Culinary jottings

Endive- Endive (cMcoree,) as grown in Southern India, is per- haps better when cooked than when presented raw in salad, for it lacks the crispness which the plant acquires at home in the winter. Endives should be trimmed for cooking by picking off the outside leaves, and cutting off the green tips. The heads should then be severed by a cut across the stalk, detaching all the leaves therefrom. Thus every leaf can be examined and cleaned. When this has been done, and the leaves have been drained dry, cast them into a roomy vessel full of boiling water with half an ounce of salt. Unlike spinach, which merely takes five minutes, endives must be boiled for twenty-five. When tender, drain, press out the water, and chop fine on a clean board, finishing as explained for spinach. If you simmer the endive leaves in consomme for two hours, and then increase the fire, stirring till the leaves have absorbed the broth, and finally moistening them with some rich hechamel and a pat of butter, you will have the correct foundation for a blanquefte a la Talleyrand, i.e., neat pieces of cooked chicken heated up in the endive sauce. ■■■••rrriB M feirx^--- 50 TvIEl^XJ ISrCD. For a little home dinner, Potagc a la puree de legnmcs. Darne do seer au gratin. Pintade au cresson. Haricots verts panaches. Croustades de bandecai. Beiguets de banancs au rhum. Fromage, hors dceuvrcs. Dessert. Cafe noir. 1. — Prepare earl}- in the day the usual gravy soup, oi' stock, that yon order daily : take it off the fire in the afternoon, and add two carrots, a turnip, an onion, a stick of celery, and a little pepper and salt. Boil together : when thoroughly done, drain off the soup and pass the boiled vegetables through the wire sieve. Now mix over the fire in a sauce- pan an ounce of butter, and a dessert-spoonful of flour, gradually adding vegetable pulp and stock, and stirring well, until you have exhausted the whole. Let it come to the boil. After you have taken the soup off the fire, stir in the yolk of an egg beaten up in a little milk : fried croutons of bread should accompany this soup. MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER, 471 2. — Flatten out on a board a nice slice of seer fish, hav- ing previously prepared a small cupful Slice of seer nu ^f maccaroni boiled till tender. Now giatiu. butter a small pie-dish, sprinkle a dessert-spoonful of minced shallot over the butter, place a layer of maccaroni on it, and dust over the maccaroni a couple of table-spoonfuls of grated cheese ; now put the slice of seer on the top of the maccaroni, moisten with a breakfast-cupful of broth, in which a little chablis may be mixed with advantage, put a little butter on the fish, spread a piece of paper over it, and bake for twelve minutes : remove the paper and serve : a couple of tomatoes, sliced, may be laid on the top of the fish and baked with it if available. 3. — This most capital bird ought properly speaking, — in the absence of a florican, — to take the Roast Guiaea-fo^vl j^^g ^f a pheasant in our choicest with water-cress. ^ ^ memi. If available, however, there is no reason why a Guinea-fowl should not be served as the 'piece de resistance of a home dinner. Pluck, singe, draw and truss the bird for roasting, but do not allow the cook to put the liver and gizzard under the wings. Tie a few