THE COOKING OF VEGETABLES.

By Dr. BONAVIA.

It is not always easy to give recipes for cooking vegetables without an accompaniment of meat, fish, or eggs. Some vegetables admit of being cooked alone. For instance, I know nothing nicer than good honest potatoes, simply boiled and eaten hot with good butter and salt. Being myself half Irish, I look upon this homely dish as "very pretty eating," as it was called by an Irishman. Many vegetables are used in combination with meats of sorts, with fish, and with eggs; and therefore, in order to make this paper more useful, I shall, here and there, allude to certain combinations of vegetables with other materials.

It is a curious phenomenon of the human brain that cookery had been for long looked upon as a vulgar occupation. We think a great deal of things that are pleasing to the sight, such as pictures, flowers, pretty furniture, pretty dresses, &c. We think a great deal of scents that are pleasing to the olfactory nerves. We also think very highly of charming sounds, songs, music of all sorts, that fascinate the organ of hearing. But, curiously enough, when we come to things that please the palate, our common sense seems to fail us. We seem to look upon the pleasures of the palate as akin to gluttony. The reason of this seems to be that, while indulging in these pleasures, we have to introduce into our interior economy something material, and the handling of the raw materials in the kitchen is not always very fascinating.

No doubt eating and drinking have been often abused, not only in ancient, but also in modern times. Indeed, the mediæval Church set upon its lists, as great sins, what may be vulgarly called "the sins of the belly," or, as the Italians called them, "peccati della gola "; that is, "sins of the gullet." In my opinion, however, cookery ought to be considered as one of the fine arts. It is not only an art, but also a science, much like chemistry, with the great advantage that, unlike the latter art, cookery does not frequently evolve such odiously bad smells.

The kitchen should be looked upon as a laboratory, where innumerable combinations of different kinds of food

materials can be worked up into, not only pleasure-giving, but also health-giving compounds; for to eat a thing with pleasure is a great aid to digestion, and, without good digestion, good health is hardly possible. The gardener and the cook are a pair of very useful creatures in civilised life. In the words of the Very Rev. the Dean of Rochester (Nineteenth Century for April, 1898, page 646): "Seriously, these subjects of horticulture and cookery are of great national, social, and moral importance. . . . If a man does not find happiness at home, he will seek it elsewhere in vain; but when, after his day's work is done, you refresh his eyes and his palate with the results of his own handiwork, you do much to make him satisfied with his surroundings, and to restrain him from wandering to those perilous places where wild asses quench their thirst."

In concluding this little preamble, let me tell you that you cannot have savoury dishes without the use of onions, garlic, olives, grated cheese, and various other condiments. I know that some people have a horror of onions and garlic in any form. These strongly scented ingredients should, however, be used so judiciously as to present to the palate a sort of "bouquet" of flavours. In short, they should be used much as perfumers use musk and civet to produce the various scents which ladies and other folk are so fond of.

Let us now commence with the

Aubergine. Some time ago I procured some seeds of a very choice variety from Delhi in India, called there maroo baingan. I have a suspicion that mároo is simply a corruption of the English word marrow, owing to the marrowy softness and flavour of this delicious vegetable. Well, among others I sent some of the seeds to the Rev. Mr. Wilks, our esteemed Secretary. He made them over to the official in charge of the Chiswick Garden, and in due course they produced fruit; the report I got of them was that they were pronounced nasty! Certainly the raw aubergine is nasty, and, simply boiled, it cannot be called nice. In this case it was simply boiled, and I do not wonder it was not found fascinating. Mr. Wilks himself, however, had some fried in butter, and pronounced them decidedly nice.

There are several ways of cooking this aubergine, or brinjal, as it is called in some places.

(a) Remove the stalk and bracts, or enlarged calyx, cut the

fruit in slices lengthways, of the thickness of two or three halfcrowns, and fry them in plenty of oil or lard till they are of a light brown on both sides, and serve them hot, either alone or as a vegetable with meat. Of course salt is to be used with them.

(b) Cut the aubergines in halves lengthways, and boil them till quite soft; squeeze them between two plates, to rid them of the slightly bitterish water they contain. Then scoop out the interior and chop it up roughly. When cold, dress it with oil and vinegar, pepper and salt, and use it as a salad. The aubergines for salad are nicer when baked whole in a dwindling oven. They will be shrivelled a good deal when done. When cool, take off the skin, chop up the pulp roughly, and use it as a salad as before. It should be understood that the pulp, when sufficiently baked, should be of a marrowy softness.

