Put a circle of thin slices of buttered toast (one slice for each person at table) around the dish, and on each slice put a cupful of spinach, neatly smoothed in shape. Press the half of a hard-boiled egg into the top of each pile of spinach, leaving the cut part of the egg uppermost.
Tomatoes Stewed.
Pour boiling water over six or eight large tomatoes to remove the skin, and then cut them into a saucepan. When they begin to boil, pour away a little of the juice; add a small piece of butter, pepper, salt, and a very little sugar. Let them cook for about fifteen minutes, stirring in well the seasoning. Some add a few bread or cracker crumbs.
Tomatoes, With Mayonnaise Dressing (see Salads, p. 226).
Stuffed Tomatoes Baked.
Choose large tomatoes. Do not skin them, but scoop out a small place at the top, which fill with a stuffing. The simplest is made of bread-crumbs, minced onion, cayenne, and salt. First fry the onions in a little butter, add the bread-crumbs, moistened with a little water (or, better, stock) and seasoned with a very little Cayenne pepper and enough salt. Fry them a moment; then fill the cavities, allowing the stuffing to project half an inch above the tomato, and smooth it over the top. Bake.
A better stuffing is this: Chop very fine some cold cooked chicken, lamb, beef, or pork. Each of these may be used, or they may be mixed. However, a very little pork mixed with any kind of meat makes a pleasant seasoning. Now fry a little chopped onion in butter, and, when just colored, throw in the chopped meat, a few bread-crumbs, very little stock, and season the whole with salt, pepper, and some parsley. When hot, and well mixed, take it off the fire; add the yolk of a raw egg to bind it together. Fill the tomatoes with this preparation, sprinkle bread-crumbs over the tops, and bake. The tomatoes are a pretty garnish around any kind of meat. If served as a course alone, pour into the bottom of the dish a tomato-sauce flavored with a little sherry.
Onions.
There is no better manner of cooking onions than as follows: Put them into salted boiling water, with a little milk added, and boil them until tender (no longer). Then place them in a baking-pan with a little pepper, salt, and butter over the top of each, and a very little of the water in which they were boiled in the bottom of the pan. Brown them quickly in the oven, and serve very hot. They may be served alone in a vegetable-dish, or as a garnish around beef, calf’s heart, etc.