The housewife's referee

Mushrooms; Croutes aux Champignons.— Select fresh, fully expanded mushrooms that are not large enough for boiling. Cut off the stalks about half-way down, but do not peel the tops. Place in a baking tin with a liberal supply of butter, and cook in a quick oven for about fifteen minutes. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, and serve piled on a dish. Mushrooms en Croustade; Champignons en Croustade.— No. 1. Line the top parts of some mushroom moulds with a fine paste of macaroni, bake them a nice, light brown colour. Then fill up the bottom parts with a puree of mushrooms, join the two parts together, and serve up very hot. Send tomato sauce separately with them. No. 2. Chop an onion very finely, fry it in butter to a pale brown colour, stir carefully and then add a quarter of a pound of finely chopped mushrooms. Simmer together till the mushrooms are two-thirds cooked. Soak two anchovies, pound them in a mortar with a teaspoonful of French mustard, three teaspoonfuls of brown sauce, and add this to the mushrooms. Boil together for two or three minutes, and fill a croustade with it. Mushrooms en Ragout; Champignons en Ragout (Lady St. Clair), — Slice some mushrooms, toss them in melted butter seasoned with salt and pepper, add a little minced parsley, moistened with broth and a spoonful of coulis (brown sauce), and serve piping hot with a squeeze of lemon. Olives; Croutes aux Olives. — Fry some neat croutons a golden-brown, and spread them rather thickly with anchovy butter. Pour a little melted aspic over this, and in the middle of each crouton set an olive turned, the stone being replaced by a fillet of anchovy. Omelette a la Vieille Noblesse. — Take some eggs, soft fish roe, fresh truffles, cockscombs, and kidneys. Dust a roe, or two roes as the case may be, with flour and stew in clarified butter. Mix the first ingredients together and keep warm ; then make an omelette in the usual way. Place half the stew in the omelette, roll it up, turn over the two ends and place remainder of stew round it, with a few slices of truffles and cockscombs on the top, and serve very hot. Omelette, Russian. — Prepare the eggs as for an ordinary omelet, adding a little cayenne. When nearly done put some caviare in the centre, fold over in the usual way, and serve hot, and quickly garnished with fried parsley. Onions a l'Etoile. — Take a large Spanish onion, core it with the column cutter, then cut it down within two inches of the bottom in divisions like an orange, so that it has somewhat the appearance of a star. Make a mince of beef or mutton in the usual way, flavour it highly and fill in the onion with it, tying the onion round to cook it, to prevent the mince falling out. Make a hole in the centre of the mince and put in a macedoine of carrots and turnips, cut in Julienne strips, made with a good brown sauce in which isinglass has been mixed. When it is cooked cut the string and dish it up with a mushroom puree round it. Onions al vino. — Slice and peel two large Spanish onions, cut them into rings, stew them in butter for five minutes over a very clear fire, drain them and put them into enough chablis to cover them ; next add an ounce of fresh butter rolled in flour. Sprinkle upon them a little cayenne pepper, and salt and cook them slowly, and serve with little sippets of toast under them.