The European cookbook for American homes (from Italy, Spain, Portugal and France)

*4 teaspoon each cloves, cinna- mon, saffron and pepper Clean and skin eel and place it in boiling water and vinegar for 10 minutes. Cut into 2-inch lengths and dry. Fry garlic and parsley in oil. Add % CUP broth obtained from parboiling eel. Mix cloves, cinnamon, saffron and pepper and stir in. Put eels into a pan and cover with boiling water. Simmer until tender, add roasted almonds, cut in slivers, and the lemon juice. Boil up once, salt, and remove fish to hot platter. Take the pan from fire and stir in egg yolk. Serve in a sauce boat with the fish. CRABS (Cambaros) The Spanish cook uses the small crabs in pastes and bisques mainly. The large ones are boiled, preferably in sea water, and presented chilled and piled in a pyramid with branches of parsley curled about them. 134 THE EUROPEAN COOKBOOK SHRIMP PATTIES {Empanadas de Camarones) Heat cooked shrimps, stoned olives and a little cooked celery, diced, in reduced salsa espanola (Spanish sauce) ; put in covered patty shells and place in the oven 8 minutes. The Spaniards are great piecers between meals, as well as ardent cafe loungers; their fondness for shrimps is so great that if they had nothing to do they would sit before a cup of coffee or chocolate in a sidewalk cafe and shuck shrimps all day long. Ambulating peddlers of boiled shrimps cover regular routes with wicker baskets loaded with the succulent curled sea-food laid out in patterns beneath a white cloth. These sell as readily as peanuts at an American baseball game and are cracked open and eaten with the same nonchalant avidity. When made into empanadas or patties they are kept warm in a little nickel-mounted glass box on every bar, so the drinker may help himself and pay his penny. By being kept piping hot they have an advantage over the pork and veal pies, sold cold in English bars. Empanadas resemble the popular English pasties in being made of snips of game, larks, pigeons, everything tasty, but they differ in being juicier and always richly flavored with olives. Very small empanadas are affectionately called empanadillas. EGGS (Huevos) HUEVOS A LA MODE 6 eggs i tablespoon minced parsley i tablespoon prepared mustard 6 slices fried bread i tablespoon Gruyere cheese, grated Fry the eggs on both sides. Have mixed together the mustard, parsley and grated Gruyere cheese. Spread fried bread with this mixture and serve hot with the eggs. Eggs cooked in some style appear at nearly every almuerza, the Spanish breakfast, which is served at noon. As in all European countries, the Spanish early morning breakfast is a light afTair. Bread-women call at the doors leaving pomecillos (large rolls), which with a generous bowl of coffee and hot goat's milk, half and half, usually break the night's fast for rich and poor alike. Herds of goats are driven through the streets and milked at one's doorstep, so the milk for coffee is always fresh and unadulterated. EGGS MODERN STYLE (Huevos a la Moderna) 6 or 8 potatoes Hot milk Salt Cooked string beans Pepper Grated Parmesan cheese *4 cup butter 6 eggs Y2 teaspoon paprika 135 136 THE EUROPEAN COOKBOOK