NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 07897523 6 REF. url. BOOKS 521 WEST 43RD STREET obetanden 10th and 11th Asenke ANNEX REFERENCE SERVICES REF. DEFT. 0003 521 WEST 43RD STREET Between 10th and 11th d ues 9 Renney-Herberter - CULINARY JOTTINGS. Kenney-Herber CULINARY JOTTINGS. • A TREATISE IN THIRTY CHAPTERS ON REFORMED COOKERY For Anglo-Jndian Exiles, BASED UPON MODERN ENGLISH, AND CONTINENTAL PRINCIPLES, WITH THIRTY MENUS FOR LITTLE DINNERS WORKED OUT IN DETAIL, AND AN ESSAY ON OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA, BY "WYVERN," C12 Sucha AUTHOR OF "SWEET DISHES," "FURLOUGH REMINISCENCES.” Arthur hierbert Cleverans Kenney FIFTH EDITION. og MADRAS: HIGGINBOTHAM AND CO. By Appointment in India to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, and Publishers to the Madras University. · LONDON : RICHARDSON AND CO., 13 PALL MALL. 1885. CH, MADRAS: PRINTED BY HIGGINBOTHAM AND CO., 1 26105 4. & 165, MOUNT ROAD. 164 164 a 100, PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION. CHE Jottings have again undergone very careful revision. By pruning unnecessary matter, and simplifying the recipes wherever possible, space has been found for considerable addi. tions without adding materially to the bulk or cost of the book. It is hoped that the endeavours thus made to effect improve- ment may prove successful, and that the public by whom the four earlier editions have been so kindly received will have reason to be satisfied with WYVERN. OOTACAMUND, 1st July 1885. TH: 'Uz. PUBLIC LIBRARY 404582A ASTOR, LENOX AND TILDEN FONDATIONS R 1929 L PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION. WING to the unavoidable delay attending the transmission to of proofs between Simla and Madras, the fourth edition of the Culinary 7ottings has been nearly twelve months in my publishers' hands. For this I offer my sincere apologies. I have endeavoured to correct and improve what I have already published, and have added one hundred pages of new matter. Three articles on curries and mulligatunny which appeared in the Pioneer have, by the kind permission of the Proprietors of that journal, been introduced; the subject of vegetables has received still closer attention ; and among a number of new recipes several will be found for the treatment of rice which I hope will be found useful. Vegetarians (who perhaps might be more accurately described as non-consumers of animal food) will, I trust, discover some acceptable hints in this edition, while those who are anxious to adopt the new form of menu, will find their task explained and simplified. WYVERN. CALCUTTA, 15th Feby. 1883. AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. W H EN I first began to write about Cookery I flattered myself that I had undertaken a very easy, and plea- sant task. I thought that my jottings would be composed currente calamo, and that I should be able to carry out my project with satisfaction and success. But at the hour of launching my frail shallop from the shore, I am compassed about with grave doubts concerning its seaworthiness. Alas!:- “My conscience hath a thousand several tongues, And every tongue brings in a several tale, And every tale condemns me for" a very Icarus. Lo! the wings of my ambition have melted, and I have fallen into the sea of blighted hope. I am only conscious of failure. I undertook much, what have I performed? Whilst, however, I frankly acknowledge my many shortcomings, I derive some consolation in trying to believe that, there may nevertheless be a few things recorded in the pages of my book which will be found useful. If this hope be realized, and if the LADIES OP MADRAS—to whom, in all humility, I dedicate the first fruits of my labours-discover here and there a word of assist- ance when perplexed about their daily orders, I shall be bounti- fully rewarded, and the winter of my discontent will indeed be made glorious summer. I have to tender my best acknowledgments to the Proprietors of the Madras Atheneum and Daily News for the permission they have kindly given me to republish my culinary articles which appeared originally in that journal; I have to express my gratitude for the hints I have received from friendly savants in the science of cookery; and to own that I have obtained the most valuable aid from the writings of Jules Gouffé, and the “G. C." WYVERN MADRAS, 1st November 1878. CONTENTS PART I. CHAPTERS. PAGE. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . I 1.-THE MENU . . . . . . . . 4 II.-The COOK AND HIS MANAGEMENT. . . 12 III.-CERTAIN KITCHEN REQUISITES . . . . 17 IV.- IN THE STORE-ROOM . . . . . 24 V.-ON STOCK, AND CLEAR SOUPS . . . . 30 VI.-THICK SOUPS AND PUREES . . . . 43 VII.-REGARDING OUR FISH . . . . . 52 VIII.-HINTS ABOUT ENTREES . . . . . 60 IX.-Entrees-concluded . . . . . : 69 X.–SAUCES . . . . XI.-Sauces-continued . . . . . . 87 XII.-Sauces-concluded . . . . . . 94 XIII.-ROASTING AND BRAISING · 102 XIV.-BOILING AND STEAMING . . . . . 114 XV.-QUR VEGETABLES . . . . . . 126 XVI.–VBGETABLES—concluded . . XVII.-RECHAUFFES . . . . . . . 168 XVIII.-The SAVOURY OMELETTE. . . . . 177 XIX.-ON LUNCHEONS. . . . . . . 185 XX.-FRITTERS · 195 XXI.-SALADS · · · · · · · · 203 XXII.-HORS D'EUVRES . . . . . . 212 XXIII.-SAVOURY TOASTS . . . . . . 222 XXIV.- EGGS, MACCARONI, AND CHEESE . . . 234 XXV.-NOTES ON THE CURING OF MEAT . . . 251 XXVI.-PASTRY-MAKING, ET CETERA . . . . 258 XXVII.-A FEW NICE PIES . . . . . . 272 XXVIII.-OUR CURRIES . . . . . . . 285 XXIX.-CURRIES-continued, AND MULLIGATUNNY . 298 XXX.-CAMP COOKERY . . . . . . 314 140 TRITTERS . -CONTENts. .: PART II. PRELIMINARY NOTES . . . . . . PAGE. . 333 · · . . . Do. Do. . . . . . · V, - · · · · · 335 . 341 . . 347 . 353 · · 359 · 365 . . 371 . 377 . . 382 . 390 · . . . . . . . . . . Do. · · . . . . Menu. 1.-FOR A PARTY OF Bight 11.- Do. do. . . III.- do. . . IV.- do. . . Do. do. · VI. do. · · VII.- do. . . VIII.- do. . . IX.- Do. do. . . X. - Do.. do. . . XI.-FOR A DINNER OF SIX XII.--. do. · · XIII. Do. do. . . XIV. Do. do. . . XV.- do. . . XVI. Do. do. . . XVII. Do. do. . . XVIII.- Do. do. . . XIX.-FOR A PARTY OF SIX . XX.- Do. do. . . XXI.-FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER XXII.- Do. do. . XXIII.- do. . XXIV.- do. . XXV.- Do. do. . XXVI.- do. . XXVII.- do. · XXVIII.- do. . XXIX.- Do. do. . . XXX.- do. . Do. . . · · 403 . . 409 . . . 415 . . 420 . . 425 . . 430 . . 434 . . . . . . . . . . Do. Do. . . . . . . . . . 450 . . 453 . . 458 . . 463 . . 466 . . 470 · · 474 . • 478 . . 482 . . 487 Do. Do. Do. . · . . . . Do. . . ADDENDA. ON COFFEE-MAKING . . . . . TO PRESERVE MEAT BY FUMIGATION OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA . . . . . . . . . . 492 . . 407 . 496 . . . ERRATA, Page 50 line 51 for "points" read pointes. 26 omit full stop after" apprehension.” 54 , 27 for “With” read with. 14 for "employed” read employ. omit comma after “concomitants.” 2+ for "points" read pointes. » 23 „ do. „ do. 3 , do. „ do. 420 , 5 „ do. „ do. 462 „ 16 „ do. „ do. 465 , 6 ingert “if" after “of course." INTRODUCTION. “The subject of Cookery is worthy of study, and one to which English people would do well to give their attention. If that man is a benefactor to his race who makes two blades of grass grow wbere only one did before, the art must be worth cultivating that enables a person to make one pound of meat go as far, by proper cooking, as two by neglect and inattention.”—Dr. Lankester's “ Good Food.” T H ILST reform slow, yet sure, has of late years been creeping into our style of living in India, the want of a hand-book on culinary science — locally considered-of a more modern description than that time-honoured and, in its day, excellent work “ Indian Domestic Cookery” must have been long felt by the busy housewife of Madras. Our dinners of to-day would indeed astonish our Anglo- Indian forefathers. With a taste for light wines, and a far more moderate indulgence in stimulating drinks, has been germinated a desire for delicate and artistic cookery. Quality has superseded quantity, and the molten curries and florid oriental compositions of the olden time—so fear- fully and wonderfully made—have been gradually banished from our dinner tables. For although a well-considered curry, or mulligatunny, capital things in their way,—are still very frequently given at breakfast or at luncheon, they no longer occupy a posi- CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. tion in the dinner menu of establishments conducted accord- ing to the new régime. A little treatise on cookery, then, showing the reader how to accomplish successfully, with the average means at his disposal in this country, some of the many tasty dishes spoken of in the modern English and continental books upon the subject, will, I am sanguine enough to hope, be received with kindly toleration, if not with cordiality, by those who consider it worth while to be interested in matters culinary. Thirsting for some instruction of this kind, I remember buying, some few years ago, a little book which had just then been published at Madras, and which promised by its title to provide the thing needful. Alas ! how sorely dis- appointed was I with my purchase, for the work had assuredly been written for the Anglo-Indian in England rather than for the Englishman in India. With the exception of dishes of purely native origin, little or no instruction worth following was given to the Madras housewife, whilst there was much dangerous counsel prof- fered which should be most carefully avoided. The most reprehensible customs were, in point of fact, laid down over and over again as precepts. Concerning these, I will say nothing now, for I propose to devote a separate chapter to the important subject of the cook-room, and to expose the besetting sins of our native cooks whenever they occur to me. The book to which I refer has not, as far as I am aware, been followed here by any fresh work, and I think, I may say that at any rate its pages scarcely contained the sort of instruction we look for now-a-days. In taking upon myself, therefore, the task of humbly ministering to the reformed taste of the hour, I am encouraged by the reflec- tion that I am, so to speak, a breaker of fresh ground. INTRODUCTION. I propose to carry out my scheme in a series of chapters commencing with cook-room experiences, the judicious management of the cook, and some general remarks on the equipment of the store-room and kitchen; then to take the salient features of a dinner one by one, and when I have discussed soups, fish, entrées, &c., &c., to submit a number of menus, worked out in detail, adapted to our resources in this part of India. I know full well that to several accomplished disciples of Brillat Savarin at Madras, I can impart nothing new. On the contrary, it would better become me to sit at their feet and listen, than to rush in where they have hesitated to tread. To this talented coterie, I appeal for forbearance. I entreat them to be merciful inasmuch as they are very strong. I feel, indeed, that in their presence, I may truly say with Ramasámy, that I am “a very poor man, I beg your pardon.” No. I address my jottings to the many who yearn to follow reform, but who cannot discover the method of doing so; who,—to quote the words of a very hospitable friend, - “like nice things better than nasty things," yet have hitherto failed to penetrate the secret of success; and who · view with daily sorrow the lamentable parody of dinner which it seems good to their cooks to place before them. I shall treat of cosy, sociable little dinners of from two to ten people, rather than of the elaborate banquets of the great; and the main object before me will always be to study economy in conjunction with the system I advocate. WYVERN. MADRAS, 1st November 1878. CHAPTER I. The Menu. VAX LL who have studied the reformed system of dinner- A giving will, I think, agree with me when I say that the menu of a dinner anywhere, but in India espe- cially, should be reduced to the smallest compass possible. An hour at the outside should suffice for the discussion of the daintiest of bills of fare, so to ensure this, we should strike out of it all unnecessary encumbrances. Let the little card be clothed in the white garb of simplicity and completeness, and I am prepared to declare that all our lady guests, and a majority of the men we entertain, will rejoice at the result. A cosy dinner to be perfect should be, it seems to me, a highly finished cabinet picture with every atom of detail carefully worked out, rather than a large pretentious canvas with an infinite amount of color expended in order to pro- duce a satisfactory impression. Every line of the little menu should, therefore, be written with a loving hand, and both lights and shadows should be considered, for our guests must e'en partake of each dish we offer them. Soup, fish, two well contrasted entrées served separately, one joint only, game, and a dressed vegetable, one entremets sucré, an iced pudding, cheese with hors d'auvres and des- sert, will be found, if thoughtfully composed, ample fare THE MENU. for even the most hypercritical gourmet we can bid to our table. In the studied completeness of such a dinner as this will repose its chief attraction :-in good wine, no lack of ice, the brightest plate, snowy linen, well-toned light, and tasteful adornment of the table; with all minutiæ remembered from des petits pains in the deftly-folded napkins, to the artistic salad which in all modern menus is not expressed yet, like salt, understood to be present. An extra joint may, of course, be given, but if the two entrées be really nice, and the game about to follow be the best in season, I fail to recognize the necessity of the addition. And, here, it may not be altogether unprofitable to con- sider attentively certain points connected with the modern banquet upon which opinions differ, and concerning which a good many people find a difficulty in coming to a satis- factory decision. The moot point or points to which I refer are associated with the general plan or arrangement of the menu, and in order to explain them, it will be necessary to trace their cause carefully, In the days of old, our forefathers divided their bills of fare into a number of courses. Thus, the soup and fish comprised the first course; the entrées and joint the second; and the game and sweets the third ; cheese and dessert being served independently. But of late years, we have simplified matters, and the modern menu, adapted to a great extent, of course, from that of France, is placed before us in two “services,” as exemplified in the following table : Potage ... Soup. Premier service ... Poisson ... Fish. Entrées ... Side-dishes. | Relevés ... Joint, or remove. Thus, a joint the desser CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. , ſ Rôts ... The roast (game or poultry). Second service ... Entremets ... Savory and sweet dishes. Fromage ... Cheese. ( Dessert ... Dessert. In addition to the above, the custom of presenting oysters before the soup is becoming daily more fashionable, and many people have adopted the practice of sending round hors d'oeuvres, in the continental manner, as a pre- lude to the repast. A matter of this kind is obviously a matter of taste, touching which no writer on cookery should take upon himself to lay down an arbitrary law. I am personally decidedly in favour of the oyster, or, when oysters cannot be got, of a single, well selected, hors d' oeuvre. The dainty atom titivates the palate, as it were, and prepares it for the soup that is about to come. When, however, a relish of this description is given, it will be found decidedly advantageous, be it noted, if plates con- taining it be put upon the table in the places laid for the guest before dinner is announced. The time that would be taken up in handing the dishes round, is in this way economised. Considerable diversity of opinion exists, I know, concern- ing the next point, viz., whether the entrées should precede the relevés or follow them. Brillat Savarin's injunction was—" let the order of serving be from the more substan- tial dishes to the lighter;" and Sir Henry Thompson says :—“As a rule, to which there are few exceptions, the procession of dishes after the fish is from the substantial to the more delicate, then to the contrasts between more piquant flavour and sweetness.” Now, if we are to discuss this point properly, it seems to me that there is another very important factor in the debate that must not be lost sight of, viz., the rôt, or roast. To this item of the menu Brillat Savarin gave, and Sir Henry Thompson gives, let us remember, its full and dis. THE MENU. tinct value; and it can hardly be denied that, if the rôt be served correctly, the relevé must be put further forward in the bill of fare. What, then, is the rôt ? Well, from personal observation, I am constrained to say that this is a matter upon which many dinner-givers appear to be somewhat hazy. The rôt is, correctly speaking, a service of roast poultry or game: it should be accompanied by a nice salad, and it is often garnished with potato chips and water-cress. An entremets de légume may either be handed round with it, or follow it separately. In Brillat Savarin's time the truffled turkey appeared as a rôt, and Sir Henry Thompson recommends the presentation at this period of the feast of the truffled pheasant or capon, the dindonneau (turkey poult), the fatted fowl, &c. It is, therefore, pretty evident that if we serve our rộts according to this—the undoubtedly correct interpretation- it would be absolutely preposterous to serve immediately before them a goodly joint of mutton or of beef with its concomitant vegetables. Between two courses so nearly equal in substance, there would plainly be no contrast, and the effect would be overpowering and common-place. We are now at liberty to consider the relevé. Strictly speaking, this word cannot be translated"joint.” It should properly be interpreted the “remove,” and in the French menu the dish of which it is composed is regarded as the pièce de résistance of the dinner. To begin with, it ought, if possible, not to be roasted. According to the authorities I have named, it should rather be an artistic braise, fricandeau, or a whole fillet, larded and served with vege- tables. Thus, the relevé becomes very nearly as elaborate as a made-dish, and is scarcely what an Englishman means when he speaks of the "joint.” CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. It need scarcely be said, then, that if this system be fol- lowed in its entirety, the rôt and the relevé being carefully selected, the service of two light entrées between them is both intelligible and artistic. In favour of the older English custom it has been argued, with considerable justice, that delicate works of culinary science—such as entrées are supposed to be-should be pre- sented while the palate is yet fresh, and while the diner is thoroughly able to detect and appreciate the niceties of flavour, crispness, tendemess, and so forth; that a slice of plainly roasted or boiled meat, with a selected vegetable, should follow; then a morsel of game, and the entremets. Advocates of this very excellent method, it will be observ- ed, do not pay any particular attention to the rôt. When game is out of season, they present a savory entremets immediately after their relevé, and send round their salad with the saddle or sirloin. Thus, in the space marked in the printed menu for “rôts,” we occasionally see “aspic de foie gras” with “asperges en branches,” and no rột whatever. Of the two systems the older one is certainly the simpler. The correct introduction of the rôt is really the novel feature of the new menu="poulet au cresson, salade,” for example, never figured in the old bill of fare in the place of game- and by its introduction the relevé, altered a good deal in character, is of necessity pushed out of its original place. It will always be conceded, I think, by partisans of both systems, that each possesses merits of an undeniable character. The old method, as we have seen, is the simpler, and consequently the easier of the two, while the new may be voted more truly artistic. In adopting the latter, how- ever, it is a sine quâ non that all the principles of the dinner be observed, and faithfully carried out. We cannot miss a single point, or our little feast will become a fiasco. THE MENU. We must not serve, that is to say, “pintade au cresson" as a relevé, or "jambon au madère" as a rôt-trifling errors that I have noticed at certain banquets modelled according to the new régime. Neither can we forget the salad, which, with its plain dressing of oil and vinegar (not a thick eggy one, I beg) should accompany the rôt as a matter of course. If unable to follow the rules of the revised menu accurate- ly, owing to an indifferent market, or some other unavoida- ble reason, the wise dinner-giver should fall back upon the older form, and be contented with a less pretentious festival. The superiority of the new order of things consists in a more artistic distribution of light and shadow. If we rob the picture of an effective ray of sunshine here, and forget a judicious touch of shadow there, we can hardly complain if our efforts result in disappointment. At the commencement of these remarks, I spoke of the economy of time in serving a dinner—a subject which, I am sure, every earnest follower of reform will allow, should command our closest attention. Of the two menus I have spoken of, the older form would perhaps seem to be the quicker served, and in establishments where the new system has not been long in practice, I certainly have observed that the dinner was a little too long. I, however, attribute this to the novelty of the service, which at first very naturally perplexes servants who have long been accustomed to a different method. When once understood and generally adopted, I do not think that the new arrangement will be found longer than the old. A good deal of time can obviously be saved if the giver of the feast be mindful of the importance of that desider- atum. The relevé, for instance, should undoubtedly be carved at the buffet, and each portion should be sent round with its accompanying vegetable also helped at the side table. I have seen a sliced fillet of beef handed round a 10 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. table of eighteen people, with vegetables following it, and a large dish containing slices of a saddle of mutton garnished with divers vegetables, also carried round. The waste of time, not to mention the positive nuisance of such a method of service, need scarcely be dilated apon. At a large party I would always hand round the entremets de légume with the rôt, and in composing the dinner, I would select the entremets so as to harmonize with the roast game or poultry-petits pois au beurre with wild duck or teal, épinards à la créme with quails, &c., &c. If the essential need of brisk service be kept in view, people who have declared themselves in favour of the new form of menu, and are determined to carry it out correctly, ought not only to deserve but to command success; while those who have already achieved a reputation with the older one, will do well not to bid adieu to a system which, if somewhat less artistic, provides, at all events, a very reliable and decidedly enjoyable way of entertaining their friends. But in either case you cannot make your dinner too simple in detail, and the fewer servants you employ to carry it out the better. How distressing it is to see a herd of attendants, mobbing each other like a scared flock of sheep, at a time when everything should be as orderly, and as quiet as possible. To ensure calm service, pare down the number of your dishes to the fewest possible, and for eight guests never allow more than four servants, besides your butler, to attend the table. If these remarks be correct, as far as a small dinner of eight is concerned, how much more do they apply to large banquets? In the case of official entertainments, success is too frequently marred by very indifferent service. The indirect cause of this is, as a rule, an over-crowded menu. With a great many guests it is, of course, necessary to call in a quantity of waiters who have never worked CHAPTER II. The Cook and his Management, SAFTER some years of observation I have come to the conclusion that if you want to put nice little din- ners upon your table, you must not only be pre- pared to take an infinite amount of trouble, but you must make a friend of your chef. Unless amicable relations exist between the cook and his mistress or master, the work will never be carried out satisfactorily. There will be a thousand and one annoying failures, your mind will never know what repose means, and, in the end,-utterly wearied with the daily struggle against petty larceny, carelessness, ignorance, stupidity, and an apparently way- ward desire to thwart your desires to the utmost, you will resign the bâton to your butler, and submit in sheer desperation to that style of dinner unto which it may please him to call you. I do not allude to people happy in the possession of a butler absolutely capable of composing, with very little aid, a fairly good menu, and able to direct the cook in the manipulation thereof. There are, I know, a few estimable men of that kind to be found—in point of fact, I am ac- quainted with three or four—but alas! they are rare to meet, and even the cleverest of them requires a little di- plomatic supervision, or he will drift into a groove of din- ners, and tire you with repetitions. Are not the accounts, THE COOK AND HIS MANAGEMENT. 13 also, of the erudite maître d'hôtel full often prone to cause, -even at the pretty writing table of the cosy boudoir,- great searchings of heart? In other words, must you not pay for your luxury, and even murmur not in the presence of the artist who spares you so much trouble ? Those who are not gifted with patience, those who are not physically strong, those who have important calls upon their time away from home, and, of course, those who do not feel capable of directing culinary operations, cannot do better than entrust the management of their kitchens to alien heads; but all who are equal to the task, should take the helm in their own hands, remembering that ancient canon,—“ if you want a thing well done, do it yourself.” I place those who have not patience first on the list of persons whom I deem incapable of managing their cooks. I do so advisedly, for of all failings inimical to the success- ful direction of a native servant, a hasty temper is the most fatal. The moment you betray irritation and hasti- ness in your manner towards Ramasamy, he ceases to follow yon. His brain becomes busy in the consultation of his personal safety, and not in the consideration of the plat you may be endeavouring to discuss with him. In this matter I, of course, address my readers of the sterner sex. Ladies, I know, are never angry, and even when a little put out, do they not contrive to veil their feelings with a sweet subtlety which men can envy, yet never hope to acquire ? Once upon a time I knew very intimately the Mess Pre- sident of a Regiment (not yet forgotten I fancy at Ban- galore) who possessed to an eminent degree the qualities necessary for his difficult position. He was an acknow- ledged connoisseur in wines, excelled in the composition of a menu, and rejoiced in a bountiful development of the 14 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. bump of management. Long association, however, with one of the best Messmen a Regiment ever had in England had spoilt my friend for the up-hill task of managing Ramasamy. The consequence was that the ordering of a dinner with him was generally productive of un mauvais quart d'heure. I remember, one special day, hearing my friend's voice raised to its highest pitch; presently the door of the little room he occupied as an office flew open, and out rushed the cook, followed by his preceptor violet in the face with wrath. The unhappy menial, in a state of hopeless mental aberration, had taken down that he was to boil the pâté de foie gras, and ice the asparagus !* I was called in as interpreter and peace-maker, and many a morning after that did I convey my friend's orders to the mess cook. I was obliged, however, to demand an empty room, for even during my interpretations the Pre- sident's patience would evaporate, and the walls would ring with language that was fashionable when George the Third was King There are two ways of imparting the details of a menu to your native cook :-one through the medium of your butler, the other by conversation with the man himself. For many reasons I advocate the latter plan. Some cooks do not care for the butler's interference, and in many establishments, the cook and butler do not pull. Butlers, again, are prone to conceit, and often pretend to under- stand what you want done, rather than confess their ignorance. You may perhaps remember the same failing in your munshi who never admitted himself to be puzzled by the most intricate passage in English that you could place before him. So I prefer to get the cook alone, and talk to him very * I do not mean to insinuate by this that iced asparagus is not a delicious entremets ; in the case in point, however, the mistake made by the cook is obvious.-W. THE COOK AND HIS MANAGEMENT, 15 gently in his own patois. I encourage him by a bland demeanour, and if obliged to speak retrospectively of a failure, I strive to do so with a smile. You will soon get round Ramasámy when he finds that you never indulge in “ very bad ’ busing :” he then gains confidence in you and learns rapidly. Between ourselves too, surely an artist who can actually compose a "petit pâté à la financière,” a “ kramousky aux huîtres," or a “supréme de volaille," deserves some consideration at our hands. The patois is easily acquired, and you will soon find yourself interpret- ing the cherished mysteries of Francatelli or Gouffé in the pigeon English of Madras with marvellous fluency. You will even talk of “putting that troople,” “ mashing bones all,” “minching," " chimmering,” &c., &c., with- out a blush. There can be no doubt that in our Ramasámy we possess admirable materials out of which to form a good cook. The work comes to him, as it were, of its own accord. But we should take heed lest he grow up at random, cling- ing affectionately to the ancient barbarisms of his fore- fathers. We should watch for his besetting sins, and root them out whenever they manifest themselves. We should, moreover, remember that a dish once success- fully presented will not necessarily appear so again unless the artist be reminded de novo of the secrets of its compo- sition. Mint, as a flavouring agent, save with green peas, in certain wine “cups,” and in bona fide mint sauce, is one of the banes of the cook-room ; its use, and that of any parsley except the curled English variety, should be considered absolutely penal. The very smell of “country” parsley is assuredly sufficient to warn the unwary, and yet many native cooks bring it home daily. The weed has been called “ parsley” ever since they can remember, and they 16 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. the properseized in an eme food that wem Ramasi fail to appreciate the wide difference between it, and the real herb. All native cooks dearly love the spice box, and they all reverence “ Worcester Sauce.” Now, I consider the latter too powerful an element by far for indiscriminate use in the kitchen, especially so in India where our cooks are inclined to over-flavour everything. If in the house at all, the proper place for this sauce is the cruet-stand where it can be seized in an emergency to drown mistakes, and assist us in swallowing food that we might otherwise decline. But it should be preserved from Ramasámy with the same studious care as a bottle of chloroform from a lady suffering from acute neuralgia. Spice, if necessary, should be doled out in atoms, the cook ought never to have it under his control. Does every housekeeper appreciate sufficiently the invaluable trimmings of meat, skin, and bone, which remain, say, after a number of tasty choplets have been prepared for the grid-iron from a neck of mutton ? Do all know that Ramasámy's domestic carry often gains, whilst we lose, the nice savoury sauce which should have accom- panied our entrée ; but then, if “missus din't give arder for using bits all,” can Ramasamy, a child of this world, be blamed ? In the various receipts which I hope to give, you will always find a few lines reserved for the treatment of the scraps, and as each bad habit of the cook-room occurs to me, I will endeavour to expose and explain it to the best of my power. CHAPTER III. Certain Kitchen Requisites. LLOWING then, that our native cooks are, by na- To ture, adapted to their calling, and that by judi- cious treatment we can develop the talent which they possess, one of the next things for consideration is our kitchen equipment, and the kind of utensils which will be found best suited for Ramasámy's use, bearing in mind the sort of dishes we shall hereafter call upon him to prepare. In introducing novelties of European construction to the Indian cook-room it is, a sine quâ non to proceed with cau- tion. Ramasamy is intensely conservative, and a sworn foe to innovations. Perchance there are amongst my readers some who can look back with a sigh to sundry patented culinary nicknacks brought out from England, in happy anticipation of grand cook-room reforms, to India, which, misunderstood from the first, were either soon cast aside as worthless from barbarous treatment, or diverted to uses which would drive the inventors crazy to think of. I call to mind having observed an instance of this kind when staying once with a friend on the Hills. The water for my bath was brought, I noticed, in the outer vessel of a “ Warren's patent cooking pot.” “Yes," said my host sorrowfully when I mentioned the occurrence, "I could never prevail upon my fellows to use the thing in 18 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. the kitchen, so they do what they like with it: the inner vessel makes a capital tom-tom for beating a sholah.” Left entirely alone, with articles of his own selection around him, the native cook is, however, a singularly in- genious creature. All men who have been accustomed to a nomad life under canvas far from the busy hum of cantonments—will, I think, agree with me in this. Given a hold in the ground, and a couple of stones for her range, with a bundle of jungle sticks, a chatty or two, perhaps a degchee, and a fan, wherewithal to prepare a dinner, can you picture to yourself the face of Martha, the “ thorough good cook” of an English household ? An amusing episode happened some few years ago which struck me at the time as illustrative to a degree of Rama- sámy's opinion of the British system of cookery. I hap- pened to be with a Regiment at Secunderabad which, for reasons connected with the antiquated barracks we occu- pied, was ordered to move into a standing camp. Our Colonel, an exceedingly young and fortunate officer, was a rampant soldier of the new school. His brain was ever busy with new ideas : it was even reported that he slept with “Wolseley's soldier's pocket-book” and “The Rules for Signalling in connection with Outpost duty" under his pillow. The order to march into camp delighted him. After issuing his orders concerning the geometrical lines in which he wished the tents to be pitched, not even for- getting the whitewashing of the tents' pegs, he turned his attention to the kitchens. Here was an opportunity for practically establishing a “Wolseley's field kitchen.” Two officers who had recently passed successfully through the Garrison course of instruction were accordingly sent for, and, as a personal favour to the Commanding Officer, requested to go out to the camping ground, and lay out a series of broad-arrow kitchens for the Regiment. The CERTAIN KITCHEN REQUISITES. 19 work was done, and we marched into camp the next day. Whilst the men were busy at stables, the Colonel rode about inspecting everything; presently he came upon the neatly excavated kitchens, but, to his astonishment, found them deserted! Not a cook was to be seen! Orderlies flew to find out where on earth the men's breakfasts were being cooked, and in a few minutes, the whole corps de cuisine was discovered squatting at work more suo in a dry nullah hard by. The Colonel furiously demanded why the proper kitch- ens had not been used, and “all this abominable mess prevented ?” Presently a cook of greater daring than his colleagues replied “ What sar! that bad sense kitchin, sar, I beg your pardon : too much firewood taking : see sar this prâper kitchin only." In the face of such an irresistible argument, the Colonel (albeit irritated beyond measure) was constrained to abandon his cherished project. When presenting Ramasámy, therefore, with novel uten- sils, let us guard against his denouncing them as “bad sense.” We must patiently show him how to use them, proving, if we possibly can, by practical illustration, the satisfactory results, saving of time, and so forth, to be gained by their means. Anything complicated should, of course, be avoided. As far as my personal experience goes, I confess that I have found Ramasamy by no means difficult to teach. All native cooks take readily to the mincing machine, and I find that my chef fully appreciates the vegetable cutter, root-knife, dishing-up fork, gravy strainer, wire sieve, hair sieve, colander, mortar, wire frying basket, “Warren's fish kettle and vegetable steamer,” and the larding needle, which he can use easily. Larding is one of the branches of the cook's art which comes naturally to a native; as a rule also I think that they surpass 20 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Europeans in boning poultry, an operation which Martha rarely attempts. I cannot too strongly recommend the adoption of that invaluable utensil a “bain-marie," or shallow trough, which, filled with hot-water and kept over a moderate fire, affords a hot bath in which the various little sauce- pans containing sauces, etc., can be set, and so kept hot without deterioration. A bain-marie complete, with a set of saucepans made to fit it, can be purchased at any hard- ware shop, or you can have one made to order to fit your saucepans in copper, iron, or block tin ; the first material will, of course, outlast the other two. The digester is a vessel that may be given to Ramasamy without hesitation; and he is keenly alive to the value of the stew-pan. In the matter of frying-pans he is not hypercritical : I do not think that he perceives the differ- ence between a friture-pan and an omelette-pan. He dis- likes anything heavy, and generally asks for a small iron pan. I quite agree with a friend whose experience in culinary matters is great, who advocates a deep-sided, heavy iron frying-vessel,-a frying kettle, in short, rather than the ordinary frying-pan of commerce, steady over the fire on account of its own weight,-for all real friture work, and, of course, a handy vessel for sauté work with a still lighter one for omelettes. The large pan he recommends can be made in any Indian bazár, and, when used in con- junction with the frying basket, will certainly be found most valuable. Like many English cooks, the native is apt to discard the gridiron and take the frying-pan for many things which ought invariably to be cooked in the former vessel : this tendency requires watching, for in many of the receipts I shall give, broiling is essential. I hesitate to pronounce any opinion upon the metal best adapted for kitchen utensils, for, upon this point different CERTAIN KITCHEN REQUISITES. 21 people think differently. Copper is, we all know, uni- versally recommended on account of its durability. You see nothing else in the kitchens of restaurants, clubs, &c., and in all establishments where the demands upon the chef are frequent and elaborate. If treated with ordinary care, no evil should result from its use. Enamelled iron- ware looks nice when new, but the slightest carelessness destroys the enamel, and when once cracked, it may be considered done for. Plain wrought-iron vessels, tinned, are serviceable, and block tin for certain utensils is not to be despised. The lately introduced grey enamel ware is likewise serviceable, and at the same time light. In my own kitchen, I have a mixed collection which answers its purpose well enough. With regard to the equipment necessary for an ordinary establishment, I can safely recommend :- A Warren's cooking pot. 1 1 Omelette-pan. 4 Stew-pans of sizes. 1 Fluted gridiron. 6 Sauce-pans assorted. 1 Tin fish kettle and drain- 1 Large sauce-pan with steamer. 1 Ordinary iron-kettle. 1 Iron 3-gallon digester. 2 Spits of sizes. 1 Braising-pan. 1 Bain-marie, capable of 1 Friture-pan (or frying holding four or five kettle). small sauce-pans. 1 Sauté-pan. In addition to this,—the heavy portion of the equip- ment,—the cook should have :- 3 Iron spoons of sizes. 1 Meat saw. 3 Wooden spoons. 1 Chopper. 1 Basting ladle. 2 Plain pudding moulds. 1 Fish slice. 1 Cake mould. 1 Set of skewers. 2 Plain border moulds. 1 Set of larding needles. | Flour dredger, er. CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. 1 Sugar dredger. 1 Wire frying basket. 1 Pepper box. 3 Jelly moulds of sizes. 1 Bread grater. 2 Border do. of do. 1 Set of vegetable cutters. 1 Paste jagger. 1 Dishing-up fork. 1 Set of pastry cutters. 2 Common forks. 1 Dozen patty pans. 5 Cook's knives in sizes. 1 A dozen mince pie pans. 1 Root knife. 1 Baking sheet. 1 Mincing knife. 2 Baking tins. 1 Toasting fork. 2 Bread or cake tins. 1 Block tin colander. 2 Soufflé tins of sizes. 2 Tin gravy strainers. 1 Set of freezing utensils 2 Pointed gravy do. complete. 1 Wire sieve. 1 Coffee mill. 2 Hair sieves of sizes. One mincing machine, and a tin box with divisions for a small supply of pepper-corns, salt, ground pepper, sugar, &c. A wooden slab, (or marble if you can get one) for pastry, with rolling pin is necessary, and also a pestle and mortar. A stone or iron one is best for India ; I have lost two Wedgwood mortars—broken through careless use on a stone-paved floor. I strongly recommend that every cook should have at least four common earthenware bowls, two of them with lips, for setting stock, gravies, &c., &c., and it will be found as well to give him a few cheap crockery sundries for exclusive use in his kitchen. If not, portions of your breakfast and dinner sets will find their way to the cook- room, and the list of killed, wounded, and missing will become alarming. I think the following sufficient for a small kitchen : two jugs, two cups and saucers, a wine-glass for measurement, six plates, three soup plates, two large and two small dishes, two small basins, and three wire CERTAIN KITCHEN REQUISITES. 23 covers to protect meat, &c., from flies: these articles may obviously be of the commonest ware or of enamelled iron. A cupboard fitted with a lock and key should be given to the cook for the safe custody of the many small articles I have enumerated, and a set of shelves for his utensils. The cook-room table should be roomy and strong, and to ensure its cleanliness, it should be continually scalded down with boiling water and soda, and well rubbed over with sand paper. Lastly, no kitchen should be without a clock. A cook of ordinary intelligence can, without difficulty, be taught to mark the progress of the hands, and work by time, rather than by guess-work. It is hardly necessary, I hope, for me to point out the intense importance of cleanliness in the kitchen, and in all utensils connected therewith. If you cannot go to the kitchen yourself, it is essential that you should hold weekly inspections of all your cooking utensils, which should be spread out on a mat in the verandah for that purpose. Give out washing soda, for you cannot keep things clean without it; and be very particular about the cloths that are used by the cook. There is a horrible taste which sometimes clings to soups, sauces, etc., which a friend of mine specifies as “ dirty cloth taste.” This is eloquent of neglect, and dirty habits in the kitchen. Sieves will do for many things, but there are some compositions which must be strained through cloths, we cannot, therefore, be too attentive with reference to that part of our kitchen equipment. For a few remarks concerning our kitchens in India, please turn to the end of the book. CHAPTER IV, In the Store-room. ncing houses for her of Ma IN visiting the vast collections of tinned provisions, sauces, &c., at some of the large establishments at the Presidency, I have often wondered how a lady, commencing house-keeping, is guided in selecting the things she requires for her store-room. A majority, no doubt, of the fair châtelaines of Madras, do their shopping at their boudoir writing tables, filling up lists at the dic- tation of the butler at their elbow ; for few, I take it,- very few care to go to the fountain head for what they want. Now, a batler's ideas about stores are, on the whole, very mixed : he worships “ Europe articles” and delights in filling the shelves of the store-room with rows of tins ; of which some may perhaps be useful, but many need never be bought at all at Madras, and so remain for months un- touched, lumbering the shelves of the cupboard. It has struck me, therefore, that having satisfied ourselves con- cerning the equipment of the kitchen, a few words regard- ing the choosing of stores may be acceptable. I have long come to the conclusion that the fewer acces- sories you use in the way of hermetically sealed provisions in the cooking of a dinner the better. In Madras we have all the materials for soup-making at hand, we have ex- cellent fish, very fair flesh and fowl, good wild fowl and IN THE STORE.ROOM. 25 game when in season, and vegetables from Bangalore and the Neilgherries in addition to the standard produce of the country. If, therefore, we concentrate our attention sufficiently upon what we can get from market, our demand on tinned food should be very small indeed. Take now, for instance, a tin of the ordinary preserved mushrooms,—those made you know of white leather,- what is the use of them, what do they taste of ? Yet people giving a dinner party frequently garnish one entrée at least with them, and the Madras butler would be horrified if his mistress were to refuse him that pleasure. The stewed " black Leicestershire” are the best preserved mushrooms to be had, but even between them and the fresh fungus, there is a great gulf fixed. A few years ago I met an officer of the Artillery, who, after having served in various parts of the world, had just been appointed to a command in this Presidency. Con- versation happened to turn upon cookery, and the Colonel soon proved himself to be a man who had for years studied the science con amore. He had had little or no experience of Indian life, and he expressed himself agreeably sur- prised, rather than otherwise, at the style of living to which he had been introduced. “But,” he said, “ preserve me from your dinners of ceremony." He had arrived, he told me, quite unexpectedly a few evenings before, and had been at once invited to the Mess; the dinner,-just the ordinary daily one, --was, he thought, excellent, and so it was the next day, and the day following, but on the fourth day he was formally invited to dine as a Mess guest, and that was a very different affair. Considerable expense had been incurred, he observed, on this occasion in tinned provisions, but with the worst possible result. There was a dish of preserved salmon hot, and sodden; the entrées were spoilt by the introduction of terrible sausages, 26 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. and mushrooms; and the tinned vegetables were ruined by being wrongly treated by the cook. “ There are few men,” the Colonel went on, “who have had more to do with preserved provisions than I have, but until I attended this big Indian dinner, I never saw such things actually regarded as delicacies, and put upon the table to the exclu- sion of the good fresh food procurable in the market.” This is the proper way of looking at this question. There will be times and places, when and where you will be obliged to fall back upon Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell, and be thankful. Until those evil days come upon you, how- ever, do not anticipate your penance, but strive to make the food you can easily procure, palatable and good by scientific treatment. I look upon tinned provisions in the hands of Rama- sámy as the cloaks of carelessness, and slovenly cooking. He thinks that the 'tin' will cover a multitude of sins, so takes comparatively little pains with the dish that it accompanies. There are many ladies who, when giving out stores for a dinner party, have no hesitation in issuing 'tins' to the value of many rupees, but if asked for extra cream, butter, eggs, and gravy-meat,—the true essentials of cookery,– begin to consider themselves imposed upon. The poverty of our cookery in India results almost wholly from our habit of ignoring these things, the very backbone, as it were, of the cook's art. If an English cook, surrounded with the best market supplies in the world, be helpless without her stock, her kitchen butter, and her cream and eggs, how much more should Ramasamy be pitied if he be refused those necessaries, for his materials stand in far greater need of assistance. In the matter of firewood and charcoal too, I am aware that there is often a difference of opinion between the IN THE STORE-ROOM. cook and his mistress, and I am inclined to think that Ramasámy is generally in the wrong. Still, we should be careful lest we limit his supply of fuel too closely—espe- cially on a dinner party day. I once was a guest at a house where the dinner was served perfectly as far as the joint, when a sudden collapse took place; the game and dressed vegetable were stone-cold. The excuse the next day was, “ charcoal all done finish, and Missis only got godown key in the pocket.” Unless you have tried to find out practically what can be done with the fish, flesh, fowl, and vegetables of this country, by studious cookery, you will scarcely believe the extent of your power, and how independent you really are of preserved provisions. It is absolutely annoying to read the nonsense people write about our style of living in India. I remember an article headed “ Curry and Rice” which once appeared in Vanity Fair. The writer wrecked on the rock apon which many drift, who, with a little knowledge of the peculiarities of some particular part of the country, sit down with impudent confidence to treat of India generally, quite forgetting that the Peninsula is a large one, and that the manners and customs which obtain in one district, may never have been heard of in other parts of the Empire. The article was not applicable to any part of the Madras Presidency, and judging from the writer's suggestions as to the cookery of a tin of beef with yams, and worse still, the fabrication of soup from the fowl bones you picked and left at luncheon, I should say that Vanity had picked up not only an ignoramus, but an uncleanly ignoramus, as a contributor. Our friends at Home were told by this audacious man that no dinner was complete in India without a “burning curry," and that none was successful“ without Europe tins.” I think that, as we go on, I shall be able to prove that at Madras, at all events, we can do pretty well without either. 28 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Although I am strongly against the use of tinned things to the extent that many allow, there are nevertheless many articles which you must have in the store-room : pickles, sauces, jams, bacon, cheese, maccaroni, vermicelli, vinegars, flavouring essences, the invaluable truffle, tart fruits, biscuits, isinglass, arrowroot, oatmeal, pearl barley, cornflour, olives, capers, dried herbs, and so on. Grated Parmesan cheese (sold in bottles by Crosse and Blackwell) should never be forgotten, the salad oil should be the best procurable, and no store-room should be without tarragon vinegar, anchovy vinegar, French vinegar, and white wine vinegar. Amongst sauces I consider “Harvey” the best for general use ; Sutton's “ Empress of India," is a strong sauce with a real flavour of mushrooms ; Moir's sauces and “Reading sauce” are very trustworthy, and there are others which, no doubt, commend themselves to different palates, but I denounce “ Worcester sauce” and “ Tapp's sauce" as agents far too powerful to be trusted to the hands of the native cook. Sutton's essence of anchovies is said to possess the charm of not clotting, or forming a stoppage in the neck of the bottle. I have a deep respect for both walnut and mushroom ketchup, soy, and tomato conserve. Then as special trifles, we must not forget caviare, olives farcies, and anchovies in oil. The cook should be carefully shown the use of flavour- ing essences, and also that of dried herbs. He ought also to be taught never to run out of bread crumbs. Stale fine crumbs should be made every now and then, and kept corked down in bottles for use when required. The very unsightly appearance presented by fish, cutlets, etc., crumbed with fresh spongy crumbs should warn us, for stale bread is never to be had when we suddenly want it. Red currant jelly is very useful ; the store-room should never be “out” of it. I shall treat of tinned vegetables hereafter in their proper place. Macédoines, fonds d'arti- IN THE STORE-ROOM. 29 chaut, petits pois, haricots verts and asperges are, of course, excellent, and the dried Julienne will be found admirable for soups. Preserved fish is not required at Madras, and we can get on without tinned meats, soups, and potted luxuries, for we can make better things at home. In sweet things, however, we are not so independent, and jams, jellies, tart-fruits, dried and candied peel, currants, raisins, ginger, &c., &c., must all have room in the house-keeper's cupboard. Of the invaluable qualities to the Anglo-Indian of good tinned butter, I shall speak on a future occasion. In a chapter on stores it is impossible to pass over, without a few words of commendation, the excellent pre- served fish, vegetables, and fruits, which have, of late, been imported from America. Besides being capital in quality these “canned” delicacies are decidedly cheap. The old English firms have now to compete with dangerous rivals. Let them look to their laurels. Messrs. Brand & Co.'s preparations for invalids, potted meats, soups, and strong essences of beef, chicken, &c., are spécialités in their way vastly superior to anything for- merly in the market of a like description. Messrs. Moir and Son have however taken up the subject recently with great success. CHAPTER V. On Stock, and clear Soups. ITH a keen appreciation of the importance of the V subject, and of the difficulties with which it is surrounded, I now proceed to place before my readers a little collection of hints and wrinkles about soup-making which I have gathered from time to time from a variety of sources. Some, by practical experience, gained by bonâ fide work in the kitchen, some given to me by friends, and some picked out of different works on the culinary art. In my extracts from books, I shall endeavour to record, as much as possible, such advice only as I have tested myself, and I shall try to make my gleanings simple and concise. To begin then; there are, we know, three distinct classes of soups :—the clear, the thick, and the purée. We recognise clear soups in the menu under different names. For instance, we meet consommé de volaille, and potage à la printanière, but whereas the word consommé is invariably applied to clear soups, we find potage frequently used for thick also, to wit:-potage à la Reine, potage à la bonne femme, 8c. Let us distinguish between thick soups and purées in this way:—The former owe their consistency to the addition of some artificial thickening, such as four, egg yolks, &c., the latter, on the other hand, derive their thick characteristic from the ingredients that compose them being rubbed through a tamis, or through a wire ON STOCK, AND CLEAR SOUPS. 31 sieve, and, communicated to the stock in the form of a thick pulp, as in the case of purée d'artichauts, purée de legumes, purée de gibier, &c. A soup partaking of the character of a thinnish purée helped up by artificial aid in the way of thickening, is called by some writers a potage à la purée. The bisque again is a purée, strictly speaking, of cray fish (aux écrevisses) or of lobster (de homard), but it can be made successfully with crab, prawns, and shrimps; indeed a nice bisque can be made with any fish. - So much for names. Let us now turn our attention to beef consommé for we may regard it as the foundation upon which nearly every soup is based. “Stock,” says a capital writer on cookery, “is to a cook what the medium or the water is to the painter in oils or in water colours. It may be defined, generally speaking, as a solution in water of the nutritive, and sapid elements contained in meat and bones : salt and spices added to it to make it savoury, and if to this you add the flavour of various vegetables, you have soup.” We must remember, however, to start with, that soup in India must be made in one day. We cannot fall back upon the never-empty stock pot of the English kitchen : our's must be made daily, and, to guard against waste, only in sufficient quantity for the day's consumption. In saying this I have, of course, mainly before me the climate of Madras, and of the plains of Southern India. At the Hill stations and during the cold weather in the northern part of the country, the method obtaining in British households may, no doubt, with care, and slight modification, be fol- lowed. Our soup, then, being actually an ephemeral production, how should we proceed ? “For the type of all stock- making,” says the G. C.“ there can be no better recipe taken then that of the French pot-au-feu," let us therefore 32 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. consider attentively the following recipe for that most valuable of culinary operations. Put a piece of soup-meat,-say of four pounds weight, in the proportion of three pounds of flesh to one of bone, (the recipe can, of course, be followed by adding or reducing as you may require but preserving like proportion) tightly bound with a string, with two ounces of salt and the bones separately broken up, into a stock pot filled with water, so as to completely cover the meat. Put the pot by the side of the fire and let it become gradually heated. As this takes place, a scum will form upon the surface which must be carefully removed as it rises. When nearly boiling, a coffee cupfal of cold water should be thrown into the pot to accelerate the rising of the scum. The clearness of the soup will depend remember, upon all the scum being taken off, and upon the water being kept from boiling point until it is all removed. This having been done ; put into the saucepan the following vegetables which should have been previously carefully cleaned and cut up, viz. :-a couple of large white onions, a clove of garlic, two large or three small carrots, two or three turnips, six leeks, one head of celery, a bunch of curly parsley, and two cloves in the onion. Then put in, tied up in a piece of muslin, some thyme, marjoram, and a handful of whole pepper, ---a tea-spoonful each of dried thyme and marjoram will be quite enough. It will be found that by adding the vegetables, the boiling of the broth will be thrown back; as soon however as the bubbling recommences, watch the vegetables carefully, and remove them when they are done. If you leave them in the stock pot after they have been cooked, they will spoil the soup. Remove the muslin bag also. You can next put in a dessert-spoonful of sugar, a table-spoonful of Harvey sauce, and two of mushroom ketchup; when the pot-au-feu is, so to speak, thus com- pleted, it must be left to simmer slowly from three to four ON STOCK, AND CLEAR SOUPS. 33 hours. The soup should now be strained into a basin and left to get cool, so that any remaining fat may be effect- ually skimmed off. The clear liquor is then fit to be warm- ed and served with maccaroni, bread sippets, or vegetables, &c., according to the kind of soap you wish to have. Observe that in order to carry out this recipe, an open, roomy vessel is necessary; a closed pot like a digester must not be used. This is, to my mind, the simplest recipe you can follow to achieve a bright clear consommé. It is, of course, im- perative that you proceed exactly as described. First, the meat covered with cold water, and brought very slow- ly to the boil, being very carefully skimmed the while. Next, when the skimming is completed, the vegetables,- to be removed when done, the little bouquet of sweet herbs, the sugar, and a small allowance of sauce and ketchup. Now, a period of three hours to simmer, followed by straining. The liquor you have after this is actually beef consommé or strong broth quite clear and pale. Removing the fat whilst the simmering is going on is obviously a very important stage which cannot be too patiently manipulated. The fat so obtained is invaluable for frying purposes. It should be melted after it has settled, and strained through a piece of muslin. It may so happen that, owing to insufficient skimming in the early stage of the proceedings, you find to your sorrow that the consommé is not as clear as you could wish. You must therefore clarify it. There are two good ways of doing this. The simpler, and I believe, the more effica- cious of the two is to put into the cool broth some very small fragments of raw beef, free from fat, put it on the fire again till it boils, let it settle, and then strain. Per- haps, however, you may not have saved a bit of meat for this contingency, so you must attain your object with the 34 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. white of an egg, thus :-Break an egg, and throw the white and the shell together into a slop basin,-be care- ful not to let an atom of the yolk go in,-beat the white and shell up to a stiff froth, and mix it, flake by flake, very completely with the cool soup. Put the soup into a saucepan, and set it on the fire, stirring well till it boils. Take it off immediately, cover it close, let it stand for a quarter of an hour, and then strain it off through the tamis, or hair sieve. Let me here point out the cause of another misadven- ture in the satisfactory appearance of a clear soup,-one that often occurs in consommé with maccaroni, vermicelli, and pearl-barley. You have got your stock as bright and clear as sherry, but after adding the ingredients just men- tioned " a change comes over the spirit of your dream,”— the soup turns cloudy. The reason is this : preserved fari- naceous food of the maccaroni class often contains dirt, -dirt that you do not perceive, and which can only be removed by parboiling. Accordingly, whenever you in- tend to add it to consommé, you should boil it independently in plain water in order that the outside dirty part may be washed off by becoming dissolved. Plain washing in water is not enough ; besides, washing maccaroni is the act of an ignoramus. There is another feature in a clear soup which I have reserved for special attention, and that is the colouring. Now, an idea prevails amongst numbers of English people that a soup to be good and strong must be dark-coloured. Old-fashioned people speak of your modern consommé as a weak, washy composition only fit for foreigners. But if you take the very self-same liquor and brown it with a lot of burnt onion, and thicken it with flour and butter, they are perfectly satisfied. Did you ever make jug. ged beef tea for a sick friend, the strongest possible essence of raw lean beef ? Was not the liquor so obtained ON STOCK, AND CLEAR SOUPS. as clear as sherry, pale-coloured, with a quantity of granulated particles of the beef floating in it? Well, when strained that would have been consommé without the flavouring produced from vegetables and the bouquet of sweet herbs, and surely strong enough for the veriest John Bull that ever talked nonsense about cookery. Now, if you desire to impart a golden brown tint to your clear soup, or a darker tint, (which the gods forfend) never use burnt onion upon any account. You must achieve your object by a browning (caramel) made thus :-put a quarter pound of white sugar into a copper or enamelled pan; set it over the fire, and stir it till it is melted; then after simmering for a quarter of an hour, and it has reach- ed the brown tint you want, add a pint of water to it, boil, and skim it, let it get cold, and then bottle and cork it down for use. A little of this should be put into the soup prior to the three hours' simmering stage, if a golden brown be the tint desired. If you can obtain a small bottle of French-made suc colorant, you need not trouble your head about the colour- ing, for a little of that exquisite preparation will colour, and also slightly improve the flavour of your consommé. Messrs. Moir and Son now provide this useful ingredient. Grated Parmesan or Gruyère cheese should always be handed round with clear soups, for it improves many of them. Chilli-vinegar in minute particles is considered by some a great improvement. I strongly advise any of my readers who write to England for their stores, not to forget to ask for a little bottle of American “Tabasco," or quintessence of cayenne, sold by Messrs. Jackson and Co., Piccadilly, priced half a crown: each bottle is furnished with a patent stopper to enable you to shake out a drop at a time; two drops in each basin of soup is generally found enough, and the flavour is very good, quite superseding chilli-vinegar for this purpose. 