EGGS AND CUCUMBER.—­Peel and slice up two or three little cucumbers of the size generally sold on a barrow at a penny each.  Put these with two or three ounces of butter in a stew-pan, and three small onions about the size of the top of the thumb, chopped very fine; fry these and add a dessertspoonful of vinegar.  When the cucumber is tender, and a little time has been allowed for the vinegar to evaporate, add six hard-boiled eggs, cut into slices; make these very hot and serve.  Pepper and salt must be added.

EGGS WITH CHEESE.—­Take a quarter of a pound of grated cheese (the cheese should be dry and white), melt this cheese gently in a stew-pan over the fire, with a little bit of butter about as big as the thumb, in order to assist the cheese in melting.  Mix with it a brimming teaspoonful of chopped parsley, two or three tiny spring onions, chopped very fine, and about a quarter of a small grated nutmeg.  When the cheese is melted, add six beaten-up eggs, and stir the whole together till they are set.  Fried or toasted bread should be served round the edge of the dish.

LITTLE EGGS FOR GARNISHING.—­This is a nice dish when you require a lot of white of eggs for other purposes, such as iceing a wedding-cake, or making light vanilla or almond biscuits.

Take six hard-boiled yolks, powder them, flavour with a little pepper and salt, and mix in three raw yolks; mix this well together, and roll them into shapes like very small sausages, pointed at each end like a foreign cigar.  Flour these on the outside, and throw them into boiling water.  These can be used for garnishing purposes for the vast majority of vegetarian dishes.  They can be flavoured if wished with grated nutmeg, chopped parsley, and a few savoury herbs.

OMELETS.—­It is a strange fact, but not the less true, that to get a well-made omelet in a private house in this country is the exception and not the rule.  A few general remarks on making omelets will, we hope, not be out of place in writing a book on an exceptional style of cookery, in which omelets should play a most important part.

First of all, we require an omelet-pan, and for this purpose the cheaper the frying-pan the better.  The best omelet-pan of all is a copper one, tinned inside.  Copper conveys heat quicker than almost any other metal; consequently, if we use an ordinary frying-pan, the thinner it is the quicker will heat be conveyed.

It is very essential that the frying-pan be absolutely clean, and it will be found almost essential to reserve the omelet-pan for omelets only.  A frying-pan that has cooked meat should not be used for the purpose; and although in vegetarian cookery a frying-pan has not been used in this manner, we should still avoid one in which onions or vegetables, or even black butter has been made.  The inside of an omelet-pan should always look as if it had only just left the ironmonger’s shop.