Chapter V: Part 5

=Green Pea Salad.=--Drain a small can of peas, or one pint fresh-boiled green peas; add a little pepper and salt, and one and a half cups of broken walnut meats, moisten with mayonnaise dressing, and serve on a bed of lettuce leaves.

=Mashed Split Peas.=--Soak a pint of split peas overnight, drain, cover with cold water, add a pinch of soda, and cook slowly for three hours or more. Strain and press the peas through a sieve, season with salt and pepper, moisten with boiling milk, and beat until smooth. Turn into a buttered baking dish and bake for one hour; serve in the same dish.

=Pea Chowder.=--Prepare according to the directions given for baked mashed peas. Add to the peas a can of corn, a cupful of milk, salt and pepper to season; cover, and cook slowly for thirty minutes, and then add a tablespoonful of butter, and serve.

=Purée of Green Peas.=--Shell four pounds of fresh green peas when they are getting old; put them in an earthenware pot, cover them with cold water, and boil for half an hour or longer with a sprig of mint. Take out one cupful of peas, rub the rest through a sieve, and mix in an earthen pot, with one quart of milk, four ounces of butter, and two tablespoonfuls of flour. Stir until the soup is thick. Add a pinch of salt and grated nutmeg, and lastly the whole peas, and serve hot.

=Peas en Croustâdes.=--Boil a quart of green peas with a sprig of mint until tender twenty minutes to half an hour. Make a sauce of one cupful of milk, one tablespoonful of butter, the yolks of three eggs, well beaten, salt and pepper to season. Mix with the peas and fill timbâle shells or croustâdes. These are made by cutting stale bread in blocks, hollowing out the centres, and toasting or frying the shells thus made. Half a cupful of boiled carrots cut into dice, fried in butter, and seasoned with a few drops of lemon juice may be added to the peas.

=Pea Cakes= (_Dried Peas_).--Boil three cupfuls of peas in salted water until tender, and put through a sieve, seasoning with salt, pepper, and butter. Make a batter of one cupful of milk, two beaten eggs, and half a cupful of flour sifted with half a teaspoonful of baking powder. Stir the pulp into the batter, mixing thoroughly, and fry by spoonfuls in deep fat.

=Curry of Green Peas and Potatoes.=--Two or more parboiled potatoes, cut into dice, a pint of boiled green peas, an onion chopped very finely, an apple peeled and chopped in small dice, a teaspoonful of curry powder, a tablespoonful of mixed pickles chopped, and a tablespoonful of chutney. Put two ounces of butter in a saucepan, add the chopped onion and curry powder, cook slowly, stirring frequently till the onion is quite tender; stir in a tablespoonful of flour, add a breakfast-cupful of vegetable stock, or water and milk in equal parts. Let all simmer together for five minutes, add the peas, potatoes, apples, pickles, and chutney, draw to one side, and simmer slowly for twenty minutes or longer. Serve on a very hot dish with a border of boiled rice.

=Sauté Green Peas.=--Boil a pint of shelled peas in a stewpan in a quart of boiling water; add a very little green mint, a teaspoonful of salt and a pinch of moist sugar, when the peas are tender, about twenty minutes, drain the water from them and add half an ounce of fresh butter, and a pinch of caster sugar and a little pepper, toss them over the fire for a few minutes and serve.

=Petits Pois= (_Bottled Peas_).--Put the peas into a saucepan, with a lump of butter and a little salt. Place on the fire, and stir with a wooden spoon; add ten or twelve very tiny onions and the small heart of a lettuce. Simmer for an hour without water, add a little sugar and more butter, and serve.

=Boiled Dried Peas.=--Wash the peas, and soak them in water for twelve hours; then drain off the water and put them into boiling water with a little salt and a pinch of soda; keep the pan on the side of the fire, and simmer for two hours; drain them, and put them in a clean saucepan, with one ounce of butter, and a little pepper and salt, scatter some finely chopped parsley over them, and serve very hot.

=Green Pea Omelette.=--Make an omelette in the usual way, adding two or three tablespoonfuls of milk and two or three drops of onion juice; put two tablespoonfuls of young boiled peas into the middle of the omelette when finished and fold over on a very hot dish garnished with young boiled peas.

=Bottle Peas.=--Fill large-mouthed glass bottles with young, freshly gathered shelled peas; add a good teaspoonful of salt and half a gill of water, cold; screw on the metal tops tightly, and tie a wisp of straw round each bottle to prevent them cracking each other before putting them in a stock pot filled up with hot water; boil fast for half an hour, then take them off the fire. When the bottles are cold, test them whether any of them leak; keep the bottles in a dry, cool place.

POTATO (_Solanum tuberosum. Solanaceæ_).

In the small garden the early potato is the only one worth finding room for. As a rule the main crop potato can be bought as cheaply as it can be grown, and as good. But a newly dug young potato from one’s own patch is incomparably better than the product of the Channel Islands as it reaches the table.

Good, wholesome, light, rich soil will grow a good early potato. Last year’s celery bed will make good ground for either peas or potatoes, but to grow potatoes well, the ground needs plenty of manure. We give it rather an extra dose in the small garden, because our economy of space makes it necessary to grow the Brussels sprouts between the potato rows.

