The home cook book

Drain, and then cut in three pieces each clam of a quart of hardshell clams. Have at hand three good-sized boiled potatoes and two hard-boiled eggs. In a deep baking dish lay a plain pastry lining, and on the bottom put a layer of clams. Over the clams sprinkle powdered crackers and then put in a layer of slices of boiled potato and hard-boiled egg, salting and lightly dusting with pepper each layer. Alternate the layers till you have used your material. Lay on small pieces of butter. Add half a cup of clam- juice or water, put a pastry cover over the pie, cut holes in the centre for the escape of steam, and bake forty minutes to an hour in hot oven. PIGS IN BLANKETS Drain some large plump oysters, and salt and pepper them. Round each oyster wrap a thin slice of fat bacon, pinning the bacon with a wooden toothpick. Lay in a hot frying-pan and cook until the bacon is a crisp light brown. Lay upon small pieces of toasted white or graham bread and serve hot. SCALLOPED OYSTERS In a baking dish put a layer of oysters, either mediumsized or large. Over them drop a few small pieces of butter, and also sprinkle pepper and salt. Lay on fine breadcrumbs, and on them pour a little of the oyster liquor. Next put in oysters as above directed and then breadcrumbs as above directed. So fill the dish, covering the upper layer of the bread with pieces of butter. Bake twenty minutes in a hot oven, and serve hot. TOASTED OYSTERS Drain the oysters you wish to toast. Heat their liquor in a saucepan. In another hot saucepan drop the oysters and move them about till they curl and plump. Have hot buttered toast on a hot plate or platter. Lay the oysters on the toast, and over each slice pour the hot oyster liquor, which you have seasoned to taste with salt, pepper, and butter. Serve at once. OYSTERS ON TOAST OR CANAPES Chop two dozen large oysters and mix with a heaping tablespoon of fine breadcrumbs. Melt a heaping tablespoon of butter in a saucepan, add a cup of cream, half a teaspoon of salt and a dash of cayenne, and when all is hot tip in the oysters and breadcrumbs. Have ready four or five slices of bread cut in circles, fingers, or triangles, and fried a golden brown. The bread must not be too thin, say quarter of an inch thick. Put the bread in a hot dish and pour over it the oyster mixture. CLAM TOAST Cut off the soft part of two dozen clams and simmer in only enough water to cover. When they have cooked thus twenty or thirty minutes, add a cup of milk into which you have stirred smooth a tablespoon of flour. Let this boil up and the flour thicken, and then stir in a beaten egg. Take from the fire, add a dash of cayenne, and pour over toast which you have just toasted hot and buttered. OYSTERS IN WHITE BLANKETS Use soft, finely-mashed potato and make thin cakes. Cover a cake with an oyster, or if one oyster is not large enough use more than one. Put over the oyster another cake of the same size, pinch together the edges of the cakes, lay in a hot pan well oiled with oil, butter, or sweet drippings, and bake till the potato is a light brown.