The Belgian Cookbook
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FRENCH EGGS
Put a lump of butter the size of an egg in a fireproof dish, mixing in
when it is melted some breadcrumbs, a chopped leek, the inside of three
tomatoes, pepper and salt. Let it cook for three or four minutes in the
oven, then stir in the yolks of two eggs, and let it make a custard.
Then break on the top of this custard as many eggs as you wish; sprinkle
with pepper and salt. Let it remain in the oven till these last are
beginning to set. Take out the dish, and pass over the top the
salamander, or the shovel, red hot, and serve at once. I have seen this
dish with the two extra whites of eggs beaten and placed in a pile on the
top, and slightly browned by the shovel.
OEUFS CELESTES
(Hommage a Sir Edward Grey)
Gently boil a quantity of the very best green peas in good gravy; as the
gravy becomes reduced, add, instead, butter. Do not forget to have put a
lump of sugar in every pint of gravy. When the peas are done break on
them the required number of fresh eggs, with pepper and salt. Place all
in a double saucepan, till the eggs are just done. It is a pity that in
England there are no cooking pots made, which will hold fire on the top,
so that a dish, such as this, becomes easily done in a few minutes.
PETITES CAISSES A LA FURNES
Take a small Ostend rabbit, steep it in water as usual, and boil it
gently in some white stock, with a good many peppercorns. When it is cold
chop the meat up into small dice; add to it about a quarter of the amount
of ham, and the whites of two hard-boiled eggs, all cut to the same size.
Moisten the salpicon with a good white sauce made with cream, a little
lemon juice, pepper and salt.
The little paper cases must have a ring of cress arranged, about a
quarter of an inch thick; the salpicon, put in carefully with a small
spoon, will hold it in place.
Fill the cases to the level of the cress leaves, and decorate with a
Belgian flag made as follows:
Make some aspic jelly with gelatine, tarragon vinegar, and a little
sherry. Color one portion with paprika or coralline, pepper; a second
part with the sieved yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, and the remainder
with rinsed pickled walnuts, also passed through a wire sieve. Pour the
red jelly into a small mold with straight sides; when it is almost set
pour in the yellow aspic, and when that is cold pour in the black. When
the jelly is quite cold, turn it out, slice it, and cut it into pieces of
suitable size. If you make too much aspic it can decorate any cold dish
or salad. The walnut squash looks black at night.
[_Margaret Strail, or Mrs. A. Stuart._]
FLEMISH CARROTS
Take some young carrots, wash and brush them as tenderly as you would an
infant, then simmer them till tender in with pepper and salt. When
cooked, draw them to the side of the fire and pour in some cream to make
a good sauce. If you cannot use cream, take milk instead and stir with it
the yolk of an egg. To thicken for use, add a pinch of sugar and some
chopped parsley.
AUBERGINE OR EGG PLANT
This purple fruit is, like the tomato, always cooked as a vegetable. It
is like the brinjal of the East. It is hardly necessary to give special
recipes for the dressing of aubergines, for you can see their
possibilities at a glance. They can be stuffed with white mince in a
white sauce, when you would cut the fruit in half, remove some of the
interior, fill up with mince and sauce, replace the top, and bake for
twenty minutes, or simply cut in halves and stewed in stock, with pepper
and salt they are good, or you can simmer them gently in water and when
ready to serve, pour over them a white sauce as for vegetable marrow. If
they are cheap in England the following entree would be inexpensive and
would look nice.
EGG PLANTS AS SOUFFLE
Wash the fruit, cut them lengthways, remove the inside. Fill each half
with a mixture made of beaten egg, grated cheese, and some fine
breadcrumbs, and a dash of mustard. Put the halves to bake for a quarter
of an hour, or till the souffle mixture has risen. When cooked place them
in an oval dish with a border of rice turned out from a border mold.
POTATO CROQUETTES
Cook your potatoes, rub them through the sieve, add pepper and salt, two
or three eggs, lightly beaten, mixing both yolks and whites, and
according to the quantity you are making a little butter and milk. Work
all well and let it get cold. Roll into croquettes, roll each in beaten
egg, then in finely grated breadcrumbs, and let them cook in boiling fat
or lard.
[_Madame Emelie Jones._]
PUREE OF CHESTNUTS
Make a little slit in each chestnut, boil them till tender, then put them
in another pan with cold water in it and replace them on the fire. Peel
them one by one as you take them out, and rub them through a sieve,
pounding them first to make it easier, add salt, a good lump of butter
and a little milk to make a nice puree. This is very good to surround
grilled chicken or turkey legs, or for a salmi of duck or hare.
