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THE BELGIAN COOK-BOOK
By Various
Edited By Mrs. Brian Luck
1915
"Lucullus, whom frugality could charm,
Ate roasted turnips at the Sabine Farm."
PREFACE
The recipes in this little book have been sent by Belgian refugees from
all parts of the United Kingdom, and it is through the kindness of these
correspondents that I have been able to compile it. It is thought, also,
that British cooking may benefit by the study of Belgian dishes.
The perfect cook, like Mrs. 'Arris or the fourth dimension, is often
heard of, but never actually found, so this small manual is offered for
the use of the work-a-day and inexperienced mistress and maid. It is not
written in the interests of millionaires. The recipes are simple, and
most inexpensive, rather for persons of moderate means than for those
who can follow the famous directions for a certain savory: "Take a
leg of mutton," etc. A shelf of provisions should be valued, like
love-making, not only for itself but for what it may become.
SAVORIES: If you serve these, let them be, like an ankle, small and neat
and alluring. This dish is not obligatory; recollect that it is but a
culinary work of supererogation.
SOUP: Let your soup be extremely hot; do not let it be like the
Laodiceans. You know what St. John said about them, and you would be
sorry to think of your soup sharing the fate which he describes with
such saintly verve. Be sure that your soup has a good foundation, and
avoid the Italian method of making _consommé_, which is to put a pot of
water on to warm and to drive a cow past the door.
FISH: It is a truism to say that fish should be absolutely fresh, yet
only too many cooks think, during the week-end, that fish is like the
manna of the Hebrews, which was imbued with Sabbatarian principles
that kept it fresh from Saturday to Monday. I implore of you to think
differently about fish. It is a most nourishing and strengthening
food--other qualities it has, too, if one must believe the anecdote of
the Sultan Saladin and the two anchorites.
MEAT: If your meat must be cooked in water, let it not boil but merely
simmer; let the pot just whisper agreeably of a good dish to come.
Do you know what an English tourist said, looking into a Moorish
cooking-pot? "What have you got there? Mutton and rice?" "For the
moment, Sidi, it is mutton and rice," said the Moorish cook; "but in
two hours, inshallah, when the garlic has kissed the pot, it will be the
most delicious comforter from Mecca to Casa Blanca." Simmer and season,
then, your meats, and let the onion (if not garlic) just kiss the pot,
even if you allow no further intimacy between them. Use bay-leaves,
spices, herbs of all sorts, vinegar, cloves; and never forget pepper and
salt.
Game is like Love, the best appreciated when it begins to go. 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. Game should be underdone
rather than well done; it should never be without well-buttered toast
underneath it to collect the gravy, and the knife to carve it with
should be very, very sharp.
VEGETABLES: Nearly all these are at their best (like brunettes) just
before they are fully matured. So says a great authority, and no doubt
he is thinking of young peas and beans, lettuces and asparagus. Try to
dress such things as potatoes, parsnips, cabbages, carrots, in other
ways than simply boiled in water, for the water often removes the flavor
and leaves the fiber. Do not let your vegetable-dishes remind your
guests of Froissart's account of Scotchmen's food, which was "rubbed in
a little water."
SWEETS: It is difficult to give any general directions for sweets. They
should be made to look attractive, and they should be constantly varied.
The same remarks apply to savories, which last ought always to be highly
seasoned, whether hot or cold.
MADE DISHES are a great feature in this little book. I have tried to
help those small households who cook, let us say, a leg of mutton on
Sunday, and then see it meander through the week in various guises till
it ends its days honorable as soup on the following Friday. Endeavor
to hide from your husband that you are making that leg of mutton almost
achieve eternal life. It is noticeable that men are attracted to a house
where there is good cooking, and the most unapproachable beings are
rendered accessible by the pleasantness of a _soufflé_, or the aroma of
a roast duck. You must have observed that a certain number of single men
have their hearts very "wishful" towards their cook. Not infrequently
they marry that cook; but it is less that she is a good and charming
woman than that she is a good and charming cook. Ponder this, therefore;
for I have known men otherwise happy, who long for a good beef-steak
pudding as vainly as the Golden Ass longed for a meal of roses. Try
these recipes, for really good rissoles and hashes. Twice-cooked meat
can always be alleviated by mushrooms or tomatoes. Remember that the
discovery of a new dish is of more use than the discovery of a new
star,--besides which, you will get much more praise for it. And if on
Wednesday you find that you have to eat the same part of the very same
animal that you had on Monday, do not, pray, become exasperated; treat
it affectionately, as I treat my black hat, which becomes more ravishing
every time that I alter it. Only, do not buy extravagant make-weight for
a scrap of cold meat that would be best used in a mince patty, or you
will be like a man keeping a horse in order to grow mushrooms.
