The Belgian Cookbook by - (read book txt) 📕

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 dessertspoonful 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 dessertspoonfuls 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 overnight 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 tablespoonfuls 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 dessertspoonful 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 tablespoonfuls 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