RICE m.u.f.fINS.
Sift together half a teaspoonful of salt, a heaping teaspoonful of baking powder, and two cupfuls of flour. Add two well-beaten eggs to one cupful of sweet milk, and stir into the flour, with one teaspoonful of melted b.u.t.ter and one cupful of dry boiled rice. Beat thoroughly, and bake in b.u.t.tered pans for thirty-five minutes. Serve with maple syrup.
TURKEY SALAD.
Cut the cold turkey meat into dice and mix it with twice the quant.i.ty of diced celery and one cupful of broken walnut meats. Mix all well together and moisten with a good boiled dressing. Serve in a nest of bleached lettuce.
CHEESE b.a.l.l.s.
Roll rich pastry out very thin, cut it into circles with a small tumbler, put two teaspoonfuls of grated cheese in the center of each, add a dash of cayenne and a teaspoonful of finely chopped walnut meats, then draw the edges of the paste together over the cheese, pinching it well to form a little ball. Bake in a hot oven to a very pale brown.
Before serving reheat in the oven.
STRAWBERRY TRIFLE.
Cut one large stale sponge cake in horizontal slices the whole length of the loaf. They should be half an inch thick. Beat the whites of four eggs to a stiff snow, divide it into two portions; into one stir two level tablespoons of powdered sugar and one-half of a grated cocoanut; into the other stir the same amount of powdered sugar and one-half pound of sweet almonds blanched and pounded. Spread the slices of cake with these mixtures, half with the cocoanut and half with the almond, and replace them in their original form. The top crust should be cut off before slicing the cake as it is used for a lid. Hold the sliced cake firmly together and with a sharp knife cut down deep enough to leave only an inch at the bottom, and take out the center, leaving walls only one inch thick. Soak the part removed in a bowl with one cupful of rich custard flavored with lemon. Rub it to a smooth batter, then whip into it one cupful of cream which has been whipped to a dry stiff froth. Fill the cavity of the cake with alternate layers of this mixture and very rich preserved strawberries. Then put on the lid and ice with a frosting made with the whites of three eggs, one heaping cupful of powdered sugar and the juice of one lemon. Spread it smoothly over the sides and top of the cake, and keep in a very cold place until time to serve. Then place it on a silver or crystal dish, and put alternate spoonfuls of the whipped cream mixture and preserved strawberries around the base.
MERINGUES FILLED WITH PRESERVED WALNUTS.
Beat the whites of six eggs to a stiff firm snow, stir into it three-fourths of a pound of powdered sugar, flavor with a little lemon or rose water, and continue to beat until very light. Then drop them from a spoon, a little more than an inch apart, on well b.u.t.tered paper, keeping them as nearly egg-shaped as possible. Place the paper on a half-inch board and bake in a slow oven until well dried out. Remove from the paper, sc.r.a.pe out the soft part from the underside, and before serving fill with preserved walnuts and stick each two together. The preserved walnuts are a very delicious sweet but one rarely met with.
CHAPTER III.
A CUBAN BREAKFAST.
The palm, of course, is the key note for decoration, as it is the characteristic plant of the tropics. But in order to be true to the scheme in mind, that is, to make your surroundings appear truly southern and create a local atmosphere, a marked difference should be made between the arrangement of our usual American interior and the room which aims at the imitation of a Cuban home. Light and air are most important, the factors _sine qua non_, and the scene of the _Almuerzo_ (breakfast) should not recall the hot house, the conservatory, nor the dimly lighted, heavily curtained apartment of our northern dwellings.
There should be s.p.a.ce, plenty of windows, the fewest possible hangings, and these light in weight and color.
For the mantel and table decorations dwarf palms are very effective, while larger ones of many varieties are appropriate for corners and other available places. Very pretty souvenirs can be made of small palm leaf fans. A Cuban landscape and the name of a guest are painted thereon, and tiny Cuban and American flags tied on the handle make a neat finish.
As most of the dishes served will be new to the guests, it is advisable to have at each place a menu card where they may see how the dishes are called, that they may not only relish them knowingly but remember their excellence.
The hour for breakfast is noon, although it may be taken as late as one o"clock.
Here is a typical breakfast which can be easily reproduced with the material at our command.
_Almuerzo_ _Olives_ _Aeles Sausage_ _Eggs in Revoltillo_ _Boiled Rice_ _Fried Plantains_ _Fish in Escabeche_ _New Potatoes_ _Tenderloin Steak_ _Lettuce Salad_ _Guava Paste and Fresh Cheese_ _Cocoanut Desert_ _Fruit_ _Coffee_
The olives should be served with cracked ice; the Aeles sausage (imported) in very thin slices.
EGGS IN REVOLTILLO.
Fry in a little b.u.t.ter a good sized onion chopped fine; when brown, add three fresh tomatoes and one sweet green pepper cut into small bits.
Salt to taste and let simmer until the tomatoes are quite cooked, then add six eggs which have been beaten. Stir while cooking and serve soft as you would scrambled eggs.
BOILED RICE.
