VEGETARIAN COOKERY

thin strips, and when very old it will be found best to cut them slanting. They must be thrown into boiling salted water, and boiled till they are tender. The time for boiling varies with the age ; very young ones will not take more than a quarter of an hour, and if old ones are not tender in half an hour they had better be made into a pur^e. As soon as the beans are tender, drain them off, and serve them very hot ; the chief point to bear in mind, if we wish to have our beans nice, is, they must be eaten directly they are drained from the water in which they are boiled. They are spoilt by what is called being kept hot, and possess a marvellous facility of getting cold in a very short space of time.

In vegetarian cookery, when beans are eaten without being an accompaniment to meat, some form of fat is desirable. When the beans are drained we can add either butter or oil. When a lump of Maitre dJ Hotel butter is added they form what the French call haricots vert a la Maitre d'Hotel. In this case, a slight suspicion of garlic may be added by rubbing the stew-pan in which the French beans are tossed together with the MaUre d'Hotel butter. When oil is added, a little chopped parsley will be found an improvement, as well as pepper, salt, and a suspicion of nutmeg.

French beans are very nice flavoured with oil and garlic, and served in a border of macaroni.

French Bean Pudding-.— When French beans are very old

they are sometimes made into a pudding as follows : They

must be trimmed, cut up, boiled, with or without the addition of a few savoury herbs. They must be then mashed in a basin, tied up in a well-buttered and then floured cloth, and boiled for some time longer. The pudding can then be turned out. A still better way of making a French bean pudding is to rub the beans through the wire sieve, leaving the strings behind, flavouring the pudding with a few savoury herbs, a little sugar, pepper, and salt, and, if liked, a suspicion of garlic; add one or two well-beaten-up eggs, and put the mixture in a round pud- ding-basin, and bake it till it sets. This can be turned out on the centre of a dish, and a few young French beans placed round the base to ornament it, in conjunction with some pieces of fried bread cut into pretty shapes.

VEGETABLES, FREbH.

Brocoli. — Trim the outer leaves off a brocoli, and cut off the stalk even, so that it will stand upright. Soak the brocoli in salt and water for some time, in order to get rid of any in- sects. Throw the brocoli into boiling water that has been salted, and boil till it is tender, the probable time for young brocoli being about a quarter of an hour. It should be served on a dish with the flower part uppermost ; and butter sauce, sauce Allemande, or Dutch sauce can be served separately, or poured over the surface.

When several heads of brocoli are served at once, it is im- portant to cut the stalks flat, as directed, before boiling. After they have been thoroughly drained upside down^ they should be placed on the dish, flower part uppermost, and placed together as much as possible to look like one large brocoli. If sauce is poured over them, the sauce should be sufliciently thick to be spread, and every part of the flower should be covered. Half a teaspoonful of chopped blanched parsley may be sprinkled over the top, and improves the appearance of the dish.

— We would particularly call attention to the im- portance of draining brocoli and cauliflower very thoroughly, especially when any sauce is served with the brocoli. When the dish is cut into, nothing looks more disagreeable than to see the white sauce running off the brocoli into green water at the bottom of the dish.

Brocoli Greens. — The outside leaves of brocoli should not be thrown away, but eaten. Too often they are trimmed oft at the greengrocer's or at the market, and, we presume, utilised for the purpose of feeding cattle. They can be boiled exactly like white cabbages, and are equal to them, if not superior, in flavour. To boil them, see Cabbage, White, Large.

Brussels Sprouts. — These must be first washed in cold water and all the little pieces of decayed leaves trimmed away. Throw them into boiling salted water ; the water must be kept boiling the whole time, without a lid on the saucepan, and if the quantity of water be sufliciently large not to be taken oft the boil by the sprouts being thrown in they will be sent to table of a far brighter green colour than otherwise. In order to ensure this, throw in the sprouts a few at a time, picking out