National viands à la mode

Procure two fine, fat canvas-back ducks ; pick, singe, draw well, and wipe neatly ; throw a light pinch of salt inside, run in the head from the end of the neck to the back, truss nicely, and place in a roasting-pan. Sprinkle a little salt over, put them in a brisk oven, and let cook for eighteen minutes. Arrange on a very hot dish, untruss, throw two tablespeonfuls of white broth into each duck, and serve with six slices of fried hominy and currant jelly. Cazuela de Chili. (Chilian) Braise two young fowls with butter and cut up in small pieces of about an inch square. Next take a nice solid cabbage, not too large, and cut it into eight or ten pieces, one bunch of small carrots, one bunch of small turnips, both cut up into medium-sized pieces, six or eight onions, small and whole, two or three tomatoes, half a tin of green peas, or the same quantity of fresh, half a tin of French beans, or the same quantity of fresh. Place all these ingredients in a stock-pot ; cover with water and simmer for threequarters of an hour ; then add twelve small potatoes whole, let them cook, and flavour to taste with Cayenne pepper and salt. The great thing is to preserve the vegetables whole. When the vegetables are nearly done add the chicken. Sometimes a little kidney and bacon is cut up small and braised with the chicken. The whole of the vegetables being cooked, beat up three eggs in a soup tureen with a little chopped parsley and a pint of milk, pour in the ' cazuela,' and serve on soup plates. Enchiladis, or Pepper Tortillas. (Mexican) (Miss Jewson) Tortillas are pancakes made of equal parts of Indian corn meal and wheat flour, seasoned with salt, and mixed with cold water to a thick paste, which can be patted thin between the hands. They are then baked on the fire upon a griddle and dusted with corn meal. After the tortilla paste is ready for frying make a Spanish sauce and a red pepper sauce. The Spanish sauce is made by blistering a dozen large green garden peppers, to allow of the rubbing off of the skin, and peeling a dozen tomatoes and two large onions ; chop them all fine, and put them over the enchiladis before heating. The pepper sauce is made by blistering red garden peppers in hot ashes or in the oven, then boiling them just tender enough to squeeze out their juice by pressure, or by wringing in a cloth. Chop fine one pound each of Spanish olives, raisins, and firm cheese, and mix them together. Bake twelve tortillas, about the size of a large plate, of the paste described above, and dip them into the pepper sauce ; divide the chopped olives, &c., upon the tortillas, roll them up like French pancakes, lay them on a metal dish to heat with the Spanish sauce over them, and serve. Frijoles. (Mexican) (Miss Jewson) These are rather small reddish beans, which must be boiled till they are tender, then drained. Chop some onion very fine, just enough to flavour ; fry it in hot lard, and then fry the beans in the same pan, adding enough lard to prevent burning, and to slightly brown the beans. These beans somewhat resemble the red French haricot beans. Llemas Encaramelades. (Cuban)