Part 5

Consommé à la Sévigné.--Pound two ounces of breast of cooked chicken until it will pass through a wide sieve. Mix with it two eggs, three tablespoonfuls of milk, twelve drops of almond essence, a scant saltspoonful of salt, as much nutmeg as will go on the end of a penknife blade, and a dust of cayenne. When well blended, fill three or four small round muffin pans, well greased, and steam slowly twenty minutes, or until set. Turn out very carefully; let them cool; then cut them into fancy shapes, and serve in one quart of boiling consommé. A few asparagus points boiled until just tender, but not mushy, are to be dropped in the last thing.

Potage à la Hollandaise.--For this will be required one quart of veal or chicken stock, two ounces of butter, one ounce of flour, four yolks of eggs, half a pint of cream, one gill of green peas, one gill of boiled carrots, one gill of boiled cucumber, one teaspoonful of fresh tarragon chopped fine, one teaspoonful of sugar, and one teaspoonful of salt. Trim the carrots and cucumber with a very small scoop or cutter the size and shape of peas; cook them just tender, and no more, in boiling water. Put the stock on to boil; skim if necessary; add the salt and sugar. Break the eggs into a bowl, add the cream to them, and beat them till well mixed. This forms a “liaison.” Make the butter and flour into a paste in a bowl, pour half a gill of cold stock to it, then enough hot stock to dissolve it; when mixed smooth, stir it into the boiling stock, let it boil, then remove from the fire, and stir in very carefully, to prevent curdling, the liaison of eggs and cream; let it come to the boiling-point, but not boil, or it will curdle. Strain it into a clean stewpan, and add the vegetables; let all get hot together; then strew in the tarragon.

Chestnut Soup (purée de marrons).--Slit twenty-five large chestnuts at each end, put them in boiling water, and boil ten minutes. Drop them into cold water, and remove both the outer and inner skin. Melt three ounces of butter in a saucepan, put in the chestnuts, and sauté (toss them about) for a few minutes, but do not brown them; then add a pint and a half of rich white stock, and let the nuts boil in it until very tender, when they must be rubbed through a fine sieve. Boil up again, add half a pint of cream, a teaspoonful of powdered sugar, a teaspoonful of salt (less if the stock be salted), and a pinch of pepper.

Princess Soup.--Cut a chicken in pieces; wash it; butter a stewpan, put in the chicken with a blade of mace, an onion, a bay-leaf, and twelve white peppercorns. Let this simmer, closely covered, ten minutes, shaking it often to prevent its browning; then put to it two quarts of hot veal stock, and simmer one hour. Put into another stewpan two ounces of flour and two ounces of butter; stir them together, and let them bubble once, then strain the liquor from the chicken to it; stir well, and cook a few minutes. Take the white meat from the bones of the chicken, pound it in a mortar very fine, stir it to the stock, then rub through a soup strainer; add just before serving half a pint of fresh cream and the juice of half a lemon. This soup must be made hot, but not boil, after the chicken pulp and cream are added.

Potage à la Royale.--Boil two ounces of macaroni till tender, but not broken; throw it into cold water. Put three pints of white stock to boil; cut the macaroni into lengths half an inch long; beat three yolks of eggs in a bowl with a gill of cream; throw the macaroni into the soup; when it boils, remove from the fire, add the cream and eggs and an ounce of grated Parmesan cheese; stir till the soup reaches the boiling-point, but by no means let it boil, after the cream and eggs are added, or it will be spoiled. Salt soup always in the proportion of a moderate teaspoonful of salt to the quart; if the stock is seasoned, only add salt for the cream, eggs, etc. Use just a suspicion of cayenne. In making soup to which eggs are added, the utmost care is required, yet not any more than in making custard. The main point is to let the eggs come near enough to the boiling-point to thicken, yet far enough from it not to curdle. This a little patience will accomplish by watching and removing the saucepan for a few seconds as the boiling-point approaches, then returning it; do this once or twice, till the opaque, creamy appearance shows the eggs are done.

VII.

FISH ENTRÉES.

Instead of giving recipes for cooking fish whole, for which excellent directions are to be found in several modern cookery books, recipes for fish entrées will be substituted. They are now frequently served at the fish course, and by their convenience and economy, as well as the variety they afford, are likely to grow in favor. Another point for them is that they can often be made hours before, and simply heated when needed, thus relieving the cook of the most critical part of her work at the time when she needs her attention free.

