Chapter III: Part 3

Lift out by thrusting a fork through the thick part of the stalk and place carefully on a hot drainer in a hot dish. The flower should be unbroken. Pour over a rich white sauce, and serve.

=Cauliflower au Gratin.=--Prepare and boil as above, then put the cauliflower in a hot baking dish and cover with grated Parmesan cheese, put in the oven for a few minutes till the cheese is melted.

=Cauliflower Salad.=--Boil a cauliflower (having first removed the outside leaves), in salt water and let it get cold. Cut in pieces with a silver knife and place in a salad bowl. Take the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, mix with salt and pepper to taste, and smooth with a wooden spoon, then add three tablespoonfuls of oil and three of vinegar, drop by drop, beating with the back of the spoon all the time. Mix well, and pour over the cauliflower. This salad requires more vinegar than others.

=Baked Cauliflower.=--(1) Take two cauliflowers, trim off the outer leaves, and wash thoroughly and boil in milk and water for twenty minutes, then drain. Mix two ounces of Parmesan cheese with two eggs and some bread-crumbs. Season well with pepper and salt, cut the cauliflower into four pieces, dip each piece into well-beaten egg and roll in the mixture of cheese and bread-crumbs, bake in a warm oven for ten minutes; a little white sauce may be poured over. Serve very hot.

=Baked Cauliflower à la Béchamel.=--Boil a cauliflower in salted water for half an hour. Drain and break into bits. Put a layer of cauliflower into a pie dish and cover with Béchamel or alla Panna sauce. Sprinkle with some grated cheese. Fill the dish with alternate layers of cauliflower and sauce, and cover the top with bread-crumbs. Spread with grated cheese and bits of butter. Bake in a moderate oven for half an hour. Serve hot.

=Timbâle of Cauliflower.=--After removing all the leaves, boil a large cauliflower in salted water to cover, adding a tablespoonful of salt to the water. Cook until soft, drain, and press through a sieve. Soak two cupfuls of fresh bread-crumbs in milk, squeeze dry, press the cauliflower through a sieve. Mix the crumbs with the cauliflower, add the yolks of three eggs well beaten, a tablespoonful of butter melted, salt and pepper to season, and the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs. Butter a mould, pour the purée into it, cover, and cook in boiling water nearly to the height of the mould for forty-five minutes. Turn out carefully on a serving dish, pour over it a rich cream sauce, and serve.

=Mashed Cauliflower.=--(1) Separate a cauliflower into florets and cook in boiling salted water until tender--not more than ten minutes. Drain, press through a sieve, season with salt, pepper, and butter, and a little cream or milk, reheat, and serve.

(2) Boil and separate two heads of cauliflower. Fry a teaspoonful of chopped onion in butter and press through a sieve with the cauliflower. Moisten with cream sauce, season with salt and sugar, and reheat, adding a little cream if it is too thick.

=Cauliflower à la Hongroise.=--Prepare according to directions given for Boiled Cauliflower (1). Drain, separate into florets, and arrange in a buttered baking dish. Chop a small onion finely and fry it in butter with four tablespoonfuls of stale bread-crumbs. Cook until brown, spread over the cauliflower, and serve immediately.

=Cauliflower à la Parisienne.=--Boil a large cauliflower until tender, drain, chop, and press hard into a buttered mould. Turn out on to a dish that will stand the heat of the oven. Cook together a tablespoonful each of butter and flour, add two cupfuls of stewed and strained tomatoes, and cook until thick, stirring constantly. Season with salt, pepper, and grated onion. Add enough cracker-crumbs to make the sauce very thick. Spread over the cauliflower, put it into a hot oven for ten minutes, and serve.

=Escalloped Cauliflower.=--Boil until tender, separate into small pieces and pack stems downward in a buttered baking dish, or use the cauliflower unbroken. Mix with a cupful of bread-crumbs, two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, and enough cream or milk to moisten, pepper and salt to season, and one egg well beaten. Spread over the cauliflower, cover, and bake for six minutes, then uncover and brown. Serve in the same dish.

=Cauliflower in Cheese Shell.=--Use an Edam cheese shell from which the cheese has been scooped out. Fill with creamed cauliflower, sprinkle with cheese, and bake on a tin until thoroughly hot. Buttered crumbs may be spread over the top if desired.

=Cauliflower in Crusts.=--Cut the tops from stale rolls, scoop out the crumbs, and toast or fry the shells thus made. Fill with creamed cauliflower, and serve hot.

=Baked Cauliflower.=--(2) Boil a cauliflower, drain it, and put it in a baking pan. Put two ounces of butter and one ounce of flour into a saucepan, boil it, add three-quarters of a pint of milk, stir it continually, add a bay leaf, a little chopped parsley, salt, and pepper, and stand it in a bain-marie for ten minutes; take out the bay leaf, pour the sauce over the cauliflower, sprinkle it with bread-crumbs, add some bits of fresh butter, and bake it in a very hot oven for a quarter of an hour.

=Cauliflower with Mushroom Sauce.=--Cook cauliflower (see Boiled Cauliflower) and dish on slices of toast. Have ready the following sauce: Six mushrooms finely chopped, a little pepper and salt. Put two ounces of butter in a saucepan, put in the mushrooms, draw to one side, and simmer slowly for ten minutes or till quite tender, stir in one tablespoonful of flour, add half a pint of milk or vegetable stock. Stir till smooth and until it bubbles free from the side of the pan, then if liked one tablespoonful of cream or one yolk of egg may be added, after the saucepan is off the fire. Pour over the cauliflower, and serve.

CELERY (_Apium graveolens. Umbellifercæ_).

