CAULIFLOWER.
Boiled Cauliflower.
Pick off the leaves and cut the stalk close to the bottom of the bunch of flowers. Lay in cold water for half an hour. Unless very large, do not cut it; if you do, quarter neatly. Tie a close net of coarse bobbinet lace or tarlatan about it to prevent breaking or bruising; put into boiling water salted, and cook until tender. Undo and remove the net, and lay the cauliflower in a hot dish. Have ready a large cupful of nice drawn butter and pour over it. A little lemon-juice makes of this a sauce tartare.
Cut with a silver knife and fork in helping it out, and give a little of the sauce to each person. Take it out of the water as soon as it is done, serve quickly, and eat hot. It darkens with standing.
Stewed Cauliflower.
Use for this dish the smaller and more indifferent cauliflowers. Cut them into small clusters; lay in cold salt and water half an hour, and stew fifteen minutes in boiling water. Turn most of this off, leaving but half a teacupful in the saucepan. Add to this a half-cupful of milk thickened with a very little rice or wheat flour, and two tablespoonfuls of melted butter, pepper, and salt. Shake the saucepan over the fire gently until it boils; take out the cauliflowers with a perforated skimmer, lay in order upon a dish, and pour the sauce over them.
Scalloped Cauliflower.
Boil until tender, clip into neat clusters, and pack—the stems downward—in a buttered pudding-dish. Beat up a cupful of bread-crumbs to a soft paste with two tablespoonfuls of melted butter and six of cream or milk; season with pepper and salt, bind with a beaten egg, and with this cover the cauliflower. Cover the dish closely and bake six minutes in a quick oven; brown in five more, and serve very hot in the dish in which they were baked.