A Handbook of Cookery for a Small House

by Jessie Conrad

BREAKFAST DISHES, ENTRÉES, SAVOURIES, STUFFINGS, SAUCES, HORS D’ŒUVRES, AND SANDWICHES

General Remarks

Small savouries are useful to lengthen a lunch or dinner without making the whole meal too heavy.

Their materials are often what is left over of various dishes. Therefore the remnants that are kept should be always put away with care and separated from each other.

Cut onion should never be kept in the safe containing butter or milk.

Raw bacon should be laid in the dish on the rind.

A tin of sardines should never be left open more than twenty-four hours.

Tinned salmon must be used at once.

Bottled tomatoes may be partly used and re-corked for a few days.

Bottled olives must be re-corked tightly after use. Take care that the liquid covers the olives. The same for capers, chillies, and anchovies.

The salad basket and potato ricer should be dried on the shelf over the stove after being wiped.

When boiling milk enters into the composition of any dish the saucepan should be first wetted inside with cold water.

1. Omelettes

Plain. Break four new laid eggs into a basin and beat lightly with a fork. Add a pinch of salt and a dessertspoonful of milk. Have ready in an enamelled frying pan about half an ounce of hot butter, tilting the pan to cause the butter to run all over it. Place the pan over the fire with the stove top on. Pour the beaten eggs into it. Run the knife round the rim of the omelette. Cook not more than seven minutes. Sprinkle over a few fine herbs or a little chopped parsley and fold it over twice on a very hot dish. The omelette when dished should be moist in the centre.

Truffled. Prepare the eggs as above. Chop finely three truffles and beat into the eggs. Cook in the same manner as the plain omelette and serve with the rest of the bottle of truffles cut in thin slices and laid down the centre of the omelette after it is folded.

Savoury. Take the livers of two fowls, one rasher of bacon, a slice of onion and a pinch of mixed herbs. Melt in the frying pan a piece of butter about the size of a walnut. Put the livers, bacon, and herbs into the hot butter. Fry very gently for about seven to ten minutes and when cooked chop very fine. Cook the omelette as above and spread the mixture along the middle while still in the pan. Turn the omelette sides over and serve on a hot dish.

Cheese. Prepare the eggs as above. Rub on a cheese grater a piece of Gruyère cheese to make about four tablespoonfuls. Turn the eggs into the pan. Dust three parts of grated cheese over the omelette whilst still in the pan. Dish with a slice and dust over it the remainder of the cheese; fold and place it in the oven for one minute.

Green Peas. Prepare the eggs as above. Take a teacup of cold cooked green peas and stir them into the basin with the eggs. Pour into the hot butter in the pan as for a plain omelette, fold over with the slice and serve on a hot dish. It will be noticed that sometimes the omelette will rise in a bubble and smoke. Directly this is noticed pass the blade of the knife under from the sides and let the air out, otherwise it will burn.

Cold potatoes cut into discs can be used instead of the peas for the omelette.

2. Eggs and Bacon

This dish is perhaps the most appetising breakfast dish and yet often the most unpleasant on account of the smell. Cooked in the following way there should be no smell at all. Take the rashers of bacon and carefully remove all the rind. Use preferably an enamelled frying pan in which a piece of butter the size of a walnut has been made hot. Lay the bacon in this. The stove should be hot enough to cook the bacon with the top on. Turn the bacon twice and cook for eight to ten minutes. Dish on a hot flat dish. Allow an egg for each rasher, breaking the eggs lightly without breaking the yolks into a cup one at a time and turn into the pan. Allow the boiling fat to run round the eggs. Cook for three minutes and dish with a slice placing one egg on each rasher of bacon. The pan when removed from the stove must not be put into the sink as the cold water there will cause it to smell unpleasantly.

3. Boiled Bacon

Take not less than two pounds cut out of the small back. Plunge in a saucepan three parts full of boiling water. Boil briskly for one hour.

When put on a dish the rind will tear off quite easily. Remove it and dust the part over thickly with baked breadcrumbs.

4. Sausages

Prick the sausages well with a fork. Lay in a flat meat dish and cook for twenty to twenty-five minutes not on the stove but in a fairly quick oven. This prevents all smell and they will be well cooked.

5. Sausage Rolls

Prick one pound of best pork sausages and bake in the oven for twenty minutes on a flat dish. Cut each sausage lengthwise, roll round each half a thin rasher of raw bacon, put into a paste (as for meat pie, rec: [156]), wrap in hot buttered paper and bake for another twenty minutes.

6. Eggs in Gravy

Boil two or three eggs for not longer than three minutes, drop them for a few seconds into a bowl of cold water to chill them sufficiently to be held with the fingers. Carefully remove the shell without breaking the shape of the egg. Lay each carefully in a buttered dish side by side. The eggs if properly cooked will immediately acquire a flat shape. Pour over them a little good meat gravy and serve at once. The eggs thus prepared should not be hard; but it is difficult sometimes when removing the shell to leave the egg whole. Great care is required.