HORS D'OEUVRES
The attractive "savory" of English dinner tables finds its counterpart
apparently in egg and fish dishes served cold at the beginning of a meal,
and therefore what we should call hors d'oeuvres.
POTATO DICE
Boil your potatoes and let them be of the firm, soapy kind, not the
floury kind. When cooked, and cold, cut them into dice, and toss them in
the following sauce:
Take equal quantities of salad oil and cream, a quarter of that amount of
tarragon vinegar, a pinch of salt, and a few chopped capers. Mix very
well, and pour it on the dice. You may vary this by using cream only, in
which case omit the vinegar. Season with pepper, salt, celery seed, and
instead of the capers take some pickled nasturtium seed, and let that,
finely minced, remain in the sauce for an hour before using it.
ANCHOVIES
Fillets of these, put in a lattice work across mashed potato look very
nice. Be sure you use good anchovies preserved in salt, and well washed
and soaked to take away the greater part of the saltness; or, if you can
make some toast butter it when cold, cut it into thin strips, and lay a
fillet in the center. Fill up the sides of the toast with chopped hard-
boiled yolk of egg.
ANCHOVY SANDWICHES
Cut some bread and butter, very thin, and in fingers. Chop some water-
cress, lay it on a finger, sprinkle a little Tarragon vinegar and water
(equal quantities) over it, and then lay on a fillet of anchovy, cover
with more cress and a finger of bread and butter. Put them in a pile
under a plate to flatten and before serving trim the edges.
ANCHOVY ROUNDS
Make some toast, cut it in rounds, butter it when cold. Curl an anchovy
round a stewed olive, and put it on the toast. Make a little border of
yolk of egg boiled and chopped.
ANCHOVY BISCUITS
Made as you would make cheese biscuits, but using anchovy sauce instead
to flavor them. If you make the pastry thin you can put some lettuce
between two biscuits and press together with a little butter spread
inside.
ANCHOVY PATTIES
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 quantity 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 quantity, 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 coarse 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.
CUCUMBER A LA LAEKEN
Take a cucumber 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 glasses 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 glass 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 passage 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 quantity of water to the wine before
boiling.
CREME DE POISSON A LA ROI ALBERT
Take a fresh raw whiting, fillet it, and pass 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 buttered paper.
Have some marine crayfish boiled, shell 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 trimmings 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
Hake, which is not one of the most delicate fish, can be made excellent
if stewed in the following sauce: A quart of milk to which you have added
a dessertspoonful of any of the good English sauces; thicken it with a
knob of butter rolled in flour, which stir in till all is smooth. When it
boils take off the fire, and put in your pieces of hake, set it back by
the side of the fire to keep very hot, without boiling, for twenty-five
minutes. Meanwhile mash some potatoes, and put it as a puree round a
dish, pour the fish in the center, sprinkle on it chopped parsley. The
liquor ought to be much reduced.
VERY NICE SKATE
Take skate, or indeed any fish that rolls up easily, make into fillets,
dry them well, and sprinkle on each fillet, pepper, salt, a dust of mixed
spice, and chopped parsley. Roll each fillet up tightly, and pack them
tightly into a dish, so that they will not become loose. Take vinegar and
beer in equal quantities, or, if you do not like to use beer, you must
add to the vinegar some whole black pepper, and a good sprinkle of dried
and mixed herbs with salt. Pour over the fish, tie a piece of buttered
paper over the top, and bake for an hour and a quarter (for a medium pie
dish) in a moderate oven.
TO KEEP SPRATS
A large quantity of these may be bought cheaply and kept for some weeks
by this method. Put on to warm equal quantities of vinegar and water,
what you think sufficient to cover your sprats, allowing for wastage; and
stir in for every quart of liquor a small saltspoonful of mixed spice,
four bay leaves, a shallot minced, a small bunch of bruised thyme, the
thin rind of a half lemon, salt and pepper; if you can use tarragon
vinegar so much the better. Clean the sprats, remove tails and heads, and
lay them in a deep dish. Take your liquor and pour it over the fish, tie
a large paper over all, and let them bake in a cool oven for two or three
hours; or cook them in a double saucepan; in any case do them very
slowly. Put aside to cool, and take out the fish to use as required. They
will keep good four weeks.
TO KEEP MACKEREL FOR A WEEK
It sometimes happens that you can get a great quantity of this fish, very
fresh, cheaply, and wish to use it later on.
