THE BELGIAN COOK-BOOK

EDITED BY

MRS. BRIAN LUCK

1915

"Lucullus, whom frugality could charm, Ate roasted turnips at the Sabine Farm."



PREFACE

The recipes in this little book have been sent by Belgian refugees from all parts of the United Kingdom, and it is through the kindness of these correspondents that I have been able to compile it. It is thought, also, that British cooking may benefit by the study of Belgian dishes.

The perfect cook, like Mrs. 'Arris or the fourth dimension, is often heard of, but never actually found, so this small manual is offered for the use of the work-a-day and inexperienced mistress and maid. It is not written in the interests of millionaires. The recipes are simple, and most inexpensive, rather for persons of moderate means than for those who can follow the famous directions for a certain savory: "Take a leg of mutton," etc. A shelf of provisions should be valued, like love-making, not only for itself but for what it may become.

SAVORIES: If you serve these, let them be, like an ankle, small and neat and alluring. This dish is not obligatory; recollect that it is but a culinary work of supererogation.

SOUP: Let your soup be extremely hot; do not let it be like the Laodiceans. You know what St. John said about them, and you would be sorry to think of your soup sharing the fate which he describes with such saintly verve. Be sure that your soup has a good foundation, and avoid the Italian method of making consomme, which is to put a pot of water on to warm and to drive a cow past the door.

FISH: It is a truism to say that fish should be absolutely fresh, yet only too many cooks think, during the week-end, that fish is like the manna of the Hebrews, which was imbued with Sabbatarian principles that kept it fresh from Saturday to Monday. I implore of you to think differently about fish. It is a most nourishing and strengthening food —other qualities it has, too, if one must believe the anecdote of the Sultan Saladin and the two anchorites.

MEAT: If your meat must be cooked in water, let it not boil but merely simmer; let the pot just whisper agreeably of a good dish to come. Do you know what an English tourist said, looking into a Moorish cooking-pot? "What have you got there? Mutton and rice?" "For the moment, Sidi, it is mutton and rice," said the Moorish cook; "but in two hours, inshallah, when the garlic has kissed the pot, it will be the most delicious comforter from Mecca to Casa Blanca." Simmer and season, then, your meats, and let the onion (if not garlic) just kiss the pot, even if you allow no further intimacy between them. Use bay-leaves, spices, herbs of all sorts, vinegar, cloves; and never forget pepper and salt.

Game is like Love, the best appreciated when it begins to go. Only experience will teach you, on blowing up the breast feathers of a pheasant, whether it ought to be cooked to-day or to-morrow. Men, as a rule, are very particular about the dressing of game, though they may not all be able to tell, like the Frenchman, upon which of her legs a partridge was in the habit of sitting. Game should be underdone rather than well done; it should never be without well-buttered toast underneath it to collect the gravy, and the knife to carve it with should be very, very sharp.

VEGETABLES: Nearly all these are at their best (like brunettes) just before they are fully matured. So says a great authority, and no doubt he is thinking of young peas and beans, lettuces and asparagus. Try to dress such things as potatoes, parsnips, cabbages, carrots, in other ways than simply boiled in water, for the water often removes the flavor and leaves the fiber. Do not let your vegetable-dishes remind your guests of Froissart's account of Scotchmen's food, which was "rubbed in a little water."

SWEETS: It is difficult to give any general directions for sweets. They should be made to look attractive, and they should be constantly varied. The same remarks apply to savories, which last ought always to be highly seasoned, whether hot or cold.

MADE DISHES are a great feature in this little book. I have tried to help those small households who cook, let us say, a leg of mutton on Sunday, and then see it meander through the week in various guises till it ends its days honorable as soup on the following Friday. Endeavor to hide from your husband that you are making that leg of mutton almost achieve eternal life. It is noticeable that men are attracted to a house where there is good cooking, and the most unapproachable beings are rendered accessible by the pleasantness of a souffle, or the aroma of a roast duck. You must have observed that a certain number of single men have their hearts very "wishful" towards their cook. Not infrequently they marry that cook; but it is less that she is a good and charming woman than that she is a good and charming cook. Ponder this, therefore; for I have known men otherwise happy, who long for a good beef-steak pudding as vainly as the Golden Ass longed for a meal of roses. Try these recipes, for really good rissoles and hashes. Twice-cooked meat can always be alleviated by mushrooms or tomatoes. Remember that the discovery of a new dish is of more use than the discovery of a new star, —besides which, you will get much more praise for it. And if on Wednesday you find that you have to eat the same part of the very same animal that you had on Monday, do not, pray, become exasperated; treat it affectionately, as I treat my black hat, which becomes more ravishing every time that I alter it. Only, do not buy extravagant make-weight for a scrap of cold meat that would be best used in a mince patty, or you will be like a man keeping a horse in order to grow mushrooms.

And, lastly, the good cook must learn about food what every sensible woman learns about love—how best to utilize the cold remains.

M. LUCK.



PART I



CAULIFLOWER SOUP

After you have boiled a cauliflower, it is a great extravagance to throw away the liquor; it is delicately flavored and forms the basis of a good soup. Wash well your cauliflower, taking great care to remove all grit and insects. Place it to simmer with its head downwards, in salted water; and, when it is tender, remove it. Now for the soup. Let all the outer leaves and odd bits simmer well, then pass them through a sieve. Fry some chopped onions, add the liquor of the cauliflower and the pieces that have been rubbed through the sieve, add a little white pepper and a slice of brown bread. Let all cook gently for half-an-hour, then, just before serving it, take out the slice of bread and sprinkle in two teaspoonfuls of grated Gruyere cheese.



FISH SOUP

When you buy fish and have it filleted, ask for the bones and trimmings to be sent also. Put a quart of milk to heat and add to it a bunch of mixed herbs, a few minced shallots, parsley, pepper and salt. Throw in your fish and cook for an hour. If you have any celery put in a piece, or two or three white artichokes. Strain the soup, taste it, and add more salt or more milk as you think necessary. Return to the pan. Take the yolk of an egg and just before taking the soup from the fire, stir it quickly in. This soup must never boil. It should be made out of the very white fish, excluding herring and mackerel.



STARVATION SOUP

If you have a pork-bone from the fresh meat, let it boil in water for an hour. Put the pan to cool and take off the fat, and remove the bone. Replace the pan on the fire and throw into it two pounds of Brussels sprouts. Do not add onions to this soup but leeks, and the hearts of cabbage. Pepper and spice to taste. Rub it through a sieve and let it be thick enough to form a thin puree.



IMMEDIATE SOUP, OR TEN MINUTES SOUP

Into a quart of boiling water throw two tablespoonfuls of either semolina or tapioca: let it boil for eight minutes with a dust of salt and pepper. Meanwhile, take your tureen, put quickly into it two yolks of very fresh eggs, add two pats of butter and two small spoonfuls of water to mix it. Stir quickly with the spoon, and when the soup has done its eight minutes' boiling, pour it on the egg and butter in the tureen. This is an extremely good soup. It is rendered still better by a small quantity of Bovril.



CHERVIL SOUP

Put a bone of veal on to cook in water, with four or five potatoes, according to the quantity desired. When these are tender, pass them through the tammy and return them to the soup. Chop up the chervil, adding to it half a dessert-spoonful of cornflour. Quarter of an hour before serving, put in the chervil, but take the cover off the pot, so that it remains a good green color. Pepper and salt to be added also.

[V. Verachtert, Cafe Appelmans, Anvers.]



A GOOD PEA SOUP

Soak your dried peas over-night. The following day boil some fresh water, and throw in the peas, adding a few chopped onions and leeks, with pepper and salt. Let the soup simmer for three hours on the top of the stove, giving it a stir now and then. If you have a ham-bone, that is a great improvement, or the water in which some bacon has been boiled is a good foundation for the soup, instead of the fresh water.

[Mdlle. M. Schmidt.]



WATERZOEI

This is an essentially Flemish soup. One uses carp, eels, tench, roach, perches, barbel, for the real waterzoei is always made of different kinds of fish. Take two pounds of fish, cut off the heads and tails, which you will fry lightly in butter, adding to make the sauce a mixed carrot and onion, three cloves, a pinch of white pepper, a sprig of parsley, one of thyme, a bay-leaf; pour in two-thirds of water and one-third of white wine till it more than covers the ingredients and let it simmer for half- an-hour. Then the pieces of fish must be cut an equal size, and they are placed to cook quickly in this liquor for twenty minutes. Five minutes before serving add a lemon peeled and cut into slices and the pips removed. Some people bind the sauce with breadcrumbs grated and browned. You serve, with this dish, very thin slices of bread and butter. For English tastes, the heads and tails should be removed when dressing the dish.



A GOOD BELGIAN SOUP

is called creme de saute. Itself one of the most wholesome of vegetables, watercress combines admirably with potatoes in making soup. Wash, dry, and chop finely four ounces of the leaves picked from the stalks, fry slowly for five minutes with or without a thinly-sliced onion, add one pound of potatoes cut in small dice, and fry, still very slowly, without browning; pour in one quart of water or thin stock, simmer gently, closely-covered, for from thirty-five to fifty minutes, rub through a hair sieve, and having returned the puree to the saucepan with a half-teaspoonful of castor sugar, and salt and cayenne to taste, thicken with one table-spoonful of flour stirred smoothly into one breakfast-cupful of cold milk; boil up sharply, and serve sprinkled with watercress.

[E. Haig.]



BELGIAN PUREE

Cook two pounds of Brussels sprouts in boiling water. Take them out, drain them and toss them in butter for five minutes, sprinkle them with a teaspoonful of flour, and then cook them in gravy (or meat extract and water), fast boiling, over a good fire, and keep the lid of the saucepan off so that they may remain green. Pass them through the sieve, leave them in ten minutes, bind the mixture with the yolks of three eggs, a pint of milk; then at the last minute one dessert-spoonful of butter for each pint and a half of soup.



AMBASSADOR SOUP

A pint and a half of either fresh peas, or of dried peas that have been soaked for six hours in cold water; a leek, and three onions chopped finely. Simmer till the peas are tender, then pass all through the sieve. Well wash some sorrel and chop it, and add as much as will be to your taste. In another pan cook five tablespoonfuls of rice, and add that to your soup. Simmer up again, stirring it all very well. This soup should be of a green color.

[Mme. Georges Goffaux.]



CRECY SOUP (BELGIAN RECIPE)

Take ten carrots, two onions, one leek, five potatoes, and cook all gently in water, with salt and pepper; when they are tender, rub them through the sieve and serve it very hot.

