THE COOKING OF VEGETABLES. 



61 



Parsnips. — Choice varieties of parsnips are the only kinds 

 worth eating. The ordinary way is to boil them like carrots. 

 But when boiled and sliced and fried in good French batter, they 

 make excellent fritters. Of course, in all this sort of cookery, 

 practice is needed, in order to make a choice dish. 



Vegetable Marrow. — The great fault I find in the way 

 vegetable marrows are used in England is this : — They are 

 allowed to remain too long on the plant before plucking. The 

 consequence is that they are full of seeds and flavourless. If 

 plucked of the size of a lemon, they are much nicer, whatever 

 way they may be cooked in. The plant will go on producing 

 others of the same size, so there is no waste. There are several 

 ways of cooking these nice little marrows. 



(a) Slice them crossways, each slice of the thickness of two 

 half-crowns, and fry them in lard, to be eaten with salt as an 

 addition to meat or fowl. 



(b) Cut them in halves lengthways, scoop out the interior 

 carefully, and stuff them with minced meat, flavoured with 

 minced spring onions, parsley, pepper and salt, bound with a 

 whipped egg ; cover with breadcrumbs, and bake until the surface 

 is browned. This 11 courge farcie " can be varied by making the 

 stuffing of fish, flavoured with onions, thyme, &c, but preferably 

 with tinned sardines. 



(c) Cut up the marrows into inch cubes ; place them in a 

 pot with some finely sliced onions, some sliced green or red 

 chillies, and a lump of butter and some salt, and stew them on a 

 slow fire without any water. They will stew nicely " in their 

 own juice," and make a capital hot vegetable dish. 



Mammoth gourd or Potiron. — This fine vegetable is scarcely 

 ever seen in England. All the same, it is one of the finest 

 vegetables, of a sweetish taste when cooked. Some varieties grow 

 to such a size when ripe as to be a load for a man. This gourd 

 will keep for a long time in a dry place, and pieces of it can be 

 used as required. There are different varieties of it, some of a 

 yellow and others of a reddish colour when cut. The seeds 

 should be shaved off for cooking purposes, and the thick and hard 

 rind cut away. When cut up into lv> inch cubes, steamed to 

 tenderness and pressed through a sieve, it makes a capital gourd 

 soup, like pea-soup or tomato soup, or Jerusalem artichoke soup. 

 But the best way of cooking this interesting vegetable is the 