7. Eggs with Chicken Livers

Put into a little stone marmite dish (fire-proof) a little butter and half the liver of a good sized fowl. (Two fowls’ livers would make four or five little dishes.) When the liver is nearly cooked (the little dishes having been placed each on the hot top plate of the stove), drop a whole egg without breaking the yolk into each and allow to cook from three to five minutes. Serve in the dishes in which they have been cooked.

Eggs can be also poached in marmite dishes but instead of butter you must half fill each dish with fresh cream and add a pinch of salt and a pinch of chopped parsley at the last moment on top of each egg.

8. Herring Roes on Toast

Take the roes from the tin or glass box, gently part with a knife, put them into a shallow pie-dish with a little pepper and butter. Cover with dish cover and stand in the oven for ten minutes. Have ready hot buttered toast and lay the roes on the toast. Put a little white pepper on them and a tiny scrap of butter and replace in the oven for a moment before serving.

9. Poached Eggs on Anchovy Toast

Butter several good slices of toast and spread with a little anchovy paste. Take an egg poacher and put over the fire to boil. Turn an egg into each ring, being careful not to break the yolk. Cook for three minutes lightly. Pass the blade of the knife round each rim of the egg, pinch the machine to open it, the eggs then remaining on the flat slice. Run the knife under each one and it is easy then to place them on the toast.

10. Poached Eggs and Tomato Toast

Scald four tomatoes and remove the skin, slice them into a small enamelled frying pan in which a piece of butter the size of a walnut has been made hot, a little pepper and salt. Chop them with a knife whilst frying, thus reducing them to a paste. Spread this over the hot buttered toast and put a poached egg on the top.

11. Breakfast Dish

Have the paste made ready as for meat pie, take six thin rashers of bacon and cut them in halves. Roll the paste thin on the board and lay half a rasher of bacon on each piece of paste. Cut the paste a little bigger than the bacon. Dust a little finely chopped onion and a tiny pinch of sweet herbs over each piece of bacon. Roll paste and bacon together (paste outside) and cook on hot buttered paper for fifteen minutes in a quick oven.

12. Haricot Breakfast Dish

Put to soak for twelve hours a pint of small haricot beans. Strain them and pick out the brown ones which are not needed. Turn them into a saucepan three parts full of boiling water with salt and a little pinch of soda. Boil gently for two hours, or until quite soft but whole; strain and put into a stone jar. Cover them with good beef stock. Add three cut rashers of bacon, fat and lean together, with one slice of very finely chopped onion and some tomato sauce (made after the recipe given with skinned tomatoes). Leave in the oven all night and make it hot in the morning before serving.

13. Devilled Drumsticks

Take four drumsticks of fowls, put half an ounce of fresh butter in an enamelled frying pan, make it hot and lay the drumsticks in it. Dust over them a little red pepper and about half a flat teaspoonful of some good curry powder. Roll them over and over in the butter and dish with a strainer.

14. Devilled Sheep’s Kidneys on Toast

Remove the skin from say two sheep’s kidneys and cut them in halves. Put into an enamelled frying pan about half ounce of fresh butter and make it hot. Lay the kidneys in the butter the cut side down. Cook over a brisk fire with the stove top off for five minutes. Turn once. Then replace the stove top and stand the frying pan again on it for five to ten minutes more. Have ready enough buttered toast to take half a kidney on each slice of toast. Dust the kidneys with a little red pepper before placing on the toast. Put on each kidney a little fresh butter about the size of a pea, place on the toast and serve very hot. Ox kidney may be used in the same way cut into slices.

15. Croquettes

Chop with a mincer very fine any remains of cold chicken or any cold meat with one ring of Spanish onion and a tiny pinch of salt and a drain of meat juice. Stir all this well in a plate, break into the mixture a freshly beaten egg, add a teaspoonful of finely rubbed breadcrumbs or rusk crumbs. Roll a tablespoonful at a time into another freshly beaten egg and then into the rolled rusk crumbs. Form into short sausage shapes or balls and fry in boiling lard or dripping for seven to ten minutes. Dish with a slice and serve hot, garnished with a little parsley.

Fish croquettes are made in the same way using any fish that may be left over, after carefully removing all the bones, and adding a little cold boiled potato.

16. To Dress Cold Fowl

Cut into small pieces, leg generally in two. Put into a saucepan and cover with milk, first putting a little water in the saucepan to prevent the milk burning. Grate half a nutmeg, add pepper and salt. When it has boiled, but not before, slice half of a fairly large Spanish onion into the saucepan. Boil for three-quarters of an hour. Thicken before serving with a little flour and butter, which should be mixed very smooth with a little of the boiling milk out of the saucepan. Bring to a boil and serve in the saucepan with a napkin wrapped round it.