Celery is a subject worth much care and attention. We prefer the smaller, better-flavoured varieties such as Sulham prize pink or Clayworth prize pink. These are both excellent sorts; the second is rather larger and does not stand the winter quite so well, but they are both infinitely superior to the great gross sticks grown for the market. Further, we are of opinion that early celery is scarcely worth eating, the plant needing the effect of frost to develop its clean crispness to the uttermost.

Nevertheless, as folk will have early celery the gardener must sow an early variety in heat in February. The seedlings need tender handling, and must be pricked into rich compost four inches distant as soon as they are large enough to handle. Move them into a cold frame and keep them growing on with plenty of air and moisture, and gradually harden them off, plant them in their trenches early as possible in May, keep them well watered, begin to earth up in July and complete the operation about the middle of August, and dig in September as required.

The main crop should be sown in the frame late in March, the plants put out and hardened off as above, and planted in the trenches in June and July. The latest crop of all may be sown in April, treated in the same way, and pricked out in the open six inches apart on a rich, not too sunny bed, and finally transferred to the trench quite late in July.

For large varieties the trenches should be quite five feet from centre to centre; for smaller sorts four feet is a minimum distance. The trench should be eighteen inches wide at the top and about fifteen at the bottom. In a trench this width there will be two rows of plants a foot apart in the row, the plants being placed W fashion. Many prefer a single row, in which case the trench need be but a foot wide at the bottom. For the main crop the trenches should be two spades deep, for the smaller early sorts and for the late varieties half this depth will be better; in the latter case the roots will stand well above the level between the trenches after earthing up, an important consideration, as dryness is thereby promoted and the plants will better withstand winter damp and frost. A liberal supply (quite three inches) of manure should be dug deeply into the bottom of the trench before planting; it should be well trodden, and a top-dressing of soot applied. The celery plants must be carefully lifted with a trowel, a few at a time, so as to avoid a check, any side shoots must be trimmed off, and any blotched leaves, and they must be carefully and firmly planted in the trench. A thorough soaking of water must be given immediately after planting, whether it is raining or not.

Celery must be kept well watered through dry weather, and water in which soot has been soaking must be sprinkled through a rose at least once a week, in order to check the celery fly. The attack of the celery fly will cause leaves to blister and turn brown in blotches; these blisters contain a maggot and must be picked off and burned.

The first earthing up of main crop celery is done in dry weather, late in August. The plants should be lightly tied together with bast; any side shoots must be removed and the trench weeded. With the spade chop down the sides of the trench and draw the earth up to the celery to the height of about six inches. This earthing up must be repeated two or three times at intervals of about ten days; the bast should be cut away as it will interfere with the growth of the plant if left tied. Great care must be exercised to prevent any grains of earth trickling down into the heart of the plant.

When finished, the earth should come well up to the neck of the plant and the ridge be neatly finished off with rather sloping top in order to throw off the winter wet. During frost a covering of dry fern laid along the top of the ridge will very greatly help to prevent the plants from rotting.

CELERY DISHES.

=Waldorf Salad.=--Equal parts of apple and celery cubed, served on lettuce with walnuts peeled, and sliced cold hard-boiled eggs, with dressing poured over it.

=Stewed Celery.=--Cut into inch-lengths enough celery to make a quart. Cover with boiling salted water and cook slowly for half an hour. Drain the celery and strain the cooking liquid. Thicken one cupful of the liquid with a tablespoonful each of butter and flour cooked together, season with salt and pepper, reheat the drained celery in the sauce, and serve. Add a little cream to the sauce if desired.

=Celery Sandwiches.=--Very finely shredded celery. Cream, salt and pepper, thin slices of buttered white bread.

Moisten the celery slightly with the cream, season to taste. Place a thin layer between the slices of bread and butter, decorate with sprigs of parsley and serve.

=Celery with Bread Sauce.=--Boil four heads of celery until tender, in salted water to cover, and drain. Boil a sliced onion until tender, in a pint of milk, strain the milk and cook in it enough soft bread-crumbs to make a smooth sauce. Cut the celery into short lengths and reheat in the sauce, seasoning with salt, pepper, and a heaped teaspoonful of butter.

=Celery Fritters.=--Make a batter of two eggs, one cupful of milk, a tablespoonful of melted butter, one cupful of flour, and a pinch of salt. Boil until tender in salted water stalks of celery cut into four-inch lengths, drain, cool, and dry. Dip in batter, fry in deep fat, drain, and serve with Hollandaise sauce.

=Celery with Cream.=--Cut some celery into small pieces about two inches long, wash them and dry them on a napkin, blanch them and drain. Stir two ounces of fresh butter, a tablespoonful of flour, and half a pint of good vegetable stock; add the celery and simmer for twenty minutes, beat up two yolks of eggs with half a teacupful of cream, and a pinch of grated nutmeg; stir this into the celery, being careful not to let it boil again; serve very hot with croûtons.

=To Fry Celery.=--Prepare the celery as above, boil in salted boiling water for a quarter of an hour, then dry on a napkin; beat a fresh egg, stir into it one tablespoonful of flour and one cupful of hot vegetable stock, add salt and pepper, put the pieces of celery into the batter, and then roll them in bread-crumbs and fry in butter.

=Celery with Parmesan Cheese.=--Cook some whole heads of celery as above, when drained lay them in a dish, sprinkle with finely grated Parmesan cheese, pour melted fresh butter over them, put them into the oven till they have taken a good colour, add a little gravy, and serve.

=Escalloped Celery.=--Chop celery very fine, or cut in half-inch lengths, and cook until tender in boiling salted water to cover. Drain and reheat in a cream or white sauce. Put into a buttered baking dish in layers, sprinkling each layer with grated cheese or crumbs, or both crumbs and grated cheese. Have crumbs and cheese on the top, dot with butter, and brown in the oven.

