Part 2 (2/2)
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 garnis.h.i.+ng. 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-fas.h.i.+oned 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.
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