to be thrown in last of all. By this means, and this only, do we get the cabbage boiled uniformly. Had we thrown in all at once one of two things would be inevitable—either the stalk would be too hard to be eaten or the leafy part over-boiled. A large white cabbage takes about an hour to boil tender, and a piece of soda should be added to the water. When the cabbage is well drained, it can be served either plain or moistened, and made to look oily by the addition of a piece of butter. As the cabbage is very white, the dish is very much improved by the addition of a little chopped parsley sprinkled over the top, not for the sake of flavour but appearance.

CABBAGE AND CREAM.—Ordinary cabbages are sometimes served stewed with a little cream. They should be first parboiled, then the moisture squeezed from them, and then they must be put in a stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, salt and nutmeg, and a spoonful of flour should be shaken over the cabbage in order to prevent the butter being too oily. When the cabbage is stewed till it is perfectly tender, add a few spoonfuls of cream, stir up, and make the whole thoroughly hot, and serve with fried or toasted bread.

CABBAGE, RED.—Red cabbages are chiefly used for pickling. They are sometimes served fresh. They should be cut across so that the cabbage shreds, boiled till they are tender, the moisture thoroughly extracted, and then put into a stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, and salt, and a few shakes of flour from the flour-dredger. After stirring for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour, squeeze the juice of a lemon over them and serve.

CARROTS, BOILED.—When carrots are boiled and served as a course by themselves, they ought to be young. This dish is constantly met with abroad in early summer, but is rarely seen in England, except at the tables of vegetarians. The carrots should be trimmed, thoroughly washed, and, if necessary, slightly scraped, and the point at the end, which looks like a piece of string, should be cut off. They should be thrown into fast boiling water (salted) in order to preserve their colour. When tender they can be served with some kind of good white sauce, or sauce Allemande or Dutch sauce. Perhaps this latter sauce is best of all, as it looks like rich custard. Part of the red carrot should show uncovered by any sauce. They are best placed in a circle and the thick sauce poured in the centre; a very little chopped blanched parsley can be sprinkled on the top of the sauce. In making Dutch sauce for carrots use lemon-juice instead of tarragon vinegar.

CARROTS, FRIED.—Fried carrots can be made from full-grown carrots. They must be first parboiled and then cut in slices; they must then be dipped in well-beaten-up egg, and then covered with fine dry bread-crumbs and fried a nice brown in smoking hot oil in a frying-basket. The slices of carrot should be peppered and salted before being dipped in the egg.

CARROTS, MASHED.—When carrots are very old they are best mashed. Boil them for some time, then cut them up and rub them through a wire sieve. They can be pressed in a basin and made hot by being steamed. A little butter, pepper and salt should be added to the mixture. A very pretty dish can be made by means of mixing mashed carrots with mashed turnips. They can be shaped in a basin, and with a little ingenuity can be put into red and white stripes. The effect is something like the top of a striped tent.

CAULIFLOWER, PLAIN BOILED.—Cauliflowers can be treated in exactly the same manner as brocoli, and there are very few who can tell the difference. (See BROCOLI.)

CAULIFLOWER AU GRATIN.—This is a very nice method of serving cauliflower as a course by itself. The cauliflower or cauliflowers should first be boiled till thoroughly tender, very carefully drained, and then placed upright in a vegetable-dish with the flower part uppermost. The whole of the flower part should then be masked (i.e., covered over) with some thick white sauce. Allemande sauce or Dutch sauce will do. This is then sprinkled over with grated Parmesan cheese and the dish put in the oven for the top to brown. As soon as it begins to brown take it out of the oven and finish it off neatly with a salamander (a red-hot shovel will do), the same way you finish cheese-cakes made from curds.

CAULIFLOWER AND TOMATO SAUCE.—Boil and place the cauliflower or flowers upright in a dish as in the above recipe. Now mask all the flower part very neatly, commencing round the edges first, with some tomato conserve previously made warm, and serve immediately. This is a very pretty-looking dish.

CELERY, STEWED.—The secret of having good stewed celery is only to cook the white part. Throw the celery into boiling water, with only sufficient water just to cover it. When the celery is tender use some of the water in which it is stewed to make a sauce to serve with it, or better still, stew the celery in milk. The sauce looks best when it is thickened with the yolks of eggs. A very nice sauce indeed can be made by first thickening the milk or water in which the celery is stewed with a little white roux, and then adding a quarter of a pint of cream boiled separately. Stewed celery should be served on toast, like asparagus; a little chopped blanched parsley can be sprinkled over the white sauce by way of ornament, and fried bread should be placed round the edge of the dish.

Stewed celery can also be served with sauce Allemande or Dutch sauce.

ENDIVE.—Endive is generally used as a salad, but is very nice served as a vegetable, stewed. White-heart endives should be chosen, and several heads will be required for a dish, as they shrink very much in cooking. Wash and clean the endives very carefully in salt and water first, as they often contain insects. Boil them in slightly salted water till they are tender, then drain them off, and thoroughly extract the moisture; put them in a stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, let them stew for some little time; add the juice of a lemon, and serve. It will make the dish much prettier if you reserve one head of endive boiled whole. Place the stewed endive on a dish, and sprinkle some chopped blanched parsley over it, then place the single head of endive upright in the centre, and place some fried bread round the edge.

