Soyer's standard cookery

Peel about one pound of young turnips, wash them well, trim into olive or pear shapes; put them on fire in cold salted water, and bring them sharply to the boil; then drain, rinse in cold water, and dry them in a clean napkin. Have ready some veloute sauce (i.e., melted butter, made with one ounce of butter, one and a half ounces of flour, and about threequarters of a pint of vegetable stock instead of water), drop the turnips into this, and cook them till ready, very gently for about twenty to twenty-five minutes, according to size. When ready lift them out, and keep hot. Add a spoonful of castor sugar to the liquor, boil up sharply, and just before serving stir in the yolk of an egg and a little piece of butter cut up small; do not let the sauce re-boil after adding these; season to taste with pepper and salt, pour the sauce on to the turnips, and serve very hot. Glazed Turnips. Peel about one pound of young turnips, wash them well, cut into quarters, and put them on in salted water; bring this sharply to the boil, then place them in a well-buttered small frying or saucepan, sprinkle them liberally with castor sugar, and directly the turnips begin to color pour a little stock in, and season with pepper and salt, and a little more sugar if liked; let them stew slowly till quite tender, and serve them with the sauce poured over them. Vegetable Curry. Do not attempt to make a curry in a hurry. Two hours is the least in which you can make a vegetable curry worthy of the name, and it is far wiser to allow three or four hours. Do not ask your cook to make a curry on a day when she is busy with other matters, for it will take an hour or more of undivided attention, throughout the time of cooking. There is, however, no reason that curry should not be made the day before it is wanted, for it improves by keeping and by being re-heated. If there is one article of our diet which more than any other benefits by cooking in paper bags it is the vegetables. Hitherto the vegetables of the ordinary cook have been a byword for all that is tasteless and unappetizing, and thus they have been robbed of the popularity to which their food-value entitles them. Vegetarian and meat-eater alike know and regret that by ordinary methods of cooking much that is best in vegetables, both for the palate and the health, are boiled out into the water and thrown away. Medical men tell us how valuable are the salts and other constituents of vegetables thus wasted. Little medicine would be needed if we included in our diet these juices, which form the choice flavor of the vegetables. Up to the present we have thrown nature's physic to the dogs — or, at any rate, down the kitchen sink. But with the vegetables cooked in bags nothing is lost. All the food-value and all the flavor are retained. The cooking is easier, without smell, and the result will be to place vegetables in that honored place which they should occupy on every well-served table. This is a matter which the ordinary householder and the " Food Reformer " alike have at heart. Asparagus. Trim and clean the asparagus in the usual way. Tie up, and put in the paper bag. Add a quarter of a tumbler of water, a little salt, and place on the grid. Allow thirty-five to forty-five minutes in a hot oven (350° Fahr.).