Cookery for every household

Take some cooked sweetbread, break it in small pieces, and reheat in some good creamy sauce, such as bechamel or supreme. Make a plain omelet (Recipe 1412) with four or five eggs, and put some of the sweetbread in the centre before folding it over. Serve on a hot dish with the remainder of the sweetbread as a garnish. 1437. Tomato Omelet (Omelette aux Tomates) 2 tomatoes. £oz. butter. 1 tsp. chopped shallot. Salt. Pepper. A plain omelet. Recipe Skin the tomatoes and cut them in small pieces. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, put in the chopped shallot, and cook for a few minutes. Then add the tomato and seasoning, and simmer for about ten minutes. Make a plain omelet with a little parsley in it ; when set, put some of the tomato mixture in the centre before folding over. Serve with the rest of the tomato round the dish. 1438. Omelet with Vegetables (Omelette a la Jardiniere) Take the remains of nicely cooked vegetables, such as carrot, turnip, cauliflower, green peas, French beans, asparagus, leeks, &c., cut them in small pieces, and warm them in a little good sauce. Then make either a plain or a savoury omelet, and before folding it over put 1 or 2 table-spoonfuls of the vegetable mixture in the centre. Any remaining vegetable may be used to garnish the dish. See p. 431. Sweet Omelets The making of pastry requires a certain amount of practice, and failure at first must not discourage the beginner. It is often only after repeated attempts that success can be attained. A start should be made with the plainer kinds of pastry, and especially those in which the fat is well mixed with the flour before the rolling begins, such as Suet Crust and Short Crust. When these have been thoroughly mastered, the more difficult kinds may be attempted. This chapter includes a representative selection of recipes for both sweet and savoury dishes of pastry, pies, tarts, patties, tartlets, fancy pastries, &c. The hints and directions in the recipes should be carefully attended to. MATERIALS REQUIRED Butter or Fat. — There are several different kinds of fat which can be used for pastry making, such as butter, lard, dripping, clarified fat, margarine, and various kinds of vegetable fat now on the market. Butter is the best to use for all the finer kinds of pastry, but it must be carefully chosen and free from taint of any kind. Fresh butter is the best for puff pastry. When the butter is soft it should be put into very cold water or on ice for a short time before using, and then all moisture squeezed out in a clean dry cloth. When a more economical pastry is wanted, good dripping, lard, or margarine may be used, or a mixture of butter and lard is very good. Inferior butter should never be taken, as it would quite spoil the taste of the pastry. If dripping is used it should be carefully clarified and all trace of brown gravy removed from it. A good dripping crust is one of the most wholesome kinds of pastry for children. Vegetarians, who do not allow themselves butter, employ some form of vegetable fat or nut butter for making their pastry. Suet is used principally for making boiled pastry, the fat taken from the kidney being the best, and beef suet is generally preferred to mutton.