A little cook book for a little girl

by Caroline French Benton

Butter a deep baking-dish. Roll the crackers, or make the bread-crumbs of even size; some people like one better than the other, and you can try both ways. Put a layer of crumbs in the dish, then a layer of oysters, washed, then a sprinkling of salt and pepper and a few bits of butter. Then another layer of crumbs, oysters, and seasoning, till the dish is full, with crumbs on the top. Mix the milk and oyster-juice and pour slowly over. Then cover the top with bits of butter, and bake in the oven till brown—about half an hour.

You can put these oysters into small dishes, just as you did the creamed oysters, or into large scallop-shells, and bake them only ten or fifteen minutes. In serving, put a small sprig of parsley into each.

Pigs in Blankets

These were great fun to make, and Margaret often begged to get them ready for company.

15 large oysters. 15 very thin slices of bacon.

Sprinkle each oyster with a very little salt and pepper. Trim the rind from the bacon and wrap each oyster in one slice, pinning this ``blanket'' tightly on the back with a tiny Japanese wooden toothpick. Have ready a hot frying-pan, and lay in five oysters, and cook till the bacon is brown and the edges of the oysters curl, turning each over once. Put these on a hot plate in the oven with the door open, and cook five more, and so on. Put them on a long, narrow platter, with slices of lemon and sprigs of parsley around. Or you can put each one on a strip of toast which you have dipped in the gravy in the pan; this is the better way. This dish must be eaten very hot, or it will not be good.

Creamed Fish

2 cups of cold fish. 1 cup of white sauce.

Pick any cold fish left from dinner into even bits, taking out all the bones and skin, and mix with the hot white sauce. Stir until smooth, and add a small half-teaspoonful of chopped parsley.

You can put this in a buttered baking-dish and cover the top with crumbs and bits of butter, and brown in the oven, or you can put it in small dishes and brown also, or you can serve it just as is, in little dishes.