LEEKS, STEWED.—Leeks must be trimmed down to where the green part meets the white on the one side, and the root, where the strings are, cut off on the other. They should be thrown into boiling water, boiled till they are tender, and then thoroughly drained. The water in which leeks have been boiled is somewhat rank and bitter, and, as the leeks are like tubes, in order to drain them perfectly you must turn them upside down. They can be served on toast, and covered with some kind of white sauce, either ordinary white sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce.

LEEKS, WELSH PORRIDGE.—The leeks are stewed and cut in slices, and served in some of the liquor in which they are boiled, with toast cut in strips, something like onion porridge. Boil the leeks for five minutes, drain them off, and throw away the first water, and then stew them gently in some fresh water. In years back, in Wales, French plums were stewed with and added to the porridge.

LETTUCES, STEWED.—As lettuces shrink very much when boiled, allowance must be made, and several heads used. This is also a very good way of utilising the large old-fashioned English lettuce resembling in shape a gingham umbrella. They should be first boiled till tender. The time depends entirely upon the size. Drain them off, and thoroughly extract the moisture; put them into a stew-pan, with a little butter, pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Let them stew some little time, and add a little vinegar, or, still better, lemon-juice.

LETTUCES STEWED WITH PEAS.—A border of stewed lettuces can be made as above, and the centre filled up with some fresh-boiled young green peas.

ONIONS, PLAIN BOILED.—When onions are served as a dish by themselves, Spanish onions are far best for the purpose. Ordinary onions, as a rule, are too strong to be eaten, except as an accompaniment to some other kind of food. When onions are plain boiled, they are best served on dry toast without any sauce at all. Butter can be added when eaten on the plate if liked. Large Spanish onions will require about three hours to boil tender.

ONIONS, BAKED.—Spanish onions can be baked in the oven. They are best placed in saucers, with a very little butter to prevent them sticking, with which they can also be basted occasionally. Probable time about three hours. They should be of a nice brown colour at the finish.

ONIONS, STEWED.—Place a large Spanish onion in a saucer at the bottom of the saucepan, and put sufficient water in the saucepan to reach the edge of the saucer; keep the lid of the saucepan on tight, and let it steam till tender. A large onion would take about three hours. The water from the onion will prevent the necessity of adding fresh water from time to time.

PARSNIPS.—Like young carrots, young parsnips are often met with abroad as a course by themselves. They should be trimmed and boiled whole, and served with white sauce, Allemande sauce, or Dutch sauce; a little chopped blanched parsley should be sprinkled over the sauce, and fried bread served round the edge of the dish.

PARSNIPS, FRIED.—Boil some full-grown parsnips till they are tender, cut them into slices, pepper and salt them, dip them into beaten-up egg, and cover them with bread-crumbs, and fry these slices in some smoking hot oil till they are a nice brown colour.

PARSNIPS, MASHED.—When parsnips are very old they are best mashed. Boil them for an hour or more, then cut them up and rub them through a wire sieve. The stringy part will have to be left behind. Mix the pulp with a little butter, pepper, and salt; make this hot, and serve. A little cream is a great improvement.

PARSNIP CAKE.—Boil two or three parsnips until they are tender enough to mash, then press them through a colander with the back of a wooden spoon, and carefully remove any fibrous, stringy pieces there may be. Mix a teacupful of the mashed parsnip with a quart of hot milk, add a teaspoonful of salt, four ounces of fresh butter, half a pint of yeast, and enough flour to make a stiff batter. Put the bowl which contains the mixture in a warm place, cover it with a cloth, and leave it to rise. When it has risen to twice its original size, knead some more flour into it, and let it rise again; make it into small round cakes a quarter of an inch thick, and place these on buttered tins. Let them stand before the fire a few minutes, and bake them in a hot oven. They do not taste of the parsnip. Time, some hours to rise; about twenty minutes to bake.

PEAS, GREEN.—By far the best and nicest way of cooking green peas when served as a course by themselves is to stew them gently in a little butter without any water at all, like they do in France. The peas are first shelled, and then placed in a stew-pan with a little butter, sufficient to moisten them. As soon as they are tender, which will vary with the size and age of the peas, they can be served just as they are. The flavour of peas cooked this way is so delicious that they are nicest eaten with plain bread. When old peas are cooked this way it is customary to add a little white powdered sugar.

PEAS, GREEN, PLAIN BOILED.—Shell the peas, and throw them into boiling water slightly salted. Keep the lid off the saucepan and throw in a few sprigs of fresh green mint five minutes before you drain them off. Young peas will take about ten to twenty minutes, and full-grown peas rather longer. Serve the peas directly they are drained, as they are spoilt by being kept hot.