The gardener will learn by experiment what variety suits his soil best, but one with dwarf, compact haulm is to be preferred on account of the sprouts, which will have to fight for their share of light and air for a good month. Myatt’s Early Ashleaf is such a variety; but whatever the kind chosen, the tubers should be placed, early in February, in a light place exposed to full sun, but protected from frost. This will induce them to start into growth, and push up dark green or purple shoots that are plump and sturdy. A sprinkling with tepid water hastens the process, but they must not be kept watered. On no account must they be allowed to shoot forth in the dark, or lank anæmic growth will result that will be perfectly useless.

As Brussels sprouts may have to grow among the potatoes, the rows must be thirty inches asunder. Do not plant with a dibber--it results in uneven growth--but open trenches with the hoe across the ground. These should be four inches deep. The seed potatoes should be cut, the larger tubers making into two or more sets, each with a good shoot on it, or at least a plump and promising “eye,” but even the small ones should have a piece cut away in order to promote the rapid decay of the substance of the tuber, and its sending its goodness into root and top. The sets should be placed a foot apart in the trenches and the earth returned, either with the hoe, or merely scuffled in with the feet.

As soon as the green shoots show sufficiently above the ground to indicate the rows clearly, earth should be drawn up to them from either side, ridging up the rows, and covering the green shoots about an inch. No time is to be lost in performing this operation, as by this means the tender shoots will be protected from the spring frosts. A week or ten days later this will have to be repeated, and early in May, say about the 10th, it must be done a third and final time.

Nothing now remains but to wait for cropping time, and to hope no late frost may cut the tops down. The first dish of young potatoes should be dug in the second week of June, and by the 10th of July the crop should be ready for lifting. Do not wait for the haulm to die down before doing this, but as soon as the tubers have come to their full growth choose a fine, hot, dry day, and dig the whole crop up. Shake the potatoes free from adhering soil, and clear away the haulm, and leave them lying on the sun-baked ground for several hours for the tender skins to harden before removing them to the tool-shed floor, where they may lie not more than a couple of days, secure from dew or rain, to ripen off before storing.

The haulm should at once be burned with other rubbish, as we do not want it to lie about and rot, and form excellent harbourage for germs of the potato disease, which may linger in the ground for years.

Main crop potatoes are planted in the same way as early ones, the rows should never be less than thirty inches apart, and the sets should be fifteen to eighteen inches in the row; when the stems are well up they should be earthed up, and this operation may be repeated. The crop will be ready for lifting in September or October, according to the variety. The potato disease, which has destroyed so many thousands of tons of tubers, can be almost certainly guarded against. The potato tops should be sprayed with Bordeaux mixture in mid-June, and again six weeks later, whether the disease has manifested itself or not. This is practically a specific, and in some of our colonies a farmer who neglected this precaution, and so allowed his crop to become infected and infectious, would have an exceedingly poor time when he met his brother growers; it ought to be so in England.

POTATO DISHES.

=To Boil Potatoes.=--Winter potatoes differ so much in quality and habit that different varieties require different treatment. If they turn black when cooked, or fall away outside before the heart is tender, try them steamed in their jackets, or steamed without.

In England boiling the peeled potato is the universal custom, but in Ireland they are wiser, and cook the tuber in the skin.

Wash the potatoes thoroughly, put into clean water, and peel with a sharp knife; let the peel be as thin as possible, as the best part of a potato lies near the outside; turn the tuber while peeling, this greatly facilitates the process; cut out the eyes with a pointed knife; plunge into abundance of cold water to cover. Put into a saucepan of boiling water, a teaspoonful of salt to half a gallon of water, cook for half an hour or a little less; drain off the water, put on one side of the stove for five minutes, shaking constantly, dish very hot, and serve. If it is necessary to keep them hot for some time, do not let them remain in the water, but after draining draw to one side, and put a clean towel, folded up in the pan, so as to absorb the steam.

=Steamed Potatoes.=--Prepare as for boiling, steam for three-quarters of an hour; ten minutes before they are done, sprinkle a little salt over them. Arrange neatly on the dish, and send to table very hot.

=Steamed Potatoes in their Jackets.=--Wash thoroughly, and leave them to dry for a short time; then with a sharp knife make an incision round the middle, steam for three-quarters of an hour, and before sending to table remove the skins; these readily strip off in two parts. Be careful to keep the potatoes hot.

=Baked Potatoes.=--Wash thoroughly, and leave them to dry for an hour; then prick them and bake for an hour and a half in a moderate oven. A longer time may be required if the potatoes are very large. Choose tubers of equal size, and rather large. Up-to-Dates are the best bakers. Send to table, with a napkin folded in the dish, but on no account put a cover on; this would make them limp and dull.

=Brown Potatoes.=--Wash, peel, and dry the potatoes; cut to an equal size. Put them in a dripping-tin, containing about an inch of melted butter, or nutter; let it boil before the potatoes are put in, baste occasionally, and when they have been in half an hour turn them over and brown the other side; they will take an hour or more, according to their size. Drain on kitchen paper, and serve in a hot tureen.

=Mashed Potatoes.=--Boil, and dry the potatoes according to directions above; then draw the saucepan to one side and beat the potatoes with a fork, or put them through a masher. Add half a cupful of hot milk, with a piece of butter dissolved in it, and a little white pepper. More or less milk may be used according to the quantity of potatoes; they should be smooth and creamy, but not sticky.

=Browned Potatoes.=--Proceed as for mashed potatoes; heap them up in the centre of a hot vegetable tureen, roughen them with a fork drawn across and across. Then put in the oven to brown for a quarter of an hour or ten minutes, or they may be browned in front of the fire or with a salamander.