Pickle it thus: Boil a pint of vinegar with six peppercorns, four cloves,
four bay leaves, a scrap of mace, a saltspoonful of salt, and the same of
made mustard. When this is boiled up put it to cool. Lay your mackerel
prepared ready for eating, and sprinkle on each piece some salt, and
minced thyme. It may be an hour before using.
Then fry the fish, lifting each piece carefully into the hot fat. When
fried lay the fish in a deep dish, and pour on each piece your vinegar
liquor till all is covered.
Cover over with paper such as you use for jam pots, well tied down. You
can afterwards heat the fish as you require.
A BROWN DISH OF FISH
Take your fish, which should be herring or mackerel, relieve it of the
bones, skin and fins, which you must put to boil for three quarters of an
hour in water, with pepper and salt. After that time strain off the
liquor, and add to it enough browning to color it well.
Then brown quarter of a pound of butter and knead into it two
tablespoonfuls of flour, add it, when well mixed, to your liquor, with
salt and pepper, a piece of lemon peel, and a dust of mixed spice. Bring
all this to the boil and drop in your fish. (Cut in neat fillets.) Let
them simmer for twenty minutes, and if too dry pour in some darkly
colored gravy. Just before you wish to serve add a good wine glass of
claret, or of Burgundy, take out the lemon peel, and pour all on a hot
dish. If you do not wish to put wine, the flavor of the sauce is very
excellent if you stir into it a dessertspoonful of mushroom ketchup, or a
teaspoonful of soy. This brown fish is nice to follow a white soup.
BAKED HADDOCKS
Take all the trimmings of two good sized haddocks, cover them with milk
and water, and put them to simmer. Add chopped parsley, a chopped
shallot, pepper and salt.
Cut each fish in half across, and lay them in the bottom of a pie dish,
sprinkle breadcrumbs, pats of butter, pepper and salt, between and on
each piece. Fill up the dish with water or milk, adding the simmered and
strained liquor from the trimmings.
Bake gently for an hour, and when brown on top add more breadcrumbs, and
pats of butter.
FILLETED SOLES AU FROMAGE
Boil the filleted soles in water. Make a sauce with butter. One spoonful
of flour--milk, pepper and salt, powdered cheese (Cheddar). Boil it,
adding some washed and chopped mushrooms and a little cream. Put the
filets on a dish and pour them over the sauce. Leave it about a quarter
of an hour in the oven, so that it becomes slightly browned.
[_Mdlle. Spreakers._]
FILLETED FISH, WITH WHITE SAUCE AND TOMATOES
Brown two onions in butter, and add a spray of parsley, half a pound of
tomatoes and a claret glassful of white wine. Let this simmer for half an
hour, and then pass it through the tammy. Then fry half a pound of
mushrooms, and add them and their liquor to the sauce, thickening it, if
necessary, with a little cornflour. A great improvement is a little
liebig. Place your fish in the oven, and cook it gently in butter, with
pepper and salt. When it is done, serve it with the sauce poured over it.
[_Madame Vandervalle._]
THE MILLER'S COD
(Cabillaud meunier)
Cut your cod in slices, and roll them in flour. Put them to fry in a good
piece of butter, adding chopped parsley, pepper and salt, and the juice
of one lemon. This is very good, if served in the dish that it is cooked
in.
DUTCH HERRINGS
(A cold dish)
Take some Dutch, or some salted herrings, and remove the skin, backbones,
etc. Lay the fish in milk for at least twenty-four hours to get the salt
out. Make a mayonnaise sauce, adding to it the roe from the herrings, in
small pieces; wipe and drain the fish, and pour over them the sauce.
REMAINS OF COD
I
Take your fish, and remove all bones and skin. Put some butter to brown
in a saucepan, and when it is colored, add the cod, sprinkling in pepper
and salt and a good thickening of grated breadcrumbs. Let this all heat
gently by the fire and turn it into paper cases, with chopped parsley on
the top.
II
The above recipe can be followed for making fish rissoles, but, after
having mixed it well, let it grow cold. Then form into balls, roll them
in breadcrumbs, and throw them into boiling fat.
III
Take all the remains of the fish and heat them in butter. Make some
mashed potatoes, and add to them some white sauce, made of flour, milk
and butter. Mix this with the fish, so that it is quite moist, and do not
forget salt and pepper. Place the mixture in a fireproof dish and
sprinkle breadcrumbs over it. Bake for fifteen minutes, or till it is hot
through, and serve as it is.