36 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. The next important feature for consideration in soup- making is the adding of wine, which, I think, may be regarded as very essential. Madeira or Marsala is better than sherry for most soups. A rich, full, fruity wine,- inexpensive for want of age, and scarcely to be recom- mended for after dinner drinking, -is the class best adapted for kitchen use. If sherry be preferred, it ought to be a fruity one, and sound, not a cheap extraordinary compound, composed of molasses, washings of sherry casks, and the most villainous brandy; but honest sherry, lacking age, perhaps, yet bonâ fide wine. “There is a good saying,” observes an author on cookery, that is appropriate here :- “ It is no use spoiling the ship for the sake of a ha’porth of tar,”-it is, I think, no use spoiling a good soup for the sake of a spoonful of wine.” Be careful, however, not to overdo the soupçon of wine that you add to a clear soup; a good table-spoonful is, to my mind, enough for a tureen filled for eight persons. Thick soups, especially those made of game, mock-turtle, giblet, kidney, and the like, take a larger share of wine : hare soup requires port or burgundy, wild duck and teal soup also, whilst potages of snipe, partridges, quails, jungle-fowls, &c., are, I think, better enriched with Madeira, or Marsala. I have hitherto purposely omitted saying anything con- cerning the treatment of the meat and vegetables of which a pot-au-feu is made, being anxious to keep strictly to the subject which we have been discussing,--the cookery of a clear consommé. Before I go on with soup-making, how- ever, I beg par parenthése as it were, to turn back to that period in the preparation of the soup when we strained the consommé from the meat, bones, and vegetables, which had made it. In the Madras kitchen the soup-meat is regarded, I believe, as the perquisite of the cook's maty, which, being interpreted, may be understood to mean really that of the ON STOCK, AND CLEAR SOUPS. 37 cook himself. Whether this custom be susceptible of reform or not, I hesitate to say, but there can be no doubt at all that, by giving way to it, we often deny ourselves a dish which would be exceedingly nice for a change,--one which, on the continent, is sent to table as a matter of course. In small establishments, or for the quiet dinner alone, I can strongly recommend a trial of home-made bouilli, which should be treated in this way :- Let us assume that the recipe for pol-au-feu has been strictly carried out as far as the straining stage, and that all the vegetables, or as many of them as were procurable, have been used : now, place the meat on a dish, remove the string that bound it, and serve it upon a bed of mac- caroni previously boiled till tender, and a purée obtained by rubbing all the vegetables through the wire sieve, mois- tened with a portion of the bouillon or consommé; or on a bed of stewed cabbage, with the other vegetables neatly arranged round it, in the clear broth. Don't rush away with the Anglo-Saxon idea that there is no “goodness” (Martha's word) in soup-meat. “There is,” says the G. C., “ as much nutriment in it, when eaten with the soup it has yielded, as there would have been, had it been roasted ; and much more than if it had been converted into salt junk, as it is the English custom to do with the silverside of beef.” You can vary the bouilli by tomato sauce, any piquante sauce, or even soubise. The soup-meat served with maccaroni, grated Parmesan, and purée of tomatoes is the favourite “manzo guernito” of the Italian dinner. Talking of soup-meat, does every one know that the potted meats so largely exported, and commonly appre- ciated in this country, are made from the meat of which the tinned soups are composed ? It is a fact nevertheless, and every atom of meat is thus turned to account by the 38 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. preserved provision dealers. The potted meat you see in a confectioner's window at home, neatly capped with melted butter, is made from the beef which produced the stock of the mock-turtle (I bet anything it is “mock- tartle,”) he advertises at a shilling a basin-enterprising man! I once tested this myself. Having before me a large piece of soap-meat apparently full of nutriment, I determined as an experiment, to make potted meat of it. Martha, my cook, looked sourly on,- I little knew that I was robbing her of the price of that meat from the nearest pastry-cook-and called it, for her part, a “ hawful mess”; but we, who ate it, found it delicious. In London, and all large towns in England, a regular private trade in soup- meat, dripping, and fragments, is carried on between our cooks and the keepers of refreshment rooms, which both parties regard as perfectly legitimate. But to return to the subject of soups. Although we may succeed in mastering the difficulties of the consommé, or foundation of soup-making, we must not forget that our work may be spoiled by the introduction of some barbarism peculiar to the Indian kitchen. An idea prevails with some people that clear soups require to be assisted with gelatine, or isinglass, to give them a sort of glutinous con- sistency. Ramasámy has discovered a very pernicious sort of starch which he produces from a raw-potato, and by this compound the soup in many houses, I know, is ruined. The potato imparts a crude, inky flavour to the consommé which is hard to describe on paper, but is fatal in its effect upon the palate. It kills all the flavour of the meat and vege- tables. Ramasamy should be cautioned on no account to ase what he calls “potato-thickening” again, in any cir- cumstances whatever, and, once for all, let me observe that clear soups require no isinglass. The consommé cannot be too bright, light, and clear. “ Country parsley,” to my mind, spoils any soap. It is ON STOCK, AND CLEAR SOUPS. nearly as bad as too much spice, and unfortunately our natives are very fond of it. I have interdicted its use in my kitchen under pain of a fine. Tarragon is the best flavouring herb you can use in a clear soup, (consommé à l'estragon) but we have only the vinegar in India, not the plant itself, and a leaf or two is, what we desire in soup. I brought out from England and have also received by post, some dried tarragon leaves which I have found highly satisfactory, and can safely recommend others to try. Unfortunately tarragon is not included in Crosse and Blackwell's dried herb list, so you must write, if suffi- ciently enthusiastic, to a friend who has a large kitchen garden, and beg him to fill a bottle or two with tarragon leaves carefully dried for you. In London any green- grocer can comply with this order from June till the end of October.* Basil, which can be procured in bottles, is the best herb for clear mock turtle, and other clear soups made of shell-fish. I will now conclude this, my first chapter on soup- making, with a code of general rules on the subject :- 1. Take care that your stock pot, a roomy vessel, is thoroughly clean before you commence operations ; good scalding with hot-water in which a lump of washing soda has been dissolved, will make matters certain, and take away that smoky taint which all our atensils get in India owing to our wood fires, and chimneyless ranges. 2. Use soft water rather than hard. 3. One shin of Indian beef is enough for two persons, two shins ought to suffice for six, and so on. 4. Put the fresh soup-meat with the bones separately broken up, and the salt, into cold-water : hot (not boiling) * Since this was written in 1878, Messrs. Moir and Son have intro. duced the dried herb in bottles which will be found excellent.-W. 40 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. water should be poured round meat and bones that have been previously cooked. 5. A quart of water to half a pound of meat and bone is said to be the outside you can allow in England, but a smaller proportion will be found advisable in India—a quart to a pound for instance. In any circumstances there must be sufficient water to cover the meat and bone. 6. Remember that slow boiling, and retarding actual boiling as much as possible, are important points to start with. 7. Do not cover up your pot closely, the steam should evaporate to assist the strength of the soup, and keep it clear. 8. Skim frequently during the early stage of your pro- ceedings,-a cup of cold-water thrown into the pot causes the scum, or albumen, to come up quickly, and, of course, retards boiling. 9. Use a wooden spoon. 10. Put in your vegetables, flavouring herbs, &c., after the skimming is finished, and let them simmer till they are done. 11. Wash your vegetables very carefully before adding them. 12. As soon as the vegetables which are put into the pot-au-feu are done, they should be removed, and the heat under the soup-kettle maintained at simmering point. 13. It will take four or five hours to extract the essence from a few pounds of beef, so begin as soon as you can, and don't hurry the work. 14. It is better to season too little than too highly, so ON STOCK, AND CLEAR SOUPS. 41 15. There is nothing to be gained by keeping the meat simmering when once it is thoroughly done. The consommé is at its best when the meat which made it is done to a nicety, viz., in about five hours. Boiling “ to rags” is a useless proceeding. N.B.-Remember that you will never succeed in obtain- ing a nicely flavoured clear soup, unless the proportions of meat and vegetables are carefully maintained. For three pounds of meat and one of bone, Gouffé gives the following weights of vegetables :-carrots, ten ounces ; large onions, ten ounces; leeks, fourteen ounces; celery, one ounce; turnips, ten ounces; parsnip, two ounces. As leeks are not often found in the Madras market, I would substitute another large onion, about five ounces. Parsnips are only procurable on the Neilgherries, their weight may be made up with some extra carrot. Turnips, unless gathered fresh and young, are apt to be very strong in India; I think, therefore, that five ounces of them will be found sufficient as a rule. Observe the weight allowed of celery ;—this is important, for celery is a very power- fully flavoured vegetable. Concerning vegetable consommé, I speak later on. Have the rules, I have given, together with the weights of meat and vegetables, and the recipe for pot-au-feu, written out in Tamil by your butler and pasted upon card-board, to be hung in the cook-room for Ramasamy's edification whose self-taught method of soup-making may be briefly described as follows:- He cuts up the soup-meat, and bone, and throws them into the digester pot; he next adds the vegetables, pepper, salt and spice, covers the whole with water, puts the vessel screwed down on a good brisk fire, and walks off to his rice, leaving his tunnycutch to watch the boiling. All she does is to see that there is plenty of firewood under the 42 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. digester. As may readily be supposed boiling point is speedily reached in this way of managing matters. In an hour or so the cook returns and finds the water he put into the pot reduced to about one-third of its original quantity; this is, of course, a very strong broth, he accordingly strains it off, and calls it his “ first sort gravy.” He then returns the meat, &c., to the pot again, covers it with water, and lets that boil away. The liquid thus produced, I need scarcely say, is terrible to look upon, and very nasty to taste, the whole essence of the meat having been fritter- ed away by the first process. It is a dull, greasy-looking Huid like dish washings. Nevertheless Ramasamy strains it off and calls it the “second sort grávy.” He next amal- gamates the two "sorts,” browns the mixture with burnt onion, and clarifies it with the white of an egg. Having got it clear, he rasps some raw potato into it to obtain a nice glutinous starch, and when the soup seems sufficiently gummy, he strains once more and sends it to table. Setting aside other considerations, pray observe the wastefulness of this awful process. It is not exaggeration to say that half the quantity of soup-meat and bone required by the ignorant native cook might be saved if he could be prevailed upon to follow the laws of intelligent cookery. CHAPTER VI. Thick soups and purées. MTOW about thick soups, apart from purées :—these are perhaps more popular with the majority of English people, than the thin clear. There is an expression of richness and of strength in them which cannot fail to captivate the Briton. He, therefore, that would gratify his countrymen, must frequently offer them a soup which is in itself a meal. I made the acquaintance of a little French woman in London whose husband kept a pastry cook's shop and was a chef indeed. Asking one day in a hurry for any clear soup they could give me, Madame Grégoire arched her eyebrows and said “Ah ! m'sieur it would not pay us to make for our customers the consommé. Ox-tail, mock-tur- tle, and purée de pois we have ready; for a clear soup, we must have notice of a few hours." And we exchanged our regrets that Englishmen could not appreciate, even in the midst of July, a potage à la printanière. Still I confess that a thick soup is acceptable at times : -In cool weather ; when you return as hungry as a hunter from some physical enterprise ; or when you have a little cosy dinner of only a very few items to discuss—a soup, a slice of a joint, à dressed vegetable, and your cheese. But I hesitate to recommend soups of this class for a Madras dinner party,—to be placed before men whose 44 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. labours all day have been sedentary, and ladies who have lunched well, and passed their day in graceful repose. And it is mainly for them, be it remembered, that I com- pose what a friendly critic terms my “menus mignons." There is one feature about thick soups which is worthy of attention, and that is that you need not be so scrupu- lously careful in the making of the stock, or in selecting the materials of which the stock is made, for you have not to think of that clearness which is the salient feature of your consommé. Thick soups can therefore, be made of the bones of cooked meat, and scraps that would never do for potage à la Julienne for instance. Let us take as a type of a really good thick soup that called potage à la bonne femme, which, is made in this way. Prepare a quart of stock, and keep that by your side : now cut up a good-sized (Bombay) onion into very thin rounds, and place them in a sauce-pan with two ounces of good tinned butter. Take care not to let the onion get brown, and when it is half done, throw in a quarter of a pound of sorrel leaves, a lettuce, and a bunch of parsley, all finely shred, add pepper, salt, half an ounce of flour, and keep stirring for five minutes. You then add a dessert-spoonful of pounded loaf-sugar, and half a cupful of the stock, freed from fat, and not coloured. Let the mixture reduce nearly to a glaze, when you gradually stir in about a quart of the stock ; and let the soup simmer for a quarter of an hour. You now must prepare about a dozen pieces of bread cut very thin about two inches long, and an inch wide, taking care that there is crust along one of their long sides, and you must dry these thoroughly in the oven. When it is time to send up the soup, you remove the superfluous fat from it, and set it to simmer for a quarter of an hour. Now, prepare a liaison made as follows:-Break two eggs in a basin, beat them well as THICK SOUPS AND PUREES. 45 for an omelette adding two ounces of butter, dip a coffee- cup into the soup, and mix that quantity with the egg and butter, adding another cupful when the butter is melted. Take the soup off the fire, pour it over the slices of bread, next add the liaison, and serve in three minutes. This should be enough for six basins. The eggs must be tho- roughly beaten, if not, pieces of the white will form in flakes in the boiling soup, and spoil its appearance. This leads me to an important point in most thick soups, and purées, and that is the addition of cream, or milk with the yolks of eggs. It will be found in some recipes for these soups that boiled cream is ordered to be added. The distinction is important: not merely is the risk of curdling avoided, but the flavour imparted to the potage is different. All know, for example, how different is the taste of coffee that is made with boiling milk, from that to which cold milk has been added. When therefore you add cream to soup, boil it beforehand separately. Milk is a substitute for cream especially if a yolk of an egg be added to it, but be careful in adding the yolk lest the soup be curdled. To do this, boil the milk first atten- tively, and pour it through a strainer into the soup; next make the tureen hot, and just before serving, throw into it the yolk of the egg, and a little butter; take a spoonful of the soup, and work it well with the yolk, then add more soup, spoonful by spoonful, mixing tho- roughly; lastly, pour in the remainder of the soup which should, of course, be as hot as possible. Whether you add eggs, cream, or milk to soup, it is a sine quâ non that the process be carried out off the fire, i.e., the vessel containing the soup must be lifted from the fire before you go to work. Thick soups may be divided into two classes—the white, and the brown. The principles followed in both are very 46 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. similar; the main difference, of course, consists in the sort of meat used, and the employment of roux, or liaison as the case may be. Roux is simply melted butter, with flour added to it, according to the quantity of soup you want to thicken. The butter must be melted first, the flour being dredged in by degrees, and stirred vigorously at the bottom of the sauce-pan until thoroughly incorporated, and velvety. As soon as it turns brown, the roux is ready. This is what is wanted for brown soups. For a white, the liaison must not be allowed to take colour; you must commence adding the soup to it as soon as the flour and butter have been sufficiently worked together. In making these soups, the utmost care should be taken not to over-do the thickening. In the case of a white soup, this error is almost more fatal than in that of a brown. You might as well offer your guest a basin of arrowroot “conjee,” or any nice gruel, for the savoury flavour of the soup is easily overpowered. A little prac- tice will teach a cook how much flour, is necessary to obtain the desired consistency of a thick soup, and he should bear in mind that the full effect of the thickening does not assert itself until the soup, which has been added to it, comes to the boil. Observe that you add the soup to the roux, not the roux to the soup. The adding should be done by degrees, if you want the soup to be smooth and creamy. If, after coming to the boil, you find the soup too thin, you must proceed as follows :-mix a little more roux very carefully in a small sauce-pan, add a cupful of the soup to it, and when quite smooth, and free from lumps, pour it by degrees into the soup, off the fire, through a pointed gravy strainer, stirring vigorously as you do so. When quite mixed, replace the vessel on the fire, and let it boil up. THICK SOUPS AND PUREES. I have given several recipes for thick soups such as mock-turtle, ox-tail, giblet, &c., in my menus, and if the few general rules I have laid down be carefully noted, I think that my readers will experience very little difficulty in carrying them out satisfactorily. And now, we come to the purée which, to my mind, is perhaps one of the most important features of the whole study of cookery. In India this form of preparing our meat and vegetables ought to be much more generally understood and practised than it is. In a purée we can work into a palatable and wholesome condition, meat that from its poverty or tough- ness, would be sorry fare indeed if boiled, or roasted. An ordinary little dish of neatly trimmed mutton-chops (nicely grilled over a clear fire) becomes an artistic entrée if served round a nest of mashed potato, containing a delicate purée of vegetable, such as celery, peas, asparagus, tomato, spinach, &c., whilst common onion sauce, thus treated, is promoted to the dignity of sauce soubise. Old partridges and jungle fowl, the remains of cold poultry, and of all game, can be turned to capital account in a purée. Even an ancient, and extraordinarily tough “moorghee" may be thus rendered fit to eat. For the sick, and for those suffering from tooth-ache, food cooked in this manner is invaluable, whilst there can be no doubt that it must be good for children. In order to be able to accomplish the making of purées satisfactorily you must possess a strong pestle and mortar, a large hair sieve, a wire sieve, and a mincing machine. If you desire to make a purée of meat of any kind, an immense amount of labour is saved by first using the mincer, the work in the mortar is then reduced to a mini- mum, and the pounded meat will soon be ready to pass through the sieve. 48 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. In using the sieve, by the way, caution your cook that he must always put whatever he wishes to pass through it, at the shallow end, placing the sieve over a large bowl, or dish, big enough to receive it, and rubbing the purée through it with a large wooden spoon. From time to time he must invert the sieve, and scrape off the portion of the purée which always adheres to the reverse side of the hair, or wire. A cook must be patient in the use of this utensil, and achieve his object by perseverance, rather than by boisterous work. If you bear too heavily on the hair, your sieve will soon bulge, and ere long the hair will part company from the wooden cylinder to which it is attached. Purées, as soups, are prepared in this way :-You first must make as good a bowl of stock as you can from bones, meat, scraps, (bones of ham and bacon especially valuable) sufficient for the number of people you have to cater for. Let it get cool and remove the fat that rises to its surface. You should flavour your stock to the best of your capa- bilities with dried sweet herbs, onion, parsley, a carrot or two, celery, &c., or such vegetables as may be available, with salt and pepper to taste. The better your stock, or foundation, the better your purée. Suppose, now, that you want to make potage à la Crécy, which in plain terms is carrot purée :-boil as many carrots as you think will suffice for the quantity of soup you have to make in the stock made as aforesaid : when thoroughly done, drain them, and pass them through the sieve. Now, mix the pulp so obtained with sufficient of the stock to make a purée a little thinner than you wish your soup eventually to be. Melt a piece of butter at the bottom of a sauce-pan, and work a little flour into it, gradually adding the purée, and stirring without ceasing till the soup comes to the boil, when it will be found of the proper consistency. Skim, if necessary, and serve. THICK SOUPS, AND PUREES. 49 The pith of this recipe, and of all receipts for purées, lies in the liaison of melted butter and flour which must be worked into the soup as described, and at the period indi- cated. Why -well, have you ever noticed carrot, or pea-soup, which, when sent to table, instead of looking the creamy red, or green purée that you desired, presented the appearance of a thin gravy soup, with a quantity of the vegetable pulp at the bottom of each basin-the stock and the pulp not having amalgamated ? This result was caused by the omission of the process I have described which is necessary to blend the two together. Crécy soup should be served with bread cut into dice and fried in butter; or crisped on a buttered tin in the oven after having been soaked in a little of the stock. Croûtons, treated in this way, should accompany all vegetable purées. Purées of celery, Jerusalem artichokes, (Palestine soup,) onion, and turnips, if the stock be kept free from colour, can be served as white soups, and cream, or the substitute already described, will be found an improvement to all of them. “Potage à la reine,” a very old white soup, is really.a purée of fowl or turkey, and an excellent white potage, very like it, can be produced from a rabbit. Those artistic entrées “crême de homard," "crême de volaille," " crême d'artichauts,” 8c., are merely consolidated purées. The quenelle again, is only meat worked to that condition, and bound with bread-crumb, or paste, and eggs. The purée of chestnuts is a well-known delicacy at elaborate banquets at home and abroad, whether in the form of soup, or as a sauce to accompany white entrées, and especially the turkey. The Indian nut commonly known as the “promotion nut,” and fresh almonds, mako capital purées if carefully treated, and I daresay that there 50 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. are other nuts to be got in India that would well repay the trouble of a trial, in the same way. All green vegetable purées derive enrichment in appear- ance by the judicious addition of “spinach-greening” which is, in itself, the liquor obtained from spinach boiled, drain- ed, worked through the sieve, and then squeezed through a piece of muslin. I have seen people quite deceived with a soup made with dried peas and coloured with “spinach- greening” in imitation of purée de pois verts. A pinch of sugar ought not to be forgotten in making these soups. The enterprising cultivators of asparagus at Madras ought now and then to indulge their guests with that excellent soup “purée d'asperges," which however ranks next, I take it, to the still more artistic “consommé aux points d'asperges." You can make a capital green purée any day at Madras with French beans; and with one tin of petits pois (thought- fully assisted with spinach-greening if the peas have lost colour) you can produce a very perfect purée of green peas for about eight people. A very inviting-looking soup of bright colour can be made from tomatoes, following exactly the receipt for “ Crécy,” and substituting tomatoes for carrots. Brown purées are, of course, those made of game such as hares, partridges, snipe, wild duck, teal, etc. In this way you can always advantageously dispose of tough old birds. A good purée de gibier, of hare, or of any game- bird, is, without doubt, soup which is with justice widely popular. It is essentially the soup of the hungry man. A basin of it, to use a homely phrase, “goes a long way.” It carries your thoughts back to winter fires, to old-fashion- ed, yet generous fare, and to the glorious appetite with which you spread your napkin before you after a day with the hounds, a trudge after wild partridges, or a long drive through the keen frosty air of some by-gone Christmastide ! THICK SOUPS, AND PUREES. These soups are what house-keepers call “rich,” for in their composition you must employ port, or Madeira, red currant jelly, butter, cream, yolks of eggs, &c. One of the greatest cooks of the age propounds half a bottle of old port for his hare soup! and all game soups take a goodly share of wine. The points to observe in the making of these purées are, first, to get every atom of flavour you can out of the bones, scraps, and giblets, which is done by simmering them watchfully in stock. Then to work all the meat you can pick from the birds to a stiff paste in a mortar (having first minced it in the machine) passing it through the sieve to get rid of fibre, gristle, and so forth. Next to blend the pulp of the game with the stock in the way I have previously described. And lastly, to follow with accuracy whatever recipe you have taken as regards the flavouring elements. Do not leave out anything if you can possibly manage it. Dried sweet herbs, (thyme and marjoram,) are as necessary in game soups, as is basil in turtle ; and red currant jelly is indispensable. Spice is often mentioned in recipes for these soups. I do not recom- mend it. In fact, beyond the two cloves inserted in the onion used for the stock, I would carefully omit it. As I intend to give detailed instructions for game purées in their turn in my menus, I will not pursue the subject any further in this chapter. Neither will I discuss the treatment of tinned soups just yet, for I shall reserve that branch of Indian soup-making for consideration hereafter in a chapter devoted to “Camp cookery." N.B.—Caution your butler to be careful to help the soup at a dinner party with judgment. One ladleful in each basin is ample. CHAPTER VII. Regarding our Fish. ISH, under skilful hands, offers," says Brillat Savarin, "inexhaustible resources of gustatory enjoyment; whether served up entire, in pieces, or sliced ; done in water, in oil, or in wine; hot or cold; in all cases it receives a hearty welcome.” We, who live at Madras, on a coast which yields a perennial supply of good fish, (to borrow a well-known figure of speech) should surely lay these words to heart. With a market as fairly well supplied as ours, we ought never to be at a loss for variety, or for scope to exercise our cook’s ingenuity. The fair hostess should always be able to soothe herself with the reflection that with the fish, at all events, her guests will be well satisfied. Now, do we avail ourselves, as we ought to do, of the many opportunities we undoubtedly possess of turning Madras fish to a good account ? I certainly think not : indeed I fear that only a few of us appreciate the true value of this most excellent article of our daily food. At the ordinary Madras dinner party, you may rely almost for certain on having boiled seer fish, with a sauce, and a few slices of cucumber and beetroot, or a spoonful of salad! on the side of your plate. Or the fish may be pomfret, similarly served. “Tartare," "a parody of hollan- daise," and melted butter with essence of anchovy, com- REGARDING OUR FISH. 53 pose apparently the whole répertoire of sauces within the reach of the local chef. N.B. I have never been able by the way to trace the origin of the Madras custom of serving a portion of salad with a thick eggy dressing on the same plate as the slice of hot fish. To pat salad on a hot plate is to begin with an unpardonable offence, while the association of salad with hot fish is incongruous in the extreme. The same. remark applies to the service of cold cucumber and beet- root with hot fish. Delicately stewed cucumber, hot, little orlys of oysters, or petits bouchées of prawn or lobster, may accompany the fish, if you like; otherwise it should be presented with its sauce alone. The proper time for serve ing the salad is with “ the roast," when it should be sent round on separate plates, and as cold as possible. Now, without wishing for one moment to question the sterling merits of plain-boiled fish, I confess that for a din- ner party I strongly advocate dishes of a more artistic nature. There are so many easy recipes for cooking fish nicely, that an effort to produce a little novelty in this feature of the menu can scarcely result in failure. In Eng- land where you have many varieties of fishes, and some of the best of them only to be seen in the market during their especial seasons, a little sameness in the style of cooking may not perhaps strike you. You may boil and fry plainly every day in the week, if each day you are able to present a different fish. Not so with us in Madras. Our supply is good enough, but it lacks diversity; and it is on this account particularly that I am anxious to direct the atten- tion of my readers to a few easy ways of relieving the monotony which I have pointed out. It may be urged that your fish is brought home from market too late in the evening for the successful accom- plishment of studied effects, and perhaps your butler will take pains to thrust that fact before you. Regard such 54 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. an excuse, please, as a mere evasion, for, in point of fact, fish takes so short a time to dress thoroughly, that an hour should suffice for the most elaborate recipe. I always bear in mind the time that is necessary for the production of the dishes I select for my menus. Again, many people hesitate to offer their guests a dish of dressed fish, fearing that it may be considered too rich. This is absurd, for there are plain, as well as rich methods of varying this branch of cookery; and, in composing your menu, you should select one in harmony with the soup which precedes, and entrée which is to follow it. Thus : if your soup be of a thick creamy kind, and your first entrée (say) a vol-au-vent, let the fish be served in aspic iced, and with sauce ravigote or tartare. But if you give a clear consommé delicately flavoured, and order an iced entrée to succeed the fish, you can indulge in a “matelote aux champignons,” or seer “à la crème de crevettes.” A thick soup, fish with lobster sauce, followed by an entrée with cream in its composition, would form, for instance, a combination of good things obviously inartistic in design, and one which few could enjoy with impunity. As I observed in an early chapter of my “jottings,” the charm of a dinner according to the new régime consists in the harmony of its lights and shadows. N.B. If you follow the new style of menu, and present the relevé after the fish, you need have no apprehension. With regard to the service of dressed fish, especially if it be preceded by a clear soup. Fish, we all know, I hope, may be boiled, fried, baked, roasted, stewed, or grilled ; and by every method can tasty dishes be prepared. I will begin with the principles to be observed in boiling fish, and take the other styles of cookery in the order I have named. · After having thoroughly cleansed, and wiped the fish, REGARDING OUR FISH. 55 rub it over with a little vinegar, and place it on the drainer of the fish-kettle, so that when done it may be lifted out without risk of breaking up. Put plenty of salt, and a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, into the water in which the fish is to be boiled. Let the water be cold, and in sufficient quantity to cover the fish. Place the kettle on a brisk fire, and boil the fish as fast as possible. Skim off all scum that rises, and take care to suspend operations, the moment the fish is done. Overboiled fish is nasty to eat, and ugly to look upon: underdone fish is anfit for human food. The cookery books allow ten minutes per pound as a fair average of the time required for this operation; but so much depends upon the thickness of the fish to be boiled, that the cook should test it now and then with the point of a skewer, and as soon as the flesh parts easily from the bone, let him decide that it is ready. Never let your fish, after it is done, remain soaking in the water in which it has been cooked; drain it at once, or it will become what cooks call “woolly.” If ready too soon, let it rest on the drainer over the hot kettle, and cover it with a napkin. If you have no fish-kettle, put your fish on a dish, tie a napkin round it, and boil it: when done, you can then lift the dish out of the pan without spoiling the appearance of the fish. Be very particular to drain every drop of water from the fish before you serve it, or the sauce you send up with it will be ruined. Connoisseurs in the art of cookery recommend that fish should be boiled in a “ Court bouillon,” in which case the process is thus described by the G. C.: “Having placed the fish in the fish-kettle with enough cold-water to cover it, add a glass of vinegar, some slices of carrots and onions, and a clove of garlic; then sweet herbs, and spices tied up in a muslin bag, with pepper, salt, and parsley or celery. 56 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. The proportions of all these must depend upon the quan- tity of fish to be boiled, the skill of the cook, and the taste of the company.” When nearly done, half draw the fish- kettle from the fire, and let the fish simmer gently till the moment of serving. A mixture of white wine such as chablis, sauterne, or hock, and water, in equal parts, may be used instead of the vinegar and water. Fish cooked “au bleu” is also considered a delicacy. The preparation is exactly like court bouillon, red wine being substituted for white. Court bouillon à la Nantaise is made of milk and water in equal parts, salt, and pepper in proportion. The art of frying fish consists in being prodigal in the use of the medium which you employed to cook with. The fish should be absolutely immersed in a bath of boiling fat or oil, which should be carefully tested so that you may be convinc- ed of its temperature. “If your fat be not sufficiently heated,” says the authority I have already quoted, “the fish you want to fry will turn out a flabby and greasy mess, instead of a crisp, appetising dish.” For nearly all fish- frying, the frying basket is an invaluable utensil, used, of course, in conjunction with the deep-sided friture-pan. Fish, fried in the English fashion, is generally egged and bread-crumbed. The Italians, who are perhaps the best ‘frysters' in the world, either flour their fish, or dip it in batter. Both methods are, to my mind, vastly supe- rior to the bread-crumbing process. If, however, you must use crumbs, see that they are stale, and well sifted; not the pithy lumps, both great and small, too often set before you, because Ramasámy will not look ahead, and rarely, if ever keeps a bottled supply of stale, well rasped bread in hand. To obtain a satisfactory result, proceed as follows :- Having crumbled some stale bread as small as you can in REGARDING OUR FISH. 57 a napkin, pass the crumbs through a stiff wire sieve; then place the plate containing them into the oven to dry thoroughly. To apply them properly, beat up two eggs with a dessert-spoonful of salad oil, and the same of water. This mixture should be brushed over the fish like varnish, and the fish should then be turned over in a napkin, con- taining the dry crumbs. For flouring :--dip the fish in milk, and then turn it over in a napkin containing some flour. A recipe for fry- ing batter will be found in the chapter reserved for the discussion of that process of cookery. Under the head of baking we come to that very excellent method of treating fish which is familiar to most of you as “au gratin.” The cook can, in this way, produce very pleasant results, with very little toil. You can commence as plainly as possible, and go on to the most elaborate and fanciful dishes, the principles in all being similar. The fish, to begin with, should either be whole, in fillets, or slices. The pie-dish should be well battered; tomatoes, maccaroni, mushrooms, truffles of course, finely-minced parsley, shallot, lime peel, and such fines herbes as you can command, should be used for the more elaborate composi- tions; whilst parsley, shallot, and butter alone with fine bread-crumbs will suffice for the plainer dish for ordinary occasions. A gravy made from the bones and trimmings, with a few pepper corns, a minced shallot and a glass of any light white wine, like chablis, hock, or sauterne, may be gently poured round your dish when it is packed ready for the oven : but the liquid ought never to come up to the level, quite, of the top layer of the fish in the pie-dish. • In connection with maccaroni and tomatoes, you should try a dusting of grated parmesan. Rolled anchovies, and prawns, form, with truffles and mushrooms, the most appropriate garnish for an artistic 58 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. “au gratin,” and cream is often judiciously introduced to enrich the combination. Fishes carefully stuffed, and baked whole, are generally nice: it is a method very well suited to fresh water fish, and a delicious way of cooking a Madras mullet, or a dish of whitings. The best dish of stewed fish is the “matelote” which, strictly speaking, should be composed of eels, but may, I think, be equally well followed in dressing any firm-fleshed fish. As I shall speak of this dish in my menus, I need only say en passant that it is rich, vinous, spicy, and con- sequently generally appreciated by the muscular Christian. Broiling fish sounds simple, but under this head there are a few toothsome recipes not to be despised. Let a good cut of seer be divided into nice cutlets. Parboil them in the morning, and set them to marinade all day in salad oil, minced shallot, parsley, vinegar, a clove of garlic, a few whole pepper corns, and a little lime peel. Take them out, wrap them with the shallot, &c., in well-oiled papers, broil over a fast clear fire, and serve with a nice sharp brown sauce like sauce Robert. Take care that the bars of your grid-iron are well oiled, for they are apt to burn delicate morsels like fillets of fish en papillotes. Fish of fairly good size can be roasted “ à la broche.” The method is recommended for mullet, murrel, and all fish whose shape adapts itself, as it were, to the spit. Stuff the fish, wrap it in oiled paper, tie it to the spit, and baste continually with melted butter and white wine. Remove the paper before serving. The BOUILLABAISSE may be attempted at Madras with a result sufficiently satisfactory to warrant my being bold enough to record a simple recipe for it, adapted from that of the “G. C.” as follows :- REGARDING OUR FISH. 59 Take any sort of small fish, such as small pomfret, whitings, soles, mullets, or robál,—the greater the variety the better,—and for two pounds of mixed fish, slice up two Bombay onions, two fairly large tomatoes emptied of their seeds and cut into quarters, and one carrot; prepare a couple of slices of lime with the pithy skin cut off, a bag containing six cloves, a dozen pepper corns, a clove of garlic, and the peel of a lime pared as finely as possible ; a salt-spoonful of saffron, a tea-spoonful of salt, and one pod of capsicum sliced, will also be wanted : put the whole into a stew-pan, and add to it a wine-glass of salad oil, one of chablis, and a pint and a half of cold water, boil for about half an hour, and, just before serving, add a heaped up table-spoonful of freshly-chopped curled parsley. The parsley is absolutely indispensable. Serve the fish, in a deep dish, with some of the broth round it, sending up the rest of the broth first, poured boiling hot over some slices of stale bread. Remove the bag of condiments, of course, before serving the bouillabaisse. The dish will not be as good, to be sure, as that which some of my readers may have enjoyed in the south of France, but if the ingredients I have named be used without any omissions, a very fair imitation will certainly be produced. Having thus sketched the various ways of preparing fish for the table, I must request my readers to note the recipes I have given in my detailed menus, remembering that my object has been to suggest dishes, which, in my humble opinion, will be found more pleasing than the ordinary plainly boiled lumps of fish, which, with the stereotyped concomitants, I have so strenuously condemned too often greet the diner out in Madras. D CHAPTER VIII. Hints about Entrées, NTINE persons out of every ten with whom I con- W verse on culinary matters seem to be more exer- cised in their minds regarding their entrées than about the whole of the arrangements of their dinner put together. The really presentable side-dishes that the average Ramasámy can master may, as a rule, be counted, I am told, upon the fingers of one hand : and these are generally so well known that a lady is oft times at her wit's end to compose her menu. So precious, indeed, has the knowledge of a new entrée become, that the happy mistress of a novelty might be fairly excused were she to refuse to divulge the secret to her dearest friend. It must be a humiliating sensation, I admit, after having eaten oyster patties with your friend on Monday, to be forced to bid him partake of the same dish with you on Thurs- day; conscious perhaps, that the pastry at your house is not a whit better than that which you thought so indiffer- ent at his. The oyster patty, by the way, is one of Rama- sámy's few art studies. Now, I cannot but allow that the apprehension with which this part of the bill-of-fare is so generally regarded, is well-founded and natural. There are, of course, entrées and entrées. Though a few may be easy, some are beyond our reach in this country owing to a variety of reasons, HINTS ABOUT ENTREES. . 61 and many, owing to the ambiguous wording of cookery book receipts, seem equally inaccessible. Then the task of ordering dishes from works composed for people with English cooks, kitchen ranges, and the best market in the world at their disposal, is far from easy. Even those who fancy themselves to be pretty good cooks find, every now and then, in the pages of their pet author, knotty points which require much consideration to settle. But if you will patiently follow me, not rushing to the conclusion that I only write for the benefit of a few enthusiasts like myself, I firmly believe that I shall be able to smooth down much that appears rugged; and help you towards the selection and accomplishment of many tasty dishes, which, if neither elaborate, nor very scientific, will still be found practicable, and generally worthy of a second trial. First, let us divide entrées into three distinct classes :- the plain, the half-rich, and the fanciful. In the first class I would place such dishes as the mutton cutlet (neck chop) grilled, fried, or stewed; the epigramme ; fillets of meat, turkey, fowl, rabbit, or pigeon; grenadins; entrées of meat, that is to say, plainly cooked, accompanied by carefully devised sauces, or really good purées of vegetable. For class the second, I would reserve all compositions of meat requiring the mincing machine and the mortar,- delicate combinations which demand attentive flavouring- such as cassolettes, croquettes, croustades, quenelles, boudins, timbales, rissolettes and mixed ingredients en caisses. Whilst in the superlative class should be entered, I think, the suprême, the vol-au-vent, the kramousky, the studied ragout, the artistic salmis, and any entrée out of class the second when raised from its ordinary form to a higher level by treatment à la financière, à la Reine, à la Périgueux, and so on. 62 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Quite in a special parenthesis by themselves ought to be kept all plats which can be served cold, such as the chaud-froid, chartreuse, petits galantines, truffled cutlets, &c., for in a climate such as this an iced entrée cannot fail to attract attention, whilst for providing contrast, and other reasons, I shall speak of presently, it is invaluable. Having thus arranged the various dishes which come under the head of entrées in a systematic form, the task of selection therefrom must be governed by the sort of dinner you intend to give, the different items that compose your menu, and the capabilities of your cook. As a rule, you should generally, for the sake of contrast, select one , dish from class one, and the other from either class two, or three; or an iced entrée followed by one from either of the two richer classes. I have already advised you never to attempt to give more than two entrées, and I repeat the advice now, be your dinner a banquet for forty covers, or a party of eight friends. The menu of the best mess dinner I ever attend- ed in India (given to a late Governor of Madras whose taste in culinary matters was proverbial) contained but one iced, and one elaborate entrée. These were, of course, served separately, and to provide against delay, there were (for forty guests) four dishes formed of each compo- sition. In ordering your entrées, you should carefully consider the amount of work your cook will have upon his hands at the critical time of serving them, and bear in mind that the more he has to do then, the more likely will he be to make mistakes. Is it not unfair to expect your cook to serve equally well two hot entrées demanding attentive manipula- tion up to the last moment ? Select, therefore, for one of your side-dishes something that can be prepared before- hand, and be easily heated when required, so that your HINTS ABOUT ENTREES. 63 chef's attention need not be distracted from the other. On these grounds the iced entrée is a grand invention. It can be made early in the day, and then set in the ice-box, ready to follow the fish or relevé, as the case may be, with- out delay, and the sauce can also be similarly treated. Dishes that merely require heating in the oven are a god- send to a cook, for he can compose them at his leisure during the afternoon, and put them aside till within a few minutes of the time when they are wanted, keeping their sauces nice and hot in the bain-marie pan. But the un- happy man who has (say) to turn out a delicately grilled dish of cutlets à la Maintenon, with kramouskys aux huîtres to follow-independently of game, joint, sweets, &c., all needing a watchful eye—is surely to be pitied. There is another point to watch when choosing your entrées, and that is their general relationship with each other, or with the other dishes that compose your menu. Artists in ordering dinners go as far as to say that nothing should be repeated. You must not give, for instance, a consommé de volaille, and presently follow it with croquettes de volaille, or even fowl as a rôt. Mutton appearing in a side-dish must not be seen again in any form. Two white meats ought not to be introduced side by side. Though following this maxim to the best of our power, we cannot always rely on being able to carry it out thoroughly in Madras. The market supply is alas ! too meagre, as a rule, for us to pick and choose as we might wish. To return to our class list of entrées, I cannot too strongly urge you to go in for dishes from class one more than you do. Can anything be more acceptable than a nice juicy little chop from a neck of mutton, on whose sides the marks of the grid-iron are plainly visible, reposing against a circle of really well-mashed potatoes, or of savoury rice, holding in its centre a purée of celery, petits pois, or sauce soubise ? The grid-iron is invaluable : the 64 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. chop comes to table full of gravy, yet not underdone ; it has, to use a kitchen phrase, “ seen the fire” (browned) in places, and is absolutely free from the grease which so often mars a dish of chops cooked in the frying pan. For the little Club-dinner, this class of entrée is always popular. I noticed that a plain cutlet such as I have described, or a plain fillet of beef, figured in almost every Club menu, I had the pleasure of discussing when last at home. Plea- sing variety can be secured by the cook if he will change his sauce, or his purée. Choose the neck chops for these entrées. The fillet of mutton is that tender strip of meat which runs down the inside of the saddle under the kidney. If of sufficient thickness, this delicate morsel, cut into nice pieces, and broiled over a clear fire, is worthy of Lucullus himself. It is the thing for an invalid, or one coming round after an illness. The fillet of beef is the undercut of the sirloin, which the butcher will cut out for you in the market here if you wish it. But I have found good fillets produced thus :- Buy a really good joint of the ribs of beef, and cut out lengthways the good tender meat near the end of the bone, with any fat there may be attached to it. Bones, and flap, and trimmings can be counted in the allowance of gravy-meat, and the tender meat you have cut out will trim into capital fillets for entrées, or cook whole as a filet de boeuf piqué, aux champignons, au purée d'oseille, &c., as a relevé. Fillets of fowls and game are formed by cutting off neatly the whole of the breast meat right down to the wing joint; this you can divide into fillets according to the size you require. The hare and rabbit fillet is produced by cutting out the long strip of good meat which runs down either side HINTS ABOUT ENTREES. 65 of the back bone. Well larded with fat bacon, and cooked grenadin-fashion, with Espagnole, or sauce soubise, you may do worse than present a dish of these fillets to your best friend. Whether your entrée be a fillet of beef or mutton, of fowl or of game, or the neatly trimmed neck chop to which I have alluded; and whether you intend to grill, to stew, or to fry it, you will find it vastly improved by being set en marinade from early morning until the time draws near for cooking it. I shall use this word frequently in my menus, let me therefore explain its meaning as applied to the process which I now take the opportunity of noticing The word marinade, as you all know, really means pickle, but viewed in the light in which we now regard it, it would be better to describe it as a mixture, the com- ponent parts of which can be varied at pleasure, in which meat should be soaked for several hours before it is cooked. Its immediate effect is to preserve the outside of the meat which has “felt the knife” moist and juicy, to prevent its “turning,” and to lend that subtle flavour to it--so hard to describe—but which just makes the difference between our ordinary cutlet, and that which we remember having eaten at some restaurant abroad, or at the table of a friend who possessed a really well educated cook. The common form of marinade for beef and mutton is composed of salad oil and vinegar in the proportion of four of the former to one of the latter, with one large Bombay onion sliced, one clove of garlic chopped up, twelve whole peppers, six cloves, a tea-spoonful of salt, a couple of tea- spoonfuls of dried thyme or marjoram, a table-spoonful of minced parsley, and a strip or two of very finely pared lime peel. This mixture can be preserved for daily use, with slight additions from time to time, and the flavour 66 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. can be modified by changing the sweet herbs, or with- drawing them. The taste of game can be imparted to cold, cooked mutton by placing the meat in a marinade composed of a wine-glass each of vinegar, portwine, and mushroom ketchup in which a table-spoonful of red currant jelly has been dissolved ; with a tea-spoonful of “spiced pepper,” some pepper corns, salt, a chopped onion, and a dessert- spoonful of marjoram and thyme blended. A hash of cold mutton collops that have lain a few hours in this prepara- tion is very like that of venison, and the fillets of an Indian hare, (a little underdone in the roasting) similarly steeped all day, are really excellent. In this particular instance you must strain the marinade, and add it to the thick gravy in which the hash or fillets have to be simmered. Marinade need not be made in extravagant quantities. It should cover the bottom of the dish on which you place the meat, your object being gained by occasional turning, and basting. When wanted, the cook should lift the meat from the dish, let it drażn a minute or so, and then pro- ceed to business. Independently of the method in which you purpose to cook them, a great deal depends upon the careful trimming of a dish of mutton catlets. How uninviting do these miniature chops look when they have been cat anyhow from the joint to which they belonged ? First, saw off the ends of the row of bones level, and cut off the outer flap; now take a very sharp knife, and divide the row of cutlets down to the bone with one clean decided cut between each of them, and, lastly, sever them with a single stroke of the chopper. Now, lay them on your board, and give them a few strokes with your cutlet bat, trim them into shape, and then place them in the marinade. The hungry HINTS ABOUT ENTREES. 67 man may be able, no doubt, to eat the cutlets his cook may send him, “rough hew them as he may,” but for an entrée, we must study appearance. Little paper frills placed round the ends of the bones of the cutlets before serving, give a finish to your entrée. A cutlet to be grilled should be dipped at once in a little melted butter, or salad oil, and broiled over a clear fire. If to be stewed, it should be first browned by being turned frequently in a sauté-pan with a little melted butter; the previously prepared gravy and vegetables should then be put into the stew-pan, in which the cutlet should simmer gently till done. The whole success of a stew depends upon simmering. If the cook carelessly allow the gravy in the pan to come to the boil, the cutlets (or anything else) will be done for. How often are hashes, and réchauffés of cold meat sent to table as hard and tasteless as leather, simply because the cook permitted them to boil ? Hashes and salmis of cold meat and game may be defined, properly speaking, as carefully composed sauces in which meat is placed '172 cold, and then gradually heated until sufficiently hot to serve. My own rule with a salmis is to take it off the fire as soon as the steam rises freely from the surface, to turn it immediately into a silver dish heated with scalding water, and send it up. Hashes and salmis are much improved if the cold meat composing them be soaked in the sauce for some time before cooking The process of bread-crumbing a outlet deserves far more care than a great majority of cooks bestow upon it. To do this really nicely (for an entrée), you should proceed in this way. Lift your cutlet from the marinade, drain it a moment, then dip it into the following composition :-two eggs, one dessert-spoonful of salad oil, and one dessert- 68 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. spoonful of water, well beaten together. Then turn it over and over in a plateful of fine, stale bread-crumbs which have been dried in the oven, pounded, and thoroughly sifted. It should then be laid aside for half an hour, after which it should be dipped again, and again rolled in crumbs. Amongst the crumbs may be sprinkled some finely-minced parsley and shallot, with some powdered dried sweet herbs, and grated cheese is sometimes added with marked effect. The frying should be conducted in abund- ance of boiling fat, and the colour of the cutlets should be a pale golden brown. All thrifty cooks should carefully save the scraps of trimmings, the outer flap, and the ends of bone, which were cut off in shaping the cutlets, for from them the basis of the sauce which is to accompany the dish can, with a little assistance, be composed. Veal is occasionally procurable at Madras. If you suc- ceed in getting a nice dish of cutlets, remember that it is downright necessary to lard them with strips of fat bacon. Veal is apt to be dry in England where the calf is fattened for the market. In India it is far drier, and if cooked without the assistance of bacon, veal cutlets are positively wooden. N.B.-Let the sauce prepared for your entrée of cutlets be sent round, piping hot, in a boat. If poured round the cutlets, it makes them sodden, and loses its effect entirely. CHAPTER IX. Entrées-concluded. VING discussed the general methods of cooking 1 cutlets, and fillets, we ought next to consider a few good sauces to accompany them, but as I have resolved to devote a chapter to that branch of the cook's art, I must ask you to follow me now in a brief resumé of wrinkles regarding the higher classes of entrées. Under class the second we come to that very useful style of entrée which I have called the “half-rich.” For these “made-dishes” you begin to call to your aid the mincing machine and mortar, and, unless your experience be above the average, success will almost wholly depend upon your following with accuracy every line of the recipe you may select. A well-flavoured cassolette, croquette, boudin, or quenelle, if nicely cooked, and served with a good sauce, a purée, or a macédoine de légumes, is worthy of a place in any menu ; but the slightest slovenly work is fatal. Our good friend Ramasamy has been taught to believe that cutlets must be composed of chopped meats, so he often sends to table under that title a dish of croquettes, with a fragment of bone inserted in each of them. I need hardly remind my readers, for instance, of the dish of "chicken cutlets” which forms the standing plat of the 70. CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Madras Hotel. I know that some cookery books describe as côtelettes, certain artistic mixtures of meats, with bits of bone introduced to make them look like true cutlets, but I would prefer omitting the bones, and calling such dishes by their proper names, for they undoubtedly belong really to the tribe of croquettes, boudins, 8c. Chicken, ox and sheep's tongues, tender mutton, ham, bacon, oysters, pigeons, turkey, rabbit, the livers of all poultry, of rabbits, and game,—whether previously cooked or not,-provide materials out of which these entrées can be made. It is in the judicious blending of two or more of them together, in the thorough pounding and incorpo- ration thereof, in the selection of the condiments he em- ploys to improve them, and so on, that the skill of the good cook can be detected. If you preserve your own ox tongues in this country, and keep one generally ready for use, you will have a very valuable thing to fall back upon for “made” entrées. Cured sheep's tongues, too, are very useful, and a little lamb's liver is sometimes a good thing to have at hand in case of need. Calves' liver cut into dice, and fried with some shallot in the pan in which some fat bacon has been melted, then set to get cold, and pounded in the mortar with some cold veal,* forms the well-known minced meat which surrounds a páté de foie gras and all French pâtés. The frying-pan should be rubbed with garlic before operations are com- menced, and the minced onion must go in with the liver. If you add to the mixture when pounded the minced trim- mings of any truffles you may have been using, the flavour will be exactly that of the pâté. A little jar of this com- position, made at home, will be found well worth the * Use the white breast-meat of a cold roast chicken if you cannot get veal in this country. The melted bacon must be pounded with the liver.-W. ENTREES-CONCLUDED. trouble it costs to make, when you are preparing (say) a dish of croquettes de volaille and want to improve the flavour of them. The hints I have already given regarding the bread- crumbing of mutton cutlets, hold good with reference to the crumbing of croquettes. If possible, indeed, you should be more particular in preparing your crumbs. Bread crisped in the oven and then pounded in the mortar pro- duces the chapelure used by French cooks. The sauces that should accompany this kind of entrée require the utmost study, and will be treated of here- after. Rissoles, and rissolettes are very tasty if well done, and served hot. They may be described as a savoury salpicon, or mince, divided into small portions, each of which should be enclosed in little wrappers of delicate pastry : these, pinched closely all round, should be fried a golden yellow in abundance of boiling fat. They are then served dry on a napkin, garnished with crisply fried curled parsley. Cassolettes are little drums of potato or rice, hollowed out, filled with a delicate mince, and capped with either a cover made of the same substance as the case, or with a curl of crisply fried bacon, a turned olive, or a slice of truffle. Boudins are preparations of pounded meats steamed, and quenelles somewhat similar in composition but poached. Recipes will be found for each of these methods of cookery in the menus. Touching the highest class of entrées, it is impossible to say very much in the way of advice. You must submit to a little more expense than you did in classes one and two. Butter, cream, truffles, mushrooms, special gravy meat, &c., must not be shirked, but be given to the cook with a 72 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. liberal hand. As your Gouffé bids you, so must you proceed without a murmur. We do our utmost to give our guests, here in sultry Madras, a vol-au-vent, when we should know quite well that it is almost impossible to produce, in a temperature that rarely falls below 80°, the exquisitely light puff pastry from which the dish derives its name. The best attempts present the appearance of layers of talc laid one over the other in an oval-shape and baked a pale brown. Now, I maintain that it would be better to give up our fruitless efforts, and employ one of the ornamental earthenware dishes made specially for this purpose, and to be had of all good dealers in glass and crockery in London. Small ones for dishes en caisses are also sold. We could then send up our ragout à la financière, or à la reine, without misgivings, in a pretty dish becomingly garnished, and bury the unhappy memories of the light puff paste we never could achieve. But whilst thus proposing to abandon as fruitless our attempts to place before our guests a true vol-au-vent, conquered by the climate in which we live, and not through carelessness or want of culinary skill,-1, by no means, wish to say that we should cease to bestow our attention upon entrées which can be made of pastry of a less volatile nature. There are some Madras cooks, I know, who can turn out very good light pâté pastry. To such men you can entrust, of course, petits pâtés, timbales, salpicon bouchées, and those artistic croustades for which pastry is employed instead of the easier substitute of hollowed-out rolls. The knack of making nice light pastry is, however, far from common. Neither reading, nor even practical demonstration, will teach it. So unless you are certain that your cook possesses the gift, never permit him to waste good mate- rials in idle experiments. An entrée of pastry, if not unmistakably good, is a blot upon the face of your menui. ENTREES-CONCLUDED. 