Chapter IV: Part 4

=Potted Lentil Savoury.=--Take a half pint of cooked lentils, three ounces of mashed potatoes, two ounces of bread-crumbs, one beaten egg, a little chopped parsley, a little onion juice, salt and pepper, and one ounce of butter.

Put all in a pan, and mix well together, with two ounces of grated cheese, stirring all the time. When cooked turn into a mortar, pound well, and put into potting dishes, covering the tops with melted butter. This makes excellent sandwiches with a little mustard spread on.

=Lentil Gruel.=--A useful and highly nutritious food for invalids is lentil gruel or broth.

To make the gruel, take a dessertspoonful of lentil flour, mix smooth with some cold milk, and add nearly one pint of milk which has been brought to the boil. Boil for fifteen minutes and flavour with a little cinnamon or vanilla. Serve with toast, and sugar to taste.

Lentil flour costs threepence a pound and is similar to Revalenta Arabica.

=Lentil Porridge.=--Put three ounces of lentil flour, a little salt and pepper, into half a pint of cold water, stir, and add another half pint of boiling water, put it on the fire, and boil for twenty minutes, stir in an ounce of butter before serving, some may like a little barley meal; it is better for invalids.

=Lentil Croquettes.=--Soak overnight three cupfuls of lentils; drain, and cook slowly for an hour in boiling water to cover, drain, press through a sieve, season with salt and pepper, add a spoonful of minced parsley, two spoonfuls of cream, a teaspoonful of onion juice, and a dash of grated nutmeg, cool, shape into croquettes, dip in egg and crumbs, and fry in deep fat; serve with tomato sauce.

=Lentil à l’Egyptien.=--Soak two cupfuls of lentils overnight, drain and cook until soft in boiling water to cover, boil an equal quantity of rice. Cook together a can of tomatoes, a chopped onion, a bay leaf, and a blade of mace, simmer slowly until it has the consistency of a thick sauce, drain the lentils, mix with the rice and one or two pounded cardamom seeds. Press the tomatoes through a sieve, add a heaped tablespoonful of butter, pour over the lentils, and serve.

=Lentil Omelette.=--Make an omelette in the usual way; put on a tablespoonful of cooked and drained lentils, which have been tossed in butter; fold the omelette over; serve with tomato sauce.

=An Italian Dish.=--Soak a pint of lentils in cold water for twelve hours, strain them, put them into hot water, bring to the boiling point quickly, then simmer slowly for an hour; after draining, cook them in boiling water till quite soft, pass them through a sieve, add two ounces of butter, a very little onion juice, salt and pepper, and stir the whole for a quarter of an hour over the fire, and add two tablespoonfuls of cream before serving.

=Lentil Toast.=--Thoroughly rinse five ounces of lentils, put into a small saucepan with enough water to well cover them, cook slowly till tender and the water is all absorbed--ten to twenty minutes--add butter, pepper, salt, spread the mixture thickly on hot buttered toast, and serve with mint sauce; suitable as a supper or breakfast dish.--_Mrs. C. W. Earle’s recipe._

=Lentil Soup.=--Put a quarter of a pound of brown German lentils to soak in cold water the day before they are wanted; boil them over a hot fire, being careful to cover them, and only put enough water to soak them, draw to one side and simmer slowly, keep adding a little water, removing from the surface any scum or skins, fry an onion until brown in butter, add a tablespoonful of flour, and pour into the lentil soup gradually, stirring well all the time; add hot water if necessary and salt and pepper to taste. Serve with crusts of fried bread.--_Mrs. C. W. Earle’s recipe._

LETTUCE (_Lactuca sativa._ Ord. _Compositæ_).

The first sowing should be made early in March, some such early cabbage variety as “Tom Thumb” or “Commodore Nutt” being selected. This sowing should be made in a box in the hotbed, and at the same time a sowing both of early and later sorts may go into the cold frame or warm border for succession. As soon as the seedlings are up the box must go into the cold frame to harden the plants off, and early in April they may be pricked out in a warm bed, six inches apart. Any surplus seedlings here or in the cold frame should go into the salad bowl. Indeed these lettuce thinnings are so useful, that it is almost worth while to grow them like mustard and cress for cutting when the leaves are but three inches long.

Towards the middle of March sowings may be made out of doors of both cos and cabbage varieties. These sowings should be repeated about every three weeks through the spring and summer. As the plants come on they should be pricked out a foot apart in between other crops and in any odd corner. If lettuces be put out about May 14 between the third and fourth sowing of peas, it is a good way of ensuring succession to put out a main crop lettuce a foot apart and dib in the intervals a “Tom Thumb.” The latter will come to maturity and be off the ground well out of the way of the larger sort.

In hot, dry soils we find that the cos lettuce is very apt to run to seed without forming heart. On this account some such sort of cabbage lettuce as “Standwell” is preferred for these soils. In a good garden soil the White Paris cos cannot be beaten for general use.

About mid-July it is well to sow a row of cabbage lettuce on the ridge between celery trenches. This sowing should be made very thinly indeed. When the plants are nicely up they may be thinned to nine inches, and the thinnings transplanted if there be room for them. It will be found that the plants grown from first to last in the same place will stand summer heat better than those that are transplanted, and will also come in before them.

Early in August a last outdoor sowing of “Tom Thumb” should give plants that will, some of them, provide outdoor salad in October, and some, put into a cold frame, will last well into November or even to Christmas.

