La cuisine creole

Take a young chicken, or the half of a grown one; cut it up, roll it in salt, pepper and flour, and fry it a nice brown, using lard or drippings, as if for fricassée. Cut up a quart of fresh green okras, and take out the chicken and fry the okra in the same lard. When well browned return the chicken to the pot and boil. Add to it a large slice of ham ; a quarter of a pound will be about right for this gombo. Pour on to the chicken, ham and okra, half a gallon of boiling water, and let it boil down to three pints. Ten minutes before serving pour into the boiling soup two dozen fine oysters with half a pint of their liquor. Let it come to a good boil, and serve it with well-boiled rice. MAIGRE OYSTER GUMBO. Take 100 oysters with their juice, and one large onion; slice the onion into hot lard and fry it brown, adding when brown a tablespoonful of flour and red pepper. When thick enough pour in the oysters. Boil together twenty minutes. Stir in a large spoonful of butter and one or two tablespoonfuls of filée, then take the soup from the fire and serve with rice. MAIGRE SHRIMP GOMBO FOR LENT. Boil a pint of shrimps in a quart of water ; give them only one boil up; then set them to drain and cool, reserving the water they were boiled in. Chop up three dozen okra pods, two onions, a pod of pepper, and a little parsley, and fry them brown in a little lard or butter; add to the okra the shrimps and the strained water in which they were boiled. Let all boil for an hour, and season with sait and pepper to taste. When shrimp and crabs can not be procured, half a pound of dry codfish, soaked an hour or two, and chopped fine, will do very well. All gombo should be thickened with a little flour — browned if preferred — and stirred in just before adding the water ; then boil an hour. CRAB GUMBO WITH OKRA. Take six large crabs, throw them in cold water for a few moments. When cool cut off the limbs — while they are living if possible, as this renders them more délicate ; clean them, and put them to f ry, shells and ail, in a pot containing a cup of lard, a cup of cut onions, a small bunch of parsley, and two tablespoonfuls of browned flour. Let them cook about fifteen minutes, and then pour on them two pints of boiling water and a quart of sliced okra ; let it all stew gently for half an hour, and add a slice of lean ham and a quart of good veal or beef stock (made by boiling two pounds of veal or beef in two quarts of water until reduced to a quart) ; season with a teaspoonful of sait, and same of black and red pepper, and let all boil for half an hour. This soup can be made in the oyster season by putting in a quart of oysters and two quarts of their liquor instead of the boiled beef stock. CRAYFISH BISQUE. A CREOLE DISH. • Parboil the fish, pick out the meat, and mince or pound it in a mortar until very fine; it will require about fifty crayflsh. Add to the fish one-third the quantity of bread soaked in milk, and a quarter of a pound of butter, also sait to taste, a bunch of thyme, two leaves of sage, a smalla piece of garlicand a chopped onion. Mix all well and cook ten minutes, stirring ail the time to keep it from growing hard. Clean the heads of the fish, throw them in strong sait and water for a few minutes and then drain them. Fill each one with the above stuffing, flour them, and fry a light brown. Set a clean stewpan over a slow fire, put into it three spoonfuls of lard or butter, a slice of ham or bacon, two onions chopped fine; dredge over it enough flour to absorb the grease, then add a pint and a half of boiling water, or better still, plain beef stock. Season this with