Fry the pieces of rabbit, adding three onions, two medium potatoes, half a glass of beer, a little water or stock, pepper and salt. Let it all bake gently in an earthenware pot for two hours, and then thicken the same with flour. It is an improvement to add when it is being cooked two cloves, two bay-leaves, a pinch of nutmeg, and any fresh herbs, such as thyme, parsley, mint.
[Mme. E. Maes.]
Chop up some cold chicken into small squares, mix with a thick white sauce, and let it heat. Put it on a hot dish and cover with fried onions. Put chipped potatoes at the ends of the dish and a boiled chicory at either side. This excellent dish has received distinction also from its name, that of the heroic and ingenious burgomaster of Brussels.
[M. Stuart.]
Cut a rabbit into joints, cover with vinegar, chop finely two small onions, thyme, pepper, and salt, and a little grated nutmeg; let all soak for twenty-four hours.
Take out the joints and brown gently in a little dripping; when all are nicely browned take one cupful of the marmalade and stew till tender one and a half to two hours. When ready, strain off the sauce, thicken nicely with flour, dish the rabbit, and pour over the sauce.
Take a medium-sized rabbit, and have it prepared and cut into joints. Put the pieces to soak for forty-eight hours in vinegar, enough to cover them, with a sprinkle of fresh thyme in it and a small onion sliced finely. After forty-eight hours, put one-quarter pound of fat bacon, sliced, in a pan to melt, and when it has melted, take out any bits that remain, and add to the melted bacon a bit of butter as big as an egg, which let melt till it froths; secondly, sprinkle in a dessert-spoonful of flour. Stir it over the fire, mixing well till the sauce becomes brown, and then put in your marinaded pieces of rabbit. Add pepper and salt and cook till each piece is well colored on each side. When they are well colored, add then the bunch of thyme, the sliced onion and half the vinegar that you used for soaking; three bay-leaves, one dozen dried and dry prunes, five lumps of sugar, half a pint of water. Cover closely and let it simmer for two hours and a half.
[A Belgian at Droitwich.]
Put the back and the hind legs of one or two rabbits in an oven, covering the same first with a layer of butter (half inch thick) and then with a layer of French mustard, pepper and salt. Roast by a good fire for one hour, baste often with the juice from the meat and the gravy.
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.]
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 it stay on the fire just three minutes and then slip it off on to a hot dish. Powder it with sugar, as you take it to the dining-room. At the dining-room door, set a light to a big spoonful of rum and pour it over the omelette just as you go in. It is almost impossible to light a glass of rum in a hurry, for your omelette, so use a kitchen spoon.
Boil up a quart of milk, sweeten it with nearly half a pound of sugar, and flavor with vanilla. Let it get cold. Beat up six eggs, both yolks and whites, mix them with the milk, put it all in a fireproof dish and cook very gently. Cover the top before you serve it with ratafia biscuits.
Put your saucepan on the table and break in it two eggs. Mix these with two dessertspoonfuls of flour. Add a pint of milk, and put it on the fire, stirring always one way. Let it cook for a quarter of an hour, stirring with one hand, while with the other sprinkle in powdered sugar and ground almonds. Turn out to get cold, and cut in squares.
This is good enough even for an English "dinner-party." Beat the whites of six eggs stiffly. Take four dessert-spoonfuls of apricot jam, or an equal quantity of those dried apricots that have been soaked and stewed to a purée. If you use jam, you need not add sugar. If you use the dried apricots, add sugar to sweeten. Butter a dish at the bottom, and when you have well mixed with a fork the beaten whites and the apricot, put it in a pyramid on the dish and bake for fifteen minutes in a moderate oven. Powder with sugar.
Prunes are very good done this way. Take a pound of prunes, soak them twenty-four hours in water. Put them on the fire in a cupful of water and half a bottle of light red wine, quarter of a pound of sugar and, if you like it, a pinch of cinnamon or mixed spice. Let it all stew till the liquor is much reduced and the prunes are well flavored. Let them get cold, and serve them in a glass dish with whipped cream.
