ROUND THE TABLE

Melt a piece of butter in a saucepan, and in it place your peas raw, with some onioD, lettuce, mint or parsley or both tied up in a bundle, pepper, salt, and the least bit of nutmeg (grated). Keep tossing the peas till quite done, when remove the bundle and add a small pat of butter ; then serve. The yolk of one egg or more, accord- ing to the quantity of peas, beaten up with a little water and stirred into them just before serving, is an improve- ment, and so is a small quantity of sugar.

Another form, which is adapted for peas of all ages, consists in chopping some fat bacon very fine, with either onion or shallot in a small quantity and a little parsley. The raw peas are put with this into a saucepan, and — a due quantity of salt and pepper being added — they are tossed on the fire till done ; I need hardly mention that the tossing is not to be continuous. Suppress the bundle and serve. Ham may be used instead of fat bacon, but in that case a little butter should be added. Savory (, sariette ) is a good herb to use with peas instead of mint or parsley.

The following is the most artistic way of preparing young peas, and what, in England would be called the “ richest.”

Put the peas to cook in butter with a bundle as de- scribed above, pepper, salt, &c. ; when they are done beat up some cream with a little sugar and the yolk of an egg. Stir this into the peas, and — after suppressing the bundle serve, with sippets of bread fried in fresh butter.

Heads of asparagus cut up in small pieces as if to put into soup, can be dressed in the same way as peas. In its proper season, however, there is but one way of eating asparagus, and that is plainly boiled.

The proper way to prepare asparagus is to scrape each head with the back of a knife, then to tie it in small

VEGETABLES.

bundles of a dozen beads each, and to cut off the ends evenly ; and it is best, if possible, to cut off all that part of the asparagus which cannot be eaten. Put it into a panful of fast boiling water with plenty of salt, and in about ten minutes it will be done. Practice can best teach the exact length of time required, and it must be borne in mind that of all vegetables asparagus can least bear being overdone. It should be well drained the instant it is done, and — the bundles being untied — served on a napkin. The usual practice of serving asparagus on toast is not nice, and as for eating the toast, as some do, that is less nice still. Plain melted butter, sauce blanche , or a simple salad sauce, are the best to eat with asparagus, but there is a form of sauce which fits aspa- ragus very well I think, and this is butter liquefied and beaten up with pepper, salt, and the pounded yolks of hard boiled eggs.

Asparagus also makes very good fritters.

If seakale is to be eaten in the plain English fashion it should be cooked in the same way as asparagus, only it requires to boil a little longer, and care must be taken that the water in which it is cooking boils evenly, for should the water stop boiling the seakale will be spoilt. It is well, when boiling seakale, to put a piece of butter in the water.

Artichokes do not appear in a general way upon English tables. English cookery-books, with one or two exceptions, describe but one mode of cooking this vegetable — viz., plain boiling. Now, a plain boiled artichoke has merits when accompanied by a cunningly devised sauce, having just enough condiment to relieve without killing the flavour of the artichoke ; but if the vegetable be young and fresh gathered, it is still better eaten raw with a sauce poivrade — i.e., a judicious mix-