Lettuce may be done in the same manner.
STUFFED POTATOES.
Take eight very large potatoes, wash and pare them. Make a small slit or incision in each of them, and scoop out carefully with a knife as much of the inside as will leave all round a shell about the thickness of two cents. Then make a force-meat of the substance you have taken out of the inside, mixing it with two minced onions, a small piece of minced cold ham or pork, about two ounces of butter, and a little parsley; adding the yolks of two or three beaten eggs. Mix the stuffing thoroughly, by pounding it in a mortar.
Butter the inside of the potatoes, and fill them with this mixture. Then having buttered a large dish, lay your potatoes in it separately. Bake them half an hour, or till they are of a fine brown.
When you mash potatoes, moisten them with milk or cream, adding a little salt. Heap them up on the dish in the form of a pyramid. Smooth the sides of the pyramid with the back of a spoon, and brown it by holding over it a red-hot shovel.
STUFFED CUCUMBERS.
Cut off one end of each of the cucumbers, and scoop out all the seeds with a fork. Then pare them. Prepare a stuffing made of bread crumbs, cold meat minced, salt, pepper, and sweet-herbs. Fill your cucumbers with it, and fasten on with a skewer the pieces you have cut off from their ends. Sow up every one separately in a thin cloth. Put them into a pan with butter, flour, a bunch of sweet-herbs, and a little warm water. Let them stew very slowly for about two hours, and then take them out. Remove the cloths, and serve up the cucumbers with the sauce under them.
STUFFED TOMATAS.
Scoop out the inside of a dozen large tomatas, without spoiling their shape. Pass the inside through a sieve, and then mix it with grated bread, chopped sweet-herbs, nutmeg, salt, and pepper. Stew it ten minutes, with a laurel leaf, or two peach leaves. Remove the leaves, and stuff the tomatas with the mixture, tying a string round each to keep them in shape. Sprinkle them all over with rasped bread-crust. Set them in a buttered dish, and bake them in an oven. Take off the strings, and serve up the tomatas.
Egg-plants may be cooked in the same manner.