And, lastly, the good cook must learn about food what every sensible
woman learns about love--how best to utilize the cold remains.
M. LUCK.
PART I
CAULIFLOWER SOUP
After you have boiled a cauliflower, it is a great extravagance to throw
away the liquor; it is delicately flavored and forms the basis of a good
soup. Wash well your cauliflower, taking great care to remove all grit
and insects. Place it to simmer with its head downwards, in salted
water; and, when it is tender, remove it. Now for the soup. Let all the
outer leaves and odd bits simmer well, then pass them through a sieve.
Fry some chopped onions, add the liquor of the cauliflower and the
pieces that have been rubbed through the sieve, add a little white
pepper and a slice of brown bread. Let all cook gently for half-an-hour,
then, just before serving it, take out the slice of bread and sprinkle
in two teaspoonfuls of grated Gruyere cheese.
FISH SOUP
When you buy fish and have it filleted, ask for the bones and trimmings
to be sent also. Put a quart of milk to heat and add to it a bunch of
mixed herbs, a few minced shallots, parsley, pepper and salt. Throw in
your fish and cook for an hour. If you have any celery put in a piece,
or two or three white artichokes. Strain the soup, taste it, and add
more salt or more milk as you think necessary. Return to the pan. Take
the yolk of an egg and just before taking the soup from the fire, stir
it quickly in. This soup must never boil. It should be made out of the
very white fish, excluding herring and mackerel.
STARVATION SOUP
If you have a pork-bone from the fresh meat, let it boil in water for
an hour. Put the pan to cool and take off the fat, and remove the bone.
Replace the pan on the fire and throw into it two pounds of Brussels
sprouts. Do not add onions to this soup but leeks, and the hearts of
cabbage. Pepper and spice to taste. Rub it through a sieve and let it be
thick enough to form a thin purée.
IMMEDIATE SOUP, OR TEN MINUTES SOUP
Into a quart of boiling water throw two tablespoonfuls of either
semolina or tapioca: let it boil for eight minutes with a dust of salt
and pepper. Meanwhile, take your tureen, put quickly into it two yolks
of very fresh eggs, add two pats of butter and two small spoonfuls of
water to mix it. Stir quickly with the spoon, and when the soup has done
its eight minutes' boiling, pour it on the egg and butter in the tureen.
This is an extremely good soup. It is rendered still better by a small
quantity of Bovril.
CHERVIL SOUP
Put a bone of veal on to cook in water, with four or five potatoes,
according to the quantity desired. When these are tender, pass them
through the tammy and return them to the soup. Chop up the chervil,
adding to it half a dessert-spoonful of cornflour. Quarter of an hour
before serving, put in the chervil, but take the cover off the pot, so
that it remains a good green color. Pepper and salt to be added also.
[_V. Verachtert, Café Appelmans, Anvers._]
A GOOD PEA SOUP
Soak your dried peas over-night. The following day boil some fresh
water, and throw in the peas, adding a few chopped onions and leeks,
with pepper and salt. Let the soup simmer for three hours on the top of
the stove, giving it a stir now and then. If you have a ham-bone, that
is a great improvement, or the water in which some bacon has been boiled
is a good foundation for the soup, instead of the fresh water.
[_Mdlle. M. Schmidt._]
WATERZOEI
This is an essentially Flemish soup. One uses carp, eels, tench, roach,
perches, barbel, for the real waterzoei is always made of different
kinds of fish. Take two pounds of fish, cut off the heads and tails,
which you will fry lightly in butter, adding to make the sauce a mixed
carrot and onion, three cloves, a pinch of white pepper, a sprig of
parsley, one of thyme, a bay-leaf; pour in two-thirds of water and
one-third of white wine till it more than covers the ingredients and let
it simmer for half-an-hour. Then the pieces of fish must be cut an equal
size, and they are placed to cook quickly in this liquor for twenty
minutes. Five minutes before serving add a lemon peeled and cut into
slices and the pips removed. Some people bind the sauce with breadcrumbs
grated and browned. You serve, with this dish, very thin slices of bread
and butter. For English tastes, the heads and tails should be removed
when dressing the dish.
A GOOD BELGIAN SOUP
is called _crême de sauté_. Itself one of the most wholesome of
vegetables, watercress combines admirably with potatoes in making soup.