73 In nearly all recipes for the sauces of high class entrées contained in good works upon cookery, the use of butter is unsparingly advocated, and cream is also very frequently prescribed. In an early chapter of my jottings, I men- tioned that I would far sooner recommend a little extra expense with regard to these items, than in the wholesale distribution of “Europe stores.” I repeat the opinion emphatically now. The dinner cooked with an adequate allowance of cream and butter, requires but little aid from Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell. Unfortunately, however, for those who desire to follow this precept at Madras, our supply of milk is meagre in quality and quantity, and absurdly expensive. The only way to obtain a little butter fit to eat, if you do not maintain a dairy of your own, is to have a cow milked at your door, and to set the milk so obtained for cream in your own larder. I have never tried to find out the exact cost of a pound of butter thus made, but, ap- proximately speaking, it may be stated that five measures of milk at one rupee (the current rate) will not yield more than a good third of a pound, so your pound of butter will cost you nearly three rupees !* There will be a slight difference if the milk be rich ; in my estimate, I speak, of course, of the average country cow's milk purchased at the door. There is a terrible preparation which milkmen sell to our cooks under the title of “kitchen butter.” To add to its attractiveness, it is generally smeared upon a leaf, and carried in the hand! It looks like the compound used for greasing the wheels of railway carriages in England, which a porter once told a friend of mine was "mostly made of ingredunts, and stuf as we makes up a'purpose.” I fear * Milk has become a little cheaper since this was written, but the difficulty regarding butter and cream seems in no way removed.-W. 74 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. that our so-called “kitchen batter" might be equally vaguely described. What, then, can people of moderate incomes do ? For, I take it that even wealthy folk at home would hesitate to pay six shillings a pound for the butter used by their cooks! The most economical remedy for this evil is to use preserved butter. The “Copenhagen" (cow brand), “Normandy," and “ Denmark," at one rupee fourteen annas a pound-tin, are especially free from brine, or taint of any kind, and can be thoroughly recommended. One tin, carefully used, ought to suffice for the cooking of a dinner for eight per- sons, (assuming even that the menu contain a full amount of dishes requiring butter in their composition) and, in my humble opinion, the result will generally be found to justify that amount of extravagance. Before I pass from the consideration of side-dishes to that of the sauces that should accompany them, I feel it incumbent upon me to repeat that vegetables ought never to be handed round with the entrées. This quaint practice of our fore-fathers has been long since abandoned by those who give dinners of the reformed type. The modern entrée is, of course, presumed to be a plat complete in itself, and perfectly independent of other as- sistance. When stated in the menu, a vegetable may, of course, accompany, an entrée but it should be deftly associat- ed with the composition it accompanies, and be moulded in the same dish. A great many entrées require no vegetables. Who, for instance, could possibly eat potato and cauliflower, with a kramousky, or with a petit pâté à la financiére ? The crisp batter in the former, and the pastry in the latter case, supply the necessary accompaniment of the delicate composition each contains. Apart from its being palpably inartistic, there are other reasons which prompt the abolition of sending round vege- ENTREES-CONCLUDED. 75 tables with entrées. I refer to the time that is wasted in doing so, and the complication it adds to the service. Whilst the matter-of-fact objection to the practice is, that by the time they are really wanted for the joint, vegetables that have been hawked about with the entrées are cer- tainly mangled and cold, if not wholly expended; for few people prepare relays of potatoes, &c., to follow those sent up with their side-dishes. Lastly, let me say a few words about the garnishing and helping of entrées. As a general rule, our native cooks, assisted I dare say by the butler, are much given to the ornamentation of their side-dishes. Now, whilst fully prepared to pander as much as possible to the “lust of the eye,” I warn you to be careful lest these efforts to make things look pretty be overdone. Slices of raw cucumber should be severely interdicted, for they impart an inky flavour to the entrée round which they may be trimmed; and funny devices cut out of vegetables, and dotted about a dish, should be forbidden, for they suggest to the hypercritical mind an idea that perhaps fingers have been busily employed in arranging them. Pray do not permit your cook to garnish a croquette with a raw spring onion,—the green stem stripped and curled, and the bulb thrust into the croquette. I have actually seen this done, and once upon a time barely escaped eating the onion, which would have been a sad catastrophe, seeing that I had a most agreeable companion by my side. Let the arrangement of your entrées err on the side of simplicity rather than otherwise. To look effective, entrées should be arranged well above the level of silver dish upon which they are served. To attain this end, the French chef prepares a socle or founda- tion which he makes out of a solid block of bread, or 76 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. ground-rice moulded : socles for cold entrées are even some- times made of melted wax candle consolidated with bees' wax. A flat socle for ordinary hot entrées is easily made with rice, which should be boiled, pounded, and then moulded with a wooden spoon into an oval or round block according to the shape of the dish. When moulded, it should be brushed over with egg and colored in the oven. For cold entrées, spread the block over with fresh butter. Having thus obtained a firm foundation, the entrée itself becomes, as it were, a superstructure erected upon the socle. Nothing looks more slovenly than an entrée arranged on the level of the dish itself. Dishes that require careful helping ought certainly never to be handed round at a dinner party. I have observed that ladies frequently refuse an entrée on account of the difficulty of helping themselves. A fair patroness of mine whose ménage is worthy of her artistic skill, tells me that she has made up her mind (and rightly, say I,) never to permit her admirable mayonnaise à la Gouffé to be handed round to her guests again. One person, she says, would take a little of the aspic, the next some of the salad, the third-engaged, perhaps, in pleasant chatter, with a pair of bright eyes full upon him-might absently secure a fragment of the garnish! and so on, all in heart-rending ignorance of the science and care bestowed upon the dish. In any circumstances I strongly recommend that all iced entrées be helped from the side table, with a portion of the sauce upon each plate, and passed round to your guests without delay. For, in a climate as warm as this, speedy helping at the side table will prevent the possible contingency of liquefaction. Indeed all entrées might be thus served with manifest advantage. The menu card in front of you tells you what is coming, and in this way you would be spared, at all events, the unpleasantness of having ENTREES-CONCLUDED. 77 a hot silver dish with its savoury contents thrust in between you and the lady you have taken in to dinner; conversation would never be annoyingly interrupted; pretty costumes and dress coats would be less liable to be baptized with hot gravy, whilst much valuable time would be saved. 9 CHAPTER X. Sauces. HE consideration of sauces may certainly be regarded as the most interesting part of the study of cookery. So much, indeed, is to be gained by this branch of the art, that I might almost call it the most important. Whether for fish, for flesh, or fowl, the assistance thus con- tributed is invaluable. Without penetrating very deeply into the mazes of elaborate cookery, if you once master the broad principles of sauce-making, you need never be at a loss for variety in your dishes; you will be able to improve good meat, and make that which is indifferent palatable ; whilst with cold things you will rarely fail to turn out little réchauffés which will be at once tasty, and economical. Now, I do not consider it a difficult thing to teach a native cook the fundamental rules of this part of his work, for they are simple. The labour is so slight that, if suffi- ciently devoted to your task, you can select a recipe and absolutely show the man step by step how to carry it out. For a demonstration of this kind, you must, of course, order all the ingredients you may require beforehand, and have a mineral oil-stove, or brazier of charcoal, brought into a sheltered verandah, or spare room. The trouble this may cost you will, in nine cases out of ten, be amply repaid, for with the native mind practical proof is far more effective than theoretical discussion. SAUCES. 79 For sauce-making, in general, you must possess four or five small sauce-pans in sizes, a bain-marie pan to set them in, a small pair of scales, two wooden spoons, a plated spoon of each size, a flour dredger, a couple of earthenware bowls, a block tin perforated strainer (a pointed one for choice) with handle, a wire sieve, a hair sieve, and a mortar. The materials you will call into play from time to time will be :-butter, flour, eggs, pepper, salt, onions, limes, a few cloves of garlic, spices, the contents of your cruet- stand, say :-Harvey, and mushroom ketchup; anchovy, chilli, tarragon, and French vinegars ; besides mustard, with pickled gherkins, capers, and red-currant jelly. Care- fully-made gravy, broth, or stock, will generally be want- ed, for which special provision must be made, but for ordinary sauces, you can generally manage to make enough broth from scraps and trimmings. In doing this you have the consolation of knowing that there is nothing wasted. Sundry spoonfuls of red or white wine will be necessary now and then, and if you wander beyond the Rubicon of moderation to the realms of high art, you will naturally ask for champagne, truffles, cocks-combs, cream, mushrooms, and olives. Of all writers upon cookery none has dealt more clearly with the subject of sauces than Jules Gouffé. His work may appear difficult to understand in places, and his recipes may seem frequently composed upon too large a scale to be useful to mistresses of small establishments, but in the system that he has adopted with regard to this important feature of kitchen work, he has hit the right nail upon the head. He classes as fundamental sauces,-from which nearly the whole category may be said to have sprung, those well-known names Espagnole, Velouté, Allemande, Béchamel and Poivrade; and even of these, the first two may be considered as the parents of the rest. 80 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. There are nevertheless several standing sauces which must be spoken of independently; for instance, melted butter (sauce blanche), Hollandaise, soubise, maître d'hôtel, bread sauce, mayonnaise, tartare, rémoulade, ravigote, Robert, piquante, 8c. Let us take these first, for they are perhaps more simple, and oftener in request than Espag- nole, velouté, and their various descendants. Failure in the composition of melted butter (sauce blanche) is so common, that I will commence with a few hints with regard to that homely preparation. The pith of this sauce consists in melting your lump of butter (good butter mind) first at the bottom of your sauce-pan, then to add the flour, which soon amalgamates with the melted butter, and then by degrees the water, or milk and water (boiling) with a pinch of salt. Work this well with a . wooden spoon till it is soft and creamy to look upon, pass it through your tin strainer into a hot sauce boat, and, as you serve it, add a pat of fresh butter the size of a rupee, which will, of course, melt of its own accord, and give that'buttery' flavour which you desire-not that 'flour- and-watery' one so suggestive of the composition you would employ for fixing scraps in an album. For a pint of white sauce, you will require two ounces and a half of butter, two ounces of flour, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a pint of broth, or milk and water. Use two ounces of butter, and the flour first, and save the extra half ounce of butter to finish with. A pinch of sugar assists all white sauces. Please observe that milk is not absolutely necessary in making “white sauce.” The chief objection to its use is, that, in this country, it causes the sauce with which it may be used to turn sour the next day. I consequently advo- cate the use of broth, made from chicken bones or mutton scraps, instead of milk. Broth enriches the sauce, and if SAUCES. 81 strong, makes it equal to sauce blonde. The water in which peas, carrots, onions, celery, and leeks, have been boiled may be used advantageously for this purpose. If required for fish the liquor in which the fish was boiled reduced by rapid boiling; or a broth made from the bones, fins, and trimmings separately simmered should be used. The common error in making white sauce is the stirring of flour into the sauce, which produces the effect required at the expense of double the necessary quantity of flour; for the lumps strained off are utterly wasted. A too spar- ing use of butter is another cardinal mistake. With half a pint of sauce blanche you can work out several tasty recipes given by the “G. C.” as follows :- Beat up the yolk of an egg, and the juice of a couple of limes ; strain, and add to your melted butter just before serving; off the fire mind, or the sauce will curdle. Beat up the yolk of an egg with a table spoonful of cream, and add in the same way. Throw in just before serving a table-spoonful of minced parsley, fennel, or chopped capers, and you will have :- sauce au persil, sauce au fenouil, or sauce aux câpres. Stir into it after it is made, a dessert-spoonful (or more if liked) of anchovy, Harvey, ketchup, or any sauce you fancy. For sauce aux fines herbes, flavour a pint of milk by boil- ing up in it a minced Bombay onion, a tiny bit of garlic, and a handful of parsley : when well flavoured, strain the milk through muslin and stir it by degrees into a sauce- pan in which a couple of ounces of butter and two of flour have been mixed; thicken gently by bringing the mixture to the boil, strain, and add, just before serving, a table- 82 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. spoonful of minced curled parsley, a dessert-spoonful of chopped garden cress, and half one of chopped green stem of spring onion. A squeeze of a lime may be judiciously added to this sauce. Fillets of pomfret, or any fish that you can fillet nicely, stewed gently in milk thus flavoured, with the same thick- ened and poured over them when done, are excellent. Small rings of sliced gherkins added to plain melted butter form the sauce aux cornichons you remember abroad ; a tea-spoonful of tarragon vinegar should accompany the rings. Melted butter for sweet entremets such as cabinet pud- ding, et hoc genus omne, should be made exactly in the same way as sauce blanche, with sugar instead of salt, with milk, or milk and water, and an egg beaten up in brandy, sherry, or liqueur. By adding strong broth or stock to the butter and flour, instead of milk and water as in sauce blanche, you produce sauce blonde which forms the basis of several useful sauces. Maître d'hôtel is simply sauce blonde with a bountiful supply of finely minced parsley, a half pinch of spiced pepper, finished off the fire with the yolk of an egg, and a squeeze of lime juice. Mincing parsley requires attention. If done when the leaves are wet, the pieces will all stick together, and much of the juice will be lost. Parsley must be washed and then carefully dried in a cloth, after which it can be chop- ped as finely as possible. Maître d'hôtel butter, I may add par parenthése is made thus :—To two ounces of iced fresh butter, add the juice of one lime, a dessert-spoonful of chopped parsley free from moisture, a little white pepper, and a pinch of salt. Form SAUCES. 83 it with your butter bat, and set it in the ice box. A nice juicy, grilled chop, or a little grilled fillet of beef, served with a piece of maître d'hôtel butter melting over it, is a French method of captivating the appetite. Sauce à la poulette is worthy of distinction among ordi- nary white sauces. Its chief points are: first, that it is thickened with the yolks of eggs instead of flour; secondly, that it is garnished with button mushrooms. It is a creamy looking sauce the colour of a rich custard. Make an ordinary thin sauce blonde with one pint of chicken broth, one ounce of butter, one ounce of flour, pepper and salt to taste : stir well for a quarter of an hour, and it will be a thin white sauce : then add en bain-marie one by one the strained and well beaten yolks of three eggs, finish off with a pat of butter, and a couple of table-spoonfuls of chopped mushrooms. The pulp of some large sweet onions that have been simmered in milk till tender, and passed through the sieve, when worked into sauce blonde, with a spoonful of cream for high days and holidays, gives you sauce soubise. Equal portions of boiled carrot, French beans, turnip or knolkhol, cut into small dice, with a few peas, asparagus points, and haricot beans, and gently heated in sauce blonde, form that charming assistance to a dish of grilled cutlets, or any plain entrée, called macédoine de légumes. Be care- ful not to mash the vegetables, so do not overboil them in the first instance.* Sauce Milanaise is a delicious variation of sauce soubise. Cut up two parboiled Bombay onions, and put them into a sauce-pan with an ounce of butter, a pinch of sugar, and a salt-spoonful of salt; add a table-spoonful of previously boiled rice, or pearl barley, and moisten with a breakfast- * Any four of these vegetables are enough for a macédoine.-W. 84 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. cupful of broth ; let them cook slowly, and when the onions are done, add a table-spoonful of finely grated mild cheese (Parmesan for choice), stir the mixture, pass it through a sieve, and mingle it with half a pint of rich sauce blonde, or—for your birthday, wedding day, or the christening day of your first baby-with boiling cream. There is no sauce more popular with judges of good food than Hollandaise; in perfection it is a grand sauce, and not very easy to make. In its homely form it may be described as sauce blanche, to which a few yolks of eggs have been added, and a squeeze of lime juice. In its more elaborate treatment, it becomes a custard of yolks of eggs water, vinegar or lime juice, and butter. Some are in favour of vinegar, others prefer lime juice, which they work thus: Beat up the yolks of three eggs in a little water in which a salt-spoonful of pounded allspice has been dissolved, add salt to taste, and about three ounces of fresh butter. Put this mixture into a small sauce-pan, and plunge it into a bain-marie, or stew-pan large enough to receive it, full of boiling water : steam your mixture in this way till it thickens, and stir in your lime juice to finish with. Gouffé's recipe may be condensed in this way :-reduce two table-spoonfuls of vinegar on the fire with a little salt and pepper added to it, till about a tea-spoonful remains :- strain, and add to it two table-spoonfuls of water, and two yolks of eggs; put this on the fire and heat it thoroughly, stirring it well with a wooden spoon, and add four ounces of butter ounce by ounce by degrees, with a little water now and then to prevent its curdling. This process had better be carried out in a bain-marie, for you thus obtain the amount of gentle heat which is necessary to preserve the sauce in a velvety condition without risk of any kind. Those capital compositions mayonnaise, tartare, remoula SAUCES. 85 ade, ravigote, &c., are better known as cold sauces, but there are hot forms of preparing tartare and the two last named not often presented. They are descended from sauce piquante which is simply made in this way :- Fry in two ounces of melted butter an ounce of minced onion with an ounce of chopped carrot, a dessert-spoonful of parsley, one of garden cress, and one clove of garlic. When of a golden hue, add equal parts (claret-glass each) of vinegar, and water, or broth and vinegar, a tea-spoonful of salt, and one of sugar, strain, and serve hot. Some chopped truffles, gherkins, capers, or mushrooms may be added with good effect, and a spoonful of ketchup, or Har- vey, is often given to it as a finishing touch. This sauce is not thickened. For hot tartare, add a large spoonful of mustard to the above, and use tarragon vinegar. For ravigote, you thicken with a little flour, and add a very little white wine, and minced shallots with some lime- juice instead of vinegar. For rémoulade, use neither lime nor wine, but incorporate with your frying onions and green herbs, a table-spoonful of salad oil, and add a dessert-spoonful of French mustard to finish with. Sauce poivrade (maigre) is made like sauce piquante, with this exception, that after the straining, you thicken the liquor with butter and flour, it may be served either white or brown as you may desire. If you want it white, the onions must not be allowed to take colour in the frying stage. Gouffé's brown poivrade is enriched with Espagnole, and his poivrade blanche with velouté. But these are first class sauces, of which more anon. Sauce Robert belongs to this family :-Chop up a fine sweet onion, throw the mince into a sauce-pan with an 86 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. ounce of butter. Let it take colour, then add an ounce of flour by degrees, and when that has been well worked, half a pint of gravy, pepper and salt at discretion, and a pinch of sugar. When thoroughly mixed, and piping hot, pass the sauce through the tin strainer, catching up all lumps, and, at the last moment, stir in a table-spoonful of vinegar, and one of mixed mustard. Excellent with pork, veal, duck, and goose. Mustard sauce is made in this way :-Melt a couple of ounces of butter in a small sauce-pan, blend with it a dessert-spoonful of flour, and a heaped up tea-spoonful of French mustard with a pinch of salt : when thoroughly mixed, add half a pint of broth or water: let it come to the boil, then strain through the pointed strainer into a hot sauce-boat. If Durham mustard is used, a little vine- gar must be added. These sharp relishes go well with fish, and, as a change, are welcome with cutlets, etc. NWS CHAPTER XI. Sauces-continued. F the whole category of simple sauces none is more ore generally maltreated than “bread-sauce.” Deli- cious when properly made, it is positively a re- pulsive mess when wrongly treated. You have no doubt lamented many a time over the wretched compound which your cook persists in sending up under this title ; and I have heard people say that true “bread-sauce” cannot be made in India. Now, I have tasted quite as nasty a com- position as Ramasámy's in England, in fact even there you more frequently get it bad, than good. The good " bread- sauce,” now served at the junior United Service Club in London, is due to the admonitions of an officer, once well known in Madras. The system pursued by the ignorant cook may be thus described :-he cuts some slices of bread, or grates bread- crumbs enough for his requirements, oyer which he pours a tea-cupful of boiling water, he gives that a pinch of salt, perhaps (but by no means for certain) a spoonful of milk, and a quantity of whole pepper corns, and cloves; he stirs this to the consistency of thick porridge, and finally sends up a mixture which may be plainly described as spiced bread poultice! Setting aside other considerations for a moment, can anything be more disagreeable than the accidental biting 88 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. of a whole clove, or a pepper corn, in any dish or sauce ? Common sense accordingly dictates that when the use of these condiments is necessary, we should strain the liquid in which they have been placed before serving it. The back-bone of “ bread-sauce” is the flavouring of the milk with which it is made, to begin with; that done, to strain it carefully over your grated crumbs; then to re-heat it, and finish it off with a good table-spoonful of cream at the moment you serve it. In the absence of cream, the yolk of one egg, beaten up in a little milk till it looks creamy, may be added, off the fire, just at the last, but cream should be used if possible. · To flavour the milk, you must take a good sized white onion, peel off the outside skin, cut it into quarters, and put them, with a dozen pepper corns, six cloves, a blade of mace, a pinch of grated nutmeg, and a salt-spoonful of salt, into a sauce-pan containing not less than half a pint of good milk. The utmost care is now necessary, for milk boils up so rapidly that you must watch your sauce-pan narrowly, and use a very low fire to retard the boiling- stage. Remove the pan as soon as the surface of the milk looks frothy: let it cool a little, and replace it, continuing the operation until the onion is done, and adding a little milk from time to time to make good the loss by evapora- tion. Now, strain it off through a piece of muslin into a bowl, and add to it, spoonful by spoonful, the stale bread- crumbs you have already prepared, till your eye tells you that you have attained the right consistency; then heat the sauce up again, and finish it as I have already de- scribed. - I can always rely upon making as good a “bread-sauce" here as I ever ate in England, but then I would never attempt it unless I had all the ingredients at my command. There can be no evasion of the milk. Water at once pro- SAUCES-CONTINUED. 89 duces the poultice I have condemned, and the spoonful of cream, must be added if you desire success. This sauce richly deserves the trouble I have prescribed, and it will be found in the end economical, for by its aid a carefully-roasted fowl provides an enjoyable meal; whilst fillets of partridges, or chicken, bread-crumbed, nicely fried, and garnished with a crisp curl or two of fried bacon, assume at once a superior character. A young pigeon, split, and grilled over a fast fire, besprinkled with fried bread-crumbs, and assisted by good bread-sauce, forms a nice luncheon for a lady whose husband's days are spent at office, or for a convalescent beginning to mend after a long illness. To continue simple sauces :—that known as Sauce au pauvre homme is produced by first frying a minced onion in a little butter until it assumes a golden brown tint, and then pouring in a little broth made from scraps, with a tea-spoonful of vinegar : you must give this a boil, and then strain it by degrees into another sauce-pan contain- ing melted butter and flour; work this well with a wooden spoon and add a pinch of salt, one of sugar, a little pepper, and some minced parsley. Dutch sauce as eaten in Holland, the veritable ‘Hollan- daise,' is butter plainly melted in a sauce-pan, flavoured with a little pepper, a little salt, and the squeeze of a lemon; this is allowed to settle over the fire, and is then poured free from the sediment at the bottom of the pan, into a piping hot metal sauce-boat. This sauce is admir- able with fish, asparagus, and all green vegetables ; you must, of course, substitute lime for lemon, and have butter enough to spare for the undertaking. I strongly advise my fortunate friends on the Neilgherries to make this sauce (a little goes a long way mind) for their globe arti- 90 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. chokes; one table-spoonfal is enough for one artichoke, and the plates should be really hot.* Hollandaise made with eggs is known abroad as Hollan- daise jaune. “ Horse-radish sauce" is the grand standard adjunct to our national food, “ the roast beef of old England,” and beef in India cries out for help far more piteously than its rich relation far away. Horse-radish grows well at Ootaca- mund, and I once grew some with success at Bangalore, but the scraped root of the moringa, or “drum-stick” tree, provides so good a substitute that we may rest contented with a sauce thus composed :—Scrape as finely as you can a cupful of the root shavings, simmer them in half a pint of chicken broth ; when done, thicken the broth custard- wise with the yolks of three eggs beaten up with a dessert- spoonful of tarragon vinegar; add pepper, salt, and a very little grated nutmeg, and serve in a sauce-boat. A. richer recipe suggests the addition of a coffee-cupful of cream with the yolks of the eggs, and then to let the sauce remain on the fire en bain-marie, stirring well until it is very hot (but not boiling) and serving it in a hot sauce-boat. The cold form of this sauce is perhaps the easiest, and I think as nice as any +:-you simply rasp the moringa, or horse-radish root, till you have a cupful of fine scrapings, and mingle them with an ordinary mayonnaise, or tartare sauce, iced. Cream is, of course, a great addition, but the usual mixture of eggs, oil, mustard, and vinegar, will give you a good result. And this leads me to discuss at once the two sauces I have just mentioned. * A tea-spoonful of anchovy vinegar is in this case better than lime. juice.-W. † Most delicious with cold roast beef.-W. SAUCES-CONTINUED 91 Mayonnaise sauce is certainly one of the most useful, and popular of all the sauces we attempt out here. In order- ing it, if you know what to say, and give good materials, you may be certain of success. Be sure that the oil you give is thoroughly good, or the result will be very painful; and examine your mustard, vinegar, and eggs. Assuming that these are all satisfactory, set to work in the following manner :- Commence with the dry ingredients, and put into a soup-plate, or slop-basin, the cold, very hard-boiled yolks of two eggs, a salt-spoonful of salt, a dessert-spoonful of mustard powder, a tea-spoonful of finely-minced shallot, and a dust of white pepper. Bruise these together thoroughly with the back of a silver spoon. Now, add a little oil, and work your materials to a paste, dropping in the oil patiently by degrees until you get it nice and moist; next throw in the yolks of two raw eggs, and continue your working, adding oil without measure, and judging by your eye when you think you have made enough sauce, for the tarragon vinegar you finally add will not be more than a good table-spoonful. The moment the vinegar is added, the sauce will assume a creamy appearance, and when worked sufficiently, will be ready for the block tin strainer (to get rid of “onion atoms," lumps of egg, &c.,) and then for the table. If made on the plains, early in the afternoon, the sauce-boat should be placed in the ice-box; but, to be successful, mayonnaise sauce ought, if possible, to be made as near the time of service as possible. When cream is used, it takes the place of the oil, but if only a little can be spared, a dessert-spoon- ful may be added to the sauce I have described with good effect. All mayonnaise sauces should be iced, if only for a few minutes. The points in this sauce to be noted are, the order in which the various ingredients should be employed, the use 92 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. of the raw yolks in conjunction with the hard-boiled (they produce the thick creaminess you want), the liberal use of good oil, and the addition last of all, in sparing quantity, of the tarragon vinegar. You do not want an acid sauce at all, remember. English cooks, as a rule, ruin their mayonnaise and salad dressings, by measuring the oil and vinegar they use in equal portions ! No artist measures these ingredients.* You might as well expect a painter to tell you the number of grains of the colours he used in painting a picture. You must not omit a little onion, but whilst permitting the flavour “scarce suspected to animate the whole,” you must on no account permit the “atoms to lurk within the bowl”—the ladies in Sydney Smith's days were perhaps less critical in the matter of this fragrant bulb, than are our fair enslavers in the present year of grace. “ Tartare sauce” is the same as the above, without the use of hard-boiled eggs: raw yolks alone should be used, and the oil and vinegar should be added in the following proportions; a tea-spoonful of the latter, to two table- spoonfuls of the former, well beaten together, and often times repeated till enough sauce is made. “Rémoulade" is a mayonnaise sauce with chopped gherkins, parsley, chives and capers, added. For chives, try the green stalks of a few young onions. The mustard used must be French, and a drop or two of garlic-vinegar is a sine quâ non. “Ravigote" is also mayonnaise with chopped shallots anchovies, celery, cress, and sweet herbs. Green remoulade and ravigote are made in the same way, the colour being produced by parsley juice, and spinach- greening. * Gonffé's calcnlation represents the quantity of vinegar as barely one-eighth of the oil.-W. SAUCES-CONTINUED. 93 Not long ago I observed in the Queen newspaper a ques- tion from a lady who was apparently in great distress about mayonnaise sauce. She complained that she could not get the mixture as thick as she desired, and begged for instruction. Two answers were given the following week: one of them urged the lady to thicken with flour or arrowroot, and the other advocated mashed potato! Now, I need scarcely say that this was a case in which the blind attempted to lead the blind. Mayonnaise and tar- tare sauces should be thickened by beating the oil and raw yolks together perseveringly. With patience the mixture can, in this way, be made to stand as stiffly as thick batter, CHAPTER XII. Sauces-concluded. NOW pass to the consideration of a few standard high class sauces, which, with a little care and attention, will be found practicable in every well-conducted Madras kitchen. To aid you in this branch of the cook's art, you cannot possess a better guide than Jules Gouffé, whose admirably systematic method of discussing sauces has never been approached by any authority on culinary mysteries. Unfortunately, however for the inexperienced reader, Gouffé's work is rather the treatise of a Professor addressed to students who have already matriculated, than a vade mecum for beginners. So unless you are fairly au fait in practical kitchen work, you will hardly derive much easy aid from the Royal Cookery Book. You must have some knowledge of the ingredients which may possibly be spared, and of those which must, on no account, be omitted, for even in Gouffé's recipes there are sometimes things named which are not absolutely essential. You ought to know something of stock-making, and understand the value of game bones, poultry bones, fragments of ham, &c., and the sort of flavour these things produce, helped by certain vegetables. If, by experience, you have picked up a knowledge of equivalents so much the better. I can, in short, readily believe that those who have never bothered their heads about cookery, would find it almost SAUCES-CONCLUDED. 95 impossible to direct a native cook from the pages of the great chef. In saying this I speak from experience. I first read Gouffé before I had taken to practical cooking work, and before I had actually made sauces, &c., ladle in hand, in an English kitchen. Since going through that ordeal, I have again come across the book, and I find that much that I had formerly to skip as too complicated, now seems easy enough. I propose now to place before you in the simplest way I can Gouffé's fundamental sauces. Those who are ac- quainted with that author, will observe that in the first place I shall reduce the recipes to a much shorter compass, and in the next, that I shall omit everything that is not down-right necessary to produce a fair result. Gouffé propounds the following sauces as the found- ation of nearly all those of a high class that you are likely to encounter :- 1. Espagnole. I 4. Béchamel. 2. Velouté. 5. Marinade. 3. Allemande. I 6. Poivrade. Of these velouté, allemande, and béchamel are so closely allied, that I shall confine myself to the last. Marinade and poivrade I have already alluded to. Espagnole is, of course, worthy of close attention. My fundamental sauces will then be reduced to two :-one brown, the other white,—which I think will be found ample for the Indian kitchen. Veal stock plays an important part in Gouffé's recipes. Unfortunately for as we can never reckon on obtaining that delicate meat. Nevertheless, while freely admitting its value, I do not look upon veal as a sine quâ non in sauce-making. A really carefully made chicken consommé, assisted by a ham or bacon bone, and on special occasions 96 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. with a good fowl, provides you with an excellent equiva- lent. With regard to Espagnole which, as many of you no doubt know, is a rich, thick, brown sauce, I would simplify Gouffé's receipt as follows :-Get ready a couple of sheep's trotters chopped in pieces, with a ham or bacon bone, or a few lean slices of either, any raw cutlet trimmings you may have, and two pounds of beef gravy meat cut into squares. Now cut up a couple of onions and throw them into a stew-pan with an ounce of butter, fry them a golden yellow then add a breakfast-cupful of broth, or water, and the pieces of meat previously prepared; shake the pan every now and then, and let the meat take colour; now, add water enough to cover the meat, &c., completely, reduce the fire, and let the contents of the pan come slowly to the boil, skimming carefully during that period; when the surface seems nicely clear of grease and scum, add a cupful of cold water and two carrots sliced, a turnip, a good piece of celery, a clove of garlic, half a dozen of pepper corns, a spoonful of dried sweet herbs tied up in a bag, a bunch of parsley, some burnt sugar colouring, and salt to taste. No spice. As soon as the vegetables have been cooked, remove the pan from the fire, pick out the vegetables, and place it so that it may simmer slowly for a couple of hours. Now, lift it up, and strain off your gravy: there should be quite a pint and a half of it. Next, take a sauce-pan and melt two ounces of butter at the bottom of it, stir in two ounces of flour and make a roux, when the colour satisfies you, add by degrees, stirring as you do so, the pint or so of strong gravy that you strained from the stew-pan. Let the contents of your sauce-pan come to the boil, stirring the whole time, then strain the sauce through your tin strainer into a clean sauce-pan, and set the vessel in the bain-marie to remain hot till wanted. Any fat that may rise during the thickening process should be skim- SAUCES-CONCLUDED. 97 med off, but if the gravy be properly made, and skimmed before it is added to the roux, there will be very little to take off in the bain-marie stage. The bain-marie, remem- ber, is a vessel containing boiling water, and kept over the fire, in which you immerse sauce-pans containing made- sauces to preserve them hot for use. Espagnole sauce, therefore, is simply a good, rich, brown, meat gravy, thickened with flour. It only possesses the flavoar derived from the vegetables, and from the ordinary meat that you have employed to make it. Using this sauce as your medium or basis, you can proceed to compose a number of rich preparations as follows :-Financière, Périgueux, Bordelaise, Provençale, Génevoise, Matelote, Châteaubriand, Régence, Italienne, and Réforme, with others too numerous to mention. The spécialités of the sauces, I have enumerated, consist in the distinct flavouring of the Espagnole, from which they are really made, with mush- rooms, truffles, essence of game or of pigeons, poultry, fish, or ham (concerning which I shall speak later on), wine in judicious proportions, delicate vegetables, and so on. A careful perusal of the receipts given, hereafter in my menus, ought to guide you, when once you have achieved an andeniable foundation with your Espagnole. Game fragments, poultry, mushrooms, &c., must, on no account, be used in making Espagnole, for such ingredients would impart a distinct flavour to the sauce. The object, remember, is to reserve the flavouring according to the particular sauce we may select. I will, for example, give you sauce à la Périgueux :- Chop up half the contents of a small bottle of truffles, and toss them awhile in some melted butter at the bottom of a light sauce-pan, add a coffee-cupful of clear gravy, and a glass of Madeira, and simmer for ten minutes ; give it a little pepper, a pinch of sugar, and salt, and then slowly 98 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. stir in half a pint of Espagnole to complete the sauce, and when thoroughly hot, it is ready. Take now Financière sauce for, let us say, a ragout of that name :-Choose a nice tender fowl, lightly roast it, and save the choicest fillet meat for your ragout: take the legs, thighs, skin, bones, liver, giblets, scraps, and trim- mings, and proceed to make an essence of them thus :-Break up the bones, and, with the remnants aforesaid, make the strongest broth you can, flavoured with an onion, a bit of celery, a spoonful of dried herbs, a sliced carrot, and two or three pepper corns. Reduce it as strong as possible, and then strain. Now, take equal portions of mushrooms and of truffles ; cut them up, and toss them in melted butter at the bottom of a sauce-pan, and when you have worked them well thus, for two or three minutes, add your fowl- essence, with a glass of sherry, and complete the sauce with your pint of Espagnole. The ragout (which should be garnished with whole button mushrooms, sliced truffles, cocks-combs, sweet-breads, tongue, grated ham, and sip- pets of crisply fried bacon) is merely a careful stew of fowl fillets, in the sauce I have described. As the fillets have been previously cooked, they will merely require gently heating up in the sauce. It will be observed that the spécialités of the two sauces just given are a flavour of truffles and Madeira in Périgueux, and of chicken essence with mushrooms, truffles, and sherry in Financière. Béchamel, which I select as the best type of a funda- mental white sauce, should be made in this way :-Take the same ingredients that I have detailed for Espagnole, and commence by slicing up the onion, and shaking the rings in an ounce of melted butter at the bottom of the stew-pan; do not let them take colour, but add your meat* * Veal, if procurable, instead of beef.-W. SAUCES-CONCLUDED. and bones at once, and cover them with water, omitting the browning stage : go on now to make a clear consommé ; instead of burnt-sugar colouring, add a tea-spoonful of powdered sugar plain, and all the vegetables. If this be carefully prepared and skimmed, you will obtain a pellucid broth which should be strained, and kept ready for use presently. Take a sauce-pan, and melt a quarter of a pound of “cow-brand,” or any good preserved butter in it; fry gently in that for ten minutes a sliced carrot and a sliced onion; before they take colour, add two ounces of flour, stir for five minutes, and add by degrees your clear broth, half a pint of cream, a small tinful of mushrooms chopped, salt, and pepper; stir over the fire till boiling, and then permit the sauce to simmer slowly for an hour, taking off all fat that may rise. At the end of the hour, you can strain the Béchamel into a sauce-pan, and place it in the bain-marie. Before using, a gill of cream may be finally stirred into the sauce as you take it from the bain- marie. Velouté is exactly like this omitting the cream when you add the stock, and also the chopped mushrooms: it is therefore less expensive and not quite so rich. Allemande is velouté flavoured with chicken essence, and chopped mushrooms : it is thickened with yolks of eggs, and no cream is needed in its composition. With these for your bases, you can make the following rich white sauces :-oyster, lobster, suprême, vénitienne, poivrade blanche, rich soubise, champignons blanches, purée de celeri, and other rich white purées. In fact all sauces which, in their simple form, are made with sauce blanche, or sauce blonde, may be served in a superior manner by using velouté, or Béchamel as their groundwork. I have already described the making of chicken, or rather fowl essence : the same principles being observed, 404582A 100 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. you can obtain valuable flavouring gravies from all poul- try bones, especially from those of a turkey. The giblets should never be thrown away, for they assist a gravy greatly, In like manner game bones are very valuable. Essences of mushrooms, of truffles, vegetables, and ham, are obtained by stewing them cut into small pieces in con- sommé. A dash of Madeira or sound Marsala is necessary with game essences, while chablis and sauterne give assistance to fish gravies which are used, of course, to improve sauces like créme d'anchois, créme de crevettes, and all fish sauces. Reduced vinegar, i.e. vinegar boiled until half or more of its quantity has evaporated, and wine similarly reduced, produce valuable flavoring agents. Mirepoix is a strong broth made from meat and vege- tables, flavoured with wine and sweet herbs, and strained, but not thickened. It is used as a flavouring medium. D'Uxelles, or fines herbes, is composed as follows :-Chop up six ounces of fresh mushrooms, six ounces of fresh parsley, and two ounces of shallot, put the mince into a stew-pan with two ounces of fresh butter and a seasoning of salt and black pepper; fry on a brisk fire for five minutes, and put the mixture in a jar for use as required. D'Uxelles sauce is made by adding a table spoonful of this preparation to half a pint of Espagnole sauce. This should be made when mushrooms are procurable during the rains, it will be found most useful as a flavoring and finishing agent. Let us suppose that you have made a sauce in every way satisfactorily, but find that it is scarcely thick enough. You must then employ a liaison or thickening to correct the error. Liaison for a white sauce may be made of flour, and a little milk and water, or white stock, like sauce blanche, or sauce blonde only a little thicker. For a brown SAUCES-CONCLUDED. 101 sauce the same, with brown gravy. In either case the liaison mixed separately is stirred through a strainer into the sauce off the fire : when this has been done, the sauce- pan is replaced on the fire and stirred until the desired thickness is obtained. Yolks of eggs are also used for liaison : they must be beaten up with a little hot-water, or stock, and added to the sauce off the fire, the thickening being very carefully conducted afterwards over a low fire as in custard-making. The sauce must be allowed to cool for two or three minutes before the egg thickening is put into it. This thickening is used in poulette sauce for fricassées and certain soups. I have now, I think, given you a sketch of sauce-making in its various stages. Details for nearly every standard sauce not at present described, will be found in my menus. CHAPTER XIII. Roasting and braising. “T IVE me,” says the Englishman,“ a good cut of a S w ell-cooked joint, with a nicely boiled potato, and a fresh vegetable, and I will ask for nothing more.” Now, it must be admitted, that honest slices of meat constitute the favorite dinner of a Briton. Go into a Club dining-room, or into any large London tavern such as “Simpson's," "The Rainbow," &c., &c., and you will find two-thirds of the men assembled there dining “ off the joint.” And verily the well roasted haunch or saddle of mutton, the sirloin or round of beef, the fillet of veal, and the loin or leg of pork, are dishes peculiar to England, of which we may well boast. Our artistic neighbours across the channel are wont to sneer at our love of great joints, which they fail to cook as well as we do, for although in deference to the insular taste “ross biff” frequently figures in a Parisian menu, I think that men are unanimous in saying that it never comes up to the home-fed, home-served sirloin. Our penchant for solid food follows us withersoever we wander away from home, and we find John Bull in India as fond of his beef and mutton, as he was when “ a humble cottager in Britain." He sighs for a Southdown saddle or a Scotch sirloin, and is apt to turn away sorrowfully from the meagre travesty of a joint, which, after much ROASTING AND BRAISING. 103 trouble, the sharer of his joys and sorrows contrives to place before him. Now, although a vast quantity of wretched meat is sold in the Indian market, I think that people who are willing to pay a good price, and whose servants are not unusually dishonest, can generally get fair beef and mutton at the large stations of this Presidency. A really bad servant will, of course, cheat you with greater cruelty in buying your meat than in anything. At some places the beef is better than the mutton, and vice versa, but I think that, if not haggled with over his prices, a butcher is generally to be found who can supply you with eatable meat. Owing to the calamity which befell us in 1877, and the two previous seasons of scarcity, our market has, for the past few years, been hardly as well supplied as it formerly was ; never- theless, good meat is to be got. The comparative scarcity, however, of eatable meat is in a great measure due to ourselves. If the butchers were certain of sales at remunerative prices, they would pro- duce a far better article than they do, but when people grumble at an extra anna charged on a seer of well-fed meat, you can scarcely expect much improvement. The expenses attending sheep-feeding are pretty well proved by the statistics of the old-established mutton clubs in the mofussil. The members, it is true, get capital meat, but it costs them, first and last, very nearly what it would in England. Native graziers can hardly be expected to turn out equally good mutton at a cheaper rate. Setting aside the joints that you occasionally get when a stall-fed ox has been slaughtered, or a gram-fed sheep cut up; and without considering the exceptionally good meat of mutton clubs, it is the duty of the chronicler of these “jottings” to treat of the average produce of the country, and to endeavour to provide his readers with a 104 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. few useful hints as to the cookery thereof. Let us there- fore take the ordinary joint of beef or of mutton which Ramasámy brings daily from bazár for “ Master and Mrs. only” :-the diminutive sirloin, the ribs scarcely larger than the loin chops of a Leicestershire sheep, the three- and-a-half pound leg of mutton, or the wizen loinlet,—and let us assume that the meat, though small, is fairly good, - what shall we do with it ? In a country where it is impossible to keep cooked meat, the fact of a joint being small, need hardly be considered à drawback, but we have before us a good deal of bone in proportion to the meat, and very little fat. I say boldly that plainly roasting such a fragment is a mistake. Unless the joint be of a fair size, and above the average as to fat like the saddle, or the specially fine sirloin we bay for a dinner party, I would never roast it. The morsel can ill afford to lose the little gravy it possesses which the stab of the spit is bound to draw, and which we rarely see sent to table, for Ramasámy appreciates it as an adjunct to his curry. The only way to cook little joints, such as those I have indicated, is to braise them. You thus obtain all the nourishment the meat can give, and a tasty and tender dish into the bargain. This admirable method of cookery is far too rarely adopted : so for the benefit of those who do not understand the process, I had better mention that braising consists in placing meat in a closed pan, with some made-gravy or stock round it, vegetables cut up, and a judicious allowance of salt and pepper. In this the meat is very slowly simmered, whilst it is browned exter- nally by live coals placed on the braising-pan lid. There is thus heat from above and below the pan, and the joint is cooked in its own gravy, while it derives additional flavour from the vegetables, &c., associated with it. ROASTING AND BRAISING. 105 To braise a little Indian joint successfully, you must first bone it, then trim it, tie it with a string into a neat shape, give it a dust of salt and pepper, and put it on one side, whilst you make the best broth you can from the bones you cut out, and the trimmings. This should occupy the cook all morning. Having obtained all you can from the bones, strain off your broth, let it get cool, skim off the fat, and now proceed to cook the meat. Melt some butter or fat at the bottom of your stew-pan first, and turn the meat about in till it begins to take colour, then add your broth (a pint and a half or thereabouts for 3 ibs of meat will be found enough) with two carrots, four good sized onions, a tea-spoonful each of marjoram and thyme, pepper, and salt: let it simmer gently for an hour. Turn the meat, add a couple of onions, and (says Gouffé) a gill of brandy, let the pan simmer for an hour more,-keeping live coals on the lid throughout the pro- cess,--and the braise will be complete. Lift out the joint, and keep it on a hot dish, whilst you strain off the gravy remaining in the stew-pan,-it will be half the amount you originally poured in, but much stronger. You can now send up the joint with the gravy plainly poured round it; or you can pass the vegetables, with which the meat was braised, through the sieve, thicken the gravy, and add the pulp of the vegetables to it. In this manner you can successfully dress a leg of mutton, a loin of mutton, a small sirloin, a piece of the ribs or a fillet of beef, in fact all small joints. Larding with strips of fat bacon will vastly improve the braise, especially when the meat is very lean, and if yon can make some strong broth from any meat and bones, or if you can spare a little stock from the soup-kettle, you need not bone the joint. The vegetables, &c., should, in this case, be boiled in the stock separately, wine should be added to flavour it, and the joint should be cooked in the mirepoix thus made. 106 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Poultry, ducks, and geese, are far better braised than roasted, unless you keep a fowl-yard of your own, and feed and kill the birds at home. To braise poultry well, you must make the gravy from the giblets, and trimmings of the birds, assisted by a little gravy-meat. In fact all braises are better if you help the gravy with a little extra meat. The French throw in a glass or two of light white wine when braising poultry, and Madeira or Marsala is a sterling aid in cooking mutton or beef in this method. A slice of bacon is very effective with all braised meat. If you must roast your little joint, see that it is not spitted,—that is, thrust through by the spit; with a little care, a small Indian joint can easily be tied to it. Do not let your cook use coarse wooden skewers, but make him tie a joint into a shape, for every stab inflicted in it, will rob the piece of meat of its juiciness. Tastes vary so strangely as to the “ doing" of meat, that it is impossible to give a rule for roasting. It is, however, essential to use an equal fire throughout the process, and to guard against cooking the outside too fast. Frequent basting is a sine quâ non, and you should dredge a little flour over the meat to finish with, to produce a crisp, brown, frothy surface. You should preserve the fat of your sirloin, or loin of mutton, by tying over it a wrapper of buttered paper. The French place their small joints in marinade, a cus- tom I strongly advocate for the poor meat of this country, when you intend to roast or grill it. Here is their method of cooking a loin of mutton en papillote :- Trim the loin nicely, and let it lie from morning till roasting time en marinade, composed of a breakfast-cupful of salad oil, two onions, and a carrot, sliced fine as for Julienne, with some whole peppers, salt, chopped parsley, and a ROASTING AND BRAISING. 107 tea-spoonful of powdered dried sweet herbs. Let the joint be turned several times during the day, and baste it often. When to be dressed, pack it, with its vegetables and all, in a well oiled paper, and roast it carefully, bast- ing it with the oil that composed the marinade : when nearly done, remove the paper, brush off the vegetables, baste with melted butter, and serve, when nicely browned, with other vegetables independently cooked, and some gravy. Though the inexperienced reader will hardly believe me, I can assure him that when finally set before him, he will fail to trace the presence of oil (the bête noir of Englishmen) whilst he will be surprised at the juici- ness, and good flavour of the meat. In roasting Indian poultry, invariably lard the breast with fat bacon, or tie a flap of bacon over it. Birds cannot be kept too moist when roasting. A large sweet onion, and a lump of preserved butter should be put inside the carcass of a fowl, and the basting should be carefully attended to. The slower the roasting the better. I have often found that a fowl baked in a slow oven till about three parts done, and then finished in front of the fire, was excellent. It should be occasionally basted with melted butter whilst in the oven. The bacon tied over the breast should be removed during the last five minutes of the cook- ing, when the bird should be lightly dredged over with flour, and liberally basted with melted butter to produce the brown, crisp, blisters, which always make a fowl look inviting. If permitted to follow the customs of the cookroom, the uneducated Ramasamy will send up your roast fowl- hardly as large as an English chicken,—with its breast strangely puffed out and distorted with a horrible com- pound which he calls “stuffing.” This you carefully avoid eating on account of its nastiness, but few, I take it, boldly order their cooks never to perpetrate the atrocity CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. again, being under an impression that stuffing is necessary in roasting poultry. The only birds that should be stuffed in the crop are turkeys, and exceptionally fine capons. Who amongst you ever saw a roast fowl in England, stuffed ? The bar- barous practice has become common out here, and ought to be put down as utterly wrong. Moisture, which is so necessary in roasting, should, as I have already observed, be secured by either larding the fowl with fat bacon, or tying a slice of bacon over the breast. I however advo- cate a stuffing for the inside of a fowl intended for braising as follows :-well mashed potato, and boiled sweet onion, in the proportion of two-thirds of the former to one-third of the latter. The mashed potato, of course, contains butter, spiced pepper, a little milk or cream, or the yolk of an egg, and helps to preserve the juiciness of the bird ; the flavour it imparts too is, I think, agreeable. This with a little chopped sage may be used for ducks. An author for whom I entertain the greatest respect urges the practice I have mentioned of putting one sweet onion, and a lump of salt butter, inside every chicken, or fowl, to be roasted. But this cannot be called "stuffing." A turkey, on the other hand, requires carefully made forcemeat, and, as you all know, there are many varieties thereof. Truffles, and chestnuts form the epicurean stuff- ing of the roast turkey, and one of oysters is propounded for the boiled bird. I leave these elaborate compositions alone, for receipts can be easily hunted up for them when a special occasion may demand a “ dindon truffé à la Peri- gord,” or a "dinde braisée à la financière," S.C., 8c. The stuffing, I am anxious to discuss, is the ordinary one we remember in England for turkeys, veal, hares, and so on :-a firm, green-tinted forcemeat, flavoured with pleasant herbs, and a suspicion of lemon-peel ; a forcemeat which cuts clean with the slice of the breast of your turkey, or ROASTING AND BRAISING. 109 fillet of veal, and is nice whether hot or cold. Not a greasy mess, pale brown in colour, and lumpy, which, at the first cut of the knife, oozes out, and encumbers the dish in a most untempting manner. In order to be sure of making the real thing, if you have not (as you ought to have easily enough at Madras) the plants themselves growing in pots handy, see that you have a bottle of dried thyme, and one of marjoram, and a good bunch of fresh curly parsley, which should also be growing in boxes. Having these ready, work as follows:- Pare a good sized lime as finely as possible avoiding the slightest particle of white pith, and mince the peel as small as possible: weigh six ounces of dry, well sifted, stale bread-crumbs : measure a dessert-spoonful of chopped thyme (green) and one of marjoram (green), or take a table-spoonful of the dried leaves powdered-half and half : you must powder the leaves to get rid of atoms of stalk and stick: mince the parsley fine to the extent of a heaped up table-spoonful: chop up three ounces of fresh beef-suet, or butter if suet cannot be got: mix all these together with two spoons in a large dish, and dust the whole well with salt and pepper, lastly, binding the mixture with three well-beaten eggs: work this together, and the stuffing will be fit to use. Much depends upon the fine mincing of all the ingredients, and their thorough in- corporation: the suet should be chopped as finely as possible. The colour will be, of course, a deep green provided you use the quantities of green herbs I have given : supposing, however, that you have only dried herbs, and that you cannot get fresh parsley; why not secure the colour by a good spoonful of spinach-greening, it is almost tasteless, and the colour is a great thing in stuffing. This, carefully made, is Martha's ordinary veal, or turkey stuff- ing, and ought to taste, just as nice here as that which we so well remember at home. 10 110 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. In mincing parsley, and all green herbs, be careful that, after washing them well, the leaves are well dried in a cloth : if chopped wet, the juice escapes, and the mince is never finely and evenly granulated. Forcemeats are, of course, added to, and perhaps im- proved, by chopped ham, tongue, liver, mushrooms, bacon, a little anchovy, a casual oyster, and, of course, truffles. The addition of these things should, however, be thought- fully carried out, and the proportions on no account left at haphazard to the tender mercy of the average Ramasámy. The mixture which tradition has handed down to the Anglo-Indian kitchen for the stuffing of ducks and geese is nearly as disagreeable as that for the fowl. Whilst the latter may be described as a consolidated and greasy rela- tion of the “bread poultice” that I denounced, when treat- ing of “bread sauce," the former owes its flavour to violent onion, crude sage, and slices of half-boiled potato, mixed together lumpily and lubricated with some chopped fat. Let me speedily tell you that potato has no place whatever in the best duck stuffing, and that the crude taste you dislike so much arises from the sage being chopped raw, and the onion being a common one instead of the mild kind called “Bombay,” or “Bellary." Duck stuffing should be made in this manner :- Take three Bombay onions the size of Badminton balls, wash, peel, and boil them in two waters to extract the acrid flavour. Whilst these are boiling, take eight tender look- ing sage leaves, and scald them in boiling water for five minutes, take them out, and when the onions are tender, turn them out, drain them dry, and proceed to mince them with the sage leaves, very fine. Add to this, five ounces of bread-crumbs, and dust over the mixture a liberal allow- ance of spiced pepper (which I give later on) and salt: when nicely worked together, add an ounce of butter or ROASTING AND BRAISING. 