For each half-pound of meat used, peel and mince a small onion, and a mushroom if at hand, and fry these lightly in half an ounce of butter or dripping. Next sprinkle in half an ounce of flour. Then gradually add half-pint of stock, using the marinate also. Allow to cool a little. Lay in the meat and let it stand by the fire until quite hot, but not to boil.
[A] To soak up the flavour.
Some of the things Margaret made for breakfast she made for lunch or supper, too, such as scalloped eggs and omelettes. She had some vegetables besides, such as—
BAKED TOMATOES
6 large tomatoes.
1 cup of bread-crumbs.
½ teaspoonful of salt.
1 tablespoonful of butter.
1 slice of onion.
Put the butter in the frying-pan, and when it bubbles put in the bread-crumbs, the salt, and onion, with a dusting of pepper, and stir till the crumbs are a little brown and the onion is all cooked; then take out the onion and throw it away. Wipe the tomatoes with a clean wet cloth, and cut out the stem and a round hole or little well in the middle; fill this with the crumbs, piling them up well on top; put them in a baking-dish and stand them in a hot oven; mix a cup of hot water with a tablespoonful of butter, and every little while take out the baking-dish and wet the tomatoes on top. Cook them about half an hour, or till the skins get wrinkled all over. Serve them in the dish they are cooked in, if you like, or put each one on a small plate; pour some of the juice in the baking-dish over it, and stick a sprig of parsley in the top.
STUFFED POTATOES
Wash six large potatoes, and scrub them with a little brush till they are a nice clean light brown, and bake them for half an hour in a hot oven; or, if they are quite large, bake them till they are soft and puffy. Cut off one end from each and take out the inside with a teaspoon, holding the potato in a towel as you do so, for it will be very hot. Mix well this potato with two tablespoonfuls of rich milk or cream, a half-teaspoonful of salt and just as much butter, and put this back into the shells. Stand the potatoes side by side in a pan close together, the open ends up, till they are browned.
PASTRY FOR PORK PIES
6 ozs. of lard to 1 lb. of flour.
Pinch of salt.
1 pint of boiling milk.