Wash, dry, and chop finely four ounces of the leaves picked from the
stalks, fry slowly for five minutes with or without a thinly-sliced
onion, add one pound of potatoes cut in small dice, and fry, still very
slowly, without browning; pour in one quart of water or thin stock,
simmer gently, closely-covered, for from thirty-five to fifty minutes,
rub through a hair sieve, and having returned the puree to the saucepan
with a half-teaspoonful of castor sugar, and salt and cayenne to taste,
thicken with one table-spoonful of flour stirred smoothly into one
breakfast-cupful of cold milk; boil up sharply, and serve sprinkled with
watercress.
[_E. Haig._]
BELGIAN PURÉE
Cook two pounds of Brussels sprouts in boiling water. Take them out,
drain them and toss them in butter for five minutes, sprinkle them with
a teaspoonful of flour, and then cook them in gravy (or meat extract and
water), fast boiling, over a good fire, and keep the lid of the saucepan
off so that they may remain green. Pass them through the sieve, leave
them in ten minutes, bind the mixture with the yolks of three eggs, a
pint of milk; then at the last minute one dessert-spoonful of butter for
each pint and a half of soup.
AMBASSADOR SOUP
A pint and a half of either fresh peas, or of dried peas that have been
soaked for six hours in cold water; a leek, and three onions chopped
finely. Simmer till the peas are tender, then pass all through the
sieve. Well wash some sorrel and chop it, and add as much as will be
to your taste. In another pan cook five tablespoonfuls of rice, and add
that to your soup. Simmer up again, stirring it all very well. This soup
should be of a green color.
[_Mme. Georges Goffaux._]
CRECY SOUP (BELGIAN RECIPE)
Take ten carrots, two onions, one leek, five potatoes, and cook all
gently in water, with salt and pepper; when they are tender, rub them
through the sieve and serve it very hot.
[_G. Goffaux._]
FLEMISH SOUP
To two pounds of washed and picked Brussels sprouts add ten potatoes,
two onions, two leeks, salt, pepper. Cook all gently and pass through a
sieve. Add at the last moment a sprinkle of chopped chervil.
[_G. Goffaux._]
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. Bring it to the boil
again over the fire, adding pepper and salt, and just before serving a
bit of fresh butter also. It is a great improvement to add at the last
minute the yolk of an egg, mixed in a little cold water, quickly stirred
in when the soup is off the fire.
The three recipes for seven or eight persons.
[_G. Kerckaert._]
ONION SOUP
Mince some thick onions, five or six, and let them color over the fire
in butter. Add a dessert-spoonful of flour, sprinkling it in, and
the same amount in gravy; thicken it with potatoes and when these
are cooked, peas, all through a sieve. Bring the purée to the right
consistency with milk, and let it simmer for a few minutes before
serving, adding pepper and salt.
[_Gabrielle Janssens._]
POTAGE LEMAN
Make a good gravy with one and one-half pounds of skirt of beef. With
one half of the gravy make a very good purée of peas--if possible the
green peas--with the other half make a good purée of tomatoes. Combine
the two purées, adding pepper and salt and a dust of cayenne. For each
guest add to the soup a teaspoonful of Madeira wine, beat it all well
and serve quickly. Or add, instead of Madeira, one dessert-spoonful of
sherry wine.
This celebrated soup is honored by the name of the glorious defender of
Namur.
[_Gabrielle Janssens._]
TOMATO SOUP
Boil together six medium potatoes, a celery, two leeks, two carrots, and
a pound of fresh tomatoes, with pepper, salt and a leaf of bay. Pass all
through the sieve. Fry two or three chopped onions in some butter and
add the soup to them. Boil up again for twenty minutes before serving.
If you have no fresh tomatoes, the tinned ones can be used, removing the
skin, at the same time that you add the fried onions.
[_Mme. van Praet._]
SOUP, CREAM OF ASPARAGUS
Boil some potatoes and pass them through the sieve, add the
asparagus-tops, with a pat of butter for each four tops; thin the soup
with extract of meat and water, and at the last moment stir in the raw
yolks of two eggs, and a little chopped parsley.
[_Mme. van Praet._]
GREEN PEA SOUP
Put half a pound of dry green peas to soak overnight in water, with a
teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda in it. In the morning take out the
peas and put them on the fire in about three-and-a-half pints of water.
When the peas are nearly cooked, add five big potatoes. When all is
cooked enough for the skins to come off easily, rub all through a sieve.
