“ Very often you will find that you cannot use all your lettuces, that they have begun to bolt and are no good for salad. This is the moment to cook them. Discard any bad leaves and wash the others carefully. Boil them for twelve minutes, take them off the fire, drain them and dry them in a clean cloth so as to get rid of all the water. Mince them finely, then put them into a saucepan with a lump of butter, pepper and salt. Stir till they begin to turn color, then put in a thimbleful of flour melted in milk. Stir constantly, and if the vegetable becomes dry, moisten with more flour and milk. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Put a handful of minced onion to fry in butter; when it is nearly cooked, but not quite, add a dessert-spoonful of flour, and stir it till all is well colored. Pour on it a little gravy, or meat-juice of some kind, and let it simmer for ten minutes after it begins to steam again. Then take your beef, which must be cold, and cut in small slices; throw them in and let it all cook for a quarter of an hour, only simmering, and constantly stirring it, so that though it becomes considerably reduced it does not stick to the pan. ”

“ This is a winter dish; it is most sustaining, and once made, it can be kept hot for hours without spoiling. Make a purée of lentils or peas, and season it with pepper and salt. Mince your beef with an equal quantity of peeled chestnuts, add chopped parsley, a dust of nutmeg or a few cloves. If you have any cheap red wine pour it over the mince till it is well moistened. If you have no red wine, use gravy. If you have no gravy, use milk. Let all heat up in the oven for ten minutes, then sprinkle in some currants or sultanas. ”

“ Gently boil a quantity of the very best green peas in good gravy; as the gravy becomes reduced, add, instead, butter. Do not forget to have put a lump of sugar in every pint of gravy. When the peas are done break on them the required number of fresh eggs, with pepper and salt. Place all in a double saucepan, till the eggs are just done. It is a pity that in England there are no cooking pots made, which will hold fire on the top, so that a dish, such as this, becomes easily done in a few minutes. ”

“ Polish the shoe, Though the sole be through,
and a very simple chocolate shape may be made attractive by being garnished with a cluster of pointed almonds in the center, surrounded by a ring of tangerine pieces, well skinned and laid like many crescents one after the other. There is nothing so small and insignificant but has great possibilities. Did not Darwin raise eighty seedlings from a single clod of earth taken from a bird's foot? ”

“ Perhaps the pies of Fleet Street reminded him of the Black Broth of the Spartans which the well-fed Dionysius found excessively nasty; the tyrant was curtly told that it was nothing indeed without the seasoning of fatigue and hunger. We do not wish a meal to owe its relish solely to the influence of extreme hunger—it must have a beautiful nature all its own, it must exhibit the idea of Thing-in-Itself in an easily assimilable form. ”

“ Make some aspic jelly with gelatine, tarragon vinegar, and a little sherry. Color one portion with paprika or coralline, pepper; a second part with the sieved yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, and the remainder with rinsed pickled walnuts, also passed through a wire sieve. Pour the red jelly into a small mold with straight sides; when it is almost set pour in the yellow aspic, and when that is cold pour in the black. When the jelly is quite cold, turn it out, slice it, and cut it into pieces of suitable size. If you make too much aspic it can decorate any cold dish or salad. ”

“ TOMATO PURÉE
Begin by cleaning four potatoes, two leeks, a celery, four carrots, three pounds of big tomatoes; well wash all these vegetables and cut them in dice, the tomatoes a little larger. Cook them all gently for an hour in nearly two pints of gravy, to which you have already added two thick slices of bread and a pinch of salt. Take care that your vegetables do not stick to the bottom of the pan. When all is well cooked, pass it through a fine tammy. Add more gravy, or water and meat juice; make it of the consistency that you wish. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Sometimes one has a few leeks, a half cauliflower, a handful each of peas and beans. Instead of currying these vegetables (which removes all distinctive flavor from them) cook them gently, and toss them when cold in a good salad dressing. If you can give the yolk of an egg to it, so much the better. Any cold meat is improved by a side dish of this sort. The vegetables that one can curry with advantage are large marrows, cut into cubes, turnips, potatoes, parsnips. ”

“ Take a lump of butter the size of an egg, and let it color in a saucepan. Slice some onions and fry them in another pan. When fried, add them to the butter with some sliced carrots, a few small onions, and your pieces of veal, salt, and pepper. Add a small quantity of water, and close the lid on the saucepan. When the meat is tender, you can thicken the sauce with a little flour. This is a good way to use veal that is hard, or parts that are not the best cuts. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Take some raw onion cut in slices; if you do not like the strong taste, use shallot; and lay four or five flat slices on the bottom of the salad dish. Put the tomato slices over them, sprinkle with salt and just a dust of castor sugar. In four hours lift the tomatoes and remove the onions altogether. Make in a cup the following sauce: Dissolve a salt-spoonful of salt in a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar. Stir in a dessert-spoonful of oil, dropping it slowly in, add a very little mustard, some pepper and a sprinkle of chopped chervil. Some people like chopped chives. ”