=New Potatoes.=--Wash in two or three waters to remove the sand; then if they are freshly dug, the skin may be rubbed off with a gentle movement of your thumb. The eyes will need to be removed afterwards, but this method prepares the potatoes quickly, and with no waste; it also preserves their shape. Drop them into a bowl of cold water as they are finished. All potatoes turn brown if exposed to the air without their skin when raw.

Allow half an hour to cook them, and see that they are all of the same size as nearly as may be. Put them in cold water, enough to quite cover, add a pinch of salt and a sprig of mint, and bring to the boiling point. When tender pour off the water and drain for a minute, then dish very hot, with a piece of fresh butter. Sometimes a sprinkling of chopped parsley is added, but this interferes with the delicate flavour of the potatoes, though it dresses the dish.

=Cold New Potatoes.=--(1) These may be used in various ways--none should ever be wasted; they make a charming addition to a salad, cut in slices, and put in the bottom of the bowl; cover with lettuce torn into shreds, dress with a tiny pinch of salt, a good tablespoonful of oil, toss well, then add half a teaspoonful of sugar, half a tablespoonful of vinegar; mix thoroughly, decorate with sliced tomatoes and hard-boiled eggs, cucumber, cold boiled peas, or young cold, boiled carrots.

=Cold Boiled New Potatoes.=--(2) They may also be sliced and fried in butter or nutter, with a sprinkle of pepper and salt, and a little chopped parsley sprinkled over them.

=Children’s Pudding.=--Beat two ounces of sugar and two ounces of butter together until smooth; beat two eggs together well, then stir into the butter, adding a little juice and the grated rind of a lemon, a little salt, and a little milk; pour this on to six tablespoonfuls of mashed potatoes. Mix the whole thoroughly well together; pour it into a greased pie-dish, and bake for about half an hour in a moderate oven.

=Potato Omelette.=--Press out the floury part of a large baked potato; pass through a fine sieve; mix with it the yolks of three eggs, three tablespoonfuls of milk, a few drops of lemon juice, a pinch of nutmeg, a little salt and pepper; whisk the whites stiff, stir them lightly in, and fry the omelette in one ounce of hot butter, cook very lightly, and roll up very quickly.

=Potato Pie.=--Peel and slice two pounds of potatoes and one stick of celery, shred an onion, and fry it in butter; put the whole into a pie-dish, season with pepper and salt, add a little milk or water, cover with short-crust paste, and bake in a quick oven for an hour.

=Potato Nüdelan.=--Make your nüdelans as the Italian gnocchi (see Miscellaneous Dishes); only instead of flour make them with mashed potatoes. Boil them for six minutes, and sprinkle them with more grated Gruyère or Parmesan cheese, and pour over some brown melted butter flavoured with onion.

=French Potato Pudding.=--Cook and mash some floury potatoes, rub them through a sieve into a large dish, make into a paste by adding two ounces of fresh butter and half a tumbler of cream or milk; beat it into a smooth paste, season with salt and pepper, then add three well-beaten yolks of eggs; butter a mould, and pour in the potato mixture; make a hole in the centre, into which put some cooked and seasoned mushrooms; cover the top with a piece of the paste, and cook in the oven; when finished turn it into a dish, and serve hot.

=Potato Rissoles.=--Wash, peel, and boil ten potatoes, drain and rub them through a wire sieve. Place them in a basin with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg, and add two yolks of eggs, one tablespoonful of cream, and a dessertspoonful of chopped parsley. Beat up till smooth, make up into rissole shapes, egg and bread-crumb them, and fry in hot fat. Drain on kitchen paper, and dish up on a folded napkin or paper. Garnish with fried parsley, and serve.

=Stuffed Potatoes.=--(1) Cut the tops from each of six potatoes, boiled or baked in their jackets. Scoop out the pulp, and mash to a smooth paste with three tablespoonfuls of butter; add cream, and salt and pepper to season, and a quarter of a cupful of grated cheese, and cook to a smooth paste. Take from the fire, and stir in one well-beaten egg. Fill the skins, and bake.

=Stuffed Potatoes.=--(2) Peel some large potatoes, take out the inside, and put in each one a stuffing made as follows:--One cup of bread-crumbs, one cup of ground nuts, and a little chopped thyme and parsley. Put the potatoes, with two ounces of butter, in a baking tin to bake in a hot oven for an hour and a half. Baste frequently.

=Italian Potato Omelette.=--Mince up two cold boiled potatoes, sprinkle with pepper and salt, and put them into a frying pan in which two ounces of butter have been melted. Spread the potato one-third of an inch deep in the pan, and cook slowly over a moderate fire for a quarter of an hour, then turn over, as you would any other omelette, and cook the other side. Serve hot.

=Stewed Potatoes in a Paper Bag.=--Wash and peel as many potatoes as are wanted. Cut each into four thick slices and put into a greased bag, with a finely chopped peeled onion, one tablespoonful of chopped parsley, half a cupful of dripping, salt and pepper to taste, and half a cupful of water. Bake in the oven for forty minutes or an hour. Turn out on to a hot dish, and serve at once.

=Nut and Potato Croquettes.=--Two cupfuls of hot mashed potatoes and three tablespoonfuls of cream, one teaspoonful of salt, one-eighth of a teaspoonful of pepper, a few grains of cayenne, and a few drops of onion juice. Beat thoroughly, and add the yolk of an egg. Mix with a quarter of a cupful of cream until of the consistency of a thick paste; then add another yolk of an egg, and leave it to cool. Make a mixture of ground nuts and a little cream, with the well-beaten white of an egg, and seasoning. Shape the potato mixture into small nests, fill the nests with nut mixture, cover with potato mixture, and roll into balls. Dip in egg and crumbs, and fry in deep fat, and drain on kitchen paper.