[_Mdlle. M. Schmidt, of Antwerp._]
* * * * *
PART II
The second half of this little book is composed chiefly of recipes for
dishes that can be made in haste, and by the inexperienced cook. But such
cook can hardly pay too much attention to details if she does not wish to
revert to an early, not to say feral type of cuisine, where the roots
were eaten raw while the meat was burnt. Because your dining-room
furniture is Early English, there is no reason why the cooking should be
early English too. And it certainly will be, unless one takes great
trouble with detail.
Let us suppose that at 7:30 P.M. your husband telephones that he is
bringing a friend to dine at 8. Let us suppose an even more rash act. He
arrives at 7:15, he brings a friend: you perceive the unexpressed
corollary that the dinner must be better than usual. In such a moment of
poignant surprise, let fly your best smile (the kind that is practiced by
bachelors' widows) and say "I am delighted you have come like this; do
you mind eight or a quarter past for dinner?" Then melt away to the cook
with this very book in your hand.
I take it that you consider her to be the junior partner in the
household, you, of course, being the senior, and your husband the
sleeping partner in it. Ask what there is in the house for an extra dish,
and I wager you the whole solar system to a burnt match that you will
find in these pages the very recipe that fits the case. A piece of cold
veal, viewed with an eye to futurity, resolves itself into a white creamy
delightfulness that melts in your mouth; a new-laid egg, maybe, poached
on the top, and all set in a china shell. If you have no meat at all, you
must simply hoodwink your friends with the fish and vegetables.
You know the story of the great Frenchwoman:
"Helas, Annette, I have some gentlemen coming to dine, and we have no
meat in the house. What to do?"
"Ah! Madame, I will cook at my best; and if Madame will talk at her best,
they will never notice there is anything wrong."
But for the present day, I would recommend rather that the gentlemen be
beguiled into doing the talking themselves, if any shortcoming in the
menu is to be concealed from them, for then their attention will be
engaged.
It takes away from the made-in-a-hurry look of a dish if it is decorated,
and there are plenty of motifs in that way besides parsley. One can use
beetroot, radishes, carrots cut in dice, minced pickles, sieved egg; and
for sweets, besides the usual preserved cherries and angelica, you can
have strips of lemon peel, almonds pointed or chopped, stoned prunes cut
in halves, wild strawberries, portions of tangerine orange. There is a
saying,
Polish the shoe,
Though the sole be through,
and a very simple chocolate shape may be made attractive by being
garnished with a cluster of pointed almonds in the center, surrounded by
a ring of tangerine pieces, well skinned and laid like many crescents one
after the other. There is nothing so small and insignificant but has
great possibilities. Did not Darwin raise eighty seedlings from a single
clod of earth taken from a bird's foot?
It is to be regretted that Samuel Johnson never wrote the manual that he
contemplated. "Sir," he said, "I could write a better book of cookery
than has ever yet been written. It should be a book on philosophical
principles."
Perhaps the pies of Fleet Street reminded him of the Black Broth of the
Spartans which the well-fed Dionysius found excessively nasty; the tyrant
was curtly told that it was nothing indeed without the seasoning of
fatigue and hunger. We do not wish a meal to owe its relish solely to the
influence of extreme hunger--it must have a beautiful nature all its own,
it must exhibit the idea of Thing-in-Itself in an easily assimilable
form.
I am convinced, anyhow, that this little collection (formed through the
kindness of our Belgian friends) will work miracles; for there are plenty
of miracles worked nowadays, though not by those romantic souls who think
that things come by themselves. Good dinners certainly do not, and I end
with this couplet:
A douce woman and a fu' wame
Maks King and cottar bide at hame.
Which, being interpreted, means that if you want a man to stay at home,
you must agree with him and so must his dinner.
M. LUCK.
HORS D'OEUVRE
(Herring and Mayonnaise)
Take some salt herrings, one for each person, and soak them for a day in
water. Skin them, cut them open lengthways, take out the backbone, and
put them to soak for a day 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.
[_Mme. Delhaye._]
CARROT SOUP
Wash and scrape a pound of carrots, slice them, treat two medium sized
potatoes in the same manner, add a bay leaf, a sprig of thyme and a
chopped onion. Cook all with water, add salt, pepper, and cook gently
till tender, when pass it through a sieve. Put in a pan a lump of butter
the size of an egg, with a chopped leek and a sprig of chervil. Let it
cook gently for three or four minutes, then pour on the puree of carrots
and let it all come to the boil before taking it off to serve.
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