Culinary jottings

A few drops of tarragon vinegar should be stirred into the "Dutch sauce," and the vegetable having been carefully drained should be laid in a very hot dish, with a pat of fresh butter or maitre d'hôtel butter placed on top of it to melt over all. Asparagus ought never to be served in the ordinary English fashion with common sauce blanche. Fresh butter, melted, with salt, and a drop or two of vinegar, form its simplest and nicest aid. Tinned asparagus may be treated exactly in the same way after having been drained, gently washed (by pouring cold water over it) and heated up in the bain-marie, or in its own tin (drained and washed) placed in a vessel of hot water, the water reaching about half-way up the tin. Care should be taken to avoid over-doing tinned asparagus, and in turning it into the dish also, lest it break. "Dutch sauce," in a piping hot boat, should accompany it. A very nice way of serving tinned asparagus as an entremets is iced, with pure cream also iced as its sauce. It is, in this way, quite the best " dressed vegetable" for a hot weather dinner. The green ends of asparagus ("points d'asperges") form an artistic accompaniment to an entree, they are excellent when added to a clear soup, and make a very superb puree. " Asparagus peas" are made by chopping the green ends of the shoots into dice, and treating them then as peas. And this leads me to the subject of tinned vegetables. Nothing proves the inferiority of the English system of vegetable cookery more palpably than the futile efforts of our best exporters of preserved provisions to compete, in this particular branch of their business, with the great French and American firms. Compare the tinned green peas, or asparagus, exported by Crosse and Blackwell with the petits pois verts, or asperges we get from France. Of these I have already spoken ; we may accordingly proceed to consider : — Tinned French beans, (haricots verts). Those excellent vegetables should be turned out upon a saute-^pan tossed in butter until hot, and served. Or they may be treated in any of the methods already set forth for fresh haricots verts. They make excellent dishes, and may be cooked with other vegetables in a macedoine de legumes. I strongly recommend them to be served a la cremc, or a la jwulette, with a saddle of mutton. Flageolets, another delicious tinned legume, should be served a la poulette, or a la creme, or plainly d la maitre d'hotel. They are very effective when associated with other vegetables "a la macedoine." FONDS d'aktichauts, if delicately handled, may be cooked up in any of the ways recommended for the fresh artichoke. Points d'asperges are, as a rule, too soft to stand much manipulation. The safest plan is to heat them en bain-marie in their tin, and then to turn them into the soup or sauce in which they are to be served. They make an excellent addition to a chaud-froid if placed carefully in the centre of the border of aspic. Pure iced cream is, in such circumstances, their best sauce. Macedoine de legumes as a central garnish for cutlets can hardly be surpassed. The viacedoine must be gently heated up in a really good poulette, or bechamel sauce, and a. spoonful of cream should be added if possible.