111 suet cut into dice and bind the ingredients with three eggs, it will now be ready for use. The proportions of this stuffing may be relied on: it is mild, yet pleasantly flavoured, and, “ leaves not a trace of sad memory behind.” Goose stuffing is made in a similar way, and the com- position is a pleasant addition to some joints of pork : let my friends on the Hills try a loin, boned, rolled, and stuffed with this, and roasted over a bright fire. In all stuffings, and forcemeats, whether required for roast, boiled, or braised poultry ; for the dainty galantine or the savoury pie, there are few things more useful to have at hand than “spiced pepper.” It saves an infinity of trouble, and is an invaluable thing for a thousand dishes. I have been very successful with one that I con- cocted from Gouffé's receipt, which I feel it my duty to tell you of, and urge you to go and do likewise. You can bottle it, and take what you require from time to time. 1 ounce dried thyme leaves,... ...) i do. do. marjoram, ... ... } from the bottle. do. do. savory, ... ... +ounce nutmeg, I do. cloves, I do. whole black pepper, do. Nepaul pepper, pound the above ingredients thoroughly in a mortar, and when ground to powder, pass it through a fine sieve : bottle it, and cork it down securely. If you desire to make what Gouffé calls “spiced salt,” mix one ounce of the above with four of salt. Spiced pepper is constantly wanted, and lends that nice sausage flavour to savoury pies, rolled beef, brawn, savoury pâtés, and all forcemeats. Amongst the many barbarous tricks of Native cooks, 112 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. there is an especial one which I ought to have brought to prominent notice before. I refer to the method which obtains in the cookroom of removing the feathers from poultry, geese, ducks, and game. I cannot call it "pluck- ing,” for, as many of you know, the feathers are got rid of wholesale by plunging the bird into scalding hot-water! The immediate effect of this ignorant habit is to harden and parch the skin of the fowl, to prevent the proper exudation and admission of moisture during roasting, and to render the flesh dry and tasteless. Birds must be plucked by hand, and their small down must be singed. To ensure this being done in your kitchen, order all birds to be brought for inspection when trussed for cooking, and the smallest experience will enable you to detect the parchment-like skin of the scalded bird, from that of the hand-plucked one, which will be cool and soft, with an unmistakable freshness which the other cannot have. A basket containing the feathers should also be shown, for they will expose scalding in a minute. It is needless to say that game is ruthlessly spoiled by this trick of the kitchen, and even the chicken destined for a curry is robbed of half its flavour by being scalded first. The practice is, of course, the offspring of idleness,-a sub- terfuge to escape trouble. I would also point out that the common way of killing poultry in this country is inhuman, and, in a culinary point of view, utterly wrong. Setting aside the cruelty of cutting a fowl's throat, and throwing it on the ground to bleed to death in agony, what an idiotic thing it is to waste the very part of the bird from which its gravy, and juiciness are derived! White meats are bled in England simply to produce the necessary tint, but they lose much of their nutritious quality by the process. They, how- ever, can afford to do so. Our poorly flavoured birds can ill endure the loss of an atom of the richness that they ROASTING AND BRAISING. 113 may possess. I maintain, therefore, that a merciful, and instantaneous death, by a heavy blow from a wooden mallet, would be pleasanter for the fowl, and far better for us :—the blow should be given on the back of the head. Besides those I have mentioned there are still two evil practices to be noted to which Native cooks are prone. The first, is that of parboiling joints and poultry before roasting them: the second, is that of keeping joints, &c., far too long on the spit. As a rule, Ramasámy commences operations much too soon, and then keeps the meat on the spit before a low fire until it is wanted. Strict orders should be issued to prevent the first of these errors, and a table, showing the time that various joints require in roasting properly, should be hung up in the kitchen to prevent the second. If the spit be protected from draughts with a screen, and the fire evenly maintained, and sufficiently brisk for the operation in hand- A large turkey, 81 tbs. will take an honr and three-quarters. A hen-turkey, 3} lbs. „ forty-five minutes. A capon, 4 tbs. ... , fifty minutes. A fowl, 3 lbs. half an hour. A pigeon ... a quarter of an hour. A duck ... twenty-five minutes, A goose, 6 lbs. an hour and a half. A bare ... half an hour. A partridge ... a quarter of an hour. A. snipe ten minutes. A florican or pheasant , half an hour. A saddle of mutton, 7 tbs. , an hour and a half. A sirloin of beef do, an hour and three-quarters. A loin of pork, 3 lbs. , fifty minutes, A loin of mutton, 3 lbs. thirty-five minutes, CHAPTER XIV. Boiling and Steaming. ILING,” says the G. C., " is one of the simplest and most economical modes of preparing food. Meat loses less weight in boiling than in any process of cooking, and the water it has been boiled in can always be turned to good account; besides which, although it may be an open question whether boiled meat is more nutritious than roast or boiled meat, it is beyond dispute more wholesome and easily digested.” Under the head of “soup-making" I have already dis- cussed the method of boiling meat required for soup: the “pot-au-feu" being my example of how meat should be treated when the object is to extract its juices. We mast now consider what has to be done in preparing boiled meat for the table, and note where the two processes differ. For the "pot-au-feu” it is necessary to put the meat and salt into cold water first,-alone: to watch it come slowly to the boil, skimming the scum that rises very carefully : when the surface is clear, and the water boiling, to add the vegetables, &c. ; to let it boil till the vegetables are done, to remove them, and then to let the contents of your pot simmer for three or four hours. But for a piece of boiled beef, a fowl, leg of mutton, or whatever it may be, destined for the dinner table, you must put the meat, tied neatly in the shape required with twine, into hot water to begin BOILING AND STEAMING. 115 with. Like the pot-au-feu it should be watched, and skim- med, and the salt, and flavouring vegetables, and herbs, added when the scum has been removed. The water, let me observe, must not be boiling, it should be as hot as you can bear to touch, and the early stage of coming to the actual boil should be retarded as much as possible. Boiled meat at the English dinner table is often spoiled by being "galloped,” as cooks say, that is, done too fast. Meat thus maltreated cannot fail to be tough. You must simmer your hump, or your ham, just as carefully as you would the meat of a pot-au-feu. When once boiling-point has been attained, ease off the fire a little, and endeavour to obtain a uniform heat below the pot that will just keep its surface, as it were, alive. An occasional bubble, is what you want, with gentle motion, the water muttering to you, not jabbering and fussing, as it does when boiling. If you follow this process, you will never have to send a boiled leg of mutton away from the table because of its being too underdone inside to be fit to eat. Remember that the liquor in which a joint has been boiled is weak stock. If reduced by being simmered with the lid of the cooking vessel removed, it can be turned to account in many ways, especially for the enrichment of white sauce. The common error made by cooks in England, just as much as by our Ramasámy, consists in their keeping up the high pressure too long, whereby the outside of the joint is rapidly done, and the inside scarcely cooked at all. The joint looks done, and is consequently sent up with the unsatisfactory result which I have pointed out. Simmering a joint of meat is undoubtedly a troublesome process in India. The cook's attention must be kept up throughout the work. He cannot lift the pot to the hob, or change its position on the range, as the English cook 116 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. can so easily do. He must be ever watchful about his fire, and guard against there being too much, or too little firewood under his vessels. In fact, I doubt whether it is possible for Ramasámy to conduct the simmering pro- cess satisfactorily with only the common appliances of the cookroom at his command. Those who possess ranges, or cooking stoves, should count themselves especially for- tunate. Their cooks can regulate the heat they want at will. But, with a common cookroom fireplace, the difficulty of maintaining the unvarying gentle heat so highly essential, appears to me to be very great. During the boiling of a joint, the water should, at all times, be kept so as to cover it. If there be any loss by evaporation, it should be made good at once by the addi- tion of hot water. No matter what kind of meat you boil, you will find it improved by the addition of a few vegetables. Custom has ruled that we should put in carrots, and turnips, with boiled beef; turnips, or sweet onions, with boiled mutton ; onions with a rabbit, &c., yet true cooks add a judicious assortment of herbs, &c., to every boiled dish. A large sweet onion, some celery, a carrot, parsley, a sprig of mar- joram, or thyme, a little bag of flavouring materials such as a clove of garlic, a blade of mace, a few cloves, some whole peppers, and the peel of a lime, should always go into the pot with a boiling fowl. Unless you have tried them, you have no idea how these things improve the taste of boiled joints. It is a very capital plan to boil a fowl in the soup-stock. Herein you have the true essence of economy-no waste. The soup gains all the fowl loses in the boiling, whilst the fowl derives richness and flavour by being done in the stock. One lot of vegetables and herbs suffices for both, and absolutely nothing is thrown away but the muslin bag BOILING AND STEAMING. 117 which contained the spices, garlic, &c.* I need hardly remind you that in suggesting this to Ramasamy you will meet with opposition. He will tell you, in all probability, that “mixted the fowl and soup-meat, cannot come the good taste," and when you insist upon a trial, he will go away sorrowful, for the broth produced in boiling a fowl in the ordinary way, is his perquisite (or rather we do not ask for it) and “mixted with rice only,” makes, with a chilli or two, a bowl of “pish-pash.” Nevertheless, the fact exists beyond a doubt that a fowl is vastly improved by being thus cooked : it remains for you to decide whe- ther, as a matter of policy, it would be wise to vex “your best friend” by ordering so great an innovation. I confess that the man who, with his eyes open, wars against his chef, is generally the loser before the campaign is ended. . Time in boiling meat can scarcely be fixed arbitrarily. If you follow the advice I have given, you will find fifteen to twenty minutes per pound a reliable allowance. Dis- cretion and experience will enable you to decide what orders to give. Large and deep joints such as humps, legs of mutton and of pork, silverside of beef, and hams, will naturally require a more liberal allowance than fowls, tongues, galantines, bacon, rabbits, &c. There are few things that are boiled as important as the ham. So much depends on the cook’s knowledge of the process, that many a ham is spoiled through ignorance. I think it advisable, therefore, to give you the following rules which I hope will be found easy enough: It is of course a sine quâ non that you soak the ham for twenty-four hours, changing the water at least three times (I am speaking of hams in canvas, or skin, not of those in * The fowl should not be put into the soup-kettle until all skim. ming has been completed, and the soup brought to the boil.-W. 118 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. tins); when thus well soaked, scrub the ham well, and trim it, scraping off all discolorations. Now, place it in your ham-kettle, and cover it with cold water (for a festival a bottle of Madeira or Marsala should be poured in with the water) and let it come gently to the boil, removing all scum that may rise. When quite clear, throw in three carrots, a head of celery cut up (leaves and all), three Bombay onions, a bag containing a clove of garlic, a dozen whole peppers, and some pieces of lime peel, with bunches of parsley, thyme, and marjoram : boil on till the vegetables are done, and then let the kettle simmer gently for four or five hours. When done, let it remain till nearly cold, then lift the ham from the water, and detach the outer skin (it will roll off easily) and dredge some fine crust raspings, or some pounded baked crumbs over it. An ancient Indian custom may still be met with, where civilization has not yet penetrated, of sticking an army of cloves into the skin of a ham. Fine your cook a rupee for this desecration and it will not occur again. The ham should either be dredged over as I have described, or, if wanted for a ball supper, wedding breakfast, luncheon party, or grand picnic, it should be glazed, a recipe for which process will be found elsewhere." Old cookery books give you the funniest nostrums con- cerning the cookery of a ham. Wisps of hay, juniper berries, coriander seed, ale, and even leather shavings, are laid down as flavouring adjuncts. Saltpetre is advised to add to the redness, and in England you find local prejudices in favour of the addition of different wines : in one county elder-wine, in another cowslip-wine, and so on. The end of all things, after all, is to get a really well-cured ham, if you secure that, and cook it as I have described, you will not require any leather shavings, but remember that on BOILING AND STEAMING. 119 important occasions a bottle of Madeira or Marsala crowns your best efforts with supreme success. Some of the best modern writers on cookery urge us to give up the salting of beef for boiling. “Such a prac- tice," says one of them, “cannot be too strongly condemn- ed; for whilst it impairs the wholesomeness of the meat, and makes it less digestible, it considerably diminishes the nutritive properties of it, and, boil it as you will, a piece of salt-beef is never so tender as a piece of fresh beef.” We, Anglo-Indians, can scarcely bring ourselves to accept this advice in its entirety ; our hump being in itself spécinlité worthy of admiration in any land. Neither will Englishmen ever be prevailed upon to deny themselves those delicious slices of cold boiled salted silverside, with which they are wont to regale themselves at breakfast, and at luncheon at home. Nevertheless, small pieces of beef, boiled fresh with vegetables are very acceptable. I do not, for instance, think that an ordinary Indian brisket is worth salting; it generally comes to table hard, and dry, not having sufficient depth of flesh. Boiled fresh, with the allowance of vegetables I have mentioned, this joint will be found nice enough, and if laid upon a bed of previously boiled maccaroni, and smothered in bright tomato sauce, you might indeed go further and fare worse. I fully agree with the old rhyme : "a turkey boiled is turkey spoiled," and I cannot understand any one maltreating that noble bird so cruelly. A funny idea exists I know (one handed down from grand-mama) that if you give roast mutton or beef at a dinner party, the fowls or turkey must be boiled ! What absurd nonsense. You offer your guests the choice of white or brown meat, each dressed in its most tempting form, you do not bind yourself to give them roast, or boiled. If the white meat be equally nice boiled, like fowls, a leg of pork, a knuckle of veal, &c., you may, of 120 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. course, so serve it, but do not run away with the erroneous notion that you must boil (and so spoil) your turkey because your other joint happen to be a saddle, or a sirloin. The process of $TEAMING has become familiar to many people in India on account of the introduction of Warren's cooking-pot, and vegetable steamer. I have been told that during the recent campaign in Afghanistan, this utensil was found invaluable, and I can well believe it. The term “steaming" is frequently applied not only to the Warren process, but also to the cooking of meat and vegetables placed in hermetically closing utensils, which, in turn, are plunged into larger vessels filled with boiling water. Warren's system needs no description for detailed in- structions accompany every vessel. Its chief recommen- dation consists in its simplicity and economy. Meat well braised may be said to be equally nutritious, for it is in like manner cooked in its own vapour and juices; but in the matter of fuel braising is by far the more expensive method, while the careful regulation of the heat, &c., costs infinitely more trouble than the simple boiling of a War. ren's pot. The one process requires the hand of a chef: the other can be managed by any one. The not uncommon practice of partly roasting a joint after it has been nearly cooked in a Warren's pot is erro- neous. The result can at best be that of meat half-boiled, half-roasted,—“neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red her- ring," so to speak. A good cook ought, by the clever treatment of the gravy made by the meat, to be able to diversify both the appearance and flavour of the joint, adding to its attractiveness by a tasteful garnish of mac- caroni or vegetables. The utmost cleanliness is absolutely necessary in the | use of Warren's pot. i BOILING AND STEAMING. 121 Somewhat similar in treatment is the process of Jugging. There is, I think, a dish called by Ramasamy “boiled châf's” (boiled chops), cooked in this manner, which is familiar to every one in this part of India, and really deserving of attention, for it is susceptible of improvement, and far greater development. A nice steak; a dish of neck cutlets ; the blade bone of the shoulder, boned and flattened; a tender fowl, boned and flattened ; game simi- larly prepared, and even fish, can thus be dressed very daintily. I advocate the making of a vessel specially for“jugged" dishes, as follows :--An oval tin, ten inches long, and seven and a half inches across; one inch and three- quarters deep. The tin should have its upper edge turned outwards like a pie-dish, half an inch wide, so that a flat cover may be pasted closely to it, and it should have a ring at each end to serve for handles. The cover should be an oval sheet of tin slightly larger in its measurements than the interior of the tin itself. A vessel of this kind I can strongly recommend. I have found mine invaluable. Let as first take Ramasámy's “boiléd châffs.”—Choose a good neck of mutton, and trim the little chops as neatly as possible. With the trimmings of meat and bone make a broth, assisted by an onion, some pepper corns, any scraps of beef, chicken bones, cold game, lean ham or bacon, in short any useful sundries. When done, skim, and strain it, you ought to have a breakfast-cupful of it. Now, scald the tin and cool it in cold water, cover the bottom of the tin with slices of onion, and arrange the chops thereon, covering them with two Bombay onions sliced fine, a carrot sliced, a young turnip sliced, a stick of celery cut into half inch lengths, two tomatoes sliced and drained, and a bunch of curled parsley. Then add to the broth a liquear glass of brandy, a table-spoonful of 11 122 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. mushroom ketchup, a salt-spoonful of salt, and the same of sugar. Pepper the chops pretty freely with black pepper before covering them. When arranged, pour in the broth, and seal the lid of the tin, all round the rim, with stiff paste, fixing it securely. Now, put the tin into boiling water, and keep it on the fire for two hours. At the time of serving, the lid should be cut off, and the tin, wrapped in a napkin, should be placed upon an ordinary dish, and sent to table immediately. Follow the same directions in “jugging” a steak, or a blade bone : in the case of the boned fowl, a little bacon, or some sliced bologna sausage, will be found an improve- ment, the broth being made, of course, from the bones and giblets. With game birds I would add a little sweet herb seasoning. Fish should be done in this way :-Trim the fish in fillets, season them with pepper and salt, cover the bottom of the tin with slices of Bombay onion, dotting in a dozen pepper corns, and two cloves; put a layer of fillets over the onion, and pepper them with black pepper; put in now a layer of sliced tomatoes, sprinkle some roughly-chopped curled parsley over them, and a table spoonful of chopped capsicums; pour in a little broth made from the fish bones and trimmings, with a glass of chablis, sauterne, or hock, cover the tin closely, and boil. A clove of garlic may be introduced in this dish by those who appreciate the faint- est suspicion of that fragrant bulb, and the fine rind of a lime also. If made of two or three sorts of little fishes, with a pinch of saffron, and, instead of the broth, a libation com- posed of one table spoonful of salad oil, two table-spoonfuls of chablis, and three of water, the effect will be pleasing to those who have eaten, and enjoyed a bouillabaisse, for the broth produced by the fish and ingredients I have named is not unlike that excellent composition. BOILING AND STEAMING. 123 In my last chapter I dwelt upon the invaluable culinary process known as BRAISING, and tried to point out the special adaptability of that method of cookery to the treat- ment of the small and often indifferently fed meat of this country. I did not however allude to a simpler yet scarcely mihindi na we ferradu he to hishni person less noteworthy kind of braise by which is produced that very excellent dish called BỆUF 'À LA MODE : There is per- haps no name in the French vocabulary de cuisine more frequently “taken in vain" by English cooks, as well as by poor Ramasamy, than this. As a rule they apply the term to a joint of cold roast beef when warmed up en réchauffé, and sent to table smothered with a thick sauce browned with burnt onion, and surrounded by sodden vegetables ! Now, bæuf à la mode is very far from being a réchauffé. On the contrary, it is a carefully selected piece of fresh meat scientifically stewed with vegetables. Its rich, self-made gravy is not thickened, and its garnish should be composed of vegetables separately trimmed and cooked for that purpose. No better recipe can possibly be found than that given by Gouffé quoted by Sir Henry Thompson as follows: "Take about 4 lbs. (2 kilos) of thick beefsteak cut square. Take nearly lb. (3 hectos) of raw fat bacon, cut off the rind, which should be put aside to blanche, and then cut the bacon in strips for larding, about one-third of an inch thick, and sprinkle them with pepper. Lard the meat, and tie it up as for the pot-au-feu. Place the piece of meat in a stew-pan with rather less than a pint of white wine, a wine-glass of brandy, a pint of stock, a pint of water, two calves' feet already boned and blanched, and the rind of the bacon also blanched. Put it on the fire adding a little less than one ounce of salt (30 grammes). Make it boil, and skim it as for pot-au-feu ; next, having skimmed it, add fully one pound (500 grammes) of carrots, 124 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. one onion, three cloves, one faggot of herbs, and two pinches of pepper. Place the stew-pan on the corner of the stove, cover it, and allow it to simmer very gently for four hours and a half. Try the meat with a skewer to ascertain when it is sufficiently cooked, then put it on a dish with the carrots and the calves' feet, and keep them covered up hot until serving." “Next, strain the gravy through a fine tammy ; remove carefully every atom of grease, and reduce it over the fire about a quarter. Lastly, untie the beef, place it on the dish for serving, add the calves' feet each having been cut into eight pieces, the carrots cut into pieces the size of corks, and ten glazed onions. Arrange the calves' feet, the carrots, and onions round the beef, pour the sauce over the meat keeping the surplus for the next day. Taste it in order to ascertain if sufficiently seasoned. Beef à la mode should be very relishing : sometimes a clove of garlic is added. I do not mention this as a necessary item, but as one which must be decided by the lady of the house." Those who desire to enjoy the true boeuf à la mode will do well to follow this recipe in its entirety. Observe that the piece of meat should be cat en bloc from the rump steak and have no bone. The white wine may be chablis, sauterne, grâves, or hock. The remains of a good bottle of champagne left the night before— still,' yet perfectly sound-would be admirable. Four sheep's feet may be used instead of the calves'. The boiling should, in the first instance, be retarded (as in the case of the pot-au-feu) by the addition from time to time of a little cold water. This will cause the scum to rise, all of which should be taken off before the addition of the vegetables. I would always put in a leek if I could get one, and some pieces of celery also. Please note that the gravy should be boiled BOILING AND STEAMING. 125 down a little to add to its strength, but not thickened with butter and flour. Larger pieces of beef can be cooked in this manner, in- gredients in proportion to the extra weight being added. Indeed Gouffé says :-“I advise in regard of all braised meats, whether beef or veal, that the portions should be rather too large than too small; a long process of cooking succeeds always better with such than with tiny portions. A second excellent dish can always be made, cold, with the addition of jelly. It appears to me better then, to eat twice following of a good dish thus varied, than to cook the small quantity which suffices only for one meal.” This advice can be followed with advantage during the cold season, and at our Hill stations. al CHAPTER XV. Our Vegetables, RITICS of English cookery seem to agree in saying Ľ that, wanting as we are, as a rule, in our general knowledge of kitchen work, our ignorance of the treatment of vegetables is greater than in every other branch of the art. Until comparatively lately, the uni- versal method of serving vegetables at an English dinner table was with the joint alone. Dressed vegetables, or entremets de légumes, were never heard of. Of late years, however, facilities in the way of travelling abroad have been great, and by degrees the Briton has come to appre- ciate a dish of vegetables, specially prepared, such as he liked so much in Paris, at Dieppe, Nice, Monaco, or Pau; and Martha has been “worritted," on the return of the family to England, to “mess about the cauliflower with cheese," or send up the green peas in solitary grandeur. A fillip has, in this way, been given to vegetable cookery in England, and people with any claims to refined taste have at last come to perceive the absolute barbarism of heaping up two or three sorts of vegetables on the same plate with roast meat and gravy. From time immemorial tinned asparagus,-served alone, has occupied a prominent place in the menu of a dinner in India. I have often wondered how this spark of civiliza- OUR VEGETABLES. 127 tion became kindled, and why the example thus given was never more generally followed with regard to other vege- tables. It will be, I think, admitted nem con that we live in a climate out here especially demanding vegetable diet. With the thermometer indicating 90° or thereabouts, plain animal food is not only distasteful to many, but absolutely unwholesome. We cannot, therefore, devote too much attention to the cookery of vegetables. Let us consider what we have got under three heads :- (a)—English vegetables grown in India. (b)—Country vegetables. (c)—Vegetables preserved in tins. At different periods during the year we can get in Madras :-potatoes, green peas, cauliflowers, cabbages, spinach, artichokes (Jerusalem), and globe artichokes from the Hills, French beans, carrots, parsnips, turnips, knolkhol, celery, marrows, leeks, cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuces, beetroot, endive, and onions : all under head number one. Under head number two we have, brinjals, bandecai, various beans, country cucumber, and greens (which cook well as spinach), moringa pods, small tomato or love apple, maize, (mucka cholum) sorrel, pumpkin, yams, onions large and small, garlic, and sweet potato. For head number three, which we will take separately, we must consult the list of preserved French, and American vegetables published by any well-known Firm. I have omitted asparagus, seakale, and salsify, from my list under the first head, as those excellent vegetables have not yet been cultivated by the gardeners of Bangalore or the Neilgherries in sufficient quantity to form a portion of the vegetable supply of our markets. For the benefit 128 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. however, of such enterprising amateurs as may be able to grow them privately, I will mention how each should be treated by the cook hereafter. POTATOES perhaps claim the most important place in our consideration, so let us take them first. The boiling of a potato has long been considered one of the tests by which the merits of a cook should be decided. “ Can she cook a chop, and boil a potato ?” is often the modest query of pater familias in England, and in nine cases out of ten you may wager your best hat that she can do neither. Nevertheless, I have come to the conclusion that cooks are in many cases wrongfully blamed in the matter of potato-cooking, that is to say, that their failure is often attributed to the wrong cause. We all know that the potato grows capriciously according to the weather it may have enjoyed, or have suffered from. A crop will sometimes prove mealy, and light, for the table, and at other times waxy, and heavy. It is therefore obvious that we should find out the merits or demerits of the tubers we buy, before we give our orders regarding their treatment in the kitchen. We ought not to expect all potatoes to turn out equally floury as a matter of course, and blame the cook if he fail so to serve them. There are fortunately so many ways of cooking potatoes that we need never be at a loss for a recipe. If nice and mealy we can, of course, boil, or steam them,—the latter method for choice,-and serve them plainly : but if waxy, we must proceed differently. Whether boiled, or steamed, a potato ought not to be peeled ; if it be very old, you cannot avoid removing the skin and eyes, but, in a general way, a potato is far better cooked “in its jacket.” When done, the skin can be removed, if you wish, in the kitchen, and the dish be OUR VEGETABLES. 129 served plain, or in any one of the ways I shall presently speak of. The “G. C.,” says :-“ After they have been carefully washed, put your potatoes, unpeeled, into a sauce-pan, filled with cold-water to the height of about an inch, then sprinkle them with salt, and place a wet cloth on the top of them. The sauce-pan should be then put on the fire, and in about half an hour, drawn upon the kitchener (at the side of the fire) to remain hot till the potatoes are wanted.” Choose potatoes as much of a size as you can for boiling : do not boil a large and two small ones together if you can help it. When potatoes are boiled in the ordinary fashion; that is, placed in a sauce-pan with a due allowance of salt, and covered well with cold water, they should be lifted, and drained after half an hour's cooking, and then be returned to the hot, empty sauce-pan, covered with a wet cloth, and placed at the margin of the fire to keep hot, and to dry themselves thoroughly. In boiling potatoes in the ordinary method, it is a good thing to check the rate of cooking, every now and then, by adding a little cold water, and the time ought to be, -after boiling commences, from eighteen to twenty minutes. “Steamed potatoes” should be scraped, picked, and wiped, after having been set for five minutes or so in cold- water. Then place them in the steamer over boiling water, and let them steam till done : the time may vary from twenty to forty minutes : the fork (or a skewer) should go through them easily, if not, they are not done. A minute in a fast oven will dry them if needful. New potatoes should be scrubbed, rubbed with a coarse cloth, and boiled or steamed according to taste : you cannot expect them to be very mealy, of course, and with some people their waxiness constitutes their chief charm. 130 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Having boiled or steamed our potato satisfactorily, let us see in how many ways we may serve it, presuming that we have turned it out as flourily as we could desire. First, of course, it may be sent up plainly, either in its skin, or crumbled in to the dish made hot to receive it. Secondly, it may be turned out upon a wire sieve, be rubbed through it with a wooden spoon, and dished plainly in that form as "potato-snow” pommes de terre rapées. Lastly, it may be mashed, and I maintain that true mashed potato can only be produced from a mealy tuber. A good way to mash potatoes is to break them up first in the dry hot sauce-pan in which they were boiled, working them well with a wooden spoon, and adding as much butter as you can spare, a little milk, and some salt. When fairly well mashed, to pass them through the sieve so as to catch the knots, and then to form them as you like,-browning the mould in front of the fire, or in the oven before serving. If you want to get that foreign taste, which many people fancy in mashed potatoes, try the following method :- when your potatoes are nicely boiled, and drained, turn them back into their sauce-pan, which, during the drain- ing, you must rub lightly with garlic: go on as previously described, be liberal with your butter, and instead of the milk, add a little stock from the soup kettle. A dust of pepper, and a little nutmeg, will complete the purée, for remember that mashed potato abroad goes by the name of purée de pommes de terre, and is sent to table not nearly as stiffly moulded as ours. Mashed potato brings as to more elaborate forms of potato cookery, viz. :-à la Duchesse, croquettes, &c. Potatoes à la Duchesse should be well worked through the sieve, enriched with the yolks of two or three eggs, and a gill of cream, and given a delicate flavouring of salt, pepper, nutmeg, and chopped parsley : then rolled into OUR VEGETABLES. 131 balls, and either fried gently in butter, or browned in the oven on a buttered tin, having been previously brushed over with egg, and bread crumbed with very fine stale crumbs. 'Ala“ G. C.”—A Bombay onion, boiled very soft, should be beaten, hot, with four times its bulk of potato; butter, cream, pepper, the yolks of two eggs, and salt should be added, and the whole passed through the sieve: roll this mixture into balls, and treat them as laid down for the Duchesse. Boulettes de pommes de terre are very tasty :-Mash eight fairly-sized potatoes, pass the purée through the sieve, work into it the yolks of five eggs; season it with a little finely-minced parsley and marjoram; moisten it with enough cream to bring it to the consistency of thin paste; add salt, pepper, and a dust of nutmeg; lastly, add the whites of three of the eggs whipped to a stiff froth. Pre- pare a bath of boiling fat, and then fry the boulettes by passing tea-spoonfuls of the paste one after the other into the fat. As each little spoonful reaches the fat, it will swell up, and as soon as it turns a rich golden yellow, it is done. These can only be successful when the potato is dry, and floury. Croquettes can be made of cold mashed potatoes left from a previous meal. You must work them very much as pre- viously described, flavouring them with a little chopped parsley, a very little shallot, a little chopped thyme or mar- joram, or spices if you like : form them into rolls or tablets, and fry them a golden brown. The art of the cook will be made manifest by his presenting you with a tasty-looking morsel, of the right colour, and delicately flavoured. Change can, of course, be obtained by selecting herbs, &c., according to your pleasure. In frying croquettes, duchesses, 8c., it is a sine quâ non to 132 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. ase plenty of fat, and to see that it is boiling. If the fry- ing medium be not hot enough, and insufficient in quantity, you will never get the golden colour which perfection demands. Waxy potatoes, with the exception previously men- tioned of new ones, should never be served plainly boiled : you should direct them to be cooked in one of the follow- ing ways :-à la maître d'hôtel, à la Lyonnaise, sautées, à l'Américaine, 8c. Potatoes sautées (not to be confounded please with potatoes frites) should be treated in this manner :-Boil your potatoes, then slice them moderately thickly, and toss them in plenty of butter in your frying-pan till they colour nicely, pour the brown butter over them, and give them a dust of salt. For maître d'hôtel proceed as above, adding a few drops of lime juice, a heaped up table-spoonful of very finely chopped curled parsley, and half a cupful of broth.* Potatoes à la Lyonnaise are achieved by first frying a Bombay onion (chopped small) in butter till it begins to brown, then adding a wine-glass of broth with your pieces of potato, tossing them till coloured, and finally giving them a dust of pepper and salt. For à la Provençale, proceed as above, adding a little finely pared lime-peel, some chopped parsley, an atom of garlic, salt, pepper, and a dust of grated nutmeg. When serving, sprinkle a little lime juice over the potatoes. Potatoes à l' Américaine :-Cut up your boiled potatoes into thick slices : flavour a little milk with onion, spice, pepper, and salt; strain and thicken it, as laid down for melted butter, with butter and flour, till you have a nice * Or the slices may be tossed in maître d'hôtel butter, with a few spoonfuls of broth.-W. OUR VEGETABLES. 133 sauce blanche ; place your slices of potato in this, and heat them up to boiling point: take the sauce-pan off the fire, stir in the yolk of an egg, add a large spoonful of chopped parsley, with a pat of butter the size of a rupee, and serve. Potatoes à la Parisienne are slices of potato gently heated up in sauce soubise. Waxy potatoes, pressed through the sieve, and served like vermicelli,-a favorite dish of Ramasamy's,-ought to be most strenuously interdicted. There is perhaps no nicer way of serving potatoes with chops, steaks, grilled chicken, roast pigeons, &c., than in the form of “chips," i.e., Pommes de terre frites. An invalid, as a rule, takes a fancy to a potato thus plainly cooked, and it is a quicker way of doing it than by any of the other recipes. In the first place, after washing the potatoes well, peel them, and slice them carefully a uniform thickness-about half that of a rupee say—and spread them on a clean cloth to get rid of the moisture. Wipe them thoroughly, and spread a sheet of blotting paper ready for draining the chips hereafter. Now, dissolve a goodly allowance of beef dripping (or whatever you use for your frying medium) in your friture-pan, or a shallow stew-pan; when quite boiling, drop in your potato slices—there should be enough fat to completely cover thene—and let them, as it were, boil therein : watch them as they are cooking narrowly, turn- ing and moving them about continually, and as soon as they assume the golden tint you want,-a nice rich yellow, mind,-lift them quickly from the fat, and let them drain on the blotting paper for a minute or two. When quite dry, turn them into a very hot silver dish (or garnish the dish, with which they are to go, with them) and serve. · The main points to note here are, first the equal thick: ness of the slices, for if cut both thick and thin, the latter 134 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. will be done more quickly than the former, and it is no easy thing to fish out the pieces that have taken colour from those that have not. Drying the chips well is essen- tial number two, plenty of fat the third, and careful drainage when done the fourth. Pommes de terre frites may be trimmed into various shapes,-filberts, dominoes, long narrow strips, &c., and cooked exactly as “ chips.” Uniformity in size is again necessary, and careful wiping before cooking. The cook must be a bit of an artist too in designing his patterns, or there will be sad waste in the cutting. A set of French vegetable cutters will be found most useful and economical for trimming purposes. Ignorant cooks are apt to confound “potato chips,” with “fried potatoes :" this should be explained away. “ Fried potatoes,” Pommes de terre sautées, are slices of boiled potato tossed about in butter in the sauté-pan till lightly coloured. The “chips,” Pommes de terre frites, are thin slices of raw potato absolutely boiled in fat in the friture-pan. “Mock new potatoes” make a nice dish for a change, and can be contrived out of a waxy tuber that refuses to be boiled flourily. Boil the potatoes as usual, and when nearly done, cut them into pieces the shape and size of a pigeon's egg: make a flour and butter sauce blanche slightly flavoured with mace, and put the pieces of potato into it. Simmer the potatoes in the sauce, and when thoroughly done, serve. Chopped parsley, a coffee-capful of milk in which the yolk of an egg has been stirred, and a lump of butter, may be added at the last moment. Peas (petits pois) may be boiled, cooked in the jar, or stewed. It is a sine quâ non that boiled peas be young and fresh. You never get a dish of peas equal to those OUR VEGETABLES. 135 gathered in your own garden : those bought in the Indian market are, as a rule, far too old, having been allowed to attain the largest size possible. I have eaten peas from my own garden at Bangalore, and Secunderabad, as delicious as could be desired. They were small, because the pods were cut with their contents scarcely more than three parts developed, but for flavour and tenderness, they could not have been better. During our winter season at Madras we can grow our own peas, and surely the trouble is slight when we consider the result. For boiled peas :-Put one quart of water with a tea- spoonful of salt, one of sugar, and half an ounce of green mint on the fire : when it boils, pour in a pint measure of shelled peas; boil quickly; when done, drain, and turn them out upon a frying-pan with an ounce of butter, sprinkle a little salt and finely-pounded sugar over them, work the pan till the butter melts, and is blended with peas, then empty them upon a hot dish and serve. (Gouffé.) “Peas in the jar.”—This is to my thinking the best way of cooking peas. You get the whole flavour of them, they are rarely overdone to a mash,' as boiled peas in clumsy hands often are, and even old peas become tender and eatable by such treatment. Having shelled half a pint of peas, put them into a two-pound jam jar, with a screw lid,-or a block tin can with a closely fitting top,-(the vessel must be completely closed) and put in with them a table-spoonful of tinned butter, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a tea-spoonful of powdered sugar, a dozen mint leaves, and a very little black pepper. Cover the vessel down tightly, and immerse it in a stew-pan, or bain-marie half full of boiling water. Set the latter on the fire and boil briskly : the peas should be examined in half an hour by which time, if very young, they should be done. The French tinned peas are excellent when thus heated ap. A quarter of an hour is ample: they should be 136 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. drained from the tin' liquor, and washed in 'two or three waters,' as cooks say; that is, fresh water should be poured over them two or three times. The fresh batter, mint, &c., resuscitate the peas wonderfully. Old peas may be stewed (petits pois accommodés) thus :- Put a lump of butter into a stew-pan with a Bombay onion sliced, a bunch of mint and parsley, and a tea-spoonful of salt; cook this awhile till the onions take a pale colour, and then add the peas, with as much broth as will just float them : simmer this patiently till the peas are thoroughly tender, then take up the pan, strain the liquor, spread out the peas on a dish and pick out the pieces of onion; now thicken the liquor with butter and flour, add- ing a tea-spoonful of sugar, and lastly, the peas again : stir well, bring the sauce-pan to steaming point, and serve. But, after all, there is no way of turning old peas to a satisfactory account as good as the purée. For this, boil them as previously described, and then work them through the sieve. When you have got them through, add butter, à little black pepper, salt, a very little sugar, with a spoonful of cream or good milk, and serve in a small mould. The flavour of lettuce is strongly recommended by some writers as a help to peas, and onions are also advocated. The lettuce should. be shred, and put in with the peas to start with, and the onion should go in whole, both being removed when the peas are served. A slice of fat bacon is a capital thing to slip in with “jugged peas." Peas form a favorite entremets alone ; they should be, of course, carefully dressed, and served as hot as possible. The following styles are recommended :- 1. “Petits pois au beurre,”—boiled, or jugged peas, served with a pat of fresh butter melted in a small sauce- pan, and mixed with them at the last moment. OUR VEGETABLES. 137 2. “A la crême,”—a coffee-cupful of boiling cream poured over them just as you serve. 3. " Au jambon,”-finely minced ham, tossed in butter and lightly fried, mixed with boiled, or jugged peas. 4. " Au lard,”—the same method, using bacon instead of ham. The bacon atoms should be nice and crisp. 5. The “purée,” previously described. FRENCH BEANS (haricots verts,) are well worthy of our attention, for we can get them when other vegetables are out of season. They are, besides, the correct accompaniment of the roast saddle, the roast loin, and, of course, of venison. Now, there is a very common and very grievous mistake, which cooks—in India especially—are prone to make. They slice the pods of this bean into thin strips. By doing this, nearly all the flavour of the bean is lost. The pods, which must be gathered young, should be simply peeled all round to get rid of the delicate fibre, their ends should be nipped off, and they should then be plunged into boiling water :-a pinch of soda will preserve their bright green tint, and at least a tea-spoonful of salt and one of sugar should be mixed with the water. If quite young, there will be no fibre to remove. To preserve the green tint, the following plan is also recommended :-Put a large spoonful of wood ashes in a piece of linen, fold it up, and place it in a strainer, pouring the boiling water in which the beans are to be cooked over it. This plan is equally efficacious with globe arti- chokes, cabbages, &c. (Audot.) I have however found that French beans grown in India lose so much of their flavour by being boiled that I have adopted steaming them in an ordinary vegetable steamer. The pods may be cut across into lengths of an inch and a OUR VEGETABLES. 139 French beans, cold, make a capital salad : I must, how- ever, reserve that form of serving them for discussion elsewhere. English people are apt to ignore the beans of haricots verts, kidney beans, scarlet runners, and dwarf beans, which when shelled green, and served in various ways are known abroad as FLAGEOLETS. As a rule we try to eat the pods long after they have outgrown their edible stage, and have become stringy and tough. Now, the young bean when about three parts grown is delicious, and, omitting the mint, may be cooked as laid down for peas and served as recommended for haricots verts. Flageolets à la crème, à la poulette, or à la maître d'hôtel, make quite a first class entremets. HARICOTS VERTS PANACHÉs, a capital dish, is composed of young green pods and shelled beans mixed together. You can thus dispose of the old pods, and use the tender ones to the best advantage. This recipe will be found useful by those who grow their own beans. N. B.—The water in which peas or beans are boiled, “ eau de la cuisson," is, remember, a weak stock. Use it when making your sauce blanche in preference to milk or plain water. The pepper used with these vegetables should be black, and freshly ground. For this you should possess one of the newly introduced pepper-mills. CHAPTER XVI. Vegetables-concluded. ABBAGES (choux) must be carefully washed, their 3 dead and bruised leaves removed, and their stalks trimmed neatly. They must then be soaked in salt and water, (cold) to get rid of insects, caterpillars, &c. When satisfied that they are fit to cook, plunge them into boiling water with a tea-spoonful of salt, and a bit of soda and lift them as soon as your test with the skewer assures you that they are done. Pressure is now necessary to get rid of the water, and when thoroughly drained, they can be sent ap. Cabbages however are better done in the steamer, by which process they do not absorb so much water, so do not require such careful draining. The flavour of all green vegetables, indeed, is more successfully developed by this system of cookery than by boiling. The only objection that may be urged is that their colour is rarely so bright. This may be overcome by placing a bag with wood ashes enclosed in it in the water. Vege- tables should be carefully prepared as if for boiling, some salt should be sprinkled over their leaves, and they should be placed, dry, in the perforated receptacle that fits into the top of the steamer. Water should then be poured into the lower vessel, filling it not more than half full. The steamer should then be placed over a brisk fire. VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 141 After steaming has set in, the contents of the receptacle should be examined now and then, and tested exactly as boiled vegetables are. I can strongly recommend Warren's vegetable steamer made of block-tin for this process. There are numerous methods of dressing greens,-after boiling or steaming them,—which ought to attract favoura- ble attention, and I can assure you that with a very little trouble you can turn out a most excellent series of dishes, which will well repay you, and raise the lowly cabbage to a much higher position in your estimation than it at present may occupy. Before I pass to the fanciful styles in which cabbages can be dressed, I ought however to call attention to a bad habit that the native cook often indulges in. I mean that of chopping up a plain boiled cabbage before serving it. Setting aside the ugly appearance that the dish presents when thus maltreated, the chopping is a wasteful practice. The cut-up cabbage dries quickly, and will hardly be found worth dressing up a second time; whereas, if served whole, the portion that may be left after dinner, will remain nice and juicy, and will make a réchauffé in the form of a purée with potatoes and butter for breakfast; or, tossed in butter in the frying-pan with finely-minced herbs, it will be acceptable with the chop or kidney. Let a plainly cooked head of cabbage, therefore, be sent up simply divided into quarters, with a pat of fresh butter on the top of each, melting from the heat of the greens. 1. Here is a form of stewed cabbage (chou au jus) that -if the head be nice and young-is worthy of being eaten alone :--Take a savoy or any good sort of cabbage, pick it carefully, and let it soak in salt and water for an hour; if a large head, you must divide it into quarters, and even a small head had better be similarly treated. When 142 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. satisfied that the cabbage is thoroughly clean, either steam the quarters, or plunge them into boiling hot-water, and after boiling for a quarter of an hour, take them out and drain them. Now, mince a thick slice of bacon, and a little shallot, parsley, marjoram, and thyme, with a pinch of sugar, and pepper and salt to taste; put all in a stew-pan, and set it on the fire. As soon as the bacon melts, lay your cabbage quarters in it, and pour round them suffi- cient gravy to half cover them. Let this simmer gently till the cabbage is done. Then lift out the quarters, place them in a hot dish, and cover them up. Strain the gravy, thicken it with flour and butter, and pour it over the cab- bage. The better your gravy in this case, the better the result. If, therefore, you can spare some turkey bones, or scraps of game, ham, or tongue to assist your ordinary stock, your entremets will be all the nicer. 2. Another good way, chou au sauce blanche, may be described as follows :-Half-boil your cabbage, take it out, and drain it. Divide it into quarters. Make a nicely flavoured sauce blanche (adding a little cream if you can spare it) place the quarters in this, complete their cooking therein, and serve, pouring the sauce over them. 3. Cabbages may be cooked with rice, and gravy (chou au riz) :-Par-boil the cabbage, cut it up into pieces the size of an egg, and put them with an equal quantity of half-boiled rice, into as much gravy as will cover them, simmer till done, then serve. Do not put in more gravy than is absolutely necessary, or the dish will turn out more like a potage than an entremets. Grated cheese should be handed round with this. 4. A novel dish, Feuilles de chou farcies, is recom- mended by a good authority which may be described in this way :-Boil the head of cabbage till the leaves become pliant: take it from the water, gently detach a number of VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 143 leaves whole, and dry them on a clean cloth. Have ready some pounded quenelle meat of chicken and ham, or tongue with an anchovy, or any artistic mixture of savoury meats bound with an egg. Arrange a dessert-spoonful of this on a cabbage leaf, which roll carefully up in the form of a sausage: wrap two or three more leaves round this, and tie them up with white tape. Make six, or eight of these, and simmer them gently in some good brown gravy till the leaves are done. Now, pick out your rolls, untie the tapes, dispose them tastefully in the hot dish ready for them, thicken the gravy and pour it over them : sippets of crisply fried bacon will form an appropriate garnish : serve. A little cooked cabbage cut small, forms an agreeable addition to a pot-au-feu, and should always accompany potage croûte au pot. A recipe for perdrix au chou will be found in the menus. BRUSSELS SPROUTS (Choux de Bruxelles) are susceptible of delicate treatment: they can be cooked according to recipe number two just given for cabbage, au sauce blanche, and also (after having been boiled) in the following methods : 1.-“A la maître d'hôtel”:-tossed in butter in a sance- pan, with some minced parsley and the juice of a lime sprinkled over them, and salt and pepper to taste. 2.—“A la Lyonnaise":-fry a Bombay onion cut into thin rings in some butter; when a golden colour, add the sprouts, toss them together in the pan for a minute, and serve hot. 3.-“ Au jus" ;-gently simmered in rich brown gravy, not thickened, but slightly flavoured with spice. 4.—“Au beurre :-simply tossed in a good allowance of melted butter, with pepper and salt. 144 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. 5.—“A la crème” :-served with a coffee-cupful of boil- ing cream poured over them. 6.—“A la poulette” :-sent to table with a libation of good poulette sauce. Cold greens of all kinds, especially sprouts, are exceed- ingly nice eaten plain with a tartare sauce accompanying them. A dressing of oil, vinegar, salt, pepper, and minced shallot is also a happy way of improving them; and I can recommend you to try this :-cut some slices of bread into fancy shapes, or simple oblongs; fry them in butter a golden brown, spread over them some hot minced greens, or pieces of sprouts, and serve them with a nice brown sauce, or with a layer of “buttered-eggs” on the top of the greens. Cabbages of all kinds can be served à la purée, and in that way make a capital homely soup, or a pleasant accom- paniment to an entrée. The CAULIFLOWER (Chou-fleur) is, of course, the queen of the cabbage kind, and well deserves our most careful consideration. In plain treatment, what I have said for cabbages generally, holds good for this vegetable also, viz. :-draining in salt and water, careful picking, and, if to be boiled, plunging into boiling water, with a tiny bit of soda to preserve the green tint of the leaves. When, boiled, or steamed, which is the better way, you must watch them carefully lest they be overdone. You can serve cauliflowers with a variety of sauces. Cut the stalk flat so that the cauliflower can sit up, as it were, the flower in the centre, and the leaves round it, pour about it a good tomato sauce, or a plain sauce blanche, béchamel, or sauce piquante, and dust some finely rasped crumbs over the whole. VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 145 After having been half-boiled, very small heads may be gently cooked in sauce blanche; or the flower may be divided into sprigs, which can be cooked in clear gravy, or in sauce blanche, and served with an entrée. But the great dish to be studied thoroughly is cauliflower "au gratin.” This is as practicable with the remains of a cold boiled cauliflower, as with a fresh one. Dispose the pieces of cauliflower in a well-buttered dish that will stand the oven, pour over them some melted butter: dust some grated cheese over them, pepper and salt, bake for ten minutes, and serve. With a fresh cauliflower you must boil or steam the head first till all but done, which you must test with a skewer, drain it thoroughly; then dissolve two ounces of Par- mesan, or any mild grated cheese, in a sauce composed as follows :-one ounce of butter, one and a quarter ounce of flour, one and a half pint of water, pepper, and salt. Next arrange the flower to the best of your power in a neat pie-dish ; either whole if large enough, or in pieces with the green leaves introduced between each piece; pour the sauce well round this, dust a layer of cheese over the surface, bake, and serve as soon as the top takes colour. A red-hot iron passed closely over the surface of the dish will brown it nicely. For those who do not like cheese, the following "au gratin” is to be recommended :-arrange your pieces of cauliflower as before explained, strew over them some fine stale bread-crumbs, with some olives, a few capers, and an anchovy chopped up small; pour over this a cupful of hot melted butter, bake for ten minutes, and serve. Salad oil is better than melted butter, but I fear that my country- men will shrink from such a “foreign' suggestion. SPINACH (épinards) is a thing that we can get in tho 13 146 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. most trying weather, and with common care no entremets - de légumes are more delicate than those which we can achieve with this vegetable. Having selected two pounds of leaves carefully, wash them well, blanch them by plung- ing them for a couple of minutes in scalding water, drain, and chop them up. Put into a stew-pan one ounce of butter, three quarters of an ounce of flour, and a pinch of salt, and one of sugar; stir this over the fire for three minutes, then add the spinach leaves ; stir round for five minutes, and moisten with a coffee-cupful of milk, gravy, or stock; stir for two minutes more, and then a breakfast- the pan from the fire. Now, mingle a little butter, with the spinach, or give it a spoonful of cream, or the yolk of an egg dissolved in a little milk, then turn it out upon a good hot dish, garnish it with sippets of fried bread, fleurons of puff pastry, or short-bread biscuits specially baked for the dish, and serve. I mix a little grated cheese with the short-bread paste which I think goes well with the spinach, and some give the least suspicion of sugar; I think that the savoury method is the better of the two. Short-bread biscuits for spinach may be made as fol- lows :-Put three ounces of flour into a bowl and mix into it two ounces of butter liquefied, a tea-spoonful of salt, a salt-spoonful of sugar and an ounce of grated cheese, roll out the paste, cut it into heart-shapes one-third of an inch thick, and bake. Fleurons of nice puff-pastry are often given, and nothing can be nicer—as an entremets—than little patties made of puff-pastry, or short-bread crust, filled with carefully-made spinach purée, and capped with buttered-egg. It is not at all necessary to pass spinach through a sieve. If they are young, and tender, you should, after draining and blanching the leaves thoroughly, chop them up, and VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 147 cook them as I have described. You can serve them with a poached egg or two on the top of them; or you can fry some slices of bread, butter them, and dress your minced spinach over them, with a cap, for each piece, of “buttered- egg,” or a tiny pat of maître d'hôtel butter. A nice mild anchovy toast, kept hot in the oven, and served with a layer of spinach over its surface is very nice : whilst a little mound of chopped spinach, garnished with hard boiled eggs, forms an attractive centre for an entrée of cutlets. A pleasing looking entremets of spinach is made by shaping the greens in a circle, and leaving a hollow centre to be filled with “buttered-egg” coloured red with tomato-pulp. ENDIVE (chicorée) may be treated exactly as I have de- scribed for spinach, but being a tougher leaf, it will require a little more time in the stew-pan. The young leaves of beetroot, “turnip tops” (leaves), and water-cress, are capable of similar dressing. SORREL (oseille) which should be dressed in the manner described for spinach is not half enough used. Your cook will know it if you order "sorley,"—(Ramasámy's pro- nunciation of the double 'r' being peculiar)—and nothing is nicer than a mutton (neck) cutlet or fillet of beef with a sorrel purée, for the pungent taste of the vegetable suggests a novelty to your palate. My readers who are in the habit of enjoying themselves on the Neilgherries onght to try a dish of pork cutlets with a purée of sorrel (menu No. 12), for with a rich white meat, sorrel is especially agreeable. I mentioned this vegetable in connection with potage à la bonne femme when talking about soups, and I may add now that a plain gravy soup thickened, and flavoured with sorrel purée is far 148 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. from bad. In cooking sorrel, onion and a little sugar are essential, and lettuce leaves are a great assistance. This vegetable is largely cultivated by the Natives. Hind :-chookeh-paluk. The JERUSALEM ARTICHOKE (topinambour) is a vegeta- ble which, as a rule, people either dislike exceedingly, or are very fond of. I place it amongst the best we have. Wash the artichokes, peel and shape them nicely, drop- ping each one into salt and water at once to prevent its turning black; when all are ready, put them into a sauce- pan with a gallon of cold-water, and two table-spoonfuls of salt; boil till tender (which will take about twenty minutes after boiling-point has been attained) and drain, serving them with a nice sauce blanche. Or, when three parts done, you can lift them up, and simmer them till quite done, in rich brown gravy. Or, you can, when half-boiled, drain them dry, and bake them upon a well-buttered tin, serving them with plain melted butter, a dressing of oil, vinegar, minced shallot and salt, or any sauce piquante you fancy. But, like the cauliflower, the Jerusalem artichoke is worthy of the epicure's attention when sent up “au gratin." The combination being a purée of plain boiled artichoke, slightly diluted with cream, and seasoned with pepper, and salt: this, turned into a well-buttered pie-dish, its surface dusted over with finely grated mild cheese, and the whole baked until the top takes colour. Good milk with the yolks of two eggs may take the place of cream, or a sauce blanche, but if perfection be desired, pray use cream. Instead of using a pie-dish the purée may be baked in some well-buttered coquille shells, and served upon a napkin. VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 149 Cut half a dozen large ones, after they have been three parts boiled, into long strips about a quarter of an inch thick, dip them in the batter I describe elsewhere, and fry them a golden tint: these fritters are excellent; you can order them alone as an entremets, or pile them in a pyramid as the central garnish of an entrée. Jerusalem artichokes can be served in a mould, iced, with a mayonnaise sauce, or hot with a Parmesan, or rich white sauce. For the mould, follow this recipe :-Two pounds of the artichokes boiled in milk: half a pint of cream : four eggs : pepper and salt. Mash the artichokes, and pass them through the hair sieve, add the cream, the eggs well beaten up whites and all, and season with pepper and salt. Put the mixture into a well-buttered mould, and steam it for one hour. Turn it out, and garnish it with tomato purée, Parmesan sauce, or a rich velouté. Or:-ice the mould, and turn it out, sending it up with a cold mayonnaise sauce in a boat. The name of this excellent entremets here is “ Topinambours à la Chetput," but it is commonly called crème de topinambours. Undeniably good as the Jerusalem artichoke is, it is, of course, inferior to the GLOBE or leafy kind (artichaut). These are properly considered the choicest delicacies of the Neilgherry market by many people. A globe artichoke, like a cabbage, must be well soaked in salt and water to get rid of the insects which may be hidden between the leaves. Then it must be set head downwards in boiling water, with soda and salt, and boiled till the leaves part easily from the core. When done, you must drain it, and dish it hot: a little “Dutch sauce," in which a few drops of anchovy vinegar, or lime-juice have been introduced, forms an agreeable accompaniment. 