Chapter III: Part I: Cauliflower Soup (2)

Cut the hare in pieces and cook it in the oven in butter, pepper and salt, turning it now and then so that it does not get dry. Then prepare Hunter's Sauce. Melt a bit of butter the size of an egg and add flour, letting it brown, fry in it plenty of chopped onions and shallots, adding tarragon vinegar, cayenne and pepper-corns; spice it highly with nutmeg, three cloves, a sprig of thyme and a couple of bay-leaves. Chop up the hare liver, put it in the sauce and pass all through the sieve. Pour the sauce over the hare and add a good glass of claret, or, for English tastes, of port wine. If the sauce is too thin, thicken it with flour, and serve all together.

[_Mme. Spinette_.]

FLEMISH RABBIT

Cut the rabbit into neat pieces. Put them into a deep frying-pan and toss them in butter, so that each piece is well browned without burning the butter. Take them out of the pan and in the same butter cook six shallots (finely minced) till they are brown. Then return the rabbit to the pan, seasoning all with salt and pepper, adding as well three bay-leaves, two cloves, and two white peppers. If you have any gravy, add a pint of it, but in default of gravy add the same quantity of Bovril and water. Place on the fire till it boils, then draw it to the side and let it cook there gently for three-quarters of an hour. Just when it is nearly done, add a little vinegar, more or less according to your taste. This is served with boiled and well-drained potatoes. If the sauce is not thick enough, add to it a little flour which has been first mixed with some cold water.

[_Georges Kerckeert_.]

ROAST KID WITH VENISON SAUCE

This dish is very excellent with mutton instead of kid; the meat tastes like venison if this recipe is followed:

Put the meat, say a shoulder of mutton, to soak in a bottle of red wine, with a sliced carrot, thyme, bay-leaves (4), six cloves, fifteen peppercorns and a teaspoonful of vinegar, for two hours. Then bring the liquor to the boil and just before it is boiling pour it over and over the meat. Do this pouring over of hot liquor for two days. Then put the meat in the oven with butter, pepper, and salt, till it is cooked.

Sauce: Brown some onions in butter and pour in your liquor, but without the carrot. Let it simmer for three-quarters of an hour, and pour it through a sieve. Roll a nut of butter in flour and add little by little the liquor you have from the meat, then a coffee-spoonful of meat extract and two lumps of sugar. This sauce ought to be quite thick. It is served with the meat. [_Mme. Vandervalle_.]

BAKED RABBIT

Fry the pieces of rabbit, adding three onions, two medium potatoes, half a glass of beer, a little water or stock, pepper and salt. Let it all bake gently in an earthenware pot for two hours, and then thicken the same with flour. It is an improvement to add when it is being cooked two cloves, two bay-leaves, a pinch of nutmeg, and any fresh herbs, such as thyme, parsley, mint.

[_Mme. E. Maes_.]

CHICKEN À LA MAX

Chop up some cold chicken into small squares, mix with a thick white sauce, and let it heat. Put it on a hot dish and cover with fried onions. Put chipped potatoes at the ends of the dish and a boiled chicory at either side. This excellent dish has received distinction also from its name, that of the heroic and ingenious burgomaster of Brussels.

[_M. Stuart_.]

RABBIT À LA BORDELAISE

Cut a rabbit into joints, cover with vinegar, chop finely two small onions, thyme, pepper, and salt, and a little grated nutmeg; let all soak for twenty-four hours.

Take out the joints and brown gently in a little dripping; when all are nicely browned take one cupful of the marmalade and stew till tender one and a half to two hours. When ready, strain off the sauce, thicken nicely with flour, dish the rabbit, and pour over the sauce.

LAEKEN RABBIT

Take a medium-sized rabbit, and have it prepared and cut into joints. Put the pieces to soak for forty-eight hours in vinegar, enough to cover them, with a sprinkle of fresh thyme in it and a small onion sliced finely. After forty-eight hours, put one-quarter pound of fat bacon, sliced, in a pan to melt, and when it has melted, take out any bits that remain, and add to the melted bacon a bit of butter as big as an egg, which let melt till it froths; secondly, sprinkle in a dessert-spoonful of flour. Stir it over the fire, mixing well till the sauce becomes brown, and then put in your marinaded pieces of rabbit. Add pepper and salt and cook till each piece is well colored on each side. When they are well colored, add then the bunch of thyme, the sliced onion and half the vinegar that you used for soaking; three bay-leaves, one dozen dried and dry prunes, five lumps of sugar, half a pint of water. Cover closely and let it simmer for two hours and a half.

[_A Belgian at Droitwich_.]

RABBIT

Put the back and the hind legs of one or two rabbits in an oven, covering the same first with a layer of butter (half inch thick) and then with a layer of French mustard, pepper and salt. Roast by a good fire for one hour, baste often with the juice from the meat and the gravy.

HARE

To be put in a pan in the oven: sauce, butter, and a quarter of a pint of cream, pepper, salt and some flour to thicken the sauce. Before the hare is put in the oven, cover it with a thin piece of bacon, which must be taken away before the hare is brought to table.

