The Belgian Cookbook | Page 8

Boil them in water
with one carrot, one onion, salt, two cloves, a good pinch of dried herbs.
Drain off the liquor from the haricots. Chop up a shallot, and fry it in
butter; add your haricots, with pepper and salt and tomato purée. Stir
well, and serve with minced parsley scattered at the top.
[Mme. Goffaux.]
POTATOES IN THE BELGIAN MANNER
Take some slices of streaky bacon, about five inches long, and heat
them in a pan. When the bacon is half-cooked, take it out of the pan and
in the fat that remains behind fry some very finely-sliced onions till
they are brown. When the onions are well browned, put them in a large
pot, large enough for all the potatoes you wish to cook, adding pepper,
salt, and a coffee-spoonful of sweet herbs dried and mixed, which in

England replace the thyme and bay-leaves used in Belgium. Add
sufficient water to cook the potatoes and your slices of bacon. Cook till
tender.
[E. Wainard.]
TOMATOES AND SHRIMPS
Lay on a dish some sliced tomatoes, taking out the seeds, and sprinkle
them over with picked shrimps. Then pour over all a good mayonnaise
sauce. For the sauce: Take the yolk of an egg and mix it with two
soupspoonfuls of salad oil that you must pass in very gently and very
little at a time. Melt a good pinch of salt in a teaspoonful of vinegar
(tarragon vinegar, if you have it); add pepper and a small quantity of
made mustard. In making this sauce be sure to stir it always the same
way. It will take about half-an-hour to make it properly.
[Paquerette.]
FLEMISH ENDIVE
Choose twelve endives that are short and neat; cut off the outside
leaves and pare the bottom; wash them in plenty of water, and cook
them in simmering water for three minutes. Then take them from the
water and place them in a well-buttered frying-pan, dust them with salt
and also with a pinch of sugar. Add the juice of half a lemon, and rather
less than a pint of water. Place the pan on the fire for two or three
minutes to start the cooking, then cover it closely, and finish the
cooking by placing it in the oven for fifty minutes. Take out the endives
and put them in the vegetable-dish and pour over them the liquor in
which they have been cooked. This liquor is improved by being
reduced, and when off the fire, by having a small piece of butter added
to it.
The above recipe can be used for chicory as well as for endive.
[J. Kirckaert.]

CAULIFLOWER AND SHRIMPS
Take a cauliflower and cut off the green part, and wash it several times
in salted water. Boil it gently till cooked, taking care that it remains
whole. Put it aside to cool, and when it is quite cold make a hole in the
center down to the bottom. Pick some shrimps till you have half a pint
of them, make a good mayonnaise and, taking half of it, mix it with the
shrimps. Fill the hole in the cauliflower with the shrimps and sauce,
and pour the rest of the sauce over the top of the cauliflower.
This dish is to be served very cold.
[E. Defouck.]
BELGIAN CARROTS
Clean well the carrots, cut them in dice, and wash them well. Put them
on the fire with enough water to cover them, a bit of butter, an onion
well minced, salt and pepper and a dessert-spoonful of powdered sugar.
Place the dish in the oven for at least an hour, and, when you serve it,
sprinkle over the carrots some minced parsley.
[Gabrielle Janssens.]
STUFFED TOMATOES
Take ten good tomatoes and cut off the tops, which are to serve as lids.
Remove the insides, and fill with the following mixture: minced veal
and ham, rather more veal than ham, mushrooms tossed in butter, a
little breadcrumb, milk to render it moist, pepper and salt. Put on the
covers and add on each one a scrap of butter. Bake them gently in a
fireproof dish. The following excellent sauce is poured over them five
minutes before taking them out of the oven: Use any stock that you
have, preferably veal, adding the insides of the tomatoes, pepper and
salt; pass this through the wire sieve. Make a roux--that is, melt some
butter in a pan, adding flour little by little and stirring until it goes a
brown color. Add to it then your tomatoes that have been through the
sieve, and some more fried mushrooms. Pour this sauce over the whole

and serve very hot.
[Mme. van Praet.]
RED CABBAGE
Mince the cabbage and put it in a pan with plenty of refined fat
(clarified fat) and two or three