Slice one eggplant and put it under a weighted plate to extract the bitter juices. Then fry the slices delicately in lard. Make a ragout of chickens' hearts and livers as follows: Put two tablespoons of butter into a saucepan, fry the hearts and livers, and when cooked add two tablespoons of tomato paste, thinned with hot water (or a corresponding amount of tomato sauce). Cook for fifteen minutes.
Prepare three-quarters of a pound of macaroni, boiled and drained, then put it into the saucepan with the hearts and livers, add the eggplant and three tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese. Mix well together and serve.
Strictly speaking, in vegetarian cookery, stock is the goodness and flavouring that can be extracted from vegetables, the chief ones being onion, celery, carrot, and turnip. In order to make stock, take these vegetables, cut them up into small pieces, after having thoroughly cleansed them, place them in a saucepan with sufficient water to cover them, and let them boil gently for several hours. The liquor, when strained off, may be called stock. It can be flavoured with a small quantity of savoury herbs, pepper, and salt, as well as a little mushroom ketchup. It can be coloured with a few drops of Parisian essence, or burnt sugar. Its consistency can be improved by the addition of a small quantity of corn-flour. Sufficient corn-flour must be added not to make it thick but like very thin gum. In a broader sense, the water in which rice, lentils, beans and potatoes have been boiled may be called stock. Again, the water in which macaroni, vermicelli, sparghetti, and all kinds of Italian paste has been boiled, may be called stock. The use of liquors of this kind must be left to the common sense of the cook, as, of course, it would only be obtainable when these materials are required for use.
Put two pints of cream into two bowls. With one bowl mix six ounces of powdered loaf-sugar, the juice of two large lemons, and two glasses of white wine. Then add the other pint of cream, and stir the whole very hard. Boil two ounces, of isinglass with, four small tea-cups full of water, till it is reduced to one half. Then stir the isinglass lukewarm, into the other ingredients, and put them into a glass dish to congeal.
After baking; some flour to a pale fawn color pass it through a sieve or strainer to remove its gritty particles. Break half a pound of macaroni into short pieces, boil them in salted water until fairly tender, then drain. In a little butter in a saucepan brown a level tablespoon of very finely chopped onion, then add three or four sliced tomatoes, a half teaspoon of powdered mixed herbs, a little nutmeg, salt and pepper. When the tomatoes are reduced to a pulp add one pint of milk and allow it to come to the boiling point before mixing with it two tablespoons of the browned flour moistened with water. Stir and boil till smooth, press the whole through a strainer and return to the saucepan. When boiling, add the macaroni and a few minutes later stir in two tablespoons of grated or finely chopped cheese. It may be served at once, but is vastly improved by keeping the pan for half an hour by the side of the fire in an outer vessel of water. Or the macaroni may be turned into a casserole and finished off in the oven. For a meat meal the onions may be browned in sweet drippings or olive oil and soup stock substituted for the milk.
Boil 4 ozs. macaroni and drain. Butter a pie-dish and put in half the macaroni. Scald 4 or 5 tomatoes in boiling water for a few minutes, when the skin will come off easily. Boil 2 eggs hard and slice. Have 2 ozs. cheese grated, and sprinkle half of it over the macaroni, then put half of the eggs and half the tomatoes. Season with salt, pepper, and a little grated onion (I keep an old grater for the purpose). Take 8 or 10 medium-sized flap mushrooms, if to be had, clean and trim, removing the stalks. Add a layer of them, and repeat as before, but put the mushrooms before the tomatoes. Cover the top thickly with bread-crumbs. Make a stock with the trimmings of mushrooms and tomatoes. Put dessertspoonful butter in saucepan, stir in half teaspoon flour, same of made mustard, and perhaps a little ketchup. Add the stock--there should be about a teacupful--stir till it boils, and pour equally over the pie. Dot over with bits of butter, and bake one hour in fairly brisk oven. In case this pie may be voted rather elaborate by some, I may say that it is excellent with several of the items left out. The eggs, mushrooms, cheese--any one of these, or all three may be dispensed with, and what may be lost in richness and flavour will be compensated in delicacy and digestibility. Any of this pie that is left over may be made into cutlets, so that one can have a second dish with little extra trouble. NOTE.--When fresh tomatoes are not to be had tinned ones will do.
