Part 10

XVI.

ENTRÉES.--Continued.

Pigeon Cutlets.--Take half a dozen young pigeons, split them down the back, and bone them, all but the leg, cutting off the wings at the second joint. Cut each bird in two down the breast; trim off all ragged edges, so that each half-bird has as much as possible the appearance of a cutlet, the leg serving for the bone. Sauté these cutlets, having seasoned them with pepper and salt, for three minutes in hot butter, then put them in the oven for five minutes. When done, press between two plates till cold. Then mask each cutlet with a thick purée of tomatoes and mushrooms in which aspic jelly has been mixed, equal parts of each. Let them be put on ice to stiffen the masking. Roll in fine cracker meal, then dip into well-beaten egg, again into the meal, and then place them in a sauté pan with very hot clarified butter, and cook them a fine golden brown. Dish up on a border of mashed potatoes browned with grated Parmesan; serve mushrooms in the centre and Spanish sauce all round.

Pigeons à la Tartare.--The pigeons should be trussed for broiling; flatten well with a rolling-pin without breaking the skin, season them with pepper and salt, dip into clarified butter and cover with very fine crumbs or cracker meal. Broil them carefully, turning often. Make a sauce of a scant tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley, a shallot, two spoonfuls of pickled gherkins, and a boned anchovy. Mince all finely and separately. Squeeze over them the juice of a lemon; add half a tablespoonful of water and six of oil, and a little pepper. Mix all very well, and just before serving rub in a teaspoonful of dry mustard. Put the sauce into the dish, lay the pigeons over, and serve.

Compote of Pigeons.--For any dish of pigeons except roast or broiled, wild birds may be used in place of tame. Their flavor is far finer, and if not perfectly young, which is the main objection to the use of wild birds, the preparation remedies the defect. Cut four ounces of lean unsmoked bacon into pieces, and fry five minutes. Split the pigeons in half, skewer each half as neatly as possible with tiny skewers, so that they will not sprawl when dished; flour and season them lightly, and fry a nice brown on both sides; add one small carrot, one small turnip, two sticks of celery, one shallot, six mushrooms--all cut small; add a bouquet garni and three gills of rich stock; let them all simmer very slowly in a stewpan for one hour, or longer if the birds are not young. Simmer together a tablespoonful of flour and one of butter; pepper and salt (quantities depend on whether the stock be seasoned); stir constantly, and when they begin to change color pour a gill of brown stock to it, stirring well; remove from the fire. Take up the pigeons, strain the gravy, then stir in the brown thickening you have made; boil up, skim off all fat, then return the birds; let them get thoroughly hot, but not boil. Serve on a border of mashed potatoes, pour the gravy round and over them, and fill the centre with peas or spinach.

Soufflé of Partridges.--Clean and cook two partridges; remove the breasts and best of the other flesh without skin or sinew. Take two ounces of rice cooked till very tender, pound them together in a mortar with one ounce of butter and a gill and a half of glaze melted, a teaspoonful of salt, and a sixth of pepper. Pound until the whole can be forced through a strainer, then add the beaten yolks of four eggs, and last of all the whites of two beaten till they will not slip from the dish; stir them very lightly into the mixture. Pour it into a silver soufflé case, or into a number of the small china cases. Bake till it rises, and then serve immediately with a tureen of rich brown sauce. This soufflé can be made of any kind of cold bird or fish. The four eggs are given for medium-sized partridges.

Salmis of Snipe.--Clean and roast lightly six snipe, saving the trail. When done let them get cold, then cut them up and remove the skin, and lay them in a buttered stewpan; pound the trimmings and bones in a mortar, and put them into a stewpan with two shallots, a clove, a bouquet of herbs, and half a pint of claret; let this simmer until reduced to one half. Then add three quarters of a pint of Spanish sauce. Let these very gently simmer for half an hour, skimming frequently; strain through a fine sieve, and return to the stewpan. If it is not thick enough to coat the spoon, reduce a little more. Pour this sauce over the snipe in the sauté pan, and let it get hot without boiling; pile the pieces in a pyramid; meanwhile chop the trail, mix with half the quantity of pâté de foie gras and a little salt and pepper; spread this on croûtons, bake, and use them to garnish the snipe.

Fillets of Teal with Anchovies.--Remove the breasts from a pair of teal after they have been three parts roasted. Take care to preserve each half breast in good shape. Lay these fillets seasoned in a china fire-proof dish which has been well buttered and strewed with grated Parmesan; split two anchovies, remove the bone. Wash and dry the four halves, lay one on each fillet of teal, moisten with a gill of fish stock, sprinkle with bread crumbs and grated Parmesan cheese, lay small pieces of butter over, and bake in the oven fifteen minutes. The last thing before serving squeeze the juice of a lemon over all.

