BREAKFAST.

Otago Witness, Issue 1204, 26 December 1874, Page 21

BREAKFAST.

No meal is, I believe, so little understood by us as breakfast. We seem to imagine, or at least a great many of us do, that anything will do for breakfast. The Fiench understand this meal much better than we do. They do not make a scrambly meal of it ; anything will not do for them — no, not even for the bourgeois families. They wait, it ia true, till halfpast ten or eleven ; then they partake, it may be of a simple, but it is always of a nicely prepared, dejeuner, consisting of two or more courses. Now, it is a wellknown fact that no country in the world possesses better materials for cookery than England ; yet there is perhaps no country where the cooking is, as a general rule, worse. Why is this 1 I answer, generally because the mistresses of houses are so lamentably ignorant on the subject. Still, ignorance is a fault which c n always be remedied — a little teaching, some thought, patience, and practice, will teach the most deficient, even if she have ever so little aptitude for cookery. The love of cooking is, I think, born in most women, though some are foolish enough to imagine that it is unladylike to indulge in its practice ; our great-grandmothers did not think so, therefore I really do not see why we should, though far be it from me to wish to imitate them in everything. Pye-Chevasse writes at *some length on tnis subject ; he ridicules the notion of it being unladylike to be occupied with cookery and other household duties — he even says that they are necessary to health. In one of his popular works he says : "It might be said that the wife is not the proper person to cook her husband's dinner. True ; but a wife should see and know that the cook does her duty, and if she did perchance understand how the dinner ought to be cooked, I have yet to learn that the husband would for such knowledge think any the worse of her. A grazing farmer is three or four years in bringing a beast to perfection fit for

human food. Is it not a sin ? after so much time and pains, for an idiot of a cook, in the course of one short hour or two, to ruin by vile cookery a joint of siich meat ? Is it not time, then, that a wife herself should know how a joint of meat ought to be cooked, and thus be able to give instructions accordingly ?" Mashed Potatoes. — Don't peel the potatoes long before they are wanted,, as letting them lay in water extracts all the starch or nourishing part of the potato. Put them into a saucepan of cold water ; boil quickly ; when nearly done, strain off the water by simply holding the lid a little on one side. Put the saucepan on the stove and let the potatoes steam till quite dry, then mash them with a common kitchen fork, add butter, salt, milk or cream, and beat well with the fork until they are smooth and white. Put into a vegetable dish, and arrange neatly with a fork. A spoon never half mashes the potatoes, and they are heavy. The use of a fork is a saving of labour, and insures smooth, well-mashed potatoes. Having, I hope, successfully proved the necessity of a mistress looking after the cooking, or at least superintending it, I will proceed to say a few words on the subject of the meal we call breakfast. Egga form a principal item in it, and I think we English people are all too fond of eating them in one of three ways — i. c. , boiled, poached, or fried. Now there are at least fifty different modes of cooking eggs ; therefore, why not try some of them. We have most of us eaten an omelette, but how many of us have eaten a really good one 1 An English cook will make a firm, hard pale mass with a kind of watery gravy round, which she in her ignorance calls an omelette. Show the production to the humblest little French borne, and if she is not too polite she will laugh in your face when you tell her what the name of your dish is. The reason that our omelettes are wrong is that they are usually so complicated. Another reason is that when we fly for instructions to our cookery books, they generally misdirect us by introducing ingredients which should be utterly foreign to them ; and the mode of cooking is not very clearly given. Baked Salmon-Trout. — Having,cleaned the fish^ and laid it two hours fri weak sale and water, dry it in a cloth, and then rub both the inside and outside with a seasoning of cayenne pepper, powdered mace, nutmeg, and a little salt, mix well together. Then lay it in a deep bakingpan, turn the tail round into the mouth, and stick bits of fresh butter thickly over the fish. Put it into an oven, and bake it well ; basting it frequently with the liquid that will soon surround it. When you suppose it to be nearly done, try it by sticking down to the back bone a thin bladed knife. When you find that the flesh separates immediately from the bone, it is done sufficiently. Serve it up with lobster sauce. Now this is the way a Frenchwoman showed me how to make a plain omelette awe fines herbs. Take Jib. of good fresh butter or lard, six eggs, the fresher the better, half a teaspoonful of chopped parsley if liked, and a little very finely minced onion, pepper and salt to taste ; use a very clean frying pan, put into it the butter or lard, and bring to a boiling point ; then, having beaten all your eggs, together with the parsley, onions, salt, and pepper, pour the mixture in the pan. When the part nearest the bottom of the pan sets, raise it carefully with a fork, and let the uncooked part take its place, and go on till your eggs are cooked. Be careful not to cook them too long, or they will be like leather ; an omelette when completed should combine a savoury gravy of its own with a certain degree of firmness. When the mass is slightly browned on the under side, give it a dexterous turn in the pan, and as you tilt it into the hot dish you must have ready to receive it, with a tap fold it in two, and then you have your omelette complete. Now this requires just a little practice to accomplish, but it soon comes ; the great secret of success is to have the eggs very fresh, the butter quite boiling in the pan, and an equal heat over the bottom of it. Once a plain omelette is achieved, of course endless varieties are introduced, as various herbs chopped up aud mixed with the eggs, oysters, kidneys, fish, and so on. Another very tasty way of serving eggs for breakfast, is as follows : Prepare as many little cases of strong paper (ramequin cases do beautifully) as you have eggs, well butter the sides and bottom of each, sprinkle with finely chopped herbs. Put a small piece of butter in a dish that will conveniently hold the cases— as a shallow pie disharrange them in it, break an egg into each, pepper and salt them, then cover each egg with bread crumbs mixed with grated Parmesan cheese, cook them gently in a slow oven till the eggs are nicely set, and serve in the dish very hot ; a napkin may be neatly pinned round the dish. Hardboiled eggs, cut in half, the yolks removed and well mixed with butter and anchovy paste, are also very nice. The whites should be refilled with the mixture, also the outsicles must be covered with it ; they are theu egyed, bread-crumbed, and fried a nice brown. Care must be taken to preserve the shape of the half pieces of egg, nr the appearance of the dish will be spoiled ; they may be served on toast or not, as preferred. Hard-boiled eggs, "a la Bechamel," if the sauce is well and carefully made, are always good ; so are curried eggs ; and, indeed, a variety of sauces may be devised for them, which make a number of additions to our breakast. — The Queen.