CARROTS, MASHED.--When carrots are very old they are best mashed. Boil them for some time, then cut them up and rub them through a wire sieve.

They can be pressed in a basin and made hot by being steamed. A little b.u.t.ter, pepper and salt should be added to the mixture. A very pretty dish can be made by means of mixing mashed carrots with mashed turnips. They can be shaped in a basin, and with a little ingenuity can be put into red and white stripes. The effect is something like the top of a striped tent.

CAULIFLOWER, PLAIN BOILED.--Cauliflowers can be treated in exactly the same manner as brocoli, and there are very few who can tell the difference.

(_See_ BROCOLI.)

CAULIFLOWER AU GRATIN.--This is a very nice method of serving cauliflower as a course by itself. The cauliflower or cauliflowers should first be boiled till thoroughly tender, very carefully drained, and then placed upright in a vegetable-dish with the flower part uppermost. The whole of the flower part should then be _masked_ (_i.e._, covered over) with some thick white sauce. Allemande sauce or Dutch sauce will do. This is then sprinkled over with grated Parmesan cheese and the dish put in the oven for the top to brown. As soon as it _begins_ to brown take it out of the oven and finish it off neatly with a salamander (a red-hot shovel will do), the same way you finish cheese-cakes made from curds.

CAULIFLOWER AND TOMATO SAUCE.--Boil and place the cauliflower or flowers upright in a dish as in the above recipe. Now mask all the flower part very neatly, commencing round the edges first, with some tomato conserve previously made warm, and serve immediately. This is a very pretty-looking dish.

CELERY, STEWED.--The secret of having good stewed celery is only to cook the white part. Throw the celery into boiling water, with only sufficient water just to cover it. When the celery is tender use some of the water in which it is stewed to make a sauce to serve with it, or better still, stew the celery in milk. The sauce looks best when it is thickened with the yolks of eggs. A very nice sauce indeed can be made by first thickening the milk or water in which the celery is stewed with a little white roux, and then adding a quarter of a pint of cream boiled separately. Stewed celery should be served on toast, like asparagus; a little chopped blanched parsley can be sprinkled over the white sauce by way of ornament, and fried bread should be placed round the edge of the dish.

Stewed celery can also be served with sauce Allemande or Dutch sauce.

ENDIVE.--Endive is generally used as a salad, but is very nice served as a vegetable, stewed. White-heart endives should be chosen, and several heads will be required for a dish, as they shrink very much in cooking. Wash and clean the endives very carefully in salt and water first, as they often contain insects. Boil them in slightly salted water till they are tender, then drain them off, and thoroughly extract the moisture; put them in a stew-pan with a little b.u.t.ter, pepper, salt, and nutmeg, let them stew for some little time; add the juice of a lemon, and serve. It will make the dish much prettier if you reserve one head of endive boiled whole. Place the stewed endive on a dish, and sprinkle some chopped blanched parsley over it, then place the single head of endive upright in the centre, and place some fried bread round the edge.

LEEKS, STEWED.--Leeks must be trimmed down to where the green part meets the white on the one side, and the root, where the strings are, cut off on the other. They should be thrown into boiling water, boiled till they are tender, and then thoroughly drained. The water in which leeks have been boiled is somewhat rank and bitter, and, as the leeks are like tubes, in order to drain them perfectly you must turn them upside down. They can be served on toast, and covered with some kind of white sauce, either ordinary white sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce.

LEEKS, WELSH PORRIDGE.--The leeks are stewed and cut in slices, and served in some of the liquor in which they are boiled, with toast cut in strips, something like onion porridge. Boil the leeks for five minutes, drain them off, and throw away the first water, and then stew them gently in some fresh water. In years back, in Wales, French plums were stewed with and added to the porridge.

LETTUCES, STEWED.--As lettuces shrink very much when boiled, allowance must be made, and several heads used. This is also a very good way of utilising the large old-fashioned English lettuce resembling in shape a gingham umbrella. They should be first boiled till tender. The time depends entirely upon the size. Drain them off, and thoroughly extract the moisture; put them into a stew-pan, with a little b.u.t.ter, pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Let them stew some little time, and add a little vinegar, or, still better, lemon-juice.

LETTUCES STEWED WITH PEAS.--A border of stewed lettuces can be made as above, and the centre filled up with some fresh-boiled young green peas.