=Purée of Celery.=--Cut into small pieces four heads of celery, and put into a saucepan with a sliced onion and half a cupful of butter, simmer slowly until tender, then add half a cupful of flour, made smooth with a little cold milk, and cook until smooth and thick, add two cupfuls of milk, stirring constantly. Press through a sieve, season with salt, pepper, a very little sugar, and butter, and moisten to the proper consistency with cream.

=Celery Slaw.=--Mix two cupfuls of finely-cut celery with the beaten yolk of an egg, a tablespoonful each of butter, cream, and vinegar, a teaspoonful of sugar, and salt and pepper to taste. Mix thoroughly, cover tightly, and keep hot, without cooking for twenty minutes. Serve either hot or cold.

CELERIAC.

Celeriac, or turnip-rooted celery, is an admirable vegetable not nearly enough grown in this country. It requires exactly the same treatment as main-crop celery, except that it is planted on the flat two feet apart in every way. The ground should be richly prepared, and should be kept weeded by means of the Dutch hoe; the action of this admirable tool results in a most excellent friable state of the surface soil, admitting air and preventing evaporation; indeed a good Dutch hoeing is equivalent to a thorough soaking of water. The celery fly will attack the celeriac in exactly the same way as it does celery proper, and the same precautions must be used against it. Celeriac stands frost well, and may be dug as required through the autumn and winter.

CHERVIL (_Scandix Cerefolium. Umbelliferæ_).

Sow in shallow drills a foot apart and thin to a foot in the row. Early spring is a good time to sow; the seed will germinate all the year round; probably a couple of sowings four months apart will provide sufficient. The leaves are used rather sparingly in salads, and for various flavouring purposes.

TURNIP-ROOTED CHERVIL (_Chærophyllum bulbosum. Umbelliferæ_).

This is one of the subjects whose seed must be sown as soon as ripe. There are expedients for keeping it unspoilt until spring, but it is better to sow in August, in drills a foot apart. Thin the plants to three inches, and later thin again to nine inches apart.

The roots are perfectly hardy, and will be ready to use from September onwards the year after the seed is sown.

The roots are eaten boiled in the way of parsnips.

DISHES.

=Herb Soup.=--Sorrel, eschalot, chervil, a little mint and parsley. Boil all for a few minutes in a pint of milk. Add a good piece of butter and salt to season. Boil all together for a minute, then pour it over some crusts of bread in a soup tureen.

=Vegetable and Cream Soup.=--Boil three lettuce heads, four heads of celery, two onions, a handful of chervil, a little sorrel, tarragon, and thyme, in one quart of water till well stewed. Strain off the heads half an hour before dinner; let the soup cool, and add one pint of fresh cream, or quarter of a pint of cream and make up to a pint with milk, with the yolks of three eggs; stir well, put it on the fire to heat, and do not let it boil.

=Chervil Summer Salad.=--(1) Take two large cucumbers and one head of celery; peel and slice, add a bunch of red radishes, six cold boiled, young globe artichokes, cut into quarters, sprinkle with finely chopped chervil, mix, and pour mayonnaise sauce over just before serving.

(2) Take three heads of fresh lettuces, one of celery, a little chopped tarragon and chervil, and one or two carrots. Dress with five tablespoonfuls of pure olive oil, two of white wine vinegar, one small teaspoonful of salt, and half a teaspoonful of pepper. Stir well before serving. Cold boiled haricot beans or green peas are a good addition.

Freshly chopped chervil can be added to any salad with advantage. It is especially good with small boiled potatoes cut in slices, served with either oil and vinegar or mayonnaise sauce.

CHICORY (_Cichorium Intybus. Compositæ_).

The seeds are sown in June in shallow drills in pretty rich ground. The drills should be nine inches apart, and the plants thinned to three inches. When wanted in winter the roots are lifted, the leaves trimmed off an inch from the crown, and the roots stacked in dry earth or sand in a dark cellar or frost-free pit. A sprinkle of water will start them into growth, and with no other trouble the blanched leaves may be gathered in about four weeks’ time.

=Witloef=, or Brussels chicory, is grown in much the same way, except that the plants should stand six inches apart in the rows as they grow. From November onwards witloef may be blanched, and the blanching is done in the following fashion: A deep trench is got out as for celery, though no manure is put in it, the plants are lifted and trimmed to within an inch of the crowns, and are then replanted in this trench about two inches apart, and the crowns eight inches from the level of the garden. The earth is then returned, filling the trench in level; over the trench a heap of hot manure three feet deep is piled, and the heads will be ready to dig in about three weeks, or rather longer.

=Purée of Chicory.=--Cut off the outside leaves and trim three or four heads of chicory, wash the inside of the leaves well, drain, cook them in boiling salted water, put them on a sieve and pour cold water on them. Press out all the water and then chop them finely. Season one and a half ounces of butter with salt and pepper and a little grated nutmeg. Stir the chicory and butter over a quick fire with a wooden spoon, until they are reduced to a purée. Add two or three tablespoonfuls of cream sauce and a little castor sugar. Any good sauce can be added to this after it has been dished up with fried bread. Chicory is good in salads with lettuce and other vegetables.

CHIVES (_Allium Schœnoprasum. Liliaceæ_).

This perennial plant is best propagated by dividing old roots in spring, the plants may be put a foot apart, or may form a continuous edging to a kitchen-garden path.

The leaves are used as flavouring for soups, or instead of onions in salads.

CLARY (_Salvia Sclarea. Labiatæ_).

This is best treated as a biennial. Sow in April in drills eighteen inches apart, and thin to the same distance in the rows. Keep the Dutch hoe going through dry weather, and do not let the plants flag for want of water.

The leaves are used as a flavouring for soups, &c. They should be gathered in August, dried, rubbed through a sieve, and stored in bottles for use.

