Boil 1/2 cup of corn-meal, and before removing from the fire add a piece of butter and a little grated cheese and mix well. Take it then by spoonfuls and spread it on a marble-top table. These spoonfuls should form little balls about the size of a hen's egg. On each of these croquettes place a very thin slice of Gruyère cheese, so that the cheese will adhere to the corn-meal. Then allow them to cool, and when cold dip into egg; then into bread-crumbs, and fry in boiling lard.
Five or six mushrooms and 3/4 of a cup of rice.
Chop up a little onion, parsley, celery, and carrot together, and put them on the fire with 2 tablespoons of good olive-oil. When this sauce is coloured, add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste, thinned with hot water. Season with salt and pepper. Cut the mushrooms into small pieces, and add them to the sauce. Cook for 20 minutes over a medium fire. Put on one side and prepare the rice as follows:
Fry the rice with a lump of butter until dry; then add hot water, a little at a time, and boil gently. When the rice is half cooked (after about 10 minutes) add the mushrooms and sauce, and cook for another 10 minutes. Add grated Parmesan cheese before serving.
Soak half an hour 2 cups bread-crumbs in 1 cup thin cream (milk will do with butter added).
To this add grated rind half lemon; 1 tablespoon minced parsley; 1 tablespoon minced chives; 1 teaspoon salt; pepper; yolks two eggs.
Fill buttered timbale moulds or one large mould with this mixture, cover with buttered paper, and bake 20 minutes in moderate oven in a pan half filled with hot water.
Remove from moulds and pour cheese sauce around it.
Put 2 tablespoons butter on fire. Add 2 tablespoons flour and blend to a paste. Add 1/2 teaspoon salt and a dash of cayenne. Then add gradually 1 cup milk. Cook five minutes, then add 1 cup grated cheese. Do not allow it to boil after adding the cheese but serve at once.
Take 3 chopped shallots, put them in a stew-pan with a tablespoonful of olive oil, salt, pepper, a dash of ground ginger, a very little ground nutmeg. Let the shallots take a good colour without burning; add 6 tomatoes skinned and all the pits well squeezed out. Let them cook very gently until all the moisture has disappeared. They should take the consistency of jam.