Rabbits are so little cared for in this country that it may seem useless to give recipes for using them. There are probably two reasons for the low estimate in which rabbit is held here. One, that as they are offered in market they are skinny, miserable animals. Yet there are parts of the country where they attain a good size, and a fine plump rabbit may compare favorably with fowl for many purposes. Indeed, English epicures use it in preference for mulligatawny. The second reason, and probably the one that is the real reason, for the difference in taste is because, being so lightly esteemed, no care is ever given to the preparation of them.

On the chance that some reader may feel inclined to test the possibilities of the native rabbit, and its claims to a place in choice cookery, I give two or three recipes, each admirable in its way. Rabbits should be used quite fresh, and cleaned and wiped dry as soon after they are killed as possible.

Grenadines of Rabbit à la Soubise.--Take the whole backs of two rabbits from the shoulders to the thighs, both of which you reject; cut away the ribs and the thin part that forms the stomach, leaving only the backbone with solid flesh each side; divide this into sections, about two joints to each. Lard them, and then braise for one hour. Stand them in a circle, and pour over and round them a pint of brown Soubise sauce.

Fillets of Rabbit with Cucumber.--Half roast a rabbit, then remove the solid flesh from each side the backbone in long fillets. Cut two cucumbers and one Bermuda onion in thin slices, salt them, and let them drain. Lard the fillets of rabbit, season them, and lay them in a stewpan, with a pint of white sauce slightly thinned with white stock, the cucumber, and the onion. Let them simmer for half an hour. Lay the fillets in a circle, and put the cucumber and onion in the centre, the sauce, which should be thick enough to mask them, over the fillets. Fried sippets garnish this dish.

A Civet.--For this dish the dark-fleshed rabbit, or hare, as it is often called, is best. Cut it into meat joints; cut half a pound of unsmoked bacon into slices, and fry in a saucepan; then lay in the hare, and sauté for fifteen minutes. Pour off the fat. Add half a pint of port-wine, a bouquet garni, and a dozen mushrooms, and a little pepper and salt; let this simmer gently one hour; then add a pint of brown sauce and twenty button onions which have been blanched. Simmer for another half-hour. Remove the bouquet, add a gill of stewed and strained tomato, half a gill of glaze, and a tablespoonful of Chutney. Serve in a pyramid, pour the gravy, after it is well skimmed, over the whole, and garnish with fried croûtons.

Timbales d’Épinard.--Make some quenelle meat of chicken or veal according to directions already given, and mix with purée of spinach, prepared as follows, until it is a nice green; pick and wash some spinach, put it into salted boiling water, and boil fast for fifteen minutes. Drain and press it, then beat it through a wire sieve; return to the saucepan with two ounces of butter; pepper and salt; stir till well mixed. Stir a gill of cream to the quenelle meat, then use enough of the spinach to give it a fine light-green color. When well mixed, butter some dariole moulds; nearly fill them. Then dip your finger in cold water and press a hole in the centre of each to the bottom; fill it with a purée of ham, and then put a coating of quenelle meat over, and steam twenty minutes.

Purée of ham is prepared as follows: pound lean boiled ham in a mortar with some stock that has been boiled down to half glaze; rub through a wire sieve. If too stiff, moisten with a little more melted glaze.

XVII.

COLD ENTRÉES, OR CHAUDFROIDS.

These elegant dishes are suitable for formal breakfasts, luncheons, and suppers, and while presenting an unusually attractive appearance, are easier to manage than less elaborate dishes, because they can usually be prepared, all but garnishing, the day before.

Although in giving the recipes meat cooked for the purpose will always be directed, and for formal purposes no care or expense should be spared, the intelligent reader will see where she may make a very pretty dish by utilizing cold fowl, game, or lamb for any simple occasion.

Sweetbreads au Montpellier.--Parboil a pair of fine white sweetbreads, after soaking them in salt and water an hour. Let them get cold between two plates under slight pressure. Cut them into the form of cutlets (cutlet cutters are to be obtained at the fashionable New York hardware stores, and at the large French tin-shops down-town). Have some firm aspic jelly not quite set; dip each cutlet in it; chop some aspic that is hard and cold roughly; form a circle of it; arrange the cutlets on this; fill the centre with asparagus heads; pour mayonnaise round, and garnish with fancy shapes of aspic, red and white alternately. Red aspic is colored with pulp of the red beet stirred into it while liquid and then strained out; green is produced by spinach. The various shades of amber, shading into rich brown, that are so effective when tastefully mingled, are due to caramel coloring. When colored aspic is required for garnishing, pour off a little into separate vessels, and color each as required.

