Blanch them in boiling salted water, then drain and fry them in butter. Add plenty of good stock, and put them on a slow fire. Boil four ounces of rice in stock, and when it is well done add the stock with the vegetables. Season with two or three spoonsful of No. 35, and serve with grated cheese handed separately.
No. 37. Minestra of Rice and Turnips
Ingredients: Rice, turnips, butter, gravy, tomatoes.
Cut three or four young turnips into slices and put them on a dish, strew a little salt over them, cover them with another dish, and let them stand for about two hours until the water has run out of them. Then drain the slices, put them in a frying-pan and fry them slightly in butter. Add some good gravy and mashed-up tomatoes, and after having cooked this for a few minutes pour it into good boiling stock. Add three ounces of well-washed rice, and boil for half-an-hour.
Minestra loses its flavour if it is boiled too long. In Lombardy, however, rice, macaroni, &c., are rarely boiled enough for English tastes.
No. 38. Minestra alla Capucina
Ingredients: Rice, anchovies, butter, stock, and onions.
Scale an anchovy, pound it, and fry it in butter together with a small onion cut across, and four ounces of boiled rice. Add a little salt, and when the rice is a golden brown, take out the onion and gradually add some good stock until the dish is of the consistency of rice pudding.
No. 39. Minestra of Semolina
Ingredients: Stock, semolina, Parmesan.
Put as much stock as you require into a saucepan, and when it begins to boil add semolina very gradually, and stir to keep it from getting lumpy Cook it until the semolina is soft, and serve with grated Parmesan handed separately. To one quart of soup use three ounces of semolina.
No. 40. Minestrone alla Milanese
Ingredients: Rice or macaroni, ham, bacon, stock, all sorts of vegetables.
Minestrone is a favourite dish in Lombardy when vegetables are plentiful. Boil all sorts of vegetables in stock, and add bits of bacon, ham, onions braized in butter, chopped parsley, a clove of garlic with two cuts, and rice or macaroni. Put in those vegetables first which require most cooking, and do not make the broth too thin. Leave the garlic in for a quarter of an hour only.
No. 41. Minestra of Rice and Cabbage
Ingredients: Rice, cabbage, stock, ham, tomato sauce.
Cut off the stalk and all the hard outside leaves of a cabbage, wash it and cut it up, but not too small, then drain and cook it in good stock and add two ounces of boiled rice. This minestre is improved by adding a little chopped ham and a few spoonsful of tomato sauce.
No. 42. Minestra of Rice and Celery
Ingredients: Celery, rice, stock.
Cut up a head of celery and remove all the green parts, then boil it in good stock and add two ounces of rice, and boil till it is well cooked.
Fish
No. 43. Anguilla alla Milanese (Eels).
Ingredients: Eels, butter, flour, stock, bay leaves, salt, pepper, Chablis, a macedoine of vegetables.
Cut up a big eel and fry it in two ounces of butter, and when it is a good colour add a tablespoonful of flour, about half a pint of stock, a glass of Chablis, a bay leaf, pepper, and salt, and boil till it is well cooked. In the meantime boil separately all sorts of vegetables, such as carrots, cauliflower, celery, beans, tomatoes, &c. Take out the pieces of eel, but keep them hot, whilst you pass the liquor which forms the sauce through a sieve and add the vegetables to this. Let them boil a little longer and arrange them in a dish; place the pieces of eel on them and cover with the sauce. It is most important that the eels should be served very hot.
Any sort of fish will do as well for this dish.
No. 44. Filletti di Pesce alla Villeroy (Fillets of Fish)
Ingredients: Fish, flour, butter, Villeroy.
Any sort of fish will do, turbot, sole, trout, &c. Cut it into fillets, flour them over and cook them in butter in a covered stewpan; then make a Villeroy (No.