(c) The nicest way, however, of cooking this vegetable is as "stuffed brinjals," or "aubergines farcies." This, of course, is a combination of aubergines and two kinds of meat, with other condimental materials, as follows:-Remove the stalk and bracts and cut the aubergines lengthways in halves; boil them to tenderness as before, and squeeze them between two plates to get rid of surplus water; scoop out the interior, leaving only the shell with a thin layer of the pulp; shape them like little boats for stuffing. The round kinds are the best for the preparation of this savoury dish. In the meantime chop up finely, through an American mincing machine, some fresh pork with the fat on and some fresh beef. While this is being done, chop up a couple of good-sized onions, and fry them in lard; when nearly done, throw in a good tablespoonful of chopped parsley, add the minced meats, two tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, pepper and salt, and stir the whole on the fire for half an hour; after having added the chopped-up pulp of the aubergines. When the whole is cool, mix in thoroughly a couple of eggs beaten up, and stuff the aubergines with this compound. Smooth the surface and sprinkle some more grated cheese over the surface of each, and bake them in a pan previously smeared with lard, till the surface of the "aubergine farcie" is of a light brown, and serve them hot as a separate dish. If well made, this dish is supremely nice. Its perfection can only be attained by practice, and connoisseurs will not fail to enjoy it.

(d) Aubergines baked as before, and pulped, will make a

very nice curry to be eaten with nicely boiled rice and chutney. This vegetable curry in India is called chichki. All vegetable curries bear this name.

Cabbage. Besides the simply boiled cabbage, there are two other ways of cooking this vegetable.

(a) Steam some nice sort of cabbage till quite tender, and squeeze it between two plates to get rid of excessive moisture. Chop it up finely. Boil or steam some mealy potatoes, and press them through a squeezer, and mash them all up with the cabbage. Put the whole in a saucepan on the fire with a good pat of butter, half a breakfastcup of creamy milk, and a good sprinkling of salt. Heat the whole, and stir frequently till the mass becomes like thick porridge; serve hot as an accompaniment to meat. This is an Irish dish, and I have never seen it done well except by Irish people. It is called "kalecannon." It is very nice indeed, but requires practice to proportion the ingredients nicely. It can be varied by mixing all the ingredients as before, and baking the whole in a buttered dish in the oven till the surface of the mass acquires a rich brown colour. A good deal of butter is required to make a nice "kalecannon."

(b) Stuffed cabbage or "choux farcis." This is a very

interesting dish. Prepare some minced fresh pork and beefas for stuffed aubergines-season with chopped onions, pepper, salt, a few pinches of ground cinnamon and cloves, and a good proportion of grated cheese; mix in a couple of beaten eggs. In the meantime half steam a nice small cabbage, separate the leaves, and lay them flat on a dish. In the middle of each cabbage leaf place a full tablespoon of the minced mixture, and envelope the whole in the leaf. Put a few coils of thread round each ball to prevent its becoming undone in cooking, and when all are thus prepared stew them gently in a rich gravy, so that when they are cooked they will become glazed over with a condensed gravy. Dish the "choux farcis one by one, cut through the thread and remove it, and serve them hot. I have eaten these "choux farcis" made by a first-class cook, and they were exceedingly nice.

Cauliflower. Besides the English way of serving cauliflower simply boiled with an insipid white sauce, there are two other ways of cooking this fine vegetable.

(a) Steam a nice cauliflower till it is quite soft, but not

overdone. When cool divide it into branches. Then beat up a couple of eggs, and turn each branch of the cauliflower in the beaten egg, so as to smear it all over with egg, and fry it in lard, turning each piece in the frying-pan, till it is of a goldenbrown; serve hot. I do not know any vegetable dish nicer than this one when well done. White broccoli is not half so good as cauliflower, which, when nicely cooked, is of a marrowy consistence. The sprouting purple broccoli is a totally different thing. Simply steamed it is very nice, eaten with pepper and salt as a meat accompaniment; but there is a nicer way of cooking it. Steam the sprouting broccoli, fry some chopped onion in lard or butter, add some minced parsley, and toss the broccoli gently in it without mashing it; serve hot.

"Choufleur au gratin" is sufficiently known, but there is usually one great omission in this dish. It should have a good deal of grated Parmesan cheese mixed up with it; and grated cheese should be sprinkled over the surface before baking it. This dish requires a good deal of butter. There is one other way of using steamed cauliflower which is not generally known. Divide one or more cauliflowers into branches and steam them till quite tender; serve quite hot with lemon juice, olive oil, and pepper and salt, as a sort of hot salad.

Steamed cauliflower divided into branches makes a capital accompaniment to a fish-pie, with olives (with the stone cut out) fried, chopped onions, and parsley, pepper and salt. This in Italy is called "pasticcio di pesce." The paste of this pie should be kneaded with oil and red wine instead of with water;

salt should never be omitted in the paste.

Onions.-There are two kinds of onions, viz., the flat white onion, which, when boiled, has a marrowy consistence; the other is the large Spanish onion, which, when boiled, has the consistence of leather. Why growers try to produce the largest onions, sometimes as large as a cannon-ball, as if they were meant for feeding cattle, I do not know. I think onions should be boiled, not steamed, because the boiling water washes out a good deal of the rankness of the onion. There are two nice ways of using whole onions.

(a) Boil some white flat onions to marrowy tenderness, squeeze them slightly between two plates, and serve hot, to be dressed with oil and vinegar, pepper and salt, and eaten as a