Method.—Fry the onion and nuts together for six minutes in one ounce of butter; moisten the breadcrumbs with boiling cream (or milk), beat them to a paste, and pass the eggs through a sieve. Pound the contents of the frying pan for a few minutes, then add the bread, eggs, and one ounce of butter, and continue the pounding until the mixture is quite smooth; then add the yolk of a raw egg, a few drops of shallot vinegar (or lemon-juice), and season with salt, pepper, and a dust of curry powder. Pass the mixture through the same sieve used for the eggs, and turn it on to a floured board; divide it into little balls (the size of a rissole), dip them into beaten egg, then cover them with finely-crushed vermicelli, fry in deep, boiling fat, and serve in a potato case prepared as follows: Pass the potatoes through a sieve into a basin containing one ounce of warm butter, add two tablespoonfuls of cream, and beat until they are quite light, then stir in half a pint of tomato pulp, and season with celery salt, pepper, nutmeg, and cayenne, and beat again until the ingredients are thoroughly blended. Then mould the potato on a flat, fireproof dish into a neat, round case, leaving room in the middle for the egg balls, mark the outside with a fork and bake it in a quick oven for about twenty minutes, or rather less if the heat is fierce; pile the balls up in the case and garnish them with fried parsley. Care should be taken to fry them quickly as they should be soft and creamy inside, but crisp outside.
EGG CROQUETTES
Four hard-boiled eggs, 2 ozs. coarsely-minced champignons, 1 oz. minced pickled gherkin (or olives), ¹⁄₂ teaspoonful onion (which has been scalded and minced), 1 teaspoonful ground sweet almonds, 1 dessertspoonful chopped parsley, seasoning, 1 oz. butter, ³⁄₄ oz. flour, ¹⁄₄ pint cream (or milk), some light, short paste, 1 raw egg, breadcrumbs, artichoke chips.
Method.—Melt the butter in a small saucepan, add the onion and let it cook (without acquiring any colour) for two or three minutes, then stir in the flour and almonds, and when they are smoothly mixed, add the cream and stir until it has thickened; then season with celery salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and pour into a basin. Mix the eggs, which have been passed through a sieve, with the sauce, add the champignons and gherkin and a teaspoonful of the liquor in which the champignons were preserved, and leave until cool. Roll out the paste very thinly and cut it into rounds of a suitable size; take up a small portion of the egg mixture at a time and form it on a floured board into a little round cake, then place it on one half of a round of paste, moisten the edge with beaten egg, then fold the paste over the filling and pinch the edges together; when a sufficient number of croquettes have been made thus, dip them into beaten egg and cover them with fine breadcrumbs and fry in a bath of boiling fat. The artichoke chips are prepared as follows: Wash and peel the artichokes in the usual way, then cut them into thin slices, dry on a floured cloth (as potato chips), and fry in boiling fat.
EGGS IN CUCUMBER CASES
One medium-sized cucumber, white vegetable stock, 3 eggs, 1 yolk, butter, 1 dessertspoonful tomato catsup, 2 teaspoonfuls chopped parsley, 1 gill cream, seasoning, some fried breadcrumbs.
Method.—Peel the cucumber, taking care not to leave any of the skin, or it will taste bitter, cut it into pieces of about two inches thick, and with a sharp cutter of suitable size remove the seeds from the middle. Arrange the cucumber cases in a shallow stewpan, which has been lightly spread with butter, and pour in enough boiling stock to about half cover them; close the lid securely, and let them cook until tender, care being taken that they do not get too soft or they will not stand properly. Beat the three eggs thoroughly with a patent egg-beater, season them with salt, pepper, and a little curry powder, add the tomato catsup, and pour them into a saucepan containing one ounce of warm butter, and stir until the eggs begin to set, then fill the cucumber cases with them; sprinkle some fried breadcrumbs over the top and keep hot for a few moments while the sauce is made thus: Boil up the stock in which the cases were cooked, stir in the yolk of egg beaten up with the cream, and continue to stir until the sauce has thickened, add a few drops of lemon-juice and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and pour it round the dish containing the cucumber. Serve accompanied by a dish of sauté potatoes.
EGG CUTLETS WITH ASPARAGUS
Half a pint milk, ¹⁄₂ small onion, a strip of lemon-peel, parsley, 2 ozs. butter, 1¹⁄₂ ozs. flour, 4 hard-boiled eggs, 2 tablespoonfuls cooked asparagus (cut into small pieces), seasoning, 1 raw egg, breadcrumbs, a few pieces of raw macaroni.
Method.—Put the milk into a saucepan with the onion, lemon-peel, two or three little pieces of parsley, and some salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and let it simmer very gently for twenty minutes, then strain into a basin. Cook the butter and flour together until a perfectly smooth paste is formed, and moisten it gradually, stirring rapidly all the time, with the flavoured milk, and continue stirring until the sauce is very thick, when the pan should be removed from the stove. Pass the hard-boiled eggs through a wire sieve while the milk is simmering, and add them to the prepared sauce, then the asparagus and a little more seasoning, and spread the mixture out on a flat dish. When it is cold, take about a dessertspoonful at a time and form it, on a floured board, into the shape of a cutlet. When all the mixture has been used, insert a small piece of macaroni at the narrow end of the cutlets to represent the bone, and after brushing them over with beaten egg, cover them thickly with fine breadcrumbs and put aside for about half an hour for the crumbs to harden; then fry the cutlets in deep, boiling fat until they are a golden brown; serve them on a support of fried bread and garnish the dish at intervals with little heaps of potato-chips, and send them to the table accompanied by a tureen of thick Madeira sauce.