½ pound cheese—dry—grated.

1 table-spoonful butter.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.

A pinch of cayenne pepper.

1 table-spoonful very fine, stale bread-crumbs—soaked in cream.

Rounds or slices of thin toast, from which the crust has been pared.

Rub the bottom of a heated frying-pan with a cut onion, then with butter. Put the cheese into it, stirring fast to prevent burning. When it has melted, put in the butter, the mustard, pepper; lastly the bread-crumbs, which have been previously soaked in cream, then pressed almost dry. Spread smoking hot upon the toast, and eat at once.

Cheese Toasted with Eggs. Maltese cross

½ pound good English cheese.

3 eggs, beaten light.

3 table-spoonfuls bread-crumbs, soaked in cream.

1 table-spoonful of mustard.

Salt and pepper to taste.

A little minced parsley.

Slices of delicate toast.

3 table-spoonfuls butter—melted, but not hot.

Beat the soaked crumb into the eggs; the butter; seasoning; lastly, the cheese. Beat very light; spread smoothly on the toast and brown quickly upon the upper grating of the oven. Be sure the bars are perfectly clean.

Cheese with Macaroni. Maltese cross

½ pound macaroni.

½ cup cream.

1½ table-spoonfuls butter.

Pepper, salt and parsley.

1 egg, beaten well, and 1 table-spoonful flour.

4 table-spoonfuls grated cheese, and a little crumbed bread.

Break the macaroni into inch lengths; boil in water slightly salted; drain perfectly dry in a cullender. Take out two table-spoonfuls of cream, and put the rest into a farina-kettle or saucepan, set within another of boiling water. When it is scalding hot, salt to taste; add half a table-spoonful of butter, then the macaroni, and heat together slowly. They should not boil. Meanwhile put the reserved cream into a small saucepan. Heat, stir in the table-spoonful of butter, pepper and parsley; the flour, wet with cold milk, the grated cheese, and when this is dissolved, the beaten egg. Pour the macaroni into a neat baking-dish, cover with the cheese mixture. Strew the top with very fine bread-crumbs, and brown quickly on the upper grating of a hot oven.

This is very good.

Cheese Fingers.

Some good pie pastry, “left over” from pie-making.

3 or 4 table-spoonfuls best English cheese, dry and old—grated.

A little salt and pepper.

1 raw egg.

Roll the paste out thin; cut into strips about four inches long and less than half as wide. Strew each with grated cheese, season with pepper and salt, double the paste upon it lengthwise, pinch the edges, and when all are ready, bake in a quick oven. Wash over with beaten egg just before taking them up, and sift a little powdered cheese upon the top. Shut the oven-door an instant to glaze them well; pile log-cabin-wise upon a hot napkin in a warm dish, and eat at once, as they are not good cold.

This will make a savory side-relish for John’s luncheon on a hurried baking-day. Pastry is none the worse for standing a day or longer in a cold, dry place, and this uses up the “odds and ends” satisfactorily and economically.

Cheese Biscuits.

Some pie-paste.

Grated cheese.

1 beaten egg.

Pepper and salt.

Cayenne pepper, if you like.

Roll out the pastry thin; strew grated cheese, seasoned, over the whole sheet and roll it up tightly. Roll out again, even thinner than before; strew the rest of the cheese; roll up and set in a cold place, half an hour, until crisp. Roll again into a sheet, cut into squares or triangles with a cake-cutter, or your jagging-iron; prick with a fork, and bake very quickly in a hot oven. Brush with beaten egg before taking up, and sift raspings of cheese over the top, shutting up in the oven for an instant to glaze the biscuits. Serve at once, on a hot napkin.

These are, it will be seen, a modification of the “fingers,” and will be preferred by some. Of course, to those who object to cooked cheese as indigestible, none of the combinations that smell so appetizing and taste so savory, will be a temptation. Cayenne is said to make these more wholesome.

Cheese fondu. Maltese cross (Delicious.)

1 cup bread-crumbs—very dry and fine.

2 scant cups of milk—rich and fresh, or it will curdle.

½ pound dry old cheese, grated.

3 eggs—whipped very light.

1 small table-spoonful melted butter.

Pepper and salt.

A pinch of soda, dissolved in hot water and stirred into the milk.

Soak the crumbs in the milk; beat into these the eggs, the butter, seasoning, lastly the cheese. Butter a neat baking-dish; pour the fondu into it, strew dry bread-crumbs on the top, and bake in a rather quick oven until delicately browned. Serve immediately in the baking-dish, as it soon falls.

The day on which this cheese-pudding first appeared on my table is marked with a “very good.” It is a pretty, cheap and palatable entrÉe, such as you need never be ashamed to set before any guest, however fastidious.

Let me say, in this connection, in explanation not apology, for my running commentary upon receipts like the above, that it is made—the commentary, I mean, “with a purpose.” The unexpected guest is sometimes an embarrassment, sometimes a horror to the inexperienced housewife.