[_Mdlle. Breakers_.]

RUM OMELETTE

This simple dish is much liked by gentlemen. Break five eggs in a basin, sweeten them with castor sugar, pour in a sherry glassful of rum. Beat them very hard till they froth. Put a bit of fresh butter in a shallow pan and pour in your eggs. Let it stay on the fire just three minutes and then slip it off on to a hot dish. Powder it with sugar, as you take it to the dining-room. At the dining-room door, set a light to a big spoonful of rum and pour it over the omelette just as you go in. It is almost impossible to light a glass of rum in a hurry, for your omelette, so use a kitchen spoon.

THE CHILDREN'S BIRTHDAY DISH

Boil up a quart of milk, sweeten it with nearly half a pound of sugar, and flavor with vanilla. Let it get cold. Beat up six eggs, both yolks and whites, mix them with the milk, put it all in a fireproof dish and cook very gently. Cover the top before you serve it with ratafia biscuits.

A FRANGIPANI

Put your saucepan on the table and break in it two eggs. Mix these with two dessertspoonfuls of flour. Add a pint of milk, and put it on the fire, stirring always one way. Let it cook for a quarter of an hour, stirring with one hand, while with the other sprinkle in powdered sugar and ground almonds. Turn out to get cold, and cut in squares.

APRICOT SOUFFLÉ

This is good enough even for an English "dinner-party." Beat the whites of six eggs stiffly. Take four dessert-spoonfuls of apricot jam, or an equal quantity of those dried apricots that have been soaked and stewed to a purée. If you use jam, you need not add sugar. If you use the dried apricots, add sugar to sweeten. Butter a dish at the bottom, and when you have well mixed with a fork the beaten whites and the apricot, put it in a pyramid on the dish and bake for fifteen minutes in a moderate oven. Powder with sugar.

STEWED PRUNES

Prunes are very good done this way. Take a pound of prunes, soak them twenty-four hours in water. Put them on the fire in a cupful of water and half a bottle of light red wine, quarter of a pound of sugar and, if you like it, a pinch of cinnamon or mixed spice. Let it all stew till the liquor is much reduced and the prunes are well flavored. Let them get cold, and serve them in a glass dish with whipped cream.

CHOCOLATE CREAM

Take the whites of six eggs and beat them stiff, doing first one and then another, adding to them three soup-spoonfuls of powdered sugar and three sticks of chocolate that you have grated. If you have powdered chocolate by you, use that, and taste the mixture to judge when it is well flavored. Mix it all well in a cool place. To do this dish successfully, make it just before you wish to serve it.

[_Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels_.]

SEMOLINA SOUFFLÉ

Boil up two pints of milk and fifteen lumps of sugar with a bit of vanilla. Add three soup-spoonfuls of semolina, and let it boil for fifteen minutes, while you stir it. Take it from the fire, and add to it the yolks of two eggs and their whites that you have beaten stiffly. Put it in the oven for a quarter of an hour, and serve it hot.

[_Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels_.]

SNOWY MOUNTAINS

Butter six circular rusks, and put on them a layer of jam. Beat the whites of three eggs and place them on the rusks in the shape of a pyramide. Put them in the oven and color a little. They must be served hot.

[_Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels_.]

RICHELIEU RICE

Put three soup-spoonfuls of Carolina rice to swell in a little water, with a pat of butter. When the rice has absorbed all the water, add a pint of milk, sugar to sweeten, a few raisins, some chopped orange-peel, and some crystallized cherries, or any other preserved fruit. Put all on the fire, and when the mixture is cooked the rice ought to be creamy. Add the yolk of an egg, stir it well, and pour all into a mold. Put it to cool. Turn it out, and serve it with the following sauce, which must be poured on the shape.

A pint of milk, sugar, and vanilla; let it boil. Stir a soup-spoonful of cornflour in water till it is smooth, mix it with the boiling milk, let it boil while stirring it for a few minutes, take it from the fire, add the yolk of an egg, and pour it on the rice shape. Serve when cold.

[_Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels_.]

EXCELLENT PASTE FOR PASTRY

Equal quantities of butter and flour, well mixed in a little beer; add also a pinch of salt. Make this paste the day before you require it; it is good for little patties and tarts.

[_Mdlle. Le Kent_.]

CHOCOLATE CREAM

(No. 2)

Melt four penny tablets of chocolate in hot milk until it is liquid and without lumps. Boil up a pint of milk with a stick of vanilla, a big lump of butter (size of a walnut) and ten lumps of sugar. When this boils, add the chocolate and keep stirring continually. Then take the yolks of three eggs and well beat them; it is better to have these beaten before, so as not to interfere with the stirring of your mixture. Add your three yolks and keep on stirring, always in the same way. Then pour the mixture into a mold that has been rinsed out in very cold water, and let it stand in a cool place till set.

[_Mrs. Emelie Jones_.]

