Cookery for every household

Choose a long straight cucumber, trim off the ends and cut it in pieces about 2 inches in length. Peel off the skin in narrow strips, leaving alternate strips of the peel and giving the pieces of cucumber a striped appearance. Then scald the pieces in boiling salted water for 5 minutes, rinse in cold water and drain. Scoop out the seeds from the centre without destroying the shape of the cucumber and stand the pieces on a greased baking tin. Then prepare the stuffing. Put the bread-crumbs, ham, parsley, and a little grated lemon rind into a basin, add sufficient stock to moisten and bind them together and season with ' pepper and salt. Fill up the pieces of cucumber with this stuffing, piling it rather high in the centre. Stuffed Cucumber A forcing bag and pipe may be taken for this if found easier, and any nice forcemeat be used instead of the above. Place a piece of greased paper over the prepared cucumber and bake in a moderate oven until tender. A few minutes before the pieces are ready, remove the paper, sprinkle the tops with bread-crumbs, baste them with a little butter and allow them to brown. To Serve. — Stand each piece of stuffed cucumber on a round crouton of fried bread and pour round a little thin brown or tomato sauce. Time to bake, 15 to 20 minutes. Sufficient for 4 or 5 persons. 483. Cassolettes of Cucumber and Green Peas (Cassolettes de Concombre aux Petits Pois) 1 large cucumber. Green pea puree. A little flour. Tomato sauce. Egg and bread-crumbs. Choose a large straight cucumber. Peel it and trim off the ends. Cut it into slices about If inch thick and stamp out the seedy centres with a small round cutter, being careful not to break the cucumber. Put these rings of cucumber into a saucepan, cover them with boiling water, add a little salt and a few drops of vinegar, and boil them gently for 10 minutes. Then drain, rinse in cold water and let them lie in the folds of a towel a short time to absorb the moisture. Now coat the pieces very lightly with seasoned flour, and egg and bread-crumb them, without filling up the hole in the centre. Fry them in boiling fat to a pretty brown colour and drain on kitchen paper. Make some green pea puré according to directions given in Recipe 499 and put it into a forcing bag with a rose pipe. Stand the rings of cucumber on a hot entree dish and fill up the centres with the puree, piling it rather high. Pour some tomato sauce round and serve very hot. Note. — A pur6e of celeriac, or of chestnuts may be used in place of the green pea puree. Sufficient for 5 or G persons. Dandelions (Dents de Lion) The leaves of the dandelion when young may be used either as a salad or cooked. For a salad they must be very young, but for cooking purposes they may be used a little larger, although not when old, as the taste is then too bitter. The leaves should be gathered in the early morning, as they are supposed to be more tender when the sun is not on j them. Cooked in the same way as spinach, they form one of the most wholesome of green foods, and they are said to be particularly good for the liver. Dandelion roots are sometimes cooked in the j same way as salsify. 484. Dandelions with Cream (Dents de Lion a la Creme) 1 lb. dandelion leaves. | 1 tea-sp. flour. 1 oz. butter. [ 2 table-sps. cream.