Lettuces require an open, rich soil and plenty of moisture to grow them in perfection. A slight dressing of nitrate in showery weather, as soon as they are well established from planting out, will push them forward rapidly, and is specially important for autumn lettuces. During dry weather water must be freely given; in order to facilitate the application of water it is well to prick out the later plants into shallow trenches or drills.

DISHES.

Lettuce forms the foundation of most salads.

=Cream of Lettuce Soup.=--Separate four heads of lettuce, wash thoroughly, and place in boiling salted water. Boil, and cover for ten minutes. Drain, and throw into a dish of cold water; allow them to remain for a few minutes, then drain. Chop finely, then rub through a sieve. Have ready one quart of hot milk. Rub one tablespoonful of butter and flour to a paste; add to the hot milk, and stir until it is thickened; mix a half spoonful of this with the lettuce pulp; stir until well blended, then add to the soup. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Let it simmer for about five minutes, and serve with toast cut in dice.

=An Italian Dish.=--Cut off the roots, and wash clean, five or six lettuce heads. Put them into boiling salted water for five minutes. Take out, and fill the inside with meat of walnuts. Tie the tops together and put them in a saucepan. Add one quarter pint of Marsala wine, and some good vegetable broth; salt and pepper to taste. Cover the dish with buttered paper, and cook in the oven for fifteen minutes. Place the lettuces on a hot dish, having untied them, pour the sauce over and serve hot.

MAIZE or INDIAN CORN (_Zea Mays. Gramineæ_).

Though this may be sown in the open in May, it is better practice to raise it in pots in the hotbed, sowing in April. The plants should be gradually hardened off and put out about the end of May or beginning of June in rows thirty inches apart. The plants eighteen inches in the row.

DISHES.

=Corn Omelette.=--Two eggs, a tin of sweet corn, pepper and salt, one ounce of butter. Beat the yolks of two eggs, add pepper and salt, and two tablespoonfuls of sweet corn. Beat the whites into a very stiff froth, and add to the yolks, and stir together. Put one ounce of butter in the omelette pan; when very hot put in the omelette. Stir round a few times until it begins to set. When brown at the bottom place under a grill or in front of a clear fire to brown the top. Sprinkle over some parsley which has been chopped; fold over in half, and serve quickly.

=Corn Wafers.=--Sift one pint of flour with a heaped teaspoonful of baking powder. Add one teaspoonful of salt, two well-beaten eggs, and one large cupful of milk. Beat the batter very lightly, then stir in one can of corn, and bake in waffle irons. Serve hot.

=Boiled Corn Bread.=--Mix together two cupfuls of corn meal, a cup of flour, two cups of sour milk, one cup of warm water, a tablespoonful of lard or butter, a tablespoonful of molasses, a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda, and one of salt. Dissolve the soda in warm water, and add it to the milk. Beat all together and turn into a well-greased brown bread mould, with a tightly fitting top. Set this in a pan of boiling water and cook steadily for two hours, filling up the pan from the kettle as the water boils away. At the end of the time, take the mould from the water, turn out the bread, dip the tin for a moment in cold water if the bread is inclined to stick, and put in the oven for five minutes, so that the surface may be dry and a little crisp.

=Raised Corn Bread.=--Heat one pint of milk almost to boiling, and pour it on one and a half cupfuls of green meal. Let it stand until cool, then stir in half a yeast cake dissolved in half a cupful of warm water, with a tablespoonful of sugar, and half a cup of white flour. Let this rise overnight in a corner which is not too warm, for five or six hours in a kitchen of an ordinary temperature. It should rise to double its first size. Then stir, add one teaspoonful of salt and two beaten eggs, beat hard; turn into muffin tins, and set in a warm place to rise for fifteen minutes before baking. It will require about twenty minutes in a steady oven. To be eaten hot.

=Corn Cakes.=--Melt two tablespoonfuls of butter, and put with it three well-beaten eggs, beat lightly, add to this a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda dissolved in a tablespoonful of boiling water, and stirred in two cupfuls of sour milk. Sift two cups of corn meal with a teaspoonful of salt, and mix with the liquid ingredients. Beat all together and put into a shallow tin; bake in a steady oven. This should be a thin sheet when done, and rather crisp.

=Plain Corn Muffins.=--Two cupfuls of white corn meal, one cup of white flour, two cupfuls of milk, three eggs, a tablespoonful each of melted butter and white sugar, a small teaspoonful of salt, two teaspoonfuls of baking powder.

Cream together the butter and sugar; mix in the eggs, milk, flour, meal, baking powder, and salt sifted with the meal and flour, and bake in muffin tins. This can also be baked in a loaf if preferred, as can also sweet corn muffins.

=Boiled Corn.=--Remove all the husks, except the inner layer. Strip the inner layer back far enough to remove the silk; then replace, and tie at the upper end. Boil steadily for fifteen or twenty minutes in boiling water to cover, or in equal parts of milk and water. Drain, remove the strings, and serve immediately in the husks.

=Escalloped Corn.=--Rub a can of corn through a sieve. Season it with salt, pepper, and sugar. Twelve tablespoonfuls of flour, blended with three tablespoonfuls of cream, and half a cupful of the liquid drained from the corn.

Put into a buttered baking dish; cover with crumbs, dot with butter, and bake for twenty minutes.

=Broiled Corn.=--Split the cobs, brush with melted butter and broil carefully, seasoning with salt and pepper, and serve.

=Baked Corn.=--Fill a baking dish with husked ears, pour over one pint of milk, sprinkle lightly with sugar; add water to cover, and bake for forty-five minutes.

=Baked Canned Corn.=--Put a can of corn into a buttered baking dish, season with salt and pepper. Add one cupful of boiling milk, or half a cupful of cream, and dot with two tablespoonfuls of butter broken into small bits. Cook for forty-five minutes in a hot oven, and serve in the same dish.