Chicken Salad à la Prince.--Cut the white meat of cold fowl into neat fillets, using a very sharp knife, so that there may be no ragged edges. Mask each piece with a mixture made as follows: One tablespoonful of finely minced capers, two of minced boiled ham, three hard-boiled eggs, an anchovy boned and washed, and two sardines freed from skin. All these must be well pounded, then rubbed through a sieve; add a teaspoonful of finely minced tarragon and chives. Stir all into a tablespoonful of mayonnaise and one of aspic, semi-fluid of course. When each fillet has been well coated with the mixture and has set, line a border mould with aspic jelly, ornament the fillets of chicken with little strips of beet-root and cucumber arranged like a trellis-work. Place them very carefully round the mould on the layer of aspic, then pour in a little more aspic, until the border mould is full, and set it on ice. When about to serve have a dish well layered with the small leaves of lettuce. Drop the mould for one minute in warm water, and turn out on to the lettuce. Fill the centre with a salad composed of cucumber cut into dice, peas, string-beans cooked until tender (for this purpose the canned French string-beans serve admirably, being beautifully cut ready). Pour over the centre salad some thick mayonnaise.

Where mayonnaise makes too rich a dish for the digestion, béchamel sauce may be substituted for masking, but never for salad; for instance, two very simple chaudfroids of chicken may be made as follows:

Chaudfroid of Chicken, No. 1.--Cut up a young fleshy chicken into neat joints, remove the skin, mask each piece carefully with béchamel sauce; when quite set arrange on chopped aspic in a circle, garnish with strips of cucumber and beet; cut the remainder of the cucumber and beet into neat pieces, and stir into a gill of mayonnaise, and use for the centre. This and all salads should be lightly seasoned before the mayonnaise is added, or they are apt to taste flat.

Chaudfroid of Chicken, No. 2.--Prepare the chicken as in last recipe, only before masking the joints season the béchamel well with finely chopped tarragon; leave out the mayonnaise and aspic. Pile up the pieces of chicken on the entrée dish, and garnish with Roman lettuce, or, if that is not to be had, the hearts of Boston lettuce.

Chicken and Ham Cutlets.--Boil a young fowl with a good breast in clear stock; take it out, let it get cold; cut the breast into rather thin slices. The bones, skin, and trimmings may be thrown back in the stock, which can be boiled down to make both the béchamel and aspic for the dish (see recipes), or be kept for other purposes. Take the slices of chicken and some very well cooked lean ham that is cut so thin you can see the knife under the slices. Melt a little béchamel sauce, that must be like blanc-mange, pour it on a plate, and before it has time to cool cover the plate with the slices of chicken. Dip the ham into the stock (if it has been boiled down to jelly, otherwise into melted aspic), lay the ham over the chicken, then more thin slices of chicken. Now cover the whole by means of a spoon with more béchamel; when all this sets, which, as your sauce has only been half melted, it will do quickly, you have a large white cake about half an inch thick. Cut this cake into small pieces (unless you have a cutlet cutter), as like a cutlet in form as possible, using a sharp penknife or boning-knife. Take up each carefully, and with the end of a silver knife or small spoon cover the edges with the béchamel sauce, which must be nearly set for this purpose.

To garnish the cutlets, cut some tiny green leaves from pickled gherkins, and red ones from the skin of a red pepper-pod, and place two of each in the centre of each cutlet, star-shaped; a touch of white sauce will make them stick; place a speck of parsley not larger than a pin’s head in the centre. Stick a tiny lobster claw three quarters of an inch long at the narrow end of the cutlet, and place them in a silver dish round some aspic of a bright amber color, chopped. Put a very small sprig of parsley between each cutlet.

I may here remind the reader that when aspic or béchamel is used for masking or for pouring into a mould as lining, etc., it must not be made hot, only softened in a bowl set in warm water, just enough to be free from lumps. It must, of course, be stirred from the moment it begins to soften. The mould to be lined should be turned about till it is well coated, and if there is a disposition to run off the sides, roll it round in ice. For instance, when the first layer of béchamel is poured on the plate as directed in last recipe, it must be moved about until quite covered, yet very thinly. If it sets too soon, hold the bottom of the plate over steam.

Reed-birds in Aspic.--Take the back and breast bone from a dozen birds, splitting them down the back first. Save the feet. Make a force-meat of pâté de foie gras and panada in equal proportions; season highly, spread the inside of the birds, sew them up as nearly in shape as possible; bake seven to ten minutes, then dip them into glaze; put a little pale aspic in a dozen dariole moulds, enough to cover the bottom a quarter of an inch, and when just set put in a bird breast down; set on ice a few minutes, then pour in aspic to cover the bird a quarter of an inch. Put on ice. Turn out, and on the top of each strew pistachio nuts chopped very fine. Insert the two feet of the bird, scalded and dried, to stand up from the centre.