Part 10

(3) Soak a quart of shredded cabbage in cold water for an hour. Cook a tablespoonful each of chopped onion and celery in four tablespoonfuls of vinegar for fifteen minutes. Thicken half a cupful of boiling milk with six tablespoonfuls of cornflour, rubbed smooth in a little cold milk. Take from the fire, add the yolks of two eggs well beaten. Strain the vinegar into the sauce, add a tablespoonful of butter broken into small bits, and cool. Drain the cabbage thoroughly, mix with the dressing, and serve.

(4) Shred a small cabbage, cover with cold water, and soak for an hour. Beat together two eggs and half a cupful of sour cream, add two tablespoonfuls of boiling vinegar, one tablespoonful of butter, and cook until thick. Take from the fire, season with salt and pepper, mix the drained cabbage, cool, and serve.

=Cold Slaw à la Irving.=--Shred a cabbage very fine. Beat three eggs, and add half a cupful of cream and milk, and a tablespoonful of melted butter. Bring to the boil four tablespoonfuls of vinegar, with half a teaspoonful of dry mustard, salt and pepper to taste. Add the egg mixture very slowly, stir constantly, pour over the cabbage, and serve very cold.

=Cabbage Balls.=--Make a stuffing of one cupful each of cooked rice, and lentils, and chopped boiled onion, and half a cupful of chopped nuts (peacons preferred), add salt and pepper to taste. Cover the shredded cabbage with boiling water and let stand until the leaves are soft. Cut out the midribs, and roll portions of the stuffing into the large soft pieces of the leaves. Put the rolls carefully into a buttered saucepan, add the juice of a lemon and a clove of garlic. Cook slowly for thirty minutes, drain carefully, and strain the liquid. Thicken one and a half cupfuls of the liquid with a tablespoonful each of butter and flour, the butter to be made into a ball with the flour; take from the fire; add the well-beaten yolks of four eggs, and cook over hot water until thick and smooth. Season with salt and tarragon vinegar, strain over the rolls, and serve hot.

=Cabbage Pudding.=--Cut a cabbage very fine and put it into a baking dish with alternate layers of bread-crumbs. Season with salt and pepper. Fill the pan with milk, and bake slowly until done, forty minutes to one hour, serve in the baking dish.

=Dutch Cabbage.=--Shred a white cabbage and cook it slowly for three or four hours with enough water to keep from burning. Half an hour before serving season with salt and black pepper, add a cupful of sour cream, cook slowly until the liquid is nearly absorbed, add a tablespoonful of vinegar, and serve.

=Swedish Cream Cabbage.=--Cook shredded cabbage for fifteen minutes in boiling water to cover. Drain, cover with milk, and add a pinch of ground mace, season with salt and pepper. Cook until the milk is boiled away, so that it barely moistens the cabbage, add a lump of butter, and serve.

=Cabbage à la Flamande.=--Shave fine a large red or purple cabbage. Cook slowly for fifteen minutes in boiling water, drain, and chop fine. Reheat with a tablespoonful of butter, and chopped onion. Add salt and pepper to season, a dash of powdered cloves and a tablespoonful of butter, and serve hot at once.

=Cabbage à la Française.=--Chop cold boiled white cabbage finely and drain, pressing out the water. Season with salt, pepper, and melted butter. Moisten with cream and two well-beaten eggs. Turn into a buttered frying pan and cook slowly until brown on the under side, place on a hot dish, and turn out.

=Cabbage à la Frankfort.=--Shred a cabbage, cook until soft in a little butter, add an onion stuck with cloves. Cover with boiling water and simmer for an hour. Remove the onion, add a tablespoonful of vinegar, and serve.

=Cabbage à la Mackenzie.=--Shred a cabbage, fine soak in ice water and drain thoroughly, and mix with cream whipped solid. Season with salt only. Surround with crackers and toasted cheese.

=Cabbage à la Russe.=--Slice a firm cabbage very thin, soak for half an hour in cold water, and drain, pressing out all the liquid; cover with boiling water and cook uncovered for fifteen minutes. Drain thoroughly and reheat for ten minutes with a cupful of cream, salt and pepper to season, then add a tablespoonful of butter, and serve.

