(An Irish Receipt.)
Mix in about equal proportions (these can be varied to suit the convenience of the moment) some smoothly mashed potatoes, and some young sprouts or greens of any kind, first boiled quite tender, pressed very dry, and chopped a little if needful. Mash up the whole well together, add a seasoning of pepper and salt, a small bit of butter, and a spoonful or two of cream or milk; put a raw onion into the middle of the mass, and stir it over a clear fire until it is very hot, and sufficiently dry to be moulded and turned out for table, or dished in the usual manner. Take out the onion before the kohl cannon is served. In Ireland mashed parsneps and potatoes are mingled in the same way, and called parsnep cannon. A good summer variety of the preparation is made there also with Windsor beans boiled tender, skinned, and bruised to a paste, then thoroughly blended with the potatoes. Turnips, too, are sometimes substituted for the parsneps; but these or any other watery vegetable should be well dried over a gentle fire as directed for mashed turnips in this chapter, before they are added to the potatoes.
TO BOIL SEA-KALE.
Wash, trim, and tie the kale in bunches, and throw it into plenty of boiling water with some salt in it. When it is perfectly tender, lift it out, drain it well from the water, and send it to table with good melted butter. When fashion is not particularly regarded we would recommend its being served upon a toast like asparagus. About twenty minutes will boil it, rather less for persons who like it crisp.
18 to 20 minutes.
SEA-KALE STEWED IN GRAVY. (ENTREMETS.)
Boil the kale for ten minutes in salt and water; drain it well, and put it into a saucepan with as much good brown gravy as will nearly cover it; stew it gently for ten minutes or until it is tender, and send it to table in the gravy very hot. Another excellent mode of serving this vegetable is, to boil it in salt and water, and to pour over it plenty of rich white sauce after it is dished.
SPINACH. (ENTREMETS.)
(French Receipt.)
Pick the spinach leaf by leaf from the stems, and wash it in abundance of spring water, changing it several times; then shake it in a dry cloth held by the four corners, or drain it on a large sieve. Throw it into sufficient well-salted boiling water to allow it to float freely, and keep it pressed down with a skimmer that it may be equally done. When quite young it will be tender in from eight to ten minutes, but to ascertain if it be so, take a leaf and squeeze it between the fingers. If to be dressed in the French mode, drain, and then throw it directly into plenty of fresh water, and when it is cool form it into balls and press the moisture thoroughly from it with the hands. Next, chop it extremely fine upon a clean trencher; put two ounces (for a large dish) of butter into a stewpan or bright thick saucepan, lay the spinach on it, and keep it stirred over a gentle fire for ten minutes, or until it appears dry; dredge in a spoonful of flour, and turn the spinach as it is added; pour to it gradually, a few spoonsful of very rich veal gravy, or, if preferred, of good boiling cream (with the last of these a dessertspoonful or more of pounded sugar may be added for a second-course dish, when the true French mode of dressing the vegetable is liked.) Stew the whole briskly until the liquid is entirely absorbed; dish, and serve the spinach very hot, with small, pale fried sippets round it, or with leaves of puff paste fresh from the oven, or well dried after having been fried. For ornament, the sippets may be fancifully shaped with a tin cutter. A proper seasoning of salt must not be omitted in this, or any other preparation of the spinach.