Cookery for beginners

ter and lay parsley-sprigs around, making a green fringe or border for the yellow hillock, you have an elegant dish. Study to make plain things pretty when you can. Bacon and Eggs. Fry as many slices of ham, or what is known as breakfast-bacon, as there are eggs to be cooked. Have the clean frying-pan warm, but not hot, when the meat goes in. Turn the slices as they brown. When done, take the pan over to the sink or table, remove the meat to a hot dish and set where it will keep warm. Strain the grease left in the pan through a bit of tarlatan or coarse muslin into a cup. Wipe the frying-pan clean, pour in the strained fat and return to the fire. If there is not enough to cover the bottom a quarter of an inch deep, add a tablespoonful of butter. Break the eggs one at a time in a cup, and when the fat hisses put them in carefully. EGGS. 49 Few people like "turned" fried eggs. Slip a cake-turner or spatula under each as it cooks to keep it from sticking. They should be done in about three minutes. Do not put in more at once than can swim in the fat without interfering with one another. Take up as fast as they cook, trim off ragged and rusty edges and lay on a hot platter. Drain each to get rid of the fat, as you take it out of the pan. When all are dished, lay the ham or bacon neatly about the eggs like a garnish. Pepper all lightly. Ham for this purpose should be cut in small narrow slices. Drop sprays of parsley on the rim of the dish. Baked Eggs. Put a tablespoonful of butter in a pie-plate, and set in the oven until it melts and begins to smoke. Take it to the table and break six eggs one by one into a cup, pouring each in turn into the melted butter carefully. Sprinkle with pepper and salt, put a tiny bit of butter on each and set in the oven to bake until the eggs are " set " — that is, when the whites are firm and the yolks skimmed over, but not hard. Four minutes in a quick oven should do this. Send to table at once. If you have a few spoonfuls of nice chicken gravy, you can strain and use it instead of butter. Scalloped Eggs. Six eggs. Half a cupful of nice gravy skimmed and strained. Chicken, turkey, game and veal gravy are especially good for this purpose. Clear soup may also be used. Half a cupful of pounded cracker or fine dry bread-crumbs. Pepper and salt. Pour the gravy into a pie-plate and let it get warm before putting in the eggs as in last receipt. Pepper, salt and strew cracker crumbs evenly over them. Bake five minutes. Serve in the pie-plate. Dropped Eggs with White Sance. Drop or poach the eggs ; put them on a hot, flat dish and pour over them this sauce boiling hot. In a saucepan put half a cupful of boiling water. Two or three large spoonfuls of nice strained gravy. A little pepper. A quarter teaspoonful of salt. When this boils stir in a heaping teaspoonful of flour wet up smoothly with a little cold water to keep it from lumping. Stir and boil one minute and add a tablespoonful of butter. Stir steadily two minutes longer, add, if you like, a little minced parsley, and pour the sauce which should be like thick cream, over the dished eggs. Omelette. Six eggs. Four teaspoonfuls of cream. Half a teaspoonful salt. A little pepper. Two tablespoonfuls of butter. Whip whites and yolks together for four minutes in a bowl with the ** Dover" egg beater. They should be thick and smooth before you beat in cream, salt and pepper. Melt the butter in a clean frying-pan, set on one side of the stove where it will keep warm but not scorch. Pour the beaten mixture into it and remove to a place where the fire is hotter. As it "sets," slip a broad knife carefully around the edges and under it, that the butter may find its way freely to all parts of the pan.