National viands à la mode

Wash one pound of rice ; parboil it ; put a trussed fowl into a stewpan with the rice ; moisten with three pints of stock and the juice of six onions by pounding in a mortar ; season with salt and a tablespoonful of ground ginger in a gill of water, mixed with the juice of a lemon, and strained through muslin over the contents of the stewpan ; let all boil slowly. Meanwhile slice four onions and brown them in the frying-pan, also about a dozen thin rashers rolled and fastened with wooden skewers Keep these warm ; when the fowl is tender remove it and draw the rice aside to dry a little ; cut up the fowl into joints and fry them in the same pan as the onions. Pile up rice in the middle of the dish, arrange the fowl all over it, strew the onions over the top, and garnish round alternately with slices of hard-boiled eggs and rolls of bacon. Mashie. (Arabian) Make up some very finely minced meat (already cooked) into as many tiny sausages as required, mixing in well-boiled rice. Roll each of these up in a vine leaf and lightly fry them in butter or dripping over a very slow fire. Season with pepper and salt. Mutton Stew. (Persian) Cut up the meat of a leg of mutton in equal sized squares : season highly ; sprinkle over a sliced onion, the juice of two or three lemons, and let all soak for two hours. Drain and put the meat into a stewpan with fat and fry on a brisk fire. Moisten with broth to three parts its height and boil it on a slow fire with live embers on the lid. When the meat is about done skim the fat off the cooking stock ; add to the stew a handful of shred almonds dried in the oven, and a few dozen dried prunes previously boiled and well drained. The meat being done, dish up and surround it with the prunes and almonds ; thicken the stock with a little syrup of raisins, finish with the juice of a few lemons, and pour it over the stew. Persian Pillau Cut into dice a pound of the meat of a mutton fillet the sinews of which have been removed. Chop an onion, put it into a stewpan with either butter or fat, let it fry slightly ; then add the mutton, which season ; let it fry on a moderate fire, stirring it with a spoon ; season again. The meat having set well, add to it two pounds of good rice, washed and dried in the air. Moisten the meat and rice with some good mutton broth ; add a bunch of parsley garnished with aromatics ; boil the rice : keep covered for twenty minutes ; then add to it a few tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce ; keep the stewpan now on embers for ten minutes, then serve the pillau. Fish-Fash. (Indian) Into some clear broth put an onion, pepper, salt, and a little mace ; stew a fowl very gently in this for half an hour : then add half a pound of rice. Simmer till quite tender, and place on a hot sieve to drain ; dish the fowl, and place the rice all round ; serve hot with melted butter and parsley sauce, ORIENTAL Quince Sambal. (Chinese, Malay) Peel and quarter three or four green quinces and pound them in a mortar with a green chilH, some sHced onion, and salt to taste. This is good to eat with roast meat. Sweet Pillau