A very pretty dish can be made by making a border of mashed potatoes, hollow in the centre, in which can be placed various kinds of other vegetables, such as haricot beans, stewed peas, &c. The mashed potato should be mixed with one or two well-beaten-up eggs, and the outside of the border can be moulded by hand, to make it look smooth and neat; a piece of flexible tin, flat, will be found very useful, or even a piece of cardboard. If you wish to make the border ornamental, you can proceed exactly as directed under the heading Rice Borders, and if it is wished to make the dish particularly handsome, it can be painted outside, before being placed in the oven, with a yolk of egg beaten up with a tiny drop of hot water. When this is done, the potato border has an appearance similar in colour to the rich pastry generally seen outside a pie, or vol au vent. The inside of the potato border after it has been scooped out can be filled with plain boiled macaroni mixed with Parmesan cheese, and ornamented with a little chopped parsley on the top and a few small baked red ripe tomatoes. Again, it can be filled with white haricot beans piled up in the shape of a dome, with some chopped parsley sprinkled over the top. There are, perhaps, few dishes in vegetarian cookery that can be made to look more elegant.
Take a small piece of ham fat, one-half of onion, piece of celery, parsley, small piece of carrot. Chop up fine together. Put into a saucepan, and when the vegetables are fried add two or three mushrooms which have been chopped fine; after five minutes add two tablespoons of tomato paste, thinned with five tablespoons of hot water (or equal quantity of tomato sauce without water). When the sauce is cooked take out the mushrooms and put them on one side.
Take one-half pound of macaroni. Boil in salted water for fifteen minutes, drain, and add the sauce described above. Add two tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated, and one tablespoon of butter.
Butter well a mold, then cover with a thin layer of bread crumbs the bottom and sides. Pour into the mold one-half the macaroni, then place on it a layer of mushrooms which you have taken out of the sauce. Now add the other half of the macaroni, and then another thin layer of bread crumbs. Put the mold into the oven without turning it over, and bake in a slow oven until well browned. Then turn out and serve.
To this timbale, if desired for variety, cold meat of any kind cut up fine may be added to the sauce; and one egg, hard boiled, and cut into four pieces. Add the egg, and the pieces of meat which you have removed from the sauce, to the timbale at the same time that you add the mushrooms.
Take an onion, carrot, a small head of celery and a very small quantity of turnip; cut them up and boil them in a very small quantity of water for about an hour. Then rub the whole through a wire sieve, add a quart or more of boiling milk, throw in the macaroni, after breaking it up into pieces two inches long, and let the macaroni simmer in this till it is perfectly tender. The soup should be thickened with a very little white roux, a bay-leaf can be boiled in the soup; a small quantity of cream is a great improvement. Fried or toasted bread should be served with it.
Cut one carrot and one turnip into slices, and cook them in boiling soup. When cold, mix them with two cold boiled potatoes and one beet cut into strips. Add a very little chopped leeks or onion, pour some sauce, "Lombarda" (see Sauces, page 31), over the salad, and garnish with water-cress.
Boil a chicken until very tender, take out all the bones, and pick up the meat quite fine. Boil half a pound of macaroni until tender, first breaking it up to pieces an inch long. Butter a deep pudding dish, put on the bottom a layer of the cooked macaroni, then a layer of the minced chicken, bits of butter, pepper and salt, then some of the chicken liquor, over this put another layer of macaroni, and so on, until, the dish is filled. Pour a cup of cream over the whole, and bake half an hour. Serve on a platter.
