Culinary jottings

Now rub the bottom of the pie-dish with butter, place the maccaroni thereon, and pour a coffee-cupful of well made white sauce over the maccaroni. Shake a dust of grated cheese over its surface. Next place the crab meat, well worked with melted butter, over the maccaroni, and, as you arrange it, dust it with black pepper. Over the crab dredge a nice dressing of the grated cheese, about one-eighth of an inch deep, and pour a little melted butter over the surface. Bake till the top takes colour, and serve. No sauce is necessary with this, but if you like, you can send round a sauce piquante, or any plain sharp relish of that class. 3. — Vegetables are sometimes scarce at Madras, when our variety for this dish may be some- Beefsteak stewed ^yhat meagre ; but we can always get with vegetables. ^ , • r • r^ i delicious Bombay onions, tair French beans, and carrots. Turnips taste too strong late in the season, so I would not advise your using them then. Choose a nice steak, fry it, to begin with in butter till it turns a nice brown colour on both sides, then put it into your stew-pan, with half a pint of water, (or broth) one Bombay onion cut into quarters, a good handful of French beans, a plant of celery and two carrots sliced, a tablespoonful of walnut ketchup, a salt-spoonful of sugar, a glass of Marsala, pepper, and salt. Cover the pan, and stew the steak ever so gently till the meat parts easily when tested by the fork. Then lift it out, strain the gravy, place the steak on a hot silver dish, arrange the vegetables cut up into very small dice tastefully over it, thicken the gravy with a little butter and flour, add a dessert-spoonful of Marsala, and pour it boiling hot over the steak. 4. — With the above, try your potatoes in this way : — mash them up with a little good milk, Potato duchesses. i , , j j.-i n r j. butter, and the yolks of two eggs ; add pepper, salt, some grated nutmeg, and some parsley, or celery leaves chopped fine (a few marjoram leaves are an improvement). Roll the mixture into balls the size of a pippin, brush them over with a beaten egg, set them on a buttered tin, and bake for a few minutes till they turn a golden yellow colour. They look pretty, and taste nice. They may also be formed somewhat smaller, the size of racquet balls, and fried a golden brown in melted butter. 5. — This is the American method of serving egg-plant, and is a very good dish for a change. Brinjal fritters. -ox,-, -u • • i • .oU Parboil some young brinjals in salt and water, let them get cold, and slice them in longitudinal pieces of a convenient size and thickness for fritters — two inches long, and a quarter of an inch thick. Pick out the seeds. Prepare the batter I have previously described, dipping the pieces of brinjal in it, and frying them a crisp golden yellow in abundance of fat. Drain them quite dry, dust a little salt over them, and serve them with " Dutch sauce" (q. v. page 89).