[G. Goffaux.]



FLEMISH SOUP

To two pounds of washed and picked Brussels sprouts add ten potatoes, two onions, two leeks, salt, pepper. Cook all gently and pass through a sieve. Add at the last moment a sprinkle of chopped chervil.

[G. Goffaux.]



TOMATO PUREE

Begin by cleaning four potatoes, two leeks, a celery, four carrots, three pounds of big tomatoes; well wash all these vegetables and cut them in dice, the tomatoes a little larger. Cook them all gently for an hour in nearly two pints of gravy, to which you have already added two thick slices of bread and a pinch of salt. Take care that your vegetables do not stick to the bottom of the pan. When all is well cooked, pass it through a fine tammy. Add more gravy, or water and meat juice; make it of the consistency that you wish. Bring it to the boil again over the fire, adding pepper and salt, and just before serving a bit of fresh butter also. It is a great improvement to add at the last minute the yolk of an egg, mixed in a little cold water, quickly stirred in when the soup is off the fire.

The three recipes for seven or eight persons.

[G. Kerckaert.]



ONION SOUP

Mince some thick onions, five or six, and let them color over the fire in butter. Add a dessert-spoonful of flour, sprinkling it in, and the same amount in gravy; thicken it with potatoes and when these are cooked, peas, all through a sieve. Bring the puree to the right consistency with milk, and let it simmer for a few minutes before serving, adding pepper and salt.

[Gabrielle Janssens.]



POTAGE LEMAN

Make a good gravy with one and one-half pounds of skirt of beef. With one half of the gravy make a very good puree of peas—if possible the green peas—with the other half make a good puree of tomatoes. Combine the two purees, adding pepper and salt and a dust of cayenne. For each guest add to the soup a teaspoonful of Madeira wine, beat it all well and serve quickly. Or add, instead of Madeira, one dessert-spoonful of sherry wine.

This celebrated soup is honored by the name of the glorious defender of Namur.

[Gabrielle Janssens.]



TOMATO SOUP

Boil together six medium potatoes, a celery, two leeks, two carrots, and a pound of fresh tomatoes, with pepper, salt and a leaf of bay. Pass all through the sieve. Fry two or three chopped onions in some butter and add the soup to them. Boil up again for twenty minutes before serving. If you have no fresh tomatoes, the tinned ones can be used, removing the skin, at the same time that you add the fried onions.

[Mme. van Praet.]



SOUP, CREAM OF ASPARAGUS

Boil some potatoes and pass them through the sieve, add the asparagus- tops, with a pat of butter for each four tops; thin the soup with extract of meat and water, and at the last moment stir in the raw yolks of two eggs, and a little chopped parsley.

[Mme. van Praet.]



GREEN PEA SOUP

Put half a pound of dry green peas to soak overnight in water, with a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda in it. In the morning take out the peas and put them on the fire in about three-and-a-half pints of water. When the peas are nearly cooked, add five big potatoes. When all is cooked enough for the skins to come off easily, rub all through a sieve. Fry in some butter four or five onions and five or six leeks till they are brown, or, failing butter, use some fat of beef; add these to the peas and boil together a good half-hour. If possible, add a pig's trotter cut into four, which makes the soup most excellent. When ready to serve, remove the four pieces of trotter. Little dice of fried bread should be handed with the soup.

[V. Verachtert.]



VEGETABLE SOUP

Fry four onions till they are brown. Add them to three pints of water, with four carrots, a slice of white crumb of bread, five potatoes, a celery and a bunch of parsley, which you must take out before passing the soup through the sieve. A few tomatoes make the soup better; if they are tinned, do not add them till after the soup has been passed through the tammy; if they are fresh, put them in with the other vegetables. Simmer for an hour, add pepper and salt before serving.

[V. Verachtert.]



MUSHROOM CREAM SOUP

On a good white stock foundation, for which you have used milk and a bone of veal, sprinkle in some ground rice till it thickens, stirring it well for twenty minutes. Wash and chop your mushrooms, and fry them in butter. Add the yolk of an egg and bind it. This is a delicious soup.

[Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen.]



THE SOLDIER'S VEGETABLE SOUP

(Eight to ten persons)

Peel three pounds of vegetables. Put them in a large pot with all the vegetables that you can find, according to the season. In the winter you will take four celeries, four leeks, two turnips, a cabbage, two onions, pepper and salt, two-penny-worth of bones, and about five and one-half quarts of water. Let it all boil for three hours, taking care to add water so as to keep the quantity at five quarts. Rub all the vegetables through a tammy, crushing them well, and then let them boil up again for at least another hour. The time allotted for the first and second cooking is of the greatest importance.



LEEK SOUP

Cut up two onions and fry them till they are brown; you need not use butter, clarified fat will do very well. Clean your leeks, washing them well; cut them in pieces and fry them also; add any other vegetables that you have, two medium-sized potatoes, pepper, salt, and a little water. Let all simmer for three hours, and pass it through a fine sieve. Let there be more leeks than other vegetables, so that their flavor predominates.

[Mme. Jules Segers.]



CELERIS AU LARD

Take one pound of celery, cut off the green tops, cut the stems into pieces two-thirds of an inch long; put into boiling salted water, and cook till tender. Take one-half pound potatoes, peel and slice, and add to the celery, so that both will be cooked at the same moment. Strain and place on a flat fire-proof dish. Prepare some fat slices of bacon, toast them till crisp in the oven; pour the melted bacon-fat over the celery and potato, adding a dash of vinegar, and place the rashers on top. Serve hot.

Leeks may be prepared in the same way.



CABBAGE WITH SAUSAGES

Cut a large cabbage in two, slice and wash, put it into boiling water with salt, and when partly cooked, add some potatoes cut into smallish pieces. Cook all together for about an hour; then drain. Put some fat in a saucepan, slice an onion, brown it in the fat, add the cabbage and potato, and stew all together for ten minutes; then dish. Bake some sausages in the oven and dish them round the cabbage; serve hot.

Another way (easier)

Stew the cabbages, potato and sausages all together and dish up neatly.



LEEKS A LIEGOISE Take enough of leeks to make the size of dish required; if they are very thick, cut in two lengthwise; cut off the green tops; leaving only the blanched piece of stalk; put them into boiling salted water and cook thoroughly about one hour: strain and dish neatly on a fish-drainer. Have ready some hard-boiled eggs; shell them, cut in two, and place round the leeks; serve hot with melted butter, or cold with mayonnaise sauce.

N. B. The water in which the leeks have been boiled makes a wholesome drink when cold, or a nourishing basis for a vegetable soup.

[From Belgians at Dollarfield, N.B.]



A SALAD OF TOMATOES

To make a tomato salad you must not slice the fruit in a dish and then pour on it a little vinegar and then a little oil; that is not salad —that is ignorance.

Take some red tomatoes, and, if you can procure them, some golden ones also. Plunge each for a moment in boiling water, peel off the skin, but carefully, so as not to cut through the flesh with the juice. Take some raw onion cut in slices; if you do not like the strong taste, use shallot; and lay four or five flat slices on the bottom of the salad dish. Put the tomato slices over them, sprinkle with salt and just a dust of castor sugar. In four hours lift the tomatoes and remove the onions altogether. Make in a cup the following sauce: Dissolve a salt-spoonful of salt in a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar. Stir in a dessert-spoonful of oil, dropping it slowly in, add a very little mustard, some pepper and a sprinkle of chopped chervil. Some people like chopped chives. Pour this over the tomato salad and leave it for an hour at least before serving it.



POTATOES AND CHEESE

Every one likes this nourishing dish, and it is a cheap one. Peel some potatoes and cut them in rounds. In a fireproof dish put a layer of these, sprinkle them with flour, grated cheese, pepper, salt, a few pats of butter. Then some more potatoes, and so on till the dish is full. Beat the yolks of two eggs in a pint of milk, add pepper and salt and pour it over the dish. Leave it on the top of the stove for five minutes, then cook it for half-an-hour in a moderate oven. Less time may be required if the dish is small, but the potatoes must be thoroughly cooked. The original recipe directs Gruyere cheese, but red or pale Canadian Cheddar could be used.



FRIDAY'S FEAST

Cook a medium cabbage till it is tender, and all the better if you can cook it in some soup. When tender, mince it and rub it through a sieve. Boil at the same time three pounds of chestnuts, skin them, keep ten whole, and rub the others through the sieve, adding a little milk to make a puree. Mix the puree with the cabbage, adding salt, pepper, and a lump of butter the size of a chestnut. Press it into a mold and cook it in a double saucepan for quarter of an hour. Take it out and decorate with the whole chestnuts.



RED CABBAGE

Take half a red cabbage of medium size, chop it very finely and put it in a pan; add a little water, salt, and pepper, three or four potatoes cut in fine slices and five lumps of sugar. Let it all simmer for two hours with the lid on. Then take off the cover and let it reduce. Before serving it, add either a bit of fat pork or some gravy, with a dessert- spoonful of vinegar. Stir it well before sending it to table.

[Mrs. Emelie Jones.]



ASPARAGUS A L'ANVERS

Clean a bunch of asparagus and cook it in salt water for fifteen minutes. To do this successfully, tie the bunch round with some tape and place it upright in a pan of boiling water. Let the heads be above the water so that they will get cooked by the steam and will not be broken. Simmer in this way to prevent them moving much. Meanwhile, hard-boil three eggs and chop some parsley. Lay the asparagus on a dish and sprinkle parsley over it, place round the sides the eggs cut in halves long-ways, and serve as well a sauce-boat of melted butter.

[Mrs. Emelie Jones.]



COOKED LETTUCE

Very often you will find that you cannot use all your lettuces, that they have begun to bolt and are no good for salad. This is the moment to cook them. Discard any bad leaves and wash the others carefully. Boil them for twelve minutes, take them off the fire, drain them and dry them in a clean cloth so as to get rid of all the water. Mince them finely, then put them into a saucepan with a lump of butter, pepper and salt. Stir till they begin to turn color, then put in a thimbleful of flour melted in milk. Stir constantly, and if the vegetable becomes dry, moisten with more flour and milk. Let it simmer for quarter of an hour, and turn it out as a vegetable with meat.



STUFFED CAULIFLOWER

Pick over a fine cauliflower, and plunge it for a moment in boiling water. Look over it well again and remove any grit or insects. Put it head downwards in a pan when you have already placed a good slice of fat bacon at the bottom and sides. In the holes between the pan and the vegetable put a stuffing of minced meat, with breadcrumbs, yolks of eggs, mushrooms, seasoning of the usual kinds, in fact, a good forcemeat. Press this well in, and pour over it a thin gravy. Let it cook gently, and when the gravy on the top has disappeared put a dish on the top of the saucepan, turn it upside down and slip the cauliflower out. Serve very hot.



