The Belgian Cookbook Part 4

[_Mme. Braconniere_.]

A DISH OF HARICOT BEANS

Put the haricots to soak for six hours in cold water. Boil them in water with one carrot, one onion, salt, two cloves, a good pinch of dried herbs. Drain off the liquor from the haricots. Chop up a shallot, and fry it in b.u.t.ter; add your haricots, with pepper and salt and tomato puree. Stir well, and serve with minced parsley scattered at the top.

[_Mme. Goffaux_.]

POTATOES IN THE BELGIAN MANNER

Take some slices of streaky bacon, about five inches long, and heat them in a pan. When the bacon is half-cooked, take it out of the pan and in the fat that remains behind fry some very finely-sliced onions till they are brown. When the onions are well browned, put them in a large pot, large enough for all the potatoes you wish to cook, adding pepper, salt, and a coffee-spoonful of sweet herbs dried and mixed, which in England replace the thyme and bay-leaves used in Belgium. Add sufficient water to cook the potatoes and your slices of bacon. Cook till tender.

[_E. Wainard_.]

TOMATOES AND SHRIMPS

Lay on a dish some sliced tomatoes, taking out the seeds, and sprinkle them over with picked shrimps. Then pour over all a good mayonnaise sauce. For the sauce: Take the yolk of an egg and mix it with two soup-spoonfuls of salad oil that you must pa.s.s in very gently and very little at a time. Melt a good pinch of salt in a teaspoonful of vinegar (tarragon vinegar, if you have it); add pepper and a small quant.i.ty of made mustard. In making this sauce be sure to stir it always the same way. It will take about half-an-hour to make it properly.

[_Paquerette_.]

FLEMISH ENDIVE

Choose twelve endives that are short and neat; cut off the outside leaves and pare the bottom; wash them in plenty of water, and cook them in simmering water for three minutes. Then take them from the water and place them in a well-b.u.t.tered frying-pan, dust them with salt and also with a pinch of sugar. Add the juice of half a lemon, and rather less than a pint of water. Place the pan on the fire for two or three minutes to start the cooking, then cover it closely, and finish the cooking by placing it in the oven for fifty minutes. Take out the endives and put them in the vegetable-dish and pour over them the liquor in which they have been cooked. This liquor is improved by being reduced, and when off the fire, by having a small piece of b.u.t.ter added to it.

The above recipe can be used for chicory as well as for endive.

[_J. Kirckaert_.]

CAULIFLOWER AND SHRIMPS

Take a cauliflower and cut off the green part, and wash it several times in salted water. Boil it gently till cooked, taking care that it remains whole. Put it aside to cool, and when it is quite cold make a hole in the center down to the bottom. Pick some shrimps till you have half a pint of them, make a good mayonnaise and, taking half of it, mix it with the shrimps. Fill the hole in the cauliflower with the shrimps and sauce, and pour the rest of the sauce over the top of the cauliflower.

This dish is to be served very cold.

[_E. Defouck_.]

BELGIAN CARROTS

Clean well the carrots, cut them in dice, and wash them well. Put them on the fire with enough water to cover them, a bit of b.u.t.ter, an onion well minced, salt and pepper and a dessert-spoonful of powdered sugar.

Place the dish in the oven for at least an hour, and, when you serve it, sprinkle over the carrots some minced parsley.

[_Gabrielle Janssens_.]

STUFFED TOMATOES

Take ten good tomatoes and cut off the tops, which are to serve as lids.

Remove the insides, and fill with the following mixture: minced veal and ham, rather more veal than ham, mushrooms tossed in b.u.t.ter, a little breadcrumb, milk to render it moist, pepper and salt. Put on the covers and add on each one a sc.r.a.p of b.u.t.ter. Bake them gently in a fireproof dish. The following excellent sauce is poured over them five minutes before taking them out of the oven: Use any stock that you have, preferably veal, adding the insides of the tomatoes, pepper and salt; pa.s.s this through the wire sieve. Make a _roux_--that is, melt some b.u.t.ter in a pan, adding flour little by little and stirring until it goes a brown color. Add to it then your tomatoes that have been through the sieve, and some more fried mushrooms. Pour this sauce over the whole and serve very hot.

[_Mme. van Praet_.]

RED CABBAGE

Mince the cabbage and put it in a pan with plenty of refined fat (clarified fat) and two or three large potatoes, pepper and salt.

Add sufficient water to cover it, with a dash of vinegar and six dessert-spoonfuls of brown or moist sugar. Let it simmer for four hours, drain it and serve cold.

[_Mme. Segers_.]

VEGETABLE SALAD

The special point of this dish is that peas, beans, carrots in dice, are all cooked separately and when they are cold they are placed in a large dish without being mixed. Decorate with the hearts of lettuce round the edge and with slices of tomato, and pour over it, or hand with it, a good mayonnaise.

[_Mme. van Praet_.]

CHICORY

This excellent vegetable can be dressed either in a bechamel sauce, or with b.u.t.ter and lemon-juice. It is gently stewed, first of all, and it requires pepper and salt. The sauces can be varied with tomato, or with some of the good English bottled sauces stirred with the bechamel.

[_Mme. van Praet_.]