Peas.
If peas are young and fresh (and none others are good), they will boil in half an hour or thirty-five minutes. They should be put into cold water, without salt. The same quantity should be used as for string beans, and for the same reason. When they are tender, add salt and butter. It is an improvement to boil a single small slice of pork in them. It need not be laid into the dish, and the same slice will do for another boiling.
Asparagus.
Wash it, trim off the white ends, and tie it up in bunches with a twine or a strip of old cotton. Throw them into boiling water with salt in it. Boil twenty-five minutes or half an hour. Have ready two or three slices of toasted bread, dip them in the water and lay them in the dish. Spread them with butter and lay the bunches of asparagus upon the toast. Cut the strings with a scissors and draw them out without breaking the stalks; lay thin shavings of butter over the asparagus, and send it to the table.
Asparagus and Eggs.
Take cold asparagus, and cut it the size of peas; break four or five eggs into a dish, and beat them with pepper, salt, and the asparagus. Then put it into a stew-pan with a spoonful of butter, set it on the fire, and stir it all the time till it thickens. Put it upon toasted bread in a hot dish.
Mushrooms.
Choose such as are young, having red gills; cut off the part of the stalk which grew in the earth; wash them, remove the skin from the top, stew them with some salt in a little water, and when tender add butter, into which you have rubbed browned flour. They are good fried on a griddle.
Salad.