=Potato Puff.=--(1) Beat to a cream two cupfuls of cold mashed potatoes and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter. Add the yolks of two eggs beaten up with a cupful of cream or milk; salt and pepper to season. Fold in the stiffly beaten white of the eggs and pour into a buttered baking dish, and bake until well puffed and brown, about three-quarters of an hour.

=Potato Puff.=--(2) Beat with a fork three cold boiled potatoes; add a pinch of salt, half a cupful of milk, one tablespoonful of minced parsley, two eggs well beaten, and enough flour to make a batter that will drop from a spoon; sift in half a teaspoonful of baking powder with the flour. Drop by spoonfuls into deep fat, and fry brown.

=Escalloped Potatoes and Eggs.=--Slice finely four cold boiled potatoes and six hard-boiled eggs. Put a layer of potatoes into a buttered baking dish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, cover with a layer of boiled eggs, and repeat until the dish is full, having potatoes on the top. Pour over two cupfuls of thin cream and some white sauce. Cover with buttered crumbs, and sprinkle with grated cheese if desired. Bake until the crumbs are brown, half to three-quarters of an hour. Freshly boiled potatoes may be used in the same way.

=Potato Timbâles.=--Cook, drain, and rub through a sieve enough boiled potatoes to make one pound. Put into a bowl with three ounces of butter melted, two whole eggs and the yolks of two. Season with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg, and mix thoroughly. Butter some plain timbâle moulds, sprinkle with crumbs over the inside, fill with the potato mixture. Sprinkle with crumbs and dot with butter, and bake for one hour. Let the moulds stand for a few minutes before turning out.

=Potato with Cheese Sauce.=--Boil and mash one dozen peeled potatoes. Season with salt and pepper and melted butter; add enough milk to make very soft, and beat until very light. Heap into the centre of a baking dish and make a hole in the centre. Brush with the beaten white of egg, and brown in the oven. Melt a cupful of butter, and stir in gradually five heaped tablespoonfuls of grated cheese and the beaten yolks of two eggs. Season with salt and cayenne. Stir until thick and smooth, and fill the hole in the potato mixture. Sprinkle with crumbs, and put into the oven for five minutes longer.

=Deviled Stuffed Potatoes.=--Split lengthways, remove the pulp from six baked potatoes. Mash smoothly, and add one hard-boiled egg chopped finely. Salt, cayenne, and onion juice to season, and a little made mustard. Fill the shells with the mixture, and brown in the oven.

PURSLANE (_Portulacea oleracea. Portulacaceæ_).

A light soil and a sunny border are best for this plant, which is a half-hardy annual. Successional sowings may be made from May to the beginning of August, in shallow drills; the plants should stand six inches apart. Frequent waterings are necessary during dry weather.

The leaves are gathered as required, and either cooked or used in salads.

The season of this subject may be prolonged by means of successional sowings made in frames.

=Salad.=--Purslane is a kitchen-garden annual which has antiscorbutic properties. There are several varieties of it, the best known being the golden purslane, which, properly dressed, makes a tasty and much appreciated salad. It is prepared like an ordinary salad, with the addition of pimpernel, chervil, and tarragon. The stalks of purslane can be pickled in vinegar, like gherkins.

RADISH (_Raphanus sativus. Cruciferæ_).

The earliest radishes may be sown in a frame in January. A light, mellow soil is desirable, and if the slight bottom-heat of a nearly exhausted hotbed be available, the radishes will be all the earlier. For anything in the nature of forcing or framework it is important to select a quick-growing, forcing variety with a strong tendency to the formation of root rather than top, such as Early French Breakfast or Wood’s frame varieties. Plenty of moisture and plenty of air during non-frosty days are the secrets of growing radishes in a frame.

Later sowings of radish, beginning in March, may be made periodically, according to the demand, as catch crops beneath a warm wall or fence, then among early peas and in similar situations, and in summer in a cool spot, with plenty of moisture available.

A radish must grow quickly and evenly, or it will be worthless. Therefore they must have plenty of moisture, and not be crowded; half an inch apart is quite near enough to grow them, whether sown broadcast or in shallow drills.

Winter radishes may be sown in July or August in drills six inches apart, the plants thinned to three inches in the rows. These form a pleasant addition to winter salads, and are pulled as wanted, peeled and sliced, much in the manner of cucumbers. The best variety for winter salads is perhaps Large White Winter Spanish; we have also grown the Chinese Rose Radish with success. Winter radishes are apt to be rather strong and pungent, and it is largely on account of its flavour we prefer the first named.

RAMPION (_Campanula Rapunculus. Campanulaceæ_).

This biennial native plant is not much used in the kitchen. Two sowings may be made of it, one in May, the other six weeks later. Seed should be sown very thinly in drills nine inches apart, and the plants thinned to three inches distance in the rows. Rampion requires a plentiful supply of water, and a fairly rich soil.

The roots will stand in the ground all the winter, and may be dug for use as needed from October onwards.

The roots and leaves are used either raw in salads, or the roots may be boiled and used after the manner of beetroots, or cooked and served as a vegetable, like parsnips.

RHUBARB (_Rheum. Polygonaceæ_).

As this is a permanent crop the ground should be deeply trenched and well manured for its reception. It prefers moist, cool soil, and is extremely hardy. It is best propagated by division of the root, a good crown bud with each root division.

