Practical home cookery

The great advantage in making sausages at home is, first and principally, that you know what is in them ; secondly, that you can flavour them to suit your taste. Some persons like sausages highly flavoured, some not. I will give you a recipe for sausages that I like myself, and would recommend you, if you hke highly-seasoned sausages, to increase first the quantity of marjoram, secondly, the quantity of sage, and see which flavour you prefer. I would, however, warn you against increasing the quantity of lemon, as the result will probably be that you will taste the sausages not merely with your breakfast, but with your lunch and even your dinner, in a way better imagined than described. The ingredients are as follows ; — One pound of lean pork and half a pound of fat pork, or rather less ; one tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of pepper, half a tea-spoonful of dried marjoram, one-third of a small nutmeg, the sixth part of the rind of a lemon, three good-sized sage leaves. First, of course, take care that the pork is perfectly fresh ; mince the lemon separately, as fine as possible, and mix it up with the other ingredients, having minced or powdered the sage leaves. Cut up the pork into little pieces, and having mixed all up together in a basin, pass the whole through a sausage-machine, taking care to send the part that comes out first through the machine a second time. Roll the sausage-meat into small balls — the quantity I 6o have named would make quite sixteen — and fry these balls in a frying-pan, and send them to table on little square pieces of toast. The toast can be dipped in the fat that runs out of the sausage-meat into the fryingpan. Kidneys make a nice breakfast dish, especially when sent to table in company with a little fried bacon. The general fault is that they are overcooked, and consequently hard, tasteless, and indigestible. Some persons like kidneys absolutely blue inside when they are cut. This is, perhaps, going a httle too far ; they should, however, always be cooked so that when placed on the dish some red gravy runs out. A good-sized kidney is best cooked split open on the gridiron, and as soon as it is done, placed on its round sides, and a little piece of butter put on each half, on to which a pinch of chopped parsley is dropped. Sometimes kidneys are sent up skewered on a little silver arrow. A little pepper should always be sprinkled over kidneys while they are cooking. The best form of having fish for breakfast is, undoubtedly, plain grilled. When those very small soles called dabs can be obtained, the best method of cooking them is simply to dry them, flour them, and then cook them over a clear fire on a gridiron — rubbed, of course, with a piece of fat to prevent the fish from sticking. Fish sent up this way should be put on an ornamental piece of white paper. The fish, also, should show the marks of the gridiron in light-brown streaks. A little pepper and salt should be sprinkled on them before sending to table, and a piece of cut lemon can also be sent up with the fish for those who like lemon. There are very many dishes I could mention that are suitable for breakfast ; but one word to those — and many such exist — who consider hot breakfast extravagant : the only dish of which they approve