GOURMANDS' MUSHROOMS

There was a man in Ghent who loved mushrooms, but he could only eat them done in this fashion. If you said, "Monsieur, will you have them tossed in butter?" he would roar out, "No—do you take me for a Prussian? Let me have them properly cooked."

Melt in a pan a lump of butter the size of a tangerine orange and squeeze on it the juice of half a lemon. The way to get a great deal of juice from a lemon is to plunge it first of all for a few minutes, say five minutes, in boiling water. When the butter simmers, throw in a pound of picked small mushrooms, stir them constantly, do not let them get black. Then in three or four minutes they are well impregnated with butter, and the chief difficulty of the dish is over. Put the saucepan further on the fire, let it boil for a few minutes. Take out the mushrooms, drain them, sprinkle them with flour, moisten them with gravy, season with salt and pepper, put them back in the butter and stir in the yolk of an egg. Add also a little of the lemon juice that remains. While you are doing this you must get another person to cut and toast some bread and to butter it. Pour on to the bread the mushrooms (which are fit for the greatest saints to eat on Fridays), and serve them very hot.



POMMES CHATEAU

Take twenty potatoes, turn them with a knife into olive shape, boil them in salted water for five minutes; drain them and put them on a baking-tin with salt and butter or dripping. Cook them in a very hot oven for thirty minutes, moving them about from time to time. Sprinkle on a little chopped parsley before serving.



CHIPPED POTATOES

Take some long-shaped potatoes, peel them and smooth them with the knife. Cut them into very thin rounds.

Heat the grease pretty hot, dry the slices of potato with a cloth, put them into the frying basket and plunge them into the fat. When they are colored, take the basket out, let the fat heat up again to a slightly higher temperature, and re-plunge the basket, so that the slices become quite crisp. Serve with coarse salt sprinkled over.



CHICORY A LA FERDINAND

Boil and chop in medium-sized pieces the chicory, mince up a few chives according to your taste and heat both the vegetables in some cream, adding salt and pepper. Pour on a dish and decorate with chopped hard- boiled eggs.



APPLES AND SAUSAGES

This dish comes from the French border of Belgium; it tastes better than you would think. Take a pound of beef sausages, and preferably use the small chipolata sausages. (What a delightful thing if the English would make other kinds of sausages as well as their beef and pork ones!) Fry then your sausages lightly in butter, look upon them as little beings for a few moments in purgatory before they are removed to heaven, among the apples. Keeping your sausages hot after they are fried, take a pound of brown pippin apples, pare them and core them. Cut them into neat rounds quarter of an inch thick, put them to cook in their liquor of the sausages (which you are keeping hot elsewhere), and add butter to moisten them. Let them simmer gently so as to keep their shape. Put the apple- rings in the center of the dish, place the sausages round them. This dish uses a good deal of butter, but you must not use anything else for frying.



STUFFED CHICORY

Make a mince of any cold white meat, such as veal, pork or chicken, and add to it some minced ham; sprinkle it with a thick white sauce. In the meantime the chicories should be cooking; tie each one round with a thread to keep them firm and boil them for ten minutes. When cooked, drain them well, open them lengthwise very carefully, and slip in a spoonful of the mince. Close them, keeping the leaves very neat, and, if necessary, tie them round again. Put them in a fire-proof dish with a lump of butter on each, and let them heat through. Serve them in their juice or with more of the white sauce, taking care to remove the threads.

[Madame Limpens.]



TOMATOES STUFFED WITH BEANS

Halve and empty the tomatoes, and put a few drops of vinegar in each. Cook your beans, whether French beans or haricots or flageolets, and stir them, when tender, into a good thick bechamel sauce. Let this get cold. Empty out the vinegar from the tomatoes and fill them with the mixture, pouring over the top some mayonnaise sauce and parsley.

[Madame van Praet.]



CABBAGE AND POTATOES

Boil the cabbages in salted water till tender. Chop them up. Brown an onion in butter, and add the cabbage, salt, pepper, and a little water. Slice some potatoes thickly, fry them, and serve the vegetable with cabbage in the center, and the fried potatoes laid round.

[Mdlle. M. Schmidt, Antwerp.]



SPINACH A LA BRACONNIERE

Cook two pounds of well-washed spinach; drain it, and pass it through a sieve; or, failing a sieve, chop it very finely with butter, pepper and salt. Do not add milk, but let it remain somewhat firm. Make a thick bechamel sauce, sufficient to take up a quarter of a pound of grated Gruyere, and, if you wish, stir in the yolk of a raw egg. Lay in a circular dish half a pound of minced ham, pour round it the thick white sauce, and round that again the hot spinach. This makes a pretty dish, and it is not costly.

[Mme. Braconniere.]



A DISH OF HARICOT BEANS

Put the haricots to soak for six hours in cold water. Boil them in water with one carrot, one onion, salt, two cloves, a good pinch of dried herbs. Drain off the liquor from the haricots. Chop up a shallot, and fry it in butter; add your haricots, with pepper and salt and tomato puree. Stir well, and serve with minced parsley scattered at the top.

[Mme. Goffaux.]



POTATOES IN THE BELGIAN MANNER

Take some slices of streaky bacon, about five inches long, and heat them in a pan. When the bacon is half-cooked, take it out of the pan and in the fat that remains behind fry some very finely-sliced onions till they are brown. When the onions are well browned, put them in a large pot, large enough for all the potatoes you wish to cook, adding pepper, salt, and a coffee-spoonful of sweet herbs dried and mixed, which in England replace the thyme and bay-leaves used in Belgium. Add sufficient water to cook the potatoes and your slices of bacon. Cook till tender.

[E. Wainard.]



TOMATOES AND SHRIMPS

Lay on a dish some sliced tomatoes, taking out the seeds, and sprinkle them over with picked shrimps. Then pour over all a good mayonnaise sauce. For the sauce: Take the yolk of an egg and mix it with two soup- spoonfuls of salad oil that you must pass in very gently and very little at a time. Melt a good pinch of salt in a teaspoonful of vinegar (tarragon vinegar, if you have it); add pepper and a small quantity of made mustard. In making this sauce be sure to stir it always the same way. It will take about half-an-hour to make it properly.

[Paquerette.]



FLEMISH ENDIVE

Choose twelve endives that are short and neat; cut off the outside leaves and pare the bottom; wash them in plenty of water, and cook them in simmering water for three minutes. Then take them from the water and place them in a well-buttered frying-pan, dust them with salt and also with a pinch of sugar. Add the juice of half a lemon, and rather less than a pint of water. Place the pan on the fire for two or three minutes to start the cooking, then cover it closely, and finish the cooking by placing it in the oven for fifty minutes. Take out the endives and put them in the vegetable-dish and pour over them the liquor in which they have been cooked. This liquor is improved by being reduced, and when off the fire, by having a small piece of butter added to it.

The above recipe can be used for chicory as well as for endive.

[J. Kirckaert.]



CAULIFLOWER AND SHRIMPS

Take a cauliflower and cut off the green part, and wash it several times in salted water. Boil it gently till cooked, taking care that it remains whole. Put it aside to cool, and when it is quite cold make a hole in the center down to the bottom. Pick some shrimps till you have half a pint of them, make a good mayonnaise and, taking half of it, mix it with the shrimps. Fill the hole in the cauliflower with the shrimps and sauce, and pour the rest of the sauce over the top of the cauliflower.

This dish is to be served very cold.

[E. Defouck.]



BELGIAN CARROTS

Clean well the carrots, cut them in dice, and wash them well. Put them on the fire with enough water to cover them, a bit of butter, an onion well minced, salt and pepper and a dessert-spoonful of powdered sugar. Place the dish in the oven for at least an hour, and, when you serve it, sprinkle over the carrots some minced parsley.

[Gabrielle Janssens.]



STUFFED TOMATOES

Take ten good tomatoes and cut off the tops, which are to serve as lids. Remove the insides, and fill with the following mixture: minced veal and ham, rather more veal than ham, mushrooms tossed in butter, a little breadcrumb, milk to render it moist, pepper and salt. Put on the covers and add on each one a scrap of butter. Bake them gently in a fireproof dish. The following excellent sauce is poured over them five minutes before taking them out of the oven: Use any stock that you have, preferably veal, adding the insides of the tomatoes, pepper and salt; pass this through the wire sieve. Make a roux—that is, melt some butter in a pan, adding flour little by little and stirring until it goes a brown color. Add to it then your tomatoes that have been through the sieve, and some more fried mushrooms. Pour this sauce over the whole and serve very hot.

[Mme. van Praet.]



RED CABBAGE

Mince the cabbage and put it in a pan with plenty of refined fat (clarified fat) and two or three large potatoes, pepper and salt. Add sufficient water to cover it, with a dash of vinegar and six dessert- spoonfuls of brown or moist sugar. Let it simmer for four hours, drain it and serve cold.

[Mme. Segers.]



VEGETABLE SALAD

The special point of this dish is that peas, beans, carrots in dice, are all cooked separately and when they are cold they are placed in a large dish without being mixed. Decorate with the hearts of lettuce round the edge and with slices of tomato, and pour over it, or hand with it, a good mayonnaise.

[Mme. van Praet.]



CHICORY

This excellent vegetable can be dressed either in a bechamel sauce, or with butter and lemon-juice. It is gently stewed, first of all, and it requires pepper and salt. The sauces can be varied with tomato, or with some of the good English bottled sauces stirred with the bechamel.

[Mme. van Praet.]



CAULIFLOWER A LA REINE ELIZABETH

Simmer the cauliflowers till tender. Prepare a mince of veal and pork, and season it well with a little spice. Butter a mold and fill it with alternate layers of mince and of cauliflower broken in small pieces. Fill a large saucepan three-quarters full of boiling water and place the mold in this; let it cook for one hour in this way over the fire; turn it out and pour a spinach sauce over it.

[Mme. van Praet.]



MUSHROOMS A LA SPINETTE

Make some puff pastry cases, wash and chop the mushrooms and toss them in butter to which you have added a slice of lemon. Make a bechamel sauce with cream, or, failing that, with thick tinned cream, and mix with the mushrooms. Heat the cases for a few minutes in the oven and fill them with the hot mixture.

[Mme. Spinette.]