BELGIAN GINGERBREAD

1/2 pound cornflour 1/4 pound butter 1/4 pound white sugar 1 or 2 eggs 1/2 ounce ginger powder.

Work all the ingredients together on a marble slab, to get the paste all of the same consistency. Make it into balls as big as walnuts, flattening them slightly before putting them into the oven. This sort of gingerbread keeps very well.

[_L. L. B. d'Anvers_.]

APPLE FRITTERS

Put half pound of flour in a deep dish and work it with beer, beating it well till there are no lumps left. Make it into a paste that is not very liquid. Peel and core some good apples, cut them into rounds, put them in the paste so that each one is well covered with it. Have a pan of boiling fat and throw in the apple slices for two minutes. They ought to be golden by then, if that fat has been hot enough. Serve them dusted with powdered sugar and the juice of half a lemon squeezed on them.

[_Mme. Delahaye_.]

FOUR QUARTERS

Weigh four very fresh eggs and put them in an earthenware dish. Add successively, sieved flour, fine sugar, and fresh butter, each one of these items being of the same weight of the eggs--hence the name: Four Quarters. With a wooden spoon, work these four ingredients, then let them rest for five minutes. Turn it all into a buttered mold and let it cook for five quarters of an hour in a gentle oven or in a double saucepan. Turn it out, and eat it either cold or hot and with fruit.

[_Georges Kerckaert_.]

SAFFRON RICE

Wash the rice in cold water, heat it in a little water and add a dust of salt. Flavor some milk (enough to cover the rice) with vanilla, and pour it on the rice. Let it cook in the oven for an hour and a quarter. Take it from the fire, and stir in the yolks only of two eggs, or of one only, if wished. Sweeten the whole with sugar, and color it with a little saffron. Turn it out, and let it get very cold.

[_Paquerette_.]

SEMOLINA FRITTERS

Quarter pound semolina, one and a half pints of milk, three eggs. Put on the milk, and, as soon as it is boiling, drop the semolina in, in a shower. Let it boil for a few minutes, stirring continually. Then add the yolks of three eggs, and then the whites, which you have already beaten stiff. Pour all on a dish, and cool. Have some boiling lard (it is boiling when it ceases to bubble), and throw into it spoonsful of the mixture. When they are fried golden, take them out, drain them a moment, and sprinkle on some white sugar.

[_Mme. Segers_.]

SPECULOOS

(A Brussels recipe)

Pound down half pound flour, four ounces brown sugar, three and a half ounces butter, a pinch of nutmeg, and the same of mace and cinnamon in powder. Add, as well, a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. Make the paste into a ball, and cover it with a fine linen or muslin cloth, and leave it till the following day. If you have no molds to press it in, cut it into diamonds or different shapes, and cook them in the oven on buttered trays. I believe waffle irons can be bought in London.

GAUFRES FROM BRUSSELS

Mix in an earthern bowl half a pint of flour, five yolks of eggs, a coffee-spoonful of castor sugar, half pint of milk (fresh), adding a pinch of salt and of vanilla; then two ounces butter melted over hot water. Then beat up the whites of four eggs very stiffly, and add them. Butter a baking-tin or sheet (since English households have not got a gaufre-iron, which is double and closes up), and pour in your mixture, spreading it over the sheet. When the gaufre is nicely yellowed, take it out and powder it with sugar. But to render this recipe absolutely successful, the correct implement is necessary.

RICE À LA CONDE

Simmer the rice in milk till it is tender, sweeten it, and add, for a medium-sized mold, the yolks of two eggs. Let it thicken a little, and stir in pieces of pineapple. Pour it into a mold, and let it cool. Turn it out when it has well set, and decorate with crystallized fruits. Pour round it a thin apricot syrup.

[_Mme. Spinette_.]

PAINS PERDUS

(Lost bread)

Make a mixture of milk and raw eggs, enough to soak up in six rusks. Flavor it with a little mace or cinnamon. Put some butter in a pan and put the rusks in it to fry. Let them color a good brown, and serve them hot with sugar dusted over them.

[_Mme. Spinette_.]

FRUIT FRITTERS

Peel some apples, take out the core and cut them in slices, powder them on each side with sugar. You can use also pears, melons, or bananas. Make a batter with flour, milk and eggs, beating well the whites; a glass of rum and sugar to sweeten it. Put your lard on to heat, and when the blue steam rises roll your fruit slices in the batter and throw them into the lard. When they are golden, serve them with powdered sugar.

[_Mme. Spinette_.]

MOCHA CAKE

Take half a pound of fresh butter, four ounces of powdered sugar, and work them well together. When they are well mixed, add the yolks of four eggs, each one separately, and the whites of two. When the mixture is thoroughly well done, add, drop by drop, some boiling coffee essence to your taste. Butter a mold and line it with small sponge biscuits, and fill it with alternate layers of the cream and of biscuits. Put it for the night in the cellar before you serve it the following day. You can replace the essence of coffee by some chocolate that has been melted over hot water.

[_Mme. Spinette_.]