CORIANDER (_Coriandrum sativum. Umbelliferæ_).

A sunny position should be selected, and the seed sown during April in shallow drills twelve inches apart; thin the plants out to six inches.

The seeds are harvested in August, dried, and stored in bottles. They are used as flavouring.

CORN SALAD (_Valerianella olitoria. Valerianacæ_).

This native plant is well worth growing as a basis for winter salads. It may be sown in any odd corner during August, the plants thinned to four inches, and used as wanted from November to March.

COUVE TRONCHUDA (see Cabbage).

CRESS (_Lepidum sativum. Cruciferæ_).

As soon as there is a mild hotbed available, or a corner in a house, from January onwards, make successive sowings of this about every ten days. Spread the seed on a garden mat, water well, and cut in ten days; this avoids grittiness. If sown on soil do not cover it, but simply press it down with the back of a dry spade. From March onwards it may be sown in the open as often as desired. In October again resort to cold frames, and later to heat.

AMERICAN CRESS (_Erysimum præcox. Cruciferæ_).

This biennial plant may be sown from March to September, and the plants thinned to six inches. It is easier in ordinary gardens than watercress, but greatly inferior to it in quality--being much coarser and hotter in flavour.

WATER-CRESS (_Nasturtium officinale. Cruciferæ_).

Not worth growing unless there be a natural supply of water available. If this be the case beds should be trenched and manured, and cuttings (or seedling plants) put out six inches apart, and water allowed to flow over the bed. Or the plants may be set by the margin of a stream or pond.

To raise from seed sow in a shallow trench. Keep watered, and admit water gradually as the plants grow.

It is used in salads, and as a garnishing with poultry and game.

=Cress Salad.=--Wash carefully any kind of cress or lettuce, and dry without bruising; put them in a salad bowl with a whole raw onion; shake over them a little very finely chopped chervil. Then put a pinch of salt and pepper in a tablespoon, fill the spoon with olive oil, stir very carefully with a fork till the salt and pepper are melted, pour over the cress, then add two tablespoonfuls of good salad oil, stir thoroughly, and add one tablespoonful of vinegar, remove the onion, and serve.

CUCUMBER (_Cucumis sativus._ Ord. _Cucurbitaceæ_).

Though needing daily attention, the cucumber is well worth growing in the small garden if the gardener can give the necessary few minutes to its care morning and night.

Seed, both of a frame variety, such as “Telegraph,” and of a ridge variety suited to outdoor culture, should be sown in the hotbed in March. The seed should be sown in 3-inch pots, a single seed to a pot, well watered, and a sheet of glass laid over to keep the moisture in.

As the plants grow, they will soon need to be shifted into larger pots; they must be kept growing; warmth and moisture are essential. About the beginning of May the cucumbers must be planted out in the frame, one plant under each light. About four inches of earth should be laid on the surface of the hotbed, and the plants put out.

It is good practice to stop the top of the shoots when they are about eight inches long to induce the plants to throw back. Water should be given in abundance, and air must be admitted for some hours during the heat of the day. If the heat dies out of the hotbed too soon, the frame must be protected from cold by mats at night, until the spring sunshine is sufficiently strong to fill the frame with a store of warmth to last the night.

It is as well to set the earlier fruit with a camel’s-hair brush, conveying by its means the pollen to the fruit-bearing flowers; later in the season this can be left to Nature and the bees. The whole history of successful cucumber growing lies in the three words, water, warmth, and air; by their aid first-rate fruit may be grown in a frame. The frames should not have the lights drawn off or even pushed back; this latter practice is one that gardeners are fond of pursuing, but it is fatally productive of cold draughts. Pieces of board should be prepared with step-like indentations, and by means of these the lights may be propped up to varying heights according to the weather.

Never should the frames be watered less than four times a week, and in hot weather water should be given both evening and morning. It is a good plan to keep a pot full of water in the frame in order to ensure that the water should be warmed to the exactly right temperature, as it is a most unscientific proceeding to throw cold water over these warmth-loving plants.

Ridge cucumbers will thrive under precisely the same treatment as above described, but they may need a second shift into larger pots. They must be kept in the frame, growing on, until the end of May, when they can be planted out in the open, in richly made-up ground. It is a usual thing to provide southward sloping ridges to grow them on, but this is unnecessary if the gardener select some warm and sheltered spot, where full sunlight falls most of the day. They will need daily watering, and will throw, in a favourable season, an astonishing quantity of small, well-flavoured fruit.

DISHES.

=Cucumber Timbâles.=--Mix one cupful of cooked cucumber pulp, and half a cupful of bread-crumbs with half a cupful of very thick cream sauce, a tablespoonful of lemon juice, the yolks of two eggs beaten thoroughly, and a few drops of onion juice. Fold in the stiffly beaten whites of the eggs, fill small buttered timbâle moulds, and bake until firm in a pan of hot water.

=Mashed Cucumbers.=--Peel and cut up old cucumbers, and boil until soft in salted water to cover. Drain, mash, and season with butter, salt, and pepper.

=Devilled Cucumbers.=--Make a sauce of one cupful of stewed and strained tomato, half a teaspoonful each of salt and made mustard, a teaspoonful of sugar, cayenne, and grated onion to season, a tablespoonful of olive oil, and the juice of half a lemon. Bring to the boil, pour over fried cucumbers, and serve.

=Cucumbers on Toast.=--Peel and cut two or three large cucumbers into half-inch slices. Cover with hot water and stew until tender but not broken. Bring a cupful of cream to the boil, add a tablespoonful of butter, and salt and pepper to season. Drain the cucumber, reheat in the cream, and serve on toast.