DRESSED CAULIFLOWER

Simmer a cauliflower till it is tender. Pour out the liquor, and add to it a bit of butter, the size of a nut, rolled in flour, a pinch of nutmeg, a tablespoonful of Gruyere cheese and a little milk.

Bind the sauce with a little feculina flour. At the moment of serving, pour the sauce over the cauliflower, which you have placed upright on a dish. The nutmeg and the cheese are indispensable to this dish.

[V. Verachtert.]



BRUSSELS SPROUTS

(The best way to cook them)

Having cleaned and trimmed your sprouts, let them simmer in salted water, to which you have also added a little soda to preserve the color. Or, if you do not like to add soda, keep the pan firmly covered by the lid. When tender, take them out and let them drain, place them in another pan with a good lump of butter or fat; stir, so as to let the butter melt at once, and sprinkle in pepper and a tiny pinch of nutmeg.

[Mdlle. Germaine Verstraete.]



RAGOUT OF MUTTON

Fry the mutton very well. Then place in another pan sufficient water to cover your mutton, adding pepper, salt, a little nutmeg, a celery, and a few white turnips cut in pieces. When they are well cooked, add the meat and let all simmer for two hours.

[V. Verachtert.]



STEWED SHOULDER OF MUTTON

Put in a pan a large lump of butter or clarified fat, and place the shoulder in it. Add two big onions sliced, and a very large carrot also sliced, thyme, bay-leaf, two cloves, pepper and salt, and, if you like it, two garlic knobs. Let the shoulder simmer in this by the side of the fire for three hours. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, and then add to it either a glass of good red wine or a little made mustard with a teaspoonful of brown sugar.

[Mme. Segers.]



SHOULDER OF MUTTON

Put a handful of dried white haricots to soak over-night and simmer them the following day for two hours with some salt. Rub your shoulder of mutton with a little bit of garlic before putting it in the oven to cook, and when it is done, serve with the haricots round it, to which have been added a pat or two of butter.

[V. Verachtert.]



MUTTON COLLOPS

Take some slices of roast or boiled leg of mutton, egg them, and roll in a mixture of breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and a little flower. Fry till the slices are brown on each side; serve with chipped potatoes.



SHOULDER OF MUTTON DRESSED LIKE KID

My readers have probably tasted a shoulder of kid dressed as mutton. Let them therefore try the converse of the dish, and, if they really take trouble with it, they will have a dinner of the most delicious. Put into a deep dish that will hold your shoulder of mutton the following mixture:

A cupful each of oil, vinegar, white wine, red wine, an onion stuffed with cloves, a bunch of herbs which must be fresh ones—thyme, parsley, marjoram, sage, a tiny bit of mint, a few bay-leaves—two medium carrots cut in slices. Put the shoulder of mutton in this mixture and keep it there for four days, turning it every now and then and pouring the mixture on it. On the fifth day take it out, and, if you care to take the trouble, you will improve it by larding the meat here and there. Put it to roast in front of a good fire, with your liquor, which serves to baste it with, in a pan beneath. If you cannot arrange to hang the mutton by a string to turn like a roasting jack, then bake it, and continually baste it. A small shoulder is most successful. For one of four pounds bake for fifty minutes.



ROAST RUMP OF BEEF, BORDELAISE SAUCE

Take three pounds of the rump of beef, put it into a pretty deep pan upon one onion, one sliced carrot, some thyme, and a bay-leaf, three table- spoonfuls of dripping, salt, and pepper. Put it on the top of the fire, and when it comes fully to the boil, put it to the side, and allow it to simmer nicely for an hour and a half. Dress it on a dish and serve the sauce separately.



ROASTED FILLET OF BEEF

About three pounds of fillet of beef roasted in a good hot oven for forty minutes; let it be rather underdone. Take three turnips, four good-sized carrots, cut them into jardiniere slices. Cook them separately in salted water, drain them and add salt, pepper, a tiny pinch of sugar and one dessert-spoonful of butter. Dress the fillet on a long dish with the garniture of carrots and turnips, and some artichoke-bottoms cooked in water and finished with butter, also add some potatoes chateau. Be sure the dish is very hot. Put a little water, or, for choice, clear stock, upon the roasting-dish and pour it over the fillet.



BEEF A LA BOURGUIGNONNE

Braise three pounds of beef upon twenty little onions, ten mushrooms, and two glasses of red wine, salt, pepper, thyme and bay-leaf; cook for one and one-half hours with not too hot a fire. After that, place the beef on an oval dish; keep it hot; stir two tablespoonfuls of demi-glaze into the vegetables and let it boil up. Cut some slices of the beef, and strain the sauce over all.



OX-TONGUE A LA BOURGEOISE

Braise a tongue with two glasses of Madeira, one carrot, one onion, thyme, bay-leaf, for two hours. Take seven tomatoes cut in pieces, four carrots cut in two and three in four, about one-half inch long, ten smallish onions, and braise them all together; then add two large table- spoonfuls of demi-glaze, some salt and pepper. Serve all very hot on an oval dish.

Braised tongue eats very well with spinach, carrots or sorrel.



BEEF A LA MODE

Take the raw beef, either rump-steak or fillet, and brown it in the pan in some butter. Then add a little boiling water. Add then six or eight chopped shallots, the hearts of two celeries chopped, a few small and whole carrots, pepper, salt, two cloves. Before serving, bind the sauce with a little flour and pour all over the meat.

[V. Verachtert.]



BOEUF A LA FLAMANDE

For this national dish that part of the animal called the "spiering" is used, which is cut from near the neck. What is called fresh silverside in England answers very well. Cut the beef into slices about half-an-inch thick and divide the slices into four pieces. This you can do with a piece of four pounds. For a piece of four pounds, cook first of all four large fried onions in fat. Put the beef in the hot fat when the onions are colored, and saute it; that is, keep moving the meat about gently. Take the meat out and place it on a dish. Add to the fat two dessert- spoonsful of flour and let it cook gently for five minutes, adding a good pint of water. Pass the sauce through a tammy, over the onions, and put the meat back in it, and it ought to cover them. Then add a dessert- spoonful of good vinegar and a strong bunch of herbs. Stew for an hour, take off the fat and remove the bunch of herbs. Heat up again and serve.



CARETAKER'S BEEF

The real name of this dish is Miroton de la Concierge, and it is currently held that only concierges can do it to perfection. Put a handful of minced onion to fry in butter; when it is nearly cooked, but not quite, add a dessert-spoonful of flour, and stir it till all is well colored. Pour on it a little gravy, or meat-juice of some kind, and let it simmer for ten minutes after it begins to steam again. Then take your beef, which must be cold, and cut in small slices; throw them in and let it all cook for a quarter of an hour, only simmering, and constantly stirring it, so that though it becomes considerably reduced it does not stick to the pan.



BLANKENBERG BEEF

This is a winter dish; it is most sustaining, and once made, it can be kept hot for hours without spoiling. Make a puree of lentils or peas, and season it with pepper and salt. Mince your beef with an equal quantity of peeled chestnuts, add chopped parsley, a dust of nutmeg or a few cloves. If you have any cheap red wine pour it over the mince till it is well moistened. If you have no red wine, use gravy. If you have no gravy, use milk. Let all heat up in the oven for ten minutes, then sprinkle in some currants or sultanas. Take the dish you wish to serve it in, put the stew in the middle, and place the puree round it. If the mince is moist it can be kept by the fire till required, or the dish can be covered with another one and placed in a carrying-can, taken out to skating or shooting parties.



VEAL WITH TOMATOES

Grill some slices of fat veal; cook some sliced tomatoes with butter, pepper and salt, on a flat dish in a pretty quick oven. Garnish the veal with the tomatoes laid on top of each slice, and pour maitre- d'hotel butter over, made with butter, salt, chopped parsley, and lemon-juice.



FRICANDEAU OF VEAL

A fillet of veal, larded with fat bacon, of about three pounds. Braise it one and one-half hours on a moderate fire. Dish with its own gravy. This eats well with spinach, endive, sorrel or carrots.



VEAL CUTLETS WITH MADEIRA SAUCE

are garnished with potatoes and mushrooms, and the sauce is made of demi- glaze and madeira, worked up with butter, pepper, salt and chopped parsley.



GRENADINS OF VEAL

Cut your veal into fairly thick cutlets, lard them with fat bacon, and braise them in the oven, with salt, pepper and butter. Dish up, and rinse the pot with a little stock, and pour it on the meat ready to serve.



CALF'S LIVER A LA BOURGEOISE

Take a calf's liver, lard it with fat bacon, braise it with the bourgeoise garnish—carrots and turnips. After it is cooked and dished, stir some demi-glaze into the sauce, pour it on to the meat and garnish with potatoes chateau.



VEAL WITH MUSHROOMS, OR THE CALF IN PARADISE

Take some slices of loin of veal, fry them in butter, with pepper and salt, for twenty minutes. Take two spoonfuls of demi-glaze and heat it with some mushrooms and a little madeira. Put the mushrooms and sauce on each slice and sprinkle chopped parsley over all.

This can also be done with fines herbes, mushrooms, chervil and parsley, chopped before cooking them in the butter.



BLANQUETTE OF VEAL

Take your veal, which need not be from the fillet or the best cuts. Cut it into pieces about an inch long and add a little water when putting it into the pan; salt, pepper and a little nutmeg, and let it simmer for two hours. When tender, stir in the juice of half a lemon, and then bind the sauce with the yolk of an egg, or, in default of that, with a little flour. Serve immediately. You will find that when you wish to bind a sauce at the last minute, egg powder will serve very well.

[V. Verachtert.]



VEAL CAKE, EXCELLENT FOR SUPPER

Take some chopped veal and with it an equal quantity of chopped beef, and one-quarter the quantity of breadcrumbs from a fresh loaf. Bind all with a raw egg, adding salt and pepper, and, if wished, some blanched and chopped almonds. (Put a large piece of butter both above and below.) Shape the meat into the form of a loaf and put it in a dish, with a large slice of butter above and below it. Cook it for about half-an-hour.

[Mme. Gabrielle Janssens.]



BREAST OF VEAL

(A good and inexpensive dish)

Cook the breast of veal in stock or in a little meat extract and water, with sliced carrots and onions, thyme, pepper, salt, three bay-leaves and three cloves. Let it stew for one hour in this, and then take it out. Take out also the vegetables, and strain the liquor. Make a bechamel sauce and add it to the liquor, giving it all a sharp taste with the juice of half a lemon. Put back the breast of veal in this sauce and when hot again serve them together.

[Mdlle. Spinette.]



