Tauf—Ghezon.—Draw 2 fowls, and put them to boil slowly; when they are half done take off all the white meat and put it into another saucepan to boil in milk, adding a small quantity of the water in which the fowls were first boiled. When the meat is reduced to a pulp mix it well with pounded white sugar, so as to make it quite sweet. Serve cold on a dish sprinkled with pounded cinnamon. This is a strengthening dish for an invalid.
Tauk Dolmas.—After drawing a fowl, chop the liver, gizzard, and heart very finely and add seasoning; boil some rice and mix it with a small piece of butter, then mix all together and stuff the fowl with it; make a little gravy with the neck and head, and serve with it. This dish should be stewed slowly.
Tuginar (ragoût with artichokes).—Take 1 lb. mutton or veal, and cut it in small pieces. Take 8-10 artichokes and wash them well, stripping off all the leaves, then cut the bottoms in 4 quarters; cut up 2 onions and mince a little parsley, and mix them. Then put a ¼ lb. butter into a stewpan, and put the meat in; when it is a little browned, throw in 2 or 3 tumblers of water, cover it, and let it stew gently for ¼ hour. Add a little seasoning, according to taste, with the onion and parsley; then put in the artichokes to cook until they are done, and then serve the dish. Other vegetables, such as broccoli or Brussels sprouts, may be substituted.
West Indian.—Cavershed Fish.—Cut a sole into 3 or 4 pieces, according to size; flour each piece, have ready a frying-pan with some good frying oil, put it on the fire, and when the oil boils lay the fish in it, and fry a light brown; drain each piece well, and, when cold, lay them on a dish. Boil ½ pint vinegar, with a little allspice, ginger, and pepper, and throw it over the fish.
Coconut Cakes.—Break a coconut, remove the brown skin and cut it up into quite small pieces (somewhat larger than grains of rice). Put 1 lb. coarse brown sugar into a saucepan, with a teacupful of water; when it boils, skim off the scum, or strain through muslin, add the coconut and a little ginger, and boil (stirring constantly) till the sugar begins to thicken; then drop a little of the mixture from a spoon on to a board or dish which has been well damped with cold water; if it sets so that it can be raised with a knife without breaking, drop all the mixture in like manner in little cakes. Grated coconut can be done in the same way.
Crab Backs.—This dish is truly delicious; once eaten as prepared by a black cook, it is one never to be forgotten. The crabs must be caught and brought in alive; the cook must kill them herself, and divide the claws and bodies from the backs; when doing so she must be careful not to break the gall in the body, which would cause the whole of the meat in the crab to taste bitter. Boil these sufficiently, and, when cold, pick all the meat from the claws and bodies; the fat, which is of a very dark colouring, must be well mixed with the meat and stirred; add pepper, cayenne pepper, salt, and lime juice to taste, also bread or biscuit crumbs; have the backs nicely cleaned, fill them with the above mixture, sprinkle breadcrumbs over them, and bake for about 10 minutes. Some people prefer crab backs without the addition of the fat, when they are not nearly so rich, and are of a much lighter colour.
Eater Drink.—An Indian drink. Take 3 doz. ripe fruit of the eater (ita) palm, place them in a jar, and pour boiling water over them. Let them stand until they are sufficiently soft to allow the rind to come off easily. Scrape the fruit, and when cool sweeten, and it is ready for use. This palm is as light as cork, and grows abundantly in the interior of Guiana.
Fly.—Grate 3 or 4 sweet potatoes (the white sort), place them in a stone jar, with 3 gal. boiling water, 1 doz. cloves, clear sugar to taste, and clarify with the white shell of an egg. Let it stand 24 hours, then strain, bottle and cork tightly; it is fit for use in a week.
Fou-fou Soup.—Peel 1 doz. plaintains, wash and boil them, place them in a dish till cooked, then pound them in a wooden mortar, occasionally moistening the pestle with cold water, to prevent it sticking, until they become one solid lump. Moisten a spoon with water, and after carefully separating the fou-fou from the mortar place it in a dish and serve with soup. The spoon should always be first moistened with soup before cutting the fou-fou, or it would be most difficult to cut it at all. The soup can be made of plantains, tannias, ochras, pigeon peas, black-eyed peas, pumpkin, or any vegetable. When made of ochras procure a good-sized dish of ochras, cut off the heads, wash and cut in slices, place them in a pot with as much water as you require soup, with ½ lb. salt beef, ½ lb. salt pork, cold, or fresh meat, 2 or 3 fresh fish, a small piece of salt fish, a few shrimps, 2 fresh peppers, one chopped onion, and seasoning. When most thoroughly boiled, or rather simmered, serve hot in a tureen, and the fou-fou served separately at the same time. When fou-fou soup is made of dry peas they must be well soaked, and then boiled for some time before the meat, &c., is added. When made of plaintains only these must be mashed when sufficiently cooked. A favourite way with the negroes is to cut the plaintains in slices, and boil a great many of them in soup without making them into fou-fou; when done in this way they call it “cutty-cutty.”
Groundnut Cakes.—Put 2 lb. these nuts (they can be bought in any small greengrocer’s shop, and are sometimes called monkey nuts) in the oven on a tin, and let them bake until you can remove the red skin of the kernel quite easily; then shell them all, take off all the skins and divide them in halves; make them into little cakes, as in recipe for coconut cakes.