PEAS, STEWED.—When peas late in the season get old and tough, they can be stewed. Boil them for rather more than half an hour, throwing them first of all into boiling water; drain them off, and put them into a stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, and salt. Young onions and lettuces cut up can be stewed with them, but young green peas are far too nice ever to be spoilt by being cooked in this way.

SCOTCH KALE.—Scotch kale, or curly greens, as it is sometimes called in some parts of the country, is cooked like ordinary greens. It should be washed very carefully, and thrown into fast-boiling salted water. The saucepan should remain uncovered, as we wish to preserve the dark green colour. Young Scotch kale will take about twenty minutes to boil before it is tender. When boiled, if served as a course by itself, it should be strained off very thoroughly and warmed in a stew-pan with a little butter, pepper, and salt.

SEA KALE.—Sea kale possesses a very delicate flavour, and in cooking it the endeavour should be to preserve this flavour. Throw the sea kale when washed into boiling water; in about twenty minutes, if it is young, it will be tender. Serve it on plain dry toast, and keep all the heads one way. Butter sauce, white sauce, Dutch sauce, or sauce Allemande can be served with sea kale, but should be sent to table separate in a boat, as the majority of good judges prefer the sea kale quite plain.

SPINACH.—The chief difficulty to contend with in cooking spinach is the preliminary cleansing. The best method of washing spinach is to take two buckets of water. Wash it in one; the spinach will float on the top whilst the dirt settles at the bottom. Lift the spinach from one pail, after you have allowed it to settle for a few minutes, into the other pail. One or two rinsings will be sufficient. Spinach should be picked if the stalks are large, and thrown into boiling water slightly salted. Boil the spinach till it is tender, which will take about a quarter of an hour, then drain it off and cut it very small in a basin with a knife and fork, place it back in a saucepan with a little piece of butter to make it thoroughly hot, put it in a vegetable dish and serve.

Hard-boiled eggs cut in halves, or poached eggs, are usually served with spinach. A little cream, nutmeg, and lemon-juice can be added. Many cooks rub the spinach through a wire sieve.

VEGETABLE MARROW.—Vegetable marrows must be first peeled, cut open, the pips removed, and then thrown into boiling water; small ones should be cut into quarters and large ones into pieces about as big as the palm of the hand. They take from fifteen to twenty minutes to boil before they are tender. They should be served directly they are cooked and placed on dry toast. Butter sauce or white sauce can be served with them, but is best sent to table separate in a boat, as many persons prefer them plain.

VEGETABLE MARROWS, STUFFED.—Young vegetable marrows are very nice stuffed. They should be first peeled very slightly and then cut, long-ways, into three zigzag slices; the pips should be removed and the interior filled with either mushroom forcemeat (see MUSHROOM FORCEMEAT) or sage-and-onion stuffing made with rather an extra quantity of bread-crumbs. The vegetable marrow should be tied up with two separate loops of tape about a quarter of the way from each end, and these two rings of tape tied together with two or three separate pieces of tape to prevent them slipping off at the ends. The forcemeat or stuffing should be made hot before it is placed in the marrow. The vegetable marrow should now be thrown into boiling water and boiled till it is tender, about twenty minutes to half an hour. Take off the tape carefully, and be careful to place the marrow so that one half rests on the other half, or else it will slip.

N.B.—If you place the stuffing inside cold, the vegetable marrow will break before the inside gets hot through.

TURNIPS, BOILED.—When turnips are young they are best boiled whole. Peel them first very thinly, and throw them into cold water till they are ready for the saucepan. Throw them into boiling water slightly salted. They will probably take about twenty minutes to boil. They can be served quite plain or with any kind of white sauce, butter sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce. In vegetarian cookery they are perhaps best served with some other kind of vegetable.

TURNIPS, MASHED.—Old turnips are best mashed, as they are stringy. Boil them till they get fairly tender; they will take from half an hour to two hours, according to age; then rub them through a wire sieve and warm up the pulp with a little milk, or still better, cream and a little butter; add pepper and salt.

N.B.—If the pulp be very moist let it stand and get rid of the moisture gradually in a frying-pan over a very slack fire.

TURNIPS, ORNAMENTAL.—A very pretty way of serving young turnips in vegetarian cookery is to cut them in halves and scoop out the centre so as to form cups; the part scooped out can be mixed with some carrot cut up into small pieces, and some green peas, and placed in the middle of a dish in a heap; the half-turnips forming cups can be placed round the base of the dish and each cup filled alternately with the red part of the carrot, chopped small and piled up, and a spoonful of green peas. This makes a very pretty dish of mixed vegetables.

TURNIP-TOPS.—Turnip-tops, when fresh cut, make very nice and wholesome greens. They should be thrown into boiling water and boiled for about twenty minutes, when they will be tender. They should then be cut up with a knife and fork very finely and served like spinach. If rubbed through a wire sieve and a little spinach extract mixed with them to give them the proper colour, and served with hard-boiled eggs, there are very few persons who can distinguish the dish from eggs and spinach.