ONIONS, PLAIN BOILED.--When onions are served as a dish by themselves, Spanish onions are far best for the purpose. Ordinary onions, as a rule, are too strong to be eaten, except as an accompaniment to some other kind of food. When onions are plain boiled, they are best served on dry toast without any sauce at all. b.u.t.ter can be added when eaten on the plate if liked. Large Spanish onions will require about three hours to boil tender.

ONIONS, BAKED.--Spanish onions can be baked in the oven. They are best placed in saucers, with a very little b.u.t.ter to prevent them sticking, with which they can also be basted occasionally. Probable time about three hours. They should be of a nice brown colour at the finish.

ONIONS, STEWED.--Place a large Spanish onion in a saucer at the bottom of the saucepan, and put sufficient water in the saucepan to reach the edge of the saucer; keep the lid of the saucepan on tight, and let it steam till tender. A large onion would take about three hours. The water from the onion will prevent the necessity of adding fresh water from time to time.

PARSNIPS.--Like young carrots, young parsnips are often met with abroad as a course by themselves. They should be trimmed and boiled whole, and served with white sauce, Allemande sauce, or Dutch sauce; a little chopped blanched parsley should be sprinkled over the sauce, and fried bread served round the edge of the dish.

PARSNIPS, FRIED.--Boil some full-grown parsnips till they are tender, cut them into slices, pepper and salt them, dip them into beaten-up egg, and cover them with bread-crumbs, and fry these slices in some smoking hot oil till they are a nice brown colour.

PARSNIPS, MASHED.--When parsnips are very old they are best mashed. Boil them for an hour or more, then cut them up and rub them through a wire sieve. The stringy part will have to be left behind. Mix the pulp with a little b.u.t.ter, pepper, and salt; make this hot, and serve. A little cream is a great improvement.

PARSNIP CAKE.--Boil two or three parsnips until they are tender enough to mash, then press them through a colander with the back of a wooden spoon, and carefully remove any fibrous, stringy pieces there may be. Mix a teacupful of the mashed parsnip with a quart of hot milk, add a teaspoonful of salt, four ounces of fresh b.u.t.ter, half a pint of yeast, and enough flour to make a stiff batter. Put the bowl which contains the mixture in a warm place, cover it with a cloth, and leave it to rise. When it has risen to twice its original size, knead some more flour into it, and let it rise again; make it into small round cakes a quarter of an inch thick, and place these on b.u.t.tered tins. Let them stand before the fire a few minutes, and bake them in a hot oven. They do not taste of the parsnip. Time, some hours to rise; about twenty minutes to bake.

PEAS, GREEN.--By far the best and nicest way of cooking green peas when served as a course by themselves is to stew them gently in a little b.u.t.ter without any water at all, like they do in France. The peas are first sh.e.l.led, and then placed in a stew-pan with a little b.u.t.ter, sufficient to moisten them. As soon as they are tender, which will vary with the size and age of the peas, they can be served just as they are. The flavour of peas cooked this way is so delicious that they are nicest eaten with plain bread. When old peas are cooked this way it is customary to add a little white powdered sugar.

PEAS, GREEN, PLAIN BOILED.--Sh.e.l.l the peas, and throw them into boiling water slightly salted. Keep the lid off the saucepan and throw in a few sprigs of fresh green mint five minutes before you drain them off. Young peas will take about ten to twenty minutes, and full-grown peas rather longer. Serve the peas directly they are drained, as they are spoilt by being kept hot.

PEAS, STEWED.--When peas late in the season get old and tough, they can be stewed. Boil them for rather more than half an hour, throwing them first of all into boiling water; drain them off, and put them into a stew-pan with a little b.u.t.ter, pepper, and salt. Young onions and lettuces cut up can be stewed with them, but young green peas are far too nice ever to be spoilt by being cooked in this way.

SCOTCH KALE.--Scotch kale, or curly greens, as it is sometimes called in some parts of the country, is cooked like ordinary greens. It should be washed very carefully, and thrown into fast-boiling salted water. The saucepan should remain uncovered, as we wish to preserve the dark green colour. Young Scotch kale will take about twenty minutes to boil before it is tender. When boiled, if served as a course by itself, it should be strained off very thoroughly and warmed in a stew-pan with a little b.u.t.ter, pepper, and salt.

