=Italian Dish.=--Take four kohl-rabis, one head of white cabbage, one
head of kale, and some beetroot leaves, cutting away the stalks and
the ribs. Cut the kohl-rabi into small pieces, and tear the leaves
into bits. Wash well and put them into a saucepanful of water, with a
little minced parsley, and salt to taste. Boil for one hour, then pour
away nearly all the water, leaving just enough to cover the vegetables.
Add one pint of milk--cream is of course better--and boil for fifteen
minutes. Meanwhile pound twenty leaves of basil and one clove of
garlic in a mortar; mix with two ounces of grated cheese and three or
four tablespoonfuls of pure olive oil. Put one half of this into the
soup when it has boiled for fifteen minutes, and the rest just before
serving.
=Cream Kohl-Rabi.=--Peel a kohl-rabi; slice and soak in cold water for
half an hour. Drain, cover with cold water, and cook until tender.
Drain, and pour over sauce to which has been added the well-beaten yolk
of an egg.
=Kohl-Rabi à l’Espagnol.=--Trim and quarter a small kohl-rabi, and cook
until tender in salted water to cover, adding a little butter. Drain,
and reheat in a well-buttered espagnol sauce.
=Stewed Kohl-Rabi.=--(1) Put the tops in cold water. Peel and quarter
the roots. Cover with cold salted water and boil until tender. Chop the
greens fine, fry in butter, and add the roots cut into dice. Season
with salt and pepper, add a cupful of stock, and thicken with flour
which has been browned in butter.
(2) Wash, peel, and cut into dice a quart of kohl-rabis, and cook in
salted water until tender. Cook the tops in another pan of boiling
water until tender. Drain and chop very finely. Cook two tablespoonfuls
of flour in butter, add one cupful of soup or stock, and the chopped
greens. When smooth and thick, add the cooked dice, reheat and serve.
LEEK (_Allium Porrum. Liliaceæ_).
The leek is useful in almost any size; even the smallest go well in
soup; but to be enjoyed it should be well grown. A long growing season
is indispensable to make good roots, and it is also of great importance
that the leeks should be kept growing through dry weather, or they may
prove tough and indigestible.
Sow, then, leeks in a box in the hotbed early in March, or they may
be sown out of doors in a shallow drill as early in spring as genial
weather gives opportunity, even in February, but we prefer the hotbed
as being more certain. The plants are somewhat slow in their growth,
but as soon as they are a moderate size they must go into the cold
frame for a few nights to harden off, and in April they should be
pricked out in rows, the rows four inches apart, and the plants two
inches in the rows.
In May, when the late peas are sown, it is a good practice to put
the rows at least four feet apart, even for peas of moderate height
as “Continuity,” and between these rows to prepare a strip of ground
for the leeks. This is done by digging in an eighteen-inch strip a
heavy dressing of really fat manure. Down this strip draw two deep
furrows with the hoe, nine inches apart, and in these furrows dib out
the leeks, as deeply as their first leaf, nine inches apart in the
row. These furrows are an aid to watering, and in September, say the
fourteenth, the earth can be hoed over, levelling and filling in the
furrows, and thus blanching a few further inches of the leeks.
This is a crop that may remain in the ground all the winter and be dug
as needed. In showery weather it is advantageous to give dressings of
nitrate, or waterings of weak liquid manure during the growing season.