VEGETABLE CURRY.—A border made of all kinds of mixed vegetables is very nice sent to table with some good thick curry sauce poured in the centre.

NETTLES, TO BOIL.—The best time to gather nettles for eating purposes is in the early spring. They are freely eaten in many parts of the country, as they are considered excellent for purifying the blood. The young light-green leaves only should be taken. They must be washed carefully and boiled in two waters, a little salt and a very small piece of soda being put in the last water. When tender, turn them into a colander, press the water from them, put them into a hot vegetable-dish, score them across three or four times, and serve. Send melted butter to table in a tureen. Time, about a quarter of an hour to boil.

SALSIFY.—Scrape the salsify and throw it into cold water with a little vinegar. Then throw it into boiling water, boil til tender, and serve on toast with white sauce. Time to boil, about one hour.



CHAPTER IX.

PRESERVED VEGETABLES AND FRUITS.

Vegetables and fruits are preserved in two ways. We can have them preserved both in bottles and tins, but the principle is exactly the same in both cases, the method of preservation being simply that of excluding the air. We will not enter into the subject of how to preserve fruit and vegetables, but will confine ourselves to discussing as briefly as possible the best method of using them when they are preserved.

Unfortunately there exists a very unreasonable prejudice on the part of many persons against all kinds of provisions that are preserved in tins. This prejudice is kept alive by stories that occasionally get into print about families being poisoned by using tinned goods. We hear stories also of poisoning resulting from using copper vessels. Housekeepers should endeavour to grasp the idea that the evil is the result of their own ignorance, and that no danger would accrue were they possessed of a little more elementary knowledge of chemistry. If a penny be dipped in vinegar and exposed to the air, and is then licked by a child, a certain amount of ill effect would undoubtedly ensue, but it does not follow that we should give up the use of copper money. So, too, if we use tinned goods, and owing to our own carelessness or ignorance find occasionally that evil results ensue, we should not give up the use of the goods in question, but endeavour to find out the cause why these evil results follow only occasionally.

All good cooks know, or ought to know, that if they leave the soup all night in a saucepan the soup is spoilt. Again, all housekeepers know that although they have a metal tank, they are bound to have a wooden lid on top, there being a law to this effect. The point they forget in using tinned goods is this, so long as the air is excluded from the interior of the tin no chemical action goes on whatever. When, therefore, they open the tin, if they turn out the contents at once no harm can ensue. Unfortunately, there are many thousands who will open a tin, take out what they want, and leave the remainder in the tin. Of course, they have only themselves to blame should evil result.

Preserved vegetables are so useful that they are inseparable from civilised cookery; for instance, what would a French cook do were he dependent for his mushrooms upon these fresh grown in the fields? The standard dish at vegetarian restaurants is mushroom pie, and, thanks to tinned mushrooms, we can obtain this dish all the year round. In most restaurants peas are on the bill of fare throughout the year. Were we dependent upon fresh grown ones, this popular dish would be confined almost to a few weeks.

In the case of preserved goods, tinned fruits are even more valuable than tinned vegetables. Ripe apricots and peaches picked fresh from the tree are expensive luxuries that in this country can only be indulged in by the rich, whereas, thanks to the art of preserving, we are enabled to enjoy them all the year round. We will run briefly through a few of the chief vegetables and fruits, and give a few hints how to best use them. First of all—

ASPARAGUS, TINNED.—Place the tin in the saucepan with sufficient cold water to cover it. Bring the water to a boil and let it boil for five minutes; take out the tin and cut it open round the edge, as near to the edge as possible, otherwise you will be apt to break the asparagus in turning it out. Drain off the liquor and serve the asparagus on freshly made hot toast. There is much less waste as a rule in tinned asparagus than in that freshly cut. As a rule, you can eat nearly the whole of it.

PEAS, TINNED.—Put the tin before it is opened into cold water, bring the water to a boil, and let it boil five minutes, or longer if the tin is a large one. Cut open the tin at the top, pour out the liquor, and serve the peas with a few sprigs of fresh mint, if it can be obtained, that have been boiled for two or three minutes. Supposing the tin to contain a pint of peas, add while the peas are thoroughly hot a brimming saltspoonful of finely powdered sugar, and half a saltspoonful of salt. If the peas are to be eaten by themselves, as is generally the case with vegetarians, add a good-sized piece of butter.

FRENCH BEANS, TINNED.—These can be treated in exactly similar manner to green peas, only, instead of adding mint, add a little chopped blanched parsley; the same quantity of sugar and salt should be added as in the case of peas. After the butter has melted, it is a great improvement, when the beans are eaten as a course by themselves, with bread, if the juice of half a lemon is added.

FLAGEOLETS, TINNED.—For this delicious vegetable, in England, we are dependent upon tinned goods, as we cannot recall an instance in which they can be bought freshly gathered. Warm up the beans in the tin by placing the tin in cold water, bringing the water to a boil, and letting it boil for five minutes. Drain off the liquor, add a saltspoonful of sugar, half a one of salt, and a lump of butter. Instead of butter, you can add to each pint two tablespoonfuls of pure olive oil. Many persons consider it a great improvement to rub the vegetable-dish with a bead of garlic. In this case the beans should be tossed about in the dish for a minute or two.