VANILLA CREAM

Sweeten well half a pint of milk and flavor it with vanilla. Put it to boil. Mix in a dish the yolks of four eggs with a little cornflour. When the milk boils, pour it very slowly over the eggs, mixing it well. Return it all to the pan and let it get thick without bringing it to the boil. Add some chopped almonds, and turn the mixture into a mold to cool.

[_Mme. Spinette_.]

RUM CREAM

Take sponge biscuits and arrange them on a dish, joining each to the other with jam. (You can make a square or a circle or a sort of hollow tower.) Pour your rum over them till they are well soaked. Then pour over them, or into the middle of the biscuits, a vanilla cream like the foregoing recipe, but let it be nearly cold before you use it. Decorate the top with the whites of four eggs sweetened and beaten, or use fresh cream in the same way.

[_Mme. Spinette_.]

PINEAPPLE À L'ANVERS

Take some slices of pineapple, and cut off the brown spots at the edges. Steep them for three hours in a plateful of weak kirsch, or maraschino, that is slightly warmed. Cut some slices of plain cake of equal thickness, and glaze them. This is done by sprinkling sugar over the slices and placing them in a gentle oven. The sugar melts and leaves the slices _glacés_. Arrange the slices in a circle, alternating pineapple and cake, and pour over the latter an apricot marmalade thinned with kirsch or other liqueur. This dish looks very nice, and if whipped cream can be added it is excellent.

[_L. L. B. Anvers_.]

POUDING AUX POMMES

Take a pound of apples and peel them. Cook them, and rub them, when soft, through a sieve to make them into a purée. Sweeten it well, and scent it with a scrap of vanilla; then let it get cold. Beat up three eggs, both whites and yolks, and mix them into your cold compôte, and put all in a dish that will stand the heat of the oven. Then place on the top a bit of butter the size of a filbert and powder all over with white sugar. Place the dish in an oven with a gentle heat for half-an-hour, watching how it cooks. This dish can be eaten hot or cold.

[_E. Defouck_.]

SOUFFLÉ AU CHOCOLAT

Melt two tablets of chocolate (Menier) in a dessert-spoonful of water over heat, stirring till the chocolate is well wetted and very thick. Then prepare some feculina flour in the following way: Take for five or six persons nearly a pint of milk. Sweeten it well with sugar; take two dessert-spoonfuls of feculina. Boil the sweetened milk, flavoring it with a few drops of vanilla essence. When it is boiled, take it from the fire, and let it get cold, mixing in the flour by adding it slowly so as not to make lumps. Put it back on a brisk fire and stir till it thickens; add then the melted chocolate, and when that is gently stirred in take off your pan, and again let it get cold. At the moment of cooking the soufflé, add three whites of eggs beaten stiff. Butter a deep fireproof dish, and pour in the mixture, only filling up half of the dish. Cook in the oven for fifteen minutes in a gentle heat, and serve immediately. A tablet of Chocolat Menier is a recognized weight.

[_Gabrielle Janssens_.]

A NEW DISH OF APPLES

Take a pint of apple purée and add to it three well-beaten eggs, a taste of cinnamon if liked, quarter of a pound of melted butter and the same quantity of white powdered sugar. Mix all together and, taking a fireproof dish, put a little water in the bottom of it and then some fine breadcrumbs, sufficient to cover the bottom. Pour in your compôte, then, above that, a layer of fine breadcrumbs, and here and there a lump of fresh butter, which will prevent the breadcrumbs from burning. Cook for half-an-hour.

GOLDEN RICE

Put a quart of milk to boil, and, when boiling, add half a pound of good rice. When the rice is nearly cooked, add a pennyworth of saffron, stirring it in evenly. This is excellent, eaten cold with stewed quinces and cream.

[_V. Verachtert_.]

BANANA COMPÔTE

Divide the bananas in regular pieces; arrange them in slices on your compôte 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 SOUFFLÉ

Mince finely a veal kidney and add one-half pound of minced veal. Make a brown sauce of flour and butter, and add the meat to it. Let it cool a little, and add three well-beaten eggs, with a teaspoonful of rasped Gruyère. Butter 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 butter 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 butter 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 butter 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 butter 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 pass 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 butter, 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 butter.

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 butter; 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 buttered 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 quantity 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.

[_Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen_.]

POACHED EGGS, TOMATO SAUCE

Make some rounds of toast and butter them; place on each a slice of tongue or of ham. Keep these hot, and poach as many eggs as you require. Slip each egg on the toasts, and cover them quickly with a highly seasoned tomato sauce.

[_Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen_.]

EGGS AND MUSHROOMS

Pick over half a pound of mushrooms, cut them in small pieces like dice, and put them to stew in the oven with plenty of butter, pepper, and salt. Make a thick white sauce, and you may add to it the juice from the mushrooms when they are cooked; then stir in the mushrooms. Take three hard-boiled eggs, and separate yolks from whites. Put into a shallow vegetable-dish the whites cut up in small pieces, pour over them the bechamel with the mushrooms, and finish up by sprinkling over the top the hard-boiled yolks, which you have crumbled up with a fork.

