The "Queen" cookery books: Vegetables

tlien put these together again, wrap them up in a well-buttered paper, and tie the marrow into shape, lay this on a buttered baking-tin, cover down closely with another tin, and bake ; when ready lift them out carefully, dish them on a hot dish after removing the papers, and serve with tomato sauce and some good clear gravy. The time these will take to bake must necessarily depend on the size of the marrow. Another way is to halve the marrows lengthways, remove the pips, &c., and parboil them in salted water, with an onion stuck with two or three cloves, and a bouquet ; now drain them carefully, set the halves in a generously buttered baking-tin, and fill them up with farce to taste, dust this with freshlygrated breadcrumbs, grated Parmesan, minced parsley, pepper, and salt, cover with a buttered paper, and bake for twenty minutes or so. Vegetable Marrow au gratin. — Peel and parboil a couple of medium sized marrows, quartering these lengthways, drain them carefully, and arrange them in a well-buttered dish (previously rubbed with cut shallot) ; .sprinkle them generously with grated Parmesan •cheese, fresh breadcrumbs, coralline pepper, salt, and a little grated nutmeg, put some morsels of butter all over the top, and bake for about twenty minutes. It is manifestly impossible, in a book of this size, to give even a tithe of the ways in which vegetables can be cooked, and especially is this the case with vegetable marrows, which can be sent to table in almost as many ways as potatoes can be, so space ■can only be afforded for two recipes seldom seen in this country- Courges au jus. — Mince finely a small piece of fat bacon, and fry it with a small minced onion, seasoning it with pepper, salt, and minced sweet herbs ; when the onion begins to colour lay in the marrow (which should have been peeled, the pips removed, and the whole quartered lengthways) ; pour in enough good brown stock to cover the marrow thoroughly, and let it stew very gently till tender. Now dish the marrow and keep it hot whilst you strain the sauce and thicken it with a little brown roux (or butter and flour cooked together till perfectly blended and smooth, and brought to a light coffee colour), pour this thickened sauce over the marrow, and serve very hot. Courges en fricot. — Peel and seed a fairly large vegetable marrow, and cut it into strips one and a half inches long by three-quarters of an inch; put these on a plate, strew plenty of finely-powdered salt over them, cover them with another plate, and let them stand for about two hours ; now lift the plates together, and pour off all the water you can, then dry the strips in a clean cloth, being careful not to break them ; turn them into another well-floured cloth, and toss them about lightly to coat each piece evenly with flour. Put a few of these pieces at a time into the frying basket, and boil in very hot fat. Directly the strips begin to colour and to crisp, lift them out on to a sheet of kitchen paper, and let them drain in front of the fire till the rest of the pieces are all cooked in the same way ; dust with fine salt and coralline pepper, and send to table with a quartered lemon and brown bread and butter. Vegetable marrows are very good mashed, and in that condition are extremely nice cooked like Duchesse potatoes, or fried in batter.