17. Shepherd’s Pie

Cut the remains of any cold roast beef into small pieces and place in a dish. Slice about a quarter of a Spanish onion finely on the top, add two tomatoes cut very small, pepper and salt, half a teaspoonful of Worcester sauce, half a teaspoonful of bovril stirred in half a teacupful of water, or a little meat juice. Place in the oven uncovered for a quarter of an hour. Then take out and fill up the dish with mashed potatoes. Place a few thin slices of onion on the top, a piece of butter, and replace in the oven for three-quarters of an hour so as to brown the top nicely.

18. Tripe and Onions

Wash in cold water and remove all fat from two pounds of fresh tripe and cut into narrow strips about two inches long. Melt in an enamelled frying pan about two ounces of fresh butter turning the tripe into it. Fry lightly, not allowing to brown. Dish with a slice into a stone saucepan, leaving the butter in the pan. In the same butter fry lightly one and a half Spanish onions sliced and add to the tripe in the saucepan, with a little salt and a glass of sherry, one piece of loaf sugar, and a finely cut up carrot. Add enough water to cover and stew gently for one and a half hours. Thicken with a little flour mixed smooth with cold water and serve in the stone saucepan with a table napkin tied round it.

Note. Pig’s trotters may be added to this dish but in this case they must be soaked for two hours before cooking and added to the tripe when cooked.

19. Haricot Mutton

Soak a pint of small haricot beans overnight, carefully pick out the brown ones and rinse through three waters in the morning. Have ready a metal saucepan with about three pints of water. When boiling, pour the haricots into it with a good pinch of salt and a small piece of soda. Boil gently for two and a half hours. They are then ready to be added to the mutton. Cut into small pieces two or three pounds of best end of neck of mutton, remove the fat and put the meat into a stone saucepan, cover with water, add one turnip cut into long pieces, one Spanish onion, pepper and salt and a pinch of fine herbs. Remove the scum as it rises and cook for two hours. Add then the beans which should be quite soft and peel of their own accord when exposed to the air. Thicken with a little carefully mixed flour and water and serve in the stone saucepan with a table napkin wrapped round it.

20. Sweetbreads

Soak for half an hour two sweetbreads in cold water with a pinch of salt. Drop them in boiling water. After twenty minutes take them out, remove the skin and roll them first in a well-beaten egg and then in rolled rusk crumbs. Bake in a tin in a quick oven for three-quarters of an hour with a large piece of butter or dripping. Place on a dish and after turning the fat out of the tin put in a little good meat juice and bring it to a boil over the fire. Add then a little smoothly mixed flour and water and when thickened sufficiently strain through a gravy strainer over the sweetbreads. Serve very hot.

21. Sweetbreads—Another Way

Soak for half an hour in cold water with a pinch of salt, then drop them into boiling water. At the end of twenty minutes take out and, after removing the outer skin, cut into slices. Have ready some fresh butter in an enamelled frying pan. Fry the sliced sweetbreads lightly for a quarter of an hour. Lay on a dish and squeeze a little lemon juice on each slice allowing a quarter of a lemon for the whole of the sweetbread.

22. Steak and Kidney Pudding

Take one and a half pounds of thick steak and cut into pieces of about an inch. Have an ox kidney cut into small pieces and a basin well buttered. With half a pound of beef suet, chopped fine, and two and a half to three breakfast-cups of self-raising flour, make a stiff paste, mixing with tepid water. Line the basin with the paste. Put the steak and kidney in, add about half a teaspoonful of salt, sprinkle a little dry flour over the meat, put the crust on and cover the basin with a wet cloth which should be tied securely with string. Boil for three and a half hours. At the end of that time take the cloth off and serve in the basin (stood in a dish) with a fluted paper collar round it. Make a small hole in the top of the pudding and pour in about half a teacupful of hot gravy made from any small pieces of meat left over before serving.

23. Calf’s Kidney on Toast

Skin and split in two a calf’s kidney. Melt in a frying pan about an ounce of fresh butter, and place the kidney in this with one very thin slice of Spanish onion for each half of kidney—one rasher of bacon, chopped very fine, to be put in the pan also. Cook as for sheep’s kidneys, but without the red pepper. Prepare some hot toast, lay upon it the slice of onion, which should be kept whole if possible, and then the kidney. Dust a little portion of the bacon over it with a little pepper and salt. Turn the butter out of the pan, put a little meat juice from under the dripping (about an egg-cupful) and half a tablespoonful of white wine, the juice of a quarter of a lemon (half a teaspoonful of vinegar will serve if the lemon is not available), thicken with a little flour and water (first mixed smooth), and pour through a gravy strainer over the kidney. Serve very hot. The best way to prepare the toast is as follows:—

Take as many pieces of dry bread as required and fry quickly in a little good dripping to a crisp brown. It should then remain quite crisp even when the gravy is turned over it.