OX TONGUE

Cook the ox tongue in stock or in meat extract and water. Make the hunters' sauce, as for a hare, but sprinkle into it some chopped sultanas. Take the tongue out of the stock and skin it, cut it in neat pieces if you wish, and let it heat in your sauce.

[Mdlle. Spinette.]



VEAL A LA MILANAISE

Egg and breadcrumb some thick slices of veal; fry and garnish with boiled macaroni cut in small pieces, with ham, mushrooms, truffles, all cut in Julienne strips, pepper, salt, and a little tomato sauce. Mix all these well together, and serve very hot.



STUFFED VEAL LIVER, OR LIVER A LA PANIER D'OR

The Panier d'Or is a hotel in Bruges, much frequented before the war by the English.

Take the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, a bit of bread the same size, and crumble them together; rub in some chopped parsley and onion and moisten it with gravy or with milk; season highly with salt, cayenne, and a little vinegar or mustard. Take your liver, if possible in one rather large flat slice. Make deep cuts in it, parallel to each other, and lying closely together. Press your stuffing into these cuts. Put a bit of butter the size of a walnut into a pan, or fireproof dish. Take your liver and tie it round with a slice of fat bacon or fat pork. Lay it in the dish and let it cook for an hour in a moderate oven. When done, remove the slice of bacon, if there is any left, and serve the liver in its own juice.



VEAL A LA CREME

Take a piece of veal suitable for roasting, and put it in vinegar for twenty-four hours.

Roast it with butter, pepper and salt, with a few slices of onion. Baste it well, and when it is finished crush the onions in the gravy and add some cream. Mix together with flour so as to thicken.

[Mdlle. Spreakers.]



This is the demi-glaze Sauce which is used for all brown Sauces.

Take one pound of flour, dry it in the oven on a tray till it is the color of cocoa; pass it through a sieve into a saucepan, moisten it with stock, mixing very carefully. Boil it up two or three times during forty- eight hours, adding two carrots, two onions, thyme, bay, all cut up, which you have colored in the frying-pan, also some salt and peppercorns. When it is all cooked, pass it through a cloth or sieve. When it is reduced the first time, you should add some stock, but by the time it is finished it should be fairly thick. It will keep for a fortnight.

[G. Goffaux.]



DUTCH SAUCE FOR FISH

Take a tablespoonful of flour and three of water; make it boil and add the yolks of three eggs; melt one-half pound of butter and beat it gently into your first mixture, add salt, the juice of half a lemon and a pinch of grated nutmeg. Keep the sauce very hot in a bain-marie or in a double saucepan. If you have neither, keep it in a large cup placed in a saucepan of hot water.

[Mrs. Emelie Jones.]



BEARNAISE SAUCE

(Very good with stewed meat)

Put some onions to cook in tarragon vinegar and water; when they are half done, add more water and throw in a little thyme and a leaf or two of bay; let it cook for one hour and pass it through a sieve. Melt some butter in a pan and thicken it with flour; put your vinegar to it and more water if you think it necessary; stir in salt and pepper and the yolks of two eggs or more, according to the quantity that you wish to make. Let it get thick, and just as you take it off the fire add a sprinkle of chopped parsley and a pat of butter. This is a useful sauce and it well repays the trouble.

[Mme. Spinette.]



MUSLIN SAUCE

Melt a piece of butter the size of an egg, sprinkle and stir in some flour, adding water if it becomes too thick. Keep stirring over the fire for five minutes, and, still stirring, add pepper and salt and the yolks of two eggs. You may add the yolks of three or four eggs if you wish for a rich sauce. The last item is the juice of a lemon to your taste. This is a very popular addition to meat.

[Mme. Spinette.]



SAUCE BORDELAISE

Two shallots, ten tarragon leaves all chopped, are put into a very small saucepan. Add a large glass of claret, a dessert-spoonful of butter, and let it all reduce together. Add salt, pepper, three dessert-spoonfuls of demi-glaze, let it come to the boil, and stir in two dessert-spoonfuls of butter. [Georges Goffaux.]



POOR MAN'S SAUCE

Even a piece of meat of poor quality is much liked if it has the following sauce poured over it when served. Put a little milk, say a cupful, in a saucepan, with salt and pepper; let it heat. Chop up a handful of shallots and a quarter as much of parsley that is well washed. Throw them into the milk; let it boil, and when the shallots are tender the sauce is ready. If you have no milk, use water; but in that case let it be strongly flavored with vinegar.



THE GOOD WIFE'S SAUCE

This sauce is indispensable to any one who wishes to use up slices of cold mutton. Trim your slices, take away skin and fat and pour on them the following cold sauce. Hard-boil three eggs, let them get cold. Crumble the yolks in a cup, adding slowly a tablespoonful of oil, salt, pepper, a little mustard, a teaspoonful of vinegar; then chop the whites of egg, with a scrap of onion, and if you have them, some capers. Mix all together and pour it over the cold meat.



CREAM SAUCE

Roll a lump of butter in flour, put it in a pan on the fire, and as it melts add pepper and salt. Stir it, and as it thickens add a little milk; let it simmer and keep on stirring it. You will never get a good white sauce unless you season it well and let it simmer for a quarter of an hour. Strain it, heat it again, and serve it for fish, potatoes, chicken.



SAUCE MAITRE D'HOTEL

Every one likes this sauce for either meat or fish. In a double saucepan melt a lump of butter, flavor it with salt, pepper, some minced parsley that you had first rubbed on a raw slice of onion, and some lemon-juice. Use vinegar instead of the lemon if you wish, but do not forget that it does not require so much vinegar. Mix it with a fork and serve it warm; do not let it bubble.



SAUCE AU DIABLE

(For cold meats)

Take a shallot or two, according to quantity of sauce needed, slice very finely, shred a little parsley, put both into the sauce-boat, with salt, pepper, and mustard to taste; add oil and vinegar in proportion of one dessert-spoonful of vinegar to two table-spoonfuls of oil, till sufficient quantity.



FRICASSEE OF PIGEONS

Put your pieces of pigeon into a stew-pan in butter, and let it cook with the pigeons. Then add one carrot, two onions, two sprigs of parsley, a leaf of sage, five juniper berries, and a very little nutmeg. Stir it all for a few minutes, and then, and only then, add a half-cupful of water and Liebig, two rusks or dry biscuits in pieces, the juice of a lemon. Put it all on the side of the fire, cover the saucepan and let it cook gently for an hour and a half.

[Mme. Vandervalle.]



HUNTER'S HARE

Cut the hare in pieces and cook it in the oven in butter, pepper and salt, turning it now and then so that it does not get dry. Then prepare Hunter's Sauce. Melt a bit of butter the size of an egg and add flour, letting it brown, fry in it plenty of chopped onions and shallots, adding tarragon vinegar, cayenne and pepper-corns; spice it highly with nutmeg, three cloves, a sprig of thyme and a couple of bay-leaves. Chop up the hare liver, put it in the sauce and pass all through the sieve. Pour the sauce over the hare and add a good glass of claret, or, for English tastes, of port wine. If the sauce is too thin, thicken it with flour, and serve all together.

[Mme. Spinette.]



FLEMISH RABBIT

Cut the rabbit into neat pieces. Put them into a deep frying-pan and toss them in butter, so that each piece is well browned without burning the butter. Take them out of the pan and in the same butter cook six shallots (finely minced) till they are brown. Then return the rabbit to the pan, seasoning all with salt and pepper, adding as well three bay-leaves, two cloves, and two white peppers. If you have any gravy, add a pint of it, but in default of gravy add the same quantity of Bovril and water. Place on the fire till it boils, then draw it to the side and let it cook there gently for three-quarters of an hour. Just when it is nearly done, add a little vinegar, more or less according to your taste. This is served with boiled and well-drained potatoes. If the sauce is not thick enough, add to it a little flour which has been first mixed with some cold water.

[Georges Kerckeert.]



ROAST KID WITH VENISON SAUCE

This dish is very excellent with mutton instead of kid; the meat tastes like venison if this recipe is followed:

Put the meat, say a shoulder of mutton, to soak in a bottle of red wine, with a sliced carrot, thyme, bay-leaves (4), six cloves, fifteen peppercorns and a teaspoonful of vinegar, for two hours. Then bring the liquor to the boil and just before it is boiling pour it over and over the meat. Do this pouring over of hot liquor for two days. Then put the meat in the oven with butter, pepper, and salt, till it is cooked.

Sauce: Brown some onions in butter and pour in your liquor, but without the carrot. Let it simmer for three-quarters of an hour, and pour it through a sieve. Roll a nut of butter in flour and add little by little the liquor you have from the meat, then a coffee-spoonful of meat extract and two lumps of sugar. This sauce ought to be quite thick. It is served with the meat. [Mme. Vandervalle.]



BAKED RABBIT

Fry the pieces of rabbit, adding three onions, two medium potatoes, half a glass of beer, a little water or stock, pepper and salt. Let it all bake gently in an earthenware pot for two hours, and then thicken the same with flour. It is an improvement to add when it is being cooked two cloves, two bay-leaves, a pinch of nutmeg, and any fresh herbs, such as thyme, parsley, mint.

[Mme. E. Maes.]



CHICKEN A LA MAX

Chop up some cold chicken into small squares, mix with a thick white sauce, and let it heat. Put it on a hot dish and cover with fried onions. Put chipped potatoes at the ends of the dish and a boiled chicory at either side. This excellent dish has received distinction also from its name, that of the heroic and ingenious burgomaster of Brussels.

[M. Stuart.]



RABBIT A LA BORDELAISE

Cut a rabbit into joints, cover with vinegar, chop finely two small onions, thyme, pepper, and salt, and a little grated nutmeg; let all soak for twenty-four hours.

Take out the joints and brown gently in a little dripping; when all are nicely browned take one cupful of the marmalade and stew till tender one and a half to two hours. When ready, strain off the sauce, thicken nicely with flour, dish the rabbit, and pour over the sauce.



LAEKEN RABBIT

Take a medium-sized rabbit, and have it prepared and cut into joints. Put the pieces to soak for forty-eight hours in vinegar, enough to cover them, with a sprinkle of fresh thyme in it and a small onion sliced finely. After forty-eight hours, put one-quarter pound of fat bacon, sliced, in a pan to melt, and when it has melted, take out any bits that remain, and add to the melted bacon a bit of butter as big as an egg, which let melt till it froths; secondly, sprinkle in a dessert-spoonful of flour. Stir it over the fire, mixing well till the sauce becomes brown, and then put in your marinaded pieces of rabbit. Add pepper and salt and cook till each piece is well colored on each side. When they are well colored, add then the bunch of thyme, the sliced onion and half the vinegar that you used for soaking; three bay-leaves, one dozen dried and dry prunes, five lumps of sugar, half a pint of water. Cover closely and let it simmer for two hours and a half.