Take the whites of six eggs and beat them stiff, doing first one and then another, adding to them three soup-spoonfuls of powdered sugar and three sticks of chocolate that you have grated. If you have powdered chocolate by you, use that, and taste the mixture to judge when it is well flavored. Mix it all well in a cool place. To do this dish successfully, make it just before you wish to serve it.
[Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels.]
Boil up two pints of milk and fifteen lumps of sugar with a bit of vanilla. Add three soup-spoonfuls of semolina, and let it boil for fifteen minutes, while you stir it. Take it from the fire, and add to it the yolks of two eggs and their whites that you have beaten stiffly. Put it in the oven for a quarter of an hour, and serve it hot.
[Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels.]
Butter six circular rusks, and put on them a layer of jam. Beat the whites of three eggs and place them on the rusks in the shape of a pyramide. Put them in the oven and color a little. They must be served hot.
[Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels.]
Put three soup-spoonfuls of Carolina rice to swell in a little water, with a pat of butter. When the rice has absorbed all the water, add a pint of milk, sugar to sweeten, a few raisins, some chopped orange-peel, and some crystallized cherries, or any other preserved fruit. Put all on the fire, and when the mixture is cooked the rice ought to be creamy. Add the yolk of an egg, stir it well, and pour all into a mold. Put it to cool. Turn it out, and serve it with the following sauce, which must be poured on the shape.
A pint of milk, sugar, and vanilla; let it boil. Stir a soup-spoonful of cornflour in water till it is smooth, mix it with the boiling milk, let it boil while stirring it for a few minutes, take it from the fire, add the yolk of an egg, and pour it on the rice shape. Serve when cold.
[Mdlle. Lust, of Brussels.]
Equal quantities of butter and flour, well mixed in a little beer; add also a pinch of salt. Make this paste the day before you require it; it is good for little patties and tarts.
[Mdlle. Le Kent.]
Melt four penny tablets of chocolate in hot milk until it is liquid and without lumps. Boil up a pint of milk with a stick of vanilla, a big lump of butter (size of a walnut) and ten lumps of sugar. When this boils, add the chocolate and keep stirring continually. Then take the yolks of three eggs and well beat them; it is better to have these beaten before, so as not to interfere with the stirring of your mixture. Add your three yolks and keep on stirring, always in the same way. Then pour the mixture into a mold that has been rinsed out in very cold water, and let it stand in a cool place till set.
[Mrs. Emelie Jones.]
1/2 pound cornflour 1/4 pound butter 1/4 pound white sugar 1 or 2 eggs 1/2 ounce ginger powder.
Work all the ingredients together on a marble slab, to get the paste all of the same consistency. Make it into balls as big as walnuts, flattening them slightly before putting them into the oven. This sort of gingerbread keeps very well.
[L. L. B. d'Anvers.]
Put half pound of flour in a deep dish and work it with beer, beating it well till there are no lumps left. Make it into a paste that is not very liquid. Peel and core some good apples, cut them into rounds, put them in the paste so that each one is well covered with it. Have a pan of boiling fat and throw in the apple slices for two minutes. They ought to be golden by then, if that fat has been hot enough. Serve them dusted with powdered sugar and the juice of half a lemon squeezed on them.
[Mme. Delahaye.]
Weigh four very fresh eggs and put them in an earthenware dish. Add successively, sieved flour, fine sugar, and fresh butter, each one of these items being of the same weight of the eggs—hence the name: Four Quarters. With a wooden spoon, work these four ingredients, then let them rest for five minutes. Turn it all into a buttered mold and let it cook for five quarters of an hour in a gentle oven or in a double saucepan. Turn it out, and eat it either cold or hot and with fruit.
[Georges Kerckaert.]
Wash the rice in cold water, heat it in a little water and add a dust of salt. Flavor some milk (enough to cover the rice) with vanilla, and pour it on the rice. Let it cook in the oven for an hour and a quarter. Take it from the fire, and stir in the yolks only of two eggs, or of one only, if wished. Sweeten the whole with sugar, and color it with a little saffron. Turn it out, and let it get very cold.
[Paquerette.]
Quarter pound semolina, one and a half pints of milk, three eggs. Put on the milk, and, as soon as it is boiling, drop the semolina in, in a shower. Let it boil for a few minutes, stirring continually. Then add the yolks of three eggs, and then the whites, which you have already beaten stiff. Pour all on a dish, and cool. Have some boiling lard (it is boiling when it ceases to bubble), and throw into it spoonsful of the mixture. When they are fried golden, take them out, drain them a moment, and sprinkle on some white sugar.