24. Bacon Pudding

About half a pound of beef suet chopped very fine, two and a half breakfast-cupfuls of self-raising flour and a pinch of salt, must be mixed with tepid water into a nice elastic paste. Cut half a pound of bacon (fat and lean together) into narrow long strips, slice thinly one fair-sized Spanish onion into rings, and chop about eight leaves of sage very fine. Roll the paste in small pieces to form layers in the basin which must be greased by putting in a good-sized piece of butter and allowing it to stand on the top of the stove until the butter has melted and every part of the basin has had the hot butter run over it. This will prevent the pudding adhering to the basin. Put one layer of paste in the basin, then a layer of bacon and onion and just a little sage sprinkled over the top, then another layer of paste, and so on till all the bacon and onion are used up. Then put on the top layer of paste which must quite fill the basin, and tie the pudding securely in a freshly wetted pudding cloth. Care must be taken that the cloth is not drawn too tight over the pudding and that the basin is full or the water will get in and spoil the dish. The pudding must be immersed in boiling water and boiled for three hours. At the end of that time turn it out on a hot dish and serve with a little clear melted butter in a sauce boat.

25. Veal or Beef Olives

It is often found inconvenient to cook a joint in a hurry (or the joint may be found to be too large) when the following recipe will be found useful. Cut a slice of about an inch thick off the round of beef or fillet of veal, cut that into five or six pieces and flatten well with a knife. Chop finely about half a Spanish onion, a few sweet herbs, and pepper and salt, and put a little of these on each piece of meat and cover with half a rasher of bacon. Tie each piece securely with string. Melt one ounce of fresh butter in a frying pan over a clear fire and when ready lay the olives in it. Fry briskly for three minutes, turn over once and fry for the same length of time, then cover with another frying pan, inverted, and fry for another ten to fifteen minutes. Place the meat on a dish and remove the strings gently, cutting with scissors. Put into the frying pan about half a teacupful of good meat juice, a tablespoonful of white wine, a little salt, thicken with a little flour and pour over the olives. They will keep their shape and should be served with some nicely prepared vegetables, either beans, peas, or potatoes.

26. Pigeons with Carrots

Split the roasted pigeons in halves and lay cut side down in a stone saucepan with half a claret glass of white wine, pepper and salt, with four carrots cut lengthwise, each into eight pieces then cut across. Add a little good meat juice. Put enough water to just cover the pigeons. Stew gently for three-quarters of an hour. Thicken with a little flour and water and serve in the stone saucepan, or in a deep dish.

27. Ragoût of Veal

Cut into small pieces two pounds of neck of veal. Put into a saucepan and cover with cold water, and a teaspoonful of salt, a little pepper, one piece of loaf sugar, six spring onions, bottoms and green tops, six small carrots split in two, and one small turnip. Stew gently for one and a half to two hours, adding a little water if required. Half an hour before serving add a half pint of fresh green peas, a pinch of mixed herbs, half a glass of white wine. Thicken with a little smoothly mixed flour and water, stirred into the veal. Best served in the earthenware saucepan, with a napkin tied round it. If green peas are not available a little Patna rice may be used after it has been washed through several waters; or a few cut scarlet runners. Cold veal may be treated as above but in that case a little good meat juice must be used instead of the extra half pint of water.

28. Rump Steak and Kidney Pie with Mushrooms or Truffles

For a pie for four persons take a pound and a half of rump steak and half an ox kidney. Cut into nice pieces with a little fat but no gristle. Put it all in a deep pie-dish, with pepper and salt and the contents of a small bottle of truffles cut in small pieces (or eight mushrooms). Flour rather thickly over the top and add a little water to the side of the dish so that it runs underneath the meat (and half a teaspoonful of mushroom catsup if with mushrooms), cover with another smaller pie-dish which should allow a small opening at the sides so as to let the steam escape. Cook for three-quarters of an hour in a brisk oven and meantime rub a quarter of a pound of fresh butter, or lard, into two and a half breakfast-cupfuls of self-raising flour with a little salt, and mix with a little milk to an elastic paste. When ready take the dish out of the oven and stir the meat and the flour together. The pie will then be ready for the crust. Butter the rim of the dish while still hot. Lay a strip of paste all round and moisten with a little milk to make the top crust adhere. Bake in a quick oven for half an hour. It is important that the meat should be cooked first as otherwise it will either be underdone or the crust will be overcooked. Do not forget to make a hole in the middle of the top crust before baking.

29. Kidney Sauté

Remove the fatty centre of an ox kidney, cut the kidney into thin slices and dice it on a pastry board on which has been poured a good handful of flour. Rub the diced kidney well into the flour so that it looks all white. Put it into a stone saucepan, add pepper and salt, a little scraped carrot, one good-sized onion stuck with three cloves, and cover with cold water. Stir the kidney so as to remove all the flour into the water, which should look like milk. Cook in a quick oven for two hours. This might be cooked in the morning and made warm in the evening. Remove onion before serving.