150 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. There are several high class ways of serving globe arti- chokes which I, of course, dedicate to my readers who happen to be staying on the Hills. First let me give you directions for the trimming of an artichoke secundum artem. Place the raw vegetable bottom downwards on a board, and with a sharp knife at once cut it straight down, dividing it in half; then divide each half so obtained so that you have four quarters : next pare out the 'choke' which adheres to each quarter, as you would core an apple, and trim off the leaves leaving about an eighth of an inch of them unsevered and adhering to the trimmed quarters. Drop each piece as you trim it into cold water in which a lime has been squeezed, or a table-spoonful of vinegar poured, to prevent its turning black, and when you have prepared enough for the dish you require, throw the quarters into boiling water with a dessert-spoonful of salt, and a spoonful of vinegar; and in about fifteen minutes, when nearly done, lift them out and drain them. They may be now finished off in these several ways:- 1.-As“ beignets" :--by being cut into slices dipped in batter, and fried in boiling fat till of a bright golden tint. 2.-Or,—"au sauce blanche” or “ béchamel,” in which they should be gently simmered. 3.-Or,—" à la maître d'hôtel” :-tossed in butter, and served on a hot silver dish, with the melted butter, a squeeze of lime juice and a sprinkling of very finely chopped curled parsley. 4.–Or," au gratin":--the pieces neatly disposed upon a silver dish, with a little gravy round them to keep them from burning, dusted over with very finely sifted bread- crumbs, chopped mushroom, parsley, and a little shallot, pepper, salt, and a piece of butter on the top of each piece, then baked for ten minutes and served hot. VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 151 5.-Or,“ à l Italienne":—as in the foregoing, substitut- ing a dusting of mild grated cheese for bread-crumbs, omitting the mushroom and chopped herbs, and merely adding the pepper, salt, and butter. 6.-Or, “à l'Espagnole" :-gently simmered in rich brown sauce. 7.-Or, “à la Lyonnaise”:—the pieces heated in the oven very carefully, piled upon a hot silver dish, and a rich brown sauce (with finely minced onion fried, and a table-spoonful of minced parsley incorporated therewith) poured over them. 8.–Or, à la poivrade” :-trimmed as aforesaid, sim- mered in blanc, and served with sauce poivrade. Artichoke bottoms (fonds d'artichauts entiers) are trim- med in this way :-Cut the tops of the leaves horizontally, parallel with, and close down to the top of the “ fond.” Trim all leaves that may adhere to the fond quite closely all round, and pare off the stalk smoothly. Now, plunge the artichoke bottoms into boiling salt and water, and blanch them to facilitate the scooping out of the “choke,” which should be done with a silver spoon. With arti- chokes thus prepared you can turn out :- Fonds d'artichauts à la barigoule :—Having scooped out the chokes, and drained six artichoke bottoms of a fair size, give them a dust of salt and pepper, put them on a clean dish, and prepare this ‘farce':-four ounces of finely minced bacon, a quarter ounce of butter and the same weight of flour, a coffee-cupful of broth, and one table- spoonful of very finely minced parsley, one table-spoonful of finely minced mushrooms, and one dessert-spoonful of finely chopped white onion. Stir the mixture over the fire for five minutes, and then fill the hollows of the arti- choke bottoms with it. Tie a very thin slice of bacon over each fond, and put them in a stew-pan with a breakfast. 152 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. cupful of good gravy. Put the stew-pan into the oven, and bake for twenty minutes, ascertain if tender, then dish up and serve. [Gouffé.] Audot recommends that the fonds be placed upon lean slices of veal or pork, which should be laid at the bottom of a braising-pan; that the gravy should be poured in, and that the process should be that of braising. For fonds d'artichauts à la Provençale, prepare the arti- chokes as above without the 'farce,' place them in a pie- dish with enough salad oil to keep them moist and safe from burning, and with six cloves of garlic, pepper, and salt. Put the dish into the oven, and bake: when the fonds are tender, remove the garlic, give them a dust of pepper and the squeeze of a lime, dish up, and serve. People who dislike oil, and a 'far-off' suspicion of garlic can, of course, use melted butter, and slices of shallot. Fonds d'artichauts à la béchamel, or à la crème, make a very excellent entremets. Trim as already described, sim- mer them in blanc, and serve either with béchamel sauce, or boiling cream. I have been successful with fonds d'artichauts à la moëlle. Cook the fonds till tender in blanc. Prepare some beef marrow-i.e., cut the marrow into pieces, and blanch them in scalding water. Take as many coquilles as you have fonds, put a little of the marrow into each shell, over that place a fond, fill the cavity of the fond with marrow, heat the coquilles hot, and just before you serve, pour over each a little Espagnole sauce. If you have no coquilles, pastry cases answer very well : make them in round patty pans. Cold boiled artichoke bottoms can be mashed up with cream, and a little butter, seasoned with pepper and salt, top-dressed with crumbs, and baked in a little pie-dish, or in silver coquille shells. VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 153 Or, the mixture can be placed inside little pastry patties like oyster patties and served on a napkin (Bouchées d'arti- chauts). This latter method is equally practicable with Jerusalem artichoke purée, and if your cook can make light pastry, these little patties, will be found very nice indeed. Remember when writing your menu, with regard to these two vegetables, that the 'artichaut' is the globe or leafy kind. The Jerusalem artichoke should be called 'topinambour.' TURNIPS, (navets,) do not require much discussion ; it should be remarked, however, that when nice and young, they are well worthy of attention, especially as garnishes for entrées, stews, &c. Think of appearance when serving them, and shape the roots into little cones or ovals, of an equal size. I once saw a dish of turnips served à la crème which was quite worthy of separate service as an entremets : the roots had been cut into pieces and shaped about the size of a bantam's egg, boiled to a turn, and served with a coffee-cupful of boiling cream poured over them to finish with. Trimmed in the same way, young turnips can be sent up à la poulette, or à la béchamel. The French dish of young turnips called navets glacés ought to be very popular. Trim the turnips into shapes like small pears, or cones, and boil them till nearly done in salt and water; drain them, and put them into a sance- pan with plenty of melted butter, and sprinkle them bountifully with powdered sugar, stir gently over the fire until they begin to brown, and then add a spoonful or two of clear stock : pepper and salt should now be given, let them simmer till quite tender and serve them in their own sauce. 154 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. It is recommended by some to let the sugar form a sort of caramel round the turnips before adding the stock: in that case you must put the turnip pieces (when the caramel stage has been reached) into a separate sauce-pan, wash out the first one with a little stock, pour that over them, and stew gently as in the other recipe. Caramel is, of course, sugar slowly melted over the fire, till it has attained a rich brown tint. Parsnips, knolkhol, and small round onions, (of the size usually pickled) are susceptible of similar treatment, and any brown entrée may be garnished with vegetables glacés in this form. The purée of turnips with cream is, of course, well known, and all root vegetables make toothsome additions to your ordinary dish of meat, or cutlets, as purées, or mixed cunningly as a macédoine de légumes. Small "early' CARROTS (carottes) and PARSNIPS (panais) may be trimmed a uniform size, boiled gently, and finally tossed in butter, in a frying-pan, with pepper, salt, and some finely-powdered sugar. Or, they may be similarly treated, and sent up à la maître d'hôtel, aux fines herbes, &c. Carrots cut into round balls, gently simmered till ten- der in blanc, and then dressed with sauce blonde, or à la poulette, make a charming central garnish for a dish of cutlets, which, when thus presented, should be called “ à la Nivernaise." Carottes à la Flamande are worthy of close considera- tion :-Choose a pound and a half of tender carrots, blanch them in scalding water, scrape off their tough skin, and trim them in slices the eighth of an inch thick. Put the pieces into a stew-pan with one ounce of butter, a pinch VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 155 of salt and one of sugar, and a coffee-cupful of water. Cover the pan, and simmer for twenty minutes, shaking the pan occasionally to ensure even cooking. When done, remove the pan, let its contents cool a little, and then stir in two yolks of eggs, a coffee-cupful of cream, and half an ounce of butter; add a table-spoonful of chopped parsley and serve. The ONION, (oignon,) can be made a good deal of either stuffed plainly, or with sheeps' kidney, as I have described in my menus : indeed whether plainly boiled, or stewed, onions rarely fail to please those who are fond of them. A very presentable dish is "oignons au gratin” made in this way :-boil them in milk till tender; cut them up as finely as possible and mash them, pass through a wire sieve, mix the pulp well, adding a coffee-cupful of cream, or milk enriched with the yolk of an egg, pepper, and salt. Put the purée into a shallow pie-dish, strew a layer of grated cheese over the surface, and bake for a few minutes till the top takes colour. You must, of course, butter the pie-dish, and also sprinkle a little melted butter over the cheese. Onions, if of a moderate size, can be served à la crème, à la béchamel, à l'Espagnole, Soc., and are invariably accept- able with the relevé when so treated. VEGETABLE MARROWS, (courges à la moëlle,) are very nice, and in their turn not to be passed over. I think the best way of cooking them is to steam, or bake them till all but done, then to lift, and drain them, removing the seeds, and shaping them into fillets, &c., as desired. You can then heat the fillets up in a previously made white, or brown sauce flavoured to taste, and serve them as soon 156 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. as tender. Marrows should, of course, be peeled before steaming. The vegetables marrow is also worthy of a place amongst entremets de légumes, when served " au gratin," baked in layers, or fillets, in a little stock, and dusted over with grated cheese; or as “beignets” :-partly cooked, and cut into convenient pieces, which should be dipped in batter, and fried a golden brown in boiling fat. An uncommon dish with a marrow is that called "mock whitebait” :-You parboil the marrow, and then cut it up into a number of pieces about the size of the whitebait, then roll them in flour, and fry them, at a gallop in seeth- ing fat; lift them out and drain them when they turn a golden yellow, and serve with a dust of cayenne, and limes, cut in quarters, handed round with brown-bread and butter. Carefully avoid the awful English custom of serving marrows on sodden toast. CUCUMBERS, (concombres) may be cooked exactly as laid down for vegetable-marrows. They form a most pleasing and delicate garnish for boiled fish, or cutlets, when dressed à la poulette as follows :- Take a good sized cucumber, or two small ones; cut them lengthwise into quarters, remove the seeds, and peel off the green skin. Cut them into pieces two inches long and one inch thick, and put them into a stew-pan with plenty of boiling water, half an ounce of butter, and a tea-spoonful of salt. Simmer them until three parts done; then drain the liquor off, and turn the pieces of cucum- ber out upon a clean dish, cut each piece in half and cover them up. Make half a pint of poulette sauce, put the pieces of cucumber into it, warm gently in the bain-marie, and serve VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 157 Or, the pieces may be simmered until cooked, then drained, piled up on a hot silver dish, and served with a pat of maître d'hôtel butter melting over them. In this manner they are very nice with a dish of lamb cutlets. Small cucumbers and marrows may be stuffed, and cooked as follows:-(concombres farcis) Peel the cucumber, slice off a piece at one end, and pick out the seeds with a marrow-spoon; stuff the hollow thus formed with a farce made of pounded meat, and bread-crumb, two-thirds of the former to one of the latter. Season the farce with pepper and salt, a little minced shallot and parsley, and bind it with a well whipped egg; fix on the end you removed with white of egg, and secure it with tape. The cucumber can now be baked, or gently simmered in some gravy which should be thickened and poured over it when done. Pumpkins, (potirons), may be treated much in the same manner as marrows and cucumbers. Beetroot, (Betterave).—This root, chiefly used cold as a salad by itself, or mixed with other vegetables in salad, is by no means to be despised when served hot with a nice poulette sauce. Beetroot is far better baked than boiled. After having thus cooked it, cut it into slices, season them with pepper, salt, chopped parsley, and cress, and give them a turn or two in a pan with a pat of butter and a few drops of vinegar. Dish up, and pour a poulette sauce over them. Beetroot leaves can be turned to excellent account either dressed as spinach, for which the tender ones should be chosen, or as cardoons in which case the mid-rib of the tougher leaves should be cut out, and gently stewed in blanc. • TOMATOES, (tomates,) form a most valuable portion of our 14 158 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. vegetable produce. They are easily grown in this Presi- dency, and are often procurable when the stock of garden stuff has sunk to its lowest stage during the hot weather. Whether cut up cold in its raw state, and eaten as a salad, -or, in the form of purée as a soup, or sauce,"au gratin" as an entremets,—with maccaroni,—with fish, or with other vegetables, as a garnish,the tomato never fails to be a welcome friend. In Italy, Spain, and Southern France, it forms a staple part of the daily food of all classes, and I believe that I am right in saying that it is a very wholesome vegetable in a hot climate. I give you elsewhere several dishes in which tomatoes play an important part, I will, therefore, confine myself now to two excellent recipes for serving them as an entremets. “ Au gratin":-Cat a slice off the top of each tomato as you would decapitate a boiled egg. With a dessert-knife scoop out the pulp and seeds from the shell as well as you can, put the cases so obtained on one side : make a purée with the scooped out pulp, flavour it nicely like tomato sauce, strain off the seeds, and thicken it with fine bread- crumbs : beat up some eggs (one for every two cases) and mix the whole well; add pepper and salt, stuff the cases therewith, give the surface of each a light dusting of grated cheese, bake on a buttered dish for ten minutes, and serve. Another method, which has the advantage of simplicity, may be followed in this way. Put an ounce of butter into a small stew-pan, throw into it a table spoonful of finely minced sweet onion, put the pan on the fire and lightly fry the onion ; before the pieces take color, put into the vessel four or five large, or a dozen small tomatoes, cat up into small pieces. Stir well over the fire until the tomatoes are thoroughly cooked. Now, rub an au gratin dish with a piece of garlic, butter it, and pour into it the contents of pour into i gratin dishmatoes VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 159 the stew-pan, dust over the surface a layer of Parmesan, Gruyère, or other mild cheese, and bake for eight or ten minutes : serve hot. “A l’Italienne":-Cut the tomatoes in halves, scoop out the pulp and seeds with a silver spoon, and place them on a baking dish upon which you have poured a little of the best salad oil. Make a mixture of grated ham, bread- crumbs, some finely minced shallot, parsley, marjoram, and thyme, seasoned with pepper and salt; mix this with the tomato pulp, and fill the cases, covering them com- pletely, shake an allowance of salad oil in drops over all, and bake for a few minutes, serving the dish intact as it comes from the oven. The proportion of crumbs to the ham should be two spoonfuls of the former, to one of the latter, the flavouring herbs, &c., to taste at discretion. Chopped anchovies, olives, capers, mushrooms and truffles, can be introduced if at hand, and butter (melted) may be used by those who do not like oil. CELERY (céleri), is an exceedingly nice vegetable not only when sent round, raw, with cheese, but also when cooked in various ways as an entremets. In the latter case the heads should be very neatly trimmed and cut short, say five or six inches in length. They can then be split lengthwise in two or four pieces according to the thickness of the head. When prepared satisfactorily, the pieces should be plunged into fast boiling water, and as soon as tender, drained, turned out upon a hot silver dish, and served like asparagus with a pat of butter melting over them, a piping hot “Dutch sauce” being sent round in a boat. Celery may be also stewed gently in weak stock, or blanc and then be presented à l'Espagnole (covered with a thick rich brown sauce), or au jus in clear gravy. 160 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Blanc, which I have already mentioned with reference to vegetable cookery, is a kind of stock made as follows: Cut up as small as possible a quarter of a pound of fat bacon, and a quarter of pound of beef suet, and put the pieces with a bacon bone, or some broken-up chicken bones, into a stew-pan. Add a couple of carrots, and two large sweet onions cut up small, a bunch of carly parsley, a tea-spoonful of dried thyme or marjoram, a dozen pepper corns, a tea-spoonful of sugar and one of salt, and stir well over a brisk fire till the fat melts well, and the vegetables begin to fry in it. Do not let them brown, but pour in before that stage arrives enough warm water to cover the contents of the pan. Draw the pan to the edge of the fire. Cook the contents of it at first gently, gradually adding heat, and finally encouraging evaporation by actual boil- ing, and stirring the contents of your pan to prevent them catching. When the liquor has diminished to about a quarter of its original quantity, strain it off into a bowl. When required, this vegetable essence should be carefully skimmed poured into a sauce-pan, and sufficient water should be added to cook the celery or other vegetable that may be put into it. Celery stewed in blanc can be served advantageously à la moëlle, i.e., with beef marrow. In this case you must pile the celery in the centre of the dish, thicken the blanc in which it was cooked, and pour it over the pile. The marrow should be treated in this way :-Break the bone, take out the raw marrow, cut it into dice, blanch them for five minutes in scalding water, drain them, and heat them up gently in a little of the sauce en bain-marie. A dessert-spoonful each of this should be put into little croustades of fried bread, and served round the celery as a garnish. Cut your croustades square, out of stale bread, and hollow a little space in each to hold the marrow. VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 161 Cardoons, (cardons) à la moëlle are of course well known by those who have travelled abroad. I have seen tinned cardoons in India, but not the vegetable itself. Accord- ing to M. Audot the strong mid-ribs of the leaves of white beetroot (cardes poirées), and the tender stalks of globe artichokes (pieds d'artichauts) form a nice substitute. The latter should be scraped free from their fibrous skin, and stewed in blanc as described for celery à la moëlle. In order to blanch the artichoke stems, it is necessary, after the vegetable has been gathered, to bend the shoot down, and earth it up: the parts thus covered turn white, and you in this way obtain an excellent substitute for cardoons. Salsiry-(salsifis ou scorsonèra) is an edible root which we ought to grow abundantly in India. There are two kinds of this vegetable :--the white and the black. The former is called salsifis, the latter scorsonèra. The one is gathered in its first year's growth, the other not until it is two years old. I do not know whether any of our horti- cultural societies have yet introduced salsify or not; in case it may have been grown, I take the opportunity of recommending the previous recipe (viz. :-à la moëlle) as oqually applicable to the gently stewed roots of this plant. Salsify has a very perceptible flavour of the oyster (is indeed called the “oyster plant” in America), and forms several delicious entremets. The roots peel easily when boiled, and the pulp is as white as snow. Simply mashed with cream, and a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, with a covering of bread-crumbs strewn over it, and a little melted butter, then baked till brown, and served in coquilles, salsify presents an exact imitation of "oysters scalloped.” Salsify purée with cream can be served wherever oyster sauce is recommended, with a tasty fillet of beef for 162 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS: instance, it makes a most toothsome patty, and as a white soup (purée) it can be sent up as a bisque d'huîtres. Never peel black salsify (scorsonèra) before boiling, for, if cut, it “sweats," and loses much of its moisture. Boil first, and peel afterwards. This advice is the result of personal experience. ASPARAGUS, and SEAKALE, if procurable, should be picked carefully, washed, and tied up in little bundles with all the heads level : then, with a very sharp knife, the stalks should also be cut level. Put the trimmed bundles into fast boiling water with a good allowance of salt and a little sugar. They should then be carefully drained, and served au naturel, with “ Dutch sauce,” or a plain dressing of oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt. The following wrinkle is given by the author of Food and Feeding :- "Asparagus of the stouter sort, always when of the giant variety, should be cut of exactly equal lengths, and boiled standing ends (the green tips) upwards, in a deep sauce-pan. Nearly two inches of the heads should be out of the water --the steam sufficing to cook them, as they form the ten- derest part of the plant; while the hard stalky part is rendered soft and succulent by the longer boiling which this plan permits. A period of thirty or forty minutes on the plan recommended will render fully a third more of the stalk delicious, while the head will be properly cooked in the steam alone.” There is a custom followed by ignorant English, as well as by native cooks, of placing a slice of toasted bread in the dish destined to receive a bundle of asparagus, seakale, &c., over which they finally pour a plentiful bath of taste- less flour and water called “white sauce.” The toast is atterly unnecessary, and the sauce-butter plainly melted VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 163 -ought invariably to be handed round, piping hot, in a boat. A few drops of tarragon vinegar should be stirred into the “ Dutch sauce," and the vegetable having been care- fully drained should be laid in a very hot dish, with a pat of fresh butter or maître d'hôtel butter placed on top of it to melt over all. Asparagus ought never to be served in the ordinary English fashion with common sauce blanche. Fresh butter, melted, with salt, and a drop or two of vinegar, form its simplest and nicest aid. Tinned asparagus may be treated exactly in the same way after having been drained, gently washed (by pouring cold water over it) and heated up in the bain-marie, or in its own tin (drained and washed) placed in a vessel of hot water, the water reaching about half-way up the tin. Care should be taken to avoid over-doing tinned asparagus, and in turning it into the dish also, lest it break. “Dutch sauce,” in a piping hot boat, should accompany it. A very nice way of serving tinned asparagus as an entremets is iced, with pure cream also iced as its sauce. It is, in this way, quite the best “ dressed vegetable" for a hot weather dinner. The green ends of asparagus (“points d'asperges”) form an artistic accompaniment to an entrée, they are excellent when added to a clear soup, and make a very superb purée. “ Asparagus peas” are made by chopping the green ends of the shoots into dice, and treating them then as peas. And this leads me to the subject of TINNED VEGETABLES. Nothing proves the inferiority of the English system of vegetable cookery more palpably than the futile efforts of 164 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. our best exporters of preserved provisions to compete, in this particular branch of their business, with the great French and American firms. Compare the tinned green peas, or asparagus, exported by Crosse and Blackwell with the petits pois verts, or asperges we get from France. Of these I have already spoken; we may accordingly proceed to consider :- Tinned FRENCH BEANS, (haricots verts). These excellent vegetables should be turned out upon a sauté-pan tossed in butter until hot, and served. Or they may be treated in any of the methods already set forth for fresh haricots verts. They make excellent purées, and may be cooked with other vegetables in a macédoine de légumes. I strongly recom- mend them to be served à la crème, or à la poulette, with a saddle of mutton. FLAGEOLETS, another delicious tinned légume, should be served à la poulette, or à la crème, or plainly à la maître d'hôtel. They are very effective when associated with other vegetables" à la macédoine.” FONDS D'ARTICHAUTS, if delicately handled, may be cooked up in any of the ways recommended for the fresh arti- choke. POINTS D'ASPERGES are, as a rule, too soft to stand much manipulation. The safest plan is to heat them en bain- marie in their tin, and then to turn them into the soup or Bauce in which they are to be served. They make an ex- cellent addition to a chaud-froid if placed carefully in the centre of the border of aspic. Pure iced cream is, in such circumstances, their best sauce. MACÉDOINE DE LÉGUMES as a central garnish for cutlets can hardly be surpassed. The macédoine must be gently heated up in a really good poulette, or béchamel sauce, and a spoonful of cream should be added if possible. VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 165 These excellent French tinned vegetables make, when cleverly amalgamated, a most delicious salad. For this they should be iced. I have the highest respect for all country vegetables, and have given recipes for cooking BRINJALS, (binegun), BANDEKAI, (bhindi), GREENS, (bhagee), PODOLONGKAI, (chu- choonda), MORINGAKAI, (mooringa), &c., which will be found amongst my menus. INDIAN CORN, or maize, Tam., muchacholum ; Hind., boota ; is capable of artistic treatment à l'Américaine,- stripped from the young pod, boiled like peas, and then drained, tossed in melted butter, peppered, salted and served. Plenty of butter is a sine quâ non. Or the corn may be stripped off after boiling, and similarly treated. It is useless to attempt to serve Indian corn unless the cobs be quite young. All country BEANS, from the “DUFFIN” BEAN downwards, may be cooked, when nice and young, as broad-beans (fèves de marais) :-boiled, with plenty of salt in the water, till the skins crack, then peeled and tossed in butter, and served: or they may be sent up as a purée somewhat stiffly worked. The water in which beans are cooked should be boiling when they are first put in. Here is a good standard dish of beans (fèves à la bour- geoise) :- Having boiled and skinned the beans, turn them into a stew-pan over a slow fire with a table-spoonful of tinned butter; mix with them a table-spoonful of flour, and mois- ten with some of the water in which the beans were boiled ; season with pepper and salt, and when nice and creamy, serve. 166 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Dried haricot beans (Soissons) are now procurable in India, a few leading firms having imported them in the bag from France, and America. These vegetables will be found most valuable, for they are very nutritious and wholesome. They must be soaked for at least twelve hours, and then be placed in cold water with a little salt, and gradually boiled. When boiling point has been attained, the vessel should be drawn to the side of the fire, and its contents simmered till they are soft. They should be served with a pat of butter melting among them, a dust of freshly ground black pepper, and salt. Bacon, cut into dice and fried, may be introduced with them or they may be served à la poulette, à la maître d'hôtel, or with brown sauce. When served in brown sauce with a leg of mutton, a sauce soubise accompanying, you have gigot à la Bretonne. These beans (Lima) are exported from America in cans, already cooked. They can be served as above described. For country GREENS, follow the receipts given for spinach, sorrel, endive, and turnip-tops. A vegetable can always be got in the hot weather called (locally) “ MOLLAY” the tender branches or stalks of which are edible, (“MOLLAY-KEERAY”). Treated as laid down for asparagus, you will find this vegetable worth trying. Be sure that the stalks are nice and young, cut them into three inch lengths, tie them in bundles, and boil them in boiling salt and water, then drain carefully, and serve them with a nice sharp sauce in a boat; or iced, with cream. The young leaves of this plant can also be dressed as spinach. WATER-CRESS common on our Hills, and frequently grown in private gardens, can be dressed like spinach, and in that form will be found most tasty. Young PUMKINS, “DIL-PUSSUND,” or MARROWS, gathered prematurely (when the size of a duck's egg) boiled, and VEGETABLES-CONCLUDED. 167 served as described for artichoke bottoms, are exceedingly nice. Purées of sweet potatoes, and yams, if assisted by cream, are very eatable. Fritters of the former are nice if the slices be marinaded in a little brandy and lime-juice, and then dipped in a well-made batter. Yams may be treated in most of the ways recommended for potatoes. In short, if we look about us, and try our best to make the most of the vegetables of the country, by careful cookery of the reformed school, we need never be without a pleasant dish to relieve the ding-dong monotony of our market supplies. The more you hunt about amongst the produce of the native gardens, the more surprised you will be at the opportunities afforded you of practising your culinary ingenuity. For over a century we have been contented to see a few country vegetables sent up in carries, and in curries only, never attempting to develop their latent good qualities by artistic treatment. There are times when the supply of vegetables grown from English seed may fail us, or when we cannot expect to procure them ; when on the line of march, for instance, out in the jungles, or when quartered at some little place far from the busy haunts of our fellow white men ; the amateur who has studied native vegetables will then dis- cover that his time has not been thrown away. CHAPTER XVII. Réchauffés. JIF the art of dishing up nicely the remains of cold meat, fish, and vegetables, were more closely studied than it is, the fair châtelaine would not look upon cold mutton, cold beef, &c., with the feelings of despair that I fear too often possess her, there would be much less wastefulness, and our breakfast and luncheon tables would be far more easily supplied than they are. Has not-some thrifty professor of kitchen lore actually dedicated a little book to the mysteries of cooking cold mutton, and how to penetrate them ? I have never seen the work, but, without boasting, I think I could fill a couple of chapters myself upon a similar theme. The mistake most of us make is one on the side of same- ness. We pick up a tasty recipe for warming up fish, a cunning method of treating cold vegetables, or a marvel- lously good wrinkle about a hash, and ring the changes on our small stock of knowledge ad nauseam. The most ar- tistic réchauffé will lose its charm if repeated too often, and the appetite,-especially the Anglo-Indian appetite-soon tires of a flavour too frequently offered it. There is no fault that a native cook is more likely to acquire than this, 80 we should take pains to remove from his control mate- rials which are likely to minister to his failing. Let all RECHAUFFES. 169 your pungent sauces, and essences, be kept under lock and key, and give out, from time to time, the doles that are necessary for delicate flavouring. If you do this, your hashes will cease to be slices of meat, cooked up in hot water and Worcester sauce, thickened with flour; neither will your minces, croquettes, cassolettes, Soc., be presented with a sauce similarly composed. There are certain hard and fast laws to be observed generally with regard to the treatment of cold meat, &c., which ought never to be forgotten. Let me enume- rate them :- 1. Always cut off carefully all parts that have been browned in the previous cooking, such as skin, &c. 2. Use the trimmings, and all bones, assisted by any- 1 thing you may have to spare, to make the strongest broth you can for your réchauffé. 3. Be generous in your allowance of butter and eggs, and, if recommended in the recipe you are following, do not refuse a small modicum of cream. 4. Never be without red-currant jelly, olives, anchovies, grated cheese, grated bread-crumbs (bottled), mushroom- ketchup, good vinegar, bottled garden herbs, and a mild | sauce like Harvey. 5. Try to maintain a little kitchen garden, in large pots, or boxes, containing English curled parsley, marjo- ram, thyme, garden-cress, and celery. The last need not be planted for its root's sake, the leaves and stalks provide the cook with his flavouring agent. 6. Teach your cook that meat that has been once cook-illos ed, does not require to be boiled or stewed de novo. Des- cribe a hash or a mince to him as meat gently warmed up in gravy or sauce separately made to receive it. You must now turn back to Chapter X in which I tried to explain the fundamental principles of sauce-making. 11, 10 15 170 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. 96 The success of the réchauffé wholly depends upon the care bestowed upon the composition of the sauce in which it is heated up; or by which it is enriched and diluted. This maxim holds good no matter what your dish may be : the hash, the salmis, the mince, the croquette, croustade, casso- lette, little patty, kramousky, Soc., 8c., all lean upon their Espagnole or velouté as the case may be. Cold fish of any kind gives us valuable material for little breakfast dishes. Fairly large slices of firm fish, not overboiled in the first instance, may be advantageously warmed up whole, au gratin, or in a nicely-made white or brown sauce flavoured according to taste, and accompanied by pieces of cooked cucumber, or vegetable marrow. But if at all broken up, it is better to serve cold fish en caisses, or en coquilles, or to work it up into croquettes or crous- tades. Broken fragments of cold fish are very nice when added to, and tossed about with, a goodly allowance of “buttered-egg.” This can be served on toasts, or poured out upon a silver dish. A colouring of tomato sauce is an improvement. Another tasteful way of serving cold fish is to cut it into small pieces, like a coarse mince, and toss it about in a hot sauce-pan containing some previously boiled, hot maccaroni, stirring in with it a bountiful supply of melted butter, and a little tomato purée (or sauce); when the con- tents of the sauce-pan are thoroughly well heated, turn them out on a very hot dish, and serve at once. This can, of course, be composed upon a charcoal fire in the veran- dah, hard by the dining-room door. Gentlemen, whose appetites require stimulating, may fancy some chopped green chilli, some cayenne or Nepaul pepper, or a few drops of “ Tabasco ;' but, to my mind, the dish is better without a suspicion of the evil one. Cold fish is almost invariably presented to you by Ra- masámy in the form of what he is pleased to call “ fish- RECHAUFFES. 171 pudding.” This is sometimes nice, and sometimes very nasty. To be nice, a good deal of butter (good butter please, not four-annas-a-cup-composition,—"I beg your pardon,”) is necessary with the mashed potato, with a little cream, or some fresh milk helped up with the yolk of an egg, and a few drops of anchovy sauce ; Ramasámy being at the same time entreated not to make the mould into a pretty pattern with quarters of hard-boiled egg, &c., an effect which cannot be achieved without free use of his finger and thumb.:“Twice-laid,” as this dish is called at Home, cannot be sent up better than in a simple mould like mashed potato, streaked with a fork outside, and baked till it takes a pale brown tint. Chopped hard- boiled egg may be stirred into the fish and potatoes with advantage. The best fish pudding is that made of pieces of cooked fish steamed in a savoury custard. This is turned out like a pudding, and served with any nice fish sauce. Kegeree (kitchri) of the English type is composed of boiled rice, chopped hard-boiled egg, cold minced fish, and a lump of fresh butter: these are all tossed together in the frying-pan, flavoured with pepper, salt, and any minced garden herb such as cress, parsley, or marjoram, and served smoking hot. If your cook be a good hand at puff-pastry, you may have worse fare at luncheon than petits pâtés of minced fish. The salpicon must be diluted with a rich sauce, and flavoured with whatever herb you like best. A far-off- thought of celery is not to be despised. For the sauce in which you mean to re-cook fish, do not forget the bones and trimmings. A broth made of fish bones, with a few pepper corns, a sliced sweet onion, a bit of celery, a piece of lime peel, and an anchovy instead of salt, yields you a capital liquid which, when strained 172 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. and worked up with melted butter and flour, generally produces a favourable impression. The chief features to be noted in cooking HASHES and MINCES are much the same. Prepare the meat, after having carefully cut off all browned parts, as you may desire. Make the best broth you can with the trimmings and bones ; if you have any stock or gravy so much the better ; thicken slightly, and flavour this according to your taste, and the materials that may be within your reach; strain it if necessary, add a dessert-spoonful of Madeira, or Marsala, and then warm up your meat. A mince, or a hash, should be allowed to stand in its sauce, with a gentle heat under the sauce-pan, for as long a time as can be allowed; when required for the table, increase the heat, and the moment the surface steams, the dish is ready for service. “But,” says the inquisitive disciple, “what are you to do if you have no bones, no gravy, and no stock ?” to him I reply as follows :- After having trimmed the meat to your fancy, take all the skin and ugly fragments that remain, and place them on a separate plate. Now, choose a Bombay onion, and mince it fine; place a good sized sauce-pan on the fire, put a pat of butter at the bottom of it (say a couple of ounces if you can spare as much) melt it, throw in the minced onion, fry it a light golden brown, add hot water now gradually, and throw in your scraps of meat, six pepper corns, a tea-spoonful of sugar, a tea- spoonful of salt, an anchovy, a piece of celery or its leaves, a carrot cut up, a bunch of curly parsley, the peel of a lime, and a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, with a dessert-spoonful of vinegar, and let the contents of your sauce-pan simmer away until you are satisfied that you have extracted all the good to be got out of your several ingredients. Taste the broth as it is cooking, and correct any errors that may occur to you on the spot : when ready, strain it into a bowl, and skim off any fat that may rise. RECHAUFFES. 173 Now, take another sauce-pan, and go through the usual process of thickening the broth ; it will then be ready to receive the meat you desire to re-cook. A table-spoonful of Madeira, or Marsala ; a little red currant jelly, and port- wine; some claret or burgundy if at hand; the pulp of a couple of tomatoes ; or the strained yolks of two eggs, may be added to enrich your plat. The egg should be stirred in after the sauce-pan has been removed from the fire. The tomato gives a piquancy to all hashes, and minces, superior to that which can be procured by vinegars. Your selection of the wine that you use must depend, of course, upon the sort of meat you are cooking up. In the case of a mince, remember, that when the meat has been passed through the machine, it must be diluted with a good thick sauce, in which it should be gently heated. Just before serving, it may be enriched with the raw yolks of a couple eggs-off the fire. Having done this, you can diversify the methods of serving it as follows :- 1. Make a light omelette. When all but ready to serve, spread your mince quickly on top of the omelette, toss the omelette in the pan lightly, and roll it off into the hot dish, enveloping the mince, and serve. This must not look like a “roly-poly” pudding. The omelette should not be made as stiff as a batter dumpling as Ramasámy loves to serve it. I will tell you how to make an omelette, properly in my next chapter. 2. Make a case of mashed potato, with high sides like a vol-au-vent case, and pour your mince into it. 3. Hollow out a number of small dinner rolls, butter them, and fry them a golden yellow : pour your mince into them, put a curl of fried bacon on the top of each, heat them in the oven for five minutes, and serye. 174 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. 4. Make a number of little potato cases, and fill them in the same way : or if you have them, use the paper or china cases so universally used in England now. 5. Make some light puff-paste, form it into patties like oyster patty pastry, bake, fill them when ready with the mince, heat thoroughly, and serve. 6. Or,-cut the paste in circles three inches in diame- ter, place a dessert-spoonful of the mince in the centre of each, fold them over, pinch the edges all round, and fry a golden yellow in a bath of boiling fat. 7. Serve it plain, on a hot dish, garnished with sippets of fried bread, fried carls of bacon, and slices of lime, and put a poached egg or two on the top of it. With reference to the above, remember, that toasted bread is not fried bread. Ramasamy is apt not to distin- guish very carefully between the two; and whereas a crisp piece of fried bread is an agreeable adjunct to certain dishes ; sodden, slightly smoked toast is inexpressibly dis- agreeable anywhere. Bacon is valuable with all réchauffés of meat, and poached eggs are acceptable with hashes, and minces. Ham, I need scarcely say, if on hand, can be turned to the very best account, and tongue also, for that matter, to assist the flavouring of minces, croquettes, rissoles, et hoc genus omne. Minced ham or tongue with minced corned beef, mashed up with some well boiled potatoes, hard boiled egg, and plenty of melted butter, and cooked in the fashion of "twice-laid,” is a nice dish for a change at breakfast. Maccaroni, and dustings of Parmesan (or any mild grated cheese) vary the monotony of warmed-up meats immensely, and go well with nearly every cold vegetable. Try this sometimes :-Having made a really good white RECHAUFFES. 175 sauce, lay your trimmed fillets of cold fish, rabbit, or chicken, in a shallow pie-dish upon a layer of maccaroni, previously boiled till tender, pour the sauce over all, gar- nish with slices of tomato, dust over all a dressing of grated cheese, bake till lightly browned, and serve. The same recipe is practicable with brown meats, only make a brown sauce to start with, instead of a white. Batter plays its part effectively amongst réchauffés. Any nice mince, bound with egg, rolled in slices of cooked bacon, then dipped in batter and fried in lots of fat, presents a toothsome kramousky. Fish fillets, dipped in the same way, and fried, are nice; and so are fillets of rabbit, or chicken. If not overdone, thick slices of tender beef, or of mutton, may be dipped in melted butter, and broiled over a fast charcoal fire; or they may be marinaded (vide page 65), then bread-crumbed with nice stale crumbs, and fried a golden brown. These served with a macédoine de légumes, sauce soubise, horse radish sauce, tomato, or tartare are delicious ; but the meat must be really juicy, or, in plainer terms, must have been slightly underdone in the first instance. Apropos of batter, I must not forget to say, that pounded fish, incorporated with batter, that is to say, worked into it, and fried in seething fat by dropping the mixture into the pan by spoonfuls at a time, produces a dish of fritters most welcome at breakfast alone, or capital as a garnish for a larger dish of fish. A remarkably nice little dish, also contrived with batter, is the crêpe de poisson, or indeed of anything. The crêpe is a pancake. Picture to yourself a nicely-made thin pancake :--spread it out upon a flat dish, and cut it into pieces two inches wide, and three inches long. Upon the surface of each piece, place a thin slice of bacon slightly 176 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. smaller each way than the crêpe, over the bacon put a table- spoonful of any nice mince, well worked with an egg or two, and a little cold sauce to give it moisture and cohesion : then roll up your crêpes, put them on a buttered tin, brush them with a whipped egg, bread-crumb them, and bake brown in the oven. Cold vegetables, such as cauliflowers, cabbage, Jeru- salem artichokes, and vegetable marrows, may be mashed up with potatoes, or alone, diluted with melted butter, cream, or milk with the yolk of an egg strained into it, dusted over with grated cheese, and cooked au gratin. Mixed vegetables may be cut into dice and warmed up in white sauce à la macédoine de légumes, and cold peas, cauli- flower, French beans, and cabbage, may be tossed in butter in a frying-pan, and served à la maître d'hôtel. You will find a good many recipes for the treatment of cooked vege- tables in the chapters I have devoted to that especial subject. No more useful present could well be given to a young lady commencing house-keeping than a set of silver, or silver-plated coquilles (scallop shells). Served in these in- viting looking little dishes, a mince, or a réchauffé of vege- tables, is worthy of a place at any table. A purée of arti- choke, capped with finely-grated cheese, any cold fish, minced game, even the remains of a maccaroni au gratin, sent up in this tasty manner, seem ever so much nicer than in an ordinary way. The shells should be well buttered before operations are commenced, and the mince or chopped vegetable should be well diluted with sauce to keep it nice and moist. The surface should be sprinkled over with cheese or finely rasped crumbs. When quite hot, brown the crumbs with a hot iron salamander-fashion, and serve the shells tastily on a napkin. Crisply fried curly parsley may garnish them. CHAPTER XVIII. The Savoury Omelette. GD REATHES there a man with soul so dead” that 2D he can read the great Brillat Savarin's account of the Curé's omelette unmoved? Short as the little story is, you feel yourself absolutely at table with the worthy padre,-a man of culture, and refinement. It is Friday, and the little banquet is kept strictly within the canons of the Church, yet there is an artist's hand apparent in its subtle simplicity. The fish soup, the trout, the omelette, the salad, the cheese, and dessert; the snowy cloth, the choice china, and the “old wine which sparkled in a crystal decanter,” tell us plainly that science, and good taste, can make even a fast enjoyable. But amongst all the daintiness that marks the little banquet, that omelette is undoubtedly the prominent feature. You can see it, you can smell it, you can almost taste it. Now, there is something cheering in this little chapter. We can throw ourselves back in our long arm-chair, and, with half closed eyes, make that very omelette, here in India. Or one so like it, that we need hardly lament our inability to procure carp's roes. This I hope presently to show you. There is another source of satisfaction in our musing, and that is, that with moderate forethought we ought never to be unable to make a good savoury omelette, whether in camp, at a traveller's bungalow, at a picnic, orin the privacy 178 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. of our back verandah in cantonment. Eggs, though neither as cheap, nor as plentiful as in days of yore, are still to be got: we can obtain charcoal, and a broken chatty to hold it: we can get an iron omelette-pan, made to order, in the bazár: we need never be without a tin of “Normandy," “ Denmark,” or “cow brand” butter; or, failing that, a bottle of the best salad oil. Salt, pepper, - and a bottle of dried parsley ought not to be beyond our reach, and an onion is not an expensive luxury. Thus provided, we ought to be in a position to turn out a capital dish, very rapidly, at any time, and anywhere. Omelettes, as you all know, can be diversified ad libitum : we need never, therefore, be afraid of falling back upon them. Before I proceed to the discussion of omelette-making, however, let me point out that Ramasamy has been led astray altogether with regard to this branch of his art. He sends you up a very nice pudding, symmetri- cal in design, of a goodly consistency, and of a rich brown colour. You almost require a dessert-knife to help it. It is, of course, lighter somewhat, than a “roly-poly' padding made of paste, but it greatly resembles that homely com- position. It is a first cousin of the pancake, and Rama- sámy evidently uses the stuff of which it is made to coat his plantains when bidden to make fritters. He starts wrongly to commence with, when mixing his omelette. In addition to the eggs (the whites of which he whips separately) he puts in a little flour, some milk or a little water, and, in point of fact, makes a lightish sort of batter. This, I regret to say, he vigorously whips, and fries in a fair amount of ghee, folding it into shape, and keeping it on the fire till it is nice and firm, and coloured as I before described. That this is no more an omelette than our old friend “the man in the moon” I need hardly assure you. Native cooks are nevertheless very easily THE SAVOURY OMELETTE. 179 taught how to make one properly, and rarely fail after a patient exemplification of the correct method. I must confess that with the exception of “the Curé's omelette” previously alluded to, I never picked up a wrinkle concerning this excellent dish from a book. I have never come across a dissertation on omelette-making which seemed to have been written by a man who had made one himself. The manner in which I learnt, the little I know on the subject was as follows:-I was marching with a Regiment from Bangalore to Secunderabad. At a place called Pennaconda, in the Bellary District, I was most hospitably entertained by a Member of the Madras Civil Service. Though so far away from any civilized place, the dinner placed before me in the quondam public bungalow in which my host resided might have graced a petit table in the stranger's room of a London Club. His breakfast was an equally artistic meal, and was concluded by an omelette,--made on the spot, -by my accomplished friend himself. If this imperfect essay happen to catch his eye, he will, I am sure, forgive the honest tribute of his grateful pupil. Calling for a slop-basin, he broke into it four ordinary country fowl's eggs whole, and added the yolks only of two more. He thus had six yolks, and four whites. These he thoroughly mixed by using two forks : he did not beat them at all. When thoroughly satisfied that incorporation had been effected, he flavoured the mix- ture with a salt-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of very finely minced shallot, a heaped up table-spoonful of minced curly parsley (grown in his garden) and—to crown all—a table-spoonful of really rich cream. He stirred this for a minute, and, as far as its first stage was concerned, the omelette was ready. We now left the dining-room for the verandah where there was a good charcoal fire in an iron brasier, (a half chatty would have sufficed of course) and apon it a pan about ten inches in diameter, very shallow, 180 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. with a narrow rim well sloped outwards. A pat of butter was melted in the pan, sufficient in quantity to thoroughly lubricate the whole of its surface, and leave a coating of moisture about an eighth of an inch deep over all. As soon as ready, quite burning hot,—the butter having ceased to splutter, and beginning to brown,-with one good stir round, the mixture was poured into the pan. At the moment of contact, the underpart of omelette formed, this was instantly lifted by the spoon, and the unformed por- tion allowed to run beneath it; the left hand, holding the pan, and playing it, as it were, from side to side: With one good shake, the pan (in less than a minute from the time of commencing operations) was lifted from the fire, and its contents rolled off into the hot silver dish at hand to receive it, in which a little melted butter, with some minced parsley and shallot, had been prepared. The omelette, as it rolled of its own accord from the pan, caught up, and buried within it, the slightly unformed juicy part of the mixture which still remained on the surface; and, as it lay in the dish, was without any special shape, of a golden yellow colour, flecked with green, with the juicy part escaping from beneath its folds. An omelette ought never to be stiff enough to retain a rolled-up appearance. Being so rapidly cooked, it ought to be too light to present a fixed form, and, on reaching the hot dish, should spread itself rather, on account of its very frothiness. Books that counsel you to turn an omelette, to fold it, to let it brown on one side, to let it fry for about five minutes, &c., are not to be trusted. If you follow such advice, you will only produce, at best, an egg pudding. Timed by the seconds hand of a watch an omelette of six eggs, cooked as I have described, took forty-five seconds from the moment of being poured into the pan to that of being turned into the dish. The omelette we have just discussed is that generally THE SAVOURY OMELETTE. 181 known as “aux fines herbes" :—the ordinary oe is simply made of eggs flavoured with salt. Though cream is an im- provement, it is not essential. I confess that I like a very little minced onion in all savoury omelettes, but this is a matter of taste, and where ladies are concerned, the fragrant bulb ought perhaps to be omitted. The general rules to be observed in omelette-making, then, may be thus summed up :- 1. Use a proper utensil, with narrow, well sloping sides ; see that it is clean, and quite dry. 2. Do not overdo the amount of butter, or salad oil, that you use for the frying. 3. Mix, do not beat the eggs, and never use more than six as in the Pennaconda omelette. It is better to make two of six, than one of twelve eggs. 4. Three eggs, mixed whole, make a nice sized omelette. 5. Be sure that your pan is ready to receive your mix- ture. If not hot enough, the omelette will be leathery, or you will have to mix it in the pan like “scrambled eggs” -Coeufs brouillés). 6. The moment the butter ceases to fizz, and assumes a pale brown tint, the pan is ready. 7. Instantly lift up the part of the omelette that sets at the moment of contact, and let the anformed mixture run ander it; repeat this if the pan be very full, keep the left hand at work with a gentle sea-saw motion to encourage rapidity in setting, give a finishing shake, and turn it into the hot dish before the whole of the mixture has quite set. 8. The omelette will roll over of its own accord, if the sides of the pan be sloped as I have described : it will not require folding. 9. Three quarters of a minúte is ample time for the 16 182 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. whole operation, if the pan be properly hot when the mix- ture is poured into it. 10. Haye the hot dish close by the fire, so that you can turn the omelette into it instanter. A little melted butter, with some chopped parsley, may, with advantage, be put into the dish. It is above all things necessary to have a very brisk fire under the pan while the omelette is being cooked. A brasier filled with live charcoal is the best kind of fire, and the fan must be vigorously plied from the moment that the mixture is poured into the pan. As I said before, omelettes may be varied in many ways. If“ aux fines herbes,” curly parsley and shallot are neces- sary; minced marjoram or thyme, garden-cress (the com- panion, I mean, of mustard) or celery leaves, are agreeable, and many are fond of a spoonful of finely chopped green chilli, omitting the seeds of course. Chopped ham, chopped tongue, chopped bacon, and chopped corned beef are added to omelettes with good effect. The words "au jambon,” “au lard,” “au langue de boeuf,” 8°C., specify the addition. I have found it better to fry the minced ham, &c., independently, keeping it handy for addition to the omelette during the rolling over stage, as it goes into the dish... Cold cooked vegetables, cut up and tossed awhile in melted butter separately, may be thus added with success. I recommend pieces of the flower of the cauliflower, arti- choke bottoms cut into dice, or Jerusalem artichokes sliced, and cut up. Peas, the grains of Indian corn, chopped French beans, or the seeds of the bandecai or moringa pod are thus very pleasantly treated. In the case of an“ omelette aux légumes,” a dust of grated cheese gives a pleasing finishing touch when the omelette reposes in the hot dish. “ Omelette aux tomates :"-Cut three or four ripe tomatoes THE SAVOURY OMELETTE. 183 into quarters, pick out the seeds, and let the watery juice run off. Cut a sweet onion into the thinnest slices possible. Melt a table-spoonful of butter in a small saucepan, cast into it the onion slices ; let them cook without browning; then add the drained tomato quarters, pepper and salt; toss the sauce-pan about till the tomatoes are cooked which will be in about ten minutes. Keep the mixture hot, and pour it over the surface of an ordinary omelette just as you are on the point of turning it out of the frying- pan. The omelette will roll over of its own accord envelop- ing the tomatoes within it as it passes into the dish. The“ omelette au Parmesan” (or any mild dry cheese) is a spécialité, as simple as it is delicious. A table-spoonful of grated and finely sifted cheese to three ordinary eggs, salt and black pepper to taste, and a dessert-spoonful of rich cream, if possible, or new milk, compose the mixture. In- corporate the ingredients, and proceed as recorded in the previous directions. Remember that it should be served just before all the juicy mixture on the surface quite sets, so that there may be an exudation of creamy moisture in the dish, and don't forget to dust over the surface a canopy of grated cheese. This must go from the fire to the plate, as it were. Delay in serving is hard on any omelette. And, now, we come to the Cure's pièce de résistance, con- cerning which I spoke at the beginning of this chapter. The salient feature of this plat was the combination of tunny, and carp's roes by which it was flavoured. Half a slice of preserved tunny, and the soft roes of two herrings à la sardine very finely minced together, with a little shallot, and a dessert-spoonful of parsley, should be tossed in butter awhile, and then stirred into a basin containing six well mixed eggs. Cook the mixture as already explained, and turn it out, when ready, into a hot dish containing a little melted butter, a few drops of lime juice and some minced shallot, and parsley. If you cannot get 184 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. preserved tunny, a piece of lax, or nicely tinned salmon will be found an agreeable substitute, and cod's roes will form a pleasant companion thereto. The Curé used fresh tunny, and fresh roes, but we may follow his recipe with preserved substitutes, if not too salt, and achieve a very fair result. Kippered seer-fish, made at home, with Madras fish-roe well soaked, ought to make a capital omelette of this kind. The seer-fish should be split, washed, and dried with a cloth ; salt, sugar, and lime-juice being well rubbed in immediately; the next day the rubbing must be repeated, and the fish artificially smoked by being hung over a fire constantly replenished with damp straw, &c. After this, it should be hung in the cook-room over the fire, and it will be ready for the table the third evening. If you can get fresh roe so much the better; if not, Madras preserved roe, well soaked and boiled till tender, will be found an excellent substitute. Omelettes may be cooked aux fines herbes, served upon a bed of tomato purée, and dusted over with grated cheese. They may also be laid upon a purée of green peas, or of spinach. They may be improved with minced game, and be associated effectively with mince of any kind. Chop- ped mushrooms or truffles (previously cooked, minced, and tossed in butter) are, of course, very delicious additions to them; and oysters may be introduced in the same way. Savoury omelettes are sent up with rich Espagnole, Péri- gueux, and Béchamel sauces, and may contain some finely minced kidney stewed in champagne. Almost all fish, prawns, lobster, &c., go well with them, and whether simple or elaborate, plain or rich, an omelette rarely fails, -if properly made to win appreciation, and be thank- fully accounted for. roe, weh roe so much tible the third o cover the fi CHAPTER XIX. : On Luncheons. UNCHEON is a meal so popular amongst Britons e both at Home and abroad, that the humblest treatise on cooking would be incomplete without a chapter specially dedicated to it. There are luncheons large, and luncheons small. The former elaborate, very pleasant, and sociable, yet alas ! a little too alluring, and fatal in their effects upon the appetite for the rest of the day. The latter more enjoyable perhaps than their more ostentatious connections, for they are reserved for a few intimate friends, but affording just as much temptation to kill dinner. At Madras we reserve our luncheon parties for the Sabbath, when the unfair sex has no official care away from home, and though few sit down to dinner on that day till nearly half past eight, the overwhelming recollec- tions of the midday feast have hardly had time to pass away. A far better meal for us all,--, very near relation of luncheon,-is the dêjeûner à la fourchette of our French friends. Brillat Savarin's luncheon party, if you remem- ber, assembled" at ten-military punctuality.” At eleven o'clock we might bid our guests sit down, I think, without misgiving, and though we might invite them to breakfast; we could really give them a luncheon. I attended a party 186 : CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. of this kind, not long ago, the complete success of which has encouraged me to advocate its adoption in supersession of luncheons at 2 P.M. The Frenchman takes his café au lait, with a roll, as we take our chota hazri, which slight refection carries him satisfactorily till eleven, or even twelve o'clock; the déjeûner à la fourchette is then a sub- stantial meal. Cannot we, when there are no distracting office hours to think of, do likewise ? A breakfast party ends about the hour that luncheons begin. Both hosts and guests have, therefore, ample time to recover their appe- tites, and to indulge in a quiet afternoon's rest, before the evening drive, and dinner. A pleasant luncheon or breakfast party should possess the following characteristics :-a judiciously selected list of guests, a prettily arranged table, a light yet artistic menu, with cups of claret, sauterne, hock, or chablis, iced ad libitum, and in no way spoilt by sugar. Liqueurs may be handed round to finish with, and the best coffee you can make should follow. In composing your menu, you should avoid adhering in any way to the order and style of a dinner. Thus, you must not give any soup at all, but lead off with oysters in their shells accompanied by brown bread and butter cat thin, limes cut into quarters, and vinegars and peppers of kinds. An old standing dish to commence a luncheon party used to be mulligatunny. If properly made, this soup is a meal in itself: there are so many condiments, spices, and highly flavoured elements in its composition,-not to mention the concomitant ladleful of rice which custom decrees,—that he who partakes of it finds the delicate power of his palate vitiated, as far as the appreciation of any dainty plat that may follow is concerned, whilst the edge of his appetite is left unto him sorely blunted. So I say, reserve mulligatunny for your luncheon at home when alone, enjoy it thoroughly, rice and all, and nothing more. ON LUNCHEONS. 