Practical home cookery

After the eggs are on the ham, see that all is placed uniformly in the middle of the dish, put two or three pieces of fresh parsley round, and send the dish up to table as quickly as possible. In cooking eggs and bacon, fried eggs are best. Have, as before, the eggs ready in a cup, each in a separate cup. As soon as the bacon is cooked, place it on the dish, and put it in front of the fire. Then slide the eggs into the frying-pan with the boiling bacon-fat. Do this slowly and carefully, the chief point being not to break the yolks. It is a mistake to have too much fat, as that seems to increase those large bubbles that form themselves under the white. Take care, also, not to have the fire too fierce, or the egg will get burnt at the bottom. In taking out the eggs with the strainer use the left hand ; and, if the white has spread itself too much round, or very unevenly, trim the white so as to have the yolk as much as possible in the centre. A knife will do for this purpose, but better still an old pair of easy-going scissors. Place these on the bacon, and look carefully over the dish, and wipe up with a cloth any appearance of " blacks ” having mingled with the fat that has run off from the bacon, as this black grease, though perfectly wholesome, is disagreeable to the eye, and through the eye affects the palate. We will next take another dish, cheap and nice — viz. bloaters. The objection to bloaters is the smell. If the cook has a private bloater for breakfast, the bloater himself informs you of the fact before you leave your bed. Now, bloaters cooked as they generally are — viz. whole — send forth a gust of extra flavour on being opened in the room. The best method of cooking them, therefore, is as follows : — First, shut the kitchen door ; secondly, take off the heads, and split the bloaters open like a haddock. Have a perfectly clear fire, and having rubbed the gridiron with a piece of mutton-fat, place the bloater on it and grill it ; four or five minutes will be ample time. When done, take a piece of butter, and after placing the bloater on a dish, with the skin-side downwards, rub the butter over the upper side of the bloater, and thus take off the dry appearance, and make it look moist. Bloaters cooked and sent to table this way are not nearly so disagreeable as in the ordinary way, Indeed, bloaters done this way often end up a bachelor’s dinner-party at a club. Let us trust the claret is good. The only way I know of getting good sausages for breakfast is making them at home. A sausage-machine soon repays itself, and is useful for many purposes besides making sausages, such as forcemeat, rissoles, etc.