=Ragout of Cucumbers and Onions.=--Peel and slice three cucumbers and two onions. Fry brown in butter, dredging with a little flour, add enough water to cover, and cook for half an hour. Thicken with a teaspoonful each of butter and flour cooked together, add salt and pepper to season, and half a cupful of stewed and strained tomatoes. Heat thoroughly, and serve.

=Stewed Cucumber.=--Peel and quarter six cucumbers, remove the seeds, and fry in butter with a chopped onion. Take up the cucumbers and cook a tablespoonful of flour in the fat remaining in the pan. Add one cupful of stock or water and cook until thick, stirring constantly. Season to taste with salt or pepper and cook the cucumbers in the sauce for twenty minutes. Serve on small squares of buttered toast.

=Stuffed Cucumbers.=--Peel and split four cucumbers and scoop out the seeds. Make a stuffing of one cupful of stale bread-crumbs, half a cupful of chopped nuts, one boiled onion chopped, a tablespoonful each of minced parsley and Chutney sauce, and salt to season. Stuff the cucumbers, put the halves together, and tie into shape with strings. Brown in olive oil, add half a cupful of water, and bake for an hour and a half, basting frequently. Remove the strings and serve.

=Cucumber Fritters.=--Make some batter with an egg, a cupful of milk, and enough sifted flour to thicken it--about a tablespoonful--put some slices of peeled cucumbers into sufficient boiling water to cover them, let them stand for fifteen minutes, drain and wipe them dry, season the slices with salt and pepper, dip them into the batter, and fry in deep fat.

=Escalloped Cucumbers.=--Peel and cut into dice six large cucumbers. Butter a baking dish and put in a layer of the dice. Season with grated onion and lemon juice. Cover with crumbs, dot with butter, and season with paprika and celery salt. Repeat until the dish is full, having crumbs and butter on the top. Cover and bake for an hour, then remove the cover and brown. Serve with sauce piquante.

=Cucumber Sliced.=--Cut off the pointed end and discard, then peel as much as you are likely to require--probably half--but do not cut it off. Thinly slice with a cucumber knife as far as you have peeled. Put the piece that remains in a two-pound jam-pot with two inches of water in the bottom. Let the stalk end be in the water, and the cucumber will keep crisp for two days, but the ideal thing is to use it as soon as it is severed from the tine. Take the thin slices of cucumber and lay them on a flat dish, sprinkle with a little salt, and put another plate over and leave in a cool place for half an hour. Then drain off the brine, and slip the slices on to a glass dish, pepper them, and pour a little brown vinegar over them, and if liked, half a tablespoonful of olive oil. Serve immediately. Treated in this way cucumber is more digestible.

=Cucumber and Onion.=--Peel and slice the cucumber and put in a glass dish; add a few thin slices of raw onion, pepper, and vinegar; oil if liked.

Cucumbers are much used to decorate salads.

DANDELION (_Leontodum Taraxacum. Compositæ_).

Sow during March or April in shallow drills fifteen inches apart. Thin the plants to the same distance in the rows. When the plants are large enough to use they should be blanched by covering with flower-pots inserted over them with a piece of slate on top to exclude the light.

The young leaves, either green or blanched, are excellent for salads, generally in addition to lettuce or chicory.

DISHES.

Dandelions can be cooked in the same manner as chicory and spinach.

=Dandelion Greens.=--Boil until tender in salted water. Drain, chop and season with salt, pepper, butter, and vinegar, or lemon juice.

=Dandelion Mixture.=--Wash the dandelion leaves thoroughly, and put in salted water until tender, strain through a colander, pressing with a weight to extract all the moisture. Put into a saucepan with a little cream, the yolks of two eggs, salt and pepper as well as any other seasoning of herbs desired. Heat through, spread the mixture on slices of stale bread, and fry quickly in hot butter or dripping. Garnish with chopped hard-boiled eggs. Season with oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and finely chopped parsley.

=Dandelion as a Vegetable.=--Cut off the outer leaves and wash well, let them stand in cold water for an hour to crisp; drain and throw into a saucepan of boiling water which has been salted, and simmer for twenty minutes, or half an hour if full grown. Strain through a colander to extract the liquor, then chop. Place a good tablespoonful of butter in a stewpan, and when melted add a tablespoonful of flour. Add the greens, toss a little with a wooden spoon, and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and moisten suitably with stock. Toss for ten minutes longer. Add, if you like, a tablespoonful of cream, sweet or sour, and serve hot with a garnish of toast cut into points, or croûtons. Other greens may be treated in the same way.

DILL (_Anethum graveolens. Umbellifera_).

Sow during April in rows twelve inches apart, and thin the seedlings to nine inches in the row. Harvest, dry, and store the seeds when ripe.

The green leaves as well as the dried seeds may be used as seasoning.

EGG PLANT (_Solanum Melongena. Solanaceæ_).

The egg plant, or Aubergine, is very little cultivated in this country. Even under glass it is not raised very successfully. It might be worth while trying it on the lines of vegetable marrow culture, or rather on that of outdoor tomatoes. In this case the seed should be sown in heat in March, the seedlings potted up in 48-sized pots and kept growing in the hotbed; as soon as the pots are full of roots repot into larger, and so on until the end of May, when the plants should be gradually hardened off and finally planted in rich soil in a sunny, sheltered position about 14th June. Copious watering must be given, the fruits thinned, and the plant should be pinched back in the way of tomatoes when sufficient are set.

The fruit is ready to gather when of a fair size, and the flavour is more delicious if gathered before too old. Generally speaking, the fruit is ready to use from August onwards. The French scoop out the seeds and stuff the interior with minced herbs, bread-crumbs, raw eggs, and lemon juice; then serve with butter. The white kind generally grown for ornament is not so well flavoured as the purple, known as the Aubergine.

DISHES.

