The Belgian Cookbook Part 11

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 b.u.t.ter 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 gla.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter, 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. b.u.t.ter 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 sc.r.a.p 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 b.u.t.ter 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. b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter and the same quant.i.ty 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 b.u.t.ter, 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_.]