“I remembered the cold duck in the pantry with exceeding joy; summed up the contents of bread and cake box to a crumb, between the foot of the stairs and the front-door,” confessed one to me. “By the time I had said ‘How do you do?’ all around, and kissed the babies, I remembered, with a sick thrill, that the butter was low and the coffee out (we don’t drink it ourselves), and that the whole party of new-comers must, at that hour of the evening, be ravenously hungry.”

It is wise and provident to arm oneself against such occasions by practice in the manufacture of what may be called “surprise-dishes.” With a crust of cheese in the larder, half a loaf of dry bread, an egg, a few spoonfuls of milk and a bit of butter, one is tolerably armed against an unlooked-for and unseasonable arrival. Give the guest my fondu, with a good cup of coffee, or tea, or glass of ale; bread-and-butter, cut thin, and your brightest smile, and he will not complain, even inwardly, should the cold duck be wanting.

Cream Cheese. (No. 1.)

3 pints of cream, with a teaspoonful of salt put in after it sours.

An empty salt-box, and ¼ yard of very stout, coarse lace.

Knock top and bottom out of one of the small boxes used for holding table-salt, and cleanse the broad and the narrow rims remaining, thoroughly. When dry, fit over the bottom of the box itself a piece of new strong net lace, or mosquito-netting. Fasten it in place by pressing down over it the rim of the top. The net should be drawn tightly and smoothly. Tack both rim and net to the outside of the box with small tacks driven through the former, leaving the heads protruding, that they may be easily withdrawn. This is your cheese-press. If you can get a small wire sieve with coarse meshes, it will save you trouble. The cream should have been set aside until it thickens or “loppers,” in a solid curd. Inside of your mould lay a piece of clean white tarletane, fitted neatly to the sides and bottom, and projecting all around above the press. Pour in the cream, opening the flakes gently with a spoon to allow the whey to reach the bottom of the press, but do not stir it. Set the mould upon two slender sticks laid on a bowl, and let it drip two days. If the mould will not hold all the cream, add it during the first day, as the curd sinks. By the third day it will be a rich, smooth mass. If not quite firm, trim down the round board you took out of the top, cover the cheese with a thin cloth, and press the board firmly upon it. Lay a weight on this—not heavy enough to break the net—and leave for some hours longer. A saucer or small plate will do almost as well as the board. When the cheese is ready to eat, which will be when it is firm, remove the oil from the top by laying a piece of blotting or tissue paper upon it, and lift from the mould by taking hold of the projecting edges of cloth. It will be found very nice. This is the famous English cream cheese.

Cream Cheese. (No. 2.) Maltese cross

Make cottage cheese as directed in “Common Sense in the Household,” page 268, or, what is easier, buy two or three “pats” of the same from some honest countrywoman in the market. To each little cheese allow a table-spoonful of melted butter, and three or four of good sweet cream, with a little salt and pepper. Work in the butter first with a silver spoon, and very thoroughly, then the cream, until all is light and smooth. Make into neat rolls, or shape into miniature cheeses upon a plate; print as you would butter, and set in a cold place half an hour. They should be eaten fresh.

Cheese PatÉs. Maltese cross

Rounds of bread, cut and fried as for Swiss patÉs.

5 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.

½ cup hot water.

2 eggs, yolks only.

Pepper and salt.

Handful bread-crumbs.

1 table-spoonful of butter.

Put the water on the fire, and, when it boils, stir in the butter and seasoning, the cheese, and, when this is melted, the eggs. Heat together one minute; put in the bread-crumbs and pour a good spoonful of the mixture into each of the cavities left in the rounds of fried bread. Brown very quickly in the oven, and serve on a folded napkin.

Cheese Sandwiches. Maltese cross

¼ pound good English cheese—grated.

3 eggs, boiled hard—use the yolks only.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

Thin slices of buttered bread.

Pepper and salt.

Rub the yolks to a smooth paste with the butter, season, and work in the cheese. Spread the bread, and fold upon the mixture.

Ramakins.

3 table-spoonfuls grated cheese.

2 eggs, beaten light.

1 table-spoonful melted butter.

1 teaspoonful anchovy sauce.

Pepper—cayenne is best.

1 teaspoonful flour, wet with cream.

Rounds of lightly-toasted bread.

Beat the butter and seasoning in with the eggs; then the cheese; lastly the flour; working until the mixture is of creamy lightness. Spread thickly upon the bread, and brown quickly.

This is a Dutch compound, but eatable despite the odd name.

Cheese Pudding.

½ pound dry cheese, grated fine.

1 cup dry bread-crumbs.

4 eggs, well beaten.

1 cup minced meat—one-third ham—two-thirds fowl.

1 cup milk and one of good gravy—veal or fowl.

1 teaspoonful butter, and a pinch of soda in the milk.

Season with pepper and a very little salt.

Stir the milk into the beaten eggs, then the bread-crumbs, seasoning, meat, lastly, the cheese. Beat up well, but not too long, else the milk may, in spite of the soda, curdle.

Butter a mould; pour in the pudding, cover, and boil three-quarters of an hour steadily. Turn out upon a hot dish, and pour the gravy over it.