=Escalloped Egg Plant.=--Boil a large egg plant until tender, peel and mash, season with butter, pepper, and salt; add two hard-boiled eggs chopped finely, and half an onion grated. Add two tablespoonfuls of cream; serve on croûtons very hot.

=Caponata= (_A Sicilian Dish_).--Peel eight aubergines, cut them into little pieces; sprinkle these pieces with salt to get rid of the bitterness, and fry them. Cut up an onion, fry it lightly in oil, and when it is yellow-brown add to it a head of celery well cleaned, and also cut in pieces. When all this has cooked about three minutes, add capers and olives stoned and cut up in quarters. Then add the purée you have prepared from two pounds of tomatoes, with a little vinegar and a little sugar, enough to make an acid-sweet sauce, cook it all together for a short time, then add the fried egg plant to the mixture, and serve up on a hot dish.

=Egg Plant Stuffed with Nuts.=--Boil an egg plant fruit until tender. Split and scoop out the pulp. Add a cupful of chopped nuts to one tablespoonful each of butter and bread-crumbs, salt and pepper to season. Mix with two eggs well beaten, fill the shells, and bake for an hour.

=Egg Plant Baked with Tomato Sauce.=--Cut a slice from the top of an egg plant fruit and scoop out the pulp. Remove the seeds, and soak the pulp in salted water for half an hour. Squeeze dry, chop three boiled onions finely, and cook for twenty minutes with half the contents of a can of tomatoes, adding a bay leaf, a clove, and two sprigs of parsley, and a teaspoonful of sugar. Rub through a fine sieve. Soak a cupful of bread-crumbs in milk, squeeze dry, and mix with the egg plant pulp, and half of the tomato sauce. Add the yolks of two eggs, a tablespoonful of butter, and salt and pepper to season. Mix thoroughly, fill the shell of the egg plant, sprinkle with crumbs and bake for forty minutes, basting with olive oil. Reheat the remainder of the purée; season with salt and pepper, and add a little butter, then serve separately as a sauce.

=Egg Plant à la Provence.=--Slice and soak two small egg plant fruits, drain, and dip in oil, and broil. Put them into a saucepan which has been rubbed with garlic, add a chopped onion, a tablespoonful of butter or oil, a teaspoonful each of minced parsley and anchovy paste, a cupful of stewed strained tomatoes, salt and pepper to season. Cook until tender, and serve on toast or with macaroni.

=Stuffed Egg Plant.=--Boil an egg plant fruit till tender; remove from the hull, being careful to save as many pieces of hull as you wish to serve. Mix with the pulp one or two tomatoes, chopped nuts, toasted rolled dry biscuit crumbs. Season with chopped onions, red and black pepper, and salt. Fry in hot butter, fill the pieces of hull with this mixture; sprinkle with dry biscuit crumbs and bits of butter, and bake brown.

=Stuffed with Tomatoes.=--Parboil an egg plant fruit for ten minutes, drain, cool, cut in two lengthwise. Scoop out the pulp and mix with a cupful of chopped tomatoes, and minced green pepper free from seeds, also a cupful of bread-crumbs. Season with salt, pepper, and melted butter. Fill the shells, bind them together with tape, and bake, basting frequently with melted butter and hot water. Take up on a hot plate; remove the strings, and pour a hot tomato sauce around the egg plant.

ENDIVE (_Cichorium Endivia._ Ord. _Compositæ_).

Though with care this excellent salad may be grown for a large part of the year, yet we find that it has an incurable tendency to bolt in hot weather, and, after all, if one has lettuce one can do without endive; therefore in the small garden we prefer to grow it as an autumn and winter crop, and it is this very lateness that makes endive so useful.

Endive should be sown in mid-July; this sowing may be followed by a second about the 7th of August. As soon as the plants are large enough to handle they must be pricked out nine inches apart, in a patch of well-prepared ground, well watered in, and kept watered through dry weather until rain shall have settled them in.

To be properly enjoyed, endive must be blanched for use; this is effected by either tying the leaves together, as certain lettuces are still treated, or flower-pots may be inverted over the plants, a piece of slate or other covering ensuring perfect darkness. As soon as blanched, endive must be used, as it soon rots after the process is complete; therefore but few plants should be tied at a time, and tying should be done weekly.

The first sowing may well be of curled endive, but the second should certainly be of the Batavian or broad-leaved kind; this is hardier, and stands winter cold and damp better.

In September, say about the 7th, the frame should be filled with broad-leaved endive. The lights should be kept off as long as frosts will allow, and the plants kept perfectly hardy. When the lights go on the plants should be kept almost dry, little or no water being given. The plants in the frame may easily be blanched by shaking clean straw or hay over that part of the frame that is to be blanched. With this treatment endive should certainly be in use at the turn of the year.

=Baked Endives.=--After trimming and washing some heads of endive put them in salted water, with a few drops of lemon juice. Drain them, pour a little white sauce into a buttered fireproof dish, then add the endives with a little vegetable stock; the white sauce should be sufficient to cover the endive. Then add grated Gruyère and Parmesan cheese, bake, and serve.

FENNEL (_Fœniculum officinale. Umbelliferæ_).

Usually propagated by division of old plants in March. Plants should stand in rows fifteen inches apart, the plants one foot in the row. Any good rich garden soil will suit fennel, which is a perennial and long-lived subject. The flowering heads should be removed as they appear. Gather the youngest and freshest leaves for use as required.

It is a most delightful vegetable, very little known in this country. It can be had at Italian greengrocers if not procurable elsewhere. It can be cooked in stock, like celery and chicory, and served with any rich sauce.

=Fennel Sauce.=--Pick the leaves from the stalks, wash them well, then put them into boiling water, and boil until tender about three-quarters of an hour, drain off the water, and chop them finely. Stir them into half a pint of boiling white sauce, and simmer for ten minutes slowly.