[A Belgian at Droitwich.]



RABBIT

Put the back and the hind legs of one or two rabbits in an oven, covering the same first with a layer of butter (half inch thick) and then with a layer of French mustard, pepper and salt. Roast by a good fire for one hour, baste often with the juice from the meat and the gravy.



HARE

To be put in a pan in the oven: sauce, butter, and a quarter of a pint of cream, pepper, salt and some flour to thicken the sauce. Before the hare is put in the oven, cover it with a thin piece of bacon, which must be taken away before the hare is brought to table.

[Mdlle. Breakers.]



RUM OMELETTE

This simple dish is much liked by gentlemen. Break five eggs in a basin, sweeten them with castor sugar, pour in a sherry glassful of rum. Beat them very hard till they froth. Put a bit of fresh butter in a shallow pan and pour in your eggs. Let it stay on the fire just three minutes and then slip it off on to a hot dish. Powder it with sugar, as you take it to the dining-room. At the dining-room door, set a light to a big spoonful of rum and pour it over the omelette just as you go in. It is almost impossible to light a glass of rum in a hurry, for your omelette, so use a kitchen spoon.



THE CHILDREN'S BIRTHDAY DISH

Boil up a quart of milk, sweeten it with nearly half a pound of sugar, and flavor with vanilla. Let it get cold. Beat up six eggs, both yolks and whites, mix them with the milk, put it all in a fireproof dish and cook very gently. Cover the top before you serve it with ratafia biscuits.



A FRANGIPANI

Put your saucepan on the table and break in it two eggs. Mix these with two dessertspoonfuls of flour. Add a pint of milk, and put it on the fire, stirring always one way. Let it cook for a quarter of an hour, stirring with one hand, while with the other sprinkle in powdered sugar and ground almonds. Turn out to get cold, and cut in squares.



APRICOT SOUFFLE

This is good enough even for an English "dinner-party." Beat the whites of six eggs stiffly. Take four dessert-spoonfuls of apricot jam, or an equal quantity of those dried apricots that have been soaked and stewed to a puree. If you use jam, you need not add sugar. If you use the dried apricots, add sugar to sweeten. Butter a dish at the bottom, and when you have well mixed with a fork the beaten whites and the apricot, put it in a pyramid on the dish and bake for fifteen minutes in a moderate oven. Powder with sugar.



STEWED PRUNES

Prunes are very good done this way. Take a pound of prunes, soak them twenty-four hours in water. Put them on the fire in a cupful of water and half a bottle of light red wine, quarter of a pound of sugar and, if you like it, a pinch of cinnamon or mixed spice. Let it all stew till the liquor is much reduced and the prunes are well flavored. Let them get cold, and serve them in a glass dish with whipped cream.



CHOCOLATE CREAM

Take the whites of six eggs and beat them stiff, doing first one and then another, adding to them three soup-spoonfuls of powdered sugar and three sticks of chocolate that you have grated. If you have powdered chocolate by you, use that, and taste the mixture to judge when it is well flavored. Mix it all well in a cool place. To do this dish successfully, make it just before you wish to serve it.

[Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels.]



SEMOLINA SOUFFLE

Boil up two pints of milk and fifteen lumps of sugar with a bit of vanilla. Add three soup-spoonfuls of semolina, and let it boil for fifteen minutes, while you stir it. Take it from the fire, and add to it the yolks of two eggs and their whites that you have beaten stiffly. Put it in the oven for a quarter of an hour, and serve it hot.

[Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels.]



SNOWY MOUNTAINS

Butter six circular rusks, and put on them a layer of jam. Beat the whites of three eggs and place them on the rusks in the shape of a pyramide. Put them in the oven and color a little. They must be served hot.

[Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels.]



RICHELIEU RICE

Put three soup-spoonfuls of Carolina rice to swell in a little water, with a pat of butter. When the rice has absorbed all the water, add a pint of milk, sugar to sweeten, a few raisins, some chopped orange-peel, and some crystallized cherries, or any other preserved fruit. Put all on the fire, and when the mixture is cooked the rice ought to be creamy. Add the yolk of an egg, stir it well, and pour all into a mold. Put it to cool. Turn it out, and serve it with the following sauce, which must be poured on the shape.

A pint of milk, sugar, and vanilla; let it boil. Stir a soup-spoonful of cornflour in water till it is smooth, mix it with the boiling milk, let it boil while stirring it for a few minutes, take it from the fire, add the yolk of an egg, and pour it on the rice shape. Serve when cold.

[Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels.]



EXCELLENT PASTE FOR PASTRY

Equal quantities of butter and flour, well mixed in a little beer; add also a pinch of salt. Make this paste the day before you require it; it is good for little patties and tarts.

[Mdlle. Le Kent.]



CHOCOLATE CREAM

(No. 2)

Melt four penny tablets of chocolate in hot milk until it is liquid and without lumps. Boil up a pint of milk with a stick of vanilla, a big lump of butter (size of a walnut) and ten lumps of sugar. When this boils, add the chocolate and keep stirring continually. Then take the yolks of three eggs and well beat them; it is better to have these beaten before, so as not to interfere with the stirring of your mixture. Add your three yolks and keep on stirring, always in the same way. Then pour the mixture into a mold that has been rinsed out in very cold water, and let it stand in a cool place till set.

[Mrs. Emelie Jones.]



BELGIAN GINGERBREAD

1/2 pound cornflour 1/4 pound butter 1/4 pound white sugar 1 or 2 eggs 1/2 ounce ginger powder.

Work all the ingredients together on a marble slab, to get the paste all of the same consistency. Make it into balls as big as walnuts, flattening them slightly before putting them into the oven. This sort of gingerbread keeps very well.

[L. L. B. d'Anvers.]



APPLE FRITTERS

Put half pound of flour in a deep dish and work it with beer, beating it well till there are no lumps left. Make it into a paste that is not very liquid. Peel and core some good apples, cut them into rounds, put them in the paste so that each one is well covered with it. Have a pan of boiling fat and throw in the apple slices for two minutes. They ought to be golden by then, if that fat has been hot enough. Serve them dusted with powdered sugar and the juice of half a lemon squeezed on them.

[Mme. Delahaye.]



FOUR QUARTERS

Weigh four very fresh eggs and put them in an earthenware dish. Add successively, sieved flour, fine sugar, and fresh butter, each one of these items being of the same weight of the eggs—hence the name: Four Quarters. With a wooden spoon, work these four ingredients, then let them rest for five minutes. Turn it all into a buttered mold and let it cook for five quarters of an hour in a gentle oven or in a double saucepan. Turn it out, and eat it either cold or hot and with fruit.

[Georges Kerckaert.]



SAFFRON RICE

Wash the rice in cold water, heat it in a little water and add a dust of salt. Flavor some milk (enough to cover the rice) with vanilla, and pour it on the rice. Let it cook in the oven for an hour and a quarter. Take it from the fire, and stir in the yolks only of two eggs, or of one only, if wished. Sweeten the whole with sugar, and color it with a little saffron. Turn it out, and let it get very cold.

[Paquerette.]



SEMOLINA FRITTERS

Quarter pound semolina, one and a half pints of milk, three eggs. Put on the milk, and, as soon as it is boiling, drop the semolina in, in a shower. Let it boil for a few minutes, stirring continually. Then add the yolks of three eggs, and then the whites, which you have already beaten stiff. Pour all on a dish, and cool. Have some boiling lard (it is boiling when it ceases to bubble), and throw into it spoonsful of the mixture. When they are fried golden, take them out, drain them a moment, and sprinkle on some white sugar.

[Mme. Segers.]



SPECULOOS

(A Brussels recipe)

Pound down half pound flour, four ounces brown sugar, three and a half ounces butter, a pinch of nutmeg, and the same of mace and cinnamon in powder. Add, as well, a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. Make the paste into a ball, and cover it with a fine linen or muslin cloth, and leave it till the following day. If you have no molds to press it in, cut it into diamonds or different shapes, and cook them in the oven on buttered trays. I believe waffle irons can be bought in London.



GAUFRES FROM BRUSSELS

Mix in an earthern bowl half a pint of flour, five yolks of eggs, a coffee-spoonful of castor sugar, half pint of milk (fresh), adding a pinch of salt and of vanilla; then two ounces butter melted over hot water. Then beat up the whites of four eggs very stiffly, and add them. Butter a baking-tin or sheet (since English households have not got a gaufre-iron, which is double and closes up), and pour in your mixture, spreading it over the sheet. When the gaufre is nicely yellowed, take it out and powder it with sugar. But to render this recipe absolutely successful, the correct implement is necessary.



RICE A LA CONDE

Simmer the rice in milk till it is tender, sweeten it, and add, for a medium-sized mold, the yolks of two eggs. Let it thicken a little, and stir in pieces of pineapple. Pour it into a mold, and let it cool. Turn it out when it has well set, and decorate with crystallized fruits. Pour round it a thin apricot syrup.

[Mme. Spinette.]



PAINS PERDUS

(Lost bread)

Make a mixture of milk and raw eggs, enough to soak up in six rusks. Flavor it with a little mace or cinnamon. Put some butter in a pan and put the rusks in it to fry. Let them color a good brown, and serve them hot with sugar dusted over them.

[Mme. Spinette.]



FRUIT FRITTERS

Peel some apples, take out the core and cut them in slices, powder them on each side with sugar. You can use also pears, melons, or bananas. Make a batter with flour, milk and eggs, beating well the whites; a glass of rum and sugar to sweeten it. Put your lard on to heat, and when the blue steam rises roll your fruit slices in the batter and throw them into the lard. When they are golden, serve them with powdered sugar.

[Mme. Spinette.]



MOCHA CAKE

Take half a pound of fresh butter, four ounces of powdered sugar, and work them well together. When they are well mixed, add the yolks of four eggs, each one separately, and the whites of two. When the mixture is thoroughly well done, add, drop by drop, some boiling coffee essence to your taste. Butter a mold and line it with small sponge biscuits, and fill it with alternate layers of the cream and of biscuits. Put it for the night in the cellar before you serve it the following day. You can replace the essence of coffee by some chocolate that has been melted over hot water.

[Mme. Spinette.]



VANILLA CREAM

Sweeten well half a pint of milk and flavor it with vanilla. Put it to boil. Mix in a dish the yolks of four eggs with a little cornflour. When the milk boils, pour it very slowly over the eggs, mixing it well. Return it all to the pan and let it get thick without bringing it to the boil. Add some chopped almonds, and turn the mixture into a mold to cool.

