The Belgian Cookbook | Page 6

eggs in a pint of milk, add pepper and salt and pour it over
the dish. Leave it on the top of the stove for five minutes, then cook it
for half-an-hour in a moderate oven. Less time may be required if the
dish is small, but the potatoes must be thoroughly cooked. The original
recipe directs Gruyère cheese, but red or pale Canadian Cheddar could
be used.

FRIDAY'S FEAST
Cook a medium cabbage till it is tender, and all the better if you can
cook it in some soup. When tender, mince it and rub it through a sieve.
Boil at the same time three pounds of chestnuts, skin them, keep ten
whole, and rub the others through the sieve, adding a little milk to
make a purée. Mix the purée with the cabbage, adding salt, pepper, and
a lump of butter the size of a chestnut. Press it into a mold and cook it
in a double saucepan for quarter of an hour. Take it out and decorate
with the whole chestnuts.
RED CABBAGE
Take half a red cabbage of medium size, chop it very finely and put it
in a pan; add a little water, salt, and pepper, three or four potatoes cut in
fine slices and five lumps of sugar. Let it all simmer for two hours with
the lid on. Then take off the cover and let it reduce. Before serving it,
add either a bit of fat pork or some gravy, with a dessertspoonful of
vinegar. Stir it well before sending it to table.
[Mrs. Emelie Jones.]
ASPARAGUS À L'ANVERS
Clean a bunch of asparagus and cook it in salt water for fifteen minutes.
To do this successfully, tie the bunch round with some tape and place it
upright in a pan of boiling water. Let the heads be above the water so
that they will get cooked by the steam and will not be broken. Simmer
in this way to prevent them moving much. Meanwhile, hard-boil three
eggs and chop some parsley. Lay the asparagus on a dish and sprinkle
parsley over it, place round the sides the eggs cut in halves long-ways,
and serve as well a sauce-boat of melted butter.
[Mrs. Emelie Jones.]
COOKED LETTUCE
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. Let it simmer for quarter of an hour, and turn it
out as a vegetable with meat.
STUFFED CAULIFLOWER
Pick over a fine cauliflower, and plunge it for a moment in boiling
water. Look over it well again and remove any grit or insects. Put it
head downwards in a pan when you have already placed a good slice of
fat bacon at the bottom and sides. In the holes between the pan and the
vegetable put a stuffing of minced meat, with breadcrumbs, yolks of
eggs, mushrooms, seasoning of the usual kinds, in fact, a good
forcemeat. Press this well in, and pour over it a thin gravy. Let it cook
gently, and when the gravy on the top has disappeared put a dish on the
top of the saucepan, turn it upside down and slip the cauliflower out.
Serve very hot.
GOURMANDS' MUSHROOMS
There was a man in Ghent who loved mushrooms, but he could only eat
them done in this fashion. If you said, "Monsieur, will you have them
tossed in butter?" he would roar out, "No--do you take me for a
Prussian? Let me have them properly cooked."
Melt in a pan a lump of butter the size of a tangerine orange and
squeeze on it the juice of half a lemon. The way to get a great deal of
juice from a lemon is to plunge it first of all for a few minutes, say five
minutes, in boiling water. When the butter simmers, throw in a pound
of picked small mushrooms, stir them constantly, do not let them get
black. Then in three or four minutes they are well impregnated with
butter, and the chief difficulty of the dish is over. Put the saucepan
further on the fire, let it boil for a few minutes. Take out the

mushrooms, drain them, sprinkle them with flour, moisten them