GOOD KING HENRY (_Chenopodium Bonus-Henricus. Chenopodiaceæ_).

This is a perennial plant of easy culture. Sow in a seed bed early in April, and as soon as large enough prick the seedlings out six inches apart. When well grown plant out in permanent bed fifteen inches apart. The leaves are used in the same way as spinach.

GOURDS (_Cucurbita. Cucurbitaceæ_).

Sow in hotbed early in April, and keep on growing in pots until the end of May, when the plants may be hardened off and planted out in sunny positions. It is well to take out a hole two feet square and fill it with a rich compost for the roots to run in. The fruit should be thinned if good examples are required, and the plants must have plenty of water. Gourds may be trained over trellis or arbour.

DISHES.

=Pumpkins with Cheese.=--Cut twelve young pumpkins about the size of a small egg into four pieces, and remove the seeds and pulp. Put them into a saucepan (earthenware for choice), add butter and salt, and cook over a hot fire, shaking from time to time. Place them in a dish and sprinkle with grated Parmesan cheese. Add a tablespoonful of stock to some tomato sauce. Pour it over the pumpkins, and serve hot.

=Fried Pumpkin.=--Dip pieces of squash into batter, and fry in deep fat, or mix two cupfuls of mashed, cooked squash with three well-beaten eggs, two tablespoonfuls of cream, one tablespoonful of melted butter, and flour enough to make a smooth batter. Fry by spoonfuls on a griddle or in a frying pan.

=Pumpkins and Eggs.=--Cut a small young pumpkin into rather thin slices, and fry in pure olive oil in a fireproof pan. Beat up two or three eggs, and pour them over the pumpkin. When the eggs are set serve in the pan.

=Italian Dish of Pumpkins.=--Cut twelve or more young pumpkins, about the size of an egg, into slices, removing the seeds and the pulp. Place them in an earthenware baking dish, and add some pure olive oil. Cook well over a brisk fire; add salt and pepper to taste, and some grated cheese, and serve hot.

=Pumpkin Croquettes.=--Mix one pint of mashed pumpkin or squash, half a cupful of bread-crumbs, one tablespoonful of butter, salt and pepper to season. Heat thoroughly, shape into croquettes, dip in egg and crumbs, and fry in deep fat.

=Pumpkin Cake.=--Boil, mash and cool two pumpkins, season with salt and pepper. Add two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, two cupfuls of milk, two eggs well beaten, and enough flour sifted, with one tablespoonful of baking powder, to make a smooth batter. Fry by spoonfuls on a small griddle, and serve hot with white sauce.

=Baked Squash or Pumpkins.=--Cut into two-inch pieces, remove the seeds and strings, put into a baking pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and bake, basting with molasses and melted butter. Keep covered during the first half hour. Serve in the shells, or cut in halves and bake, covered, for two hours, remove from the shell, mash, and season with salt and pepper.

=Pumpkin Custard.=--Boil and mash a squash, season with salt, pepper and butter, and add two beaten eggs with half a cupful of milk. Mix thoroughly, put into a buttered baking dish, and bake in a moderate oven until puffed and brown; it must not boil, or the custard will crack and be watery.

=Escalloped Pumpkin.=--Cut crook-neck squashes into slices; peel and boil in salted water for fifteen minutes; drain and put into a buttered baking dish in layers, seasoning each layer with sugar, grated nutmeg, and bits of butter. Pour over half a cupful water and bake for one hour. Serve in a baking dish.

=Baked Pumpkins.=--Peel, boil and mash, two small squashes. Cool, add two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, two eggs well beaten, half a cupful of cream or milk, salt and pepper to season. Turn into a buttered baking dish, sprinkle with crumbs, dot with butter, and bake for half an hour. Three squashes may be used, if a cupful of milk is added.

=Stuffed Pumpkins.=--Simmer two small summer squashes for ten minutes in boiling water to cover. Cut in halves, scrape out the pulp, remove the seeds, and press dry. Chop an onion finely, and add two cupfuls of shelled shrimps; fry in lard, with a chopped tomato, a bit of bay leaf and thyme, parsley and garlic to season. Add a cupful of crumbs, the squash-pulp, salt and pepper to season, and one egg well beaten. Mix to a smooth paste, fill the shells, cover with buttered crumbs, and bake until brown. Lobster may be used instead of the shrimps.

HORSE-RADISH (_Cochlearia Armoracia._ Ord. _Cruciferæ_).

Once in the ground, there is no doubt about having this relish to the roast beef of old England. Indeed horse-radish is so much of a weed that, as with Jerusalem artichokes, it had better be grown in some otherwise waste corner of the garden where it will not interfere with other crops.

Slips of the roots should be planted in February or March in rows twenty inches apart, the plants eighteen inches in the row. The ground should be deeply dug and well manured. The plants will stand through two seasons without deterioration.

DISHES.

=Scraped Horse-Radish.=--Wash and scrape the root as you would a carrot, then with a sharp knife cut thin curling strips lengthwise from the thick end down to the point of the root. These are used as a decoration and adjunct of roast beef, served in heaps round the dish.

=Horse-Radish Sauce.=--Wash and scrape the horse-radish, then grate as much as is required, standing in a strong draught if possible that the pungent aroma may be drawn away, or the tears will flow freely. To two tablespoonfuls of grated horse-radish add an equal quantity of cream, a little pepper and salt, a teaspoonful of sugar, and one tablespoonful of vinegar, added slowly, lest it curdle.

If required with hot beef, the sauce may be made hot in a double saucepan, or in a bain-marie, but it must not boil.

KALE (see under Cabbage).

KOHL-RABI (_Brassica Caulo-rapa. Cruciferæ_).