[Mme. Segers.]
Pound down half pound flour, four ounces brown sugar, three and a half ounces butter, a pinch of nutmeg, and the same of mace and cinnamon in powder. Add, as well, a pinch of bicarbonate of soda. Make the paste into a ball, and cover it with a fine linen or muslin cloth, and leave it till the following day. If you have no molds to press it in, cut it into diamonds or different shapes, and cook them in the oven on buttered trays. I believe waffle irons can be bought in London.
Mix in an earthern bowl half a pint of flour, five yolks of eggs, a coffee-spoonful of castor sugar, half pint of milk (fresh), adding a pinch of salt and of vanilla; then two ounces butter melted over hot water. Then beat up the whites of four eggs very stiffly, and add them. Butter a baking-tin or sheet (since English households have not got a gaufre-iron, which is double and closes up), and pour in your mixture, spreading it over the sheet. When the gaufre is nicely yellowed, take it out and powder it with sugar. But to render this recipe absolutely successful, the correct implement is necessary.
Simmer the rice in milk till it is tender, sweeten it, and add, for a medium-sized mold, the yolks of two eggs. Let it thicken a little, and stir in pieces of pineapple. Pour it into a mold, and let it cool. Turn it out when it has well set, and decorate with crystallized fruits. Pour round it a thin apricot syrup.
[Mme. Spinette.]
Make a mixture of milk and raw eggs, enough to soak up in six rusks. Flavor it with a little mace or cinnamon. Put some butter in a pan and put the rusks in it to fry. Let them color a good brown, and serve them hot with sugar dusted over them.
[Mme. Spinette.]
Peel some apples, take out the core and cut them in slices, powder them on each side with sugar. You can use also pears, melons, or bananas. Make a batter with flour, milk and eggs, beating well the whites; a glass of rum and sugar to sweeten it. Put your lard on to heat, and when the blue steam rises roll your fruit slices in the batter and throw them into the lard. When they are golden, serve them with powdered sugar.
[Mme. Spinette.]
Take half a pound of fresh butter, four ounces of powdered sugar, and work them well together. When they are well mixed, add the yolks of four eggs, each one separately, and the whites of two. When the mixture is thoroughly well done, add, drop by drop, some boiling coffee essence to your taste. Butter a mold and line it with small sponge biscuits, and fill it with alternate layers of the cream and of biscuits. Put it for the night in the cellar before you serve it the following day. You can replace the essence of coffee by some chocolate that has been melted over hot water.
[Mme. Spinette.]
Sweeten well half a pint of milk and flavor it with vanilla. Put it to boil. Mix in a dish the yolks of four eggs with a little cornflour. When the milk boils, pour it very slowly over the eggs, mixing it well. Return it all to the pan and let it get thick without bringing it to the boil. Add some chopped almonds, and turn the mixture into a mold to cool.
[Mme. Spinette.]
Take sponge biscuits and arrange them on a dish, joining each to the other with jam. (You can make a square or a circle or a sort of hollow tower.) Pour your rum over them till they are well soaked. Then pour over them, or into the middle of the biscuits, a vanilla cream like the foregoing recipe, but let it be nearly cold before you use it. Decorate the top with the whites of four eggs sweetened and beaten, or use fresh cream in the same way.
[Mme. Spinette.]
Take some slices of pineapple, and cut off the brown spots at the edges. Steep them for three hours in a plateful of weak kirsch, or maraschino, that is slightly warmed. Cut some slices of plain cake of equal thickness, and glaze them. This is done by sprinkling sugar over the slices and placing them in a gentle oven. The sugar melts and leaves the slicesglacés. Arrange the slices in a circle, alternating pineapple and cake, and pour over the latter an apricot marmalade thinned with kirsch or other liqueur. This dish looks very nice, and if whipped cream can be added it is excellent.
[L. L. B. Anvers.]
