Part 22

ONION DISHES.

=Boiled Onions.=--Peel as many onions as are required, standing while doing them in a draught of air, or close to the fire, so that the acrid smell may get away. The large Spanish onions are generally used for boiling, as their flavour is milder than that of the English onion. Boil in salted water for two hours or less. Serve on a drainer, with a little fresh butter put on, at the last minute, or cover with white sauce.

=Baked Onions.=--Proceed as for boiled onions, but boil for one hour, and then put them whole into a buttered baking dish, and bake for an hour, basting them occasionally with a little butter. They may have a brown sauce poured over when served.

=Piccalilli= (American Dish).--One peck of green tomatoes, one cupful of salt, six onions, four green peppers, allspice, clove, mustard seed, and vinegar. Wipe the fruit clean, cut into small pieces, sprinkle over them a cupful of salt, and let them stand overnight. In the morning drain off the liquor, add six onions, four green peppers sliced thin, one ounce each of allspice, cloves, and white mustard seed. Tie the spices in a muslin bag, cover with vinegar; cook slowly in an Agate kettle for an hour or more until very tender. The mixture should be sealed in glass jars.

=Stuffed Onions.=--Peel five white onions, boil them in salted water for one hour, changing the water once. Drain and scoop out the centre and fill with bread-crumbs, seasoned with salt, pepper, grated cheese, and ketchup. Mash a little of the onion with the stuffing, and moisten with cream or milk. Wrap the onions in buttered paper, twist the ends; put into a buttered pan and bake for an hour. Remove the paper, pour over melted butter, and serve.

=Onions and Cheese.=--Peel four large onions, cut into half-inch slices and put them into a large flat buttered baking dish in one layer. Season with pepper and salt, cover the dish, and bake until tender, then sprinkle thickly with grated cheese, and return to the oven until the cheese is dissolved. Take up carefully, and serve with mustard.

=German Onion Pie.=--Slice six onions, and fry until soft in a little butter or nutter. Add half a cupful of milk or cream, and thicken with a tablespoonful of flour rubbed smooth in a little cold milk. Take from the fire, and add the yolk of an egg well beaten. Line a small deep baking dish with good pastry, fill with the onion mixture, and bake brown. Serve in the same dish.

=Onion Custard.=--Cook six or eight onions until tender in boiling salted water, changing the water once. Drain and arrange them in a baking dish. Thicken a pint of hot milk with a tablespoonful of cornflour rubbed into two teaspoonfuls of butter, and gradually pour the sauce on two eggs well beaten. Season with salt and pepper; pour over the onions, and bake until the custard is set.

=Onions with Eggs.=--Peel and slice the onions, and fry until tender in butter, season with salt and pepper. Drain thoroughly, and put on a draining dish. Squeeze over the juice of a lemon, and serve with poached eggs arranged round.

=Onion Soufflé.=--Peel six or eight onions and boil until tender, changing the water once. Chop finely with a sprig of parsley, add salt and cayenne pepper to season, and a tablespoonful each of butter and cream, and add one cupful of very thick cream sauce, the yolk of one egg well beaten, and enough soft bread-crumbs to make a smooth thick paste. Fold in the stiffly beaten whites of two or three eggs, and bake in a buttered soufflé dish. Serve with tomato or cream sauce.

=Escalloped Onions.=--Put a layer of thinly sliced onions in a buttered baking dish; salt, pepper, and butter to season. Cover with crumbs, and repeat until the dish is full, having crumbs on the top. Moisten with milk, and bake until brown, an hour or more.

=Stuffed Onions.=--Take the centres out of some large onions which have been boiled for an hour, peel off the outside of the onions, make a stuffing of grated bread, melted butter, a tablespoonful of cream, salt and pepper, make it into a paste, and fill the onions with it. Place in a baking dish, and cover them with melted butter and grated bread, and bake in an oven.

=To Fry Onions.=--Peel, and cut them up, dip them in flour and fry them for eight or ten minutes in very hot fat, strain them, and serve dry, with fried parsley.

=Onion Soup.= See Soups.

=Frittelle= (a Palermo Recipe).--Cut into small slices six onions, fry them lightly in oil, and when they are a golden brown add to them ten artichokes well cleaned, and cut into little pieces; add two pounds of green peas and four pounds of beans which have been previously cooked. Add salt and fry lightly, adding to them two tablespoonfuls of oil. When the vegetables are cooked, sugar them, and add some vinegar to make a savoury, bitter-sweet mixture. Serve in a covered dish.

PARSLEY (Apium Petroselinum. Umbelliferæ).

Parsley once acquired a bad name, from the misuse of a wild Sardinian kind. The Sardinians believed that they had absolutely no poisonous native plant, but this proved the exception to the rule, and the trusting natives who ate it died in such horrible fashion that the phrase “sardonic grin” arose from the contortions its effects produced upon their faces.

Seed of our ordinary variety, however, may be sown at any time in spring or summer, but for summer use it is generally sown in March. Good garden soil will grow parsley. As the seed is slow and rather uncertain in germinating, it may be sown rather thicker than is usual for some seeds. As soon as the plants are in their second leaf single them in the row, a fortnight later thin out to nine inches apart. Parsley is generally used as an edging to the kitchen garden.

A June sowing in a sheltered bed will provide plants for the winter, and the gardener must be prepared to give some protection of mats during severe weather if he wishes to always satisfy the cook. An August sowing will provide plants which in well-drained soil will usually stand the winter and carry the gardener well through the spring.

Dried parsley intended for winter use should be gathered before it loses its tender shade of green. It is first blanched in boiling water for one minute, then put into the oven, which must not be too hot, and when dry rubbed through a sieve and stored in bottles for use.

=Fried Parsley.=--Wash some sprigs of fresh parsley in cold water, then dry them carefully; put the parsley into a wire basket, and fry in butter, oil, or lard for about a minute, when it ought to be crisp.

=Chopped Parsley.=--This is used to decorate new potatoes. Parsley is also used to flavour soups and sauces, and in sprigs to decorate savoury dishes.

=Dried Parsley.=--Gather the parsley, and spread out to dry in front of the fire or in the oven if not too hot. When dry the leaves should be reduced to a fine powder by rubbing through a hair sieve. Store in well-corked bottles or air-tight tins.

As parsley has a strong flavour, if used too freely it will spoil a soup or stuffing. It should be remembered that in use, dried parsley swells to twice its bulk.

PARSNIP (Pastinaca sativa. Umbelliferæ).

To grow this useful root is a simple matter. Poorish, or partially exhausted, soil is no drawback, as there should be no recent manure in the top spit. But the ground should be deeply trenched and a slight dressing of manure buried deeply. The seed must be sown very thinly in March, in drills a foot apart. As soon as the plants are well in their second leaf they should be singled, and a fortnight later thinned to six inches distance. A smallish root of good quality is “the Student” parsnip, suited in every way for the small garden. The crop will be ready for use in September, but it may remain in the ground and be dug throughout the winter as required.

PARSNIP DISHES.

=To Boil Parsnips.=--Wash and scrape the roots, put them in salted, boiling water to cover, and boil steadily for an hour to an hour and a half, or even longer if they are very large. They may be served plain, or covered with good white sauce. If very large, cut them in two or four lengthwise before boiling.