The Belgian Cookbook Part 10

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. l.u.s.t, of Brussels_.]

EXCELLENT PASTE FOR PASTRY

Equal quant.i.ties of b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter (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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.a.l.l.s 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.tered 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.tered 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 b.u.t.ter melted over hot water. Then beat up the whites of four eggs very stiffly, and add them.

b.u.t.ter 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_.]