Pour boiling water on the almonds; cool and remove the skins; dry thoroughly and brown in a hot oven, using a half tablespoon of butter or olive oil (preferably the oil) to each cup of nuts, which must be shaken frequently. When brown, sprinkle well with salt and spread on paper to dry and cool. A still easier way to prepare the nuts is to cook them over the fire, using a larger quantity of olive oil. As the oil can be saved and used again, this method is not necessarily extravagant.
One pound of cheese, one-eighth pound of butter, one-half glass of ale, one teaspoon of mustard, one egg (well beaten), and salt and paprika. Put butter in pan, and when melted add cheese cut up or grated; stir, and as cheese melts, add ale. When it begins to bubble, add egg well beaten. Stir continually to keep from getting stringy. In two or three minutes it will be ready to serve. Pour over hot buttered toast. This quantity is sufficient for four persons.
Prick the plums with a large needle then weigh them, and to every seven pounds of fruit use four pounds of white sugar, two ounces of stick cinnamon, one ounce of cloves and a pint of best pickling vinegar. Boil the vinegar, sugar and spices, and pour boiling hot over the fruit, which must be packed in a large jar; repeat this three times. While the vinegar boils the third time, pack the plums in glass jars and pour the syrup over the plums. When cold seal.
Split fish, clean, and remove head and tail. Put in buttered pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper and dot over with butter (allowing one tablespoon to a medium-sized fish), pour over two-thirds of a cup of milk. Bake twenty-five minutes in a hot oven.
Mix thoroughly one pound of cheese, one and one-half tablespoons of cream, one tablespoon of chopped parsley and salt to taste. First fill a rectangular tin mold with cold water to chill and wet the surface; line the bottom with waxed paper, then pack in three layers, putting two or three parallel strips of pimento between layers. Cover with waxed paper and set in a cool place until ready to serve; then run a knife around the sides and invert the mold. Cut in slices and serve on lettuce leaves with French dressing and wafers. Minced olives may be used instead of the parsley, and chopped nuts also may be added.
Either cold boiled salmon or the canned variety may be used. In the latter event wash the fish, in cold water, drain and expose to the outside air for at least one hour, as this removes any suggestion of the can. Flake the fish into small particles and to each cupful of the fish add the same quantity of shredded lettuce, one coarsely chopped hard-boiled egg, three slices of minced cucumber and six chopped olives. Mix the ingredients well, moisten with either a mayonnaise or boiled dressing and serve in individual portions in nest of heart lettuce leaves. Mask each portion with a tablespoon of dressing and garnish with capers and grated egg yolk.
Soak herring a few hours, when washed and cleaned, bone and chop. To one herring take one onion, one sour apple, a slice of white bread which has been soaked in vinegar, chop all these; add one teaspoon oil, a little cinnamon and pepper. Put on platter in shape of a herring with head at top and tail at bottom of dish, and sprinkle the chopped white of a hard-boiled egg over fish and then the chopped yolk.