30. Kidney Sauté—Another Way

Take one or two sheep’s kidneys, skin and split them. Lay each half, flat side down, in a frying pan with an ounce of butter or dripping, heated. Place on a quick fire, add one or two slices of onion cut thin, pepper and salt. Remove from the fire and cut the kidneys up. Place again on the stove, add a teaspoonful of bovril, a little Worcester sauce (one teaspoonful), mix smoothly a dessertspoonful of flour with water, add half a breakfast-cup of hot water to the kidneys. Stir and keep boiling twenty minutes, and serve hot, either alone or within a wall of freshly mashed potatoes.

31. Kidneys in Onions

To those who are fond of an onion there is hardly a more appetising dish than onions prepared in the following manner. Take four or five decent-sized sound onions. Small Spanish are the best. Cut rather a deep slice off the top after removing the outer skin. You can then take the centre out; say you remove half the onion leaving about four of the thicknesses. Have ready two or three sheep’s kidneys prepared in the following manner: Skin each kidney and split it. Sprinkle lightly pepper and salt on the split side. Put into a frying pan a little dripping or butter, lay the kidney flat side first in the boiling fat, place the pan on a quick fire and fry lightly, turning twice. As onion requires a lot of cooking it is best to put the prepared onion cases into boiling dripping and cook in a quick oven twenty-five minutes. Then place the kidney (half in each onion) and replace in the oven in the baking tin another ten minutes. Care should be taken not to overcook the kidney so that the gravy runs into the onion as it finishes cooking. Serve very hot in a stone dish.

32. Jugged Hare

Cut the hare up. Rub the pieces in flour. Put one and a half ounces of butter into a large enamelled frying pan, and lightly fry the hare for ten minutes. Then place your hare in a stone jar with one Spanish onion stuck with three cloves, some salt, a piece of loaf sugar, and a little finely scraped carrot. Add two glasses of port wine and a little Worcester sauce. Cover the jar with a plate and stand in a quick oven for three hours. Dish into a flat dish, garnish all round with half slices of lemon and serve with currant jelly.

33. Yorkshire Pudding for Baked Beef or Mutton

Separate the white of one egg from the yolk. Put the latter in an earthenware bowl and stir it lightly. Beat the white separately with a freshly cleaned knife in a plate. It is most important that a perfectly clean knife be used or the white of the egg will not rise. Beat it to a stiff froth and stir it into the yolk of the egg; and only afterwards add half a teacupful of milk and a little pepper and salt.

Stir in a breakfast-cupful of self-raising flour vigorously and work it perfectly smooth. If it is not then quite the consistency of very thick cream add a little milk to make it so. Turn into a baking tin and bake under the meat, which would be already three parts cooked then. Do not forget to turn most of the fat out of the baking tin before the pudding is poured in. Three-quarters of an hour is the time required for cooking a Yorkshire pudding.

34. Welsh Rarebit

Take half a pound of good Cheddar cheese, not too strong, and cut it into a flat meat dish with pepper and salt. Pour over a sufficient quantity of bottled ale to fill the dish. Stand in a quick oven and bake until the cheese is all melted. Have ready some buttered toast about a quarter of an inch thick. Remove the cheese from the dish leaving the beer and spread the cheese lightly on the toast. Replace in the oven, and serve very hot. The object of the beer is to flavour the cheese only and if the cheese were to be cooked in a frying pan over the fire it would absorb all the beer and be rendered very bitter.

35. Spaghetti

Put half a pound of spaghetti into boiling water with a good pinch of salt. If you carefully put the spaghetti upright in the saucepan and give them a twist they won’t break. Boil gently, being careful to add boiling water as needed to keep the same amount. It is important never to add cold water as that chills the spaghetti and causes it to become tough. Cook for one hour and meantime prepare the following sauce:

Put six good-sized tomatoes cut in quarters into a saucepan (or a pudding basin may be used in the oven), with one large round of Spanish onion chopped fine, three pieces of loaf sugar, a pinch of salt and pepper, half a bottle of tomato catsup, and an ounce of fresh butter. Stew gently on the side of the stove for three-quarters of an hour. Strain all the water off the spaghetti with the lid, into a salad bowl (or good-sized dish), stir in the tomato sauce which has been strained thoroughly, and serve very hot with some grated cheese in another dish.

36. Risotto

Remove all the fat from a pint of good clear beef or mutton stock and put it on the stove to boil. Wash a teacupful of Patna rice through four waters and put it into the boiling stock and cook for half an hour gently. Chop two thin rashers of bacon into small pieces, add half an onion chopped very finely and put this into the stock while it is boiling. Care should be taken, if the stock is already salted, that very little salt is added. Drain the rice dry and have ready a teacupful of Parmesan and Gruyère cheese (grated) and some good tomato sauce made with skinned tomatoes. Stir the cheese and tomato sauce into the rice in the saucepan and have ready some stone or metal moulds rinsed in cold water but not wiped. Put some of the mixture into each mould and place in a cold place for about two hours. Then put the moulds into the oven with a dish over the top and serve when hot.