This may either be sown where it is to stand, in rows fifteen inches apart, or better, in a seed bed in April and transplanted in May or June to its final home. Besides providing a turnip-like swelling of the stem, the greens treated in late winter, like turnip tops, are quite delicious.

Kohl-rabi is prepared and cooked in the same way as turnips and carrots, and the recipes given for these may be adapted for the cooking of this vegetable.

DISHES.

=Italian Dish.=--Take four kohl-rabis, one head of white cabbage, one head of kale, and some beetroot leaves, cutting away the stalks and the ribs. Cut the kohl-rabi into small pieces, and tear the leaves into bits. Wash well and put them into a saucepanful of water, with a little minced parsley, and salt to taste. Boil for one hour, then pour away nearly all the water, leaving just enough to cover the vegetables. Add one pint of milk--cream is of course better--and boil for fifteen minutes. Meanwhile pound twenty leaves of basil and one clove of garlic in a mortar; mix with two ounces of grated cheese and three or four tablespoonfuls of pure olive oil. Put one half of this into the soup when it has boiled for fifteen minutes, and the rest just before serving.

=Cream Kohl-Rabi.=--Peel a kohl-rabi; slice and soak in cold water for half an hour. Drain, cover with cold water, and cook until tender. Drain, and pour over sauce to which has been added the well-beaten yolk of an egg.

=Kohl-Rabi à l’Espagnol.=--Trim and quarter a small kohl-rabi, and cook until tender in salted water to cover, adding a little butter. Drain, and reheat in a well-buttered espagnol sauce.

=Stewed Kohl-Rabi.=--(1) Put the tops in cold water. Peel and quarter the roots. Cover with cold salted water and boil until tender. Chop the greens fine, fry in butter, and add the roots cut into dice. Season with salt and pepper, add a cupful of stock, and thicken with flour which has been browned in butter.

(2) Wash, peel, and cut into dice a quart of kohl-rabis, and cook in salted water until tender. Cook the tops in another pan of boiling water until tender. Drain and chop very finely. Cook two tablespoonfuls of flour in butter, add one cupful of soup or stock, and the chopped greens. When smooth and thick, add the cooked dice, reheat and serve.

LEEK (_Allium Porrum. Liliaceæ_).

The leek is useful in almost any size; even the smallest go well in soup; but to be enjoyed it should be well grown. A long growing season is indispensable to make good roots, and it is also of great importance that the leeks should be kept growing through dry weather, or they may prove tough and indigestible.

Sow, then, leeks in a box in the hotbed early in March, or they may be sown out of doors in a shallow drill as early in spring as genial weather gives opportunity, even in February, but we prefer the hotbed as being more certain. The plants are somewhat slow in their growth, but as soon as they are a moderate size they must go into the cold frame for a few nights to harden off, and in April they should be pricked out in rows, the rows four inches apart, and the plants two inches in the rows.

In May, when the late peas are sown, it is a good practice to put the rows at least four feet apart, even for peas of moderate height as “Continuity,” and between these rows to prepare a strip of ground for the leeks. This is done by digging in an eighteen-inch strip a heavy dressing of really fat manure. Down this strip draw two deep furrows with the hoe, nine inches apart, and in these furrows dib out the leeks, as deeply as their first leaf, nine inches apart in the row. These furrows are an aid to watering, and in September, say the fourteenth, the earth can be hoed over, levelling and filling in the furrows, and thus blanching a few further inches of the leeks.

This is a crop that may remain in the ground all the winter and be dug as needed. In showery weather it is advantageous to give dressings of nitrate, or waterings of weak liquid manure during the growing season.

LEEK DISHES.

=To Boil Leeks.=--Prepare the leeks by cutting off the roots, the green ends, and the outer leaves, cut the stalks into six-inch lengths, put a tablespoonful of vinegar and one dessertspoonful of salt into a saucepan of boiling water, tie the leeks into bundles and boil them gently till they are perfectly tender--three-quarters of an hour or longer if they are very large--drain them well, and serve on toast with white sauce poured over them.

=Leeks with Parmesan Cheese.=--Take fifteen leeks, cut them into two-inch lengths, and put them into cold water, boil them in boiling salted water, when cooked put them into cold water again, drain and dry them, fry in butter over a hot fire, add five tablespoonfuls of white or cream sauce, sprinkle with Parmesan cheese and the yolk of a hard-boiled egg. Mix well together, and put into a baking dish, brown them in the oven, and serve hot.

=Leek Omelette.=--Make a cheese omelette in the usual way, and when ready to roll, put in two leeks previously trimmed, and cut up and stewed in brown sauce.

LENTILS (_Ervum Lens. Leguminosæ_).

Though lentils are not grown in England I give a few dishes, as every grocer can supply them at a reasonable price.

=To Boil Lentils.=--Soak a breakfast-cupful of lentils overnight; pick out and throw away those that float, put into two quarts of boiling salted water, and simmer slowly for an hour and a half. Drain and serve on toast, putting a little butter on the top of the lentils. The water in which the lentils were boiled can be used as stock with the addition of onions, carrots, parsley, and celery.

=Baked Lentils with Nuts.=--Mix a cupful of boiled lentils with half a cupful of Brazil nuts chopped finely. Season with salt and grated onion.

Put into a buttered baking dish with half a cupful of water. Make a pastry of two cupfuls flour, and two tablespoonfuls of peanut butter. Moisten with ice water and roll out into a crust to cover the baking dish.

Cover and bake for one hour. Serve in the same dish with cream sauce, drawn butter or tomato sauce.

=Curried Lentils.=--(1) Chop finely three large onions, three green peppers, one clove of garlic. Brown half a pound of washed lentils in butter; add the chopped mixture and cold salted water to cover; boil until tender. Drain and add two sliced onions fried brown, two tablespoonfuls of butter, and one tablespoonful of curry powder. Serve with a border of boiled rice.