SEA KALE.--Sea kale possesses a very delicate flavour, and in cooking it the endeavour should be to preserve this flavour. Throw the sea kale when washed into boiling water; in about twenty minutes, if it is young, it will be tender. Serve it on plain dry toast, and keep all the heads one way.

b.u.t.ter sauce, white sauce, Dutch sauce, or sauce Allemande can be served with sea kale, but should be sent to table separate in a boat, as the majority of good judges prefer the sea kale quite plain.

SPINACH.--The chief difficulty to contend with in cooking spinach is the preliminary cleansing. The best method of washing spinach is to take two buckets of water. Wash it in one; the spinach will float on the top whilst the dirt settles at the bottom. Lift the spinach from one pail, after you have allowed it to settle for a few minutes, into the other pail. One or two rinsings will be sufficient. Spinach should be picked if the stalks are large, and thrown into boiling water slightly salted. Boil the spinach till it is tender, which will take about a quarter of an hour, then drain it off and cut it very small in a basin with a knife and fork, place it back in a saucepan with a little piece of b.u.t.ter to make it thoroughly hot, put it in a vegetable dish and serve.

Hard-boiled eggs cut in halves, or poached eggs, are usually served with spinach. A little cream, nutmeg, and lemon-juice can be added. Many cooks rub the spinach through a wire sieve.

VEGETABLE MARROW.--Vegetable marrows must be first peeled, cut open, the pips removed, and then thrown into boiling water; small ones should be cut into quarters and large ones into pieces about as big as the palm of the hand. They take from fifteen to twenty minutes to boil before they are tender. They should be served directly they are cooked and placed on dry toast. b.u.t.ter sauce or white sauce can be served with them, but is best sent to table separate in a boat, as many persons prefer them plain.

VEGETABLE MARROWS, STUFFED.--Young vegetable marrows are very nice stuffed.

They should be first peeled very slightly and then cut, long-ways, into three zigzag slices; the pips should be removed and the interior filled with either mushroom forcemeat (_see_ MUSHROOM FORCEMEAT) or sage-and-onion stuffing made with rather an extra quant.i.ty of bread-crumbs. The vegetable marrow should be tied up with two separate loops of tape about a quarter of the way from each end, and these two rings of tape tied together with two or three separate pieces of tape to prevent them slipping off at the ends.

The forcemeat or stuffing should be made hot before it is placed in the marrow. The vegetable marrow should now be thrown into boiling water and boiled till it is tender, about twenty minutes to half an hour. Take off the tape carefully, and be careful to place the marrow so that one half rests on the other half, or else it will slip.

N.B.--If you place the stuffing inside cold, the vegetable marrow will break before the inside gets hot through.

TURNIPS, BOILED.--When turnips are young they are best boiled whole. Peel them first very thinly, and throw them into cold water till they are ready for the saucepan. Throw them into boiling water slightly salted. They will probably take about twenty minutes to boil. They can be served quite plain or with any kind of white sauce, b.u.t.ter sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce. In vegetarian cookery they are perhaps best served with some other kind of vegetable.

TURNIPS, MASHED.--Old turnips are best mashed, as they are stringy. Boil them till they get fairly tender; they will take from half an hour to two hours, according to age; then rub them through a wire sieve and warm up the pulp with a little milk, or still better, cream and a little b.u.t.ter; add pepper and salt.

N.B.--If the pulp be very moist let it stand and get rid of the moisture gradually in a frying-pan over a very slack fire.

TURNIPS, ORNAMENTAL.--A very pretty way of serving young turnips in vegetarian cookery is to cut them in halves and scoop out the centre so as to form cups; the part scooped out can be mixed with some carrot cut up into small pieces, and some green peas, and placed in the middle of a dish in a heap; the half-turnips forming cups can be placed round the base of the dish and each cup filled alternately with the red part of the carrot, chopped small and piled up, and a spoonful of green peas. This makes a very pretty dish of mixed vegetables.

TURNIP-TOPS.--Turnip-tops, when fresh cut, make very nice and wholesome greens. They should be thrown into boiling water and boiled for about twenty minutes, when they will be tender. They should then be cut up with a knife and fork very finely and served like spinach. If rubbed through a wire sieve and a little spinach extract mixed with them to give them the proper colour, and served with hard-boiled eggs, there are very few persons who can distinguish the dish from eggs and spinach.