Fry in some butter four or five onions and five or six leeks till they
are brown, or, failing butter, use some fat of beef; add these to
the peas and boil together a good half-hour. If possible, add a pig's
trotter cut into four, which makes the soup most excellent. When ready
to serve, remove the four pieces of trotter. Little dice of fried bread
should be handed with the soup.
[_V. Verachtert._]
VEGETABLE SOUP
Fry four onions till they are brown. Add them to three pints of water,
with four carrots, a slice of white crumb of bread, five potatoes, a
celery and a bunch of parsley, which you must take out before passing
the soup through the sieve. A few tomatoes make the soup better; if they
are tinned, do not add them till after the soup has been passed through
the tammy; if they are fresh, put them in with the other vegetables.
Simmer for an hour, add pepper and salt before serving.
[_V. Verachtert._]
MUSHROOM CREAM SOUP
On a good white stock foundation, for which you have used milk and a
bone of veal, sprinkle in some ground rice till it thickens, stirring it
well for twenty minutes. Wash and chop your mushrooms, and fry them in
butter. Add the yolk of an egg and bind it. This is a delicious soup.
[_Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen._]
THE SOLDIER'S VEGETABLE SOUP
(Eight to ten persons)
Peel three pounds of vegetables. Put them in a large pot with all the
vegetables that you can find, according to the season. In the winter you
will take four celeries, four leeks, two turnips, a cabbage, two onions,
pepper and salt, two-penny-worth of bones, and about five and one-half
quarts of water. Let it all boil for three hours, taking care to add
water so as to keep the quantity at five quarts. Rub all the vegetables
through a tammy, crushing them well, and then let them boil up again
for at least another hour. The time allotted for the first and second
cooking is of the greatest importance.
LEEK SOUP
Cut up two onions and fry them till they are brown; you need not use
butter, clarified fat will do very well. Clean your leeks, washing them
well; cut them in pieces and fry them also; add any other vegetables
that you have, two medium-sized potatoes, pepper, salt, and a little
water. Let all simmer for three hours, and pass it through a fine sieve.
Let there be more leeks than other vegetables, so that their flavor
predominates.
[_Mme. Jules Segers_.]
CELERIS AU LARD
Take one pound of celery, cut off the green tops, cut the stems into
pieces two-thirds of an inch long; put into boiling salted water, and
cook till tender. Take one-half pound potatoes, peel and slice, and add
to the celery, so that both will be cooked at the same moment. Strain
and place on a flat fire-proof dish. Prepare some fat slices of bacon,
toast them till crisp in the oven; pour the melted bacon-fat over the
celery and potato, adding a dash of vinegar, and place the rashers on
top. Serve hot.
Leeks may be prepared in the same way.
CABBAGE WITH SAUSAGES
Cut a large cabbage in two, slice and wash, put it into boiling water
with salt, and when partly cooked, add some potatoes cut into smallish
pieces. Cook all together for about an hour; then drain. Put some fat
in a saucepan, slice an onion, brown it in the fat, add the cabbage
and potato, and stew all together for ten minutes; then dish. Bake some
sausages in the oven and dish them round the cabbage; serve hot.
_Another way (easier)_
Stew the cabbages, potato and sausages all together and dish up neatly.
LEEKS À LIEGOISE Take enough of leeks to make the size of dish required;
if they are very thick, cut in two lengthwise; cut off the green tops;
leaving only the blanched piece of stalk; put them into boiling salted
water and cook thoroughly about one hour: strain and dish neatly on a
fish-drainer. Have ready some hard-boiled eggs; shell them, cut in two,
and place round the leeks; serve hot with melted butter, or cold with
mayonnaise sauce.
N. B. The water in which the leeks have been boiled makes a wholesome
drink when cold, or a nourishing basis for a vegetable soup.
[_From Belgians at Dollarfield, N.B._]
A SALAD OF TOMATOES
To make a tomato salad you must not slice the fruit in a dish and
then pour on it a little vinegar and then a little oil; that is not
salad--that is ignorance.
Take some red tomatoes, and, if you can procure them, some golden ones
also. Plunge each for a moment in boiling water, peel off the skin, but
carefully, so as not to cut through the flesh with the juice. 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. Pour this over the tomato salad and leave it for an hour
at least before serving it.
POTATOES AND CHEESE
Every one likes this nourishing dish, and it is a cheap one. Peel some
potatoes and cut them in rounds. In a fireproof dish put a layer of
these, sprinkle them with flour, grated cheese, pepper, salt, a few pats
of butter. Then some more potatoes, and so on till the dish is full.
