Cut a thin slice off eight large tomatoes. Remove part of the inside with a teaspoon. Put half an ounce of fresh butter into a frying pan (must be fresh butter). Take one large rasher of bacon, fat and lean, and half a Spanish onion; chop very fine, add a pinch of mixed herbs, pepper and salt, and the inside of the tomatoes. Make the butter hot in the pan and place the tomatoes (the cut side downwards) in it and stand on the stove with the top on. Leave for one minute and a half. Turn them and place the stuffing in the corner of the pan. Cook both together in this way for ten minutes more taking care not to let burn. Take out the tomatoes with a slice and place on a fairly deep meat dish; fill them with the stuffing, having carefully taken it up with the slice so as to avoid grease. Pour over all about half a small teacupful of meat juice.
153. Bubble and Squeak
Chop lightly with a knife in a dish any cold greens and potatoes you may have left. Melt in an enamelled frying pan one ounce more or less of fresh butter. Turn the vegetables into it. While cooking use a large dinner fork to press the vegetables into a smooth paste, turning it over and over with the fork all the time to prevent it sticking to the pan. Vegetables so treated should work into a perfectly smooth, stiff paste and leave the pan as clean as when they went into it. Add a little pepper and salt.
Be careful to remove all stumps of cabbage before using.
154. To Use up Cold Vegetables
Cold boiled French beans, cold carrots, cabbage, and a little chopped onion may be put into an enamelled frying pan in which one and a half ounces of fresh butter has been melted. Fry the vegetables very lightly, not making them brown. Turn into a deep dish and pour a little meat gravy over them. This may be served as a dish by itself or with cold meat.
155. Spinach as a Separate Dish
Wash through several waters, into which a little salt has been added, four pounds of fresh spinach after having removed all stalks. The last water should be without salt. The spinach would have absorbed enough moisture to cook it in but nevertheless have ready a saucepan half full of boiling water and put the spinach into it. This will prevent a most disagreeable smell being emitted while the spinach is cooking. Boil for twenty minutes, keeping the spinach pressed down with a fork. It should then be quite tender; if it is not so, boil for five minutes longer. Strain through a cullender, pressing hard with a plate or wooden vegetable press to get all the water out; put into a bowl and beat well with a fork and then work it into another bowl through a hair sieve using a large wooden spoon. Then work in half a gill of cream, a small piece of butter and a little milk. The spinach ought then to have the consistency of thick cream. Put it into a dish and serve with croutons of lightly fried French roll or garnished with hard-boiled eggs cut in quarters.