The Belgian Cookbook Part 21

Into a quart of boiling water throw lightly four tablespoonfuls of semolina, so that the grains are separated. Let it boil for a quarter of an hour, with pepper and salt. Take the tureen and put the yolk of an egg in it with a bit of b.u.t.ter the same size, mix them with a fork and pour in a teacupful of hot water with extract of meat in it, as strong as you wish. Quickly pour in the semolina soup and serve it at once.

This is a quickly made and inexpensive dish, besides which it is a nice one.

[_Madame Alphonse F._]

ARTICHOKES A LA VEDETTE

Boil some globe artichokes in salted water till they are tender. Take out the center leaves, leaving an even fringe of leaves on the outside.

Remove as much of the choke as you can. Put them back in a steamer. Toss some cooked peas in b.u.t.ter, then mix them in cream and taking up your artichokes again put in your cream and peas in the center of each, as much as you can get in. The cream is not necessary for this dish to be a good one, but the artichokes and peas must both be young. As a rule people cut their fruit too soon and their vegetables too late.

[_Chef reconnaissant._]

SURPRISE POTATOES

Quarter of an hour will suffice to prepare and cook this savory surprise, once the potatoes are baked. Take three large potatoes of symmetrical size, clean and bake them; cut each in two and remove the inside without injuring the skin. Melt half an ounce of b.u.t.ter by the fire, add two ounces of potato pa.s.sed through a sieve, a teaspoonful of grated parmesan, pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of milk. Then stir in the yolk of an egg and presently the white, well beaten. Fill the empty potato skins with the mixture which ought to rise and puff out in ten or twelve minutes.

VEGETABLE SALADS

Sometimes one has a few leeks, a half cauliflower, a handful each of peas and beans. Instead of currying these vegetables (which removes all distinctive flavor from them) cook them gently, and toss them when cold in a good salad dressing. If you can give the yolk of an egg to it, so much the better. Any cold meat is improved by a side dish of this sort.

The vegetables that one can curry with advantage are large marrows, cut into cubes, turnips, potatoes, parsnips.

[_Marguerite Leblanc_.]

TOMATOES A LA SIR EDWARD GREY HOMMAGE

Take some fine firm tomatoes, not very ripe. Turn them with the stalk side up and cut a slice off the top with a sharp knife. Take out the inside with a teaspoon. Break into each tomato a pullet's egg, sprinkle with pepper and salt. The inside of the tomato you will pa.s.s through a fine wire sieve and it will be a thick liquor; mix it with bread-crumbs, salt, pepper, and some grated cheese till quite thick. Put this mixture on the top of each egg and place all in the oven for three or four minutes, so that the eggs are only just set and no more.

[_Amie inconnue._]

STUFFED CARROTS

Take some good sized carrots, and after was.h.i.+ng them well and cutting off the green tuft, cut each one across about two and a half inches from the leaves. Scoop out the inside yellow part, leaving a case of the redder part and a piece to form the bottom, at the smaller end. Then stew the cases very gently till a little tender, but not quite soft.

Take them out of the water, drain them, and then placing each on its small end, fill up with hot chopped mushrooms, that have been tossed in b.u.t.ter. Arrange in a circle on a dish, and garnish with small sprigs of carrot leaves. The insides that you have scooped out are to be used for soup flavoring.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

TO COOK ASPARAGUS

One should not let the tips of this vegetable touch the water. Take your bundle, dip the stalks in warm water to remove any dust, and the tips also, if it is necessary. Then tie the bundle round with tape, keeping the ends of stalks even so that it will stand upright. Place them in boiling water with the heads just sticking out, and keep them like that.

In this way the heads, which are very tender, will be cooked in the steam and will not drop off.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

TOMATOES IN HASTE

b.u.t.ter a pie-dish, preferably a fireproof china dish. Open a tin of tomatoes and remove as much skin as you can if they are the unpeeled kind. Put a handful of crumbled brown bread in the dish with lumps of b.u.t.ter, then pour on that some tomatoes, dust with pepper and salt, then more bread, and so on, finis.h.i.+ng at the last with lumps of b.u.t.ter, and a thick sprinkling of grated cheese. Bake for twenty minutes.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

KIDNEYS AND LETTUCE

Put on some water to boil. Take your lettuce, and choose the round kind, and wash it well. Take out neatly with your fingers the center leaves, and fill up instead with a sheep's kidney which you have lightly dusted with flour, pepper, and salt. Tie the lettuce round very firmly and set it in a pan of boiling water that covers up only three quarters of the vegetable. Boil for eighteen minutes. Take out the lettuce, untie it, drain it, and serve at once. Kidneys are good when they are placed inside large Spanish onions and gently stewed, in which case a dab of made mustard is given them.

TOMATO RICE

Put on your rice to boil. Make a tomato sauce by stewing them gently, and then rubbing them through a sieve; this makes a puree, which you must put back to heat with pepper and salt and a small quant.i.ty of made mustard. Then grate some parmesan, or failing that, some Gruyere cheese.

Take off the rice, drain it, keeping it hot, put it on a dish and pour over it your puree. Then sprinkle the grated cheese thickly on top of all.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

RICE WITH EGGS

Boil some rice till it will press closely together. Fill some teacups with it, pressing the rice well down; then leave a hole in the middle and pour into each hole a small raw egg, yolk, and white. Set the tea-cups to cook in the oven, and when the eggs are just set and no more, press on them some more rice. Turn them out of the teacups, and if you have rubbed the inside of the cups with a little b.u.t.ter this will be easy, and sprinkle over the top of each mold plenty of chopped parsley.

Do not forget salt and pepper to season the ingredients.

[_Pour la Patrie._]