[Mme. Spinette.]



RUM CREAM

Take sponge biscuits and arrange them on a dish, joining each to the other with jam. (You can make a square or a circle or a sort of hollow tower.) Pour your rum over them till they are well soaked. Then pour over them, or into the middle of the biscuits, a vanilla cream like the foregoing recipe, but let it be nearly cold before you use it. Decorate the top with the whites of four eggs sweetened and beaten, or use fresh cream in the same way.

[Mme. Spinette.]



PINEAPPLE A L'ANVERS

Take some slices of pineapple, and cut off the brown spots at the edges. Steep them for three hours in a plateful of weak kirsch, or maraschino, that is slightly warmed. Cut some slices of plain cake of equal thickness, and glaze them. This is done by sprinkling sugar over the slices and placing them in a gentle oven. The sugar melts and leaves the slices glaces. Arrange the slices in a circle, alternating pineapple and cake, and pour over the latter an apricot marmalade thinned with kirsch or other liqueur. This dish looks very nice, and if whipped cream can be added it is excellent.

[L. L. B. Anvers.]



POUDING AUX POMMES

Take a pound of apples and peel them. Cook them, and rub them, when soft, through a sieve to make them into a puree. Sweeten it well, and scent it with a scrap of vanilla; then let it get cold. Beat up three eggs, both whites and yolks, and mix them into your cold compote, and put all in a dish that will stand the heat of the oven. Then place on the top a bit of butter the size of a filbert and powder all over with white sugar. Place the dish in an oven with a gentle heat for half-an-hour, watching how it cooks. This dish can be eaten hot or cold.

[E. Defouck.]



SOUFFLE AU CHOCOLAT

Melt two tablets of chocolate (Menier) in a dessert-spoonful of water over heat, stirring till the chocolate is well wetted and very thick. Then prepare some feculina flour in the following way: Take for five or six persons nearly a pint of milk. Sweeten it well with sugar; take two dessert-spoonfuls of feculina. Boil the sweetened milk, flavoring it with a few drops of vanilla essence. When it is boiled, take it from the fire, and let it get cold, mixing in the flour by adding it slowly so as not to make lumps. Put it back on a brisk fire and stir till it thickens; add then the melted chocolate, and when that is gently stirred in take off your pan, and again let it get cold. At the moment of cooking the souffle, add three whites of eggs beaten stiff. Butter a deep fireproof dish, and pour in the mixture, only filling up half of the dish. Cook in the oven for fifteen minutes in a gentle heat, and serve immediately. A tablet of Chocolat Menier is a recognized weight.

[Gabrielle Janssens.]



A NEW DISH OF APPLES

Take a pint of apple puree and add to it three well-beaten eggs, a taste of cinnamon if liked, quarter of a pound of melted butter and the same quantity of white powdered sugar. Mix all together and, taking a fireproof dish, put a little water in the bottom of it and then some fine breadcrumbs, sufficient to cover the bottom. Pour in your compote, then, above that, a layer of fine breadcrumbs, and here and there a lump of fresh butter, which will prevent the breadcrumbs from burning. Cook for half-an-hour.



GOLDEN RICE

Put a quart of milk to boil, and, when boiling, add half a pound of good rice. When the rice is nearly cooked, add a pennyworth of saffron, stirring it in evenly. This is excellent, eaten cold with stewed quinces and cream.

[V. Verachtert.]



BANANA COMPOTE

Divide the bananas in regular pieces; arrange them in slices on your compote dish, one slice leaning against the other in a circle. Sprinkle them with sugar. Squeeze the juice of an orange and of half a lemon—this would be sufficient for six bananas—and pour it over the bananas. Cover the dish and leave it for two hours in a cold place. A mold of cornflour or of ground rice may be eaten with this.

[Mme. Gabrielle Janssens.]



RIZ CONDE

For one and one-half pints of milk half a breakfast-cupful of rice. Let it boil with sugar and vanilla; strain the whole. Add one-half pint of cream, well beaten, five leaves of gelatine (melted). Mix the whole and pour in a mold which has been wet. When turned out of the mold, put apricots or other fruit on the top. Pour the juice over all.

[Mlle. Breakers.]



CHOCOLATE CREAM

10 leaves of gelatine, well melted and sifted. 1 pint cream, well beaten. 3-1/2 sticks of chocolate melted with a little milk.

Mix all the ingredients together and put them in a mold which has been previously wet.

[Mlle. Breakers.]



KIDNEY SOUFFLE

Mince finely a veal kidney and add one-half pound of minced veal. Make a brown sauce of flour and butter, and add the meat to it. Let it cool a little, and add three well-beaten eggs, with a teaspoonful of rasped Gruyere. Butter a mold, and sprinkle the inside with breadcrumbs, and fill it with the mince. Leave it for three quarters of an hour in the oven, or for an hour and a half in the double saucepan of boiling water. Turn it out of the mold and serve with either a tomato or a mushroom sauce.

[L. L. B. (d'Anvers).]



BAKED SOUFFLE

Three eggs, two table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar and a thimbleful of cornflour or feculina flour. The original recipe gives also one packet of vanilla sugar, but as this may be difficult to get in England it will be easier to add a few drops of vanilla essence when mixing. Mix the yolks of eggs with the sugar for ten minutes, then add the whites, stiffly beaten, stirring in very lightly, so as to let as much air as possible remain in the mixture; sprinkle in the flour. Take a fireproof dish, and butter it, and pour in the mixture, which place in a gentle oven for a quarter of an hour. It is better to practice this recipe at lest once before you prepare it at a dinner, on account of the baking.

[L. Verhaeghe.]



PEASANTS' EGGS

For six people put on the fire two handfuls of sorrel, reduce it to a puree, and add two dessertspoonfuls of cream, a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, pepper, salt. Take six hard-boiled eggs and, crumbling out the yolks, add them to the sorrel puree. Place the whites (which you should have cut longways) on a hot dish, and pour over them the puree of sorrel; sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs, and put bits of butter on it also. Place in the oven for ten minutes, and serve garnished with tomatoes.

[Mlle. A. Demeulemeester.]



TWO RECIPES FOR TOMATOES AND EGGS

Take some good tomatoes, but not too ripe. Cut them down from top to bottom, take out the pulp, and in each half tomato put half a hard-boiled egg. Arrange them on a dish, and pour round them a good mayonnaise, to which you have added some chopped parsley.

Take some tomatoes not too ripe, and cut them in half horizontally. Take out the pulp, so that you have two half-cases from each tomato. Break an egg into each tomato and sprinkle it well with cheese. Place them all in the oven, till the eggs are set, and decorate with sprigs of parsley.

[Mlle. A. Demeulemeester.]



TOMATOES AND EGGS

Hard-boil some eggs and, while they are cooking, fry a large square slice of bread in butter to make a large crouton. Peel the eggs when they have been in boiling water for ten minutes. Pile them on the crouton, and have ready a tomato sauce to pour over.

Tomato Sauce: Gently stew two pounds of tomatoes and pass them through a sieve, return them to the pan and stir in a mustard-spoonful of mustard, a teaspoonful of vinegar, salt and pepper; heat well; and, if too thin, thicken it with flour to the right consistency.

[Mme. van Praet.]



MUSHROOM OMELETTE

Toss the sliced mushrooms in butter, adding, if you wish, a little mushroom ketchup. Break the eggs in a pan and beat them lightly together, and cook for three minutes over a good fire. Slip the omelette on a hot dish, spread with butter.



ASPARAGUS OMELETTE

This is made quite differently. Cook the asparagus-tops in salt and water and drain them. Roll them in a little bechamel sauce. Break your eggs into the pan into which you have put a little butter; stir them with a fork in your left hand, adding salt and pepper with your right. This will only take a minute. Add the asparagus-tops in the thick sauce; this will take another minute. Roll or fold up the omelette and slip it on a hot buttered dish.

[Mme. van Praet.]



STUFFED EGGS

Hard-boil your eggs, allowing half an egg for each person. Take out the yolk. While they are boiling and afterwards cooling in water, make a small quantity of mayonnaise sauce. Peel the eggs, cut them through lengthways, and take out the yolks. Crumble these with a little chopped herbs, and add the mayonnaise. Fill the eggs with this mixture, and place them in a dish with chopped lettuce round it, to which you may add a little more of the sauce.

[Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen.]



POACHED EGGS, TOMATO SAUCE

Make some rounds of toast and butter them; place on each a slice of tongue or of ham. Keep these hot, and poach as many eggs as you require. Slip each egg on the toasts, and cover them quickly with a highly seasoned tomato sauce.

[Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen.]



EGGS AND MUSHROOMS

Pick over half a pound of mushrooms, cut them in small pieces like dice, and put them to stew in the oven with plenty of butter, pepper, and salt. Make a thick white sauce, and you may add to it the juice from the mushrooms when they are cooked; then stir in the mushrooms. Take three hard-boiled eggs, and separate yolks from whites. Put into a shallow vegetable-dish the whites cut up in small pieces, pour over them the bechamel with the mushrooms, and finish up by sprinkling over the top the hard-boiled yolks, which you have crumbled up with a fork.

[Mme. Braconniere.]



BELGIAN EGGS

Make some scrambled eggs, and place them on a very hot dish, and pour round them a thick tomato sauce. Decorate the dish quickly with thick rounds of tomato.



EGGS A LA RIBEAUCOURT

Butter some little paper cases, and let them dry in the oven. Put into each one a pat of butter and let it melt lightly. Break an egg into each case, taking care not to break the yolk, and put a bit of butter on each yolk. Place in a quick oven till the whites are half set. At the moment of serving take them out, and have ready some minced tongue or ham, to sprinkle on them, and decorate with a big bit of truffle.



TO USE UP REMAINS OF MEAT

Cut in slices the remains of any cold meat, such as pork, beef, veal, ham, or mutton. Melt in a pan a bit of salt butter the size of a walnut, and put in it an onion cut into fine slices; let it get brown in the hot butter. In another pan put a larger piece of butter rolled in a soup- spoonful of flour; add to it the onion and butter, and add enough water to prevent the sauce from getting very thick. Add, if you wish it, a teaspoonful of meat-extract and a pinch of salt. Have ready some mashed potatoes, but let them be very light. Place the slices of meat in a fireproof dish, pour the sauce on them, then the mashed potatoes, and put the dish in the oven, all well heated through. This is called in Belgium "un philosophe."

