The Belgian Cookbook Part 2

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 pa.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 quant.i.ty at five quarts. Rub all the vegetables through a tammy, crus.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.t.ter, clarified fat will do very well. Clean your leeks, was.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s 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; sh.e.l.l them, cut in two, and place round the leeks; serve hot with melted b.u.t.ter, or cold with mayonnaise sauce.

N. B. The water in which the leeks have been boiled makes a wholesome drink when cold, or a nouris.h.i.+ng 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 nouris.h.i.+ng 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 b.u.t.ter. 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 b.u.t.ter 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_.]