Part 8

If you are obliged to make a hot dish in a hurry and have only a piece of inferior meat, there is no better way of using it than by dressing it in the Brabant way, which is rather expensive. Clean and cook some mushrooms, and when fried lightly, add them and their liquor to your beef, cut up in small pieces, but not minced. Add pepper, salt, a dust of spices, or an onion with three or four cloves in it, and a half bottle of good red wine. Stew all together for at least twenty minutes, take out the onion and cloves, and serve in the dish it was cooked in which should be an earthenware pot.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

A MUTTON SALAD

Cut some slices of cold mutton or lamb, removing every bit of fat and skin that you can, unless that destroys the firmness of the slice. Prepare a salad of lettuce, and if you cannot give a mayonnaise sauce, add to the lettuce plenty of sliced cucumber, for that keeps the mutton moist. Put the salad on each slice and roll the meat over as tightly as you can. Lay the rolls closely together in a dish and sprinkle a very little salad dressing over them. This way of doing meat is very useful for taking to picnics, or for taking on a long journey.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

SAUSAGE PATTIES

Half a pound of sausage meat of any kind that you like. Make some rounds of paste, lay the meat on half of each round and fold over. Steam for quarter of an hour, or stew in plenty of gravy.

[_Pour la Patrie_.]

SAUSAGE AND POTATOES

Roll some cooked sausage meat in mashed potatoes, making a roll for each person. Brush the potatoes over with milk and put them to bake till nicely browned. Decorate with gherkins on each roll of butter.

[_Pour la Patrie_.]

RAGOUT OF COLD MEAT

Take any cold meat that you have, free it from fat and skin and cut it in rounds like a five-franc piece. If you have some lean bacon or ham, a little of that should be added. I should tell you first of all to put some rice on to boil in boiling water. Make a sauce of flour and butter in a pan, adding gravy if you happen to have it, but failing that, use water and vinegar in equal parts to thin it; season with pepper and salt and a small spoonful of anchovy sauce. When the sauce is heating, put in the meat and cover the pan, let it all heat for twelve minutes and then place meat and sauce in the middle of a dish. By this time the rice may be tender. Drain it well and put it as a border to the stew.

[_Aimee._]

A QUICKLY MADE STEW

Put a piece of butter in a stewpan, with an onion cut in pieces, a few cloves, salt and pepper, a tablespoonful of shredded parsley, and if you have it some good gravy or meat juice and water. Throw into the sauce some cold meat, preferably underdone, and after it has simmered for fifteen minutes take a cut onion and rub with it the bottom of the dish that you are going to use. Take a good glass of red wine, such as Burgundy and mix it with the yolk of an egg, stir this into the stew and serve up in a couple of minutes.

[_Madame Groubet._]

GRENADINES OF VEAL

Take a fireproof dish, and after sprinkling it with breadcrumbs put in it a layer of roast veal in slices, a layer of mashed potatoes, a layer of veal kidney, partly cooked, and cut into pieces and lastly a layer of potato. Cover the whole with a bechamel sauce into which you have stirred some grated cheese; put it to bake in the oven. Then make a brown sauce with any veal or kidney gravy that you have, and cook some mushrooms in it with pepper and salt; the sauce is to be served with the grenadine.

HOCHE POT

Slice an onion and fry it in butter till it is brown; add pieces of pork and of mutton freed from fat and skin; cover them with water and throw into it any kinds of vegetables that you may have; but particularly sliced carrots and turnips and green cabbages; put it in the oven to cook. In another saucepan boil some white haricot beans, salt, and pepper, until they are tender, when they must be added to the stew with a small quantity of the liquor that they have been boiled in.

PIGEON AND CABBAGE ROLLS

Take two pigeons, two cabbages, four slices of fried bacon, an ounce of butter, a large wineglassful of sherry, and some gravy. Truss your pigeons and cook them in butter for ten minutes in a fireproof dish. Then take them out, cut them into neat pieces. Meanwhile have the cabbages boiled in salted water. Drain them. Cut them in small pieces and roll some up in each slice of bacon; lay the pigeons on top, pouring over them the liquor they were cooked in and half the wine. Put all in the oven for ten minutes--pour in the rest of the wine and leave for another ten minutes before serving. If you have stock to add to this it is an improvement, or put half a teaspoonful of meat extract to half a pint of water.

