The "Queen" cookery books: Breakfast and Lunch Dishes

Poached Eggs en Aspic. — Choose dariole moulds that will just hold an egg nicely, and line them ' with aspic jelly. Now make egg balls in boiling water, poaching them for four minutes, then leave them in cold water till perfectly cold. When the jelly is set in the moulds and the eggs are thoroughly cold and firm, put an egg in each mould, and pour in enough liquid aspic to come just to the level of the egg; now lay in a round of cooked tongue, or pate de foie gras, and set this with more just liquid aspic. When perfectly set turn out the eggs and serve garnished with chopped aspic and watercress well washed, picked, and seasoned with oil and vinegar. This makes a capital summer breakfast dish, or it can be used as a garnish for cold meat, salad, &c. Curried Eggs. — Boil as many eggs as you like for ten or twelve minutes till hard, then leave them in cold water till wanted. Meanwhile fry two sliced onions in loz. or 2oz. of butter till delicately coloured ; then fry in the same pan, a good spoonful of curry powder, moisten this with about a pint of stock (fish, meat, or vegetable) and stew it all together till the onions are quite tender ; now add a gill of cocoanut milk, or, failing this, a gill of cream or new milk thickened with arrowroot and a pinch of sugar, and simmer it all for a few minutes till thick ; then lay in the eggs shelled and sliced lengthways, and let them heat very gently till quite hot. Serve with plain boiled rice. To boil tlie rice pick it over and well wash it, then put it on in a large pan with plenty of cold water (a full quart to 6oz. of rice is none too much), and as soon as this water is really boiling hard the rice is cooked. Now strain off the water, stand the pan with tlie rice in it on the fire for a minute or two, stirring it with a fork all the time till the grains are dry and separate. It is now ready. Curried Eggs. — Bone, wash, and pound smoothly 4oz. of anchovies, with a little curry powder or paste (the quantity of this is necessarily a matter of taste and experience), a little mustard, and a few diups of vinegar or lemon juice, and enough butter to bring it all to a smooth paste. Spread as many squares of buttered toast as you want eggs with this mixture, slip a poached egg on each, and serve with a rich, thick, curry sauce poured round it all. Qikhfs d la Tripe. — Parboil two sliced onions, then drain them and finish cooking them in slightly salted milk. When they are cooked, drain them off, and with the cooking milk prepare a rather thick bechamel sauce, adding in at the last a spoonful of double cream. Season with salt, cayenne, and a tiny dust of nutmeg, then stir in the onion and six hard-boiled, sliced eggs, and stir them all gently together with a wooden spoon over the fire till quite hot. Pour it all on to a hot dish and serve garnished with fried croutons. (Eufs au Gratin. — Boil five or six eggs hard and slice them rather thickly. Butter a pie-dish and put into it a full tablespoonful of any rich white sauce, and on this a layer of the eggs strew thjs