Take a pound of apples and peel them. Cook them, and rub them, when soft, through a sieve to make them into a purée. Sweeten it well, and scent it with a scrap of vanilla; then let it get cold. Beat up three eggs, both whites and yolks, and mix them into your cold compôte, and put all in a dish that will stand the heat of the oven. Then place on the top a bit of butter the size of a filbert and powder all over with white sugar. Place the dish in an oven with a gentle heat for half-an-hour, watching how it cooks. This dish can be eaten hot or cold.
[E. Defouck.]
Melt two tablets of chocolate (Menier) in a dessert-spoonful of water over heat, stirring till the chocolate is well wetted and very thick. Then prepare some feculina flour in the following way: Take for five or six persons nearly a pint of milk. Sweeten it well with sugar; take two dessert-spoonfuls of feculina. Boil the sweetened milk, flavoring it with a few drops of vanilla essence. When it is boiled, take it from the fire, and let it get cold, mixing in the flour by adding it slowly so as not to make lumps. Put it back on a brisk fire and stir till it thickens; add then the melted chocolate, and when that is gently stirred in take off your pan, and again let it get cold. At the moment of cooking the soufflé, add three whites of eggs beaten stiff. Butter a deep fireproof dish, and pour in the mixture, only filling up half of the dish. Cook in the oven for fifteen minutes in a gentle heat, and serve immediately. A tablet of Chocolat Menier is a recognized weight.
[Gabrielle Janssens.]
Take a pint of apple purée and add to it three well-beaten eggs, a taste of cinnamon if liked, quarter of a pound of melted butter and the same quantity of white powdered sugar. Mix all together and, taking a fireproof dish, put a little water in the bottom of it and then some fine breadcrumbs, sufficient to cover the bottom. Pour in your compôte, then, above that, a layer of fine breadcrumbs, and here and there a lump of fresh butter, which will prevent the breadcrumbs from burning. Cook for half-an-hour.
Put a quart of milk to boil, and, when boiling, add half a pound of good rice. When the rice is nearly cooked, add a pennyworth of saffron, stirring it in evenly. This is excellent, eaten cold with stewed quinces and cream.
[V. Verachtert.]
Divide the bananas in regular pieces; arrange them in slices on your compôte dish, one slice leaning against the other in a circle. Sprinkle them with sugar. Squeeze the juice of an orange and of half a lemon—this would be sufficient for six bananas—and pour it over the bananas. Cover the dish and leave it for two hours in a cold place. A mold of cornflour or of ground rice may be eaten with this.
[Mme. Gabrielle Janssens.]
For one and one-half pints of milk half a breakfast-cupful of rice. Let it boil with sugar and vanilla; strain the whole. Add one-half pint of cream, well beaten, five leaves of gelatine (melted). Mix the whole and pour in a mold which has been wet. When turned out of the mold, put apricots or other fruit on the top. Pour the juice over all.
[Mlle. Breakers.]
10 leaves of gelatine, well melted and sifted. 1 pint cream,well beaten. 3-1/2 sticks of chocolate melted with a little milk.
Mix all the ingredients together and put them in a mold which has been previously wet.
[Mlle. Breakers.]
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.
[L. L. B. (d'Anvers).]
Three eggs, two table-spoonfuls of powdered sugar and a thimbleful of cornflour or feculina flour. The original recipe gives also one packet of vanilla sugar, but as this may be difficult to get in England it will be easier to add a few drops of vanilla essence when mixing. Mix the yolks of eggs with the sugar for ten minutes, then add the whites, stiffly beaten, stirring in very lightly, so as to let as much air as possible remain in the mixture; sprinkle in the flour. Take a fireproof dish, and butter it, and pour in the mixture, which place in a gentle oven for a quarter of an hour. It is better to practice this recipe at lest once before you prepare it at a dinner, on account of the baking.
[L. Verhaeghe.]
For six people put on the fire two handfuls of sorrel, reduce it to a puree, and add two dessertspoonfuls of cream, a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, pepper, salt. Take six hard-boiled eggs and, crumbling out the yolks, add them to the sorrel puree. Place the whites (which you should have cut longways) on a hot dish, and pour over them the puree of sorrel; sprinkle the top with breadcrumbs, and put bits of butter on it also. Place in the oven for ten minutes, and serve garnished with tomatoes.
