The Belgian Cookbook Part 18

Make some paste and roll it out thinly. Take a coffee cup and turning it upside down stamp out some rounds. Turn the cup the right way again, and put it on a round. Then you will see an edge of paste protruding all round. Turn this up with the end of a fork, which makes a pretty little edge. Do this with all, and fill the shallow cases then made with a good mayonnaise sauce in which you have put chopped celery and potato, and a small quant.i.ty of chopped gherkins. Lay three fillets of anchovy across each other to form a six-pointed star and season highly with cayenne pepper.

All the above recipes can be followed using sardines instead of anchovies, and indeed one can use them in many other ways, with eggs, with lettuce, with tomatoes. As anchovies are rather expensive to buy, I give a recipe for mock anchovies, which is easy to do, but it must be done six months before using the fish.

MOCK ANCHOVIES

When sprats are cheap, buy a good quant.i.ty, what in England you would call a peck. Do not either wipe or wash them. Take four ounces of saltpeter, a pound of bay salt, two pounds of common coa.r.s.e salt, and pound them well, then add a little cochineal to color it, pound and mix very well. Take a stone jar and put in it a layer of the mixture and a layer of the sprats, on each layer of fish adding three or four bay leaves and a few whole pepper-corns. Fill up the jar and press it all down very firmly. Cover with a stone cover, and let them stand for six months before you use them.

CUc.u.mBER a LA LAEKEN

Take a cuc.u.mber and cut it in pieces two inches long, then peel away the dark green skin for one inch, leaving the other inch as it was. Set up each piece on end, scoop it out till nearly the bottom and fill up with bits of cold salmon or lobster in mayonnaise sauce. Cold turbot or any other delicate fish will do equally well or a small turret of whipped cream, slightly salted, should be piled on top. This dish never fails to please.

HERRING AND MAYONNAISE

Take some salt herring, a half for each person, and soak them for a day in water. Skin them, cut them open lengthwise, take out the backbone, and put them to soak in vinegar. Then before serving them let them lie for a few minutes in milk, and putting them on a dish pour over them a good mayonnaise sauce. [_Mlle. Oclhaye._]

SWEET DRINKS AND CORDIALS. ORGEAT

Blanch first of all half a pound of sweet almonds and three ounces of bitter, turn them into cold water for a few minutes; then you must pound them very fine in a stone mortar, if you have a marble one so much the better, and do it in a cool place.

You must add a little milk occasionally to prevent the paste from becoming oily, then add three quarts of fresh milk, stirring it in slowly, sweeten to your taste, and then putting all into a saucepan clean as a chalice, bring it to the boil.

Boil for ten minutes, and then stir till cold, strain it through finest muslin, and then add two good gla.s.ses of brandy. Bottle and keep in a dark place.

HAWTHORN CORDIAL

When the hawthorn is in full bloom, pick a basketful of the blooms. Take them home, and put the white petals into a large gla.s.s bottle, taking care that you put in no leaves or stalks. When the bottle is filled to the top do not press it down, but pour in gently as much good French Brandy as it will hold. Cork and let it stand for three months, then you can strain it off. This is good as a cordial, and if you find it too strong, add water, or sweeten it with sugar.

DUTCH NOYEAU

Peel finely the rinds of five large lemons, or of six small ones, then throw on it a pound of loaf sugar that you have freshly pounded, two ounces of bitter almonds, chopped and pounded; mix these with two quarts of the best Schnappes or Hollands, and add six tablespoonfuls of boiling milk.

Fill your jars with this, cover it close, and put it in a pa.s.sage or hall, where people can shake it every day.

Leave it there for three weeks, and strain it through some blotting paper into another bottle. It will be ready to drink.

LAVENDER WATER

Take a large bottle, and put in it twelve ounces of the best spirits of wine, one essence of ambergris, twopennyworth of musk, and three drachms of oil of lavender.

Cork it tightly, put in a dark place, and shake it every day for a month. This is really lavender spirit, as no water is used.

HOT BURGUNDY

Take half a pint of good Burgundy wine, put it to boil with two cloves, and a dust of mixed spice, sweeten to taste with some powdered sugar.

If you like add a quarter of the quant.i.ty of water to the wine before boiling.

CReME DE POISSON a LA ROI ALBERT

Take a fresh raw whiting, fillet it, and pa.s.s the flesh through a wire sieve.

For a small dish take four ounces of the fish, mix them lightly with four tablespoonfuls of very thick cream, adding pepper and salt. Fill an oval ring mold, and steam gently for twenty minutes, under b.u.t.tered paper.

Have some marine crayfish boiled, sh.e.l.l the tails, cut them in pieces, removing the black line inside. Cut three truffles into thick slices, heat them and the crayfish in some ordinary white sauce, enriched with the yolk of a raw egg, pepper and salt, and one dessertspoonful of tarragon vinegar. This must not be allowed to boil. When the cream is turned out into a hot silver dish, pour the ragout into the center, and put a hot lid on.

This dish, and that on page 86-87, has been composed by a Scotch lady in honor of the King of the Belgians. Not every cook can manage the cream, but the proportions are exact, and so is the time.

[_Mrs. Alex. Stuart._]

FISH AND CUSTARD

Boil up the tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs of your fish with milk, pepper and salt. Strain it and add the yolks of eggs till you get a good custard. Pour the custard into a mold, and lay in it your fish, which must already be parboiled.

If you have cold fish, flake it, and mix it with the custard. Put the mold in a double saucepan. Steam it for three quarters of an hour.

Turn it out, and garnish with strips of lemon peel, and if you have it, sprigs of fennel.

HAKE AND POTATOES