187 Having discussed your oysters, some half dozen dishes or so may follow, carefully contrasted one with another, and by no means dinner-like in their order thus :- An antipasto of oysters, or olives aux anchois. Fish fricaseed with cucumbers, orlys, or a mayonnaise. Fillets of beef piqués with horse radish sauce or crême d'anchois, garnished with potato chips, or a dish of côtelettes à la Réforme, à la soubise, &c. Maccaroni à l’Italienne, or au jambon. Cold galantine of hen turkey, or capon, delicately sliced, and handed round, with a salad. A Ceylon prawn curry swimming in creamy gravy, with pieces of vegetable marrow associated with it. A chaud-froid of snipes. Fruits in cream; liqueur. This menu is obviously susceptible of the pruning knife. At least one of the dishes could easily be cut out, and cheese with “green butter,” and hors d'oeuvres again, might follow the sweet dish. A really carefully executed mayonnaise is a grand lun- cheon dish, and a cauliflower, or any first class vegetable, au gratin is invariably acceptable. For a small luncheon party, after the oysters I would give a dish of fish, followed by a simple entrée from class I, a cauliflower au gratin, the galantine, a mayonnaise, a sweet, cheese, and hors d'ouvres. In fact, if you disabuse your mind of dinner altogether, and compose a little menu of mixed dishes, in- troducing some slices of cold dressed meat about the mid- dle thereof, you cannot go far wrong. Spiced pressed beef, or corned hump, lamb and mint sauce, pigeon pie or game pie, or the galantine aforesaid, are the sort of dishes from which you can select your central effect. It not giving a 188 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. mayonnaise, a salad ought certainly to accompany the cold meat, and potatoes artistically dressed may go round. Canapés form a delicious luncheon dish, voici :-cut some slices of bread a quarter of an inch thick, and two inches long if heart-shaped, two inches in diameter if round, and two inches square if rectangular. Fry these a pale golden colour in butter, and set them on a dish to get cold. To complete the canapé, first spread a layer of “green butter" over each piece of fried bread, upon that place a layer of prawn or lobster meat pounded with butter, and slightly seasoned with Nepaul pepper; smooth this with a dessert- knife, place a leaf of lettuce (cut from the golden heart) upon the top of the prawn meat, and a piece of beetroot shaped with your cutter. Over each canapé when thús prepared, and placed in the dish for serving, pour a dessert- spoonful of rich, thickly worked, mayonnaise sauce, iced. A little chopped olive, or chopped capers, or the two mixed, may be judiciously sprinkled over each cap of mayonnaise dressing. The dish should stand on ice before serving. Instead of prawn meat, you can use cold chicken, finely sliced or pounded, an atom of the divine truffle might then be added to each canapé, and the thinnest slice of tongue might cover it. Instead of lettuce, a few sprigs of the flower or cold cauliflower can be introduced, or any cold vegetable of a delicate kind, asparagus points to wit. Fish may be used in this fashion :--caviare, cod's roe, lobster, herring à la sardine, sardines, lax, preserved tunny, and anchovies. Fancy some neatly picked fillets of the last named fish, wiped free from oil, and the skin and bones removed, reposing on the green butter; over them a goodly sprinkling of sliced olives, then the lettuce leaf, &c., as previously described—“say, dost thou like the picture ?" In houses where the cook can really master an omelette ON LUNCHEONS. 189 properly, one with Parmesan laid upon a fricassee of canli- flower flowers, or upon a purée de topinambours, or com- posed aux points d'asperges, aux tomates, or aux truffes, may safely form an item of the choicest luncheon bill of fare. Here is a pretty little recipe for a filet de boeuf à l’Italienne which, to my mind, is worthy of attention, and well adapted for a mid-day festival. Take a tender fillet of beef (the undercut of the sirloin if possible) preserve it whole after trimming it into shape; make an incision in it lengthways, and insert therein a long strip of bacon, fat and lean in equal parts, previously rolled in a fines herbes mince composed of a table-spoonful each of finely chopped mushroom, and parsley, a dessert-spoonful of minced shallot, and some pepper : tie up the fillet now, carefully, with tape. Take a good slice of bacon, mince it very small with thyme, marjoram, lime peel, a clove of garlic, half a sweet onion and a carrot, shake this mix- ture in a little butter at the bottom of a stew-pan, and when it melts, place the fillet upon it, and turn it gently till it browns nicely. Now, pour in a pint of tomato purée diluted with beef gravy to the consistency of ordinary pea- soup : simmer your fillet in this till it is done, it ought to be kept at least a couple of hours at a gentle heat : when ready to serve, strain off the sauce, place the fillet upon a very hot dish, remove the tape, garnish with glazed onions, haricots verts, Brussels sprouts, or any nice vegeta- ble, and pour a little of the sauce over it. Have ready some hot boiled, and drained maccaroni in a sauce-pan, empty all the sauce that remains amongst the maccaroni, shake into it a table-spoonful of finely grated cheese, toss the whole over the fire for a minute, and dish it separately in a very hot dish. Serve the two together immediately. Maccaroni, in the usual Italian fashion, is infinitely superior to our perpetual method of serving it. It makes an excellent luncheon dish. Boil the maccaroni in boiling 190 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. water in a sauce-pan (which may be rubbed with a clove of garlic) until it is tender; the moment it is tender, stop the boiling by adding a cup of cold water, if not, it will be sodden. Drain it carefully, as you do rice, and let it re- main in the hot sauce-pan. Now, stir into it a table- spoonful of the best fresh, or preserved butter (the new Denmark brand is quite first-rate) and as you work this about over the fire, an assistant should add by degrees a breakfast-cupful of fresh tomato pulp, a little salt and black pepper, and lastly, a heaped up table-spoonful of either grated Parmesan from the bottle, or any mild thoroughly powdered dry cheese : serve steaming hot without delay. The cheese should form long threads when lifted from the dish with the maccaroni. If you have any stock or consommé to spare, you can improve this dish by simmering the maccaroni therein after the draining stage. When the stock has been absorbed, add the tomato, &c. I could, of course, go on suggesting dishes, and describ- ing them ad infinitum,-for luncheons are little banquets which afford enthusiastic cooks a pleasant field for the exercise of their inventive faculties. I will, however, conclude my chat about luncheon parties with a receipt for a mayonnaise sauce which has been communicated to me by the artist W. H. H. :- Put the yolks of three large, or four ordinary Indian eggs, (raw) in a flat joint dish with a tea-spoonful of salt, and the juice of two limes, and beat them well : tip the dish on end at an angle of about 35°, by slipping a thick book under the rim at one end. Open a fresh bottle of salad oil, and get an assistant to let the oil fall, in rapidly succeeding drops, upon the centre of the dish, whilst you continue beating the egg mixture upwards to make it pass under the stream of dripping oil. Half a pint of salad oil ON LUNCHEONS. 191 may be thus expended, and you will, by that time, have a sauce as thick as treacle, and of a golden yellow tint. Arrange your mayonnaise in its dish (W. H. H. recommends the juicy slices of a really well flavoured cold leg of mutton) shake a few drops of tarragon vinegar over it, with a dust of black pepper: arrange some well dried lettuce leaves, trimmed with a silver dessert knife, over the mayonnaise ; garnish as you like, with broken aspic jelly, gherkins, turned olives, capers, fillets of anchovy, balls of green or yellow butter, plain hard-boiled yolks of egg whole, &c., ice the sauce, and pour it over all. W. H. H. suggests that “grace" should follow. He is right. A few words must now be said regarding miscellaneous luncheons :—the office snacklet, the lunch in the train, or al fresco out shooting, the" tiffin” at home, a lady's morceau, and the mid-day meal of the convalescent. Place aux dames. This is the time when a lady may indulge in mulligatunny, or her favorite curry, with its chutneys, and relishes of which I treat later on. A chicken neatly cut up as for a curry, then dipped in bread-crumbs, fried a golden brown, and served with mac- caroni, and tomato, or with good bread-sauce and fried parsley. Perdrix au chou, or two partridges, boiled, and smothered in onions as rabbits are cooked in England. The undercut of the saddle, cut out entire, grilled over a brisk fire, and sent up with a potato duchesse : or a juicy neck chop similarly served, with a pat of maître d'hôtel butter melting over either of them. Braise a neck of mutton, or a breast, in gravy, with vegetables and some chopped bacon: slip a slice of bacon under the flap of either, and tie it in shape before you commence operations : when almost done, lift the little joint up; strain off the gravy, skim it, and make a nice 192 CULINARY ŽOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. sauce with it such as piquante, poivrade, or Italienne. Put the joint in the oven after bread-crumbing it, to brown and finish cooking ; when ready, dish it surrounded by boiled maccaroni over which the sauce should be poured at the last minute. Tomato pulp may be used for this pur- pose with marked effect, and some glazed turnips or carrots may garnish the dish, in which case the sauce should be served separately in a boat. A nicely roasted snipe, or pigeon bardé, with potato chips. A single canapé of prawn, or a little patty of puff-pastry filled with any tasty mixture. A savoury omelette, spinach on toast with “buttered- egg,” or served with short-bread biscuits. A little plate of peas, tossed in butter with dice of fried ham or bacon. Coquilles of fish en réchauffé, or of any delicate vegetable. Indian corn, boiled, stripped with a fork from the cob, tossed in melted butter, peppered, and salted, is generally liked ; see that the cob is quite a young one. A cheese fondue en caisse. From these dishes the luncheon of a lady or an invalid ought to be easily selected. Savoury toasts of all kinds, from the homely Welsh rarebit apwards, are welcome on the luncheon table. I treat of them, you will find, in extenso in a separate chapter. The office snacklet is, as a rule, a sandwich followed by a slice of cake. The former is susceptible of infinite variety : here are a few good ones :- Spread the bread with green or any fancy butter, and fill the sandwich with chopped sardines, and some bits of ON LUNCHEONS. 193 pickle here and there; or with mixed chicken and tongue, a lettuce leaf and some mayonnaise sauce. Any potted meat worked up with butter, pepper, a touch of mustard, and a little chutney. Ham and beef sandwiches should make your nose tingle with mustard : be easy with the batter if you can dot in some nice pieces of fat. Pound a slice of cheese well, with a little fresh butter, a tea-spoonful of made mustard, a little black pepper, and salt, add an anchovy, well wiped free from oil, and passed through the sieve with a little butter if too thick, mix thoroughly, give it a dust of Nepaul pepper, spread it on your bread, and complete the sandwich. This is for one large, or two small ones remember, so cut your cheese accordingly. Hard-boiled eggs work up well for sandwiches, and may be either used plainly pounded with butter with a seasoning of pepper and salt, or added to other ingredients like chopped tongue, ham, or corned beef. Fillets of anchovy with slices of olive, embedded in pounded hard-boiled egg and butter, and lightly dusted with Nepaul pepper, compose a very eatable sandwich. I am especially fond of a lunch-let composed of one home-made roll, a small piece of Gruyère, and two ripe plantains, but the taste of eating cheese with fruit is, I fear, un-English. The traveller's luncheon basket, and that of the sports- man are analogous. A friend of mine with whom I used to walk the paddy fields, adopted the plan of taking out a digester pot, previously filled with stewed steak and oysters, or some equally toothsome stew. This he trusted to his syce, who lit a fire somewhere or other, in the marvellous way the natives of this country do, and, as 17 194 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. sare as there are fish in the sea, had the contents of the pot steaming hot, at the exact spot, and at the very moment we required it. He was a bow-legged veteran, this syce, and a most trusty varlet. I almost think though, that our shooting became a little erratic after our stew, which was bountiful in quantity, rich in quality, and provocative of beer, of whisky and water, or brandy and soda, according to our supply thereof. A good cold lunch is the best for the open air, when work must follow. When I was going through the course of Garrison instruction, and accustomed to long days out surveying, I was partial to a galantine made of a small fowl, boned and rolled, with a block of tongue and some forcemeat introduced in the centre of it. A home-made brawn of tongue, a part of an ox head, and sheep's trotters, well seasoned, and slightly spiced, was another spécialité. A nice piece of the brisket of beef salted and spiced, boiled, placed under a weight, and then trimmed into a neat shape (the trimmings come in for sandwiches, potted- meat, or “ bubble and squeak”) is a very handy thing for the tiffin basket; and a much respected patron of mine recommends for travelling, a really good cold plum pudding in which a glass of brandy has been included. Cake is acceptable at every kind of luncheon ; in fact, cakes were invented for that meal, for 5 o'clock tea, weddings, and for school-boys only. CHAPTER XX, Fritters.. TO AILURE in the accomplishment of the many excel- lent dishes which come under the head of “fritters" se may be fairly attributed to three things : the first, ignorance in making the batter; the second, a wrongly shaped utensil; and the third, an insufficient use of the frying medium. If you once master these cardinal points, and can drum them into the head of your Ramasamy, you will have at your command a tasty and, indeed, artistic method of cookery upon which you can always rely with confidence. The charm of fritter cooking is its simplicity. The mixing of a good batter merely depends upon the accurate following of the recipe before you, whilst the culinary operation itself presents no difficulty whatever, provided a liberal supply of fat be given out, and the vessel used be a proper one. The beginner, as a rule, overcomes this part of his education after a few trials, and thenceforward has no apprehension concerning success. Tasty fritters, sweet, as well as savoury, can be made with vegetables, and fruit; fish, both fresh, and cooked ; remains of cold meats, pounded cheese, and lastly, by batter, pure, and unassisted, in the form of“ beignets soufflés,” 8c. As the main point in this kind of frying consists in providing a bath of fat for the thing-to-be-cooked, it 196 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. is essential that we should choose a deep, rather than a broad and shallow vessel, for the operation. The ordinary frying-pan sold at hard-ware shops is of no use what- ever for this branch of the cook's work. The pan you want should look like a stew-pan with double handles, and its sides cut down half-way ; its diameter need not exceed eight or nine inches. It may be as heavy as you like, for it must, of necessity, be kept steady over the fire when in use. A handle like that of an omelette-pan is therefore unnecessary, for you never require to shake a friture-pan. Opinions differ as to the best frying medium. The great Carême advocated the use of the fat skimmed from the surface of the pot-au-feu after having been carefully strained through muslin. Clarified suet, for which I give directions in my chapter on pastry, is favorably regarded by Gouffé. Butter is hardly to be recommended for this kind of frying as it heats very quickly and is apt to burn. Oil is, of course, an excellent medium, but it is difficult to get good out in India, and too expensive. Lard (imported) may be used, but I do not like it even in England for it always adheres to a certain extent to the thing fried. Good Indian ghee made at home, or procured fresh and then clarified as recommended for suet, is by no means to be despised ; that sold on the Neilgherries is, as a rule, excellent, Besides your pan, for delicate fritter work there is nothing more useful than the wire frying-basket,—a cheap thing enough, and not hard to make. Provided with this utensil, which may be described as an open-work, draining- pan, slightly smaller in diameter than the friture-pan, the whole process of working may be thus described :- 1.—Make your batter, to begin with, according to one of the receipts hereafter given, and place it in its bowl on one side, covered up from flies, dust, &c. FRITTERS. 197 2.-Prepare your fish, meat, vegetable, fruit, or what- ever you are going to cook, and arrange the pieces on a flat dish, on a table handy, with the bowl of batter next to it. 3.—Take your friture-pan, see that it is thoroughly clean, and dry. 4.-Set it on the griddle rest, over a good bright charcoal fire, and empty the fat, or whatever you use as a frying medium, into it bountifully. 5.- When melted, the fat ought to be quite two inches deep. 6.—Determine if the fat be hot enough by throwing a sippet of bread into it: if the sippet fizzes, and produces large air bubbles, the fritter bath is ready. 7.-Now, dip your morsel-to-be-fried into the batter, which should be of sufficient consistency to coat it nicely; plunge the frying-basket into the fat, and slide the fritter into it. 8.—The fritter must be covered by the fat, not partly in, and partly out of it. Fan the fire now vigorously. 9.—Let it frizzle, and when of a rich golden tint, lift up the basket, and hold it a moment or two over the pan so that its contents may drain. 10.-Lay each fritter, as you take it from the basket, on a dry clean cloth, or on a sheet of new blotting paper, to complete the draining. 11.-When dry, dish it in a very hot dish, and, if a savoury fritter, give it a dust of finely powdered salt; if a sweet one, shake a canopy of powdered loaf sugar over it. 12.-Fritters can be fried one after another. Never put in more than the pan can easily hold at one time. The fat should now be poured through muslin into a clean bowl: it will harden, and be fit for work again, until it assumes a leaden tint, which may take place after it has 198 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. been used two or three times. Fat in which fish has once been fried must be reserved afterwards for fish only, as it acquires a fishy taste. If you follow these rules closely, you ought never to fail to turn out nice fritters, provided, of course, that your batter be properly made. I cannot too strongly impress upon you the necessity of attention to this part of the work which so many cooks slur over carelessly. I have adopted as a standard batter in my own kitchen one re- commended by the “G. C.," whose advice I have so often quoted in these pages. Friends who have tried it at my recommendation have generally commended it. You must proceed in this way :- Beat up the yolks of three eggs with two table-spoonfuls of brandy, one table-spoonful of the best salad oil, and four or five table-spoonfuls of cold water. Incorporate with this mixture three table-spoonfuls of flour and a salt- spoonful of salt. The flour should be dry, and the best imported. Work this now, with care, to a smooth paste, and continue to beat it for at least ten minutes. If the batter appear too thick, add a little water until its consist- ency be satisfactory, i.e.:-it should cover the spoon when lifted out of it with a coating about the eighth of an inch thick. This stage having been reached, take the whites of the three eggs, and whip them to a stiff froth : stir this into your batter at the time of using. This recipe may be reduced for a small dish of fritters as follows :-two ordinary eggs, one table-spoonful of brandy, a dessert-spoonful of salad oil, two or three table- spoonfuls of water, and one and a half table-spoonful of flour. For sweet fritters, use sugar instead of salt. Another good batter is made thus :—Beat up equal parts of salad oil, and brandy,-say, a table-spoonful of each ; add the yolk of an egg, and incorporate with this, sufficient FRITTERS. 199 flour to make a thick paste, which you thin to the required consistency by the addition of water, reserving the whipped white of the egg to finish with. I have more than once alluded to “ beignets” in previous chapters, and receipts for several will be found amongst my menus. The kramousky* is, I think, the prince of all savoury fritters, and is susceptible of being composed in many delicious ways. The oyster, pounded shell fish, minced fish of any kind, sweet-breads (when you can get them) or any delicately composed mince of fowl, or of meat, with tongue or ham, can be thus turned to an artistic account. Whatever your salpicon, or minced composition, may be made of, the spécialités of the kramousky are the little jacket of fat bacon in which it is enveloped, and the batter in which it is dipped. The bacon should be previously cooked, and cut into thin slices, two and a half inches long, and one and a half deep : two oysters, or a heaped up tea-spoonful of any salpicon, should be laid in the centre of each : the bacon must then be folded over it very neatly, and kept ready for the dipping process, which must be carried out cautiously. The frying should be conducted as already described. If you wish to make kramouskys of chicken, turkey, or game, you should mince the meat coarsely, the pieces being cut like little dice, bind the mince with the yolks of a couple of eggs or more, according to the quantity of the mince, and stir into it, in a sauce-pan on the fire, a little richly made velouté ; let this get quite cold, and firm, then divide it into little portions and fill your bacon slices. Minced truffles, and mushrooms, are, of course, undeniable improvements to any salpicon. * Generally written' Kromesky,''or cromesqui.' I have adopted a different spelling having been assured by a friend whose authority is animpeachable that the dish is of Russian origin, and its name “Kra. mousky." 200 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. A fish kramousky is easily accomplished : you need only mince the fish, stir into it, in a sauce-pan on the fire, a few spoonfuls of well made white sauce, add a little season- ing, with the yolk of an egg when off the fire, and set it to cool. In like manner, tinned lobster, tinned oysters, and any tinned fish, can thus be successfully treated. In using them, however, it is necessary to wash, and drain them from the liquid of the tin. The sauce should be made very carefully, so that it may freshen up the fish as much as possible. An oyster, plainly dipped in the batter I have given you, and fried secundum artem, is perhaps as dainty a morsel as can be presented to the jaded appetite of an Anglo-Indian. Drain the oysters from their liquor in the tin, wipe them, and set them, en marinade all the day in a soup plate, with the juice of three limes, an onion sliced some whole peppers, and a few cloves ; turn them occasion- ally till they are wanted for the friture-pan. Oyster fritters thus treated, form an excellent garnish, and may be served with boiled or fried fish, or a dish of filets de bæuf. Here is a super-excellent idea of the “G. C.'s" :-Split each oyster open, almost as wide, comparatively speaking, as you do a kidney, and insert therein a little of the fol- lowing composition :-toss on the fire in butter, with pep- per, salt and a spoonful of rich brown sauce, a dessert- spoonful each of minced mushroom, shallot, and truffle ; thicken this with the yolks of two eggs, give it the juice of a lime, and let it get cold. After putting a small allow- ance of this in each oyster, shut the sides together, dip it in the batter, and fry immediately. I have already indicated the vegetables which make good fritters, and here repeat my high opinion of that method of treating them. FRITTERS. 201 Try this :-pound a dish of boiled prawns in a mortar with some butter, and weak gravy; when quite worked to a purée, incorporate it with the batter, and drop the mixture by dessert-spoonfuls at a time, into your friture-pan : let the fritters cook till they turn a rich golden colour, and are as crisp as biscuits, then drain, and serve them on a napkin, with crisply fried parsley. If you omit the prawn purée, and simply fry spoonfuls of the plain batter, you will have beignets, or (as Rama- sámy hath it) "pan-cake fritters," which may be either sent up as a savoury entremets, to be eaten with butter, pepper, and salt; or as a sweet one, when they must be dusted over with powdered sugar, and sprinkled with lime juice. In the latter case, a spoonful of brandy or liqueur shaken over the fritters improves their general effect. All fruit fritters can be cooked in the batter I have de- scribed. Peaches, apricots, pears, and apples make deli. cious fritters, the pine-apple is equally amenable to the fri- ture-pan; whilst oranges and our lowly plantain are not to be despised. For the four former fruits we must look to the tin; those that come to us from America are specially to be recommended. Pine-apples, when in season, can be procured in the market; if out of season, the American tinned slices are capital substitutes. Oranges can be used in their season, and the plantain is a perennial friend: Whatever fruit be chosen, let it be set en marinade in liquear, brandy, or rum. Delicate fruits require liqueur, the pine-apple is better associated with ram, the plantain and orange are thankful for either rum or brandy. A wineglass is enough. The fruit, sliced, and prepared for the “ beignet,” should be laid in a soup-plate, dustod over with sugar, and sprinkled with the brandy, or liqueur. After an hour, the slices should be turned oyer, basted again, and this should be repeated during the afternoon, until they are required by the cook, The brandy or 202 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. liqueur you use for the marinade should be mixed in the batter. Orange quarters and slices of ripe plantain may be used raw, but the slices of pine-apple must be stewed till tender. I cannot do better than wind up this chapter with a recipe for beignets soufflés : “Put about a pint of water in a sauce-pan with a pinch of salt, a piece of butter the size of an egg, a table-spoon- ful of sugar, and the rasped peel of three lemons—when the whole boils, throw in gradually sufficient flour to form a thick paste, then let it remain ten minutes, and work into it, off the fire, two eggs complete, and the yolks only of two more, the whites of which you reserye for whisk- ing to a froth : add the froth, let it rest awhile, and then proceed to fry by dropping pieces of it the size of a walnut into boiling fat. The paste will swell in the process of frying, and if the fat be sufficiently heated hollow balls of a fine golden colour will be produced. Serve them piled upon a dish, with a plentiful dusting of powdered white sugar.” (G. C.) In this country it will be better to use a few drops of lemon essence than the rasped peel of a lime; and any essence, such as vanilla, ratafia, almond, &c., may be ased as a change. If you omit the lemon and the sugar, and stir in with the flour a good allowance of finely grated Parmesan, you will achieve a "beignet soufflé au Parmesan,” a truly tooth- some savoury entremets ; and if you cook them plainly, without cheese, and only seasoned with pepper and salt, you will have a beignet which, when eaten with salt, pepper, mustard, and fresh butter, forms a savoury entremets not to be despised. ** CHAPTER XXI. Salads. IN an early chapter of these jottings, I observed that amongst the accessories of an artistic dinner, a good salad, though not entered in the menu perhaps, was still expected to be present. On the continent we find the salad handed to us, as a matter of course, with the “rôt.” “ Pullet au cresson,-salade" is, of course, a familiar item in the French menu. This custom is being fast adopted in England by those who are quick to mark that which their neighbours do well. There can be no doubt whatever that this method of dressing raw vegetables, if correctly done, is wholesome, and a singularly commend- able staple of diet for people who live in hot climates, There are ailments to which the Englishman seems to be especially prone, which are comparatively unknown by Spaniards and Italians with whom raw vegetables, and oil are daily food. A careful study then, of what we can do in India in this branch of cookery, is worthy of every man's attention. We all know that a salad demands two things :-its vegetable foundation, and its dressing, both of which may be a good deal varied. First, as regards the foundation of a salad. This may be composed of cooked, as well as of raw materials: the 204 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS.. vegetables principally employed being, lettuces (cabbage, and coss), endive, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, parsley, young radishes, garden-cress, and water-cress, in the latter condition; and in the former, beet-root, French beans, flageolets, potatoes, artichokes, cauliflower, turnip-tops, asparagus, cabbage, vegetable marrow, and young carrots. With cold cooked country vegetables, I have made capital salads ; young brinjals, the mollay-keeray, bandecai, coun- try beans, greens of sorts, and little pumpkins gathered very young, are all worthy of treatment in this way. Touching salad-dressing a great deal might be written, for concerning its composition cookery books seem to possess "a thousand several tongues,” and every tongue to bring in “a several tale.” Let us try and be con- tented, however, with a few standard ones, remembering that salads may be clothed. in simplicity, as well as in grandeur. True connoisseurs, I think, adhere, as a rule, to the very simplest : that is to say, the simplest as far as the compo- nent parts, and the process of mixing them, are concerned. The artist's hand and eye, and some little experience to boot are, of course, essential to acquire that nicety of judga ment of quantity which a plain dressing demands. It is, therefore, the hardest to describe. Let me lead off with one general law for every salad, of which English people are, collectively speaking, ignorant. It is this :- Abstain from the vinegar bottle as much as possible. You do not want an acid dish at all. Vinegar is merely added to lend a peculiar flavour to the composition, and to assist it with an almost imperceptible pungency. That most pernicious advice :- “Four times the spoon with oil of Lucca crown, And twice with vinegar procured from town" 206 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. This is the only dressing possible in the case of an endive (chicorée) salad ; for which it is essential that the bowl be rubbed with garlic. Very finely minced onion, curled parsley, and garden- cress may be sprinkled over the lettuce leaves after the oil has been worked into them, but for dinner parties per- haps the “ violet” had better be omitted (valuable as it is) or its absence supplied by a drop or two of shallot vinegar. And this leads me to aromatic vinegars, “without which," to use the outfitters favourite form of advertise- ment, “no salad-maker's equipment can be considered complete":- 1.–Tarragon Vinegar, 2.-Anchovy Vinegar, 3.-Shallot Vinegar, 4.-Elder Vinegar, 5.-Garlic Vinegar. These are all procurable at the shops of the leading preserved provision merchants at Madras, but the salad artist should make his own peculiar vinegars, and use them, according to judgment, to vary the too-often repeated flavours of ordinary compositions. Here are a few sugges- tions :- “ Fines herbes vinegar":-To half a pint of tarragon vinegar, add a table-spoonful of minced garden-cress, à table-spoonful of minced marjoram, a clove of garlic, two small green capsicums shred, and one minced shallot. Or:-To the same vinegar, add the finely-pared rind of three limes, a dozen cloves, a dozen pepper corns, and the same green herbs and onion. The bruised seed of garden-cress, celery, and parsley, in equal portions,-say a tea-spoonful of each, a clove of SALADS. 207 garlic, and two ordinary capsicums finely minced, make, when added to half a pint of tarragon vinegar, an invalu- able element of salad dressing. In speaking of capsicums, I only allude to the skin, not to the pith or seeds. A very few drops of the strongly flavoured vinegars I have described are, of course, ample to “animate the bowl.” A cook’s ingenuity will aid him in concocting other varieties easily enough. When made, cork your bottle down tightly, seal it with wax, and set it in the sun,-an operation which presents but little difficulty in this country. In a week or two, you may strain the liquid, and take it into use. An excellent salad is that made by slicing raw ripe tomatoes, with a Bombay onion. The dressing given should be like that recommended for lettuce, only that, your al- lowance of oil must be abundant; and, inasmuch as tomatoes are sweet, there may be a little freer use of the vinegar cruet. As in all salads, tarragon, or any aromatic vinegar, may be employed advantageously in this one, and minced fines herbes may be sprinkled over the whole. Strips of green capsicum harmonize most pleasantly with a tomato salad. This is obviously a dish for the sterner sex, and one which no man would partake of just before a ball, on his wedding day, or at all during the halcyon period which generally precedes that ceremony. O! why is our rose thus thornily encumbered ? Why was it ordained that man should never eat of the fragrant bulb without remem- bering it to his sorrow? I once heard an amateur cook say that the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden must have been an onion. “Hence,” said he, “the curse it carries with it, and hence the universal dislike with which it is regarded by the ladies.” But this man was a free thinker. 208 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. The other form of salad dressing is closely connected with mayonnaise sauce, and has many admirers. With some vegetable ingredients it undoubtedly works better than its plainer relative. In England, however, it is almost always spoilt by being overdosed with vinegar,-common, acid staff without any flavouring, -and in nearly every cookery book of the average capacity, you are told to mix oil and vinegar in equal parts, which I have already denounced. An old recipe called “Dr. Kitchener's salad mixture" embodies as many mistakes as could well be made in a dressing of this kind :-“two table-spoonfuls of oil, or melted butter (!) two or three table-spoonfuls of vinegar.” The “poet's recipe” already alluded to is equally faulty. In point of fact, the part played by the vinegar in these dressings is really so small as regards measurement that a fixed amount can scarcely be laid down. In proportion to the oil, one-sixth is to my mind the outside allotment that should be given. This is a good every-day salad mixture : Pat the very-hard boiled yolks of two eggs into a slop basin, with a tea-spoonful of powdered mustard, a scant salt-spoonful of salt, a pinch of sugar, and a tea-spoonful of minced shallot. Bruise these with a wooden or silver spoon, and work them to a paste with a little salad oil. Add oil by degrees till your paste is about the consistency of batter, then toss into it one by one the raw yolls of three eggs, continue the working, and add oil, till you have a nice rich sauce coating the spoon pretty thickly: you can now dole out a dessert-spoonful of tarragon or other aromatic vinegar, and mix it thoroughly with the other ingredients: the sauce will become creamy the moment it receives the vinegar. Taste your sauce by dipping a leaf of lettuce into a spoonful of it, and finish it off, as regards further addition of oil or vinegar, according to discretion. The eye, and the palate are your surest guides: no true SALADS. 209 salad-maker works by measure. As soon as you have got a creamy, well-flavoured sauce to suit your fancy, strain it through the little block tin strainer to get rid of every lump, and the little bits of onion. This should be done over the sauce-boat, which should be put into the ice box as soon as it is filled. If you want a thick sauce of this kind, lightly flip the oil with the raw eggs adding it by degrees, and the mixture will soon be stiff enough, especially if you put in another raw yolk. Use French mustard (moutard de maille) in preference to English. Never use Worcester sauce on any account whatever. N.B.-In all rich salad, or mayonnaise dressings, cream may be used instead of oil, or be added to a made sauce as a finishing touch. I recommend very strongly that the salad, nicely dressed in its bowl, and the icy-cold sauce in its boat, should be preserved separately, and handed round together. If you mix a salad of this kind before dinner, and let it soak, it deteriorates considerably before the time comes for its service. Cover up your nicely selected well dried lettuce leaves, &c., and they will be crisp, if handed round with their sauce following them, on the arrival of “the roast.” This advice holds good with mayonnaise. The meat or fish of which the dish may be composed becomes sodden, and dead, and the green accompaniments fall off in crispness if bathed in dressing. Besides, after the meal, a mixed mayonnaise or salad is wasted, whereas one with which the sauce was separately served may be turned to account. You have in the former case only to pick the meat out of the lettuce leaves, and place it on a separate dish. The plain salad I first mentioned must, of course, be mixed the very last thing before dinner, unless you can with the caves, &c., and thour nicely selected comes for 210 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. boldly rise from the table, and mix it yourself at the exact time that it is wanted. A salad of cold cooked vegetables (salade cuite) can be either served with plain, or rich dressing. For the finest of all see the recipe given elsewhere for salade Russe. Sliced potatoes, beetroot, French beans, and cucumber, go well together: while canliflower and cabbage, both kinds of artichokes, and asparagus points, are admirable with a plain sauce. SALADE 'A LA MA TANTE is a combination of good things which will commend itself at once to the appreciative reader:-Take six cold boiled or tinned fonds d'artichauts, fill their hollows with cold boiled or tinned pointes d'asperges, cover the surface with cold sliced truffles that have been stewed in champagne or Madeira, and smother each dressed fond with a rich mayonnaise dressing :-serve straight from the ice-box. This should, of course, be classed as an entremets. The country vegetables I have already alluded to are nice with ordinary salad sauce, or mayonnaise dressing. Choose very young brinjals, boil, and when cold, slice them ; bandecais may be plainly arranged in rows; young pumpkins must be sliced, and greens should be slightly boiled and drained. Strips of anchovies, well wiped from their tin oil, may be slipped into these salads with satis- factory results. The bandecai, Hind : bhindi, if gathered young and boiled till tender makes an excellent salad in this way :- arrange the bandecais on a flat dish placed over some crushed ice. With a dessert-knife slit each one open longitudinally ; in the slit put a fillet of anchovy, and over all, pour a little icod salad dressing. The young shoots or stalks of mollay, Hind. choolače, boiled, drained, and cut up, make, when cold, a capital SALADS. 211 salad : use a plain oil and vinegar dressing, and toss some chopped olives, onions, and a minced anchovy among the chopped stalks. Here is a noble recipe for a MAYONNAISE 'A LA GOUFFÉ for which I have to thank a fair, and most accomplished artiste now in Madras :- In an oval, or round cylinder-mould placed in ice, pour a very little well made liquid aspic jelly; as soon as it is all but set, dispose neatly therein a number of little balls of green butter, and prawn butter (q. v.) alternately, cover them with some more of the jelly, set them, and repeat the process in layers as it were until the mould is packed. You must ice the balls of butter before you put them in, and alternate them differently in each layer, so that the colours may be checkered. The mould can now be left in ice to consolidate thoroughly. When turned out, you can garnish it externally with balls of the same fancy butters, turned olives, strips of anchovy, and hard-boiled yolks of egg, and pack its hollow centre with the fish, or fowl, of which your mayonnaise is composed. Lettuce leaves culled from the golden heart should crown the centre, and be arranged with some whole boiled prawns in their shells round the margin of the dish outside the mould. The mould of jelly and its sauce should be kept in the ice box till the nick of time before serving, when (in this case) the latter should be poured over the contents in the centro of the mould. For aspic jelly, vide Menu, No. 9. My up-country readers have only to make their fancy butter from tinned lobster meat, instead of prawns, to turn out just as grand a mayonnaise as this. For fancy butters, please follow me in the next chapter. CHAPTER XXII, Hors d'auvres. TE must now consider those attractive accessories of an artistic dinner, luncheon, or breakfast party, which, under the title of hors d'oeuvres, are gradually becoming popular amongst English people whose minds have expanded under the beneficial influence of travel in foreign countries. Hors d'oeuvres, as you all doubtless know, are little dain- ties, or kickshaws, carefully prepared, and tastefully serv- ed, which, on the continent, are offered to the diner to whet his appetite prior to the more important discussion of the banquet itself. In Italy the service of these trifles under the title of " antipasto," precedes every meal as a standard custom. We have not yet acquired this agree- able fashion, notwithstanding that the sending around of three or four oysters to each guest, with a slice of brown bread and butter, &c., has for a long time, been no novelty either in England, or in Madras. Our custom, as a general rule, is to reserve the hors d'ouvres to accompany the cheese, and to advocate a change would, I fear, be lost labour on the part of the author of these jottings. As far as lan- cheon, and breakfast parties are concerned, however, surely we might adopt the Italian custom as a novelty, and watch its effect upon our friends, before passing an opinion upon the suitability of the introduction ? HORS D'EUVRES. 213 Unlike the greater part of our culinary labours, this pretty item of our menu need cost us but little trouble. We can obtain many excellent things wherewith to captivate the appetite, and we can make others which in their way are generally successful. Olives farcies, olives plain, ancho- vies in oil, sardines, sliced Bologna sausage, preservel tunny, lax, lobster, cod's roes, seer-fish roes, reindeer's tongues, ox tongue, devilled ham, potted meats, fancy butters, herrings à la sardine, pilchards in oil, caviare, oysters, pickles, cucumber, radishes, thin bread and butter, wafer biscuits, oaten biscuits, and last but not least“ Bom- bay ducks," provide us with a goodly list from which to choose our tasty morsels. Hors d'oeuvres should be served in a dish divided into compartments. Tongue, sausages, and ham, should be most delicately sliced. Preserved fish should be very carefully wiped free from all tin-oil, and re-dressed with the finest salad oil : if of a large kind, small portions should be cut to suit the dish. Potted meats should be fresh, home-made, and prettily shaped in a cone. Caviare should be turned out of the tin, and garnished with quarters of lime. Fancy butters must be iced, and served separately. Sardines can be greatly improved by being treated as “ Norwegian Anchovies.” Open a tin of the best sardines, take the fish out one by one, and place them on a dish. Wipe them free from oil, carefully pick off their skins and divide each sardine in half lengthwise. Give the fillets thus obtained a dusting of white pepper. Now, take an oval earthenware pot, see that it is dry and clean, slice a Bombay onion up, and put a layer of the rings at the bot- tom of the pot, with a cinnamon leaf, and a pepper corn or two. Arrange over this a layer of sardine fillets, and continue the process until the pot is filled, or the fillets are exhausted. Pour over the layers a marinade of oil and 214 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. vinegar (one spoonful of the latter to four of the former) and in a few hours the sardines may be eaten. Sometimes sardines are too soft to fillet; in that case be contented with skinning them only. Oysters, of course, are never sent round with the cheese. When they appear before dinner, send them ap in their shells, and be quick with their accompaniments. You sometimes see a hungry man polish off his bivalves before the lime, pepper, and bread and butter, have reached him. You can combat this contingency by breaking up the dishes containing these adjuncts into detachments, and serving them in two or three directions at once. But a far better plan is this. Before dinner is announced, put the plates of oysters with the slices of brown bread and butter upon them in each guest's place, and send your vinegar and pepper round as fast as you can after they are seated. In selecting your hors d'oeuvres to accompany the cheese try to avoid giving two fishy things on the same dish, thus :--do not give anchovies, and prawn butter together, or olives farcies and caviare ; but take, let us say, anchovy butter, devilled ham, and oat biscuit, or cream cheese, olives farcies, and wafer biscuit. Here are a few com- binations :- Anchovy fillets, watercress, butter, dry toast. Kippered seer fish, sliced tongue, oat biscuit. Herring à la sardine, potted tongue, dry biscuit. Cheese fingers, green butter, radishes. Cucumber, olives farcies, oat biscuit. Pilchards in oil, maître d'hôtel butter, pulled bread. The best cheese you can get, cut into dice, should accom- pany the above if served à l'Anglaise at that period of the dinner. r olives farçies a ham, and oat bis Here are a HORS D'EUVRES. 215 The garnishing of the compartments of the hors d'ouvres dish should be tastefully done with knots of curled parsley, curled cress, a little bunches of fresh water-cress. A single cold canapé, if very carefully composed, may be placed upon each guest's plate as a prelude to the dinner when oysters are out of season. Cut some thin slices of stale brown or white bread, butter them as for sandwiches, and cut out of them a number of oblong pieces two inches long, and one and a half broad. Make sandwiches as follows :-Upon one of the pieces put a fillet of anchovy cut into strips, with a thin slice of olive here and there to fill interstices; smooth the combination over with some pounded hard-boiled yolk of egg, dust over with yellow pepper, and cover with one of the pieces of bread. Gar- nish each sandwich thus made with a turned olive, or a sprig of water-cress. Or sprinkle over each à canopy of grated ham, granulated hard-boiled yolk of egg, or cod's roe. In like manner you can with a little forethought com- pose divers canapés, using caviare, sardines, fish-roe, green butter, strips of green capsicum, or of cucumber, and garnishing with tongue cut tastefully with a cutter, grated ham, or powdered hard-boiled yolk of egg. In making canapés, for service before dinner, care should be taken to keep them small. The dimensions I have given should not be exceeded and the bread should be cut thin. Home-made cream cheeses are not seen as often as they ought to be, and yet a child could make one, following any domestic cookery book recipe. There are few things more appreciated at the end of a dinner party than this most dain- ty little dish. A breakfast-cupful of pure cream will yield a pretty little cheese for a party of six. The method is simple enough. Mix a tea-spoonful of salt with a large 216 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. breakfast-cupful of rich cream, stir it well, and then pour the cream into a slop basin in which a clean piece of soft linen has been laid. When the cream has been thus turned into the cloth, draw the ends of the cloth together, holding the cream as it were in a bag, tie it tightly with string, and hang the bag in a cool place to drip; when the drip- ping of moisture from the bag ceases, the cheese is ready : take the bag down, turn the contents out into a clean cloth, mould it into a circular form, or shape it in a neat square, and serve it on a dish garnished with green leaves. Let it stand in the ice-box till wanted. A day will be found sufficient for the making of this kind of cheese in warm weather and about forty-eight hours on the Hills. Use a porous sort of cloth for the operation, so as to encourage the escape of the whey from the cheese. It is sometimes advisable to change the cloth during the draining process. Fancy butters have of late become justly popular. There are many ways of making them. The objects you must keep in view when composing a fancy butter, may be thus summed up :-a pleasant flavour, a pretty tint, and novelty. To secure the first it is imperatively necessary that the basis apon which you work be beyond suspicion. The butter you use must be the best possible. If, there- fore, you cannot make it at home from cream you have set under your own eye, I strongly advise you to use that of a freshly opened “ Denmark” tin. You must wash the butter well with milk, and form it with your butter-bat, setting it in ice afterwards. The colouring is clap-trap work : you can get a nice green tint from “ spinach greening,” and a pretty orange scarlet from crab, or tinned lobster coral. Novelty rests with yourself: you can ring the changes upon pounded anchovies, sardines, soft herring roes, lobster, prawns, crab, and pilchards : you can use capers, parsley, water-cress, garden-cress, gherkins, and olives. By the judicious selection of your ingredients, all HORS D'EUVRES. 217 of which are agreeable in fancy butter, you will avoid sameness, and secure success. This is my recipe for a stock“ green-butter":-- 1.-Weigh a quarter of a pound of butter such as I have described, and ice it. 2.—Boil a couple of good handfuls of spinach, drain them thoroughly, pass the leaves through the hair sieve, and save all the pulp, so obtained, in a bowl. 3.—Take six full sized anchovies from the tin, wipe them free from oil, pick out their baek bones, pass them through the hair sieve, and save the pulp. 4.–Mince as finely as possible sufficient carled parsley to fill a table-spoon generously. 5.-Mince also as finely as possible capers sufficient to fill a tea-spoon, heaped up. 6.—Having these ingredients ready, first colour the butter by working into it, as lightly as you can, enough “spinach-greening" to secure the tint you require (it is always wise to order a little more spinach than you think you may want, to be on the safe side) then add the other things by degrees, and when thoroughly incorporated, trim the batter into a tasteful mould, or sundry pretty patlets, and set it in the ice-box. Maître d'hôtel butter I have already given (page 82.) It is quite worthy of a place amongst hors d'auvres. Prawn butter,-a highly delicious composition, should be made in this way :-Boil the prawns, clean them care- fully, pound them to a paste in your mortar, mixing a little butter with them to assist the operation. Now, melt some butter in a sauce-pan, mix your pounded prawn meat in it, and as soon as it appears to have absorbed the butter (having been well stirred during the process and flavoured with a very little cayenne pepper, and powdered mace) 19 218 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. take it out, let it get cold and mix it with your iced butter in the proportion of about half and half. The pounding must be thorough; there should be no granulated particles of prawn meat in the butter. Crab-coral butter, and lobster butter may be made ex- actly as the foregoing : in the case of the former, I would put in a couple of anchovies, as the coral is rather taste- less; and in that of the latter, I would wash the lobster clean, getting rid of all oily, tinny juices. To do this, turn the contents of tin out upon a sieve, with a bowl un- der it to catch the liquor ; when the lobster meat drips no longer, pour over it a good jugful of clean cold water turning the pieces so that they may all come under the stream, then dry and pound it. Hard-boiled yolks of eggs may be passed through the sieve, and be made to form a part of any fancy butter; they tint plain butter yellow, and make a tasty pat if fla- voured with soft herring roes, or cod's roes, peppered, and sharpened with a few capers. Fish that is very salt must, of course, be soaked in water before it can be used : anchovies in oil do not need that treatment. Gorgona anchovies, on the other hand, must be freed from brine by steeping. Home-made potted meats, if carefully made, so far sur- pass those which you get in tins, that I can hardly under- stand why they are so rarely attempted. Really good butter, and a very little pure gravy, attentively extracted from some fresh meat and bones, are the chief corner- stones in such compositions. Ramasamy invariably over- spices his potted meat, cooks it over the fire in some strange way, and the less we enquire into the class of butter he uses the better. Potted prawns should be made precisely as laid down for prawn butter, omitting the final amalgamation with HORS D'EUVRES. 219 batter. I will select home-made potted tongue as a trust- worthy method of using up meat advantageously :- Take one pound weight of tongue, home-cured, (do not hesitate to pay eight or ten annas for it when fresh: the sum will not ruin you, and you will get you money's worth) four ounces of the best butter, a salt-spoonful of pounded mace, a coffee-cup of beef gravy, a tea-spoonful of “ spiced pepper” (q. v. page 111), and work them in this manner :-cut off the hard skin of the tongue, and pass the meat through your mincing machine : after that, pound it thoroughly in your mortar, adding the butter and gravy during the operation : press the meat through your wire-sieve to get rid of gristle, and lumps, work the spiced pepper and mace into it, and pat it down tightly in a jar: smooth the surface: melt a table-spoonful of the same sort of butter in a sauce-pan, and pour it over the surface ; let it get cold, and the work will be completed. This receipt is practicable, as to quantities, with cold corned beef, chicken and tongue (half and half), cold roast beef, and even mutton. Roast-beef, and mutton, require about three anchovies to the pound, as they have not the flavour of salted meat. Potted snipe, hare, partridges, &c., are excellent. Don't forget the livers when you are potting birds, and turn back to page 70 for my recipe for" foie gras forcemeat,” a little of which will encourage your game pâté exceedingly. If you happen to have any spare atoms of truffles handy, slip them into the potted meat, and no man will blame you. “Mock-crab” is the name given to a very good hors d'oeuvre in which cheese plays a prominent part; it is made in this way :-a quarter of a pound of prawn meat, two ounces of good fresh cheese, a tea-spoonful of mustard powder, a dessert-spoonful of salad oil, a dessert-spoonful 220 CULINARY FÓTTINGS FOR MADRAS. of “anchovy vinegar," and a liberal dusting of spiced pepper. Pound everything (omitting the prawns) and work the mixture till it looks like a very thick mayonnaise sauce, adding oil if necessary to obtain that result: when ready, mingle it with the prawn meat, pounded, &c., as in the former receipt, and trim it into a shapely little mould for serving. Even without any prawn meat a very good mock-crab can be made: a table-spoonful of anchovy sauce supplies the fishy flavour. “Pulled bread" accompanies the cheese in the place of biscuits. You can make it easily enough, if you bake at home, as follows :- Make a pound loaf, and when the bread is all but done, take it from the oven, tear the crumb from the inside with a fork in irregular pieces, place them on a buttered baking tin and crisp them in the oven. Use coarse grained oatmeal for your oat biscuits, and send them up piping hot from the griddle. As a general rule the oat cake made in India is far too thin: the paste should be rolled at least a quarter of an inch thick before being cut into cakes. “Cheese fingers” should be made in these proportions - a quarter of a pound of puff paste, a pinch of salt, two ounces of grated Parmesan, or other mild cheese, and a very little cayenne, Nepaul pepper, or a few drops of "tabasco." Work the ingredients together, roll the paste out about half an inch thick, cut it into oblong shapes, about three inches long, bake and serve as hot as possible, on a napkin. “Devilled ham" is sold in tins, it is as good a thing as can be got at a pinch, if you have no time to make a hors d'ouvre at home. It is not as hot as its name would lead you to suppose : it is merely potted ham well peppered. Buy your “Bombay ducks” in tins from Treacher and Co., of that city. I discovered this in Piccadilly of all HORS D'EUVRES. 221 places in the world. Jackson and Co. import the “ducks” from Bombay neatly flattened out, floured, and packed in oblong tins. When you remember the number of hands through which the bazár-bought fish passes, the flies that have settled upon it, and the impossibility of washing dried fish, you will, I hope, agree with me that my recom- mendation is absolutely philanthropical. If desirous of obtaining the best potted meat in the market, buy Brand’s. CHAPTER XXIII. Savoury Toasts. O dish is more thoroughly useful, or more generally W popular, than the savoury toast. It is a kind of thing that can frequently be made at a pinch, when the larder is all but empty, and a hungry friend drops in unexpectedly. A dainty feeder will sometimes fancy it when he will scarcely look at anything in the way of food. If well made, it serves as a finish to a little home dinner, and it is equally acceptable at breakfast, luncheon, or supper. In its composition tasty scraps of all kinds can be used up successfully, without any great effort on the part of the cook, or loss of time. In common with almost every branch of cookery, this offshoot of the science is susceptible of elaborate, as well as of simple treatment; and may be fashioned to obey the dictates of extravagance as well as those of the strictest economy. Yet, generally speaking, savoury toasts of an ordinary kind ought to be favourably regarded by all thrifty house-keepers, inasmuch as they afford an easy and pleasant way of working up fragments of good food that might otherwise be wasted. The rules of toast-making are few, and very simple :- 1.-Unless specially stated to the contrary in the recipe, the slice of bread destined to receive any savoury compo- sition should be delicately fried in butter till of a golden colour, rather than toasted in the ordinary manner. If SAVOURY TOASTS. 223 kept waiting at all, ordinarily toasted bread becomes spongy or sodden, and soon loses its crispness. The easy process of toasting too, is frequently slurred over carelessly, and the bread is scorched, not toasted. If you watch a native servant in the act of toasting, you will generally find that he places the slice of bread as close to the glowing embers as possible. Setting aside the risk that the bread thus incurs of catching a taint of gas from the live char- coal, it cannot be evenly and delicately browned, neither can it attain that thorough crispness which is a sine quâ non in properly made toast. The slice of bread must be kept some little distance from the clear embers, being gradually heated through, crisped, and lightly and evenly browned by degrees. But, as I said before, bread fried in good butter is better, with a very few exceptions, than toasted bread for the sort of dishes we are going to discuss. 2.