37. Cauliflower au Gratin

Remove all the stump of a young cauliflower and boil for fifteen minutes in a large saucepan with a pinch of salt and a small pinch of soda. When cooked, turn it into a cullender and break it into small pieces (not too small) on a flat pie-dish. Take one and a half tablespoonfuls of butter. Have ready half a pint of milk boiling. Turn the boiling milk into the paste and stir well till quite smooth. Put it back in the saucepan and bring to a boil. Stir four good tablespoonfuls of grated Gruyère cheese into the sauce and turn it over the cauliflower in the dish. Dust a little more cheese over it and stand the dish in a quick oven for ten minutes to brown. The browning can also be done with a Salamander.

38. Macaroni au Gratin

Have ready three pints of freshly boiling water with a good pinch of salt in a saucepan for about half a pound of straight macaroni which must be broken up to a convenient size. Macaroni should always be put straight into boiling water. Boil gently for forty minutes to an hour but be careful not to let it boil over, adding boiling water from time to time as the macaroni swells. Strain the water off with the lid, and stir into the saucepan a breakfast-cupful of grated Gruyère cheese (a little grated Parmesan cheese is a great improvement added to the Gruyère). Turn into a stone dish. Dust a little more cheese over the top, put a piece of butter about the size of two good-sized walnuts and place in a quick oven to brown slightly.

39. Marrow Toast

Take some good marrow bones and tie the ends in freshly scalded muslin after previously salting slightly the end where the marrow is. Put them into a large saucepan of boiling water with a cut onion. Boil for one hour and then take the bones out. Remove the muslin and take the marrow out on to a plate and season with a little pepper and salt and spread on hot buttered toast. Replace in oven for a few minutes and serve very hot. This makes a good savoury dish.

40. Sage and Onion Stuffing

(For goose, fowl, beef, veal, or breast of mutton)

Put into an enamelled frying pan about two ounces of fresh butter ready for melting. (Salt butter always leaves a deposit in the pan which causes the things to burn.) Take five large Spanish onions, cut carefully on a board into thin slices, and put into the hot butter. Place on the fire with the stove top on and boil for half an hour without allowing them to brown. Take the soft part of one loaf, rub it fine on a grater, chop ten or twelve large leaves of sage, mix with the breadcrumbs, pour the onion hot into the centre, mix thoroughly and stuff.

This stuffing will be found not to smell in the cooking, or to be unpleasant after eating.

41. Truffled Stuffing for Fowls

For two fowls take the soft part of half a loaf of bread, eight small sprigs of parsley (not the stalk), the yolk of one egg, the livers of the fowls, one rasher of bacon not too fat, pepper and salt, one round of Spanish onion, a piece of butter the size of a walnut, and one small bottle of truffles. Rub the bread very fine on a cheese-grater and chop onion and parsley very small. Fry the liver, bacon, and onion very lightly, chop them very small and turn on to the board to mix thoroughly with crumbs. Add the chopped truffles and a piece of butter, break the yolk of the egg into it and stir the mixture well when the stuffing will be ready to put into the fowl.

42. Sauce Piquante for Leg of Mutton Cutlets

After dishing the cutlets (rec: [86]) turn the butter out of the pan and put a little water into it as meat juice adheres to the pan. Into this put a slice of Spanish onion chopped very fine, half a claret glass of white wine, the juice of half a lemon, a little salt and pepper, half a teaspoonful of Worcester sauce. Thicken with half a teaspoonful of carefully mixed flour and water. Place the pan over the fire and bring the mixture to boiling point, no more. Take it off and strain through a gravy strainer over the meat and serve at once.

43. Horseradish Cream

Have a nice fresh horseradish rubbed finely on a coarse cheese-grater having sufficient radish when grated for three large tablespoonfuls. Place it in a basin and add half a large teacupful of thick cream. Stir well and add three good teaspoonfuls of powdered sugar, a little salt, and one and a half tablespoonfuls of good malt vinegar. Serve with cold roast or boiled beef in a sauce boat. Never add anything to the radish till the cream has been well stirred in and always add the vinegar last.

44. Mustard Sauce

This sauce has the great advantage that it does not require any cooking and can be produced within a few moments if desired.

Two yolks of eggs carefully separated from the whites and placed in a stone basin, and two teaspoonfuls of dry mustard stirred together till perfectly smooth with two large tablespoonfuls of best salad oil and two tablespoonfuls of best malt vinegar and a pinch of salt. Sprinkle on it a little finely chopped parsley the last thing.