[_Une refugiee_.]

REMAINS OF SAUSAGE

If you have a few inches of a big sausage cut it into as thick slices as you can--fry them and lay them in a circle on a dish with a poached egg on each. Little dinner breads are good when soaked in milk, stuffed with sausage meat, and fried. It can be used to stuff cucumber, or eggplants, but you should then crumble up the meat and bind it with the yolk of a raw egg.

[_Mme. Georgette._]

SHOULDER OF LAMB A LA BEIGE

Braise your shoulder of lamb; that is, put it in a closely covered stewpan, in a good brown sauce or gravy with the vegetables, to be served with it. It is the lid being closed that makes the meat take some flavor from the vegetables. To do it in the Belgian way, take some good white turnips, wash them and scrape them, put small ones in whole, large ones cut in half. Take some small cabbages, trim off without leaves, cut them in half, remove the stalk, make a hollow in the center and fill it with forcemeat of any kind; but sausage meat is good. Place the stuffed cabbages round the meat to cook gently at the same time.

[_Madame Vershagen._]

FILLET OF BEEF À LA BRABANCONNE

Take a whole fillet of beef, trim it neatly and set it in a braising pan to cook very slowly in some good brown sauce to which you have added a pint of stock. Put in neatly shaped carrots and turnips and some balls made of mashed potato already fried. Keep hot in two sauceboats a puree of Brussels sprouts and a puree of onions. These are prepared by cooking the vegetables in water, then chopping fine, and rubbing through a sieve with cream, or with a little good milk, pepper, and salt. To serve the fillet, lay it on a dish with the carrots and turnip, potato cakes round; pour over it the rest of the brown sauce from the pan; then add in heaps the onion puree and the sprouts puree.

[_Madame Vershagen._]

STEWED BEEF

An inferior part of beef may be made to taste excellent if it is braised; that is, simmered with the cover on slowly, in company with onions (already fried) and well washed pieces of carrots and whole turnips. Put on also some small cabbages cut in halves, and if you can give it, a glass of good red wine.

[_Une refugiee._]

BEEF AND APRICOTS

Stew your beef, say three pounds of steak, in some gravy, adding to a pint of liquor a level teaspoonful of white sugar. Throw in a handful of the dried apricots, but be sure you wash them well first. This dish is generally accompanied by leeks, first blanched for a few moments, and then put in the stew. Flavor with salt, pepper, and the rind of half a lemon which remove before you serve the stew. For English taste the sugar could be omitted.

[_Seulette._]

FOR AN INVALID

This must be begun at least three hours before it will be required. Take two ounces of pearl barley, wash it well, and put it in cold water enough to cover it, for an hour. Take a pound of good steak, shred it in small pieces, and put it in an enameled saucepan with a quart of cold water and a sprinkle of salt. Strain the water from the barley and add this last to the meat, and let it simmer for two hours. Then strain off the liquor and pound the meat and barley in a mortar, rub it through a sieve; when it is a smooth puree put it back into the pan with its liquor and a gill of cream. Let it simmer again for a moment and serve it in a cup with a lid to it.

[_Madame A. F._]

INVALIDS' EGGS

Cut out some rounds of bread a good deal larger than a poached egg would be. While these are frying, make a puree of Brussels sprouts. Boil them till tender, squeeze in a cloth. Rub them through a sieve and make into a very thick puree with cream, pepper and salt. Poach a fresh egg for each crouton, and slip it on, very quickly, put some of the green puree round, and serve under a hot cover.

A SWEET FOR THE CHILDREN

If you have some little breads over, cut each one in four, soak the pieces in milk sweetened and flavored with vanilla, for three hours. When they are well soaked roll them for a moment in grated and dried breadcrumbs, and dip them for a moment in boiling fat, just as you would do croquettes. Sift some white sugar over them and serve very hot.

