This is a very tasty vegetable dish. Peel, cut open right through the middle, not lengthways; take four or five ripe tomatoes, plunge first into boiling, then into cold water, to remove the skins, then cut up roughly in a basin, add two onions, finely minced, a teaspoonful of lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste, a slice of butter or some grated suet, any remnants of cold ham or bacon there may be in the house, finely minced, a teaspoonful of minced parsley, half a cupful of fine bread-crumbs. Bind the mixture with the yolk of an egg, well beaten, and fill in the two halves of the marrow. Carefully put each half in a separate well buttered bag, the mixture side uppermost, and cook for forty-five minutes.
CUCUMBER.
Simply peel one or more cucumbers, brush over with oiled butter, season with salt, pepper, sprinkle over with a little flour, put into a well buttered “Papakuk” bag, and cook twenty minutes.
CUCUMBER FRITTERS.
Peel a young cucumber, cut in slices of a medium thickness, season with salt, pepper, the juice of a lemon, and leave them to soak for an hour. Have ready a thick batter, dip in the slices, sprinkle with minced parsley and a little minced onion, put into a thickly greased bag and cook fifteen minutes.
CUCUMBER STUFFED.
Peel a large thick cucumber, cut off the top, scoop out the seeds, fill with a mixture of minced cold meat, a few bread-crumbs, seasoning, and a little stock to moisten. A very nice stuffing is made with some sausage-meat or some kidneys cut small, flavoured with minced onion and parsley. Fix on the top with white of egg, brush over with oiled butter, sprinkle with bread-crumbs, and cook twenty minutes in a thickly greased bag.
Cereals do not seem very adaptable for paper-bag cookery, but with a little care and attention they lend themselves very fairly to this method of cooking, and gain considerably in flavour thereby.
BUTTER BEANS
are extremely nice cooked in paper-bag fashion. They want a great deal of soaking to be really mellow. Wash the beans well, and put to soak early in the morning in abundance of water. Leave all day. By night the beans will have absorbed most of the water. Pour off any that may remain, leaving them quite dry. Cover the basin and leave till morning. This gives the beans a much nicer flavour than if they were cooked at once. Next day skin them. They are much superior when the outer skin is removed, and the trouble is really trifling. Put them into a buttered bag with a cupful of water, a sprinkle of minced parsley, a tablespoonful of minced onion, two rashers of fat bacon, cut into dice, but no salt, which would render them hard. They will be ready in an hour and a half. If the skins are left on, they will take another half-hour. Have ready a little butter, just melted over the fire, season with salt and pepper, and pour over the dish of beans before sending to table. If the bacon is omitted, substitute a good slice of butter in the bag.