=Cream Corn.=--Remove the husks, and score each row of kernels deeply with a sharp knife. Press out the pulp with the back of a knife. Cook for twenty minutes in a double boiler. Season with salt and pepper, add butter and cream, or use cooked corn mashed. A little sugar may be added to the seasoning.

=Escalloped Corn.=--Butter a baking dish, and put in a layer of cracker-crumbs, then a layer of canned corn. Season with salt and bits of butter. Cover with sweet corn, and repeat until the dish is full, having crumbs on the top. Pour in enough milk to fill the dish, and bake for forty-five minutes.

=Corn Soufflé.=--Score each row of kernels deeply and press out the pulp with the back of a knife, using enough corn to make one cupful of pulp. Add one cupful of cream or hot milk, one tablespoonful of butter, pepper and salt to season, and three yolks of eggs well beaten. Cook in a double boiler until smooth and creamy. Keep stirring constantly. Take from the fire, cool, fold in the stiffly beaten whites of four eggs, turn into a baking dish, and bake in a hot oven for twenty minutes.

=Succotash.=--Cut the corn from six cobs, string, and cut into short lengths two cupfuls of kidney beans; cook for half an hour in boiling salted water to cover. Drain off nearly all the boiling water, and add one cupful of milk. Simmer for twenty minutes, stirring frequently. Season with pepper and salt. Add one tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour, and cook for ten minutes longer.

=Creole Corn Chowder.=--Slice three onions, and fry brown in butter. Add three peeled sliced tomatoes, three green peppers, seeded and chopped, and the corn cut from seven cobs. Cook for an hour, adding water as needed. Season with salt, sugar, and black pepper.

=Corn Omelette.=--Grate the corn from four ears, and cook in a boiler till tender, moistening as little as possible. Beat four eggs thoroughly, add three tablespoonfuls of cream, and bake in an omelette pan. When ready to fold, add the seasoned corn and turn out on a hot dish.

MARIGOLD (_Calendula officinalis. Compositæ_).

Sow in drills fifteen inches apart, early in April. Thin the plants out to a foot distant. The flowers of the pot marigold are gathered and dried and used as flavouring for soups, &c.

MARJORAM (_Origanum Vulgare. Labiatæ_).

A perennial plant of easy culture. Sow almost anywhere during spring or summer, as an edging to a garden path. The leaves are used for flavouring various dishes.

MINT (_Mentha viridis. Labiatæ_).

Mint prefers cool, deep soil, and does not object to partial shade. It revels in moisture. The old stems should be cut down every autumn and a mulch of old hotbed laid on will improve the quality of the next season’s growth. It may be raised from seed sown in April, but is better propagated by division of old roots at the end of March.

DISHES.

=Mint Jelly.=--This can be made with the young, fresh leaves. Soak one ounce of gelatine in a pint of salted water until soft, when the water is discarded. Add one and a half cupfuls of granulated sugar. Crush one pint of green mint, and pour one quart of boiling water over it. Let it stand whilst you are doing the other things, then strain through a jelly-bag, and bring to the boil. Pour over the gelatine and sugar, and stir for a minute. Turn into jelly glasses, and when firm keep in a cold place. If sealed, these will keep some time, or they may be served as soon as cold.

=Mint Sandwiches.=--Put into a basin a tablespoonful of fresh mint leaves cut fine, and pour over them a tablespoonful of hot water, and let it infuse for ten minutes. Strain, add two cupfuls of heavy whipped cream, salt and pepper to season, and one tablespoonful of gelatine, softened in a little cold water; dissolve over hot water. Turn into a square mould to cool. Cut in slices, and place between thin slices of brown bread.

=Mint Sherbet.=--Pour two cupfuls of boiling water over a bunch of bruised, fresh spearmint leaves. Cover, and let it stand on the back of the stove to infuse, then add one cupful of sugar. When the sugar is dissolved, strain, cool, add two-thirds of a cupful of grape juice, and one quarter of a cupful of lemon juice. Freeze to a much-liked consistency. Serve in sherbet glasses; ornament the top of each glass with crystallised jelly and a sprig of mint.

=Mint Sauce.=--Chop finely some mint--two or three tablespoonfuls; add to this an equal quantity of brown sugar; let it stand two hours, and just before using pour some brown vinegar over it, and dilute with a little cold water. This method will not affect people who suffer from indigestion.

MUSHROOM (_Agaricus Campestris. Fungi_).

For the growth of mushrooms it is almost indispensable that some pit or house protected from frost be available, though it is possible to make up successful beds out of doors during summer and early autumn. But an even temperature is necessary, and that never below 50°. It is not unusual to grow mushrooms under the staging of hothouses.

Fresh horse manure in quantity is the first requisite of a mushroom bed. This should be as free from straw as possible, and should be stacked in a heap about three feet high, and be turned and restacked twice at weekly intervals, to take the fire out of it.

Mix the manure well with about one-fourth its bulk of earth, and make up the bed about eighteen inches deep, leaving all tidy and neat. The mixture should be homogeneous and well mingled, and the whole well trodden and compact. When the temperature is about 75° insert the spawn in pieces about 4 × 3 × 2 inches in size, a foot apart all over the bed, including the sides. The spawn should be put in by hand, two inches deep.

When the spawn has thoroughly permeated the bed the original pieces should be withdrawn, and all carefully made smooth again. An inch of soil should now be laid over the whole bed, and watered moderately with tepid water.