[Mlle. A. Demeulemeester.]
Take some good tomatoes, but not too ripe. Cut them down from top to bottom, take out the pulp, and in each half tomato put half a hard-boiled egg. Arrange them on a dish, and pour round them a good mayonnaise, to which you have added some chopped parsley.
Take some tomatoes not too ripe, and cut them in half horizontally. Take out the pulp, so that you have two half-cases from each tomato. Break an egg into each tomato and sprinkle it well with cheese. Place them all in the oven, till the eggs are set, and decorate with sprigs of parsley.
[Mlle. A. Demeulemeester.]
Hard-boil some eggs and, while they are cooking, fry a large square slice of bread in butter to make a large crouton. Peel the eggs when they have been in boiling water for ten minutes. Pile them on the crouton, and have ready a tomato sauce to pour over.
Tomato Sauce: Gently stew two pounds of tomatoes and pass them through a sieve, return them to the pan and stir in a mustard-spoonful of mustard, a teaspoonful of vinegar, salt and pepper; heat well; and, if too thin, thicken it with flour to the right consistency.
[Mme. van Praet.]
Toss the sliced mushrooms in butter, adding, if you wish, a little mushroom ketchup. Break the eggs in a pan and beat them lightly together, and cook for three minutes over a good fire. Slip the omelette on a hot dish, spread with butter.
This is made quite differently. Cook the asparagus-tops in salt and water and drain them. Roll them in a little bechamel sauce. Break your eggs into the pan into which you have put a little butter; stir them with a fork in your left hand, adding salt and pepper with your right. This will only take a minute. Add the asparagus-tops in the thick sauce; this will take another minute. Roll or fold up the omelette and slip it on a hot buttered dish.
[Mme. van Praet.]
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.
[Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen.]
Make some rounds of toast and butter them; place on each a slice of tongue or of ham. Keep these hot, and poach as many eggs as you require. Slip each egg on the toasts, and cover them quickly with a highly seasoned tomato sauce.
[Mme. van Marcke de Lunessen.]
Pick over half a pound of mushrooms, cut them in small pieces like dice, and put them to stew in the oven with plenty of butter, pepper, and salt. Make a thick white sauce, and you may add to it the juice from the mushrooms when they are cooked; then stir in the mushrooms. Take three hard-boiled eggs, and separate yolks from whites. Put into a shallow vegetable-dish the whites cut up in small pieces, pour over them the bechamel with the mushrooms, and finish up by sprinkling over the top the hard-boiled yolks, which you have crumbled up with a fork.
[Mme. Braconnière.]
Make some scrambled eggs, and place them on a very hot dish, and pour round them a thick tomato sauce. Decorate the dish quickly with thick rounds of tomato.
Butter some little paper cases, and let them dry in the oven. Put into each one a pat of butter and let it melt lightly. Break an egg into each case, taking care not to break the yolk, and put a bit of butter on each yolk. Place in a quick oven till the whites are half set. At the moment of serving take them out, and have ready some minced tongue or ham, to sprinkle on them, and decorate with a big bit of truffle.
Cut in slices the remains of any cold meat, such as pork, beef, veal, ham, or mutton. Melt in a pan a bit of salt butter the size of a walnut, and put in it an onion cut into fine slices; let it get brown in the hot butter. In another pan put a larger piece of butter rolled in a soup-spoonful of flour; add to it the onion and butter, and add enough water to prevent the sauce from getting very thick. Add, if you wish it, a teaspoonful of meat-extract and a pinch of salt. Have ready some mashed potatoes, but let them be very light. Place the slices of meat in a fireproof dish, pour the sauce on them, then the mashed potatoes, and put the dish in the oven, all well heated through. This is called in Belgium "un philosophe."
[Paquerette.]
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.
[Paquerette.]
Mince very finely three pounds of raw veal and one-fourth pound of pork. It is better to do this at home than to have it done at the butcher's. Put two slices of bread to soak in milk, add two yolks of eggs and the whites, pepper and salt. Mix it well, working it for ten minutes. Then let it rest for half-an-hour. Put it in a small stewpan, add a lump of butter the size of a pigeon's egg, and put it in the oven. It will be ready to serve when the juice has ceased to run out.
[Paquerette]