BRUSSELS SPROUTS, TINNED.—The tin should be made hot before it is opened, the liquor drained off, and the sprouts placed in a dish, with a little butter or oil, powdered sugar, salt, pepper, and a slight flavouring of nutmeg. In France, in some parts, a little cream is poured over them.

SPINACH, TINNED.—Spinach is sold in tins fairly cheap, and, quoting from the list of a large retail establishment where prices correspond with those of the Civil Service Stores, a tin of spinach can be obtained for fivepence-halfpenny. The spinach should be made very hot in the tin, turned out on to a dish, and hard-boiled eggs, hot, cut in halves, added. Some people add also a little vinegar, but, unless persons' tastes are known beforehand, that is best added on the plate.

CARROTS, TINNED.—Young carrots can be obtained in tins, and, as only young carrots are nice when served as a course by themselves, these will be found a valuable addition to the vegetarian store-cupboard. Make the carrots hot in the tin, and let the water boil, for quite ten minutes after it comes to the boiling point. Drain off the liquor, and serve them with some kind of white sauce exactly as if they were freshly boiled young carrots.

TURNIPS, TINNED.—Proceed exactly the same as in the case of carrots.

FOND D'ARTICHOKE.—These consist of the bottom part only of French artichokes. They should be made hot in the tin, and served up with some good butter sauce, and cut lemon separate, as many prefer the artichokes plain.

MACEDOINES.—This, as the word implies, is a mixture of various vegetables, the chief of which are generally chopped-up carrot and turnip with young green peas. A very nice dish which can be served at a very short notice, if you have curry sauce in bottles, is a dish of vegetable curry. The macedoines should be made hot in the tin, the liquor drained off, and the curry sauce, made hot, should be poured into a well made in the centre of the macedoines in the dish. Macedoines are also very useful, as they can be served as a vegetable salad at a moment's notice, as the vegetables are sufficiently cooked without being made hot.

TINNED FRUITS.—Tinned fruits are ready for eating directly the tin is opened. All we have to bear in mind is to turn them all out of the tin on to a dish immediately. Do not leave any in the tin to be used at another time. Most tinned fruits can be served just as they are, in a glass dish, but a great improvement can be made in their appearance at a very small cost and with a very little extra trouble if we always have in the house a little preserved angelica and a few dried cherries. As these cost about a shilling or one and fourpence per pound, and even a quarter of a pound is sufficient to ornament two or three dozen dishes, the extra expense is almost nil.

APRICOTS, TINNED.—Pile the apricots up, with the convex side uppermost, in a glass dish, reserving one cup apricot to go on the top, with the concave side uppermost. Take a few preserved cherries, and cut them in halves, and stick half a cherry in all the little holes or spaces where the apricots meet. Cut four little green leaves out of the angelica about the size of the thumb-nail, only a little longer; the size of a filbert would perhaps describe the size better. Put a whole cherry in the apricot cup at the top, and four green leaves of angelica round it. Take the white kernel of the apricot—one or two will always be found in every tin—and cut four white slices out of the middle, place these round the red cherry, touching the cherry, and resting between the four green leaves of angelica; the top of this dish has now the appearance of a very pretty flower.

PEACHES, TINNED.—These can be treated in exactly a similar way to the apricots.

PEACHES AND APRICOTS, WITH CREAM.—Place the fruit in a glass dish, with the concave side uppermost; pour the syrup round the fruit, and with a teaspoon remove any syrup that may have settled in the little cups, for such the half-peaches or apricots may be called. Get a small jar of Devonshire clotted cream; take about half a teaspoonful of cream, and place it in the middle of each cup, and place a single preserved cherry on the top of the cream. This dish can be made still prettier by chopping up a little green angelica, like parsley, and sprinkling a few of these little green specks on the white cream.

PINE-APPLE, TINNED.—Pine-apples are preserved in tins whole, and are very superior in flavour to those which are sold cheap on barrows, which are more rotten than ripe. They require very little ornamenting, but the top is greatly improved by placing a red cherry in the centre, and cutting eight strips of green angelica like spikes, reaching from the cherry to the edge of the pine-apple. They should be cut in exact lengths, so as not to overlap. The top of the pine-apple looks like a green star with a red centre.

