Handbook of practical cookery

Spinach with Eggs. — For this provide four quarts of spinach, one table-spoonful of cream, one ounce of butter, four eggs, one tea-spoonful of lemon- juice, one grain of cayenne, one dessert-spoonful of salt, one salt-spoonful of pepper. The spinach must be thoroughly washed through three or four waters, and the stalks picked off. Put it when washed into a dry sauce-pan, sprinkle over it the salt, and covering CAULIFLOWER AU GRATIN. 103 the sauce-pan closely, place it over the fire. The salt and heat together will draw from the spinach enough of its own green liquor in which to boil ; and when it reaches the boiling-point, allow it to boil for ten minutes. At the end of this time remove the spinach to a colander that it may drain entirely of its liquor ; and when drained, it must either be very finely chopped or passed through a coarse wire sieve. Into a small sauce-pan put the butter and cream, and place all over the fire until the cream boils, then stir in the spinach, and let the mixture get very hot, but not boiling, as boiling will draw more liquor from the spinach and spoil the dish. Season now with the cayenne and pepper, and draw the sauce-pan aside from the fire to keep hot until the eggs are prepared. Fill a small sauce-pan with boiling water, and into this put the lemon- juice. Break the egg into a cup, and drop it into the sauce-pan, the water in which must continue to boil ; and as soon as the form of the first egg sets, break, and drop in the second in the same manner, which continue until the four eggs are in the sauce-pan, permitting each egg to remain about three minutes. When the eggs are done, remove the spinach from its sauce-pan, and pile it high in the centre of a vegetable dish, smoothing the edges around and the top with a knife blade. Take the eggs from the water with a skimming spoon, and arrange them upon the flat top of the spinach. This dish should be garnished for serving with corners of fried bread or toast. NOTE. — If lemon-juice is not convenient, a few drops of vinegar may be used for poaching the eggs ; but the flavour of it will always be detected, although it firms the egg quite as well as the lemonjuice, which leaves no taste of itself with the egg. Cauliflower au Gratin. — Provide for this one cauliflower, one ounce of butter, one ounce of flour, one gill of cold water, two table-spoonfuls of cream, three ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, one grain of cayenne, one saltspoonful of white pepper, one table-spoonful of salt. A close firm head of cauliflower must be selected for this preparation, and this must be first thrown into a basin of strongly salted water, and left for twenty minutes, in order that sand, grit, or other foreign substances may be drawn out. Trim off the green leaves, and cut the stalk squarely across about two inches below the flower, after which prepare a large sauce-pan by putting it over the fire, filling it two-thirds full of boiling water with a table-spoonful of salt. Into this sauce-pan put the cauliflower, the flower downwards, and cover it until the water boils up vigorously. Then removing the sauce-pan cover, all should be allowed to boil rapidly for fifteen minutes.