Boiled.—(a) Put 1 tablespoonful milk in a saucepan, with a bit of butter the size of a nutmeg, and ¼ lb. good cheese, grated fine. Put the whole on a slow fire until it boils, then add 1 egg well beaten. Stir all well together, turn it into your dish, and brown it. Serve very hot.
(b) Put 4 oz. good cheese, sliced as thin as possible, 2 tablespoonfuls cream, a piece of butter the size of 2 walnuts, into a saucepan and boil, stirring it gently all the time till it becomes thick and smooth, then add a raw egg and a little cayenne pepper. Put the saucepan again on the fire, stirring as before till the whole is quite hot. Serve on small squares of dry toast. The above is enough for four people.
Boulettes.—Take equal weights of eggs, breadcrumbs, butter, and grated cheese; these must be well beaten together, leaving out half the whites of the eggs; season them with salt and a little cayenne pepper, and make them up into little balls; these must be dipped in egg and breadcrumbs, and fried a light brown in lard or well-clarified dripping. The fat must not quite boil before the balls are put in, or they will become too dark a colour before they are sufficiently cooked; they should be served up high in a dish on a napkin.
Canapés.—Cut some stale bread in thin slices, which must be stamped out into shapes with a cutter. Fry these lightly in butter or boiling lard; cover the top of each with Parmesan or Cheshire cheese, add a little pepper and salt and mustard, and put them before the fire till the cheese is dissolved. Serve hot on a napkin.
Custard.—(a) Butter a rather small flat dish (one that will stand the oven—an old strong one would be best), whisk 2 eggs a minute or two, and mix with them ¼ pint cream, or cream and milk mixed; now grate 2-3 oz. dry pieces of any kind of cheese, to these add a little salt and a few grains of cayenne pepper, mix all well together, pour into the buttered dish, and bake in a rather sharp oven 10-15 minutes; when done, set the dish over another, a size larger, and send to table immediately. The custard should be firm, and brown and light in the time stated.
(b) A breakfastcupful of sliced cheese, the same quantity of milk, and 2 eggs; butter a pie-dish, put in the cheese, pour the milk over, and then stir in the beaten-up eggs; bake for ½ hour; if a smaller quantity is required, put a teacupful of cheese and milk and 1 egg.
(c) Cut the cheese into shreds, or grate it, or chop it up fine like suet. To every lb. cheese thus treated add ¼ oz. potash bicarbonate. Put the mixture of cheese and bicarbonate into a saucepan with either 3 times its bulk of cold water or 4 times its bulk of cold milk, and mix well. Put the saucepan on the fire and bring the mixture slowly to the boiling point, taking care to stir it all the time. Having got it to boil, keep it hot until the cheese is melted, which does not take long. Turn it out into a dish, and the result gives a beautiful nutritious mixture which thickens like a custard in cooling. This custard may be eaten with impunity even by those persons who would be ill after eating a piece of cheese the size of a nut, and is peculiarly adapted as food for all persons who work hard with either brain or muscle. Fancy dishes may be made in the following manner, e.g., take the mixture of cheese and bicarbonate and water (or milk) given above, and add to it 2 eggs, white and yolk beaten up together, for every ¼ lb. of cheese in the mixture. Put into a dish or a series of little dishes (previously buttered), and bake till brown. This must be eaten with bread or biscuit. Another way is to make the mixture a little thinner by adding a little more milk or water, and to put it in a pie-dish with slices of bread laid one over the other. The custard should be poured in cold, and left for an hour to soak before it is baked. This dish is a great improvement on the ordinary bread and butter pudding.
Cream.—Take 2 tablespoonfuls raw cream, rather less than 2 tablespoonfuls grated Parmesan cheese, a very little cayenne pepper, and salt to taste. Mix these ingredients carefully together and quite smoothly, then spread it on some good puff paste, lay another piece of puff paste over it, then press round carefully with the fingers, cut out with fancy cutters into any shapes you may select, egg and breadcrumb the shapes, and fry in boiling lard or butter.
Fritters (Beignets).—Put about 1 pint water into a saucepan with a piece of butter the size of an egg, the least bit of cayenne, and plenty of black pepper. When the water boils throw gradually into it sufficient flour to form a thick paste; then take it off the fire and work into it about ¼ lb. ground Parmesan cheese, and then the yolks of 3 or 4 eggs and the whites of 2 beaten up to a froth. Let the paste rest for 2 hours, and proceed to fry by dropping pieces of it the size of a walnut into plenty of hot lard. Serve sprinkled with very fine salt.
Meringues.—2 oz. Parmesan cheese, 1 oz. Gloucester or any other kind of good cheese that is dry (the piece that has become too mean-looking to go to table in its present state will do admirably for this purpose, also for many other dishes), the whites of 2 eggs, pepper and salt, lard to fry. Grate the cheese on a coarse grater, and beat the eggs on a plate, with the blade of a broad knife, to a firm froth, add to this the cheese and a little salt and pepper, make into balls the size of a walnut, throw them into plenty of boiling lard, and fry 2-3 minutes, when they will be a delicate brown and double their former size; drain on a piece of kitchen paper. Put a clean napkin into a dish, arrange the meringues on it, and send to table as quickly as possible. There should be a little fresh parsley between the meringues; it improves the appearance.