PEARS, TINNED.—Tinned pears are exceedingly nice in flavour, but the drawback to them is their appearance. They look like pale and rather dirty wax, while the syrup with which they are surrounded resembles the water in which potatoes have been over-boiled. The prettiest way of sending them to table is as follows:—Take, say a teacupful of rice, wash it very carefully, boil it, and let it get dry and cold. Take the syrup from the pears and taste it, and if not sweet enough add some powdered sugar. Put the rice in a glass dish, and make a very small well in the centre, and pour all the syrup into this, so that it soaks into the rice at the bottom of the dish without affecting the appearance of the surface. In the meantime, place the pears themselves on a dish, and let the syrup drain off them, and if you can let them stand for an hour or two to let them dry all the better. Now, with an ordinary brush, paint these waxy-looking pears a bright red with a little cochineal, and place these half-pears on the white rice, slanting, with the thick part downwards and the stalk end uppermost. Cut a few sticks of green angelica about an inch and a half long and of the thickness of the ordinary stalk of a pear, and stick one of these into the stalk end of each pear. The red pear, with the green stalk resting on the snow-white bed of rice, looks very pretty. A little chopped angelica can be sprinkled over the white rice, like chopped parsley.

FRUITS, BOTTLED.—When apricots and peaches are preserved in bottles, they can be treated exactly in a similar manner to those preserved in tins. It will be found advisable, however, to taste the syrup in the bottle, as it will be often found that it requires the addition of a little more sugar. Ordinary bottled fruits, such as gooseberries, currants, raspberries, rhubarb, damsons, cranberries, etc., can be used for making fruit pies, or they can be sent to table simply as stewed fruit. In this case some whipped cream on the top is a very great improvement. Another very nice way of sending these bottled fruits to table is to fill a border made with rice, as described in Chapter III.



CHAPTER X.

JELLIES (VEGETARIAN) AND JAMS.

By vegetarian jelly we mean jellies made on vegetarian principles. To be consistent, if we cannot use anchovy sauce because it is made from fish, on the same principle we cannot use either gelatine or isinglass, which, of course, as everybody knows, is made from fishes. For all this, there is no reason why vegetarians should not enjoy jellies quite equal, so far as flavour is concerned, to ordinary jelly. The simplest substitute for gelatine, or what is virtually the same thing, isinglass, is corn-flour. Tapioca could be used, but corn-flour saves much trouble. Some persons may urge that it is not fair to give the name of jelly to a corn-flour pudding. There is, however, a very great difference between a corn-flour pudding flavoured with orange, and what we may call an orange jelly, in which corn-flour is only introduced, like gelatine, for the purpose of transforming a liquid into a solid.

We also have this advantage in using corn-flour: it is much more simple and can be utilised for making a very large variety of jellies, many of which, probably, will be new even to vegetarians themselves. We are all agreed on one point, i.e., the wholesomeness of freshly picked ripe fruit. We will suppose the season to be autumn and the blackberries ripe on the hedgerows, and that the children of the family are nothing loth to gather, say, a couple of quarts. We will now describe how to make a mould of—

BLACKBERRY JELLY.—Put the blackberries in an enamelled saucepan with a little water at the bottom, and let them stew gently till they yield up their juice, or they can be placed in a jar in the oven. They can now be strained through a hair sieve, but, still better, they can be squeezed dry in a tamis cloth. This juice should now be sweetened, and it can be made into jelly in two ways, both of which are perfectly lawful in vegetarian cookery. The juice, like red currant juice, can be boiled with a large quantity of white sugar till the jelly sets of its own accord; in this case we should require one pound of sugar to every pint of juice, and the result would be a blackberry jelly like red currant jelly, more like a preserve than the jelly we are accustomed to eat at dinner alone. For instance, no one would care to eat a quantity of red currant jelly like we should ordinary orange or lemon jelly—it would be too sickly; consequently we will take a pint or a quart of our blackberry juice only and sufficient sugar to make it agreeably sweet without being sickly. We will boil this in a saucepan and add a tablespoonful of corn-flour mixed with a little cold juice to every pint to make the juice thick. This can be now poured into a mould or plain round basin; we will suppose the latter. When the jelly has got quite cold we can turn it out on to a dish, say a silver dish, with a piece of white ornamental paper at the bottom. We now have to ornament this mould of blackberry jelly, and, as a rule, it will be found that no ornament can surpass natural ones. Before boiling the blackberries for the purpose of extracting their juice, pick out two or three dozen of the largest and ripest, wash them and put them by with some of the young green leaves of the blackberry plant itself, which should be picked as nearly as possible of the same size, and, like the blackberries, must be washed. Now place a row of blackberry leaves round the base of the mould, with the stalk of the leaf under the mould, and on each leaf place a ripe blackberry touching the mould itself. Take four very small leaves and stick them on the top of the mould, in the centre, and put the largest and best-looking blackberry of all upright in the centre. This dish is now pretty-looking enough to be served on really great occasions. We consider this dish worthy of being called blackberry jelly, and not corn-flour pudding.