[_Madame M._]

QUINCE CUSTARD

When you have quince preserves by you this is a quickly prepared dish. Make a good custard with a pint of rich milk, four eggs and a little essence of almonds and two ounces of powdered sugar. Put your quince preserve at the bottom of a fireproof circular dish and fill up with custard. Put it to bake for half or hour or till set. When set add some more quince (heated) on the top with some chopped almonds and serve hot. The same dish can be done with apples, which should be stewed, flavored with the rind of a half lemon, and passed through a sieve. Apple puree is put on the top in the same way, and it is decorated with some thin lemon peel cut into stars.

[_Chef reconnaissant._]

YELLOW PLUMS AND RICE

Put half a pound of rice in hot milk till it has absorbed all it can and is tender. Beat lightly the yolks of three eggs, beating in a lump of fresh butter the size of a pullet's egg; add powdered sugar and the whites of the eggs well beaten. Put the rice into this mixture and place all in a mold. Cook it gently for twenty-five minutes. Meanwhile take some very perfect yellow plums, skin and stone them and heat them in half a bottle of light white wine that you have seasoned with a little spice. Turn out the rice, put the yellow plums on the top and pour round the sauce, strained through muslin. Very good cold.

BRABANT PANCAKE

Butter first of all your pancakes, and you should have proper pancake saucers fit to go to table. Heat half a pint of sweetened milk and melt a quarter of a pound of salt butter with it. When well melted pour it into a basin and sprinkle in nearly three ounces of flour. Beat up the yolks of three large or four small eggs and incorporate them, then add the whites well beaten. Put a spoonful or two on each saucer and set to bake in the oven for ten minutes and when done place each saucer on a plate with a good lump of apricot jam on each. If you have no pancake saucers, put the apricot preserve on one half of each pancake and fold it up.

[_Jean O._]

DELICIOUS SAUCE FOR PUDDINGS

To a large wineglassful (say a glass for champagne wine) of new Madeira add the yolks only of two eggs. Put in a very clean enamel saucepan over the fire and stir in powdered sugar to your taste. Whisk it over the fire till it froths, but do not allow it even to simmer. Use for Genoese cakes and puddings.

[_Madame Groubet._]

FRUIT JELLIES

Jellies that are very well flavored can be made with fresh fruit, raspberries, strawberries, apricots, or even rhubarb, using the proportions of one ounce of gelatine (in cold weather) to every pound of fruit puree. In hot weather use a little less gelatine. As the fruit generally gives a bad color, you must use cochineal for the red jellies and a little green coloring for gooseberry jellies. The gelatine is of course melted in the fruit puree and all turned into a mold. You can make your own green coloring in this way. Pick a pound of spinach, throwing away the stalks and midrib. Put it on in a pan with a little salt and keep the cover down. Let it boil for twelve minutes. Then put a fine sieve over a basin and pour the spinach water through it. Strain the spinach water once or twice through muslin; it will be a good color and will keep some time. Orange and lemon jellies are much more wholesome when made at home than those made from bought powders. To the juice of every six oranges you should add the juice of one lemon, and you will procure twice as much juice from the fruit if, just before you squeeze it, you let it soak in hot water for three or four minutes.

[_Pour la Patrie_.]

STRAWBERRY FANCY

Take a slice or two of plain sponge cake and cut out rounds two inches across. Then whip up in a basin the whites only of four eggs, coloring them with the thinner part of strawberry jam. As a rule this jam is not red enough, and you must add a little cochineal. Put the pink mixture in high piles on the cakes.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

PINK RICE

This sweet is liked by children who are tired of rice pudding. Boil your rice and when tender mix in with it the juice of a boiled beetroot to which some sugar has been added. Turn it into a mold and when cold remove it and serve it with a spoonful of raspberry preserve on the top or with some red plums round it.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

MILITARY PRUNES

Take some of the best French preserved prunes, and remove the stones. Soak them in orange curaçoa for as long a time as you have at your disposal. Then replace each stone by a blanched almond, and place the prunes in small crystal dishes.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

MADELINE CHERRIES

Take some Madeleine cakes and scoop them out to form baskets. Fill these with stoned cherries both white and black that you have soaked in a good liqueur--cherry brandy is the best but you may use maraschino. Place two long strips of angelica across the top and where these intersect a very fine stoned cherry.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