February is the best month to plant, just before the roots in the open would be naturally starting into growth. The distance between the plants will depend both upon the variety selected and the nature of the soil; they can be advantageously planted more closely in a dry, thin soil than in a deep, cool loam, where they will naturally attain a much larger size. For the small garden a small early red variety is recommended, as this is a garden product well worth growing for an early crop of well-flavoured produce: eighteen to thirty inches distance should be allowed between the plants, according to circumstances. A shady situation among fruit-trees will do well for rhubarb.

The plants must not be pulled from the first year, and should have a mulch given towards the end of May to tide them over the summer. Late in January, or in February, boxes or pots should be placed over some of the crowns; or a tripod of stakes may be placed over the crowns, and loose litter shaken over. We dislike rhubarb forced by means of hot manure, and think this method completely ruins the flavour.

Through the summer the plants will be none the worse for a very occasional watering with weak liquid manure during showery weather. As the leaves die down during autumn they should be cleared away, and all made tidy for the winter.

RHUBARB DISHES.

=Rhubarb Jam.=--Peel the sticks of rhubarb, cut into short lengths, and weigh one pound of preserving sugar; put the rhubarb in a bowl and spread the sugar over, let it stand all night. Next day strain off the juice and put in the preserving pan with half a teaspoonful of ground ginger to each pound of rhubarb, adding the finely grated rind and juice of three lemons; put the pan by the side of the fire, stir as it comes to the boiling point, and then add the rhubarb. It should boil from thirty to forty minutes. Fill jam pots, and paper over while hot.

=Rhubarb Fool= is made like gooseberry fool, and tarts also are treated in the same way.

=Rhubarb Wine.=--Wipe twenty to twenty-five pounds of rhubarb with a damp cloth, but do not skin it; cut it into lengths, and crush it well in a wooden or earthenware vessel; pour over it three to five gallons of cold water, to each gallon of liquid add three ounces of good preserving sugar, and the finely peeled rind, and juice of a lemon. Let it remain for ten days covered, but stirring it a little every day. At the end of ten days strain the liquid into another vessel, stirring till all its contents are dissolved; then put it into a small cask, adding one ounce of isinglass dissolved previously in a little warm water, cover well the hole, and leave it for ten days; then cork it well, and do not disturb the cask for about a year, when it will be ready to bottle.

=Stewed Rhubarb.=--Take a dozen sticks of early red rhubarb, wash it and trim the ends; cut it with a sharp knife into two-inch or three-inch lengths; put it into a stew jar in which there is already a syrup made from a quarter of a pound of lump sugar, and half a pint of water; let this syrup cook for a quarter of an hour, then drop the pieces of rhubarb into the boiling syrup, and cook slowly until tender, basting it, and being careful the pieces do not break; less sugar may be needed. A piece of thin lemon rind and a teaspoonful of lemon juice may be cooked with it. Serve in a glass dish, with whipped cream over, or Devonshire cream in a bowl, or custard in cups.

SAGE (_Salvia officinalis. Labiatæ_).

Sow in spring or early autumn in any good garden soil, either in the herb bed or as an edging to a pathway.

The leaves may be used fresh or dried as a seasoning.

SALSIFY (_Tragopogon pœrifolius. Compositæ_).

Sometimes called “The Vegetable Oyster,” salsify is a delicacy not too often seen in English gardens, yet it is easy to grow, very hardy, and a welcome addition to our winter list of vegetables. It should be sown in April, in ground without a trace of manure in the top spit, but with some well-matured stuff buried deeply. The drills should be a foot apart, and the seed sown thinly, yet, as it sometimes comes up rather irregularly, not so thinly as for some root crops--parsnips, for instance. Early in May the plants may be singled in the rows, and three weeks later thinned to four inches distance. Through the summer the Dutch hoe should be kept at work between the rows to kill weeds and prevent evaporation.

The roots may stay in the ground through the winter in a well-drained soil, and be dug as wanted.

Very early in spring the flowering shoots push up, and may be gathered and cooked in the way of asparagus; gloves should be used for gathering these shoots, as they exude a juice that stains. In the small garden, however, it is hardly worth while to sacrifice roots and space for this extra crop. It is said that, like raw tomatoes, the taste for salsify is an acquired one. It is worth acquiring.

DISHES.

=Boiled Salsify.=--Wash the salsify, put in clean water and scrape it, being very careful to keep it under water or it will be a bad colour, and immediately put into cold water to which two tablespoonfuls of vinegar have been added, this will blanch it; be sure the salsify is covered by the water. Put into a saucepan of boiling water with a tablespoonful of salt for one hour, more or less, according to the size of the roots. Place neatly on a drainer, and cover with good white sauce (see Sauces). Or it may be served with maitre d’hotel, Hollandaise, onion or Italian sauce. Be careful not to leave the salsify exposed to the air or it will blacken.

=Stewed Salsify.=--Scrape about twenty heads of salsify, and cut them into pieces about two inches long. Sprinkle them with salt, and steep in water and milk. Cut a small onion, half a carrot, half a turnip, and half a head of celery into small pieces; put these in a stewpan, cook for twenty minutes. Mix one ounce of flour with a little milk and stir in, fill up with one quart of water, stir and bring to boil. Put in the salsify, and let it simmer gently until tender. Add one tablespoonful of cream, one of chopped parsley, and a little lemon juice. Season with pepper, grated nutmeg, and caster sugar. Reheat and arrange the salsify neatly on a dish. Garnish with fried button mushrooms, pour over the sauce, and serve hot.