[_Mme. Braconnière_.]

BELGIAN EGGS

Make some scrambled eggs, and place them on a very hot dish, and pour round them a thick tomato sauce. Decorate the dish quickly with thick rounds of tomato.

EGGS À LA RIBEAUCOURT

Butter some little paper cases, and let them dry in the oven. Put into each one a pat of butter and let it melt lightly. Break an egg into each case, taking care not to break the yolk, and put a bit of butter on each yolk. Place in a quick oven till the whites are half set. At the moment of serving take them out, and have ready some minced tongue or ham, to sprinkle on them, and decorate with a big bit of truffle.

TO USE UP REMAINS OF MEAT

Cut in slices the remains of any cold meat, such as pork, beef, veal, ham, or mutton. Melt in a pan a bit of salt butter the size of a walnut, and put in it an onion cut into fine slices; let it get brown in the hot butter. In another pan put a larger piece of butter rolled in a soup-spoonful of flour; add to it the onion and butter, and add enough water to prevent the sauce from getting very thick. Add, if you wish it, a teaspoonful of meat-extract and a pinch of salt. Have ready some mashed potatoes, but let them be very light. Place the slices of meat in a fireproof dish, pour the sauce on them, then the mashed potatoes, and put the dish in the oven, all well heated through. This is called in Belgium "_un philosophe_."

[_Paquerette_.]

VEAL WITH ONIONS

Take a lump of butter the size of an egg, and let it color in a saucepan. Slice some onions and fry them in another pan. When fried, add them to the butter with some sliced carrots, a few small onions, and your pieces of veal, salt, and pepper. Add a small quantity of water, and close the lid on the saucepan. When the meat is tender, you can thicken the sauce with a little flour. This is a good way to use veal that is hard, or parts that are not the best cuts.

[_Paquerette_.]

VEAL CAKE

Mince very finely three pounds of raw veal and one-fourth pound of pork. It is better to do this at home than to have it done at the butcher's. Put two slices of bread to soak in milk, add two yolks of eggs and the whites, pepper and salt. Mix it well, working it for ten minutes. Then let it rest for half-an-hour. Put it in a small stewpan, add a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, and put it in the oven. It will be ready to serve when the juice has ceased to run out.

[_Paquerette_]

TO USE UP COLD MEAT

Take a fresh celery, wash it well, and remove the green leaves. Let it boil till half-cooked in salted water. Drain it on a sieve, and then cut it lengthways, and place minced meat of any kind, well seasoned, between the two pieces. Tie them together with a thread and let them cook again for a quarter of an hour, this time either in the same water and gently simmered, or in the oven in a well-buttered dish. Other people, to avoid the trouble of tying the two halves, spread the mince on each half and cook it in the oven, laid flat in a fireproof dish. In this case put a good lump of butter on each portion of mince.

[_L. Verhaeghe._]

FLEMISH CARBONADE

Put two onions to color in butter or in hot fat. Then add to them the beef, which you have cut into pieces the size of a small cake. Let it cook for a few minutes, then add pepper, salt, a carrot sliced, and enough water to allow the meat to cook gently by the side of the fire, allowing one and one-half hours for one and one-half pounds of meat. Ten minutes before serving add to the sauce a little meat-juice or Liebig. You may at the same time, if it is wished, cook potatoes with the meat for about twenty minutes. Serve it all in a large dish, the meat in the center and the potatoes round. The sauce is served separately, and without being passed through the sieve.

[_L. Verhaeghe._]

A USE FOR COLD MUTTON

Cut the mutton into neat pieces, take away all fat and skin. Fry in butter and add all sorts of vegetables in dice, with thyme, bay-leaves, and parsley. Let all this stew very gently for two hours; you must add more stock or water to prevent it getting dry. Keep the lid of the pan on and, half-an-hour before serving, put in peeled potatoes. This dish is served very liquid.

[_Mme. Spinette_.]

FLEMISH CARBONADES

Take four pounds of beef--there is a cut near the neck that is suitable for this recipe. Cut the meat in small pieces (square) and fry them in a pan. In another pan put a piece of refined fat and fry in it five big onions that you have finely chopped. When these are well browned, add to them the meat, sprinkling in also pepper, salt, mixed herbs. Cover all with water, and let it cook for an hour with the lid on. After an hour's cooking, add half a glass of beer, a slice of crumb of bread with a light layer of mustard and three tablespoonfuls of best vinegar. Let it cook again for three quarters of an hour. If the sauce is not thick enough, add a little flour, taking care that it boils up again afterwards.

FISH

When there remains any cold fish, take away all skin and bones, mixing the flesh with salt, butter, pepper, and one or two raw eggs as you wish. Take some small fireproof cases and place in each some lemon-juice with a little melted butter and grated breadcrumbs. Bake the cases till the top of the fish is of a golden color.

