The housekeeper's guide to preserved meats, fruits, vegetables, &c

Next take a tin of mushrooms, chop them up fine with a piece of onion about the size of the thumb down to the top joint, add a brimming teaspoonful of chopped parsley, and a very small pinch of lemon thyme. Pick out four or five of the best mushrooms and put them by for the purpose of ornamenting the dish. Then chop up the remainder of the mushrooms fine and cook them in the fryingpan, with about two ounces or more of butter, with the onion, parsley, and thyme, adding a little pepper and salt to taste. Place the mushrooms, onions, etc., in a baking-tin — which should be, if possible, an oval one, and very little bigger than the sole itself. Now add about half a tablespoonful of good brown gravy to the chopped mushrooms, etc. Put some of this forcemeat at the bottom of the tin and lay the sole on it, and spread the remainder over it with the butter and gravy, shaking some very fine bread-crumbs over the top. Put this in the oven and let it bake till the sole is done. - This, of course, will entirely depend on the size of the sole. A small sole will be quite done in ten minutes, while a very large one will require five-and-twenty minutes. On taking the tin out of the oven, although the top will be browned over, the sauce itselfwill be partially fluid. Add about a teaspoonful of sherry, and just baste the sole a little with the sauce. Serve it in the tin itself, which should be placed in a dish The sole can now be ornamented with the few mushrooms that are picked out from the tin. These should be glazed over quickly. A convenient form of glazing them is to brush them over with a little soy. This gives them a rich, bright, dark, mahogany-coloured appearance. The biggest can be placed in the centre of the sole and the remainder round its sides. On great occasions, also a little fried parsley, as well as a couple of crayfish, one in each comer, may be added. Many persons add a little grated Parmesan cheese. I believe that really good judges of cooking think this an improvement. P or my own personal taste, however, I prefer the sole without the cheese. I will now give another dish which is chiefly dependent upon mushrooms for its delicious flavour — namely, tomatoes au gratin. Take some large, red, ripe tomatoes. It is no use attempting to cook tomatoes this way when they are half green. Cut off the piece by the stalk and give the tomato a squeeze, so as to entirely get rid of all the pips. Take, say, half a dozen tomatoes, and when you have squeezed out the pips put them in a dish for use. Next take a tin of mushrooms, open them, chop them up very fine with a piece of onion the size of the thumb down to the first joint, a brimming teaspoonful of chopped parsley, a saltspoonful of lemon thyme, pepper and salt. Next take about an ounce of raw ham, chop it up very fine, and fry all this in a frying-pan, with some scraped bacon fat, adding sufficient fat to make the whole when cooked the consistency of an ordinary puree. Now fill the six tomatoes with this forcemeat, so that the tomatoes resume their original shape. Shake some breadraspings over the top, then moisten a stewpan with a little oil an eighth of an inch deep, and put the tomatoes in the stewpan. Put on the lid and keep it tightly fastened down by putting a weight on the top.