Cassell's Vegetarian Cookery: A Manual of Cheap and Wholesome Diet

by A. G. Payne

Brussels Sprouts, Tinned.—The tin should be made hot before it is opened, the liquor drained off, and the sprouts placed in a dish, with a little butter or oil, powdered sugar, salt, pepper, and a slight flavouring of nutmeg. In France, in some parts, a little cream is poured over them.

Spinach, Tinned.—Spinach is sold in tins fairly cheap, and, quoting from the list of a large retail establishment where prices correspond with those of the Civil Service Stores, a tin of spinach can be obtained for fivepence-halfpenny. The spinach should be made very hot in the tin, turned out on to a dish, and [hard-boiled eggs], hot, cut in halves, added. Some people add also a little vinegar, but, unless persons’ tastes are known beforehand, that is best added on the plate.

Carrots, Tinned.—Young carrots can be obtained in tins, and, as only young carrots are nice when served as a course by themselves, these will be found a valuable addition to the vegetarian store-cupboard. Make the carrots hot in the tin, and let the water boil, for quite ten minutes after it comes to the boiling point. Drain off the liquor, and serve them with some kind of [white sauce] exactly as if they were freshly boiled young carrots.

Turnips, Tinned.—Proceed exactly the same as in the case of carrots.

Fond d’Artichoke.—These consist of the bottom part only of French artichokes. They should be made hot in the tin, and served up with some good [butter sauce], and cut lemon separate, as many prefer the artichokes plain.

Macedoines.—This, as the word implies, is a mixture of various vegetables, the chief of which are generally chopped-up carrot and turnip with young green peas. A very nice dish which can be served at a very short notice, if you have [curry sauce] in bottles, is a dish of vegetable curry. The macedoines should be made hot in the tin, the liquor drained off, and the curry sauce, made hot, should be poured into a well made in the centre of the macedoines in the dish. Macedoines are also very useful, as they can be served as a vegetable salad at a moment’s notice, as the vegetables are sufficiently cooked without being made hot.

Tinned Fruits.—Tinned fruits are ready for eating directly the tin is opened. All we have to bear in mind is to turn them all out of the tin on to a dish immediately. Do not leave any in the tin to be used at another time. Most tinned fruits can be served just as they are, in a glass dish, but a great improvement can be made in their appearance at a very small cost and with a very little extra trouble if we always have in the house a little preserved angelica and a few dried cherries. As these cost about a shilling or one and fourpence per pound, and even a quarter of a pound is sufficient to ornament two or three dozen dishes, the extra expense is almost nil.

Apricots, Tinned.—Pile the apricots up, with the convex side uppermost, in a glass dish, reserving one cup apricot to go on the top, with the concave side uppermost. Take a few preserved cherries, and cut them in halves, and stick half a cherry in all the little holes or spaces where the apricots meet. Cut four little green leaves out of the angelica about the size of the thumb-nail, only a little longer; the size of a filbert would perhaps describe the size better. Put a whole cherry in the apricot cup at the top, and four green leaves of angelica round it. Take the white kernel of the apricot—one or two will always be found in every tin—and cut four white slices out of the middle, place these round the red cherry, touching the cherry, and resting between the four green leaves of angelica; the top of this dish has now the appearance of a very pretty flower.

Peaches, Tinned.—These can be treated in exactly a similar way to the apricots.

Peaches and Apricots, with Cream.—Place the fruit in a glass dish, with the concave side uppermost; pour the syrup round the fruit, and with a teaspoon remove any syrup that may have settled in the little cups, for such the half-peaches or apricots may be called. Get a small jar of Devonshire clotted cream; take about half a teaspoonful of cream, and place it in the middle of each cup, and place a single preserved cherry on the top of the cream. This dish can be made still prettier by chopping up a little green angelica, like parsley, and sprinkling a few of these little green specks on the white cream.