REMAINS OF FISH

Make a good white sauce, add pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg and juice of a lemon. Add then your remains of fish and a few pickled shrimps. Fill some shells with it and sprinkle over the top a good powdering of grated Gruyère cheese. Lay a pat of butter in the middle of each shell and put them in the oven. When they are colored a good golden brown, serve them decorated with parsley.

[_Mme. Lekent_.]

GOOD RISSOLES

Mince any cold meat, adding to a pound of it one-half pound of fresh lean pork, a chopped shallot and parsley, salt, pepper, a little nutmeg, and bind with an egg, both yolk and white. Form into balls, and dip them in flour, then color them in some butter, and when they are nicely browned pour into the butter a little stock or meat-juice and water. Let them gently cook in it for ten minutes, and serve.

[_Mme. Lekent_.]

CROQUETTES OF BOILED MEAT

I think that boiled meat when cold is often neglected as being tasteless, but, prepared as I will show you, it will deserve your approval.

Mince your boiled meat and put it into a thick white sauce well-spiced with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, and let it remain for two hours. Then prepare your croquettes by rolling the mixture in white of egg and fine breadcrumbs. Put a piece of butter in the saucepan, sufficient to take all the croquettes, and let them brown in it for about ten minutes. A white sauce served with them is a good addition.

[_Mlle. A. Demeulemeester_.]

CARBONADES DONE WITH BEER

Cut the meat into slices that are thin rather than thick. Mince two big onions and fry them till brown; then fry the slices till they are colored on both sides. Pour on them first some beer, then a dash of vinegar, adding thyme, pepper, and salt, and throw in also a slice of crust of bread, which you have spread with mustard. Let this all simmer for three hours.

[_Mme. Segur_.]

WALLOON ENTRÉE

Make some toasted bread, either cut in rounds or in squares, and butter them. Cut some slices of salt beef, or, better still, ham, and put them on top; spread the meat with a good layer of grated cheese, and over that place another piece of buttered toast of corresponding shape. Melt some butter in a small saucepan and fry the rounds till they are golden-brown.

[_Mme. E. Maes_.]

SCRAPS OF MEAT

Your scraps of meat must be cut small or roughly minced; add to them a little sausage-meat, about a quarter as much, and a slice of white crumb bread that you have dipped in water or milk, and well drained. If eggs are not too dear, add two eggs, mixing them with the meat. Place the dish in the oven for half-an-hour--but it must be a slow oven--and take care that the meat does not become dry.

[_V. Verachtert_.]

FRICADELLE

For one pound of minced pork take one and one-half pounds of minced veal; cut three slices of white bread the thickness of nearly an inch, and crumble them up; two raw eggs, pepper and salt. Mix it all well, and place it in the oven for half-an-hour. If you eat this hot, serve it with a gravy sauce. If you wish for a supper-dish, put salad round the meat.

CHICORY AND HAM WITH CHEESE SAUCE

Cook the chicories gently in butter till they are done. Then take each one, and roll it in a slice of ham, and put them in a fireproof dish. Then make a very good white sauce of flour and butter and milk, adding cheese to flavor it strongly, and the yolk of an egg. Pour this sauce over the chicory, and place the dish in the oven. Let it turn brownish, and then serve it directly.

[_Mme. Vandervalle_.]

CROQUETTES OF VEAL

Make first of all a very thick white sauce of flour, milk, and butter, not forgetting also salt and pepper; when it is very thick add grated Gruyère cheese, in the proportion of a heaped teaspoonful of this to a breakfast-cupful of sauce. Take it off the fire, and stir in first of all the juice of a lemon, and then the yolk of an egg. Let it get cold. Then mince up finely your veal, or, indeed, any lean meat. Mix it well with the sauce, and make croquettes of it. Then roll each in the white of egg that you have left, and then in grated breadcrumbs, and fry in deep fat.

[_Mme. Vandervalle_.]

ENTRÉE (CROQUE-MONSIEUR)

Cut out some rounds of crumb of bread, of equal size, with a tin cutter; or, failing that, with a wine-glass. Butter all the rounds and sprinkle them with grated cheese--for preference with Gruyère. On half the number of rounds place a bit of ham cut to the same size. Put a lump of butter the weight of egg into a pan, and fry with the rounds in it, till they become golden. When they are a nice color, place one round dressed with cheese on a round dressed with ham, so as to have the golden bread both above and below. Serve them very hot, and garnished with fried parsley.

[_E. Defouck_.]

HOT-POT

Before putting in your meat, cook in the water a celery, four leeks, two onions, two turnips, two carrots; then add the meat, with pepper and salt, and stew gently for three hours. If you can put in a marrow-bone as well, that will give the soup a delicious flavor.

[_V. Verachtert_.]

HOCHE POT

One pound of fresh pork, one pound rump (flank) of beef, one pound rump of veal, two onions, one celery, four leeks, two or three carrots, two or three turnips, according to the size, a few Brussels sprouts, five or six potatoes, according to the number of persons. Let the water boil before putting in the meat, and cut all the vegetables in cubes of the same size, like cubes of sugar. Let simmer only, for three hours; it is delicious and makes a dinner.