LEMON JELLY.—Take six lemons and half a pound of sugar, and rub the sugar on the outside of three of the lemons; the lemons must be hard and yellow, the peel should not be shrivelled. Now squeeze the juice of all six lemons into a basin, add the sugar and a pint of water. Of course, the lemon-juice must be strained. (If wine is allowed, add half a pint of good golden sherry or Madeira.) Bring this to the boil and thicken it with some corn-flour in the ordinary way, allowing a tablespoonful of corn-flour for every pint of fluid. Pour it into a mould and when it is set turn it out. A lemon jelly like this should be turned on to a piece of ornamental paper placed at the bottom of a silver or some other kind of dish. The base of the mould should be ornamented with thin slices of lemon cut in half, the diameter touching the base of the mould and the semicircular piece of peel outside. If a round basin has been used for a mould, place a corner of a lemon on the top in the middle, surrounded with a few imitation green leaves cut out of angelica. This improves the dish in appearance and also shows what the dish is made of.

ORANGE JELLY.—Take six oranges, two lemons, and half a pound of lump sugar; rub the sugar on the outside of three of the oranges, squeeze the juice of the six oranges into a basin with the juice of two lemons, strain, add the sugar and a pint of water. The liquid will be of an orange colour, owing to the rind of the orange rubbed on to the sugar. (If wine be allowed, add half a pint of golden sherry or Madeira.) Bring the liquid to boiling point and then thicken it with corn-flour, and pour it while hot into a mould or plain white basin; when cold, turn it out on to a piece of ornamental paper placed at the bottom of a dish; surround the bottom of the mould with thin slices of orange cut into quarters and the centre part pushed under the mould; place the small end of an orange on the top of the mould with some little leaves or spikes of green angelica placed round the edge.

BLACK CURRANT JELLY.—The juice of black currants makes excellent jelly in the ordinary way if we boil a pint of black currant juice with a pound of sugar till it sets; but a mould of black currant jelly suitable to be used as a sweet at dinner can be made by adding less sugar and thickening the juice with corn-flour, allowing about a tablespoonful to every pint, and pouring it into a mould or plain round basin. The mould can be ornamented as follows, and we will suppose a pudding-basin to be used for the purpose. We will suppose the mould of jelly to have been turned out on to a clean sheet of white paper. Pick some of the brighter green black-currant leaves off the tree, and place these round the base of the mould with the stalk of the leaf pushed underneath and the point of the leaf pointing outwards. Now choose a few very small bunches of black currants, wash these and dip them into very weak gum and water, and then dip them into white powdered sugar. They now look, when they are dry, as if they were crystallised or covered with hoar-frost. Place one of these little bunches, with the stalk stuck into the mould of jelly, about an inch from the bottom, so that each bunch rests on a green leaf. Cut a small stick of angelica and stick it into the top of the mould upright, and let a bunch of frosted black currants hang over the top. If we wish to make the mould of jelly very pretty as a supper dish, where there is a good top light, we can dip the green leaves into weak gum and water and then sprinkle over them some powdered glass.

RED CURRANT JELLY.—Red currant jelly can be made in exactly a similar manner, substituting red currants for black.

RASPBERRY JELLY.—The raspberries should be picked very ripe, and two or three dozen of the best-looking ones of the largest and ripest should be reserved for ornamenting. If possible, also gather some red currants and mix with the raspberries, on account of the colour, which otherwise would be very poor indeed. It will be found best to rub the raspberries through a hair sieve, as the addition of the pulp very much improves the flavour of the jelly. The sieve should be sufficiently fine to prevent the pips of the raspberries passing through it. The juice and pulp from the raspberries and currants can now be thickened with corn-flour as directed in the recipe for blackberry jelly. Raspberry leaves should be placed round the base of the jelly and a ripe raspberry placed on each. The best-looking raspberry can be placed on the top of the mould in the centre of two or three raspberry leaves stuck in the jelly.

APPLE JAM AND APPLE JELLY.—The following recipe is taken from "A Year's Cookery," by Phyllis Brown:—"The best time for making apple jelly is about the middle of November. Almost all kinds of apples may be used for the purpose, though, if a clear white jelly is wanted, Colvilles or orange-pippins should be chosen; if red jelly is preferred, very rosy-cheeked apples should be taken, and the skins should be boiled with the fruit. Apple jam is made of the fruit after the juice has been drawn off for jelly. Economical housekeepers will find that very excellent jelly can be made of apple parings, so that where apples in any quantity have been used for pies and tarts the skins can be stewed in sufficient water to cover them, and when the liquor is strongly flavoured it can be strained and boiled with sugar to a jelly. To make apple jelly, pare, core and slice the apples and put them into a preserving-pan with enough water to cover them. Stir them occasionally and stew gently till the apples have fallen, then turn all into a jelly-bag and strain away the juice, but do not squeeze or press the pulp. Measure the liquid and allow a pound of sugar to a pint of juice. Put both juice and sugar back into the preserving-pan, and, if liked, add one or two cloves tied in muslin, or two or three inches of lemon-rind. Boil gently and skim carefully for about half an hour, or till a little of the jelly put upon a plate will set. Pour it while hot into jars, and when cold and stiff cover down in the usual way. If yellow jelly is wanted a pinch of saffron tied in muslin should be boiled with the juice. To make apple jam, weigh the apple pulp after the juice has been drawn from it, rub it through a hair sieve, and allow one pound of sugar to one pint of pulp, and the grated rind of a lemon to three pints of pulp. Boil all gently together till the jam will set when a little is put on a plate. Apple jam is sometimes flavoured with vanilla instead of lemon."

