The Belgian Cookbook Part 22

BROAD BEANS IN SAUCE

Take your sh.e.l.led beans, very young and tender. Throw them into boiling water for a minute, then pour the water away. Heat for a pound of beans one and one-half pints of milk, stir in four ounces of salt b.u.t.ter, a very little chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Do not let the milk boil, but when it simmers put in the beans. When they have been heated for ten minutes, thicken your sauce with the yolks of two eggs and a tablespoonful of cream. Take out a bean and eat it to see if it is cooked, and if so, pour all on a hot dish. Garnish with fried sippets of bread. Old broad beans can be treated in the same way, but they must first be skinned.

[_Aimee._]

OMELETTE OF PEAS

Beat up three eggs, to which add one tablespoonful of grated cheese, pepper, and salt, and mix thoroughly. b.u.t.ter an omelette pan, and pour in the mixture, keep moving it gently with a fork while you sprinkle in with the other hand some cooked green peas. The omelette will be cooked by the time you have sprinkled in two handfuls. Slip it off on to a very hot dish, fold over, and serve at once.

[_Jean O._]

BRUSSELS ARTICHOKES

Wash well some globe artichokes, and boil them in salted water.

Meanwhile make a good mushroom filling, highly seasoned, of cooked mushroom, dipped into b.u.t.ter, pepper, salt, a few breadcrumbs, and shreds of ham. Remove the center leaves from the vegetable and as much of the choke as you can. Fill up with the mushroom force and stew gently in brown sauce flavored with a bunch of herbs.

[_F. R._]

BELGIAN SALAD

is merely endive, washed and torn apart with red peppers added here and there as well as the ordinary salad dressing.

_Belgian asparagus_ is done by adding to the cooked vegetable a bechamel sauce, poured over the dish, and then slices of hard boiled eggs placed on the top. The giant asparagus is used, and it is eaten with a fork.

[_A Grocer's Wife._]

BRUSSELS CARROTS

Cut young carrots in small pieces, blanch them in salted water; melt some b.u.t.ter in a stew pan, add enough water and meat extract to make sufficient to cover the carrots, season with pepper, salt and a pinch of sugar and toss the carrots in this till they are tender. Then add the yolk of an egg and a tablespoonful of cream, holding the pan just off the fire with the left hand, while you stir with the right. When it is well mixed pour all out on a vegetable dish and sprinkle over with chopped parsley.

[_Amie reconnaissante._]

CARROTS AND EGGS

Make the same preparation as above, for the sauce, with the same seasonings, but add a dust of nutmeg. Then add half a pint of white stock which will be enough for a small bunch of carrots; simmer them for fifteen minutes and then break in three whole eggs, taking care that they fall apart from each other. Let them cook till nearly set (for they will go on cooking in the hot sauce after you remove them from the fire) and serve at once. This is nearly as good if you use old carrots sliced, instead of the young ones.

[_M. Zoeben_.]

CUc.u.mBERS AND TOMATOES

Take two earthenware pots and put some tomatoes to stew in one, in water, pepper, and salt. Peel a cuc.u.mber, open it, remove the seeds and stuff it with any forcemeat that you have; but a white one is best. Let it cook gently in some brown stock, well covered over. When tender put the cuc.u.mber along the dish and tomatoes on each side. A puree of potatoes can surround them.

[_A. Fanderverde_.]

RED HARICOTS

Soak some white haricot-beans over night, or stew them till tender in some weak stock. Make a tomato sauce in a saucepan, and flavor it rather strongly with made mustard, stirring well, so that it is well incorporated. When the beans are tender, drain them from the liquor (keeping them hot) and reduce that to half its quant.i.ty. Put back the beans and add the tomato sauce, heat for a couple of minutes, and serve with three-cornered pieces of toast.

[_Elise et Jean_.]

POTATOES A LA BRABANCONNE

Boil some potatoes, rub them through a sieve, add pepper, salt, and a tablespoonful of cream to a pound of potatoes, rub through a tammy again. Chop a shallot, a spring or two of parsley and mix them in, sprinkling in at the same time a dust of nutmeg and a dessertspoonful of grated cheese. Place the puree in a dish to be baked, and before setting it in the oven sprinkle on the top some bread-crumbs, and cheese grated and mixed and one or two pats of salt b.u.t.ter. Bake till it is a golden brown.

[_Elise et Jean_.]

FLEMISH PEAS

Cook some young peas and some carrots (sc.r.a.ped and shaped into cones) in separate pans. Then put them together in an earthenware close covered pan to simmer together in b.u.t.ter and gravy, the first water having been well drained from them. Season with pepper and salt and let them cook gently for ten or twelve minutes; do not uncover the pot to stir it, but shake it every now and then to prevent the contents from burning.

[_Amie inconnue_.]

CHOU-CROUTE

Take as many white September cabbages as you wish, trim them, cut in halves, remove the stalks, wash them very thoroughly and shred them pretty finely. Procure an earthenware crock and put in a layer of cabbage, sprinkle it with coa.r.s.e salt, whole pepper, and juniper berries. Fill up the crock in this way, put on the lid, and keep it down closely with weights. It will be ready in about six weeks' time, when the fermentation has taken place. It is good with pork or bacon.