Pea Fritters or Cakes+

Cook a pint or three cups more peas than you need for dinner. Mash while hot with a wooden spoon, seasoning with pepper, salt, and butter. Put by until morning. Make a batter of two whipped eggs, a cupful of milk, quarter teaspoonful soda, a half teaspoonful cream tartar, and half a cup of flour. Stir the pea-mixture into this, beating very hard, and cook as you would ordinary griddle-cakes.

I can testify, from experience, that they make a delightful morning dish, and hereby return thanks to the unknown friend to whom I am indebted for the receipt.

Asparagus (boiled.)

Cut your stalks of equal length, rejecting the woody or lower portions, and scraping the white part which remains. Throw into cold water as you scrape them. Tie in a bunch with soft strings - muslin or tape - and put into boiling water slightly salted. If very young and fresh, it is well to tie in a piece of coarse net to protect the tops. Boil from twenty to forty minutes, according to the age. Just before it is done, toast two or three slices of bread, cutting off the crust; dip in the asparagus liquor, butter, and lay in a hot dish. When you take up the asparagus, drain, unbind the bundle, and heap it upon the toast, with bits of butter between the stalks.

Asparagus And Eggs

Cut twenty-five or thirty heads of asparagus into bits half an inch long, and boil fifteen minutes. Have a cupful of rich drawn butter in a saucepan, and put in the asparagus when you have drained it dry. Heat together to a boil, seasoning with pepper and salt, and pour into a buttered bake dish. Break five or six eggs carefully over the surface; put a bit of butter upon each ; sprinkle with salt, and pepper, and put in the oven until the eggs are set.

Or,+

You may beat the eggs - yolks and whites separately - to a froth; season with butter, pepper, and salt; stir them together, with the addition of three tablespoonfuls of milk or cream, and pour evenly over the asparagus mixture in the dish. This is decidedly the better way of the two, although somewhat more troublesome.

Asparagus in Ambush+

Cut off the tender tops of fifty heads of asparagus; boil and drain them. Have ready half a dozen (or more) stale buiscuit or rolls, from which you have cut a neat top slice and scraped out the crumb. Set them in the oven to crisp, laying the tops beside them that the cavities may be well dried. Meanwhile, put into a saucepan a sugarless custard made of a pint - if you need so much - of milk, and four well-whipped eggs. Boil the milk first, before beating in the eggs; set over the fire and stir until it thickens, when add a great spoonful of butter, a little salt and pepper; lastly, the asparagus tops, minced fine. Do not let it boil, but take from the fire so soon as the asparagus is fairly in; fill the rolls with the mixture, put on the tops, fitting them accurately; set in the oven three minutes, and arrange on a dish, to be eaten hot.

The number of rolls will depend upon their size. It is better to have them small, so that one can be served to each person. They will be found extremely nice.