Cassell's dictionary of cookery

— Take two good-sized cabbage lettuces. Wash them carefully, remove the stalks and the outer and decayed leaves, sprinkle a tea-spoonful of salt over them, and let them lie in cold water for a couple of hours. Drain them, cut them into slices, and put them into a saucepan, with a quart of young and freshly-shelled green peas, a piece of butter the size of an egg rolled thickly in flour, half a quarter of a pint of good stock, and a little pepper, salt, and pounded sugar'. Cover closely, and simmer gently until the peas are soft. Time, an hour to simmer. Probable cost, Is. Sufficient for five or six Lettuce, Stuffed.— Wash four or five large lettuces. Boil them in plenty of salted water for fifteen minutes. Throw them at once into cold water, and afterwards let them drain. Open them, fill them with good veal forcemeat, tie the ends securely, and put them into a stewpan with as much good gravy as will cover them, a tea-spoonful of salt, half a tea-spoonful of pepper, and a tea-spoonful of vinegar. Simmer gently for another fifteen minutes, remove the strings, place them on a hot dish, and pour the gravy round them. If preferred, the lettuces may be prepared as above, and then put into a braising-pan, with thin slices of bacon above and under them. A carrot, an onion stuck with two cloves, a bunch of sweet herbs, and a little good gravy may then be added, and the lettuces simmered gently for an hour and a half. A glassful of sherry may be added to the gravy before it is served. Probable cost of the lettuces. Id. each. Sufficient for four or five persons. Leveret, Braised.— Truss the leveret like a hare, and fill it with a forcemeat made as follows : — Grate very finely two ounces of stale crumb of bread, season with a saltspoonful of salt, a salt-spoonful of pounded sugar, half a salt-spoonful of pepper, half a salt-spoonful of finely-minced lemon-rind, and half a salt-spoonful of grated nutmeg ; add a shallot, chopped small, a tea-spoonful of chopped parsley, and half a tea-spoonful of sweet herbs. "When these ingredients are thoroughly mixed, work them together with a dessert-spoonful of brandy and two ounces of clarified butter. Fill the leveret with the forcemeat, and sew it up securely. Place two or tliree slices of bacon at the bottom of the braising-pan. Fasten two or three more on the back of the leveret, and put it legs downwards into the pan. Pour over it half a pint of good gravy, and add a small onion, finely minced, a sliced carrot, a glassful of sherrj-, and two table-spoonfuls of mushroom ketchup. Cover the pan closely, and simmer gently for two hours. Take out the leveret. Press the vegetables through a sieve, put them back into the gravy, thicken it with two teaspoonfuls of flour, mixed smoothly with a little cold water, retmii both leveret and gravy to the stewpan, and simmer for about a quarter of an hour longer. Serve very hot. Probable cost of leveret, 4s. Sufficient for five or six persons.