DISHES LARGELY VEGETARIAN.
| Although the cheer be poor, |
| 'Twill fill your stomachs. |
| —Titus Andronicus. |
Macaroni à la Italienne.
Have ready one-fourth a pound of macaroni, cooked until tender, but not broken, in boiling salted water, and then drained, and rinsed in cold water.
Make a sauce of two tablespoonfuls of butter, one tablespoonful of flour, one-fourth a teaspoonful, each, of salt and paprica, half a cup of well-seasoned stock and half a cup of well-reduced tomato pulp. Add the drained macaroni and stir occasionally, while it becomes thoroughly heated, then add one-fourth a cup of grated Parmesan cheese. Lift the macaroni with a fork and spoon so as to mix thoroughly with the cheese, and serve at once.
Strain the tomatoes through a sieve sufficiently fine to keep back the seeds, and cook the pulp, very slowly, until reduced to at least half its bulk. A more hearty dish may be served by adding, just before the cheese, three-fourths a cup of cold tongue cut in thin slices and then stamped into small fanciful shapes with a French cutter; or the tongue may be cut simply in small cubes.
Asparagus Peas.
Scrape the scales from the stalks of asparagus and cut the tender portions into pieces one-fourth an inch long. Cook in boiling salted water until tender; drain, and keep the peas hot. For three cups of peas make one cup of drawn-butter sauce, using as liquid the water in which the asparagus was cooked, or white stock. Add the peas to the sauce; beat the yolks of two eggs, add half a cup of cream, and stir into the sauce and peas; add, also, one tablespoonful of butter. Serve on croutons of fried bread, or in cases made of shredded-wheat biscuit.
Fresh Mushrooms and Sweetbreads.
Soak one pair of sweetbreads in cold water; cover with boiling salted water and let boil three minutes, then simmer twenty minutes; cool, and cut in small cubes. Sauté in two tablespoonfuls of hot butter sufficient mushroom caps, peeled and broken into pieces, to make with the sweetbreads two cups and a half. Make a sauce in the blazer, using one-fourth a cup, each, of butter and flour, one cup of chicken stock and half a cup of cream; add the sweetbreads and mushrooms, one tablespoonful of lemon juice, and, if desired, the yolks of two eggs, beaten and diluted with one-fourth a cup of cream or sherry. Serve on toast, in patty cases, or in cases of shredded-wheat biscuit.