Some of these entrées will be more suited for breakfast, luncheon, or supper dishes than to precede a heavy dinner, such, for instance, as the preparations of oysters when they have been also served before soup; but the recipes are included here for their intrinsic worth.

Fillets of Cod à la Normande.--Butter a tin dish, lay on it three slices of cod moderately thick (an inch to an inch and a half), pour over them one wineglass of white wine, place a buttered paper over them, and bake in a moderate oven fifteen minutes. Reduce another glass of wine in a stewpan by simmering, add to it half a pint of white sauce, twelve small oysters, bearded and blanched, twelve small quenelles,[62-*] and twelve button mushrooms. Season with pepper and salt. Simmer one minute only, or the oysters will harden. Place the slices of fish on a hot dish, pour the sauce over them, place the oysters, mushrooms, and quenelles in groups in the corners of the dish.

Lobster Soufflées.--Cut up the meat of a boiled hen lobster into neat dice, showing as much of the red as possible. Prepare as many small ramekin or soufflée cases as may be required by pinning bands of writing-paper round them two to three inches higher than the case. Take three tablespoonfuls of mayonnaise, half a pint of stiff aspic jelly, and a gill of tomato sauce in which a teaspoonful of gelatine has been dissolved. Every utensil used must be ice-cold, the jelly must be quite cold, but not set. Put the tomato sauce, the jelly, and the mayonnaise (which should be left on the ice till the last thing) into a bowl set in another bowl of pounded ice; whisk them together until they begin to look white; then stir the lobster in it, with a teaspoonful of very finely chopped chervil and tarragon; fill the soufflée cases, piling the dressing high; put them on a dish on ice. When they are “set,” carefully remove the paper bands, sprinkle a little dried and sifted lobster coral over the tops, and serve.

Coquilles of Prawns.--Pick the shells from four dozen prawns; mix with one third the quantity of mushrooms slightly stewed in a tablespoonful of butter and a saltspoonful of salt (the mushrooms must not be brown); add four tablespoonfuls of Allemande sauce;[64-*] fill the shells, which must be well buttered, dress each over with fine bread crumbs which have been carefully fried a golden brown; put them in a cool oven twenty minutes, only get thoroughly hot, but not to cook.

Coquilles of Salmon or Halibut.--Take one pound of cold halibut or salmon; break it into small pieces; put it in a stewpan with half a saltspoonful of salt and a tiny pinch of pepper, and half a pint of white sauce, a tablespoonful of very thick cream, and a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce; stir well, and let all get hot. Butter some shells, sprinkle over with a few fried crumbs, fill with the mixture, cover with the fried crumbs, and put them in the oven to get thoroughly hot. Serve on a napkin.

Salmon en Papillotes.--Cut some slices of salmon into cutlets the right size for serving, make paper cases to fit them, then cover each slice with the following mixture: two tablespoonfuls of salad oil beaten with the yolk of an egg, one teaspoonful of parsley chopped, one shallot chopped, and one anchovy (all these must be chopped as finely as possible), a half-saltspoonful of salt, and a grain of cayenne; mix, spread on the fish, envelop each piece in a well-buttered case, fasten up (by pinching the paper well), and bake half an hour. Serve in the papers.

Fillet of Sole à la Normande.--In speaking of sole, one of course means the flounder, which is coming to be called the American sole, and when filleted does make a fair substitute for the real thing, and it is suitable for cooking in every way that the English sole can be used, except whole. A boiled flounder without filleting, or a flounder fried whole, as is so often done with sole, would be very coarse. Fillet two flounders (in cities this will be done by the fishmonger, but in the country it may have to be done in the kitchen, therefore directions for doing it will be appended), lay the fillets, neatly trimmed and shaped, into a thickly buttered pan or dish--either fire-proof porcelain or any other that can go to table--pour over them a glass of sherry and four tablespoonfuls of consommé; cover with oiled paper, and bake ten minutes in a moderate oven; take out the pan, pour over the fillets half a pint of sauce Normande; return to the oven for five minutes, and serve in the pan.