=Sweet and Sour Cabbage.=--Shred finely, enough cabbage to fill a quart measure, and add two sour apples peeled, cored, and sliced; put two tablespoonfuls of butter into a saucepan, and when it is hissing hot add the cabbage and apples. Pour over boiling water to cover, and cook until tender. Sprinkle two tablespoonfuls of flour, season with salt and pepper, add four tablespoonfuls of brown sugar and two tablespoonfuls of vinegar. If red cabbage is used, soak it in boiling water for half an hour, changing the water two or three times.

=Cabbage Hearts and Peas.=--Chop finely two cabbage hearts, and cook until tender. Cook separately an equal quantity of shelled peas, add a teaspoonful of chopped mint. Drain, season with salt and black pepper, and serve the cabbage piled in the middle of the dish, with a border of peas.

=Chouxbraisé= (Mrs. C. W. Earle’s Recipe).--Take a nice spring cabbage, split it, and wash in salt and water; put it in a saucepan of boiling water for ten minutes. Take it up, drain well on a sieve, put it into a casserole for one hour to braise, with a little butter and pepper and salt, but no stock or water.

=Cabbage à la Bourgeoise.=--Clean and cut up a cabbage. Fry a tablespoonful of onion in butter, add the cabbage with salt and pepper and grated nutmeg. Cook over a slow fire, turning frequently to prevent burning.

=Savoy Cabbage= may be treated in the same way as the common cabbage.

COUVE TRONCHUDA, OR PORTUGAL CABBAGE.--For culture, see under Cabbage.

This cabbage has a delicious flavour quite distinct from that of other cabbages.

Two dishes may be made from it: the first day, boil the heart and the outer leaves, after removing the thick white midrib, which must be reserved. Cook as any other cabbage.

=Midrib of Portugal Cabbage.=--Take the midribs, wash in salted water, and boil for an hour in abundance of boiling water, with a tablespoonful of salt and a tiny piece of soda. Serve as you would salad fry, with rich white sauce poured over.

CARDOON (Cynara Cardunculus. Compositæ).

This is a subject requiring plenty of room, and unless particularly desired is not suited to the small garden. It is not often grown in this country, being susceptible to frost, and the taste for it being rather an acquired one.

Cardoons are best grown in the way of celery, trenches being opened in May, four or five feet distant from each other. Old manure should be dug into the bottom of the trench. The seeds may either be sown in gentle heat in pots, and the plants put out in the trenches, care being taken not to break the ball of earth, or seeds may be sown in the trenches. In the latter case they should be sown in groups of three or four, and when they are well up thinned to a single plant. On the whole we have found it better to raise the plants in a frame, but many growers prefer the other method. The plants should stand three feet apart in the trenches.

Watering must be attended to as carefully as with celery, and weeds must be kept down. Lettuces or other quick crops may be taken off the ground between the trenches, but before the summer is over the great handsome leaves will hang over a wide area.

In September blanching may begin. It is wise not to blanch too many plants at a time, as they quickly rot after they have been tied up for four or five weeks. Therefore tie and earth up a few plants weekly until the end of October. The plants are prickly, and the gardener will do well to wear gloves while handling them. First draw the leaves together and tie them with string lightly. Then swathe straw or haybands round them and make all fast with string or bast, next earth them up at one operation in the way of celery. In four weeks the plants will be ready for use. On the approach of winter lift the entire crop and store in a cool, dark, frost-free house.

CARDOON DISHES.

=Plain Cardoons.=--Clean and pare two or three pounds of cardoons, cut them lengthwise, and blanche them with boiling water, then throw them into cold water to make them retain their whiteness, and dry them on a clean cloth. Cut an onion and a carrot into slices, put them into a saucepan with two ounces of fresh butter, take out the carrot and onion. Mix a tablespoonful of flour into the butter, add some water to prevent it burning. As soon as the water is boiling throw in the cardoons. When done serve up hot.