Beat the yolks of two 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
dessert-spoonful 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 with
gravy, season with salt and pepper, put them back in the butter and
stir in the yolk of an egg. Add also a little of the lemon juice that
remains. While you are doing this you must get another person to cut and
toast some bread and to butter it. Pour on to the bread the mushrooms
(which are fit for the greatest saints to eat on Fridays), and serve
them very hot.
POMMES CHÂTEAU
Take twenty potatoes, turn them with a knife into olive shape, boil
them in salted water for five minutes; drain them and put them on a
baking-tin with salt and butter or dripping. Cook them in a very hot
oven for thirty minutes, moving them about from time to time. Sprinkle
on a little chopped parsley before serving.
CHIPPED POTATOES
Take some long-shaped potatoes, peel them and smooth them with the
knife. Cut them into very thin rounds.
Heat the grease pretty hot, dry the slices of potato with a cloth, put
them into the frying basket and plunge them into the fat. When they are
colored, take the basket out, let the fat heat up again to a slightly
higher temperature, and re-plunge the basket, so that the slices become
quite crisp. Serve with coarse salt sprinkled over.
CHICORY À LA FERDINAND
Boil and chop in medium-sized pieces the chicory, mince up a few chives
according to your taste and heat both the vegetables in some cream,
adding salt and pepper. Pour on a dish and decorate with chopped
hard-boiled eggs.
APPLES AND SAUSAGES
This dish comes from the French border of Belgium; it tastes better than
you would think. Take a pound of beef sausages, and preferably use the
small chipolata sausages. (What a delightful thing if the English would
make other kinds of sausages as well as their beef and pork ones!) Fry
then your sausages lightly in butter, look upon them as little beings
for a few moments in purgatory before they are removed to heaven, among
the apples. Keeping your sausages hot after they are fried, take a pound
of brown pippin apples, pare them and core them. Cut them into neat
rounds quarter of an inch thick, put them to cook in their liquor of
the sausages (which you are keeping hot elsewhere), and add butter to
moisten them. Let them simmer gently so as to keep their shape. Put the
apple-rings in the center of the dish, place the sausages round them.
This dish uses a good deal of butter, but you must not use anything else
for frying.
STUFFED CHICORY
Make a mince of any cold white meat, such as veal, pork or chicken, and
add to it some minced ham; sprinkle it with a thick white sauce. In
the meantime the chicories should be cooking; tie each one round with
a thread to keep them firm and boil them for ten minutes. When cooked,
drain them well, open them lengthwise very carefully, and slip in a
spoonful of the mince. Close them, keeping the leaves very neat, and,
if necessary, tie them round again. Put them in a fire-proof dish with
a lump of butter on each, and let them heat through. Serve them in
their juice or with more of the white sauce, taking care to remove the
threads.
[_Madame Limpens_.]
TOMATOES STUFFED WITH BEANS
Halve and empty the tomatoes, and put a few drops of vinegar in each.
Cook your beans, whether French beans or haricots or flageolets, and
stir them, when tender, into a good thick bechamel sauce. Let this get
cold. Empty out the vinegar from the tomatoes and fill them with the
mixture, pouring over the top some mayonnaise sauce and parsley.
[_Madame van Praet_.]
CABBAGE AND POTATOES
Boil the cabbages in salted water till tender. Chop them up. Brown an
onion in butter, and add the cabbage, salt, pepper, and a little water.
Slice some potatoes thickly, fry them, and serve the vegetable with
cabbage in the center, and the fried potatoes laid round.
[_Mdlle. M. Schmidt, Antwerp_.]
SPINACH À LA BRACONNIÈRE
Cook two pounds of well-washed spinach; drain it, and pass it through a
sieve; or, failing a sieve, chop it very finely with butter, pepper and
salt. Do not add milk, but let it remain somewhat firm. Make a thick
bechamel sauce, sufficient to take up a quarter of a pound of grated
Gruyère, and, if you wish, stir in the yolk of a raw egg. Lay in a
circular dish half a pound of minced ham, pour round it the thick white
sauce, and round that again the hot spinach. This makes a pretty dish,
and it is not costly.
[_Mme. Braconnière_.]
A DISH OF HARICOT BEANS
Put the haricots to soak for six hours in cold water. 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
soup-spoonfuls 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 large potatoes, pepper and salt.
Add sufficient water to cover it, with a dash of vinegar and six
dessert-spoonfuls of brown or moist sugar. Let it simmer for four hours,
drain it and serve cold.
[_Mme. Segers_.]