45. Sauce Piquante

Two or three thin slices of Spanish onion fried lightly in a little good beef dripping. Two large tablespoonfuls of bovril added to the onion which must be allowed to adhere lightly to the pan. Half a teacup of hot water and a tablespoonful of best malt vinegar. Let the whole come to a boil and thicken slightly with a little carefully mixed flour and water. Strain and serve in a sauce boat.

46. Egg and Lemon Sauce for Fish or Calf’s Head

Melt in an enamelled frying pan about two ounces of fresh butter, add quickly the yolks of two eggs and half a teacup of fresh cream. The object of adding the cream with the yolks of the eggs is to prevent the egg from becoming solid. Stir well together with a little salt the juice of one lemon and a little milk. This sauce should be thick enough without any added thickening.

47. Apple Sauce

Put six apples cut very small into a stone saucepan with a little cold water. Add a teacupful of powdered sugar and half an ounce of butter. Stew gently for one hour. Strain off some of the juice with the lid of the saucepan and beat the apples with a fork until reduced to a paste.

48. Tomato Sauce

Put the tomatoes into a deep basin or jug and scald with boiling water. They can then be peeled easily, the skin coming off like a glove from the hand. Place in a rather deep frying pan with half an ounce of butter and a piece of loaf sugar, pepper and salt. Mash with knife till fairly smooth and serve, after steaming, with cutlets, veal, or mutton.

49. Sauce Ravigotte

(For cold meat or boiled calves’ feet, cold)

Chop together very small the yolk and white of one hard-boiled egg, add the yolk of one raw one, six spring onions, a little parsley, pepper and salt. Mix with one tablespoonful of vinegar and two of best salad oil.

50. Bread Sauce

Peel and cut into quarters one onion and let it simmer in a pint of milk till perfectly tender. Break one-fourth pound stale bread into small pieces or grate it into crumbs, put it into a clean saucepan and strain the milk from the onion over it; cover it with the lid and let it remain an hour to soak. Beat it briskly with a fork, add a little salt, a small pinch of cayenne pepper and either a little cream or a piece of butter the size of a walnut.

51. Brandy Sauce for Christmas Pudding

Bring to a boil half a pint of milk, mix in a large basin one tablespoonful of cornflour with a little cold milk, to a very stiff paste, pour into it the boiling milk, stirring one way all the time, add two large tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar, two wineglasses of brandy and serve in a sauce boat, very hot. Note: If the cornflour is mixed very stiff and the milk is poured in while boiling, the sauce will thicken and there will be no need to return it to the saucepan to boil again.

52. Curries

Rice. The cooking of rice is the principal part in preparing a dish of curry.

The rice must be snowy white in appearance and so dry when cooked that each grain is perfectly detached.

Wash your rice in ten waters so as to get rid of all floury dust. Have a saucepan ready with boiling water (in the proportion of three pints to a quarter of a pound of rice) with a good pinch of salt. Pour the rice into the saucepan and boil fast with the lid partly off (so that it does not boil over) for twelve minutes. Drain off nearly all the water, then shutting the lid tight, put the saucepan at the side of the stove for the rice to finish cooking in its own steam. At the end of twenty minutes the rice will be cooked and dry. Care must be taken not to let it burn.

Curried Eggs. Fry lightly together one large Spanish onion cut into rings and one or two tomatoes cut in four for about ten minutes without allowing the onion to brown. Add a little good beef stock and go on cooking in the frying pan for another twenty minutes, add then a tablespoonful or more of curry powder and stir in the sauce. Four to six hard-boiled eggs each cut into four are to be laid in the centre of the frying pan and sauce turned over them with a spoon, after being thickened with a little flour and water mixed smoothly. At the end of five minutes lay the eggs down the centre of a dish and pour the curry over them.

For meats or chicken, which would be already cooked, or for prawn curries, proceed as above but take care to put meat or prawns in the pan ten minutes after the stock has been added, and boil for ten minutes before adding the curry and five minutes more afterwards.

53. Mayonnaise

For Salmon, Lobster, and Cold Fowl

Salmon. Cover with cold water in an earthenware saucepan two pounds of salmon cutlets. A strainer should be laid at the bottom of the saucepan. Add a little salt and a teaspoonful of vinegar. Cook for thirty minutes. Dish on a flat dish and place on ice. Arrange on a bed of sliced cucumber and lettuce and pour the mayonnaise over.

To make the mayonnaise put the yolks of two eggs in a pastry bowl, and, while stirring with a spoon, keep adding drop by drop the best Lucca salad oil to the amount of a teacupful. When all the oil is used, stir in a teaspoonful of Tarragon vinegar. It is imperative that nothing should be added to the yolks before the oil, or the mayonnaise will not rise. For the same reason you must stir always the same way. To make a larger quantity add half a teacupful of oil for each yolk, and a quarter of a teaspoonful of Tarragon vinegar. If possible a mayonnaise should not be made more than half an hour before it is required.

