The Belgian Cookbook Part 17

PEt.i.tES CAISSES a LA FURNES

Take a small Ostend rabbit, steep it in water as usual, and boil it gently in some white stock, with a good many peppercorns. When it is cold chop the meat up into small dice; add to it about a quarter of the amount of ham, and the whites of two hard-boiled eggs, all cut to the same size.

Moisten the salpicon with a good white sauce made with cream, a little lemon juice, pepper and salt.

The little paper cases must have a ring of cress arranged, about a quarter of an inch thick; the salpicon, put in carefully with a small spoon, will hold it in place.

Fill the cases to the level of the cress leaves, and decorate with a Belgian flag made as follows:

Make some aspic jelly with gelatine, tarragon vinegar, and a little sherry. Color one portion with paprika or coralline, pepper; a second part with the sieved yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, and the remainder with rinsed pickled walnuts, also pa.s.sed through a wire sieve. Pour the red jelly into a small mold with straight sides; when it is almost set pour in the yellow aspic, and when that is cold pour in the black. When the jelly is quite cold, turn it out, slice it, and cut it into pieces of suitable size. If you make too much aspic it can decorate any cold dish or salad. The walnut squash looks black at night.

[_Margaret Strail, or Mrs. A. Stuart._]

FLEMISH CARROTS

Take some young carrots, wash and brush them as tenderly as you would an infant, then simmer them till tender in with pepper and salt. When cooked, draw them to the side of the fire and pour in some cream to make a good sauce. If you cannot use cream, take milk instead and stir with it the yolk of an egg. To thicken for use, add a pinch of sugar and some chopped parsley.

AUBERGINE OR EGG PLANT

This purple fruit is, like the tomato, always cooked as a vegetable. It is like the brinjal of the East. It is hardly necessary to give special recipes for the dressing of aubergines, for you can see their possibilities at a glance. They can be stuffed with white mince in a white sauce, when you would cut the fruit in half, remove some of the interior, fill up with mince and sauce, replace the top, and bake for twenty minutes, or simply cut in halves and stewed in stock, with pepper and salt they are good, or you can simmer them gently in water and when ready to serve, pour over them a white sauce as for vegetable marrow. If they are cheap in England the following entree would be inexpensive and would look nice.

EGG PLANTS AS SOUFFLe

Wash the fruit, cut them lengthways, remove the inside. Fill each half with a mixture made of beaten egg, grated cheese, and some fine breadcrumbs, and a dash of mustard. Put the halves to bake for a quarter of an hour, or till the souffle mixture has risen. When cooked place them in an oval dish with a border of rice turned out from a border mold.

POTATO CROQUETTES

Cook your potatoes, rub them through the sieve, add pepper and salt, two or three eggs, lightly beaten, mixing both yolks and whites, and according to the quant.i.ty you are making a little b.u.t.ter and milk. Work all well and let it get cold. Roll into croquettes, roll each in beaten egg, then in finely grated breadcrumbs, and let them cook in boiling fat or lard.

[_Madame Emelie Jones._]

PUReE OF CHESTNUTS

Make a little slit in each chestnut, boil them till tender, then put them in another pan with cold water in it and replace them on the fire.

Peel them one by one as you take them out, and rub them through a sieve, pounding them first to make it easier, add salt, a good lump of b.u.t.ter and a little milk to make a nice puree. This is very good to surround grilled chicken or turkey legs, or for a salmi of duck or hare.

HORS D'OEUVRES

The attractive "savory" of English dinner tables finds its counterpart apparently in egg and fish dishes served cold at the beginning of a meal, and therefore what we should call hors d'oeuvres.

POTATO DICE

Boil your potatoes and let them be of the firm, soapy kind, not the floury kind. When cooked, and cold, cut them into dice, and toss them in the following sauce:

Take equal quant.i.ties of salad oil and cream, a quarter of that amount of tarragon vinegar, a pinch of salt, and a few chopped capers. Mix very well, and pour it on the dice. You may vary this by using cream only, in which case omit the vinegar. Season with pepper, salt, celery seed, and instead of the capers take some pickled nasturtium seed, and let that, finely minced, remain in the sauce for an hour before using it.

ANCHOVIES

Fillets of these, put in a lattice work across mashed potato look very nice. Be sure you use good anchovies preserved in salt, and well washed and soaked to take away the greater part of the saltness; or, if you can make some toast b.u.t.ter it when cold, cut it into thin strips, and lay a fillet in the center. Fill up the sides of the toast with chopped hard-boiled yolk of egg.

ANCHOVY SANDWICHES

Cut some bread and b.u.t.ter, very thin, and in fingers. Chop some water-cress, lay it on a finger, sprinkle a little Tarragon vinegar and water (equal quant.i.ties) over it, and then lay on a fillet of anchovy, cover with more cress and a finger of bread and b.u.t.ter. Put them in a pile under a plate to flatten and before serving trim the edges.

ANCHOVY ROUNDS

Make some toast, cut it in rounds, b.u.t.ter it when cold. Curl an anchovy round a stewed olive, and put it on the toast. Make a little border of yolk of egg boiled and chopped.

ANCHOVY BISCUITS

Made as you would make cheese biscuits, but using anchovy sauce instead to flavor them. If you make the pastry thin you can put some lettuce between two biscuits and press together with a little b.u.t.ter spread inside.

ANCHOVY PATTIES