-A Savoury toast is not worth serving unless it be piping hot: it may be kept hot in the oven, to be sure, but it is never so good as when set before the hungry guest the moment it has been completed. In order to ensure this • slickness' (to borrow a trans-Atlantic term) let the cook be warned to have everything ready, but not actually to finish off the making of his toast till it is wanted. It is better to keep the table waiting for three or four minutes for a bonne-bouche, than to serve immediately such a miser- able fiasco as a cold toast. The next thing to consider is the composition of a savoury toast, which I will endeavour to describe in a series of recipes. Let us commence with our time-honoured friend :- ANCHOVY TOAST. If you have a tin of anchovies in oil, the process is this :-Take six anchovies, wipe them free from oil, split them open, remove the spines, and pass the fish through your hair sieve: put the pulp in a bowl, and stir into it the yolks of two raw eggs. Cut four nice 224 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. rounds or slices of bread, and fry them in butter till of a bright golden tint; arrange them on a very hot silver dish, and cover them up. Now, melt a table-spoonful of butter at the bottom of a sauce-pan which should be dipped into a bain-marie or any vessel containing boiling water; stir into the melted butter the anchovy pulp mixture, let it thicken and when quite hot, pour it over the four toasts, and send the dish up immediately. Or,-(to be made at the table, with anchovy sauce) choose a very hot plate indeed, put a lamp of butter upon it, and let the butter melt; add the yolks only of two raw eggs well beaten, and stir into the mixture sufficient anchovy sauce to colour it a pale salmon pink-(if you put in enough to obtain a darker shade, it will be too salt)— add a dessert-spoonful of sherry and mix it well. Whilst doing this, a servant should, in this instance, be toasting slices of bread in the verandah hard by, and each slice should be brought in hot from the fire, turned over on both sides in the mixture, and passed round at once, one after another. A toast that has been well soaked in a sauce like this, and crisped in the oven afterwards, is far from bad. Anchovy toasts are sometimes sent up with tasty top- dressings, such as poached eggs, buttered eggs, and this sauce :-Beat up the yolks of four eggs, and pour them by degrees into a small sauce-pan in which two ounces of butter have been melted over a very moderate fire, or in the bain-marie : add two table-spoonfuls of cream and a tea-spoonful of vinegar, continue to stir the sauce gently till it thickens nicely, and pour it over your anchovy toasts. This sance should be carefully watched, for if permitted to approach boiling, it will curdle and become lumpy; what you want is a very thick, creamy-looking custard. Purées of certain vegetables are very nice as top-dress- SAVOURY TOASTS. 225 ings for anchovy toasts ; especially those of spinach, beet- root leaves, peas, or any delicate greens. A number of nice toasts can be made with eggs; from the plainly poached egg served upon a little square of bread fried a golden brown in butter, to the delicate “ rôtiés des oeufs brouillés aux truffes.” BUTTERED EGGS (oufs brouillés) are undeniably good if served quite simply, upon crisply fried bread, straight from the fire. Grated ham, finely minced tongue, and little dice of crisply fried bacon, are capital, if at hand, to garnish the surface of the eggs with; and chopped herbs, anchovy, or the minced remnants of any fish like sardines, pilchards, or herrings, may be stirred into the eggs just before serving with marked advantage. Cold cooked vegetables, such as cauliflower, artichokes, aspara- gus, &c., may be cut up and mixed with the eggs in the same way,-in fact, a moment's thought will generally enable a careful cook to make his buttered egg toasts ad- ditionally tasty by the introduction of some nice trifle left from a previous meal, which could scarcely be made use of in any other manner. HARD-BOILED EGGS make a very eatable toast in this way:-Grate a coffee-cupful of corned beef, bacon-lean, or ham ; cut four hard-boiled eggs into eight pieces each ; mix a good sauce blanche rather thickly, flavour it with a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, and slip into it, so as to get thoroughly hot, the cut up eggs; when steaming, pour the contents of your sauce-pan over four nicely fried squares of bread, dust the grated beef over their surfaces and serye at once. The happy owners of dairies to whom cream is not an . extraordinary luxury should try :- “ Rôtiés des eufs à la crème," which are simply poached 226 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. eggs served upon crisply fried toasts, with thick boiling cream poured over them. WOODCOCK TOAST is one of the most recherché of all savoury entremets of this class. Numerous recipes are given for it, and its name is distorted by many writers upon cookery, some of whom present it to their readers under the meaningless title of “Scotch-Woodcock.” In its un- pretending form this toast is exceedingly like one I have already given, viz. :-a better kind of anchovy toast with an egg-cream custard top-dressing, but real“ Woodcock- toast” should be composed as follows: Take two freshly boiled fowl's livers,—[those of a goose, a turkey, or a couple of ducks, are better still, while the remains of a pâté de foie gras are superlatively the best]- pound the liver to a paste, mixing with it a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce, or the flesh of one fish pounded, a pinch of sugar, plenty of fresh butter, and the yolk of one raw egg; dust into it a little spiced pepper, pass it through the sieve, and set it aside on a clean plate. Prepare four squares of golden-tinted, crisply-fried, bread, about half an inch thick, spread the liver paste over them and set them in a moderate oven to retain their heat, but not to burn. Now, pour a coffee-cupful of good cream into a sauce-pan, which must either be dipped into a bain-marie, or placed over a very low fire indeed; stir into it, as it warms, the carefully strained yolks of two raw eggs, continue stirring one way till the cream thickens nicely and is quite hot (without boiling) and pour it over your toasts: the egg whites (whisked by an assistant to a stiff froth whilst you were heating and thickening the cream) should be laid on the top of all, and the dish sent up without delay. · Or the preparation may be slightly varied as follows :- Fry the toasts, butter them, and set them in a mode- rate oven to keep hot. When heating the cream, stir into SAVOURľ TOASTS. 227 it the liver-puste as well as the raw yolks of two eggs, and pour it over the toasts as soon as it is quite hot, and thickened sufficiently, capping your dish with the whisked whites. KIDNEY TOAST is generally far from being considered a very dainty one. Let me suggest two methods, one with the kidneys au naturel, the other made with those which you can cut out of a cold roast saddle :- (a)~Take four ordinary kidneys, and blanch them first of all in scalding water (as recommended in Menu No. 23) then lift them out, and dry them in a cloth. Make a strong broth or gravy out of any bones or scraps you may have, and stew the kidneys therein till they are nice and tender, then take them out, drain them, and pour the gravy in which they were cooked into a bowl. Now, cut up and pound the kidneys to a paste in your mortar with some butter, and pass it through your sieve. When ready, skim any grease that may have risen to the top of your gravy, and take a medium-sized sauce-pan, working as follows :-Melt a dessert-spoonful of butter at the bottom of the sauce-pan, stir into it a dessert-spoonful of flour, when creamy, add by degrees a breakfast-cupful of the gravy and lastly, kidney-paste until all is expended : flavour the purée, with one table-spoonful port wine, one tea-spoonful red currant jelly, one dessert-spoonful anchovy vinegar, and a few drops of chilli vinegar. Let the contents of your sauce-pan thicken properly by coming to the boil, and then pour the purée over four squares of hot fried toast. Let there be no delay in serving. If made exactly in this way, this toast will be found an excellent one. (6)–Cut the kidneys out of the cold saddle, together with all the fat belonging to them; chop up as much fat as there is of kidney meat for the toast, and throw the remaining fat, freed from all burnt skin, &c., into your 228 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. frying-pan : now, fry in the melted fat a large round of bread till it turns a golden yellow, and has sucked up a good deal of the fat. Take it out, place it on a flat silver dish, cover its surface with the chopped pieces of kidney and the fat that you saved, pour the remaining melted fat over it, divide it into portions, and put it in the oven. When quite crisp, and 'short,' serve straightway without fear. Mustard, Nepaul pepper, and salt, should accom- pany, and hot plates should be placed before each guest. Savoury toast made of the remains of cold roast GAME are delicious. Teal, wild-duck, snipe, quails, and florican; young pea-fowl, spur-fowl, jungle-fowl, and even par- tridges, may be thus presented a second time, forming a kind of réchauffé which rarely fails to be appreciated. The method of preparing a game-toast is somewhat similar to that I have described for “ kidney toast” (a). The cold meat should be picked from the bones, and pounded with a little butter to a paste : the skin and bones (well mashed) should be set to make a good, strong, game-flavoured gravy wherewith to form a thick purée in conjunction with the pounded meat, the process of blending which is precisely the same as that mentioned in the recipe pre- viously alluded to. Pour the purée over hot fried toasts, and serve without hesitation. All purées of game composed for toasts should be mixed rather thickly so as to rest upon the toast, and not spread all over the dish. Nepaul pepper, and quarters of limes, should be handed round with them. I have already said that SPINACH, and other delicate greens—worked up in the form of purées-were very nice if served upon anchovy toast. They make capital toasts alone. A well made purée of spinach laid upon a crisply fried, and well buttered toast, is decidedly good; a poach- SAVOURY TOASTS. 229 ed egg, or a layer of “buttered eggs,” can be added, of course, with additional effect. An excellent toast can be made with the tender leaves and stalks of the BEETROOT. After having been boiled and drained like spinach, they should be chopped up and heated in a sauce-pan with some butter, salt and pepper, and spread upon hot fried toast with as little delay as possible. Country greens, the leaves of the mollay-keeray especially, and (with slight modification according to their peculiarities) nearly all vegetables can be dressed in this manner. VEGETABLE MARROWS and CUCUMBERS should be trimmed in neat fillets, their seeds should be cut out, and the pieces thus prepared should be boiled in hot salted water. These may be warmed again in a good sauce blanche or a nice thick brown sauce, laid upon toasts, and sent up. Or they may be heated up in boiling cream, and similarly served. The points of asparagus, cauliflower flowers, artichoke bottoms, and similar dainty vegetables, form admirable materials for toasts : they deserve delicate treatment, and can well bear association with thickened cream, velouté au Parmesan, or crème d'anchois. BANDE-CAI (bhindi) roast is so well known that I need scarcely do more than mention it, out of respect as it were, for, homely as it is, there are few toasts more palatable. Cream, when it can be spared is, of course, a vast improve- ment, and the following variation will be found nice for a change :-Boil the bande-cais, and, when cold, scrape out the seeds and pulp from each pod into a small basin, using a silver spoon for the operation. Give the pulp a dusting of white pepper, and salt to taste, with a few drops of anchovy sauce. Fry rounds, or slices of bread, according to the number you want, in butter, and set them to keep crisp, and hot in the oven. Now, take a small sauce-pan, 20 230 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. place it in the bain-marie, or over a very moderate fire, melt a dessert-spoonful of butter in it, stir into it the bande- cai pulp, and two good table-spoonfuls of cream with the yolk of one egg. Continue stirring one way until the contents of your sauce-pan look nice and thick, and steam- ing hot; then pour the mixture over the toasts, and serve, A dust of grated Parmesan cheese should be shaken over the surface of the toasts as an embellishment, and Nepaul pepper should be handed round. Very young BRINJALS (binegun) may be treated exactly in the same manner as the foregoing, as also the pods of the moringa (“drum-stick”) tree. Be sure that you select tender pods for toast-making, or the result will disappoint you. A very superior dish of this kind can be concocted if you happen to be able to obtain the flower-pod of a cocoa- nut palm. Treat the buds of the embryo flower which the pod contains as laid down for bande-cai; that is to say, boil the flower, after you have cut it out of the pod, in salt and water till tender, then cut off the buds, and heat them up in a sauce-pan in thickened cream, or in milk thickened with the yolks of two eggs, pour them over hot fried toasts, which should be sent up immediately. The white stalks of the flower, if quite young, can be served exactly like asparagus, i. e.:-boiled, laid in a very hot dish, with plenty of butter melting over them, or maître d'hôtel butter if at hand, and assisted by “Dutch sauce.” No toast is needed in this case. The cocoanat flower-pods can be obtained now and then at Madras, for the toddy-drawers cut them off when tapping the palms for sap. I can strongly recommend my readers to try both the dishes I have mentioned. SARDINE TOAST, HERRING TOAST, COD'S-ROE TOAST, PIL- CHARD TOAST, SALMON TOAST, &c., &c., are all nice, and SAVOURY TOASTS. 231 very easily made. Trim the fish free from oil, skin, fins, bones, &c., and chop it up on a plate, give it a dust of Nepaul pepper, with a very little salt, and knead it up with a little butter. Put a pat of butter at the bottom of à sauce-pan, proceed as if to make a sauce blanche with a little milk, incorporate therewith the minced fish, add the yolk of an egg, and when thick enough and thoroughly hot, pour it upon slices of fried toast hot from the pan, and dish up quickly. The cold remains of all fish may be thus satisfactorily disposed of. “Buttered eggs” go won- derfully well with fish toasts, either laid as a top-dressing over the fish mince, or mingled with it; and hard-boiled eggs may be cat up, and tossed with the fish in the sauce- pan just before serving. Cheese is another valuable ingredient in the hands of the toast-maker. WELSH RAREBIT, or “RAMAKIN TOAST" as it is called by Ramasámy, is universally familiar to native cooks, and is a dish apon which they generally fall back in an emergency, or when “Missis din't give arders” for any anything else. For a really good WELSH RAREBIT, you should have a sound fresh cheese, not over- strong, and proceed thus :-Grate two ounces of the cheese, mix with it an ounce of butter, a dessert-spoonful of made- mustard, a little salt, a pinch of Nepaul pepper, and the yolks of two eggs. Mix well together in a basin, and work the mixture thoroughly smooth. Toast a couple of neat slices of bread very carefully, butter them on both sides, place them on a dish that will stand the oven, spread the cheese mixture over them pretty thickly, and bake for ten minutes. If you want a smooth yellow surface, neither too brown nor dry, place your toasts in a buttered pie-dish, and spread a sheet of common white paper over them : after ten minutes baking in a really hot oven, they will be ready, so remove the paper and serve forthwith. A good plain CHEESE TOAST, made as follows, is not to 232 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. be despised :-Cut a few very thin slices of a nice fresh cheese, or grate two ounces of a hard dry one: put the cheese upon a small well buttered baking tin, and place it in the oven ; watch it carefully, and when it begins to dissolve, stir some butter into it, give it a dust of Nepaul pepper, and serve it upon crisply fried toasts quickly. To make a very toothsome cheese toast in the dining room I have found the following method successful. Take two table-spoonfuls of grated cheese, and mingle with it a des- sert-spoonful of mustard powder, a pinch of salt and dust of Nepaul pepper. Light a spirit lamp, and, in a little frying-pan placed over it, melt a dessert-spoonful of butter (tinned butter does capitally) ; when melted, shake evenly over the butter the powdered cheese, and stir well. As soon as the cheese looks creamy, stop, and pour it over some hot buttered toast brought in on the instant from the verandah. MOCK CRAB TOAST.—This variety of Welsh rarebit is generally popular. Pound two ounces of cheese with a dessert-spoonful of anchovy sauce, a dessert-spoonful of made-mustard, and one of vinegar, a pinch of Nepaul pep- per, and a little salt, the yolks of two eggs, and a table- spoonful of butter. Mix thoroughly in a basin, and pro- ceed as directed for Welsh rarebit. A toast that might correctly bear the name of “RAME- QUIN” is to be composed as follows:-Make the mixture exactly as laid down for “ Ramequins en caisses,” Chapter 24, and put it upon very carefully fried toasts, which should be arranged upon a silver dish, and baked for ten minutes, or until the cheese dressings on the toasts rise in the manner of fondues. If served at the nick of time, these little toasts will be found very good. Never use a rich ripe cheese, or one that is beginning to show the lovely tins of honorable age, in cookery. A SAVOURY TOASTS. 233 little mildew from damp in your bottle of grated Par- mesan, remember, will ruin any dish in which it may be used afterwards. Choose a good, fresh, hard, dry cheese, of a mild family, for toasts, &c. : between ourselves, indeed, I know of no more useful domestic sort than the round Dutch. It is a cheap cheese, and inclined to be saltish in taste, but that is of no consequence in cookery; all you have to do is to omit the item of salt mentioned in the recipe you may have selected. “Dutch cheese' grates easily, and is rarely inclined to mouldiness. Next to Par- mesan, I would sooner use it than any of the other com- monly imported kinds. I may have omitted a few good toasts in this chapter, I hope, however, that I have given several that will prove acceptable. CHAPTER XXIV. Eggs, Maccaroni, and Cheese. 'NDER the title which I have selected for this chap- yg ter, I propose to place before you a few dishes of a savoury nature, some of which will be found, I think, suitable for the breakfast, or luncheon table, and some of them worthy of a place as entremets in the choicest of dinner menus. Although many people must be aware that there are numerous ways of cooking eggs nicely, why is it that so few attempt to go beyond the ordinary methods which have obtained in English kitchens since good King Arthur ruled the land ? It is the same with maccaroni: how rare a thing it is to see that most invaluable article of food dressed otherwise than in the time-honoured baking-dish. And, in the many uses of cheese, what ignorance we betray! Whether taken independently, and made the most of alone, or combined together, and treated in some artistic fashion, we possess in these three things the ele- ments of certain dainty dishes which, in their way, are excellent. Singularly adapted to the climate in which we spend our exile, and inexpensive, they are at the same time invested with a certain amount of refinement that to many people is no slight recommendation. The accessories which are more or less necessary in this branch of cookery are:-good butter, cream occasionally, EGGS, MACCARONI, AND CHEESE. 235 a little clear gravy, herbs and onion as used for omelette making, the tomato, cold vegetables, and carefully sifted bread-crumbs. The remains of fish, game, and poultry; grated ham, corned beef, and tongue, and slices of saus- ages, may be also occasionally made use of by an ingenious cook. Let us first consider a few ways of serving eggs :- “Eufs sur le plat":—This simple, yet capital method of doing eggs in a hurry, should be noted. Melt a table- spoonful of butter in an omelette-pan, and slip two eggs into it, carefully avoiding breaking the yolks ; let them set in the butter, as a poached egg sets in water; the moment they are sufficiently firm, let them slide off into the hot dish ready to receive them, pouring the butter in which they were cooked over them. Put in the eggs the moment the batter melts ; for, when first they go in, the pan should not be too hot: a drop or two of tarragon vinegar may be shaken over the dished eggs, or a tiny bit of maître d'hôtel butter the size of a pea may be allowed to melt over each of them. If after dishing the eggs, you return the pan to the fire, and brown the butter before pouring it over them, you have "oufs au beurre noir.” Eggs broken gently over very thin shavings of cheese, (which have been placed in melted butter in an omelette- pan over the fire) and allowed to set, are called “oeufs au fromage”: they should be dusted with pepper, and salt before serving. I have frequently mentioned “buttered-eggs”* in con- nection with fish, vegetable cookery, and toasts. By some, the dish is called "scrambled eggs,” which is perhaps the more accurate title, being a translation of the French “ oeufs brouillés,” the name given to it by our “lively neighbours.” Do not forget the many ways in which you may serve this composition, and proceed to make it thus :- * The "rumbled eggs” of Ramasámy. 236 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Break three eggs into a bowl with a salt-spoonful of salt, a table-spoonful of cream or of milk, and a dust of pepper : mix them well: melt a piece of butter the size of an egg in your omelette-pan : pour in your mixture, stir it about unceasingly until it is lightly set, and turn it out. Tomato pulp may be mixed with the eggs, and any nice meat such as ham, tongue, corned beef, game, &c., may be minced up, and added to them. The cream is by no means necessary, neither is the milk, but with the poor eggs of the Indian fowl, I think the assistance they give is very perceptible. By adding grated cheese you have “cufs brouillés au fromage :" "asparagus peas,” and truffles are also grand additions recommended by Gouffé. People who do not dislike the flavour of the onion will find their “buttered eggs” improved if a few thin slices of white onion be fried in the butter before the egg mixture is poured into it. Remember that aufs brouillés are served in France in the same way as an omelette, i.e., spread upon a hot dish alone or above a purée of vegetable. Many people think that the composition should be associated with toast, and nothing else. “Eufs au jus":-Suppose that you have a nice break- fast-cupful of gravy saved from the joint which was served at last night's dinner. Choose a little pie-dish, and pour some of the gravy into it, so as to cover the bottom well; flavour it with a little minced shallot, or any sweet herb, set it in the oven, and when it is hot, break into it as many eggs as will fill the dish nicely without crowding; shake some bread-crumbs over the eggs, and some little pieces of minced anchovy, or the remains of any cold fish; return the dish to the oven for three or four minutes, so that its contents may partly set; then pour the rest of the gravy evenly over the surface, add another layer of fine EGGS, MACCARONI, AND CHEESE. 237 crumbs, and bake for five or six minutes. Be careful not to let the eggs harden, “ Eufs à la Suisse”:-Choose a shallow pie-dish, and butter it liberally. Pour over the bottom of the dish a layer of cream a quarter of an inch deep, over that shake a coating of well grated cheese a quarter of an inch deep : if wide enough to hold them without crowding, slip in one by one as carefully as you can,--to avoid breaking a single yolk,-six eggs; give them a dust of black pepper, and salt, and gently pour a little more cream over the surface, coating it over again with grated cheese. Let the dish remain in the oven until the eggs are set without being hard,—the time will depend upon the state of the oven, -- brown the surface by passing a red hot iron backwards and forwards over it, about an inch above the cheese, and serve. The cream should be really thick and rich, or the effect of the little entremets will be “poor indeed.” This dish may be added to by first placing a layer of previously boiled maccaroni in the pie-dish, the cream being poured over it, then the cheese, and so on. “Eufs au gratin :-Butter the bottom of a pie-dish previously well rubbed with shallot, and line it with some maccaroni already boiled in milk, pour round it half a pint of sauce blonde in which you have dissolved some grated Parmesan, or other mild well-rasped cheese, and upon that dispose a complete layer of hard-boiled eggs, sliced. A finely minced anchovy should be sprinkled over the eggs with pepper and salt or, better still, with a judicious dress- ing of "spiced salt” (q. V., page 111) for seasoning; and then a nice coating of bread-crumbs, and grated cheese mixed in equal proportions : drop a number of little bits of butter the size of a pea over the surface, and bake the dish till the top takes a golden brown tint. Slices of tomato, drained of their watery juice, and with their seeds picked out, may be laid upon the egg, or thin slices of 21 238 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. Bologna sausage ; and mushrooms, or truffle trimmings, may be chopped up, and sprinkled over them : there is obviously ample scope for culinary ingenuity in the enrich- ment of “ @ufs au gratin.” “ Eufs farcis” :-Boil six eggs for half an hour, take them out, and plunge them into cold water. When quite cold, peel off their shells, and, with a dessert-knife rubbed in butter, divide each egg in half, slicing a little piece of the rounded ends to admit of each half sitting upright upon a dish : now pick out the yolks, pound them with butter in a mortar, and proceed to dress them with any tasty trifles at your command, season the composition deli- cately, and fill the egg cases therewith, trimming the farce neatly, with a dessert-knife dipped in melted butter, in a convex-shape over each case,-for there will be more than enough mixture to merely fill each cavity. For the farce, you can use finely minced olives, capers, anchovies, mush- rooms, and truffles ; very finely grated ham, the braised liver of a chicken, the remains of a páté de foie gras, or a little sausage meat. A judicious selection of two or three of these ingredients, seasoned with “spiced pepper” is what you require, --say, one tea-spoonful of mixed farce to each half yolk. Having dressed your cases to your mind, fry a little square of bread for each one, as for canapés (q. v.) and place them thereon : arrange them on a flat silver dish slightly buttered, pour a little melted butter over each egg, and bake for five minutes. Some nicely fried bread-crumbs may be strewn over the dish when going to table. Eggs may, of course, be served in this manner very plainly farcis : a little minced curled parsley or marjoram, with a pounded anchovy, and some chopped olive, for instance, would not be a bad mixture when work- ed up with the hard yolks. Eufs farcis are delicious when served cold, in which EGGS, MACCARONI, AND CHEESE. 239 form they should be sent up prettily garnished with curled parsley upon a flat China dish. Hard-boiled eggs may be fricasseed, or gently heated up, in a rich sauce like velouté, Espagnole, or poulette ; and those who do not object to fried onions, might do worse than concoct a dish with their assistance in this way :- “Eufs aux oignons”:—Slice up a good sized Bombay onion, and fry the rings in a table-spoonful of butter till they are nice and yellow, add a little flour to the butter, and when it is mixed, pour in a breakfast-cupful of cream or fresh milk : give this a dasting with salt and “spiced pepper,” and put into the sauce four hard-boiled eggs cut into slices ; simmer the sauce-pan till its contents are thoroughly hot, and serve garnished with curls of crisply fried bacon, alternated with neatly cut pieces of fried bread. If you stir a table-spoonful of good curry powder and a salt-spoonful of sugar into the melted butter and onions before adding the flour and cream, and cut the eggs in halves only, lengthwise, the dish will be “Qufs à l'Indienne.” N.B.-Plainly poached eggs served on toast, with this curry sauce poured over them, are very nice, and more digestible than the hard boiled. Supposing that you desire to err on the side of studied simplicity, cut four hard-boiled eggs in halves, trim them like“ oeufs farcis” to stand upright, set them on a flat silver dish slightly buttered, and bake them until quite hot, then serve with a cap of maître d'hôtel butter, prawn butter (or any fancy butter left from last night's dinner) melting over each half egg. The error will be pardonable. “ Eufs aux topinambours" :—This delicious entremets should be prepared in this wise :-Choose four good sized 240 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. Jerusalem artichokes, trim, boil, and set them to cool ; take four hard-boiled eggs, and cut them in halves ; out of the artichokes prepare eight flat slices, and place half an egg upon each slice with the rounded end uppermost : set them on a buttered dish, heat them thoroughly in the oven, and just before serving, pour over them some thickly worked “velouté au Parmesan," or some melted maître d'hôtel butter. A dusting of "spiced salt” should be given on taking the eggs from the oven. This entremets is nicer still with artichoke bottoms,—the leafy kind, and with aufs farcis instead of plain hard- boiled eggs. MACCARONI, and the numerous varieties of the Italian paste family of which it is the best known member, should invariably be plunged into boiling water to commence with-no matter whether you intend to cook them in milk, or stock, afterwards—in order to rid them of the imper- ceptible dirt which clings to them. Remember that mac- caroni is a much handled comestible, and that washing it in water is not enough. I adverted to this when speaking of soups (page 34), and described how the cleansing can alone be effected. Besides, maccaroni must not be wetted to begin with by any liquid not boiling. Mark these golden rules :-“Washing maccaroni is use- less and unnecessary, putting it to cook in cold water is a blunder, soaking it is a crime." Treat it as our native cooks do rice,-here let me yield to Ramasamy, or his tunnycutch (?) the praise that either he, or she, deserves, —and throw it into plenty of boiling water, test it occasion- ally with a fork, as soon as it is nice and tender, stop the boiling by a dash of cold water, lift the vessel, and drain it completely, returning the maccaroni to the hot pan. If you want to cook Italian pastes in milk or stock, EGGS,MACCARONI, AND CHEESE. 241 whichever you use should be boiling : parboil the paste in boiling water for five minutes to clean it, drain it carefully, and turn it into the stock or milk also boiling as the case may be to finish cooking. The accepted form of serving maccaroni with English- men is either swimming in white sauce round a boiled fowl, or turkey, or in a pie-dish “au gratin.” In the former fashion it is generally presented in such a flabby, tasteless manner, that the general unpopularity of Italian pastes may be easily accounted for. The “au gratin" is better understood perhaps, but even there, there is room for improvement. “Maccaroni au gratin :"-First boil the maccaroni as I have laid down, if in milk or stock, so much the better. Well butter a pie-dish, arrange the maccaroni therein neatly, give it a dusting with black pepper and salt, pour round it a large cupful of good sauce blonde (q. v., page 82) in which you have mixed two ounces of grated cheese : let this run well in amongst the bed of maccaroni, and shake over the surface a liberal coating of grated cheese. Make this thoroughly hot, in the oven, brown the surface of the cheese by passing a hot iron about half an inch above it, and send it up. Maccaroni “au gratin” should be nice and moist: you can use cream instead of sauce blonde if you like, and tomato purée may be introduced in its composition. A little minced fish such as herring, prawns, lobster, or anchovy, may be dotted about amongst the maccaroni, and with minced ham and chicken, or tongue and chicken, you can make a capital home-dinner entrée, following in other respects the ordinary recipe. “Maccaroni à l' Italienne" will be found in Chapter XIX, (page 189). “Maccaroni à la Milanaise,” another excellent method, 242 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. may be described as follows :-Boil two ounces of macca- roni, and keep it hot in its own pan after draining. Make a breakfast-cupful of good chicken broth flavoured with an onion, sweet herbs, and black pepper corns. With that make a nice “ celouté au fromage" in this way :-Melt an ounce of butter in a sauce-pan, stir into it a dessert-spoon- ful of flour, mix them to a paste, and by degrees pour in the hot chicken broth; as this is thickening, add to it two ounces of grated cheese, or Parmesan from the bottle, a tea-spoonful of powdered mustard, salt, and “spiced pep- per,” at discretion; continue to stir the sauce until it reaches a creamy thickness, when you can finish it off the fire by a table-spoonful of cream, or the yolks of two raw eggs beaten separately. Now, stir the sauce into the hot boiled maccaroni, and serve immediately. The association of tomatoes with maccaroni seems to be as happy as that of green peas with a duckling, egg sauce with saltfish, or red currant jelly with a well hung saddle. These vegetables are generally applied in the form of purée, to achieve which you must cut them into quarters, trim them from stalk, &c., and put them into a sauce-pan with an ounce of butter, and one onion sliced in rings, a few pepper corns, three cloves of garlic, a tea-spoonful of dried basil, and a little salt; boil till the quarters are quite soft, and then turn the contents of the sauce-pan out upon a hair sieve. Let the watery part escape, you do not want it, and when thus drained, pick out the garlic, and pepper corns, and rub the vegetable through the sieve with a wooden spoon : the pulp that comes through,-well pep- pered with black pepper,--must be heated again with a lump of butter and a little flour before it is mixed with the maccaroni. Maccaroni with “conserva di pomi d'oro” is an Italian delicacy. The conserva is, as may readily be supposed, a regular jam made by reducing a good quantity of the purée EGGS, MACCARONI, AND CHEESE. 243 aforesaid in a sauce-pan over the fire, stirring it without ceasing until it attains the consistency of thin paste. This well seasoned with salt and pepper may be preserved in bottles, and if securely corked, and waxed, will keep well. During their season, tomatoes absolutely rot in the ground in many a private garden in this Presidency: why permit such waste ? the trouble of making a few bottles of this conserve would be amply repaid in the hot weather when the plants have died down. A spoonful or two of the preserve, thinned with a very little stock, and with a pat of butter worked into it, would, at all times, be handy for dressing maccaroni. A dusting of finely grated cheese should, of course, accompany it. Here is a “foreign composition' which I commend to the attention of those who like Italian cookery :-Mince a couple of cloves of garlic, a shallot, three anchovies, boned and well wiped from the tin oil, and four olives, put the mince into a small sauce-pan with three table- spoonfuls of the best salad oil, boil till the bits of garlic and onion begin to brown, and then turn the mixture into a sauce-pan containing a large dish of hot-boiled macca- roni, stir it well, and serve. An Italian cook would probably put in half a dozen, or more, cloves of garlic : in the proportions I have given, however, I do not think the taste of the bulb will be considered more prononcé than it is in chutneys, and numerous dishes made in India which we eat without murmuring. Several dishes will be found in my menus in which mac- caroni figures, for I have the highest opinion of its merits in savoury cookery. The rules I have given will, I think, be found reliable with respect to all kinds of Italian paste, Lasagne, Cannelli, Mostacciuoli, &c., and I sincerely hope that what I have said may be the means of drawing my readers' attention to a comestible which deserves far greater consideration than Englishmen, as a rule, bestow 244 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. apon it. An inexpensive article of food which, with a little study, may be made a luxury, is surely a thing that the banished lover of good things can ill afford to despise. I think I am right in saying that there are very few establishments in India in which a day passes without the preparation of Rice for the table. It is, as a rule, served plainly boiled, and in that form can rarely be found fault with. Friend Ramasamy commits, as I have endeavoured on several occasions to point out, mistakes of divers kinds, and of various degrees in the scale of culinary atrocities, but failure in the cooking of rice is certainly not one of them. Having at our command, then, a species of farina- ceous food, cheap, nutritive, of excellent quality, and which our cooks can dress to perfection, do we take full advantage of the many opportunities we possess of develop- ing its resources ? I am inclined to think that we do not. I have therefore introduced the subject in close connection with maccaroni advisedly, for it will be seen that in the better treatment of rice, the laws that govern the cookery of Italian pastes are often similar. The boiling of rice is, as I have said, a matter of no difficulty to us in India. The native cook thoroughly understands the process, and invariably, I may say, sends an inviting looking dish to the table in which each grain appears to have been cooked independently, snowy white in appearance, and free from impurities of all kinds. A sodden mass of “stodgy" rice as dressed by Mary Jane in England is a thing unknown to the Anglo-Indian Exile. There are, however, some who may like to know how the task is performed, so for their benefit here is the recipe :- Having thoroughly sifted, and cleansed the rice, cast it into boiling water with a pinch of sugar, a salt-spoonful EGGS, MACCARONI, AND CHEESE. 245 of salt, and the juice of a quarter of a lime. Stir the grains as they are cooking with a wooden spoon every now and then, and in about twelve minutes test them by taking of few grains out of the water, and pinching them between the finger and thumb. As soon as the grain is tender, check the boiling by a dash of cold water, remove the vessel from the fire, and invert it, holding the rice securely with the lid yet leaving space enough for the escape of the water. When quite dry, re-invert the pan, shaking the well drained grains of rice in the hot vessel in which they were cooked. Lastly, cover the pan with a clean cloth, and let it rest on the hot-plate, or over a very low fire to complete the drying. After this, the rice will be ready and may either be sent up as it is, or dressed accord- ing to one of the following recipes :- Riz à la Napolitaine :—Empty the well boiled rice into a hot sauce-pan with plenty of butter: stir till thoroughly hot and well lubricated, add tomato pulp enough to moisten the whole nicely, and finish with finely grated Parmesan, Gruyère, or other mild dry cheese. Serve piping hot. When lifted with the fork, the grains of rice should carry with them long strings or tendrils of melted cheese as in the case of Maccaroni à l' Italienne. Riz à l' Italienne :-Melt an ounce of butter at the bot- tom of a sauce-pan which ought to have been previously well rubbed with a piece of garlic; shred an onion the size of a racquet ball very finely and fry it in the butter; stir into this, when of a golden yellow colour, two breakfast- cupfuls of well boiled rice; work it vigorously with a wooden spoon while an assistant shakes into the pan a couple of heaped up table-spoonfuls of grated Parmesan or Gruyère; garnish the dish with strips of anchovies, and serve it piled upon a flat dish. Riz à la bonne femme :-As the foregoing, but stirring 22 246 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. into the mixture some finely rasped ham, or corned beef, and garnishing with curls of crisply fried bacon. Riz à l'Indienne : Commence as laid down for riz à l' Italienne using plenty of good butter. Omit the tomato pulp, and instead of the grated cheese, stir in a table spoon- ful of well made curry powder, and garnish with prawns that have been tossed in butter with a pinch of saffron. Riz au chou :-Boil some rice as for the above, and keep it ready in a dish. Cut up the heart of a tender cabbage (a 'savoy,' or 'sugar-loaf,' for instance). Melt a couple of ounces of batter in a roomy stew-pan, cast into it a finely shred Bombay onion, and two cloves of garlic minced as small as possible: let the onion turn yellow, and then put in the shred cabbage, stir it about for three minutes with the butter and onions, and then pour over it enough broth or consommé to keep it from burning: stew gently now until the cabbage is cooked, then add the rice which should be vigorously stirred about for five minutes with the cabbage. The dish is now ready. Turn it out upon a flat dish, and smother it with grated cheese. A slice of nice bacon may, with advantage, be cooked with the cab- bage; it should be cut into dice, and put in with the butter and onion. For an ordinary head of cabbage, three breakfast-capfuls of rice will be found enough. Riz à la Turque :-In this, and in the following cases, the rice is not wholly boiled beforehand. Put into a sauce- pan six coffee-capfuls of broth or consommé into which sufficient tomato pulp has been stirred to slightly thicken it, flavour this with salt and black pepper to taste, and set the sauce-pan on the fire. As soon as the liquid boils, cast into it three coffee-cupfuls of well cleansed raw rice. Reduce the heat, and let the rice stew gently in the tomato-flavoured gravy. As the rice cooks it will absorb the liquid: watch it narrowly, and as soon as it has sucked EGGS, MACCARONI, AND CHEESE. 247 up the whole of it, stir into it an ounce of fresh butter. Just before serving, a dust of nutmeg should be added, and some raisins carefully picked and cleaned may be thrown in as a garnish. Another method Riz à la Milanaise, is to parboil the rice for five minutes, and then to fry it in butter with a shred onion until it begins to take colour. After that to add stock without tomato, but coloured with saffron. When the rice is cooked, the gravy may be thickened with flour, and the whole served hot with grated Parmesan. Some, in this case, add the stock by degrees, allowing the rice to drink it up as it were. As this process is conduct- ed, the grains gradually distend, and when ready to burst are fit to serve. No thickened gravy is served with this,—the true risotto of Italy,—but a pat of butter is melted among the grains, while Parmesan is liberally dusted over them. Riz à la ménagère :-For this excellent plat, wash and blanch six ounces of rice in boiling water for five minutes, using a roomy stew-pan; cool and drain it on a sieve. Weigh a quarter of a pound of the best streaky bacon, dip it into scalding water for a couple of minutes, and then cut it into inch dice. Fry these in a stew-pan till they tarn yellow, add the rice, and a pint and a half of broth, with a salt-spoonful of pepper. Simmer for twenty minutes, stirring the rice every now and then to prevent its catching at the bottom of the pan. Now take it off the fire, and add half a pint of tomato purée or sauce. Mix thoroughly, and put the rice on a dish. Garnish with sausages, curls of fried bacon, croquettes of fish, or any savoury mixture you like, worked into small shapes, and fried a golden yellow. A little consideration of these recipes will, I think, show what a useful article of food rice may be made. In select- ing a recipe remember that raw rice of a good quality 248 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. swells to four times its original bulk when boiled. It therefore requires plenty of water when undergoing that process. Carolina rice takes even a deeper bath than Patna. Two quarts of water to six ounces is a good proportion for the latter, and an extra pint for the same weight of the former. The dash of lime or lemon juice produces whiteness. The immediate checking of ebulli- tion as soon as the grains are tender causes that dis- integration of the grains which is a sine quâ non in well boiled rice. Indian corn (maïs) may be dressed with tomato pulp and grated cheese in the style of maccaroni à l'Italienne, or riz à la Napolitaine. The “ FONDUE,” or “cheese soufflé,” is the dish par excel- lence of which, when successfully made, the good cook has just cause to be proud. It requires the most delicate management, and an atom will ruin the undertaking, for with all soufflés, to fall short of perfection means failure. Practice and experience go a long way towards turning ont this pièce de résistance satisfactorily, it is nevertheless one of those things in which the best hand may occasion- ally err; so, for a dinner party, beware of placing too great confidence in it, have another dish ready to go round in case the fondue fail to “come off,” and do not enter it in your menu. Here is the best recipe I ever read for this dish :- “Melt an ounce of butter in an enamelled sauce-pan, and stir into it a table-spoonful of flour. When the two are well amalgamated, put in a breakfast-cupful of hot milk, and about three ounces of grated Parmesan cheese. Stir the mixture on a very slow fire till it assumes the appearance of thick cream, and beware of its becoming too hot, or boiling, for that would be fatal. Now, put in one EGGS, MACCARONI, AND CHEESE. 249 clove of garlic, a tea-spoonful of mustard powder, a dash of grated nutmeg, and some black pepper. Mix thoroughly, and if upon tasting you find that it is required, add a little salt. Keep on stirring the mixture at a very moderate heat for quite ten minutes, then remove the garlic, take the sauce-pan from the fire, stirring occasionally till the contents are nearly cold, then add the yolks of four eggs previously beaten up with a table-spoonful of milk, and well strained; mix well; lastly, incorporate swiftly with the mixture the whites of five eggs beaten to a froth, pour this into a deep round tin, and put it into the oven which must not be too hot. From twenty to thirty minutes baking will make the fondue ready for the table, to which it must be quickly sent, in its tin, with a napkin folded round it.”—(G. C.) : If the early stage of preparing the fondue mixture were conducted in the bain-marie-pan, there would be no risk of overheating it. A simpler recipe by the same author runs as follows:- Make a thickish paste in a sauce-pan with milk and flour, taking care that it is quite smooth: add to, and thoroughly mix with it as much grated cheese as you have used flour, and a little over, a small quantity of salt, a little four of mustard, and some pepper. Beat up, if you have used as much as a pint of milk for the paste, three or four eggs. Incorporate them with the paste, then fill a tin, or a number of small cases with it, bake a nice brown colour, and serve. Brillat Savarin made a great fuss about his "fondue” but the dish he concocted was simply “oufs brouillés au fromage.” The modern“ fondue" must be baked. “ Ramequins,” or little fondues of cheese, are invariably popular. They are not hard to make : I choose a simple recipe which runs thus :-Pat one ounce of butter in a 250 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. roomy sauce-pan, with a quarter of a pint of water, a pinch of salt, and a dust of black pepper; boil it, and add two ounces of flour. Stir over the fire for four minutes, and then mix with it two ounces of grated Parmesan, and two eggs, one after the other. Put the paste thus formed on a buttered-baking sheet in lumps the size of a hen's egg, flatten them slightly, brush them over with an egg, bake in the oven, and serve on a napkin very hot. . “Ramequins en caisses” :-Take two ounces of mild grated cheese, and two ounces of white bread-crumbs ; soak the crumbs in milk, and pound them in a mortar with the cheese, and a little butter, till the whole is well mixed; now season the mixture with pepper and salt, add- ing a tea-spoonful of mustard powder, and the yolks of three eggs. Finally beat up the egg whites to a stiff froth, mingle it with the mixture, and fill your paper cases, which should be well buttered to prevent their burning outside, or “catching” the fondue within : bake them from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour, and serve them as soon as they have raised their heads, and have slightly taken colour. Beignets à la Pignatelli :-Put one pint of water in a stew-pan with one and a half ounces of butter, season with salt and pepper; boil, and add four and a half ounces of flour, and one ounce of grated Parmesan. Stir over the fire for three minutes, then add sufficient eggs to turn the mixture to a smooth paste. Add to the paste one ounce of lean cooked ham finely chopped. When mixed, form the paste into fritters, and fry in plenty of hot fat. “ Beignets soufflés au Parmesan” will be found elsewhere, and several dishes demanding cheese amongst the menus. N.B.-The best flour for fondues and soufflés is potato flour, a recipe for which will be found in the menus. China soufflé cases are nicer than paper ones. CHAPTER XXV. Notes on the Curing of Meat. N different occasions in this work I have spoken of home-cured tongues, I now take the opportunity of jotting down a recipe for that useful operation, and of adding a few remarks upon salt meat which I think will be found useful. The general rules of this branch of kitchen work may be given as follows :- For salting purposes you should procure a wooden tub sufficiently large to hold a hump, a brisket of beef, or a fair sized leg of matton. You cannot commence operations too soon in this cli- mate ; the fresher the meat for pickling, the better. Rub the meat, after having cleaned and carefully wiped it, with salt, &c., at once, and take great pains that no part is omitted : all indentations, and holes caused by skewers, should be scrupulously salted. If you keep the meat in brine, see that it is frequently turned, and basted. A common syringe is a capital thing to use for salting work,-especially for large joints,-squirt the brine all over the meat, penetrating all cavities and chinks. A good pickle brine need not be wasted: after you 252 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. have cured one joint, boil the liquid up again, skimming off the scum, add a little saltpetre, salt, &c., and it will be fit to receive another piece of meat. Let us now proceed to cure a tongue of from three to four pounds weight. For which the following ingredients must be prepared :- Best bazár salt ............... 11 lb. Saltpetre .......................1 oz. Bay-salt (Ind-oopoo).........1 Spiced pepper................ Moist sagar.....................5 » The juice of three limes and a sherry-glass of good vinegar; or, if no limes be procurable, two glasses of vinegar. First, rub the tongue-after cleansing and wiping it thoroughly-with the bazár salt and “spiced pepper :" the operation will expend about a quarter of a pound of the former. When satisfactorily salted, put the tongue aside, and let it drain for the rest of the day to get rid of any blood that it may still contain. After rabbing in the salt, proceed to make the brine as follows:-Take a roomy enamelled sauce-pan and put in- to it the remaining bazár salt (about a pound) the bay- salt, saltpetre, the lime juice, and vinegar, and a pint and a half of cold water. Boil these over a low fire, removing all scum as it rises, when clear of scum and well boiled, the liquor may be set to get cold. Make a separate syrup with the sugar, diluting it with water in a small sauce-pan, and heating it gently till free from scum and smooth, then let it get cold. When the salt liquor and syrup are cold, they should be amalgamated, the work being done with a wooden spoon, and the brine being then completed should be poured into the tub. NOTES ON THE CURING OF MEAT. 253 The tongue, having been drained for six or eight hours, should be placed in the brine in the evening, where it ought to remain for a couple of days, being frequently turned over and basted during that period. On the evening of the second day's soaking, the tongue must be drained from the brine, and then hung to dry in the smoke of the kitchen fire for a couple of days, after which it may be considered fit to use. Wrap it in paper during the smoking stage, and soak it a little before cook- ing in cold water. The above process can, of course, be depended upon for preserving tongues for much longer periods. I can recom- mend it to sportsmen who, after killing deer or bison in the jungle, hardly know what to do with the good meat thrown upon their hands. A brine tub for tongues and humps would not seriously increase their impedimenta, and a moderately quick servant could soon master the secret of curing. Artificial smoking can easily be manag- ed out in camp, and the ingredients I have named can be carried out of cantonment without much trouble. Never mind if a tongue seem to shrivel up after the smoking stage; after the soaking which it must receive before cooking, it will revive wonderfully, and regain its original proportions. A tongue that has merely lain in brine for a couple of days may be cooked at once without smoking ; soaking is then unnecessary; but a well smoked tongue requires soaking, according to the degree of dryness it may have attained, from two hours upwards. Tongues have an annoying habit of curling themselves round, contracting, that is to say, as they get cold after cooking. To combat this unsightliness, and straighten the tongue, Ramasamy is wont to thrust a good thick wooden skewer straight through it from end to end, which 23 254 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. he withdraws before sending the dish to table, the conse- quence of which is that you find a strange ugly cavity in the centre of the tongue which spoils every slice you cut from it. If you want to straighten a tongue properly, you must place it upon a clean board,—the lid of a pack- ing case for instance,-in the position in which tongues are always presented to you in England; pin it down to the board by driving a strong steel carving fork through the root end, stretch it straight, and secure the tip by a sharp skewer also driven into the board: support the tongue in shape by weights on either side, and over the top of it, and let it get cold. When quite cold, you may release it, glaze it, let the glaze set, and then serve the tongue. “Glaze” is not difficult to achieve if proper care be exercised during its making. You must boil down some clear strong gravy, like that laid down for “aspic jelly,". and reduce it until it begins to thicken sufficiently to coat the spoon with which you are stirring it. Constant stir- ring is downright essential to prevent the glaze sticking to the bottom of the sauce-pan, and burning. As soon as satisfied with its consistency, pour it into a small jar. When cold, the glaze will solidify like hard jelly. When required for use, place the jar in which you have set it in the bain-marie and let the jelly melt; then dip a brush into it, and paint the surface of the tongue, or joint, over thoroughly; when dry, the appearance will be that of a clear varnish. Colour the gravy beforehand with caramel according to the tint required. To cure a hump, brisket, aitch-bone, or piece of the silver side of beef, proceed as recommended for the tongue; you will probably require double the quantity of ingre- dients, but the principles are the same. Smoking is, of course, not wanted, and the joint can be lifted from the brine on the fourth day and cooked ; scarcely any soaking 256 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. form with a sharp knife. Its surface having been glazed, nothing remains to be done in the kitchen. “ Ox-head brawn” is not to be despised by dwellers in the plains to whom pork is denied. Skin and clean an ox- head, or purchase one already skinned : split it in two, cut out the eyes, break the bones of the jaws, remove the brains, and let the whole soak for an hour or two in cold water. Then put it into a stew-pan with water enough to cover it. Boil very slowly, and then add vegetables and flavouring as if for soup; when the meat is quite tender, and you can pick the bones away from it easily, strain the meat from the broth, and vegetables, free it from every fragment of bone, and cut up the meat whilst it is hot and juicy, en masse rather small, seasoning it with salt and “spiced pepper” whilst doing so. If you have no spiced pepper, mix a table-spoonful of powdered dried thyme and marjoram blended, with a tea-spoonful of pep- per, and dust it freely into the meat: when seasoned well, cut ap, and mixed, press the meat tightly down in a round brawn tin, and let it get cold. After which it can be turned out whole, and sliced for breakfast or lunch. The broth in which the meat was stewed should be blended with the soup stock for it will be gelatinous and strong, the proper basis in fact for a good “mock turtle." An excellent “ brawn” can be made with an ox-head, a well cured tongue, and a thick slice of bacon cut into dice. Stew the ox-head as in the foregoing recipe, and boil the tongue, cut up both with the bacon whilst they are quite hot, season as before explained, stir the chopped meats well together, press the whole tightly down in a brawn tin, and let it remain three or four hours with a heavy weight above it. When required, dip the tin into hot water to loosen the sides of the brawn, and it will slip out fully formed, and ready for the table. - Minced ham, bacon lean, or Bologna sausage, may be NOTES ON THE CURING OF MEAT. 257 sprinkled in with the seasoning. Be careful to cut up and work your brawn together whilst the meat is quite hot. Unless this be done, the brawn will not solidify satisfactorily. Turn the meat into the tin as soon as you can. Use an ordinary round cake tin, and place a heavy weight over the meat to press it firmly together. . Calves' heads make delicious brawn when associated with ox tongue and bacon, and judiciously seasoned. For brawn of pig's head, follow the rules already given for ox-head brawn. CHAP CA CHAPTER XXVI. Pastry-making, et cetera. LTHOUGH it is generally admitted that the clever pastry-cook is, like the Poet, born, not made; or, in other words, that the art of making really good pastry is a gift, rather than an accomplishment, there can be no doubt that the chef of average capacity is capable of improving himself by studying the rules which govern this branch of his profession. Ramasámy stands in great need of instruction here, for his ideas of pastry are, as a rule, crude in the extreme. He is acquainted apparently with two standard compositions alone, which he distin- guishes by the terms “butter crust,” and “suet crust.” The former is a kind of short bread, the latter a humble apology for puff paste. His selection of the one or of the other, if left to himself, is guided by one law :-“butter crust” for sweet things, and “suet crust” for savoury. Concerning the former I have but little to say. In my opinion it is so very inferior to puff paste, that I recommend its use in no branch of cookery whatever. If a cook be wholly incapable of making eatable puff pastry, he may, of course, be permitted to fall back upon his “butter crust,” but I would never allow him to do so unless quite satisfied of his incompetence. “Suet crust," on the other hand, is the “subject of my story” for I think that with a little careful teaching Ramasámy is capable of achieving very fair results with it. PASTRY-MAKING, ET CETERA. 259 Now, I think that it would be a mere waste of time to jot down a great number of recipes for pastry. The ordi- nary domestic cookery book generally contains a dozen or more of them which tend, I think, to confuse rather than to instruct the student. In endeavouring to improve our native cooks, we should certainly cast aside all complica- tion, and reduce our instruction to the simplest formulæ. So, let us do our best to confine their attention to three compositions as follows :- (a)............ puff paste. (6).............pie-crust. (©)............raised pie-crust. The first to be used for the vol-au-vent, all patties, bou- chées, fruit tarts, tartlets, puffs, cheese cakes, mince pies, &c., &c. The second for all savoury pies made in the ordinary pie-dish, such as pigeon pie, chicken and beef steak pie, &c., &c. The third for savoury pies in raised crust, like the well- · known pork pie, veal and ham pie, &c., of the English restaurant. If a cook can present a good sample of each of these pastes, he need not bother his head with varieties. Let us then run through the 'a. b. c.' of pastry-making, and make sure that our chef thoroughly understands the elementary part of this branch of his work:- First, if you can possibly get one, you should use a marble pastry slab. As I said at page 72, in Madras the chief difficulty the pastry-maker has to contend against is the high temperature: a jugful of iced water poured slowly over the surface of the slab (since marble retains cold far more readily than wood) is his surest safeguard. In fact, without iced water at his elbow, the cook can scarcely hope to turn out really light puff pastry. I have heard a 260 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. good many people speak in high praise of the pastry that they have eaten at certain hostelries on the Neilgherries, and express wonder that similarly excellent feuilletage is never placed before them here. Climate has a great deal to say to this, and without wishing to depreciate the ta- lent of the Coonoor or Ooty pâtissiers, we must remember the advantages that they enjoy in the matter of tempera- ture. The next golden rule is that which enjoins scrupulous cleanliness. Everything connected with this department must be as bright and clean as possible. A third law, which I think our cooks rarely obey, is the one that demands the careful weighing of ingredients. Ramasamy converses about “cups” of butter and “table- spoonfuls” of flour. I do not think that he is nearly particular enough with regard to the accurate weight of the things he uses. Carelessness in this matter must obviously be the precursor of failure. The mere manipulation of pastry is, as I said before, a gift; still, every cook should remember that the less he thumps and mauls the dough the lighter it will be, and that the quicker the work is done the better. The pastry-maker should wash his hands before going to work in very hot water, and plunge them into iced water afterwards, drying them well before proceeding to business. The frequent use of iced water to cool the hands while working will contribute to the success of the undertaking. It is here essential to observe that a little practice will enable the cook to mix his dough, in the first instance with two strong wooden spoons, or with a wedgewood mortar pestle and one spoon. This I consider a matter of material consequence. Setting aside all hypercritical notions of cleanliness, it stands to reason that the less the paste is PASTRY-MAKING, ET CETERA. 261 touched by the warm human hand, the better and lighter it will prove. Similarly, therefore, let the turns in the rolling-out stage be done with two spoons. If the mixing stage were carried out in a roomy enamelled iron pan, or bowl, set in ice, the spoon process could be easily managed. Pastry should be made, if possible, in the morning before the real heat of the day has set in. Fruit tarts are far nicer cold than hot, why not make them early then ? Or if you like them served hot, why not re-heat them in the oven at the time they are required ? For patties, bouchées, timbales, tartlets, cheese-cakes, &c., this course is strongly to be advocated. The pastry cases ought to be made early, baked at once and put away; in the evening they should be filled with the salpicon, purée, jam, cheese-cake mixture, or confiture, be re-heated in the oven, and sent to table. A most important feature in pastry is its baking. Too slack, or too fierce an oven, will destroy all the careful work I have just described. A good hot oven is required, sufficiently brisk to raise the pastry, yet not severe enough to burn or even scorch it. Ramasámy is inclined to err on the side of extreme heat, which, I think, accounts for those harsh, talc-like siabs of pale brown crust, piled up one on top of the other, which so many of us are forced to accept as "paff-paste.” The higher that these layers of talc have “done raise it off," the more successful does pastry cannot be too white, or too volatile ; so fragile indeed should it be that it ought e’en to crumble to atoms if stricken with a feather. And now for a few words touching ingredients :- The flour used should be the best imported, and in a moist climate, such as this, it is a sine quâ non that it should be dried in the oven and sifted to begin with, for the presence of damp in flour ruins pastry. 