Watering in moderation must be attended to, and when the mushrooms appear they should be gathered, stem and all, as it is important not to leave the old stems rotting in the bed.

For an outdoor bed the same procedure is carried out, and the bed is protected by a six-inch layer of hay or straw. A sheltered position should be chosen--much the sort of spot where one usually places the garden frames. Indeed, it is by no means bad practice to make the bed in such a frame and cover the glass with mats.

DISHES.

=Mushroom Croquettes.=--Peel and trim half a pound of mushrooms, chop the stalks and trimmings fine and rinse them in water. Simmer the chopped trimmings for twenty minutes in milk to cover. Strain and reserve the liquor; add cream or milk to make two cupfuls in all; season with salt and pepper. Cut the caps into small pieces, and fry in butter. Add two chopped hard-boiled eggs and a tablespoonful of the sauce. Heat thoroughly, take from the fire, and add the yolks of two raw eggs; cool, and shape into croquettes. Dip in the whites of two eggs and crumbs, and fry in deep fat. Serve with the sauce.

=Stewed Mushrooms.=--Pound in a mortar a few bits of onion. Put in a saucepan with two ounces of butter and two tablespoonfuls of oil. Brown to a light colour, then add twelve mushrooms cut in slices. Stew slowly for one hour; add a little salt and pepper and a good teaspoonful of flour mixed smooth with water; boil for three minutes, and serve very hot.

=Mushroom Pie.=--Take half a pound of butter beans, a quarter of a pound of mushrooms, one pound of chestnuts, two onions, one hard-boiled egg, one teacupful of tapioca (soaked overnight), some short-crust pastry.

Fill a dish with alternate layers of the above ingredients; add seasoning to taste. The onions and mushrooms to be fried, the chestnuts boiled and peeled, the butter beans cooked the day before until quite soft, and the egg cut into slices. Cover with the pastry made as follows:

Half a pound of flour, half a pound of nut butter, mix with cold water. Brush over with beaten egg, and bake.

_Gravy with the Pie._--Melt one ounce of butter in a saucepan, stir in a tablespoonful of flour, and cook till a rich dark brown, stirring all the time. Add half a pint of vegetable stock, and bring to the boil. Before serving, add half a teaspoonful of marmite. Marmite is a pure vegetable extract, to be had from the Marmite Extract Company, 59 Eastcheap, London, E.C.

=Mushroom Patties.=--Dried or fresh mushrooms, light pastry, milk, seasoning, flour, and butter.

Put the mushrooms (if dried, they must be soaked overnight) with two ounces of butter into a saucepan; simmer slowly till they shrink and give out their juice; stir in an ounce of flour, add a cup of milk, stir gently for five minutes, let it remain for half an hour, and season with pepper and salt. Line patty-pans with pastry, fill with the mushroom mixture, and bake.

=Mushrooms à la Provençale.=--Slice off that part of the tomato that adheres to the stalk; scoop out the seeds without breaking the sides of the fruit, and place them in a circular order in a sauté pan containing about a gill of salad oil; next chop up half a bottle of mushrooms, a little parsley, and four shallots; put these into a stewpan, season with pepper and salt, and add a little chopped thyme; fry these for about five minutes, then mix in three yolks of eggs; fill the tomatoes with this preparation; shake some light-coloured raspings of bread over them, and place them over a brisk fire, holding a red-hot salamander over them for about ten minutes, by which time they will be done; dish them up; pour some brown sauce round the base, and serve.

=Cream Mushrooms.=--Peel one pound of fresh mushrooms, cut off the stalks. Beat up two ounces of butter in a sauté pan or a stewpan; put in the mushrooms, season with salt and pepper, and cook over a moderate fire for ten minutes, then add half a pint of cream or milk and cream. Bake for about five minutes, and thicken with one ounce of butter kneaded with half an ounce of flour. Dish up, and serve hot.

=Mushroom Omelette.=--Take three large mushrooms chopped finely, fry lightly in three ounces of butter. Add three eggs, well beaten, yolks and whites separately, and two tablespoonfuls of milk; season with pepper and salt. Pour into the pan, and fry in hot butter. Fry well both sides.

=Stuffed Mushrooms.=--Wash and chop finely the trimmings and stalks of sixteen large fresh mushrooms, fry the trimmings in oil, and add half a cupful of tomato sauce, with salt and red pepper to season. Add equal parts of fresh bread-crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese until a smooth, thick paste is formed. Season with minced parsley. Fill the mushroom caps, and arrange on a baking dish. Sprinkle with crumbs and grated cheese, moisten with olive oil, and bake for fifteen minutes. Sprinkle with lemon juice and serve.

=Mushroom Rolls.=--Scoop out the crumb from small dinner rolls, cut in half, and fill the cavity with mushroom mixture as follows:

Clean a quarter of a pound of button mushrooms, cut them small, stew them in a small stewpan with one ounce of butter; season with pepper and salt, and when the mushrooms are tender, stir in one ounce of flour mixed to a smooth paste with a gill of cream or milk. Bring the mixture to the boil for a minute or two, and use it just before it is cold.

=Curried Mushrooms.=--Fry a small chopped onion in butter, with a teaspoonful each of flour and curry powder, add a cupful of stock, and cook until thick, stirring constantly. Take from the fire, season with salt and pepper and lemon juice, and strain over fried mushrooms arranged on a buttered dish.

=Broiled Mushrooms.=--(1) Peel some large mushrooms. Broil on a buttered gridiron, inside up. Season and serve on buttered toast. Melted butter, mixed with minced parsley and chives, and seasoned with salt and pepper, may be served separately if desired, or melted butter and lemon juice.