=Escalloped Salsify.=--Press boiled salsify through a sieve, season with salt, cayenne, butter, and celery salt, and moisten with milk. Put into a buttered baking dish, cover with crumbs, dot with butter, and bake, standing the dish in a pan of hot water until the salsify is brown, or use sliced, boiled salsify alternately with cream, or drawn-butter sauce and seasoning, and buttered crumbs; have sauce on the top. Cover with crumbs wetted with cream, and bake brown.

=Escalloped Salsify and Celery.=--Put slices of cooked salsify in layers into a buttered baking dish, season each layer with chopped celery and cover with white sauce. Cover with butter and crumbs, and bake for twenty minutes.

=Fried Salsify.=--Prepare according to directions given for boiled salsify. Drain, press through a sieve, and add the yolks of three eggs well beaten, and salt and pepper to season. Drop by spoonfuls on a buttered griddle, fry brown, and serve with tomato sauce, or ketchup.

=Filleted Salsify.=--Cook some salsify until tender, slice it into quarters, lengthways, and cut it into three-inch lengths. Dip in egg and bread-crumbs, and fry crisp. Serve with parsley sauce and garnish with slices of lemon and parsley.--SIDNEY H. BEARD, _Guide-book of The Golden Age_.

=Salsify Cakes.=--Prepare according to directions given for boiled salsify; drain and mash, shape into small flat cakes, and fry brown in butter or dripping.

=Salsify Fritters.=--Make a batter of two eggs, half a cupful of milk, a pinch of salt, and enough sifted flour to make it of a proper consistency. Grate the roots of a bunch of salsify into the batter, and fry by spoonfuls in deep fat, or mix mashed, cooked salsify with milk, and add one or two beaten eggs; add flour if necessary to make a stiff paste, and shape into small flat cakes. Fry brown in fat to cover.

=Salsify Sauté.=--Prepare a bunch of salsify according to directions given for boiled salsify. Drain, cut into small pieces and sauté in butter, with one tablespoonful of chopped mushrooms. Season with salt, pepper, and minced chives, parsley, and a few drops of vinegar.

=Salsify à la Poulette.=--Prepare according to directions given for boiled salsify, adding one tablespoonful each of salt and vinegar to the water. Cook until tender. Drain, serve with poulette sauce. Béchamel sauce may be used instead, or saucette cream mixed with melted butter.

SAVOY CABBAGE. _See under_ Cabbage.

SCORZONERA (_Scorzonero hispanica. Compositæ_).

The culture of this vegetable is exactly the same as salsify; it has perhaps the advantage of being rather hardier than the latter, but it is not of such a fine flavour. Where one is grown the other is scarcely required, and we ourselves now only grow salsify. It might perhaps be used in Northern England if salsify does not do well.

Scorzonera is a Spanish variety of salsify, and the recipes under the heading of Salsify apply equally to it.

SEAKALE (_Crambe maritima. Cruciferæ_).

This is a most valuable permanent crop, and in the opinion of some ranks equal with asparagus on the table. In addition its magnificent foliage makes it an object of beauty through the summer, and a plantation of seakale may well mark the transition of the flower garden to the vegetable ground.

Seakale may be grown from seed, but it is more expeditious to obtain two-year-old plants from a nurseryman, or else early in March to propagate plants by means of root cuttings. By the latter method pieces of root four inches long are cut with a sharp knife. It is usual to cut the top end level, and the lower end slanting, to obviate the inconvenience of planting upside down. The root cuttings are then planted where they are to stand, and will give a slight crop of kale the following spring, as the first, or flowering, shoots must be removed in any case.

The ground can hardly be too deeply dug or richly prepared for this fine permanent crop. In March the plants should be put out either in rows three feet apart, the plants six inches distant in the rows, or else in clumps of five plants, a plant at each corner of a nine-inch square, and one in the centre; the clumps should be thirty inches to two feet apart. By “doubling” them, that is, arranging the clumps =W= fashion, the rows thirty inches apart, and the clumps three feet in the rows, ground will be economised. These are the best arrangements for the small garden; but they are in the nature of a compromise, as eighteen inches distance between the crowns will give much heavier individual heads of seakale.

The after cultivation consists in keeping the ground clear of weeds, giving a mulch in summer, and occasional dressings of salt or nitrate in showery weather, say salt once, and nitrate three times in the summer, and salt again in November and nitrate early in the year, when the crowns are set to blanch. In the autumn the ground should be cleared up, and all rotten leaves removed.

If it be desired to bring on seakale quickly, manure may be used to force it into growth. This method does not improve the flavour, but it is not such utter ruin as in the case of rhubarb. Boxes or pots are laid over the crowns to be forced, and hot manure heaped around and over to the depth of a good foot. But the cleanest and best way to blanch seakale is to cover the crowns with clean dry ash from the grates--not ash, be it understood, which has a careless cook’s admixture of all sorts of rotting fish bones and other filth. A large body of ashes will be required, so their accumulation must be set about a long time previously. At first the depth of ash must be slight, say six inches; then as the buds show signs of growth, it may be gradually increased to fifteen inches at least. Seakale grown in rows should be blanched in this way, or with a layer of ash six inches deep; then when this is beginning to crack with the growing shoots, earth laid on after the manner of earthing up celery. Whatever the method pursued, seakale must be blanched in absolute darkness, or it will be bitter and worthless for the table.

