(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.
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.]
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.
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.
quired; 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.]
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.
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.
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.
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.]
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.]