Rice in Cuba is an indispensable article of food, and no meal is complete without it. There is no little art required in its preparation, and it is imperative that it should be dry and tender at once. Like most simple things, it has a certain knack to it. Having thoroughly washed the rice, place it in a saucepan with three or four times the same quant.i.ty of water; salt generously and allow to boil until the grain is soft but not broken; drain off carefully all the water, cover the saucepan tightly and place at the back of the stove, where it will finish cooking slowly and become dry through the action of the steam. A small piece of lard added a few moments before serving glazes the rice and brings out its flavor. Each grain should stand apart from its neighbors. Some Cubans add a single kernel of garlic after removing the water. The quant.i.ty is so small that there is but a suspicion of a taste, and it gives this frugal dish a certain _cachet_.
FRIED PLANTAINS
are essential to every breakfast in the tropics, but they are not always obtainable here. A very good subst.i.tute is the ordinary banana. It should not be over ripe. Fry until a rich brown in hot fat. These three dishes should be served at one course.
FISH IN ESCABECHE.
Take three pounds of bonito or halibut in slices, fry and lay for several hours in a sauce made of half a pint of vinegar, in which the following ingredients have boiled for a few minutes: Three or four cloves, a bay leaf, a pinch of thyme, a kernel of garlic, a sliced onion, half a teaspoonful of coloring pepper, three tablespoonfuls of good salad oil and a few capers, olives and pickles. Hard boiled eggs may also be used for garnishing. It is eaten cold, and will keep, well covered in a stone jar, for weeks. (This dish is invaluable in summer.) Serve with new potatoes, boiled, over which a lump of b.u.t.ter and a tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley have been placed.
TENDERLOIN STEAK.
The best restaurants in Habana prepare the steak as follows: Take a tender filet of beef, cut in cross sections an inch and a half thick, wrap each piece in greased paper, and broil over a brisk fire. Remove the papers, add b.u.t.ter, salt, pepper and plenty of lemon juice--say the juice of two lemons for a whole filet. In Cuba they use the juice of the sour orange, but that is not to be had here. This is the _creole_ style, and is simply a modification of the French way. If you want the steak _a la espanola_, it should be fried instead of broiled, and when well done each piece surmounted by a _mojo_. The _mojo_ is a little mound consisting of onions and green peppers chopped very fine, and lemon juice added to the gravy.
Guava paste is easily obtained from any importer, and it is the proper thing to eat it with fresh cream cheese or sliced Edam cheese.
COCOANUT DESSERT.
This is purely a tropical dish, but Americans are very fond of it. Peel and grate a cocoanut; make a syrup out of four cups of sugar and two of water; when the syrup begins to thicken (when it has boiled about five minutes) throw in the grated cocoanut and cook on a moderate fire half an hour more; stir in the beaten yolks of three eggs and a wine gla.s.s full of sherry. Remove from the fire.
The final point of your breakfast is the coffee, and in Cuban eyes the affair will be a success or a failure according to the quality of this supreme nectar. The berry should be the best obtainable; freshly roasted, or at least the flavor refreshened by heating the grain in the oven a few minutes before using. Grind and percolate at the last moment.
Serve black and _very strong_, in very small cups.
CHAPTER IV.
SPRING AND AUTUMN BREAKFASTS.
The centerpiece is of moss and ferns with arbutus blossoms peeping out, with a border of green and white fairy lamps mushroom form. Miniature flower beds, marked off with tiny white sh.e.l.ls are in each of the four corners of the table. In one lilies of the valley stand upright, narcissii are in another, white tulips in a third and white lilacs wired on a tiny bush make the fourth. The name cards have tiny photographs of a farm with the name of the guests in gilt script. At each place is a tiny May basket of moss filled with arbutus, spring beauties, and wild violets, for a souvenir. The ice cream in flower forms is brought in in a spun sugar nest resting on twigs of p.u.s.s.y willows. The menu is a very simple one and includes grape fruit, the center cut out and filled with a lump of sugar soaked in rum, cream of clams, shredded whitefish in sh.e.l.ls with horseradish and cuc.u.mbers, filet of beef with mushrooms, new potatoes, new asparagus, mint ice, squab on toast with shoestring potatoes, current jelly; salad of cuc.u.mbers, pecan nuts and lettuce with French dressing; ice cream, white cake, and black cake, coffee and cream de menthe.
APRIL BREAKFAST.
April"s lady wears the p.u.s.s.ywillow for her flower, and this makes a delightful springlike motif for decoration. For the breakfast have round tables or one long table with twig baskets of p.u.s.s.ywillows tied with bows of soft gra.s.ses, raffia dyed a silvery grey. The table is set with the old-fashioned willow pattern china, quaint Sheffield silver and is unmarked by any of the small dishes of sweets that fill breakfast tables. The name cards are decorated with sprays of p.u.s.s.ywillows in the upper left corner and miniatures of famous women writers of this and the past decade taken from magazines: George Eliot, Miss Austen, Miss Mulock, Jean Ingelow, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Felicia Hemans, Louisa M. Alcott, Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Mrs. Burton Harrison, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps, Margaret Deland.