STRAWBERRY TARTLETS

It often happens that you have among the strawberries a quantity that are not quite good enough to be sent to table as dessert, and yet not enough to make jam of. Put these strawberries on to heat, with some brown sugar, and use them to fill small pastry tartlets. Pastry cases can be bought for very little at the confectioner's. Cover the top of the tartlet when the strawberry conserve is cold with whipped cream.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

MADEIRA EGGS OR OEUFS À LA GRAND'MÈRE

Break the yolk of an egg in a basin and be sure that it is very fresh; beat it up, adding a little powdered sugar, and then, drop by drop, enough of the best Madeira to give it a strong flavor. This makes a nice sweet served in glass cups and it is besides very good for sore throats.

[_Pour la Patrie._]

BUTTERFLIES

You will get at the confectioner's small round cakes that are smooth on the top; they are plain, and are about two and one-half inches across. Take one and cut it in halves, separating the top from the bottom. Cut the top pieces right across; you have now two half moons. Put some honey along the one straight edge of each half moon and stick it by that on the lower piece of cake, a little to one side. Do the same with the second half moon, so that they both stick up, not unlike wings. Fill the space between with a thick mixture of chopped almonds rolled in honey, and place two strips of angelica poking forward to suggest antennae. A good nougat will answer instead of the honey.

[_Pour la Patrie_.]

CHERRY AND STRAWBERRY COMPOTE

Take half a pint of rich cream and mix with it a small glassful of Madeira wine or of good brandy. Pick over some fine cherries and strawberries, stoning the cherries, and taking out the little center piece of each strawberry that is attached to the stalk. Lay your fruit in a shallow dish and cover it with the liquor and serve with the long sponge biscuits known as "langues de chat" (Savoy fingers).

[_Amitie aux Anglais._]

CHOCOLATE CUSTARD

To make a nice sweet in a few minutes can be easily managed if you follow this recipe. Make a custard of rich milk and yolks of eggs, sweeten it with sugar, flavored with vanilla, and if you have a little cream add that also. Then grate down some of the best chocolate, as finely as you can, rub it through coarse muslin so that it is a fine powder. Stir this with your custard, always stirring one way so that no bubbles of air get in. When you have got a thick consistency like rich cream, pour the mixture into paper or china cases, sprinkle over the tops with chopped almonds. There is no cooking required.

GOOSEBERRY CREAM WITHOUT CREAM

Take your gooseberries and wash them well, cut off the stalk and the black tip of each. Stew them with sugar till they are tender, just covered in water. Do not let them burn. If you have not time to attend to that put them in the oven in a shallow dish sprinkled with brown sugar. When tender rub them through a fine sieve at least twice. Flavor with a few drops of lemon juice, and add sugar if required. Then beat up a fresh egg in milk and add as much arrowroot or cornflour as will lie flat in a salt spoon. Mix the custard with the gooseberries, pass it through the sieve once more and serve it in a crystal bowl.

[_Mdlle. B-M._]

CHOCOLATE PUDDINGS

Make some Genoese cake mixture as you would for a light cake, and pour it into greased molds like cups. You can take the weight of one egg in dried flour, butter, and rather less of sugar. Beat the butter and sugar together to a cream, sprinkle in the flour, stirring all the time, a pinch of salt, and then the beaten egg. When your little cakes are baked, turn them out of the molds and when cool turn them upside down and remove the inside, leaving a deep hole and a thin crust all round. Fill up this hole with the custard and chocolate as above, and let it grow firm. Then turn the cases right way up and pour over the top a sweet cherry sauce. You may require the yolks of two eggs to make the custard firm.