DAMSON JELLY.—Damson jelly can be made in two ways. The juice can be boiled with sugar till it gets like red currant jelly, or the juice of the damsons can be sweetened with less sugar and thickened with corn-flour. In order to extract the juice from damsons they should be sliced and placed in a jar or basin and put in the oven. They are best left in the oven all night. If the mould of jelly is made in a round basin, a single whole damson can be placed on the top of the mould and green leaves placed round the base.

PINE-APPLE JELLY.—The syrup from a preserved pine, should the pine-apple itself be used for mixing with other fruits, or for ornamental purposes, can be utilised by being made into a mould of jelly and by being thickened with corn-flour. It will bear the addition of a little water.

APRICOT JELLY.—The juice from tinned apricots can be treated like that of pine-apple. When a mixture of fruits is served in a large bowl, the syrup from tinned fruits should not be added, but at the same time, of course, should be used in some other way.

MULBERRY JELLY.—Mullberries, of course, would not be bought for the purpose, but those who possess a mulberry tree in their garden will do well to utilise what are called windfalls by making mulberry jelly. The juice can be extracted by placing the fruit in a jar and putting it in the oven; sugar must be added, and the juice thickened with corn-flour. There are few other ways of using unripe mulberries.

JAMS.—Home-made jam is not so common now as it was some years back. As a rule, it does not answer from an economical point of view to buy fruit to make jam. On the other hand, those who possess a garden will find home-made jam a great saving. Those who have attempted to sell their fruit probably know this to their cost. In making every kind of jam it is essential the fruit should be picked dry. It is also a time-honoured tradition that the fruit is best picked when basking in the morning sun. It is also necessary that the fruit should be free from dust, and that all decayed or rotten fruit should be carefully picked out.

Jam is made by boiling the fruit with sugar, and it is false economy to get common sugar; cheap sugar throws up a quantity of scum. Years back many persons used brown sugar, but in the present day the difference in the price of brown and white sugar is so trifling that the latter should always be used for the purpose. The sugar should not be crushed. It is best to boil the fruit before adding the sugar. The scum should be removed, and a wooden spoon used for the purpose. A large enamel stew-pan can be used, but tradition is in favour of a brass preserving-pan. It will be found best to boil the fruit as rapidly as possible. The quantity of sugar varies slightly with the fruit used. Supposing we have a pound of fruit, the following list gives what is generally considered about the proper quantity of sugar

APRICOT JAM.—Three-quarters of a pound.

BLACKBERRY JAM.—Half a pound; if apple is mixed, rather more.

BLACK CURRANT JAM.—One pound.

RED CURRANT JAM.—One pound.

DAMSON JAM.—One pound.

GOOSEBERRY JAM.—Three-quarters of a pound.

GREENGAGE JAM.—Three-quarters of a pound.

PLUM JAM.—One pound.

RASPBERRY JAM.—One pound.

STRAWBERRY JAM.-Three-quarters of a pound.

CARROT JAM.—If you wish the jam to be of a good colour, only use the outside or red part of the carrots. Add the rind and the juice of one lemon, and one pound of sugar to every pound of pulp; a little brandy is a great improvement.

RHUBARB JAM.—To every pound of pulp add three-quarters of a pound of sugar, and the juice of one lemon and the rind of half a lemon. Essence of almonds can be substituted for the lemon.

VEGETABLE MARROW JAM.—Add three-quarters of a pound of sugar to every pound of pulp. The jam can be flavoured either with ginger or lemon-juice.



CHAPTER XI.

CREAMS, CUSTARDS, AND CHEESE-CAKES.

CREAMS.—Creams may be divided into two classes—whipped cream, flavoured in a variety of ways, and the solid moulds of cream, which when turned out look extremely elegant, but which when tasted are somewhat disappointing. These latter moulds owe their firmness and consistency to the addition of isinglass, and, as this substance is not allowed in vegetarian cookery, we shall be able to dispense with cream served in this form, nor are we losers by so doing. The ordinary mould of cream is too apt to taste like spongy liver, and, so far as palate is concerned, is incomparably inferior to the more delicate whipped creams. Just in the same way a good rich custard made with yolks of eggs is spoilt by being turned into a solid custard by the addition of gelatine. In order to have good whipped cream, the first essential is to obtain pure cream. This greatly depends upon the neighbourhood in which we live. In country houses, away from large towns, there is as a rule no trouble, whereas in London really good cream can only be obtained with great difficulty. There is a well-known old story of the London milkman telling the cook who complained of the quality of the cream to stir it up, as the cream settled at the bottom. We will not enter into the subject of the adulteration of cream in big cities, as probably many of these stories are gross exaggerations, though it is said that pigs' brains and even horses' brains have been used for the purpose of giving the cream a consistency, while undoubtedly turmeric has been used to give it a colour.