Sole à l’Horly.--Make a frying batter thus: mix one tablespoonful of milk with two ounces of flour and a tablespoonful of salad oil to a smooth paste; then add two yolks of eggs, and the whites whipped firm, with a quarter of a saltspoonful of salt; mix with an upward movement of the spoon, so as not to deaden the whites of eggs. Set it aside while you prepare the sole. Mix a tablespoonful of salad oil, a teaspoonful of Chili vinegar, a teaspoonful of tarragon vinegar, a teaspoonful of parsley and one of onion chopped exceedingly fine, a scant saltspoonful of salt, and a quarter one of pepper. Mix all together, then cut the fillets in half, trimming away all ragged appearance, and lay them for fifteen minutes in the mixture (called a marinade); take them out, drain them on a sieve, and then dip each fillet in the batter. This batter should be just thick enough to coat the fish and run slowly off, not cling in a thick paste round it. A French rule for testing the thickness of frying batter is to dip a spoon in it and then let a drop run off the end on a plate; if it drops freely, yet keeps a beadlike form, it is right. Fry each fillet in a wire basket three minutes in very hot deep fat. Serve with fried parsley.

Turbans of Sole à la Rouennaise.--As these require a little of the same mixture as would be used for lobster cutlets or croquettes, it is good management to have them when lobster is required for something else. The mixture for the cutlets is made as follows (less than a fourth of it would be required for the turbans): remove all the flesh from a boiled hen lobster; chop it small; wash, dry, and pound the coral, with an ounce of butter; take one gill of white sauce, mix the lobster coral and a tablespoonful of cream with it, and boil five minutes; mix in the lobster with a little salt (unless the lobster is salt enough) and a grain of cayenne. This made into cutlets, egged, crumbed, and fried, is excellent, but our purpose now is to use it for stuffing. Take as many fillets of sole as required, spread the lobster mixture on each, roll them up, run a toothpick through them to keep them in shape; trim till each will stand; put them on a buttered baking-sheet, cover with buttered paper, and bake ten minutes. Chop up two truffles, two hard-boiled yolks of eggs, and a tablespoonful of parsley, each chopped separately. Take up the turbans, pour over them half a pint of cardinal sauce, and ornament the turbans, one with the truffles, one with the yolk of egg, and one with parsley; so on alternately.

Directions for Filleting Flounders.--Take a sharp knife, cut away the fins all round the fish, and split the flounder right down the middle of the back, then run the knife carefully between the flesh and bones, going towards the edge. You have now detached one quarter of the flesh from the bone; do the other half in the same way, and when the back is thus entirely loose from the bone, turn the fish over and do the same with the other side. You will now find you can remove the bone whole from the fish, detaching, as you do so, any flesh still retaining the bone. Then you have two halves of the fish, and you have four quarters of solid fish. To remove the skin, take the tail end firmly between the thumb and forefinger of the left hand, hold the skin side downward on the board, and with your knife make an incision across the flesh, then, keeping the skin firmly between your thumb and finger, push the knife between it and the flesh, slightly humoring it to prevent tearing the flesh. The skin parts quite easily, but no attempt must be made to cut the fish from it.

FOOTNOTES:

VIII.

VARIOUS WAYS OF SERVING OYSTERS.

Oysters à la Villeroi.--Scald (or blanch) some large oysters, dry them, then drop them into some very thick Villeroi sauce,[71-*] let them get hot in it, but not boil. Take them out one by one; be sure they are thickly coated with the sauce; have a large dish heaped with sifted crumbs or cracker meal; as you lift each oyster from the sauce lay it on the meal, turn it gently over in the meal, so that a light coat adheres, and the sauce is by no means rubbed off. Place them on an oiled plate where they will get quite cold, so that the sauce may chill and form a whitish glaze under the crumbs. Beat two eggs with two tablespoonfuls of water, and when free from strings dip each oyster in the egg, using a small fork; let superfluous egg drip off for a moment, then lay the oyster again on a deep bed of cracker crumbs, cover well, pat very gently, and lay each as you do it on a dish sprinkled with them. Fry two minutes in very hot deep fat, being careful the oysters do not touch each other.

If I have made these directions as clear as I hope, it will be understood that each oyster has a rich creamy coating under the crumbs, and every effort must be made to avoid breaking the outer shell of egg and crumb. For this reason the fat should be heated to 400°. But although great care in handling is necessary, they are not difficult to succeed with when that care is given.

