Have three large onions sliced thin--add them and let
brown but take care not to scorch in the least. Dredge in two
tablespoonfuls flour, and let it brown. Then put in half a dozen large
tomatoes peeled and sliced, let them brown but cook slowly, letting the
pan barely simmer. Add chopped parsley, thyme and bay leaf, also two
cloves of garlic finely minced, and if you have them, half a dozen sweet
green peppers, freed of seed and cut in shreds. Stir well, cover and let
smother for twenty minutes, stirring now and then, but keeping the pan
covered. Add a cup of consomme if in hand, otherwise a cup of boiling
water, cook very slowly a full half hour, seasoning to taste. After
seasoning, cook ten minutes longer. Serve very hot.
_Roasted Quail_: Take six quail, fat, fresh and tender, pick, draw,
singe, and wipe with a damp cloth inside and out. Butter inside, and
sprinkle with salt and pepper lightly. Butter all over the outside,
truss, and bind around with a thin slice of fat bacon. Put a
tablespoonful of butter in the roasting pan, fit in the quail, and
roast in a hot oven twenty to thirty minutes, according to size. Put six
slices of hot buttered toast in a hot dish, and lay a quail on each. Add
half a spoonful of butter, a little boiling water, and the juice of a
lemon to the gravy in the pan, cook three to four minutes, stirring
well, strain, set back on stove to cook two minutes longer, then pour
evenly upon the breasts of the birds so it will soak in the toast.
Garnish with sliced lemon and watercress, and serve with green grape
jelly. If grape leaves are to be had, wrap the birds in them instead of
bacon, after preparing as directed, roast, take up on toast, garnish
with fresh young grape leaves, and serve with either spiced grapes or
grape jelly.
_Creole French Dressing_: Put three tablespoonfuls of olive oil in a
deep, small bowl, add to it a saltspoon salt and half one of
pepper--more if taste approves. Add alternately drop by drop, a
teaspoonful of made mustard, and a tablespoonful vinegar. When well
mixed, add the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, mashed very smooth, and stir
until blended. Serve with lettuce, celery or potato salad.
_Mayonnaise Dressing_: Chill a small bowl, also a fresh egg, and your
salad oil. Put the yolk of the egg in the bowl--which if it is summer,
should sit in cracked ice. Add drop by drop chilled oil, working it in
as you drop it. When you have added a spoonful begin dropping in lemon
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