The Belgian Cookbook Part 12

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 b.u.t.ter, and add the meat to it. Let it cool a little, and add three well-beaten eggs, with a teaspoonful of rasped Gruyere. b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter 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 pa.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter, 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 b.u.t.ter.

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 b.u.t.ter; 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 b.u.t.tered 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 quant.i.ty 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.