Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Macaroni a la Sicilienne. — Boil three ounces of Macaroni. Take four ounces of minced chicken, two ounces of minced ham, two ounces of minced cooked mushrooms, a dessertspoonful of minced parsley, and a seasoning of salt and pepper. Butter a deep fire-proof baking-dish well, sprinkle over it the minced parsley, cut the Macaroni in short lengths with a fork, put a layer of it at the bottom of the dish, then a layer of mince. Season each layer, and dust freely with grated cheese. When the dish is full, moisten it well with good domestic espagnole or veloute (page 135), according as you wish the Macaroni to be brown or white. Bake sufficiently to heat thoroughly, and brown the surface with a glazing-iron. Spaghetti with Mushrooms. — Peel and cut off the stalks of half a pound of mushrooms, wash the peelings, chop them and the stalks, and boil them up in half a pint of milk. Strain when the milk is flavoured. Thicken the milk, and cook in it the mushrooms themselves, cut into largish squares and seasoned with salt and pepper. Keep this hot in the bain-marie whilst you boil and strain four ounces of Spaghetti, stirring into it at once, whilst hot, an ounce of butter and two of grated Parmesan. With this line a buttered fire-proof china dish, leaving a hollow in the centre. Put the mushrooms into the hollow, and cover the surface with the remaining Spaghetti. Smooth over the surface, dust it over with grated Parmesan, and dot it with bits of butter. Push the dish into the oven till it is thoroughly hot and the surface has taken colour. Serve the dish on a folded napkin. [Wyvern.] Rice suffers quite as much as Macaroni at the hands of English cooks. Yet many a “professed” cook would be astonished to hear the West Indian negro and the East Indian native (persons whom she considers at the best to be nothing but poor dirty ignorant heathens), succeed in cooking Rice as inevitably as she fails in her attempts. Rice cooked by either negro or native is always tender and white, and each grain seems to have been cooked separately. This is the recipe of the Negro : — “Wash him well, much wash in cold water. Rice flour “ make him stick. Water boil all ready, boil very fast ; shove him “ in. Rice can’t burn, water shake him too much. Boil quarter “ of hour, or little more. Rub one Rice in thumb and finger ; if “ all rub away, him quite done. Put Rice in colander, hot water “ run away. Pour cup cold water on him, put back in saucepan, “ keep him covered near fire. Then Rice all ready. You eat “ him up.” The East Indian recipe is quite as successful : — “ Choose a roomy pan, fill it with water at a galloping boil. “ Having thoroughly washed the Rice throw it in, with a table- “ spoonful of salt, a pinch of sugar, and a squeeze of lemon- juice “ to keep it white. Stir the grains now and then with a wooden “ spoon, and in twelve minutes take up a grain or two and pinch “ them. If they are tender stop the boiling instantly by dashing “ in a pint of cold water. Take the pan off the fire, hold it upside “ down, keeping the Rice in with the lid, and drain off every drop “ of water. When the pan is dry shake the Rice back into it, “ cover it with a clean warm dry cloth, and let it dry on the hot “ hearth. Shake the pan now and then, and stir the Rice “ occasionally with a fork (not a spoon), to prevent its sticking.