(2) Fry separately in melted butter large fresh mushrooms whole, and fresh mushrooms chopped. Add cream or milk to the minced mushrooms, using enough to cover, and simmer for ten minutes. Spread the minced mixture on buttered toast, and lay a large broiled mushroom on each piece. Season with salt and pepper, and if desired, a little grated nutmeg or lemon juice.

=Baked Mushrooms.=--Peel a dozen large mushrooms, put into a buttered dripping-pan, inside up, sprinkle with salt and pepper, dot with butter, and pour over two-thirds of a cupful of cream. Bake for ten minutes in a hot oven and serve on toast, with some gravy poured over. The cream may be omitted and two tablespoonfuls of butter used instead.

=Scalloped Mushroom.=--Mince some mushrooms rather finely, peel and chop a shallot, melt an ounce of butter and fry it; then add half a gill of tomato sauce, two tablespoonfuls of cream, some bread-crumbs and chopped parsley, and a tablespoonful of sherry, with seasoning to taste. Butter some shells, when the mixture is thoroughly hot pour it into the shells, cover with bread-crumbs and sprinkle with chopped parsley; divide about an ounce and a half of butter into little bits, and put them on to the tops of the filled shells; bake in a very hot oven, so as to brown the surface; dish up in the shells.--_Mrs. B. C. Stephenson’s recipe._

MUSTARD (_Sinapis alba._ Ord. _Cruciferæ_).

Exactly the same treatment is required for this as for cress. Mustard germinates more quickly than the latter, therefore sow it three days after the accompanying cress.

ONION (_Allium cepa._ Ord. _Liliaceæ_).

There is no vegetable, except the potato, more continually in demand in the kitchen than this admirable bulb. It is indispensable in soups, stews, sauces, salads, stuffing, while in its native simplicity, braised, boiled, or fried, it delights many a heart on a cold winter’s day.

The ground that is to carry onions must be deeply trenched and richly manured. This should be done as early in the winter as possible, as the onion must be sown early in the year, and the ground is all the better for being mellowed by frost. A moderate dressing of kainit may be dug into the top spit at the same time that the good stuff from the stable goes into the bottom of the trench.

The ground should be levelled down and a dressing of soot sprinkled over the surface and raked in, and in February or March, as early, indeed, as the season permits, the seed must go in. Choose a dry day when the soil is almost dusty, tread the ground firm, and draw shallow drills across it, a foot apart. The seed must be sown very thinly and evenly, and the drills covered over by means of the rake. This being done the gardener should perform a sort of step dance over the entire bed, treading the ground as firm as possible; indeed, some pass the garden roller over it, but this is an unsafe practice, as if the ground be the least bit damp, earth will stick to the roller, and with it the precious seeds. The bed should be lightly finished with the rake, and left as tidy and smooth as a billiard table.

With the growth of the onions will come an innumerable crop of weeds. In theory these should be hand-weeded, but there is no objection to using the Dutch hoe, once. The hoe must be carefully used, and must not drive deeply into the soil, for the onions must not be loosened. All subsequent weeding must be done by hand.

As soon as the onions are well up, a sprinkling of soot should be administered every two or three weeks. This not only serves as an invaluable manure, but helps to keep the onion grub at bay. One cannot blame the grub for being fond of onions, but one does not desire his presence, as he may easily ruin the entire crop. In showery weather occasional slight top-dressings of nitrate may be given with advantage, say about once a month.

The onions will need to be thinned in May and again during June, and very useful these thinnings are in the salad bowl. The second thinning need not be done all at once, but the bed may be systematically used from as onions are required; be this as it may, by the first week in July there should be a good four inches between each bulb.

About the beginning of September knock the stems down with a rake handle, to induce the bulbs to ripen off, and harvest them in a perfectly dry condition a fortnight later. They should lie on the tool-shed floor, spread out to thoroughly dry off, for a couple of days before being bunched and stored.

There are many good sorts of onions; for the spring sowing a sound, good-keeping bulb is required; Rousham Park Hero, Ailsa Craig, or James’s Long-keeping are all good sorts, but on the whole we prefer the first for the small garden; it yields a sound bulb of good size and quality.

At the same time as the main crop is sown in early spring, a small breadth of the onion bed may usefully be devoted to pickling onions. For this purpose choose such a variety as Silverskin. The seed must be sown thickly and broadcast; the little bulbs should stand cheek by jowl. Hand-weeding alone should be their portion, and they will be ready to harvest in July.

In order to obtain early bulbs of large size, a sowing of a special variety of onion may be made in the open early in August. For this purpose the Tripoli onion or its like is preferred. There is none better than the Trebons onion; it is a most excellent, mild-flavoured bulb, and will keep far into the winter.

The bed chosen for this sowing should be open, dry, and exposed to air and sun. The plants will stand in it through an ordinary English winter, and in early March they should be planted with the trowel in the onion bed, in rows a foot apart, and six inches between each plant. Nitrate and soot should be their portion as for the spring-sown onions, and in July they will give a fine harvest.

If the autumn-sown onions are a failure, as sometimes happens, it is worth the gardener’s while to sow a box of seed of Trebons or of a main crop variety in the hotbed in March, or earlier if possible. These plants will be put out in April, as advised above, and should give an abundant reward to the careful gardener.

ONION DISHES.

=Boiled Onions.=--Peel as many onions as are required, standing while doing them in a draught of air, or close to the fire, so that the acrid smell may get away. The large Spanish onions are generally used for boiling, as their flavour is milder than that of the English onion. Boil in salted water for two hours or less. Serve on a drainer, with a little fresh butter put on, at the last minute, or cover with white sauce.