VEGETABLE SALAD
The special point of this dish is that peas, beans, carrots in dice, are
all cooked separately and when they are cold they are placed in a large
dish without being mixed. Decorate with the hearts of lettuce round the
edge and with slices of tomato, and pour over it, or hand with it, a
good mayonnaise.
[_Mme. van Praet_.]
CHICORY
This excellent vegetable can be dressed either in a bechamel sauce, or
with butter and lemon-juice. It is gently stewed, first of all, and it
requires pepper and salt. The sauces can be varied with tomato, or with
some of the good English bottled sauces stirred with the bechamel.
[_Mme. van Praet_.]
CAULIFLOWER À LA REINE ELIZABETH
Simmer the cauliflowers till tender. Prepare a mince of veal and pork,
and season it well with a little spice. Butter a mold and fill it with
alternate layers of mince and of cauliflower broken in small pieces.
Fill a large saucepan three-quarters full of boiling water and place the
mold in this; let it cook for one hour in this way over the fire; turn
it out and pour a spinach sauce over it.
[_Mme. van Praet_.]
MUSHROOMS À LA SPINETTE
Make some puff pastry cases, wash and chop the mushrooms and toss them
in butter to which you have added a slice of lemon. Make a bechamel
sauce with cream, or, failing that, with thick tinned cream, and mix
with the mushrooms. Heat the cases for a few minutes in the oven and
fill them with the hot mixture.
[_Mme. Spinette_.]
DRESSED CAULIFLOWER
Simmer a cauliflower till it is tender. Pour out the liquor, and add
to it a bit of butter, the size of a nut, rolled in flour, a pinch of
nutmeg, a tablespoonful of Gruyère cheese and a little milk.
Bind the sauce with a little feculina flour. At the moment of serving,
pour the sauce over the cauliflower, which you have placed upright on a
dish. The nutmeg and the cheese are indispensable to this dish.
[_V. Verachtert_.]
BRUSSELS SPROUTS
(The best way to cook them)
Having cleaned and trimmed your sprouts, let them simmer in salted
water, to which you have also added a little soda to preserve the color.
Or, if you do not like to add soda, keep the pan firmly covered by
the lid. When tender, take them out and let them drain, place them in
another pan with a good lump of butter or fat; stir, so as to let the
butter melt at once, and sprinkle in pepper and a tiny pinch of nutmeg.
[_Mdlle. Germaine Verstraete_.]
RAGOUT OF MUTTON
Fry the mutton very well. Then place in another pan sufficient water to
cover your mutton, adding pepper, salt, a little nutmeg, a celery, and a
few white turnips cut in pieces. When they are well cooked, add the meat
and let all simmer for two hours.
[_V. Verachtert_.]
STEWED SHOULDER OF MUTTON
Put in a pan a large lump of butter or clarified fat, and place the
shoulder in it. Add two big onions sliced, and a very large carrot also
sliced, thyme, bay-leaf, two cloves, pepper and salt, and, if you like
it, two garlic knobs. Let the shoulder simmer in this by the side of the
fire for three hours. Strain the sauce through a fine sieve, and then
add to it either a glass of good red wine or a little made mustard with
a teaspoonful of brown sugar.
[_Mme. Segers_.]
SHOULDER OF MUTTON
Put a handful of dried white haricots to soak over-night and simmer them
the following day for two hours with some salt. Rub your shoulder of
mutton with a little bit of garlic before putting it in the oven to
cook, and when it is done, serve with the haricots round it, to which
have been added a pat or two of butter.
[_V. Verachtert_.]
MUTTON COLLOPS
Take some slices of roast or boiled leg of mutton, egg them, and roll
in a mixture of breadcrumbs, salt, pepper, and a little flower. Fry till
the slices are brown on each side; serve with chipped potatoes.
SHOULDER OF MUTTON DRESSED LIKE KID
My readers have probably tasted a shoulder of kid dressed as mutton. Let
them therefore try the converse of the dish, and, if they really take
trouble with it, they will have a dinner of the most delicious. Put
into a deep dish that will hold your shoulder of mutton the following
mixture:
A cupful each of oil, vinegar, white wine, red wine, an onion stuffed
with cloves, a bunch of herbs which must be fresh ones--thyme, parsley,
marjoram, sage, a tiny bit of mint, a few bay-leaves--two medium carrots
cut in slices. Put the shoulder of mutton in this mixture and keep
it there for four days, turning it every now and then and pouring the
mixture on it. On the fifth day take it out, and, if you care to take
the trouble, you will improve it by larding the meat here and there. Put
it to roast in front of a good fire, with your liquor, which serves
to baste it with, in a pan beneath. If you cannot arrange to hang the
mutton by a string to turn like a roasting jack, then bake it, and
continually baste it. A small shoulder is most successful. For one of
four pounds bake for fifty minutes.