[_V. Verachtert_.]

BOUCHÉES À LA REINE

Get some little cases from the pastry-cook of puff paste, which are to be filled with sweetbread cut in dice. It is a good plan to heat the cases before filling them.

The filling mixture. Cook the sweetbreads in water with pepper and salt, till done, skin them and cut in dice. Prepare a good bechamel sauce, seasoned with the juice of a lemon, and add to it a few mushrooms that have been fried in butter. Heat the dice of sweetbread in this sauce and fill the cases with it. Put them back in the oven to get quite hot.

HOCHE POT OF GHENT

Clean two big carrots and cut them into small pieces, the same for two turnips, four leeks, two celeries, and a good green cabbage, only using the pale leaves. Wash all these vegetables well in running water, two or three times, and put them on the fire in three and one-half pints of water. Add salt, and let it cook for an hour. At the end of this time, add a good piece of pork weighing perhaps three pounds--for choice let it be cutlets. You can also add a pig's trotter. Let it cook for another hour, taking care that the meat remains below the water. At the end of that time, and half-an-hour before you wish to eat it, add potatoes enough to be three for each person. Watch the cooking so as to see that the potatoes do not stick, and finish the seasoning with pepper and salt.

[_Georges Kerckaert_.]

CARBONADE OF FLANDERS

Cut your beef into small neat pieces. Mince some onions finely, and for five or six people you would add two bay-leaves, two cloves, pepper, salt; simmer gently for three hours in water, and at the end of that time bind the sauce with cornflour. Some people like the sauce to be thickened instead with mustard.

[_V. Verachtert._]

HEADLESS SPARROWS

Take two pounds of beef, which must be lean and cut in thin slices. Cut your slices of beef in pieces of five inches by three. Put in the middle of each piece a little square of very fat bacon, a sprig of parsley, pepper and salt. Roll up the slices and tie them round with a thread so that the seasoning remains inside. Melt in a pan a lump of butter the size of a very big egg. Let it get brown and then, after rolling the beef in flour, put them in the butter. Let them cook thus for five minutes, add half a pint of water, and let them simmer for two hours. Fill up with water if it becomes too dry. Before serving, take great care to remove the threads.

[_A Belgian at Droitwich._]

MUTTON STEW

Take two pounds of mutton, the breast or one of the inferior parts will do as well as a prime piece. Put in an earthenware pan a lump of butter as big as an egg, and let it color. Cut the mutton in pieces and let them color in the butter, adding salt and pepper, a few onions or shallots. When all is colored, add at least a pound of turnips, cut in slices, with about a pint of water. Let it boil up till the turnips are tender. Then add two and one-half or three pounds of potatoes; salt and pepper these, but in moderation, if the meat has been already salted and peppered. Add some thyme and bay-leaves, and let them all cook very gently till the potatoes are tender. When these are cooked, take out the pieces of meat, mix the turnips and potatoes, so as to make a uniform mixture; then place the meat on the top of the mixture, and serve it. _N.B._ It is necessary to watch the cooking of this dish very carefully, so that you can add a little water whenever it becomes necessary, for if one leaves the preparation a little too dry it quickly burns.

[_A Belgian at Droitwich._]

HOCHE POT GANTOIS

(For eight or nine persons)

Take one pound beef, one pound salt pork, and one pound mutton; cut into pieces about three inches by two, let it boil, and skim. Take two or three carrots, one large turnip, one large head of celery, three or four leeks, a good green cabbage, cut in four, the other vegetables cut into pieces of moderate size, not too small; put them in with the meat, and see that they are first covered by the water. Let it boil for three to four hours, and three quarters of an hour before dishing, add some potatoes cut in pieces.

To dish: Place the meat in the center of a flat dish, and the vegetables around; serve the liquid in a soup-tureen. This dish should be eaten out of soup plates, as it is soup and meat course at one time.

CHINESE CORKS

Make a thick white sauce, and when it has grown a little cold, add the yolk of one egg, and a few drops of lemon-juice. Sprinkle in a slice of stale bread, and enough grated cheese to flavor it strongly, and leave it to cool for two hours. Then shape into small pieces like corks, dip them into the beaten whites of your egg, and then into grated breadcrumbs. Have ready some hot fat, or lard, and fry the cheese-balls in it till they are golden.

[_Mme. Limpens._]

LIMPENS CHEESE

Take a roll and, cutting it in slices, remove the crusts so that a round of crumbs remain. Butter each slice, and cover it well with grated cheese, building up the slices one on the top of the other. Boil a cupful of milk, with pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg; when boiled, pour it over the bread till it is well soaked. Put them in the oven, for quarter of an hour, according to the heat of the oven and the quantity you have. You must pour its juice over it every now and then, and when the top is turning into a crust, serve it.

