1 fine egg-plant.

2 eggs.

½ cup milk.

A little salt.

Flour for thin batter, and lard, or dripping, for frying. Slice and pare the egg-plant, and lay in salt-and-water one hour. Wipe perfectly dry, make a batter as directed above, dip each piece in it, and fry to a fine brown. Drain dry, and serve on hot, flat dish.

Mock Fried Oysters. Maltese cross

1 bunch oyster-plant, or salsify.

2 eggs—well beaten.

½ cup milk.

Flour for thin batter, and lard or dripping for frying.

Pepper and salt.

Wash, scrape and grate the salsify, and stir into the batter, beating hard at the last. It should be about as thick as fritter batter. Season, and drop, by the spoonful, into the hot fat. Try a little, at first, to see if batter and fat are right. As fast as they are fried, throw into a hot cullender, set over a bowl in the oven. Send to table dry and hot.

They are delicious if eaten at once.

Mock Stewed Oysters. Maltese cross

1 bunch oyster-plant.

4 table-spoonfuls butter.

A little flour or corn-starch.

Vinegar-and-water for boiling.

Pepper and salt.

½ cup milk.

Wash and scrape the oyster-plant very carefully; drop into weak vinegar-and-water, bring quickly to a boil, and cook ten minutes; turn off the vinegar-water; rinse the salsify in boiling water; throw this out, and cover with more from the tea-kettle. Stew gently ten minutes longer; add pepper and salt and two table-spoonfuls butter. Stew in this until tender.

Meanwhile, heat, in a farina-kettle, the milk, thicken, add the remaining butter, and keep hot until the salsify is done, when transfer it to this sauce. Pepper and salt; let all lie together in the inner kettle, the water in the outer at a slow boil, for five minutes. Pour into a covered dish.

Fritters of Canned Corn. Maltese cross

1 can sweet corn, drained in a cullender.

3 eggs—very light.

1 cup of milk.

Pepper and salt.

1 table-spoonful butter.

Flour for thin batter.

Dripping for frying.

A pinch of soda.

Beat up the batter well, stir in the corn and drop the mixture in spoonfuls into the boiling fat. Drain off all the grease in a cullender.

Or,

You may fry on the griddle as you would cakes.

Devilled Tomatoes.

Fine, firm tomatoes—about a quart.

3 hard-boiled eggs—the yolks only.

3 table-spoonfuls melted butter.

3 table-spoonfuls vinegar.

2 raw eggs, whipped light.

1 teaspoonful powdered sugar.

1 saltspoonful salt.

1 teaspoonful made mustard.

A good pinch of cayenne pepper.

Pound the boiled yolks; rub in the butter and seasoning. Beat light, add the vinegar, and heat almost to a boil. Stir in the beaten egg until the mixture begins to thicken. Set in hot water while you cut the tomatoes in slices nearly half an inch thick. Broil over a clear fire upon a wire oyster-broiler. Lay on a hot chafing-dish, and pour the hot sauce over them.

Baked Tomatoes. Maltese cross

1 quart fine smooth tomatoes. The “Trophy,” if you can get them.

1 cup bread-crumbs.

1 small onion, minced fine.

1 teaspoonful white sugar.

1 table-spoonful butter—melted.

Cayenne and salt.

½ cup good broth.

Cut a piece from the top of each tomato. With a teaspoon take out the inside, leaving a hollow shell. Chop the pulp fine, mix with the crumbs, butter, sugar, pepper, salt and onion. Fill the cavities of the tomatoes with this stuffing; replace the tops; pack them in a baking-dish and fill the interstices with the stuffing. Pour the gravy also into these; set the dish covered in an oven, and bake half an hour, before uncovering, after which brown lightly, and send to table in the baking-dish.