ROAST RUMP OF BEEF, BORDELAISE SAUCE
Take three pounds of the rump of beef, put it into a pretty deep pan
upon one onion, one sliced carrot, some thyme, and a bay-leaf, three
table-spoonfuls of dripping, salt, and pepper. Put it on the top of the
fire, and when it comes fully to the boil, put it to the side, and allow
it to simmer nicely for an hour and a half. Dress it on a dish and serve
the sauce separately.
ROASTED FILLET OF BEEF
About three pounds of fillet of beef roasted in a good hot oven for
forty minutes; let it be rather underdone. Take three turnips,
four good-sized carrots, cut them into jardinière slices. Cook them
separately in salted water, drain them and add salt, pepper, a tiny
pinch of sugar and one dessert-spoonful of butter. Dress the fillet on
a long dish with the garniture of carrots and turnips, and some
artichoke-bottoms cooked in water and finished with butter, also add
some potatoes _château_. Be sure the dish is very hot. Put a little
water, or, for choice, clear stock, upon the roasting-dish and pour it
over the fillet.
BEEF À LA BOURGUIGNONNE
Braise three pounds of beef upon twenty little onions, ten mushrooms,
and two glasses of red wine, salt, pepper, thyme and bay-leaf; cook for
one and one-half hours with not too hot a fire. After that, place the
beef on an oval dish; keep it hot; stir two tablespoonfuls of demi-glaze
into the vegetables and let it boil up. Cut some slices of the beef, and
strain the sauce over all.
OX-TONGUE À LA BOURGEOISE
Braise a tongue with two glasses of Madeira, one carrot, one onion,
thyme, bay-leaf, for two hours. Take seven tomatoes cut in pieces, four
carrots cut in two and three in four, about one-half inch long, ten
smallish onions, and braise them all together; then add two large
table-spoonfuls of demi-glaze, some salt and pepper. Serve all very hot
on an oval dish.
Braised tongue eats very well with spinach, carrots or sorrel.
BEEF À LA MODE
Take the raw beef, either rump-steak or fillet, and brown it in the pan
in some butter. Then add a little boiling water. Add then six or eight
chopped shallots, the hearts of two celeries chopped, a few small and
whole carrots, pepper, salt, two cloves. Before serving, bind the sauce
with a little flour and pour all over the meat.
[_V. Verachtert_.]
BOEUF À LA FLAMANDE
For this national dish that part of the animal called the "spiering" is
used, which is cut from near the neck. What is called fresh silverside
in England answers very well. Cut the beef into slices about
half-an-inch thick and divide the slices into four pieces. This you can
do with a piece of four pounds. For a piece of four pounds, cook first
of all four large fried onions in fat. Put the beef in the hot fat when
the onions are colored, and sauté it; that is, keep moving the meat
about gently. Take the meat out and place it on a dish. Add to the fat
two dessert-spoonsful of flour and let it cook gently for five minutes,
adding a good pint of water. Pass the sauce through a tammy, over the
onions, and put the meat back in it, and it ought to cover them. Then
add a dessert-spoonful of good vinegar and a strong bunch of herbs. Stew
for an hour, take off the fat and remove the bunch of herbs. Heat up
again and serve.
CARETAKER'S BEEF
The real name of this dish is _Miroton de la Concierge_, and it is
currently held that only _concierges_ can do it to perfection. 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.
BLANKENBERG BEEF
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. Take the dish you wish to serve
it in, put the stew in the middle, and place the purée round it. If the
mince is moist it can be kept by the fire till required, or the dish can
be covered with another one and placed in a carrying-can, taken out to
skating or shooting parties.
VEAL WITH TOMATOES
Grill some slices of fat veal; cook some sliced tomatoes with butter,
pepper and salt, on a flat dish in a pretty quick oven. Garnish the veal
with the tomatoes laid on top of each slice, and pour _maître-d'hôtel_
butter over, made with butter, salt, chopped parsley, and lemon-juice.
FRICANDEAU OF VEAL
A fillet of veal, larded with fat bacon, of about three pounds. Braise
it one and one-half hours on a moderate fire. Dish with its own gravy.
This eats well with spinach, endive, sorrel or carrots.