[Paquerette.]



VEAL WITH ONIONS

Take a lump of butter the size of an egg, and let it color in a saucepan. Slice some onions and fry them in another pan. When fried, add them to the butter with some sliced carrots, a few small onions, and your pieces of veal, salt, and pepper. Add a small quantity of water, and close the lid on the saucepan. When the meat is tender, you can thicken the sauce with a little flour. This is a good way to use veal that is hard, or parts that are not the best cuts.

[Paquerette.]



VEAL CAKE

Mince very finely three pounds of raw veal and one-fourth pound of pork. It is better to do this at home than to have it done at the butcher's. Put two slices of bread to soak in milk, add two yolks of eggs and the whites, pepper and salt. Mix it well, working it for ten minutes. Then let it rest for half-an-hour. Put it in a small stewpan, add a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, and put it in the oven. It will be ready to serve when the juice has ceased to run out.

[Paquerette]



TO USE UP COLD MEAT

Take a fresh celery, wash it well, and remove the green leaves. Let it boil till half-cooked in salted water. Drain it on a sieve, and then cut it lengthways, and place minced meat of any kind, well seasoned, between the two pieces. Tie them together with a thread and let them cook again for a quarter of an hour, this time either in the same water and gently simmered, or in the oven in a well-buttered dish. Other people, to avoid the trouble of tying the two halves, spread the mince on each half and cook it in the oven, laid flat in a fireproof dish. In this case put a good lump of butter on each portion of mince.

[L. Verhaeghe.]



FLEMISH CARBONADE

Put two onions to color in butter or in hot fat. Then add to them the beef, which you have cut into pieces the size of a small cake. Let it cook for a few minutes, then add pepper, salt, a carrot sliced, and enough water to allow the meat to cook gently by the side of the fire, allowing one and one-half hours for one and one-half pounds of meat. Ten minutes before serving add to the sauce a little meat-juice or Liebig. You may at the same time, if it is wished, cook potatoes with the meat for about twenty minutes. Serve it all in a large dish, the meat in the center and the potatoes round. The sauce is served separately, and without being passed through the sieve.

[L. Verhaeghe.]



A USE FOR COLD MUTTON

Cut the mutton into neat pieces, take away all fat and skin. Fry in butter and add all sorts of vegetables in dice, with thyme, bay-leaves, and parsley. Let all this stew very gently for two hours; you must add more stock or water to prevent it getting dry. Keep the lid of the pan on and, half-an-hour before serving, put in peeled potatoes. This dish is served very liquid.

[Mme. Spinette.]



FLEMISH CARBONADES

Take four pounds of beef—there is a cut near the neck that is suitable for this recipe. Cut the meat in small pieces (square) and fry them in a pan. In another pan put a piece of refined fat and fry in it five big onions that you have finely chopped. When these are well browned, add to them the meat, sprinkling in also pepper, salt, mixed herbs. Cover all with water, and let it cook for an hour with the lid on. After an hour's cooking, add half a glass of beer, a slice of crumb of bread with a light layer of mustard and three tablespoonfuls of best vinegar. Let it cook again for three quarters of an hour. If the sauce is not thick enough, add a little flour, taking care that it boils up again afterwards.



FISH

When there remains any cold fish, take away all skin and bones, mixing the flesh with salt, butter, pepper, and one or two raw eggs as you wish. Take some small fireproof cases and place in each some lemon-juice with a little melted butter and grated breadcrumbs. Bake the cases till the top of the fish is of a golden color.



REMAINS OF FISH

Make a good white sauce, add pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg and juice of a lemon. Add then your remains of fish and a few pickled shrimps. Fill some shells with it and sprinkle over the top a good powdering of grated Gruyere cheese. Lay a pat of butter in the middle of each shell and put them in the oven. When they are colored a good golden brown, serve them decorated with parsley.

[Mme. Lekent.]



GOOD RISSOLES

Mince any cold meat, adding to a pound of it one-half pound of fresh lean pork, a chopped shallot and parsley, salt, pepper, a little nutmeg, and bind with an egg, both yolk and white. Form into balls, and dip them in flour, then color them in some butter, and when they are nicely browned pour into the butter a little stock or meat-juice and water. Let them gently cook in it for ten minutes, and serve.

[Mme. Lekent.]



CROQUETTES OF BOILED MEAT

I think that boiled meat when cold is often neglected as being tasteless, but, prepared as I will show you, it will deserve your approval.

Mince your boiled meat and put it into a thick white sauce well-spiced with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, and let it remain for two hours. Then prepare your croquettes by rolling the mixture in white of egg and fine breadcrumbs. Put a piece of butter in the saucepan, sufficient to take all the croquettes, and let them brown in it for about ten minutes. A white sauce served with them is a good addition.

[Mlle. A. Demeulemeester.]



CARBONADES DONE WITH BEER

Cut the meat into slices that are thin rather than thick. Mince two big onions and fry them till brown; then fry the slices till they are colored on both sides. Pour on them first some beer, then a dash of vinegar, adding thyme, pepper, and salt, and throw in also a slice of crust of bread, which you have spread with mustard. Let this all simmer for three hours.

[Mme. Segur.]



WALLOON ENTREE

Make some toasted bread, either cut in rounds or in squares, and butter them. Cut some slices of salt beef, or, better still, ham, and put them on top; spread the meat with a good layer of grated cheese, and over that place another piece of buttered toast of corresponding shape. Melt some butter in a small saucepan and fry the rounds till they are golden-brown.

[Mme. E. Maes.]



SCRAPS OF MEAT

Your scraps of meat must be cut small or roughly minced; add to them a little sausage-meat, about a quarter as much, and a slice of white crumb bread that you have dipped in water or milk, and well drained. If eggs are not too dear, add two eggs, mixing them with the meat. Place the dish in the oven for half-an-hour—but it must be a slow oven—and take care that the meat does not become dry.

[V. Verachtert.]



FRICADELLE

For one pound of minced pork take one and one-half pounds of minced veal; cut three slices of white bread the thickness of nearly an inch, and crumble them up; two raw eggs, pepper and salt. Mix it all well, and place it in the oven for half-an-hour. If you eat this hot, serve it with a gravy sauce. If you wish for a supper-dish, put salad round the meat.



CHICORY AND HAM WITH CHEESE SAUCE

Cook the chicories gently in butter till they are done. Then take each one, and roll it in a slice of ham, and put them in a fireproof dish. Then make a very good white sauce of flour and butter and milk, adding cheese to flavor it strongly, and the yolk of an egg. Pour this sauce over the chicory, and place the dish in the oven. Let it turn brownish, and then serve it directly.

[Mme. Vandervalle.]



CROQUETTES OF VEAL

Make first of all a very thick white sauce of flour, milk, and butter, not forgetting also salt and pepper; when it is very thick add grated Gruyere cheese, in the proportion of a heaped teaspoonful of this to a breakfast-cupful of sauce. Take it off the fire, and stir in first of all the juice of a lemon, and then the yolk of an egg. Let it get cold. Then mince up finely your veal, or, indeed, any lean meat. Mix it well with the sauce, and make croquettes of it. Then roll each in the white of egg that you have left, and then in grated breadcrumbs, and fry in deep fat.

[Mme. Vandervalle.]



ENTREE (CROQUE-MONSIEUR)

Cut out some rounds of crumb of bread, of equal size, with a tin cutter; or, failing that, with a wine-glass. Butter all the rounds and sprinkle them with grated cheese—for preference with Gruyere. On half the number of rounds place a bit of ham cut to the same size. Put a lump of butter the weight of egg into a pan, and fry with the rounds in it, till they become golden. When they are a nice color, place one round dressed with cheese on a round dressed with ham, so as to have the golden bread both above and below. Serve them very hot, and garnished with fried parsley.

[E. Defouck.]



HOT-POT

Before putting in your meat, cook in the water a celery, four leeks, two onions, two turnips, two carrots; then add the meat, with pepper and salt, and stew gently for three hours. If you can put in a marrow-bone as well, that will give the soup a delicious flavor.

[V. Verachtert.]



HOCHE POT

One pound of fresh pork, one pound rump (flank) of beef, one pound rump of veal, two onions, one celery, four leeks, two or three carrots, two or three turnips, according to the size, a few Brussels sprouts, five or six potatoes, according to the number of persons. Let the water boil before putting in the meat, and cut all the vegetables in cubes of the same size, like cubes of sugar. Let simmer only, for three hours; it is delicious and makes a dinner.

[V. Verachtert.]



BOUCHEES A LA REINE

Get some little cases from the pastry-cook of puff paste, which are to be filled with sweetbread cut in dice. It is a good plan to heat the cases before filling them.

The filling mixture. Cook the sweetbreads in water with pepper and salt, till done, skin them and cut in dice. Prepare a good bechamel sauce, seasoned with the juice of a lemon, and add to it a few mushrooms that have been fried in butter. Heat the dice of sweetbread in this sauce and fill the cases with it. Put them back in the oven to get quite hot.



HOCHE POT OF GHENT

Clean two big carrots and cut them into small pieces, the same for two turnips, four leeks, two celeries, and a good green cabbage, only using the pale leaves. Wash all these vegetables well in running water, two or three times, and put them on the fire in three and one-half pints of water. Add salt, and let it cook for an hour. At the end of this time, add a good piece of pork weighing perhaps three pounds—for choice let it be cutlets. You can also add a pig's trotter. Let it cook for another hour, taking care that the meat remains below the water. At the end of that time, and half-an-hour before you wish to eat it, add potatoes enough to be three for each person. Watch the cooking so as to see that the potatoes do not stick, and finish the seasoning with pepper and salt.

[Georges Kerckaert.]



CARBONADE OF FLANDERS

Cut your beef into small neat pieces. Mince some onions finely, and for five or six people you would add two bay-leaves, two cloves, pepper, salt; simmer gently for three hours in water, and at the end of that time bind the sauce with cornflour. Some people like the sauce to be thickened instead with mustard.

[V. Verachtert.]



HEADLESS SPARROWS

Take two pounds of beef, which must be lean and cut in thin slices. Cut your slices of beef in pieces of five inches by three. Put in the middle of each piece a little square of very fat bacon, a sprig of parsley, pepper and salt. Roll up the slices and tie them round with a thread so that the seasoning remains inside. Melt in a pan a lump of butter the size of a very big egg. Let it get brown and then, after rolling the beef in flour, put them in the butter. Let them cook thus for five minutes, add half a pint of water, and let them simmer for two hours. Fill up with water if it becomes too dry. Before serving, take great care to remove the threads.