The Belgian Cookbook by - (read book txt) 📕

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_.]

 

A NEW DISH OF APPLES

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.

 

GOLDEN RICE

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_.]

 

BANANA COMPÔTE

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_.]

 

RIZ CONDE

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_.]

 

CHOCOLATE CREAM

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_.]

 

KIDNEY SOUFFLÉ

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)_.]

 

BAKED SOUFFLE

Three eggs, two tablespoonfuls 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._]

 

PEASANTS’ EGGS

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._]

 

TWO RECIPES FOR TOMATOES AND EGGS

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.]

 

TOMATOES AND EGGS

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._]

 

MUSHROOM OMELETTE

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.

 

ASPARAGUS OMELETTE

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._]

 

STUFFED EGGS

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_.]

 

POACHED EGGS, TOMATO SAUCE

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_.]

 

EGGS AND MUSHROOMS

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_.]

 

BELGIAN EGGS

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.

 

EGGS À LA RIBEAUCOURT

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.

 

TO USE UP REMAINS OF MEAT

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 soupspoonful 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_.]

 

VEAL WITH ONIONS

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_.]

 

VEAL CAKE

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_]

 

TO USE UP COLD MEAT

Take a fresh celery, wash it well, and remove the green leaves. Let it boil till half-cooked in salted water. Drain it on a sieve, and then cut it lengthways, and place minced meat of any kind, well seasoned, between the two pieces. Tie them together with a thread and let them cook again for a quarter of an hour, this time either in the same water and gently simmered, or in the oven in a well-buttered dish. Other people, to avoid the trouble of tying the two halves, spread the mince on each half and cook it in the oven, laid flat in a fireproof dish. In this case put a good lump of butter on each portion of mince.

[_L. Verhaeghe._]

 

FLEMISH CARBONADE

Put two onions to color in butter or in hot fat. Then add to them the beef, which you have cut into pieces the size of a small cake. Let it cook for a few minutes, then add pepper, salt, a carrot sliced, and enough water