[_Mdlle. B-M._]

INDEX

Anchovy Biscuits " Patties " Rounds " Sandwiches Anchovies " Mock Apples, a new dish of Apples and Sausages Artichokes a la Vedette Artichokes, Brussels Asparagus a l'Anvers Asparagus, To Cook Aubergine or Egg Plant

Banana Compote Beans, a Dish of Haricot " Broad, in Sauce Beef a la Bourguignonne Beef a la Mode Beef, Blankenberg " Caretaker's " Fillet of, a la Brabanconne " Roast Rump of, Bordelaise Sauce " Roasted Fillet of " Stewed Beef and Apricots Beef Squares Brussels Sprouts Boeuf a la Flamande Bouchees a la Reine Brabant Pancake Burgundy, Hot Butterflies

Cabbage, Red Cabbage and Potatoes Cabbage with Sausages Cabbages, Harlequin Cake, Mocha Calf's Liver a la Bourgeoise Carbonade, Flemish Carbonade of Flanders Carbonades done with Beer Carrots, Belgian " Brussels " Flemish " Stuffed Carrots and Eggs Cauliflower a la Reine Elizabeth Cauliflower and Shrimps Cauliflower, Dressed " Stuffed Celeris au Lard Cheese Fondants Cheese Limpens Cherry and Strawberry Compote Cherries, Madeline Chicken a la Max Chicory Chicory a la Ferdinand Chicory and Ham with Cheese Sauce Chicory, Stuffed Children's Birthday Dish, The Chinese Corks Chou-Croute Cod, Remains of " The Miller's Cordial, Hawthorn Cream, Chocolate " Rum " Vanilla Creme de Poisson à la Roi Albert Croquettes of Boiled Meat Croquettes of Veal Croquettes, Cheese " Potato Cucumber à la Laeken Cucumbers and Tomatoes Custard, Chocolate Cutlets, Imitation

Delicious Sauce for Puddings

Egg Plants as Souffle Eggs à la Ribeaucourt Eggs, a Difficult Dish of " Belgian " Country " French " Madeira or Oeufs à la Grand'mère " Peasants' " Poached, Tomato Sauce " Stuffed Eggs and Mushrooms Endive, Flemish Entrèe (Croque-Monsieur) " Walloon

Fish " a Brown Dish of Fish, Filleted, with White Sauce and Tomatoes " Remains of " To Dress Coarse Fish and Custard Four Quarters Frangipani Fricadelle Friday's Feast Fritters, Apple " Fruit " Semolina " Spinach " Veal Fruit Jellies

Gaufres from Brussels Gingerbread, Belgian Gooseberry Cream without Cream

Haddock a la Cardinal Haddocks, Baked Hake and Potatoes Ham with Madeira Sauce Ham, York, Sweetbreads, Madeira Sauce Hare " Hunter's Haricots, Red Herring and Mayonnaise Herrings, Dutch Hoche Pot Hoche Pot Gantois Hoche Pot of Ghent Hors d'Oeuvre Hot Pot

Invalid, for an Invalid's Eggs

Kid, Roast, with Venison Sauce Kidneys and Lettuce Kidneys with Madeira

Lamb, Shoulder of, à la Belge Lavender Water Leeks à la Liegeoise Lettuce, Cooked

Mackerel, to Keep for a Week Meat, Cold, Ragout of " Scraps of " To Use Up Cold " To Use Up Remains of Mutton, a Use for Cold " Collops " Loin of, in the Pot " Ragout of " Shoulder of " Shoulder of, Dressed Like Kid " Stew " Stewed Shoulder of Mushrooms à la Spinette Mushrooms, Gourmands'

Oeufs Celestes, Hommage à Sir Edward Grey Omelette, Asparagus " Mushroom " of Peas " Rum Ox Tongue Ox Tongue a la Bourgeoise Ox Tongue with Spinach and White Sauce

Pains Perdus Pastry, Excellent Paste for Peas, Flemish Petites Caisses à la Furnes Pigeon and Cabbage Rolls, Pigeons, Fricassee of Pigs' Trotters in Blanquette Pineapple à l'Anvers Pommes Château Potato Dice Potatoes, Chipped " Surprise Potatoes a la Brabanconne Potatoes and Cheese Potatoes in the Belgian Manner Pouding aux Pommes Prunes, Military " Stewed Puddings, Chocolate Puffs for Friday Purée of Chestnuts

Quince Custard

Rabbit " Baked " Flemish " Laeken Rabbit à la Bordelaise Rice, Golden " Pink " Richelieu " Saffron Rice à la Conde Rice with Eggs Rissoles, Good Riz Conde