=Baked Onions.=--Proceed as for boiled onions, but boil for one hour, and then put them whole into a buttered baking dish, and bake for an hour, basting them occasionally with a little butter. They may have a brown sauce poured over when served.

=Piccalilli= (_American Dish_).--One peck of green tomatoes, one cupful of salt, six onions, four green peppers, allspice, clove, mustard seed, and vinegar. Wipe the fruit clean, cut into small pieces, sprinkle over them a cupful of salt, and let them stand overnight. In the morning drain off the liquor, add six onions, four green peppers sliced thin, one ounce each of allspice, cloves, and white mustard seed. Tie the spices in a muslin bag, cover with vinegar; cook slowly in an Agate kettle for an hour or more until very tender. The mixture should be sealed in glass jars.

=Stuffed Onions.=--Peel five white onions, boil them in salted water for one hour, changing the water once. Drain and scoop out the centre and fill with bread-crumbs, seasoned with salt, pepper, grated cheese, and ketchup. Mash a little of the onion with the stuffing, and moisten with cream or milk. Wrap the onions in buttered paper, twist the ends; put into a buttered pan and bake for an hour. Remove the paper, pour over melted butter, and serve.

=Onions and Cheese.=--Peel four large onions, cut into half-inch slices and put them into a large flat buttered baking dish in one layer. Season with pepper and salt, cover the dish, and bake until tender, then sprinkle thickly with grated cheese, and return to the oven until the cheese is dissolved. Take up carefully, and serve with mustard.

=German Onion Pie.=--Slice six onions, and fry until soft in a little butter or nutter. Add half a cupful of milk or cream, and thicken with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed smooth in a little cold milk. Take from the fire, and add the yolk of an egg well beaten. Line a small deep baking dish with good pastry, fill with the onion mixture, and bake brown. Serve in the same dish.

=Onion Custard.=--Cook six or eight onions until tender in boiling salted water, changing the water once. Drain and arrange them in a baking dish. Thicken a pint of hot milk with a tablespoonful of cornflour rubbed into two teaspoonfuls of butter, and gradually pour the sauce on two eggs well beaten. Season with salt and pepper; pour over the onions, and bake until the custard is set.

=Onions with Eggs.=--Peel and slice the onions, and fry until tender in butter, season with salt and pepper. Drain thoroughly, and put on a draining dish. Squeeze over the juice of a lemon, and serve with poached eggs arranged round.

=Onion Soufflé.=--Peel six or eight onions and boil until tender, changing the water once. Chop finely with a sprig of parsley, add salt and cayenne pepper to season, and a tablespoonful each of butter and cream, and add one cupful of very thick cream sauce, the yolk of one egg well beaten, and enough soft bread-crumbs to make a smooth thick paste. Fold in the stiffly beaten whites of two or three eggs, and bake in a buttered soufflé dish. Serve with tomato or cream sauce.

=Escalloped Onions.=--Put a layer of thinly sliced onions in a buttered baking dish; salt, pepper, and butter to season. Cover with crumbs, and repeat until the dish is full, having crumbs on the top. Moisten with milk, and bake until brown, an hour or more.

=Stuffed Onions.=--Take the centres out of some large onions which have been boiled for an hour, peel off the outside of the onions, make a stuffing of grated bread, melted butter, a tablespoonful of cream, salt and pepper, make it into a paste, and fill the onions with it. Place in a baking dish, and cover them with melted butter and grated bread, and bake in an oven.

=To Fry Onions.=--Peel, and cut them up, dip them in flour and fry them for eight or ten minutes in very hot fat, strain them, and serve dry, with fried parsley.

=Onion Soup.= _See_ Soups.

=Frittelle= (_a Palermo Recipe_).--Cut into small slices six onions, fry them lightly in oil, and when they are a golden brown add to them ten artichokes well cleaned, and cut into little pieces; add two pounds of green peas and four pounds of beans which have been previously cooked. Add salt and fry lightly, adding to them two tablespoonfuls of oil. When the vegetables are cooked, sugar them, and add some vinegar to make a savoury, bitter-sweet mixture. Serve in a covered dish.

PARSLEY (_Apium Petroselinum. Umbelliferæ_).

Parsley once acquired a bad name, from the misuse of a wild Sardinian kind. The Sardinians believed that they had absolutely no poisonous native plant, but this proved the exception to the rule, and the trusting natives who ate it died in such horrible fashion that the phrase “sardonic grin” arose from the contortions its effects produced upon their faces.

Seed of our ordinary variety, however, may be sown at any time in spring or summer, but for summer use it is generally sown in March. Good garden soil will grow parsley. As the seed is slow and rather uncertain in germinating, it may be sown rather thicker than is usual for some seeds. As soon as the plants are in their second leaf single them in the row, a fortnight later thin out to nine inches apart. Parsley is generally used as an edging to the kitchen garden.

A June sowing in a sheltered bed will provide plants for the winter, and the gardener must be prepared to give some protection of mats during severe weather if he wishes to always satisfy the cook. An August sowing will provide plants which in well-drained soil will usually stand the winter and carry the gardener well through the spring.

Dried parsley intended for winter use should be gathered before it loses its tender shade of green. It is first blanched in boiling water for one minute, then put into the oven, which must not be too hot, and when dry rubbed through a sieve and stored in bottles for use.

=Fried Parsley.=--Wash some sprigs of fresh parsley in cold water, then dry them carefully; put the parsley into a wire basket, and fry in butter, oil, or lard for about a minute, when it ought to be crisp.

