Vegetables
Reading edition
POTATO CAKES
(Russian)
Peel and grate 6 raw potatoes, season with salt and pepper, 1 egg. Mix all together. Drop onto a well-buttered griddle, spoonsful of the mixture, leaving space between to flatten them; continue to add a little butter to the griddle. Cook a golden brown on both sides. Arrange in a crown on a dish with a sprig of parsley in the centre.
PETITS POIS
Fry some finely shredded onion in about a tablespoonful of oil, with salt, pepper, and a sprig of tarragon. Lay the heart and best leaves of a head of lettuce at the bottom of a stew-pan with a quart of very young peas. Add a pint of stock. Stew gently. A little sugar is always an improvement to peas.
STRING BEANS
Cut off the ends of the string beans, slice them in three parts, cook them until three quarters done, then put them into cold water and dry them. Cook an onion in butter and put the beans into a pan and simmer half an hour. Shake at intervals but do not stir them. Take out and pour over a little stock thickened with a very little flour and cream.
Peas may be done in the same way.
RED CABBAGE
(Flemish)
Chop 4 onions and cook in 1 tablespoonful of butter, add 1 large red cabbage chopped. Cover this with 6 chopped apples, next add 1 tablespoonful of rice, 2 cups of water, 1 dessert-spoonful of vinegar, 1 teaspoonful of sugar, 1½ teaspoonfuls of salt, pepper. Do not stir but cook slowly 4 hours or longer removing the cover occasionally to let out the steam.
CABBAGE WITH CHEESE SAUCE
Cabbage, cauliflower, or cucumbers boiled in salted water are excellent served with cheese sauce. (See Sauces.)
GLAZED ONIONS
Boil onions in water until they are half cooked, then strain. Put them in the stew-pan with a piece of butter, a pinch of powdered sugar, salt, and a cupful of stock; let them finish cooking. The liquid will be reduced and the onions coloured. Young carrots are glazed in the same way.
SPINACH SOUFFLÉ
(Italian)
Boil some spinach in salted water. When cooked drain and chop it. There should be about 2 cupfuls when chopped.
Put into a saucepan on the fire 2 tablespoonsful of butter and 1½ level tablespoonsful of flour. When these are blended add the 2 cupfuls of spinach and one cup of cream. Cook five minutes, stirring carefully. Then mix into this the yolks of 3 eggs and remove the saucepan at once from the fire. When the mixture is cool stir into it the 3 whites of eggs, well beaten. Pour into a buttered soufflé dish, or individual dishes, and bake about twenty minutes in a moderate oven.