VEAL CUTLETS WITH MADEIRA SAUCE
are garnished with potatoes and mushrooms, and the sauce is made of
demi-glaze and madeira, worked up with butter, pepper, salt and chopped
parsley.
GRENADINS OF VEAL
Cut your veal into fairly thick cutlets, lard them with fat bacon, and
braise them in the oven, with salt, pepper and butter. Dish up, and
rinse the pot with a little stock, and pour it on the meat ready to
serve.
CALF'S LIVER À LA BOURGEOISE
Take a calf's liver, lard it with fat bacon, braise it with the
_bourgeoise_ garnish--carrots and turnips. After it is cooked and
dished, stir some demi-glaze into the sauce, pour it on to the meat and
garnish with potatoes _château_.
VEAL WITH MUSHROOMS, OR THE CALF IN PARADISE
Take some slices of loin of veal, fry them in butter, with pepper and
salt, for twenty minutes. Take two spoonfuls of demi-glaze and heat it
with some mushrooms and a little madeira. Put the mushrooms and sauce on
each slice and sprinkle chopped parsley over all.
This can also be done with _fines herbes_, mushrooms, chervil and
parsley, chopped before cooking them in the butter.
BLANQUETTE OF VEAL
Take your veal, which need not be from the fillet or the best cuts. Cut
it into pieces about an inch long and add a little water when putting
it into the pan; salt, pepper and a little nutmeg, and let it simmer for
two hours. When tender, stir in the juice of half a lemon, and then bind
the sauce with the yolk of an egg, or, in default of that, with a little
flour. Serve immediately. You will find that when you wish to bind a
sauce at the last minute, egg powder will serve very well.
[_V. Verachtert_.]
VEAL CAKE, EXCELLENT FOR SUPPER
Take some chopped veal and with it an equal quantity of chopped beef,
and one-quarter the quantity of breadcrumbs from a fresh loaf. Bind all
with a raw egg, adding salt and pepper, and, if wished, some blanched
and chopped almonds. (Put a large piece of butter both above and below.)
Shape the meat into the form of a loaf and put it in a dish, with
a large slice of butter above and below it. Cook it for about
half-an-hour.
[_Mme. Gabrielle Janssens_.]
BREAST OF VEAL
(A good and inexpensive dish)
Cook the breast of veal in stock or in a little meat extract and water,
with sliced carrots and onions, thyme, pepper, salt, three bay-leaves
and three cloves. Let it stew for one hour in this, and then take
it out. Take out also the vegetables, and strain the liquor. Make a
bechamel sauce and add it to the liquor, giving it all a sharp taste
with the juice of half a lemon. Put back the breast of veal in this
sauce and when hot again serve them together.
[_Mdlle. Spinette_.]
OX TONGUE
Cook the ox tongue in stock or in meat extract and water. Make the
hunters' sauce, as for a hare, but sprinkle into it some chopped
sultanas. Take the tongue out of the stock and skin it, cut it in neat
pieces if you wish, and let it heat in your sauce.
[_Mdlle. Spinette_.]
VEAL À LA MILANAISE
Egg and breadcrumb some thick slices of veal; fry and garnish with
boiled macaroni cut in small pieces, with ham, mushrooms, truffles, all
cut in Julienne strips, pepper, salt, and a little tomato sauce. Mix all
these well together, and serve very hot.
STUFFED VEAL LIVER, OR LIVER À LA PANIER D'OR
The _Panier d'Or_ is a hotel in Bruges, much frequented before the war
by the English.
Take the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, a bit of bread the same size, and
crumble them together; rub in some chopped parsley and onion and moisten
it with gravy or with milk; season highly with salt, cayenne, and a
little vinegar or mustard. Take your liver, if possible in one rather
large flat slice. Make deep cuts in it, parallel to each other, and
lying closely together. Press your stuffing into these cuts. Put a bit
of butter the size of a walnut into a pan, or fireproof dish. Take your
liver and tie it round with a slice of fat bacon or fat pork. Lay it
in the dish and let it cook for an hour in a moderate oven. When done,
remove the slice of bacon, if there is any left, and serve the liver in
its own juice.
VEAL À LA CRÊME
Take a piece of veal suitable for roasting, and put it in vinegar for
twenty-four hours.
Roast it with butter, pepper and salt, with a few slices of onion. Baste
it well, and when it is finished crush the onions in the gravy and add
some cream. Mix together with flour so as to thicken.
[_Mdlle. Spreakers_.]
_This is the demi-glaze Sauce which is used for all brown Sauces._