=Chopped Parsley.=--This is used to decorate new potatoes. Parsley is also used to flavour soups and sauces, and in sprigs to decorate savoury dishes.

=Dried Parsley.=--Gather the parsley, and spread out to dry in front of the fire or in the oven if not too hot. When dry the leaves should be reduced to a fine powder by rubbing through a hair sieve. Store in well-corked bottles or air-tight tins.

As parsley has a strong flavour, if used too freely it will spoil a soup or stuffing. It should be remembered that in use, dried parsley swells to twice its bulk.

PARSNIP (_Pastinaca sativa. Umbelliferæ_).

To grow this useful root is a simple matter. Poorish, or partially exhausted, soil is no drawback, as there should be no recent manure in the top spit. But the ground should be deeply trenched and a slight dressing of manure buried deeply. The seed must be sown very thinly in March, in drills a foot apart. As soon as the plants are well in their second leaf they should be singled, and a fortnight later thinned to six inches distance. A smallish root of good quality is “the Student” parsnip, suited in every way for the small garden. The crop will be ready for use in September, but it may remain in the ground and be dug throughout the winter as required.

PARSNIP DISHES.

=To Boil Parsnips.=--Wash and scrape the roots, put them in salted, boiling water to cover, and boil steadily for an hour to an hour and a half, or even longer if they are very large. They may be served plain, or covered with good white sauce. If very large, cut them in two or four lengthwise before boiling.

=Parsnips Sauté.=--Boil and mash six or seven parsnips, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and stir in one tablespoonful of flour and one egg. Make them into round, small cakes, and fry in dripping or nutter, turning occasionally until brown on both sides.

=Baked Parsnips.=--Boil until tender, peel, split, and put into a baking pan, flat side down; sprinkle with sugar and bake until brown, basting with melted butter and syrup.

=Buttered Parsnips.=--Scrape off the skins and boil the parsnips until tender, and cut lengthwise in thin slices. Put into a saucepan, with three or four tablespoonfuls of butter, pepper and salt and minced parsley to season. Shake over the fire until the mixture boils, and serve with white sauce poured over. A little cream may be added to the sauce. Sprinkle the parsnips with minced parsley before serving.

=Parsnip Balls.=--Boil six large parsnips, cool, peel and grate; add two eggs well beaten, and enough flour to bind the mixture together; season to taste. Mould into small flat cakes and sauté in butter, or shape into balls, first rubbing the hands with flour, and fry in a deep fat.

=Parsnip Cakes.=--Peel and cut up three or four parsnips; cook until soft in salted water; drain, chop finely, rub through a sieve. Season with salt and pepper, and add the yolks of three eggs well beaten. Heat thoroughly, adding a little flour, and cook to a stiff paste. Cool, shape into small flat cakes, dip in egg and crumbs, and fry brown in fat to cover.

=Escalloped Parsnips.=--(1) Prepare three parsnips according to directions previously given, cutting the parsnips into dice. Put into a buttered baking dish in layers, sprinkling each layer with chopped onion. Cover with crumbs, dot with butter, and bake for half an hour.

(2) Mash enough boiled parsnips to make a pint, and add two tablespoonfuls each of butter and cream, one egg well beaten, and a pinch each of salt and pepper. Put into a buttered baking dish alternate layers of parsnip and crumbs, having crumbs on the top. Melt one tablespoonful of butter in a quarter of a cupful of milk. Season with salt and pepper, and pour over the parsnips. Bake until brown, and serve in a baking dish. The layers of crumbs and the milk may be omitted if liked.

=Fried Parsnips.=--(1) Peel the parsnips, and boil until tender in salted water. Drain, and cut into half-inch slices lengthwise, or small strips. Season with salt, and cool. Dip in hot molasses, and fry in butter until brown, or dip in egg and crumbs and fry. Sprinkle with brown sugar, and put into the oven for ten minutes.

(2) Boil parsnips, peel and cut into strips; sauté in butter, and season with pepper, salt, and minced parsley and serve, or dip the strips in a batter, made of half a cupful of flour, two eggs, one tablespoonful of olive oil, salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg to season, and enough milk to make the batter of the proper consistency. Fry in deep fat.

GARDEN PEA (_Pisum sativum._ Ord. _Leguminosæ_).

As known to the gardener there are two main divisions of the green pea, the round-seeded and the wrinkled, the field pea and the marrow-fat. The first is hardier and earlier, may be sown in November, and with luck and a good situation may be gathered at the end of May. But the produce is distinctly second rate, and the small garden has room for the best alone.

The wrinkled or marrow-fat pea, while not quite so hardy as its humbler sister, is of a flavour that places it quite apart, and with equal soil and chances it will probably be not more than ten days later than the round-seeded variety.

The soil whatever its nature must be richly treated, and well dug. In a light soil deep trenching and well-matured manure at the bottom of the trench will enable the roots to go well down, and give them welcome moisture and coolness in the heats of summer. It is this mechanical effect of manure that gardeners with rich, deep loam to deal with forget, when they recommend peas to be grown by use of artificial manures alone. If lime be wanting in the soil a dressing should be occasionally dug in, not as a yearly practice, as lime stays a long while about, but say once every three years. Basic slag and kainit are the chemical manures generally recommended for incorporating with the earth at the time of trenching, though we think that good garden soil can dispense with their frequent use. Certainly a slight sprinkling of nitrate when the plants first appear is invaluable in starting them into vigorous growth, and a fortnight or three weeks later a sprinkling of superphosphate helps to produce a first-rate crop.