When the crop has been cut, a sprinkling of loose litter should be shaken over the stems, which should be cut level with the ground, in order to protect them from a too sudden acquaintance with our genial English spring. Conical, flower-bearing buds must be removed from the stocks, as the plants must not be allowed to flower. In May the shoots must be thinned, one or at the most two stout shoots left on each stem, all the rest rubbed out. This method will leave good fat buds in autumn, whence will come correspondingly stout growth to be cut for use next year.

DISHES.

=Boiled Seakale.=--Boil in salted water and vinegar for twenty minutes to half an hour, drain, and arrange neatly, lengthwise, on a drainer; pour over a good white sauce, and serve very hot.

_Another Method of boiling Seakale._--Soak for half an hour in cold water, and cook for twenty-five minutes in boiling water. Drain, press out the liquid, chop finely, and reheat. Season with salt and pepper, and pour over good melted butter.

Cooked seakale can also be served as a salad. Cut it into short pieces, season with salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar, or lemon juice. Mix carefully. Dish up, garnish to taste, and serve.

=Creamed Seakale.=--Tie some seakale up in bundles, and put them in boiling salted water; boil till quite tender, about thirty minutes, drain well, take the string off. Put some slices of toast in a dish, arrange the seakale on them, and pour over a good Béchamel sauce, made with a little double cream.

For other ways of cooking seakale, adapt those recipes dealing with celery and asparagus.

SHALLOT (_Allium Ascalonicum. Liliaceæ_).

Shallots enjoy a rich soil, somewhat similar to that given to onions; they follow celery well, the old manure and well-broken-up ground being exactly what they like. They are propagated by division of the offsets. These cloves, as they are usually called, are planted in rows nine inches to a foot apart, the cloves four inches asunder in the row. Any good day in February these may be planted, and they should not be too deeply buried.

Keep the rows weeded with the Dutch hoe, and when the leaves wilt and give indications of ripening in July or August, pull the crop, let it dry for a couple of days, and store the bulbs for use in a dry place.

Shallots may also be raised from seed sown in March.

Shallots have a strong onion flavour, and are largely used for seasoning, and they make excellent pickle.

SORREL (_Rumex Acetosa. Polygonaceæ_).

Sow seed in spring, and thin out to six inches, or propagate by division of established plants in March or the beginning of April.

These perennial plants last for several years, and the leaves should be gathered singly. There are several varieties, and probably the Broad-leaved French Sorrel is as good as any. Sorrel is not sufficiently appreciated in this country. A few leaves make an excellent addition to a spring salad. We find it better to strip the leaves from the midrib and use the fragments for salads, discarding the midrib.

DISHES.

=Purée of Sorrel.=--Pick over and wash the sorrel several times, add a good handful of chervil, squeeze out any water, cook them for a moment in boiling water, take them out, and put them into cold water; drain again, then mince them up; put a piece of butter into a casserole with the sorrel, a good pinch of flour, salt, and pepper, pour over a little milk, and work in two or three eggs, well beaten, into the mixture little by little; put it in a dish, and garnish with hard-boiled eggs.

=Stewed Sorrel.=--After washing and cleaning some sorrel, boil till tender, then rub through a sieve, and put into a stewpan; add two tablespoonfuls of Béchamel sauce, with a little salt and sugar, and stew for a few minutes with one ounce of fresh butter, and serve.

=Sorrel Salad.=--Take the young leaves of sorrel, and after washing them, dry them, and treat them as other vegetables for salads.

=Sorrel and Vermicelli Soups.= _See_ Soups.

SPINACH (_Spinacia oleracea. Chenopodiaceæ_).

In the small garden, spinach is chiefly of value as a late spring crop, coming in between the late broccoli and the early peas, and it may be treated as a catch-crop, sown from mid-February onwards till late March between successive rows of peas, or in similar situations. Sown at the same time as the peas, it will be well out of their way before they are in pod, or even full blossom.

For spring use, the round-seeded variety is usually sown, but its incurable habit of bolting into flower in hot soil or season induces many good gardeners to grow the sturdier prickly seeded sort both for spring and winter use. The seed should go into shallow drills, and the plants be thinned to nine inches in the rows. Thin sowing is recommended.

As a winter crop, prickly seeded spinach may be sown from mid-July to the end of August. The rows should be in the open, and fifteen inches apart, the plants thinned to six inches in the row. The earlier July sowings will give spinach during the autumn; the later, early in the spring or late in winter. As a rule, unless there be special liking for this crop, the small garden will hardly accommodate it except to the exclusion of more profitable and worthy subjects.

Spinach beet is a plant which will give many dishes of green stuff through the winter, if the gardener care to find room for it. Sown in April or March, where it is to stand, it should be in rows fifteen inches apart, the plants thinned to three inches. The larger leaves are gathered as required throughout winter and early spring, a succession of leaves coming on to replace those removed. Here, again, is a subject we scarce care to trouble to grow, but it has the merit of yielding well over a long period, and may come in usefully if the winter frosts have cut our brassicas about too cruelly.

=General Directions for Cooking Spinach.=--Spinach is apt to be gritty, so that great care is needed in preparing it. The leaves should be lifted out of the water and piled in a colander; in this way the sand is left at the bottom of the bowl. Repeat the process in several waters. Spinach shrinks very much in cooking, so that its bulk when cooked is very small compared to what it was when raw.