“ If you have only a little piece of veal or other cold meat, you can make a very presentable dish in the following way: Cut a thin slice of meat and spread on each side of it a layer of mashed potatoes to which you have added some tomato sauce. Beat up an egg and dip the slices and potato into it, lay them in fine breadcrumbs and fry them till a good golden color in plenty of fat. ”

“ Mince any cold meat, adding to a pound of it one-half pound of fresh lean pork, a chopped shallot and parsley, salt, pepper, a little nutmeg, and bind with an egg, both yolk and white. Form into balls, and dip them in flour, then color them in some butter, and when they are nicely browned pour into the butter a little stock or meat-juice and water. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Mince finely a veal kidney and add one-half pound of minced veal. Make a brown sauce of flour and butter, and add the meat to it. Let it cool a little, and add three well-beaten eggs, with a teaspoonful of rasped Gruyère. Butter a mold, and sprinkle the inside with breadcrumbs, and fill it with the mince. Leave it for three quarters of an hour in the oven, or for an hour and a half in the double saucepan of boiling water. Turn it out of the mold and serve with either a tomato or a mushroom sauce. ”

“ Put your pieces of pigeon into a stew-pan in butter, and let it cook with the pigeons. Then add one carrot, two onions, two sprigs of parsley, a leaf of sage, five juniper berries, and a very little nutmeg. Stir it all for a few minutes, and then, and only then, add a half-cupful of water and Liebig, two rusks or dry biscuits in pieces, the juice of a lemon. ”

“ Hard-boil your eggs, allowing half an egg for each person. Take out the yolk. While they are boiling and afterwards cooling in water, make a small quantity of mayonnaise sauce. Peel the eggs, cut them through lengthways, and take out the yolks. Crumble these with a little chopped herbs, and add the mayonnaise. Fill the eggs with this mixture, and place them in a dish with chopped lettuce round it, to which you may add a little more of the sauce. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To be put in a pan in the oven: sauce, butter, and a quarter of a pint of cream, pepper, salt and some flour to thicken the sauce. Before the hare is put in the oven, cover it with a thin piece of bacon, which must be taken away before the hare is brought to table.
[Mdlle. Breakers.]
RUM OMELETTE
This simple dish is much liked by gentlemen. Break five eggs in a basin, sweeten them with castor sugar, pour in a sherry glassful of rum. Beat them very hard till they froth. Put a bit of fresh butter in a shallow pan and pour in your eggs. ”

“ Let your slices of ham heat in this sauce, and when ready, place them in the middle of a flat dish, put the mushrooms or spaghetti round, and put the sauce, very hot, over the ham.
[Madame Spinette.]
A DIFFICULT DISH OF EGGS
And yet this is only fried eggs after all! Put some oil on to heat; if you have not oil use butter, but oil is the best. When the bluish steam rises it is hot enough. Break an egg into a little flat dish, tip up the frying pan at the handle side, and slip the egg into it, then with a wooden spoon turn the egg over on itself ”

“ BELGIAN SALAD
is merely endive, washed and torn apart with red peppers added here and there as well as the ordinary salad dressing.
Belgian asparagus is done by adding to the cooked vegetable a bechamel sauce, poured over the dish, and then slices of hard boiled eggs placed on the top. The giant asparagus is used, and it is eaten with a fork. ”

“ Only experience will teach you, on blowing up the breast feathers of a pheasant, whether it ought to be cooked to-day or to-morrow. Men, as a rule, are very particular about the dressing of game, though they may not all be able to tell, like the Frenchman, upon which of her legs a partridge was in the habit of sitting. ”

“ It takes away from the made-in-a-hurry look of a dish if it is decorated, and there are plenty of motifs in that way besides parsley. One can use beetroot, radishes, carrots cut in dice, minced pickles, sieved egg; and for sweets, besides the usual preserved cherries and angelica, you can have strips of lemon peel, almonds pointed or chopped, stoned prunes cut in halves, wild strawberries, portions of tangerine orange. ”

“ Toss some cooked peas in butter, then mix them in cream and taking up your artichokes again put in your cream and peas in the center of each, as much as you can get in. The cream is not necessary for this dish to be a good one, but the artichokes and peas must both be young. As a rule people cut their fruit too soon and their vegetables too late. ”

“ But such cook can hardly pay too much attention to details if she does not wish to revert to an early, not to say feral type of cuisine, where the roots were eaten raw while the meat was burnt. Because your dining-room furniture is Early English, there is no reason why the cooking should be early English too. ”