Oyster Kabobs.--There are two ways of preparing these dainties, and I give both. For those who cannot eat bacon the first will probably be acceptable. For kabobs of any kind, silver or plated skewers are proper, although very slender wooden ones may be used. Put in a stewpan a small onion chopped very fine, a dessertspoonful of parsley, and a dozen mushrooms, also chopped; let these fry one minute in a large tablespoonful of butter, add a dessertspoonful (scant) of flour, stir all together, then drop in as many fat oysters as are required; they must have been blanched in their own liquor and the beards removed; stir all round, and add three beaten yolks of eggs, one at a time, taking care they do not curdle, but get just thick enough to cling round the oyster. String six oysters on each little skewer, basting with the sauce wherever it does not adhere; let each skewer cool, then roll the whole in beaten eggs and abundant cracker meal, so that the skewer will seem to be run through a sausage lengthwise. Fry two minutes in very hot deep fat, serve on a napkin; allow one skewer to each person. Two minutes, if the fat be sufficiently hot, will fry oysters a pale yellow-brown. They should never take longer than this, for oysters harden and shrink if overdone in the least. For this reason the use of a pyrometer, when possible, saves mistakes and trouble. Such articles as oysters, smelts, or any small things, should be fried at a temperature of 380° to 400°. It must be remembered that all fried articles darken after they leave the frying-kettle, and therefore a very pale yellow becomes a golden color on the dish.

Kabobs No. 2.--This is the recipe given by the author of the well-known Pytchley Books, and is admirable. Take the beards from as many fat, fair-sized oysters as required. You require bacon of which the fat is thick enough through to allow of circles being cut from the slices as large as the oysters. Cut the bacon very thin, get a cutter the size of the oysters, trim them with it, then cut eight circles of bacon for six oysters. Put first a piece of bacon, then an oyster, then more bacon, on each little skewer, till there are six oysters with a piece of bacon between each through the centre and one at each end; string them very evenly. Take a very little cayenne on the tip of a knife and a saltspoonful of salt; mix this with two beaten eggs to which two tablespoonfuls of water have been added. Dip each skewer of kabobs in this; let them drip an instant, then lay them on a deep bed of crumbs or cracker meal. Cover them thoroughly, shake them, then dip again into the egg (if this has become full of crumbs strain it), and again lay them in the meal. Shake lightly again, and arrange each skewer of kabobs in a frying-basket, and fry two minutes.

I have spoken in the foregoing directions for “crumbing” of using plenty of meal, and experience tells me that the rule with those unfamiliar with proper methods is to use so little that a plateful would be considered plenty. With this quantity no good work can be done. You need to turn on to a board or dish at least a quart of crumbs, or a whole box of cracker meal. This will enable you to smother the article until every part is covered, instead of sprinkling a little over and under (which generally falls off as fast as put on, and leaves a surface yellow with egg in parts), as you must do if a small quantity only is used. All the meal that is left must be carefully sifted and put away. If the small masses of egg and crumb which will be mixed with it are not sifted out the cracker-meal cannot be used again. There must also be plenty of egg used for dipping.

Oysters in Aspic.--For these dariole moulds are needed, or the small fire-proof china soufflée cases which imitate paper may be used. A dariole is a small straight-sided tin mould, holding rather less than a gill. They will be found at large house-furnishing stores, or a tinman could easily make them, they being, in fact, like deep corn-muffin pans. If they are made to order, avoid getting them too large--three inches deep by two across will be large enough. Fill these moulds with aspic jelly nearly cold, set them on ice while you prepare the oysters, which must be bearded and cooked till plump in butter, but not allowed to color. When cool, cut them in half, throw them into some stiff béchamel,[77-*] which must be warmed till like thick cream, sprinkle with a dust of cayenne; lay the oysters to get cold, that the béchamel may harden on them. Scoop the centre very carefully out of the moulds of aspic, leaving a half-inch thickness all round, fill the centres with the oysters, pour in more aspic, cold, but not set, and put on ice for a few hours, or till ready to serve. The aspic from the centres should have been preserved and used to chop with more to garnish the dish. Turn the moulds out very carefully, and garnish with chopped aspic and watercress or parsley.

It is, of course, understood that béchamel sauce, cold, is like blanc-mange, and that anything coated with it will be enveloped in white jelly, not in a sticky white sauce. If béchamel does not become white jelly when cold the stock of which it is made is not stiff enough.