Take half a dozen or more fine large leeks, and after trimming off the green part, throw them into boiling water for five minutes, then drain them off and dry them. Cut them into pieces about half an inch long, and stew them gently in a little butter till they are tender. Add three pints of milk, and let two bay-leaves boil in the milk, flavour with pepper and salt, and add a suspicion of grated nutmeg. Thicken the soup with a little white roux and take the crust of a French roll. Cut this up into small pieces or rings. The rings can be made by simply scooping out the crumb, and cutting the roll across. When the leeks have boiled in the milk till they are quite tender, pour the soup over the crusts placed at the bottom of the soup-tureen. Some cooks add blanched parsley. Of course, cream would be a great improvement.
4 good-sized carrots, 1 small head of celery, 1 fair-sized onion, 1 turnip, 3 oz. of breadcrumbs, 1-1/2 oz. of butter, 1 blade of mace, pepper and salt to taste. Scrape and wash the vegetables, and cut them up small; set them over the fire with 3 pints of water, the butter, bread, and mace. Let all boil together, until the vegetables are quite tender, and then rub them through a sieve. Return the mixture to the saucepan, season with pepper and salt, and if too thick add water to the soup, which should be as thick as cream, boil the soup up, and serve.
Milk soup, as it is sometimes called in Germany, very much resembles English custard. It is made by putting a quart of milk on the fire and thickening it with two yolks of eggs and a little flour, and sweetening it with sugar. The soup is flavoured with either vanilla, lemon, laurel leaves, pounded almonds, cinnamon, chocolate, &c. As a soup, however, it is not suited to the English palate.
Just as in ordinary white soup the secret of success is to have some strongly reduced stock, so in vegetarian white soup it is essential that we should have a small quantity of liquid strongly impregnated with the flavour of vegetables. For this purpose, place an onion, the white part of a head of celery, and a slice of turnip in a stew-pan with a little butter, and fry them till they are tender without becoming brown. Now add sufficient water to enable you to boil them, and let the water boil away till very little is left. Now rub this through a wire sieve and add it to a quart of milk in which a couple of bay-leaves have been boiled. Thicken the soup with a little white roux, add a suspicion of nutmeg, and also, if possible, a little cream. Flavour with pepper and salt. Serve fried or toasted bread with the soup.
Take three or four small cauliflowers, or two large ones, soak them in salt and water, and boil them in some water till they are nearly tender. Take them out and break the cauliflower so that you get two or three dozen little pieces out of the heart of the cauliflower, somewhat resembling miniature bouquets. Put the rest of the cauliflower back into the water in which it was boiled, with the exception of the green part of the leaves, with an onion and some of the white part of a head of celery. Let all boil till the water has nearly boiled away. Now rub all this through a wire sieve, onions, celery, cauliflower, and all; add to it sufficient boiling milk to make the whole of the consistency of pea soup. Add a little butter, pepper, and salt; throw in those little pieces of cauliflower that had been reserved a minute or two before serving the soup. It is an improvement to boil two or three bay-leaves with the milk, and also a very great improvement indeed to add a little boiling cream. Fried or toasted bread should be served with the soup.
Cheese-cakes can be sent to table in two forms, the one some rich kind of custard or cream placed in little round pieces of pastry, or we can have a so-called cheese-cake baked in a pie-dish, the edges only of which are lined with puff paste. We can also have cheese-cakes very rich and cheese-cakes very plain. The origin of the name cheese-cake is that originally they were made from curds used in making cheese. Probably most people consider that the cheese-cakes made from curds are superior, and in the North of England, and especially in Yorkshire, where curds are exposed for sale in the windows at so much a pound, very delicious cheese- cakes can be made, but considerable difficulty will be experienced if we attempt to make home-made curds from London milk. Curds are made by taking any quantity of milk and letting it nearly boil, then throw in a little rennet or a glass of sherry. The curds must be well strained.
This is a nice dish when you require a lot of white of eggs for other purposes, such as iceing a wedding-cake, or making light vanilla or almond biscuits. Take six hard-boiled yolks, powder them, flavour with a little pepper and salt, and mix in three raw yolks; mix this well together, and roll them into shapes like very small sausages, pointed at each end like a foreign cigar. Flour these on the outside, and throw them into boiling water. These can be used for garnishing purposes for the vast majority of vegetarian dishes. They can be flavoured if wished with grated nutmeg, chopped parsley, and a few savoury herbs.
2 oz. of wheatmeal, 1 oz. of rolled oatmeal, 1 egg, 1/2 oz. of oiled butter, 1/2 lb. small sago, 3 eggs, 1 large Spanish onion, 1 dessertspoonful of mixed powdered herbs, 1 oz. of butter, pepper and salt to taste, and a little milk if needed. Swell the sago over the fire with as much water as it will absorb; when quite soft put into it the butter to melt, and, when melted, mix in the oatmeal and wheatmeal. Grate the onion, and whip up the eggs; mix all the ingredients together, not forgetting the herbs and seasoning. The whole should be a thick porridgy mass; if too dry add a little milk. Butter a pudding basin, pour into it the mixture, place a piece of buttered paper over it, tie a pudding cloth over the basin, and steam the haggis for 3 hours.
1 lb. of mushrooms, 1/2 lb. of Allinson fine wheatmeal, 4 oz. of butter or Allinson frying oil, pepper and salt to taste. Pick and wash the mushrooms, remove the stalks, dry them and cut them into pieces; make pastry with the meal, 3 oz. of the butter, and a little cold water; roll it out, line a large plate and heap the mushrooms upon it, dredge well with pepper and salt, and cut the rest of the butter into bits to be scattered over the mushrooms; when you line the plate, keep a little of the paste, cut this into thin strips and lay them in diamond shape across the pie; bake the pie 3/4 hour in a moderate oven. The Gravy.--The stalks of the mushrooms, 4 eschalots chopped very fine, 1 teaspoonful of Allinson cornflour, 3 bay leaves, 1/2 oz. of butter, pepper and salt to taste. Fry the stalks and eschalots in the butter, then gently cook them in 3/4 pint of water for 1/2 hour, adding seasoning and the bay leaves; strain, return the sauce to the saucepan, and thicken it with the cornflour.
1/2 lb. of fine wheatmeal, 1/4 lb. of butter, 5 eggs, 1/2 lb. of castor sugar, 1-1/2 oz. of Allinson cocoa, 1 dessertspoonful of vanilla essence. Proceed as in recipe of "Madeira Cake," adding the cocoa and flavouring with vanilla.