[_Mme. Limpens._]

CHEESE SOUFFLÉ

Take two good soup-spoonfuls of flour, and mix it with half a teacupful of milk; melt a lump of butter, the size of a filbert, and add that, then enough grated cheese to your taste, and the yolks of four eggs. Add at the last the whites of the four eggs, beaten stiffly; pepper and salt. Butter a mold, put in your mixture, and let it cook for one hour in a saucepan, surrounded with boiling water, and the lid on. Then turn out the soufflé, and serve with a mushroom sauce. The sauce is a good white sauce, to which you add already cooked mushrooms. Clean them first of all, chop them, and cook them till tender in butter; and their own juice; then throw them into the sauce, and pour it over your soufflé.

[_Mme. Vandervalle._]

CHEESE CROQUETTES

Make a thick bechamel sauce, and be sure that you cook it for ten minutes, constantly stirring. Add, till well flavored, some Gruyère and Parmesan cheese, mixed and grated. Let it all get cold. Then roll this mixture into the shape of carrots; roll them in finely-grated breadcrumbs, and fry them in hot lard or refined fat. Lay them on a hot dish, and, at the thicker end of each carrot stick in a sprig of parsley to look like the stalk.

[_Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen._]

CHEESE FONDANTS

For twelve fondants make a white sauce with two soupspoons of flour and milk. Add to it the yolks of three eggs. Stir in four ounces of mixed Gruyère cheese, and Parmesan, grated very finely. Add at the end the juice of half a lemon, and a dust of cayenne. Let it all grow cold. Then make little balls with this paste and roll them in breadcrumbs. Throw them in a pan of boiling fat, where they must remain till they are a good golden color. Drain them, keeping them hot, and serve quickly.

[_Madame Emelie Jones_]

CHEESE SOUFFLÉ

Grate half a pound of Gruyère cheese. Mix in a cup of milk a dessert-spoonful of flour; beat four whole eggs, and add first the cheese, and then the flour and milk mixture. Season with pepper and salt, and put all into a mold. Let it cook in a saucepan of boiling water for an hour and a half. Then at the end of this time put it in the oven for half an hour.

[_Madame Emelie Jones_.]

POTATOES AND CHEESE

Wash some raw potatoes, peel them, cut them into very thin round slices. Take a dish which will stand the oven, and be nice enough to go on the table, and put in it a layer of the slices sprinkled with pepper, salt, a little flour, and plenty of grated Gruyère. Continue in this way, finishing with a layer of cheese, and a little flour. Put the dish in the oven, which must not be a very hot one, and cook gently.

For a medium pie dish you will find that half an hour will be sufficient to cook the potatoes.

[_Madame Emelie Jones_.]

YORK HAM, SWEETBREADS, MADEIRA SAUCE

Heat the ham in a double saucepan (bain marie). Boil the sweetbreads, blanch them and let them fry in some butter.

Take flour and butter and melt them to a thick sauce, adding a tumbler of water and Liebig which will turn your sauce brown. Fry half a pound of mushrooms in butter and when brown, add them and the liquor to your sauce with a good glass of madeira or sherry. Place your ham in the middle of the dish, surround it with the sweetbreads, and pour over all the Madeira sauce.

[_Mme. Vandervalle_.]

HAM WITH MADEIRA SAUCE

Cook some macaroni or spaghetti, with salt and pepper. Make a brown sauce, using plenty of butter, for this dish requires a great deal of sauce, and add to your "roux" some tomatoes in purée (stewed and run through a sieve), a little meat extract, some fried mushrooms, a few drops of good brandy or madeira to your taste. Let your slices of ham heat in this sauce, and when ready, place them in the middle of a flat dish, put the mushrooms or spaghetti round, and put the sauce, very hot, over the ham.

[_Madame Spinette._]

A DIFFICULT DISH OF EGGS

And yet this is only fried eggs after all! Put some oil on to heat; if you have not oil use butter, but oil is the best. When the bluish steam rises it is hot enough. Break an egg into a little flat dish, tip up the frying pan at the handle side, and slip the egg into it, then with a wooden spoon turn the egg over on itself; that is, roll the white of it over the yolk as it slips into the pan. If you cannot manage this, let the egg heat for a second, and then roll the white over the yolk with a wooden spoon. Do each egg in this way, and as soon as one is done let it drain and keep warm by the fire. When all are done put them in a circle, in a dish, and pour round them a very hot sauce, either made with tomatoes, or flavored with vinegar and mustard.

COUNTRY EGGS

Make a white sauce thickly mixed with onions, such as you would eat in England with a leg of mutton, but do not forget a little seasoning of mace. Make a high mold of mashed potatoes, and then scoop it out from the top, leaving the bottom and high sides of the vegetable. While your sauce is kept by the fire (the potatoes also), boil six eggs for two minutes, shell them, and you will find the whites just set and no more. Pour the onion sauce into the potato, and drop in the whole eggs and serve very hot.

FRENCH EGGS

Put a lump of butter the size of an egg in a fireproof dish, mixing in when it is melted some breadcrumbs, a chopped leek, the inside of three tomatoes, pepper and salt. Let it cook for three or four minutes in the oven, then stir in the yolks of two eggs, and let it make a custard.