Spinach contains so much water that none should be used in cooking it. Take a gallon saucepan, and nearly fill it with well-washed spinach; put it at the side of the range, and stir very frequently with a wooden spoon. Soon the leaves will shrink, and enough liquid will have flowed from them to cover the greens. Add a small teaspoonful of salt and a piece of soda the size of a pea. Put on the lid, and let it simmer slowly for half an hour. Drain and press well before serving. It may be returned to the pan with a piece of butter and a sprinkle of pepper and well shaken for a minute.

=Spinach Puff.=--Chop some cooked spinach very fine, or rub it through a sieve, add a tablespoonful of butter melted, a little salt and pepper to taste, and to a pint of vegetable use a cupful of cream, the beaten yolks of two eggs, and the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs; mix in the latter carefully after all the other ingredients. Turn into a buttered dish, bake for twenty minutes in a hot oven. Serve in the dish in which it is cooked.

=Creamy Spinach.=--Cook the spinach, press it in a strainer, and then rub it through a wire sieve; put it into a saucepan, with a small piece of butter, one tablespoonful of milk, or preferably cream, stir while warming it up, add a little salt and pepper, and garnish with fried croûtons. Poached eggs may be served with it.

=Sweet Spinach.=--Clean your spinach and wash it several times; put in a good handful of chervil and a sprinkle of white pepper; let them drain dry, cook them for a few minutes in boiling water; take them out, and put them into cold water; drain them again dry, and chop them finely, and simmer in a casserole with a good piece of butter for a quarter of an hour. Add a very little salt and grated nutmeg and a little sugar, moisten with cream, stir. Serve very hot on a dish with fried croûtons and slices of hard-boiled eggs.

=Spinach Fritters.=--Chop finely or pass through a sieve one pound of cooked spinach, season with salt and pepper, and add the yolk of one egg, and sufficient bread-crumbs to make the mixture stiff. Form into flat round cakes, dip into frying batter, and cook in boiling fat. Serve with a garnish of scrambled eggs, or poached eggs.

=Spinach Soufflé.=--(1) Cook some spinach, rub it through a sieve, and add two or three well-beaten eggs, and a small quantity of milk with butter and salt. Mix it thoroughly, put it in a well-buttered soufflé dish, and bake for ten minutes. This makes a simple, yet tasty entrée.

(2) Mix a cupful of cooked chopped spinach with the well-beaten yolk of an egg, and stir over the fire until the egg is set. Cool, then fold in the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs. Fill a buttered baking dish, or individual soufflé dishes, and bake for a quarter of an hour. Serve immediately.

(3) Mix two tablespoonfuls of chopped cooked spinach with the beaten yolks of two eggs, a tablespoonful of melted butter, and salt and pepper to season. Cool, mix with two or three tablespoonfuls of cream and the stiffly beaten whites of three eggs. Turn into a buttered baking dish and bake immediately. The cream may be omitted, and milk used instead.

(4) Cook and chop a peck of spinach, add a well-beaten egg, a tablespoonful of butter, salt, sugar, and pepper to season. Cool, add two tablespoonfuls of cream. Mix thoroughly, and fold in the stiffly beaten whites of two eggs. Put in a buttered baking dish, sprinkle with sugar, cover for ten minutes, then uncover for five minutes, and serve immediately.

STACHYS TUBERIFERA. _See_ Artichoke.

TOMATO (_Solanum Lycopersicum. Solanaceæ_).

The tomato, or love apple, is to be considered, for the small garden, mainly an outdoor subject. It is useless to attempt to grow it without glass in cold and backward districts, as it requires plenty of full sunshine to bring it to perfection. Even in such a district, however, a few plants put out by a south wall or fence may yield a good return; it may also be fruited well, trained under the lights of a cold frame.

It is important to have well-grown and forward plants of an early variety, ready to go out early in June. This is not difficult with the aid of a hotbed and couple of frames; better still, add to these requirements a cool house or glass-roofed tool-shed.

Select then such a variety as Sutton’s Earliest of All, and sow in pots or pans, early in March, in the hotbed. Warmth and moisture will soon bring the young plants up, and as soon as they are in their second leaf, they must be potted off, into “sixty-four” size pots, with an inch of last year’s hotbed at the bottom of the pots, and a nice compost on top. The frame must be kept closed, or nearly so, until the plants have taken hold. It may be found well to spread a newspaper over the glass, to protect them from the effects of the full sun for a couple of days. Thereafter the ordinary frame management will suit them all right. In an astonishingly short time the pots will become full of roots, and late in April it will be necessary to give them a second shift. Without disturbing the roots, they must now go into four-inch pots at least. Again some good stuff must be put in the bottom of the pots, but the roots should not be placed directly upon it. They will scarcely feel that they have been moved if it be skilfully done, and they must be grown on with daily watering, as close to the glass as possible. A third move is advised, about the twentieth of May, into six-inch pots, and this time a slender stick must be placed to each plant, and tied with bast. At this time those plants for which room can be found in the greenhouse must go into the boxes they are to fruit in. These boxes should be about a foot deep, a good layer of old manure should be mixed in with the lower layer of soil, and the boxes two-thirds filled with nice compost. As the season advances, this leaves room for fresh earth to be added, with perhaps a touch of guano, thus feeding the plants from above, and giving them fresh soil into which they will root freely.

At the time of the last repotting the plants will be some fifteen inches high, showing bud, and in many cases flower. They must still be kept warm o’ nights, grown near the glass, and kept well watered. Many gardeners put them out at the end of May without this third repotting, but we are convinced that far less check, and far better results follow, if the plants are kept growing on, until the 10th or 14th of June, when the nights have become warm and genial, and the plants have a bunch of fruit set.