It is impossible to lay down any hard-and-fast rule for the times of sowing, soil, situation, climate, and season are all factors that decide the matter, and as the last is a varying one, no gardener can say that every year his first sowing of peas shall go in on a certain day, or even in a particular month.

In a sandy Surrey loam marrow-fat peas are generally sown with good results about mid-February, giving good dishes about the 10th of June. But there are seasons when it is impossible to hope for a sowing before March. One consolation the gardener has, the March sowing is not far behind the earlier; having more genial conditions from the very beginning, it grows right away, and will not be more than a week later than the earlier peas. Among the Yorkshire hills, where the subsoil is a cold clay, the gardener will not waste time and seed by sowing before the third week of March, and even then may prefer to begin with a hardy, round-seeded sort. These may be considered the extreme variations, and it must be a matter of yearly judgment when to begin sowing, and what variety to sow.

For hot soils the selection of sorts is more difficult than for rich, deep moisture-holding loams. The three varieties we have found best in Surrey, in a gravelly loam, are Sutton’s Little Marvel, Abundance, and Satisfaction. The Sherwood pea has also proved itself to be a most excellent second early variety, but it will be found even better where the soil is rather more retentive of moisture. In such a soil, it is a typical small garden pea, dwarf, an abundant cropper, and of excellent marrow-fat flavour. But when the gardener is not restricted to short varieties from reasons of space there are many splendid taller kinds, such as “Duke of Albany,” and best of all peas grown, “Ne plus ultra.”

The great object of the small gardener is to maintain a succession of peas over as long a period as possible, and for this purpose dwarf peas are to be preferred, as they take up much less room on the ground, and enable the gardener to make many sowings for succession in his restricted space. The gardener is recommended to make a careful study from year to year of the varieties best suited to his special conditions, always bearing in mind the influence of the different seasons on his experiments. Thus a rainy summer will give excellent results with a seed to which a dry summer would prove fatal.

As far as experience goes, of all our garden produce the pea varies in its constitution more than any other, except perhaps the potato. Therefore a gardener beginning the study of vegetables in fresh ground and new conditions is recommended to sow quite small quantities of many sorts of pea from different growers, and to keep a note-book; flavour, abundance, and liability to mildew being points to be considered, as well as comparative earliness or lateness of cropping.

The first sowing of peas, in mid-February, should be of an early dwarf variety, and made on a sunny, well-protected border; the peas should be rolled in paraffin and red-lead as a matter of routine, in order to protect them from birds and mice, and sown in drills three inches deep, the drills as wide apart as the height the peas will grow to, but never less than two feet distant. The drills should be about four inches wide, and the peas set in double rows down each drill one and a half to three inches between each seed, according to the variety. Two strands of black cotton should be stretched an inch or so above the rows of seed as a discouragement to the birds.

Gardeners habitually sow all seeds far too thickly, and peas especially so. The earliest sowings should be sown more thickly than the later, but two-thirds of a pint of seed should amply suffice for a row forty feet long. Soot occasionally dusted over the growing leaves as they push up will discourage the sparrows from utilising them as salad, and will also disappoint the slugs. If the garden holds many of the latter pests, soot should be thickly spread along each side of the rows.

Successive sowings are to be made; when the last sowing of seed shows above ground, it is time to put in the next. With the third sowing of earlies, a first sowing of second early peas should be made; the latter take a week longer to come into bearing, and so the succession is maintained. In hot soil it is not much use sowing after the second week in May, and for this late sowing the ground must be dug very deeply and an extra special dose of old manure buried. In favourable districts and soil, peas sown at the end of the month and well into June will give good results as late as September; a mildew-resisting variety should be chosen, and the rows spaced widely apart, to ensure full circulation of air round the plants.

Rows of peas should never be sown closer than the height they are expected to attain. Catch crops of lettuce, spinach, radish, and so forth may be grown between them, and even leeks may be put out between the taller and more widely spaced sorts with advantage. Pea sticks are an irritating little expense, and it will be found an economy to grow peas up wire netting stretched along the centre of the row. This will last many years, and soon repay the extra first cost. We are decidedly of opinion that all peas, dwarf as well as tall varieties, should have the support of sticks or wire netting, preferably the latter. Peas grown on such supports do not lie about on the ground, but gain all the sunshine and air available; they will fruit earlier and more abundantly than if left to flop about on damp earth. Wire-netting can be purchased in fifty-yard rolls; a roll of three feet width costs about seven shillings, and one of half that width, quite tall enough for dwarf peas, about three and sixpence.

PEA DISHES.

=To Boil Peas= (_Green Peas_).--The one way to cook an English marrow-fat pea in perfect condition is to boil it. Take one peck of peas, shell them, and without loss of time put them into a saucepan of boiling water with one tablespoonful of salt, a piece of soda no larger than a pea, and a sprig of mint, as soon as the water comes to the boiling point again, draw the pan back, so that the peas may not cook too fast or they will jump out of their jackets; this they will do if there is too much soda in the water.

Boil for twenty minutes to half an hour, pour into a hot colander, heap up on a drainer, put a piece of fresh butter on the top, cover the dish, and send them to table perfect. This is if the peas are grown in your own garden.

If the peas are bought, and probably field grown, put two lumps of sugar in the water--this will improve their flavour; they will also require boiling a little longer.

=Pease Pudding= (_Split Peas_).--Soak half a pint of split peas, wash, and sort them over. Dip a pudding-cloth in boiling water, flour it well, put in the peas, and tie up loosely, allowing room for them to swell, and boil for three hours. Serve with piquant sauce.