The "Queen" cookery books: Breakfast and Lunch Dishes

doubled cloth, and let it dry thoroughly near the fire. It will take fully half an hour or more to dry, when every grain should be separate. After curries come ^pilaffs, or pilaus, as they are sometimes called. Practically these are nothing more than stews of meat, poultry, &c., cooked to rags, the rice being cooked in the stock resulting from the stew. The most primitive form is Mutton Pilaff, for which you put a neck or other piece of mutton in water with seasoning and spice to taste, and stew it gently and steadily till it is ready, i.e., till it can be pulled apart with the fingers, and is, to European taste, wholly overdone. Half way in its cooking you add the rice, allowing 4oz. to 6oz. for a fowl or an equal quantity of meat, and let it stew in the stock till it is cooked and swollen and has absorbed most of the stock. It is then served in a heap with the meat piled on the top. For more fastidious tastes the meat is withdrawn from the pot when cooked to taste and kept hot whilst the rice is finished off in the stock, flavouring it just at the last with grated nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, &c. For Indian Pilaff' the rice is coloured with a dash of turmeric and garnished with crisp rings of fried onion, chopped hard-boiled egg, almonds, raisins, pistachio nuts, green ginger, &c., to taste, whilst in the Levant and Turkey saffron replaces the turmeric, the rest of the ingredients being much the same, only varied by the limits of the cook’s stores. Dates are often stewed with the rice in Africa. A South American dish, bearing evident traces of its Eastern origin, is the jambolaya, in which an old fowl is cooked precisely in this way, with the addition of sliced tomato, minced ham (or bacon, fried in this case, as is also the fowl used), but neither turmeric nor saffron is used. Pilaffs of all kinds are capital dishes where irregular hours are the rule, as, like curry, they improve by hot steeping in their sauce. Another form of pilaff is the Italian risotto, prepared thus : Risotto. — Pry a large peeled and minced onion in butter for ten or fifteen minutes, without allowing it to colour, then add to it 5oz. or 6oz. of well- washed rice and a pint of vegetable stock strongly flavoured with mushrooms. Let it boil up, cover it with a sheet of buttered paper, and simmer it gently at the side of the stove for half an hour; remove the paper, pour over it all 2oz. of clarified butter, with a couple of spoonfuls of grated Parmesan and a dash of coralline pepper (or the Hungarian paprika will do) ; mix it all well, turn it out on to a hot dish, and serve hot, with either tomato, shrimp, or lobster sauce, or with beurre noir. Or, fry the onion as before, but till of a good golden brown, then add 6oz. of well-washed rice and a tiny pinch of powdered saffron ; stir it all over the fire for two minutes with a wooden spoon, add very slowly and gradually a pint of strong, well-flavoured stock; let it all simmer very gently (stirring all the time) till the rice is soft, and just as it is ready mix into it 2oz. of grated Parmesan, a grate of nutmeg, and a dash of the pepper ; stir it all together for a minute or two, then serve very hot on a hot plate. Remember that when frying the rice and the saffron at first it must be stirred incessantly, as it is