Fowl. The chicken should be carved and laid on a bed of mixed salad with a few slices of beet-root round the outside of the dish.

Lobster. The lobster should be taken out of the shell and laid on a bed of lettuce.

54. Salmon and Cucumber Sandwiches

Pound some fresh salmon in a mortar with a drain of anchovy sauce. Spread it lightly on some thin bread and butter. Add a couple of thin slices of cucumber and a little salt. Salmon and shrimp paste can be used if preferred.

55. Prawn Sandwiches

Cut thin some bread and butter. Cut the prawns very fine and lay them on the buttered bread with a little mustard and cress, pepper and salt.

56. Sardine Sandwiches

Scrape the sardines and remove the bones. Take eight slices of toast about an inch thick, trim round the edges, and split with a knife. Butter lightly while hot and lay the sardines between the split toast not too thickly. Add a little red or white pepper if preferred and then close the toast which should be then cut into two and served hot.

57. Sardines on Toast

Take the sardines out of the box and scrape off the scales, split them and remove the backbone. Lay two sardines (four halves) on each slice of buttered toast, sprinkle with a little red pepper and place in the oven. Serve very hot.

58. Beef and Tomato Sandwiches

Take a sandwich loaf and cut the crust off on three sides. Pass the knife down between the back crust and the crumb and slice the bread against it. Butter each slice of bread and lay a thin slice of beef on it, then a thin slice of tomato. Lay the other bread and butter on the top with a pinch of pepper and salt.

59. Caviare Savoury

Take some slices of buttered toast, spread lightly with caviare and put into the oven for a few seconds before serving.

60. Hard-Boiled Eggs for Garniture of Sandwiches

Have the water boiling, put the eggs into it and boil for fifteen minutes quickly. Remove with a spoon and plunge them into cold water; if the eggs are fresh this should avoid the green line which usually forms round the white.

61. Hors d’œuvres

Hors d’œuvres make a nice beginning to a meal, do not give much trouble to prepare, and dress the table laid out for lunch in an interesting manner. My practice was to use four to six glass dishes.

Sardines. Remove carefully from the tin and lay on the dish with their tails in the middle of the dish and the head part of the fish towards the outer edge of the dish.

Anchovies. The French ones bottled in oil are the most profitable and will keep quite a long time if carefully corked and the oil covers the fish. Unroll them and split them lengthwise, laying them four or five lengths one way of the dish and four or five the other, leaving little squares of the dish visible. Fill each of these with the chopped up white of an egg boiled hard.

A caviare hors d’œuvre should be served in the pot, packed in crushed ice and plain toast provided on the table for it.

Stuffed Eggs. Have three or four eggs boiled hard. Place them in a basin of cold water. Remove the shells as soon as they are cool enough to hold in the fingers. Rinse in the water and cut each egg across the middle, and cut a thin slice from each rounded end of the egg to enable it to stand in an upright position. Remove the yolks into a plate and mash them with a dinner fork, adding two teaspoonfuls of anchovy sauce (bottled), one tablespoonful of cream, half a teaspoonful of dry mustard. Work all together with the fork, and when perfectly mixed, fill in the whites with the mixture. Cut a French olive into strips lengthwise round the stone and place one piece across the top of each egg to resemble a handle.

Eggs with a Mayonnaise Sauce. Cut lengthwise four hard-boiled eggs after removing the shells as directed and lay them white side up on the dish, which must be rather deep. Make a little mayonnaise sauce (proportion of one yolk of an egg to half a teacup of salad oil stirred into it drop by drop and half a teaspoonful of Tarragon vinegar), pour the sauce over the eggs.

Beet-root. Boiled whole and cut into thin rings, pour over it a little vinegar and dust a little powdered sugar on it and a little finely chopped onion.

Tomatoes. Skinned and prepared as directed for tomato salad.

Celery. Cut or rather curled as you would peel rhubarb and dressed either with oil and vinegar or with a little mayonnaise sauce to which has been added half a teaspoonful of dry mustard.

Then there are olives, stuffed or otherwise, tunny fish or smoked salmon which can be bought in small tins and do not require any dressing. Simply serve on the dish.

62. Chocolate

Place a quarter of a pound of Chocolate Menier in a stone saucepan for ten minutes covered with cold water. Let it stand on the side of the stove. Work it into a smooth paste and add water or milk to make it a pint. No sugar. Place it over the fire and bring it to a boil. Do this six times, lifting it from the fire each time it boils.

63. Coffee for Four Persons

Put into an earthenware saucepan a teacupful of roasted coffee freshly ground, and pour over one pint and a half of boiling water. Bring to a boil twice. Tip a tablespoonful of cold water into the boiling coffee. Let it stand for five minutes and strain through a strainer into a warmed coffee pot.