24 262 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. One of the chief causes of failure in attaining light crust is the moisture and oiliness of our butter. All Madras-made butter is full of water, and even English butter requires close pressure before the pastry-cook dare use it. Butter for this purpose should be firm, not frozen like a stone, but quite hard enough to cut into pieces. A judicious use of ice for this ingredient is therefore unavoid- ble if you desire to use it with success in pastry. It is on this account, I fancy, that Ramasamy has discovered that suet makes lighter puff paste in this climate than butter : it is firm, dry, and capable of being chopped up and strewn over the dough ; whereas, in nineteen cases out of twenty, the butter he uses is in a semi-state of liquefac- tion, and utterly unfit to mix with the flour. If, then, you cannot command a good supply of excel- lent butter, and undertake that it shall be iced as I have described, you will find it better far, as a rule, to use clarified beef suet for all ordinary pastry. Proceed in this way : procure as much good, pale yellow, fresh suet from a sirloin of beef (that surrounding the kidney is the best), and cut it into pieces. Place a large sauce-pan or stew-pan on the fire, and fill it nearly full of water; when the water boils, throw in the fat. By degrees it will melt, the skin and impure fragments will sink, and a rich gil will float upon the surface of the water, which should be kept at a simmering pitch. When satisfied that the whole of the fat has melted, suspend operations, take the pan from the fire, and let it get cold; when cold, the clarified fat will become congealed upon the surface of the water. Now, take it off in flakes, drain every drop of water from it, and put it into a clean sauce-pan; melt it again, and strain it through a piece of muslin into an earthenware bowl. The fat will again consolidate,-in a firm, pale yellow cake, as it were, far harder than butter, though quite as sweet and clean, and the very thing you want for ordinary pastry and sirlo, procuit ouet Poll find it PASTRY-MAKING, ET CETERA. 263 delicate sauté work. Suet thus clarified will keep perfect- ly good a long time, and is infinitely cleaner and nicer than raw suet freshly handled by the butcher, and good- ness knows by how many other people. Keep the bowl of suet in a cool place; in the ice-box if possible. The fat that is skimmed from the surface of the soup- kettle is just as valuable, for it is generally the melted marrow from the broken shin: you do not get much of it, I know, probably a breakfast-cupful, at the outside, but it is quite first-rate, and the favourite frying medium of the great Carême. The fat from the under-cut of a cold roast sirloin can be made use of exactly in the same way as the raw suet: clarify it according to the rules already given, and pour it into an earthenware bowl. Lard is imported here during the colder months of the year; it requires the assistance of ice to regain its original firmness of character, and then, if carefully used, it affords an excellent ingredient wherewith to compose a good light pie-crust. As I said before, the water used in pastry-making should certainly be slightly iced : it need not be as cold as that we like to drink, but it should be decidedly cold to the touch. For PUFF PASTE the following directions may, I think, be depended upon :- Having the following ingredients ready :-a bowl of cold, well clarified suet, some dry well-sifted flour, a good ripe lime, some salt, and a jug of iced water, proceed as follows :-weigh a pound of flour, and turn it out upon your cold marble slab, make a hollow in its centre, and fill it with half an ounce of salt, and a quarter of a pint of the cold water; mix the flour gradually with the water, 264 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. and when this is done, and the paste half mixed, sprinkle over it another quarter pint of water in which the lime has been squeezed. Mix it all now thoroughly, until it ceases to adhere to the slab, and pat it into a round ball. Now take one pound weight of the clarified suet, cut it up into dice, and flatten out the ball of paste to a thick- ness of about two inches, spreading the suet evenly over its surface; then fold the four sides of the paste to the centre enclosing the suet, and forming a square piece. Roll this evenly out a yard long, then fold over one-third of the length towards the centre, and fold the other third over it. This folding in three is called by cooks“ giving the paste one turn.” Be careful that none of the suet breaks through the edges of the paste as you roll it out. Having folded up the paste, let it rest for ten minutes in the ice-box, or on a very cold slab. Then give it two turns, rest ten minutes, then two turns more,-five rolls out in all,-lastly, gather the paste into a lump, and roll it according to your requirements. For patties, vols-au-vent, &c., seven turns are recom- mended by some authors. Keep the flour dredger at your elbow, and flour the rolling-pin well before each turn. The sooner the paste is used when it has been completed the better. If you have a little good iced butter, you may alter the above proportions as follows :-three-quarters of a pound of suet, and one-quarter of a pound of butter. The yolks of two eggs well beaten and strained may be mixed with the water. Baking powder may be used advantageously in pastry- making: here is Yeatman & Co.'s recipe for puff paste made in connection with their powder :- Measure three breakfast-cupfuls of flour, carefully sifted, and two cupfuls of butter. Choose a cool place to work PASTRY-MAKING, ET CETERA. 265 in, see that the flour is good and dry, the butter firm and free from moisture, and fill two shallow baking-tins with broken ice. Put the flour on a cool slab, mixing into it a heaped up tea-spoonful of the baking powder; when mixed, form the flour in a ring, as it were, and in the centre throw the yolk of an egg and a tea-spoonful of salt; add a little iced water, and gradually work the flour into it from the inside of the ring, sprinkling additional water as you require it-about one breakfast-cupful altogether- until you have a smooth, fine dough, free from all sticki- ness. Pat this into a lump, and put it in the ice-box for a quarter of an hour, then roll it out about the size of a dinner plate : put the butter upon it, and wrap the edges of the dough over it, carefully covering it: now turn it upside down, and roll it out very thin ; reverse it again, and fold it in three. Place it after this on a baking-sheet over one of the pans of broken ice, and put the other pan of ice upon it. Repeat this cooling process between each double turn, and use as soon as possible when five turns have been completed. Although composed for English and American kitchens, observe the use of ice advocated in this receipt. Instead of the butter I would try the clarified beef suet, that is to say, if I were unable to procure butter of undeniable quality, firm, cold, and quite free from water. The next description of pastry that demands our atten- tion is that which should be used for savoury pies, to wit:-PIE-CRUST. In this, I think, Ramasamy needs care- ful instruction. He makes no difference between his sa- voury pie “suet-crust,” and that which he sends up under the name of a vol-au-vent. His chief aim being a pie- covering, raised an inch and a half or two inches high, composed of the harsh, talc-like layers to which I have already alluded. I need hardly point out that this is an entirely erroneous impression. Think of the cold pigeon- 266 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. pie at home, and you will remember no puff pastry : your mind's eye will rather picture a close crust about half, or three-quarters of an inch thick, glazed externally, with egg, and with the feet of the birds peeping invitingly from the centre: a firm plain paste that you cut out in a whole piece without its breaking into fragments; pale brown and crusty externally, and soft and white internally, with bits of jelly adhering to it. Well, that is the kind of crust that I am so anxious to impart to Ramasámy, for which the following recipe is, I think, reliable :- Put one pound of well-dried and sifted flour on the slab, or in an enamelled basin; make a hollow in the centre, and work into it a quarter of a pound of cold clarified suet cut into pieces, adding a tea-spoonful of salt. When mix- ed, sprinkle over it as much iced water as will bind it thoroughly: dredge some flour over the slab, and roll the paste out half an inch thick. Cut up another quarter of a pound of clarified suet, and dot it over the surface of the paste, fold the paste over it, and roll it out again very thin ; fold it in three, set it in the ice-box for ten minutes, give it three more turns, and then roll it out half an inch thick when it may be cut to cover the pie. A French savoury pie-crust is made in this way :- Empty a pound of flour into a bowl, and rub lightly into it half a pound of clarified suet; add a tea-spoonful of salt, and complete the dough by adding to it by degrees a quarter of a pint of water in which two eggs have been beaten. Roll the paste out, give it two or three turns, and finish it as in the foregoing receipt. A plainer crust can be made by reducing the suet, and a richer and more volatile one by adding a couple of ounces or so of iced butter. RAISED PIE-CRUST, or number three, is perhaps less understood by Ramasámy than the other kinds that I have PASTRY-MAKING, ET CETERA. 267 mentioned. It is a thing that people rarely attempt in this country under an impression, I fancy, that it is too difficult for the Indian chef. Yet, as a matter-of-fact, nothing can be more simple. Pies of this kind are inex- pensive, and whether for breakfast, the luncheon table, or the pic-nic basket, cannot be too highly commended. To be certain of success it is advisable to procure a raised pie- tin, which should have movable sides secured by a pin at either end so that the pie may be easily released when baked. A locally made tin of the following size will, in the absence of a proper utensil, be found useful :-Oval in shape, six inches and a half long and five inches across (top measurement), five and a half inches long, and four inches across (bottom measurement): a movable bottom to fit the latter: depth of tin three and a half inches. The bazár tin-man will turn you out one of these tins in a few hours for a trifling sum. Made in a mould of this shape, the pie is, of course, larger at the top than at the bottom, with sloping sides. Having procured a tin, you should make the following short "pork-pie crust” to fit it:- Put half a pint of water into a sauce-pan, and let it boil ; when boiling, stir into it a quarter of a pound of clarified suet, and one ounce of fresh butter with a tea-spoonful of salt. Stir till the fat has melted, and then pour the con- tents of the sauce-pan, boiling hot, into a bowl containing a pound and a half of well-dried flour. Work the mixture to a stiff paste adding a little water, if necessary, and turn it out upon a cold pastry slab; roll it out three-quarters of an inch thick, as evenly and level as possible, and let it get quite cold. Now, butter the tin, and cut an oval piece of paste a little larger than the bottom of it so that the edges may turn up, and be more readily fixed to the wall, or side-paste; next cut out a strip three and a half inches wide, and sufficiently long to go round the inside of the wall of the tin; fix the bottom of the wall to the 268 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. oval piece at the bottom with white of egg, pinching them closely together; then fill the pie with whatever meat you have prepared, covering it over with an oval cap, cut like the bottom piece, cementing it with white of egg, and pinching it tightly to the top of the wall: brush the pie over with white of egg and bake it in a slow oven. Little pies require a slightly faster oven than large ones, but all raised pies should be slowly baked. This receipt for raised pie-crust is a Leicestershire one, and will be found similar to that used for pork-pies in that county. Pâté brisée crust, as used by French cooks for raised savoury pies, is composed by working the suet and butter into the dry flour before any liquid is added. Eight ounces of iced butter, or clarified beef suet, should be allowed for a pound of flour, a tea-spoonful of salt, and sufficient water to mix a very stiff dough. You can fill up these pies in many ways, here are a few recipes :- (a.) With mutton, a plain pie: Choose a first class neck of mutton, cut the meat from the bones in one piece, divide that into slices an inch thick, and cut them into squares as for a dry curry, keeping the fat and lean separate : if the neck be a lean one, a few pieces of nice kidney fat from the loin may be taken to assist the pie : thoroughly season the meat, when it is cut up, with salt, black pepper, and a table-spoonful of chopped curled parsley,-nothing else upon any account. With this the pie should be packed, as closely as possible, in alternate layers of fat and lean. Unlike ordinary pies, in this case you must not pour in any gravy with the meat: the chief thing is the close arrangement of the meat: if put in loosely the outside pieces will be dry and leathery. When satisfactorily fill- ed, put on the oval cover, cement the edges with white of PASTRY-MAKING, ET CETERA. 269 egg, and pinch them together firmly, brush the top over with a well-beaten egg, and bake the pie in a slow oven. While baking, you can simmer the bones and trimmings of the neck, with a couple of sheep's feet cleaned and cut up, and make a clear yet strong broth; this, when cold, should solidify as jelly; flavour it with pepper and salt, and after the pie has been baked, pour a little of it through an opening in the top of the cover. Set the pie in the ice- box, and when quite cold, serve. (6.) With pork, when you can get it clean-fed as on the Hills, the process is similar to that just explained : choose the neck, and omit the parsley : the seasoning for pork pies is composed of black pepper and salt only, the proportion being two-thirds of the latter to one of the former. Receipts that mention sage, &c., are incorrect. Pack the pieces of meat as closely as you can, and bake the pie very slowly: a little liquid jelly made from pettitoes and pork scraps may be poured in after the baking, but no gravy should be added before that operation. c.) With game. If made with game, the birds should be boned, and some pieces of chopped bacon should be introduced here and there. Season with spiced pepper, and pour some liquid jelly (made from the bones, trim- mings, and a couple of sheep's feet) into the pie after it has been baked. A liver and bacon forcemeat (vide page 70) is also necessary. For a specially good game-pie, proceed as follows:- Bone two partridges, two quails, and four snipes, and dusting of spiced pepper, and cover it up. Next make a forcemeat as follows:-Take the livers of the birds and that of the hare, and mince them finely; mince the spare meat of the hare, and a quarter of a pound of ham, and throw the whole of the mince into a frying-pan, in which 25 270 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. half a pound of fat bacon cut into dice has been tossed with a finely chopped shallot. Work the mince about for ten minutes, then empty the contents of the frying-pan into a mortar, and pound the mixture to a paste. Now cut eight fine traffles into dice the size of a pea, melt an ounce of butter in the frying-pan, and throw in the truffles; toss for a couple of minutes, and add a claret- glassful of Madeira ; let the dice boil in this, and then pour them with the liquor into a bowl. You can now pack the pie as follows :- Spread a layer of liver paste over the inside of each bird, put a spoonful of truffles apon it, and roll the bird up; cut the hare into slices, and treat them in the same way: next pat a layer of the liver paste over the bottom of the pie, dot it over with truffles, arrange the rolls of hare meat over that, spread some liver paste over them, a few truffles, and some thin slices of fat bacon : next arrange a layer of snipe, and continue until the pie is tightly filled ; cover the topmost layer with fat bacon, sprinkled over with marjoram leaves, cover the pie closely and bake. When done, pour into it a little very strong jelly (lique- fied) made of the bones and trimmings of the game, two sheep's feet, and the truffle liquor. It must be here observed that raised pies should not be made during the hot weather; unless eaten immediately they soon turn sour; but they will be found capital on the Hills, at Bangalore, and on the plains during the cold season. Savoury PUDDINGS, though homely, and perhaps hardly to be recommended for dinner parties, are, in their way, not to be despised. The best paste for them, I think, is one made as follows :--Chop very finely six ounces of clari- fied saet, and dredge a little flour over it as you mince it. Mix with it one pound of flour, a tea-spoonful of salt, and PASTRY-MAKING, ET CETERA. 271 sufficient water to make a smooth, pliant paste. Roll it out, and it will be ready for use. A basin is the best thing to use for the boiling : rub it well with butter, line it with the paste rolled at least half an inch thick, close over the top securely, tie the basin up with a cloth, and steam the pudding slowly for three hours. To ensure success, a pudding cannot be too slowly boiled. A really excellent BEEFSTEAK PUDDING can be made by preparing the beef as laid down for pies, viz. :- Cut the meat into thin collops, place a thin slice of cold cooked bacon over each collop, season this with spiced pepper, and roll each collop up. Line the pudding basin with paste, and fill it with layers of collops, pour in among the collops a little strong gravy, close the paste securely and boil for three hours. For BEEFSTEAK AND OYSTER PUDDING, roll an oyster inside each collop. For beefsteak and kidney, cut the kidney into strips and treat them in the same way, rolling slices of kidney and bacon inside each collop. Excellent puddings are made with birds, boned, and rolled up with a slice of bacon, and any nice stuffing, inside them. Take a brace of partridges, for instance, and bone them, lay them out flat, putting a few thin slices of cooked bacon over them, over that strew some chopped mush- rooms, their livers chopped, a little minced shallot, and a good dusting of spiced pepper; roll the birds up and pat them into the pudding basin, pour in a little rich gravy made from their bones, &c., close the paste over them, and boil for three hours. This is obviously practicable with any game. CHAPTER XXVII. A few nice Pies. T H ILE in the high art studies of this branch of culinary science, the clever cook finds grand opportunities of displaying his skill, he possesses in its humbler subjects a ready method of practising economy, and of exercising his inventive ability. The savoury pie is indeed an admirable institution. In no manner can odds and ends of good food be more satisfac- torily disposed of. We like a hot pie, we like a cold pie; it is welcome at breakfast, at luncheon, or at dinner; at the pic-nic, the wedding breakfast, or the ball supper. And yet it must be confessed that we rarely eat a pie in India that can be compared with an ordinary home-made pasty in England. The superiority of British meat may, no doubt, account for this failure to a certain extent, and the climate of the “plain country” may be against us, but I think the chief difficulty is susceptible of removal if we study the laws of pie-making and teach our cooks accord- ing to them. A very common fault committed by Ramasamy in his concoction of a pie, is this :-he is apt, unless taught other- wise, to cook, or partly cook, the meat of which it is made before covering it with paste, and baking it. It is, I hope, unnecessary for me to point out that this is an altogether erroneous proceeding. Whatever materials you may choose -pigeons, chicken, steak, or game,--see that they are A FEW NICE PIES. 273 laid in the pie-dish uncooked, and properly covered with paste according to the correct laws of cookery. Previously cooked meat may very often be made use of in a pie, I grant, but a good pasty' can hardly be produced if the whole of its contents have been dressed beforehand. Having selected the meat for your pie, the first thing to remember is the gravy which must be made separately, and part of it poured in and amongst the layers in the pie- dish before the paste is laid over it. A little wine lends valuable aid to such gravies: the remains of a good bottle of champagne can be used with great advantage in pigeon- pies, chicken and ham pies, &c., and Madeira is wanted for game, venison, and hare pies. The gravy ought not to fill the pie-dish ; about a breakfast-cupful will suffice for a pie of moderate size in the first instance. Prohibit most strenuously the use of Worcester, Tapp, or any strongly flavoured sauce of that kind: it is owing to Ramasámy's predilection for the sauce bottle that one peculiar kind of taste prevails throughout his dishes, in his savoury pies especially. The seasoning is a matter demanding close attention : here the “spiced pepper” described at page 1ll will be found of great assistance; and minced mushrooms, minced truffles, and minced olives, (made from remnants you may have saved after an important day's cooking) will come in most efficaciously. Finely chopped liver is a capital thing to shake over the crevices when building a pie, and little bits of chopped anchovy may be similarly used. Ham and tongue, either sliced, or grated, is welcome in every kind of pasty,' bacon is almost as effective, and sliced Bologna sausage a very good substitute. Always rub your pie-dish with a shallot, before pack- ing it. It is customary to garnish the surface of a savoury pie 274 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. with quarters of hard-boiled eggs: if you have a few button mushrooms, you can use them for that purpose also, and strew some finely minced parsley over the whole. The capful of gravy should be poured gently into the packed pie-dish the last thing, just to moisten the contents as it were. Assuming that the cook can make a good light pie-crust, and that the dish has been neatly covered in therewith, care must be taken about the state of the oven :-if too slack, the crust will be heavy and dull, and if too hot, it will be burnt before the pie is completely cooked. The oven should be so hot that you cannot quite bear your hand inside it. Always leave an aperture in the centre of your pie- crust, which you can cover with an ornamental device in pastry towards the end of the baking. This is necessary as a vent for the escape of the gas which the cooking of the meat generates, and also as an opening through which you can pour the rest of your gravy as a finishing touch after the pie is quite baked. The glazing of the crust should be done towards the end of the baking by brushing a well beaten up egg over its surface. If you bear these general rules in mind, I am sure that you will soon experience a marked improvement in the savoury pies that your cook may in future place before you. There ought to be little or no difficulty in flavouring a pie even though circumstances may render it impossible for you to compose the really good gravy which I have recommended as so highly essential. Take an ordinary “chicken and beef-steak pie” for instance: there ought to be some scraps left after cutting the beef to fit the pie-dish, and there must be some valuable trimmings available for broth-making when you have cut up and dressed the chicken-the neck, pinions, legs and feet, giblets, &c. A FEW NICE PIES. 275 With these materials the cook should make a fairly good broth, flavouring it with an onion, and any fragments of vegetable he may have at hand, a little mushroom ketch- up, some pepper corns, a dessert-spoonful of mixed dried herbs, the peel of a lime, a tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce or an anchovy finely chopped, a dessert-spoonful of vine- gar, a pinch of sugar, and salt to taste. When the scraps and bones have simmered secundum artem under careful supervision for an hour, a dash of Madeira may be stirred into the sauce-pan, and in a few minutes the broth may be strained off into a bowl. As soon as the fat, that the liquid may throw up, has been removed, the cook will have at his command a very excellent substitute for real gravy wherewith to moisten the contents of his pie : far better, at all events, than the water and Worcester sauce which Ramasámy is generally contented to use. A recipe for a really good " beef-steak pie” will be found in Menu No. 28, and the following notes concerning a“Do- mestic Pasty," will, I think, commend themselves to house- keepers who know what it is to find a few pounds of good meat on their hands without an idea of what to do with them. When staying on the Hills some time ago, a question one day arose touching what could be done with the remains of a fine saddle of mutton. There was a piece of good cold-boiled pickled pork in the house, about a pound of gravy beef could be spared from the soup meat, and a nice chicken was also available. I decided upon making a pie. Having called for the saddle, I began by cutting as many slices as I could from the meat that remained untouched at the tail end : each slice was trimmed free from burnt skin, &c., and laid upon a separate plate. About a pound and a half of these slices having been obtained, I next cut off all remnants of good lean that still adhered to the bones, and put them into a bowl. The 276 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. bones were then broken up, and cast into a large stew- pan with every atom of skin, fat, gristle, &c., that I could find left in the dish after the trimming operation. The whole saddle was thus disposed of. Into the stew-pan with the mutton bones, and scraps, I threw six shallots, a dozen pepper corns, the peel of a lime, two carrots cut up, a bunch of parsley, a coarse stalk of celery with its leaves, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, a bouquet of sweet herbs, the aforesaid pound of gravy beef cut up, and all the trimmings of the chicken,-neck, legs, feet, pinions and giblets. Having been covered with warm water, and simmered gently, in about three hours these various ingre- dients produced a pint and a half of very excellent broth which was strained off, and set to cool. The lean remnants which had been saved in the bowl were now pounded with a couple of anchovies in the mortar, and passed through the sieve. When the broth was quite cold, the fat was skim- med off, and a regular purée made with it and the pounded mutton. It was now time to pack the pie-dish, which was done in this way :-first a sprinkling of finely minced parsley, then a double layer of sliced mutton, over that a layer of sliced lean pork, another of mutton, and so on alternately, till there was just enough space left to accom- modate the joints of the raw chicken : these were neatly disposed on the top, with little bits of lean pork dotted in between them: the surface was garnished with hard-boiled eggs cut into quarters, and then the purée was patiently poured over everything, time being given for the liquid to settle in and amongst the contents of the pie-dish : when finished, the gravy came within an inch of the top of the pie: parsley minced small was shaken over the surface as a last touch. The cook now made the paste, and covered in the pasty'; it was baked, and at the end of the baking, some of the purée, which had been saved for the purpose, was gently poured into the pie through A FEW NICE PIES. 277 the vent in the centre of the crust. An ornamental flower cut in paste was placed over the aperture, the crust was glazed, and in due course the dish was ready for the table. Observe the absence of any ready-made sauce in the con- coction of this simple composition. A little ‘spiced pepper' was sprinkled over the layers of meat, and some very finely chopped thyme and marjoram,-about a tea-spoonful in all,—was shaken over them also. The joints of chicken were those usually cut up for a curry. When cold, this pie was really excellent; there was not a bit of grease in it; the meat lay prettily embedded in a delicious jelly; and the flavour was exactly that of an ordinary home-made pie in England. I did not put in any wine; I had no mush- rooms, and nothing expensive was used. Instead of the lean pickled pork,-ham, leanish bacon, tongue, sliced Bologna sausage, or even slices of juicy corned beef, might have been used. A little consideration will enable the composer to vary both the contents and the flavour of his pies from time to time. Lock up the Worcester sauce, and trust to the meat, herbs, and good gravy to produce a happy result. Bearing in mind the rules I have given, and remember- ing what was done in the case of the “ Domestic Pie" just described, I think you may undertake any of the follow- ing standard pies without any apprehension :- 1. “Beef-steak and Oyster Pie."-Follow the recipe given in Menu No. 28 as far as the cutting up of the beef is concerned, and the rolling up within each collop of a nice piece of boiled bacon. Place at the bottom a layer of beef collops, then a layer of oysters drained from the tin liquor, beef again, oysters again, and so on, till the dish is packed : season with “spiced popper" and finely minced lime peel. The gravy must be made thus :-To about a 26 278 CULINARY 70TTINGS FOR MADRAS. pint of good beef gravy, add the liquor you strained from the tin of oysters; the rind of a lime, a blade of mace, a glass of sherry and a table spoonful of walnut or mushroom ketchup; heat up gently, skimming off the scum which the oyster liquor may throw up, and when thoroughly blended, strain the gravy off, and pour it into your packed pie-dish, reserving about a coffee-cupful to pour through the top of the crust at the end of the baking. 2. “Chicken and Tongue Pie.”—A chicken, an ox tongue, and six matton cutlets from the neck. Cut up a chicken as if for curry, slice up a cold-boiled, home-cured tongue, and trim six nice mutton cutlets from the neck as if for an entrée. Throw the chicken scraps, the tongue skin and trimmings, and all the remnants of mutton left after shap- ing the cutlets, into a large sauce-pan with the materials for gravy flavouring recommended in the recipe for the " Domestic Pie,” and make a nice broth with them; when the broth is nearly ready, give it half a glass of Madeira, and strain when it is finished. Pack the pie thus :-a dust of chopped parsley at the bottom, then the matton cutlets, above them the slices of tongue, and the chicken at the top. Pour in the gravy, garnish the top with hard-boiled eggs, cover the pie with a good crust, and bake. 3. “Rabbit Pie.”—One good sized rabbit, half a pound of bacon, forcemeat, and a pound of gravy beef. Skin and wash a fine rabbit, cut it up in the usual way as if for a stew, and put the pieces to soak in cold water. When quite clean, drain them, wipe them dry with a clean cloth, and set them aside. Put the head, the lower joints of the legs, and all scraps of the rabbit, with the beef, and the usual ingredients for flavouring a gravy already laid down, into a large sauce-pan, and make the best gravy you can with them for the pie. When this has been done to your satisfaction, and the fat has been skimmed off the surface of the liquor, proceed in this way :--Make a plain force- A FEW NICE PIES. 279 meat as described for turkey, mingling with it the liver and kidneys of the rabbit very finely chopped, and spread a thin layer of it at the bottom of the pie-dish ; immediately above it put a layer of bacon slices, then the coarser joints of the rabbit, dusting them with “spiced pepper,” and filling the interstices between the pieces with forcemeat; put a second layer of bacon over the rabbit, and rabbit again above that, repeat the forcemeat dressing, and when the pie-dish is full, pour in the gravy till it almost reaches the level of the topmost layer. Garnish as usual, cover the pie with paste, and bake; time, if the oven be in a proper condition, about one hour and a quarter. 4. “Hare Pie.”—This should be made like the fore- going 'pasty' exactly, with two slight variations, viz. :-a glass of port, half a glass of good vinegar, with a dessert- spoonful of red currant jelly should be mixed into the gravy, and a little pounded mace may be sprinkled over the meat in addition to the ordinary spiced pepper. 5. “ Pigeon Pie.”-A pound and a half of tender lean beef to three good pigeons, half a pound of leanish bacon, and a pound of gravy beef. The process is not very different from that of the pies already described. You must make the best gravy possible from the pound of gravy meat, the pigeon trimmings, and any scraps at hand. The pigeons should be placed upon the tender beef, which should be cut into neat collops and blended with the bacon cut into thin strips, as propounded for “beef-steak pie,” Menu No. 28. Do not cut the pigeons in halves : let them be prepared whole as if for roasting, and put some chopped bacon seasoned with pepper, salt, or "spiced pepper," salt, and grated lime peal, inside each bird. Half a glass of Madeira or any sound white wine may be mingled with the gravy, the pie-dish should be rubbed with a shallot before it is packed, finely chopped parsley should be sprinkled over the bottom of the dish before the beef 280 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. collops are arranged upon it, and the pigeon's livers with bacon rolled round them should be arranged on the surface. I have also found that mutton collops may be used with almost as good an effect as those of beef. I used the meat of the blade-bone of a shoulder, which was cut into neat pieces; these were rolled with a slice of bacon inside them as directed for beef. 6. “Snipe Pie.”—When snipes are plentiful, as they often are in India, the cook ought to remember this delicacy. Supposing eight birds to be available, I would work in this way :- I would prepare six of them, as if for roasting, for the pie; and two I would sacrifice for the gravy, which onght to be very first rate. For this pur- pose two pounds of gravy meat must be obtained, besides about a couple of pounds of the undercut, or tender rib- meat, for the pie. Having made as good a beef gravy as possible, I would throw into it the two snipe, and proceed to make a little purée (as explained in Menu No. 16) pounding the meat of the birds, after they have been slowly simmered in the gravy, to a paste, and blending it with the gravy secundum artem. After rubbing the pie-dish with a shallot, I would fill up the bottom of it with little collops of the tender beef rolled with strips of bacon, “ spiced pepper” being dusted over each layer until all the beef has been used. I would lay the six snipes on the surface of the beef with slices of lean bacon, ham, tongue, or Bologna sausage, between each bird, garnish as usual, baptize the pie with the purée, saving some of it for the final process previously described, cover it with a nice light paste, and bake. Birds badly knocked about in shooting come in usefully for gravy. Partridges, and quails make good pies, but they require a sound and strong support in the way of fresh meat, and A FEW NICE PIES. 281 good gravy. Beef,—the tender undercut, or rib-meat,- forms the best basis you can devise : it should be cut up into collops, as I have frequently said before, and strips of bacon should be rolled round them. Or you can use the blade-bone collops of good mutton just described, or the neck catlets; each cutlet should be trimmed neatly, with a strip of bacon wrapped round it. Excellent gravy can be obtained from the scraps left after trimming the beef or the catlets, the remnants of the birds not wanted in the pie, and a pound of gravy meat, with the usual vegetables, and other flavouring ingredients often describ- ed. A little wine is almost a sine quâ non with these game birds : Madeira, sound brown sherry, or any white wine-of which a glass is quite enough. A good“ Game pie” is a capital thing for the luncheon, or breakfast party. Snipe, quails, partridges, hares, pigeons, teal, wild duck, &c., &c., can be thus disposed of most advantageously: they must be assisted by tender beef, or good mutton collops ; slices of bacon, of ham, or of Bologna sausage must be introduced, and the gravy must be very attentively composed. A forcemeat made thus will be found undeniably valuable :-take the livers of all the game composing the pie, and make the composition de- scribed elsewhere as“ foie-gras forcemeat,” truffles and all, using the game livers instead of that of a calf. When ready, you can use it as follows :-spread a layer of it over the bottom of the pie-dish, and up the sides also : what remains should be introduced here and there amongst the layers of meat during the packing operations. As the game must be boned in the case of this particular dish, we shall have to mash all the bones with the pestle, and throw them into our stock-pot. Take a pound and a half of gravy beef, the mashed game bones, a bacon or ham bone, (or a few slices of either) two sheep's feet cut up, and the vegetables generally used in soup-making, with a 282 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. bouquet of sweet herbs, a clove of garlic, a little mixed spice, a dozen pepper corns, a little caramel for colouring, and salt to taste, and make the very richest gravy in the style of “aspic jelly" stock, Menu No. 9. Instead of tarragon vinegar, add to the broth which you get after straining, one glass of Madeira, or fruity sherry, a tea- spoonful of reduced vinegar, one table-spoonful of red currant jelly, and half a wine-glass of mushroom ketchup, boil the gravy up again, and then set it to get cool prior to its being poured into the pie. The game of which the pie is to be made should be carefully boned, and if of a large kind, cut up into neat pieces ; skin, scraps, and trimmings should be cast into the stock-pot with the mashed bones. Arrange the meat when trimmed satisfactorily upon a large flat dish, dredge it over with flour, and give it a dusting of “spiced pepper” which ought to be specially prepared for the occasion. After having rubbed the pie- dish well with a shallot, spread the thin coating of force- meat over the bottom of it, and up the sides, as already mentioned. Next, place a good layer of tender beef, or mutton collops, each rolled round a slice of bacon, over the forcemeat at the bottom of the dish, and then go on packing the game meat, with slices of ham, bacon, or Bologna sausage, dotted in here and there, and frequent dustings of "spiced pepper" until the dish is filled. For a special occasion, a bottle of truffles should be opened and used in this way :-Trim the truffles into dice, chopping up quite small the parings and trimmings which are left: this mince ought to be used in the liver force- meat: the dice should be tossed awhile in melted butter in a frying-pan, with a glass of Madeira, and a spoonful of good gravy and then cleverly put in amongst the game meat during the packing of the pie-dish. If mushrooms happen to be available as they often are during rainy weather, treat them, after cleaning and peeling them, A FEW NICE PIES. 283 exactly like the truffles : toss them a short time in butter in the frying-pan, if large, cut them into convenient pieces, or if buttons, put them in whole as you go on with your packing. Thus composed, and bountifully diluted with the aforesaid good gravy, our pie may be covered over with the best paste, baked, glazed, enriched with a second libation of rich gravy poured in through the vent to finish with, and served cold with confidence bordering upon exultation. While on the subject of good pies, I can scarcely do better than end this chapter with an excellent recipe for a pie, practicable with seer-fish as well as with salmon. SALMON PIE, to be eaten cold :—Take one pound of salmon from the tin, and drain it from the tin liquor. If nice and firm, cut it into fillets with a dessert-knife. Make three-quarters of a pound of forcemeat as follows:-choose either some fresh uncooked whiting, pomfret, or other fresh fish and having taken eight ounces of it pass it through a wire sieve, add four ounces of fresh butter, and four of fine white crumbs, pound all together in a mortar, and season the purée with salt and pepper; moisten it with a cupful of rich poulette sauce, and bind the mixture with two raw eggs. Line a raised pie tin with paste as for pork pie, fill the bottom with a layer of the forcemeat, then a layer of the salmon, an inch thick, continuing the packing till the pie is filled. Put a cover of puff-paste over the top, brush it over with white of egg, and bake the pie slowly. When done, let it cool for half an hour, and then pour in, through a hole made in the top, a coffee- cupful of rich fish broth, made from the bones and trim- mings of the fresh fish, reduced to a glaze, and mix with a coffee-cupful of essence of truffles made in this way :- Take the contents of a small bottle of truffles, and boil them for twenty minutes briskly in a pint of clear chicken 284 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. broth, flavoured with a glass of Madeira, some sweet herbs, pepper, salt, and a little nutmeg. Remove the sance-pan from the fire, and when the liquid is cold, pick out the truffles (they will do for any other dish), and strain the cold essence. After having poured the essence into the pie, let it get quite cold, then turn it out of the tin, put it upon a napkin, and serve. If made with uncooked seer fish instead of salmon, the pie will be found excellent. There are, of course, many other pies concerning which I could give advice, I am, however, pretty confident that if you bear in mind the principles I have tried to make clear, you will rarely fail to succeed in composing a very eatable pasty,' and win approval from those for whose delect- ation you may exercise your ingenuity. On the Hills, at Bangalore, and at many of the stations of this Presidency during the cold months, every one of the pies I have described will be found when cold to contain firm jelly,—not liquid gravy. If you desire to produce that cheerful effect at Madras, do not forget to place the pie upon ice for some little time before the meal at which it is to appear. The jelly is, of course, the united result of good gravy, and the juices of the various meats in the pie extracted by baking. During the hot weather on the plains, if you cannot ice the pie, it will be found a good plan to pour off the gravy after it has left the table, hot. This will prevent the meat turning sour. The gravy can be heated the next morning, and the pie can be warmed up. Cold pie, with- out artificial cold imparted by ice, is an impossibility with the thermometer at 90°. CHAPTER XXVIII. Our Curries. T E are often told by men of old time, whose long V connection with the country entitles them to speak with the confidence of“ fellows who know, don't you know,” that in inverse proportion, as it were, to the steady advance of civilization in India, the sublime art of curry-making has gradually passed away from the native cook. Elders at Madras—erst-while the acknowledged head-centre of the craft-shake their heads and say “Icha- bod !” and if encouraged to do so, paint beautiful mouth- watering "pictures in words” of succulent morsels cun- ningly dressed with all the savoury spices and condiments of Ind, the like of which, they say, we ne'er shall look upon again. Looking back myself to the hour of my arrival in India, I call to mind the kind-hearted veteran who threw his doors open to me, and, pouring in the oil and wine of lavish hospitality, set me upon his own beast, killed the fatted calf, and treated me, indeed, as a son that had been lost and was found. It rejoiced this fine old servant of honest John Company, I remember, to give" tiffin” parties at which he prided himself on sending round eight or nine varieties of curries, with divers platters of freshly-made chutneys, grilled ham, preserved roes of fishes, &c. The discussion of the “ course,”-a little banquet in itself-ased to occupy 27 286 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. at least half an hour, for it was the correct thing to taste each curry, and to call for those that specially gratified you a second time. Now, this my friend was, I take it, a type of the last Anglo-Indian generation ; a generation that fostered the art of curry-making, and bestowed as much attention to it as we, in these days of grace, do to copying the culinary triumphs of the lively Gauls. Thirty years ago fair house-keepers were wont to vaunt themselves upon their home-made curry powders, their chutneys, tamarind and roselle jellies, and so forth, and carefully superintended the making thereof. But fashion has changed, and although ladies are, I think, quite as fond of a good curry as their grandmothers were, they rarely take the trouble to gather round them the elements of success, and have ceased to be cumbered about this particular branch of their cook's work. This is an important point, for if we enquire closely into the causes that have led to the alleged decay of the curry- making knack, we shall certainly find that the chief of them is want of care in the preparation of powders and pastes, and the loss of recipes which in days gone by were wrapped in silver paper, and preserved with miniatures painted on ivory, locks of hair, love sonnets, and other precious secrets of a lady's escritoire. I say “chief” advisedly, for there can be no doubt that modern improvements in our cuisine, and modern good taste, have assisted in a measure in elbowing off the once delectable plats of Indian origin; and that the best curry in the world would never be permitted to appear at a petit- diner composed by a good disciple of the new régime. Curries now-a-days are only licensed to be eaten at breakfast, at luncheon, and perhaps at the little home dinner, when they may, for a change, occasionally form OUR CURRIES. 287 the pièce de résistance of that cosy meal. Having thus lost “caste," so to speak, it ought hardly to surprise us that curries have deteriorated in quality. The old cooks, who studied the art, and were encouraged in its cultiva- tion, have passed away to their happy hunting grounds ; and the sons and grandsons who now reign in their stead have been taught to devote themselves to more fashionable dishes. While, however, it cannot be denied that the banish- ment of curries from the menu of our high-art banquets, both great and small, is, for many reasons, indispensably necessary, there can be no doubt that at mess and club dinners, at hotels, and at private houses, as already shown, these time-honoured dishes will always be welcome. Has not the time arrived then for us to endeavour to resuscitate the ancient canning of our cooks, and to take some pains to attain that end ? The actual cooking of a curry presents no special diffi- culty. A cook who is an adept with the stew-pan, and who has mastered the art of slow, and very gentle simmer- ing, will, whether a Frenchman, an Englishman, or a mild Hindu, soon become familiar with the treatment of this particular dish. The knotty points are these :-First the powder or paste, next the accessories, and lastly the order in which the various component parts should be added. Concerning powders, it behoves us to proceed with cau- tion, or we shall soon lose ourselves in a maze of recipes. Speaking of them generally, however, it is not, I think, commonly known that curry-powders improve by keeping it carefully bottled. One of the causes of our daily failures is undoubtedly the lazy habit we have adopted of per- mitting our cooks to fabricate their “curry-stuff,” on the spot, as it is required. Powder should be made in large 288 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. quantities under the eye of the mistress of the house, or that of a really trustworthy head-servant. It should then be bottled, and corked securely down. I shall presently give a very valuable receipt for a stock household powder, one that was surrendered to me by an accomplished châtelaine, on the eve of her departure from India, as a token of the sincerest friendship. But for those who wish to avoid trouble and yet to have good curries, I strongly advocate the use of Barrie's Madras curry-powder and paste. I am not employed as an adver- tising medium. My advice is not the advice of a “gent” travelling for Messrs. Barrie and Co., it is the honest exhortation of one, my friends, who has the success of your curries very closely at heart. After more than twenty years' experience of Barrie's condiments, I say boldly, that I am aware of no prepara- tions in the market that can equal them. At the “Orien- tal Depôt,” on the southern side of Leicester Square,-a sanctuary known, I fear, to too few Anglo-Indians at home-you can see, or could see, (for the little place may have been swept away for aught I know with Northum- berland House, Temple Bar and other structures of re- nown), sundry casks of Barrie's curry-stuffs, chutneys, &c. I discovered the place by a mere accident, and the smell and the order-book convinced me that I had not made a mistake. The former was that of my friend Barrie, and the latter contained names of such high degree in connection with India that I immediately removed my hat. Unfortunately the depôt is largely patronized by Lon- don grocers, who, over-wise in their generation, use the condiments they purchase as mere stock wherewith to flavour some miserable concoction of their own manufac- ture. Two parts of arrowroot coloured with saffron, and one part of Barrie, for instance, is a mixture that can OUR CURRIES. 289 u letters. hardly with justice be called "genuine Madras curry- powder,” notwithstanding its being bottled in a very pretty bottle, and priced two and six. I detected the presence of Barrie's excellent mulliga- tunny paste at several places at home, especially at Mutton's at Brighton, where a basin of the potage Indien for lunch on a frosty day used to be a thing worth recording in a pilgrim's diary with red letters. Assuming that we have procured, or made, a really good stock powder, the accessories next present themselves for our consideration. These are very important, for, with their aid, a clever cook can diversify the flavour, and style of his carries ; without them-be the powder or paste never so well composed—the dish will certainly lack finish, and the true characteristics of a good curry. Prominently among them stands the medium to be used for the frying of the onions, with which the process com- mences. This most assuredly should be butter. The quantity required is not very great, and surely it may be assumed that people who want to have a good curry will not ruin it for the sake of a “two ounce pat of Dosset!” for be it noted, that tinned butter of a good brand is admirably adapted for this work. Among other adjuncts that may be written down as indispensable are the ingredients needed to produce that suspicion of sweet-acid which it will be remembered, forms a salient feature of a superior curry. The natives of the south use a rough tamarind conserve worked, sometimes, with a very little jaggery or molasses, and a careful prepa- ration of tamarind is decidedly valuable. Why, however, should we not improve upon this with red currant jelly, and if further sharpness be needed, a little lime or lemon juice? In England, and I daresay in India also, chop- ped apple is sometimes used, and perhaps chopped mango, in the fool-days of the fruit, would be nice. A spoonful 290 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. of sweetish chutney and a little vinegar or lime juice can be employed, but I confess that I prefer the red currant jelly as aforesaid. There are also certain green leaves which are undoubt- edly not to be despised as flavouring agents. By their means flavours can be effectively changed. I will speak of them again when discussing the process of curry-making step by step. xunto Then there is that most important item the cocoanut. This, as everyone knows, is added to a curry in the form of “milk,” i.e., an infusion produced by scraping the white nutty part of the cocoanat, and soaking the scrap- ings in boiling water. This, strained, is the “milk” required in curry-making. The quantity to be used de- pends upon the nature of the curry. Malay curries, for instance, require a great deal of " milk.” The point in connection with this adjunct, however, that must not be missed, is the period at which it should be added. If put in too soon, the value of the nutty juice will be lost, -cooked away, and overpowered by the spicy condiments with which it is associated. So we must reserve the “milk," as we do cream or the yolk of an egg in the case of a thick soup or rich sauce, and stir it into our curry the last thing just before serving: The strained milk extracted from pounded sweet almonds can be put into a curry very advantageously : it may be used alone, or be associated with cocoanut milk. One ounce of the latter, to twelve almonds, will be found a pleasant proportion. When cocoanuts cannot be got, almond milk makes a capital substitute. Curries cannot afford to dispense with the assistance of some stock or gravy. It is not uncommon to hear people say that they have eaten far better curries in England than in India, the chief reason being that Mary Jane will OUR CURRIES. 291 ::::::: not undertake to make the dish without at least a break- fast-cupful and a half of good stock. Let us now consider attentively the actual details of curry-making, and since we cannot proceed to work with- out a good powder or paste, we can hardly do better than commence operations by studying the recipe for a house- hold curry-stuff, concerning which I have already spoken. If faithfully followed, it will, I am sure, be found most trustworthy. It runs as follows :- 4 lbs. of turmeric ... ... Hind. huldi. 8 lbs. of coriander-seed dhunnia. . 2 lbs. of cummin-seed jeera. 1 lb. of poppy-seed... khush-khush. 2 lbs. of fenugreek ... maythi. 1 lb. of dry-ginger ... sont. lb. of mustard-seed ... ? rai. 1 lb. of dried chillies ... , sooka mirrch. 1 lb. of black pepper corns. „ kala mirrch. Do not be alarmed at the quantity, remembering my previous statement that curry-powder improves by keep- ing, if carefully secured. The amount when finally mixed will fill about half a dozen bottles of the size in which tart fruits are imported. Accordingly, if disinclined to lay in so large a stock at a time, the obvious alternative of shar- ing some of it with a friend can easily be adopted. The lady who gave me the receipt accompanied her kind action with a little good advice :-“Weigh every- thing,” said she, “ most carefully, and even after the vari- ous ingredients have been cleaned, weigh them again, and also weigh the husks, &c., that have been removed. In this way alone will you be able to guard against the dis- appearance of half an ounce of this, or an ounce of that,- petty pilferings that take from the curry-powder that which it cannot get again, and leave it poor indeed.” OUR CURRIES. 293 discretion, are these :-cloves (laoong), mace (jawatri), cinnamon (kulmi darchini), nutmeg (jaephal), cardamoms (eelachi), and allspice (seetul chini gach). A salt-spoonful of one, or at most of two, of these aromatic powders blended, will suffice for a large curry. Dr. Kitchener's precept, viz., that the mixing of several spices is a blunder, should never be forgotten. The green leaves that are often useful when judiciously introduced are :-fennel (souf), “ maythi bajee,” lemon- grass (uggea-ghas), bay-leaves (tajipatha), “ karay-pauk," “ kotemear” leaves (green coriander), &c. When green ginger is used it should be sliced very fine, and pounded to a paste; a dessert-spoonful being suffi- cient for one curry. The indispensably necessary suspicion of sweet-acid can be produced most readily by a dessert-spoonful of powdered or moist sugar and the juice of a lime, or a spoonful of vinegar. A table-spoonful of sweet chutney and the juice of a lime make a good substitute ; but a table-spoonful of red currant jelly, with one of chutney, and a little vinegar of lime juice, form to my mind the nicest combination for dark corries. I strongly advocate the very capital plan of making a fresh paste of some of the above adjuncts, in sufficient quantity for the curry in hand, and blending it with the stock powder when cooking the latter. Here is a reliable recipe :-One small onion, one clove of garlic, one dessert- spoonful of turmeric, one of freshly-roasted coriander-seed, one of poppy-seed, a tea-spoonful of Nepaul pepper, one of sugar, one of salt, and one of grated green ginger. Pound all these with sufficient good salad oil to make a paste. Also pound twelve almonds, and one ounce of cocoanut, with a little lime juice to assist the operation. Then mix the two pastes, and stir into them a salt-spoon- 28 294 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. ful of cinnamon or clove-powder. A heaped up table- spoonful of this paste to one of the stock powder will pro- duce a very excellent result. Additional heat can be obtained by those who like very hot curries if red chilli powder be added to the above ingredients according to taste. This paste will keep if put away carefully and covered up. Having satisfied ourselves as to the composition of oar powder and paste, We may now work out, step by step, the process to be followed in cooking a chicken curry. Choose a nice young chicken and here let me point out that large chickens nearly full grown ought never to be used in curries—and having cat it up neatly as for a fricassée, place the pieces aside, and dredge over them a little flour. Next take all the trimmings, neck, pinions, leg bones, feet, head, &c., with any scraps of meat that can be spared, and cast them into a sauce-pan with an onion sliced, a carrot sliced, half a dozen pepper corns, a bit of celery, a pinch of salt and one of sugar, cover them with cold water and make the best broth you can. When ready, strain the contents of the sauce-pan into a bowl, and skim it clean. A good breakfast-cupful of weak stock should thus be obtained. Lastly, make a breakfast-cupful of milk of cocoanut, or almond. Now take your stew-pan, and having sliced up six good shallots, or two small white onions, cast the rings into it, with two ounces of Denmark, Normandy, or other good tinned butter; add a finely-minced clove of garlic, and fry till the onions turn a nice yellow brown. Then add a heaped-up table-spoonful of the stock powder, and one of the paste, or, if you have not made the latter, two table- spoonfuls of the powder. Cook the curry-stuff with the onions and butter for a minute or two, slowly, adding by OUR CURRIES. 295 degrees a wine-glassful of the cocoanut milk, and then also by degrees the breakfast-capful of broth. The effect of this when simmered for a quarter of an hour will be a rich, thick, curry gravy, or sauce. The stew-pan should now be placed en bain-marie while we proceed to prepare the chicken. Take a frying-pan : melt in it an ounce of butter, or clarified beef suet, add a shallot cut up small, and fry for a couple of minutes. Next put the pieces of chicken into the sauté-pan, and lightly fry them. As soon as slightly coloured, the pieces of chicken should be transferred to the stew-pan in which they should rest for at least half an hour, marinading, as it were, in the curry gravy. After that, the stew-pan should be placed over a gentle fire, and if the liquid be found insufficient to cover the pieces of chicken, stock, if available, or water, should be added. A gentle simmering process should now be encouraged, during which the bay-leaf, chutney, and sweet-acid should be added. If powder without fresh paste has been used, the pounded almond and cocoanut must now be put in, with a little spice and grated green ginger. The curry gravy should at this period be tasted, and if a little more acid or sweet be found necessary, the proper correction should be made. As soon as the pieces of chicken have become tender, thoroughly stewed, that is to say, a coffee- cupful of cocoanut “milk,” (the infusion I previously mentioned), should be stirred in, and in three minutes the operation will be complete. If a semi-dry or dry curry be required, the gravy must be still further reduced by simmering with the lid off, the pieces of meat being continually stirred about with a wooden spoon to prevent their catching at the bottom of the pan. When the proper amount of absorption has been attained, remove the pan and serve. Now, those to whom the slipshod method of curry- OUR CURRIES. 297 those of minced cooked meat, tinned or cooked fish, dress- ed vegetables, and hard-boiled eggs, merely require to be gently heated up in a carefully made curry gravy. The Malay or “ Ceylon curry" as it is sometimes called, is, of course, a spécialité and there are kubàbs, quoormas, 8C., 8c., that need separate consideration. CHAPTER XXIX. Curries-continued, and Mulligatunny. HE outward bound passenger to India is generally A very favourably struck by the curry presented to him at a Ceylon hostelry. Heartily weary of the cuisine on boardship, at that period of his voyage, he would probably welcome any change with thankfulness. The prospect of a little meal ashore, “be it ever so hum- ble,” is therefore especially enjoyable to him. It may, of course, be said that in such circumstances the traveller is predisposed to deliver a kindly verdict; and that if the dish that pleased him so much in the hour of his eman- cipation from cuddy barbarisms were placed before him after a proper course of civilized diet, it would, by no means produce such an agreeable impression. It would, at all events, lack the charm of contrast, which, in the particular instance before us, could hardly fail to excite the warmest feelings of gratitude and satisfaction. The nautical curry is not, as a rule, a plat to dream of, -a triumph to look back upon pleasurably, that is to say, with the half-closed eye of a connoisseur. A sea-faring friend with whom I once made a very cheery voyage, graphically described the composition as "yellow Irish stew.” Those whose memory is retentive of trifles will no doubt call to mind without difficulty a bright saffron- tinted swill, covering sundry knotty lumps of potato and CURRIES-CONTINUED. 299 a few bony atoms of mutton, with its surface beflecked, if I may so describe it, with glossy discs of molten grease. Not exactly the sort of dish to tempt a lady, still slightly affected by mal-de-mer, who has been urged by her stew- ardess to rouse herself, “poor dear,” and try and eat something. Having had this mess thrust before him day after day for three weeks, no wonder that the "vacuus viator" finds something in the curry of Ceylon to delight him. “Good ! said I to myself, cheered at the sight” (a plump, freshly-roasted leveret), wrote Brillat Savarin con- cerning his experiences of a journey; “I am not entirely abandoned by Providence: a traveller may gather a flower by the way-side.” Regarding the Ceylon curry, then, as a “flower by the way-side,” let us proceed to consider its composition with all due attention. As I observed in my last chapter, the dish is quite a spécialité, peculiar originally to places where the cocoanut is extensively grown and appreciated. It is known by some as the “ Malay curry,” and it is closely allied to the moli of the Tamils of Southern India. Though best adapted for the treatment of shell-fish, ordi- nary fish, and vegetables of the cucumis or gourd family, it may be advantageously tried with chicken, or any nice white meat. We can describe it as a species of fricassée, rich with the nutty juice of the cocoanat, and very deli- cately flavoured with certain mild condiments. It ought to be by no means peppery or hot, though thin strips of red and green chilli-skin or capsicum may be associated with it. It therefore possesses characteristics very differ- ent from those of an ordinary curry. The knotty point is the treatment and application of the cocoanut, which should be as fresh and juicy as possible, and of which there should be no stint. In places where cocoanuts cannot be readily procured, 300 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. a very good "mock" Ceylon curry can be made with the milk of almonds, and from Brazil nuts an infusion can be concocted that very much resembles cocoanut milk. The condiments employed are onions, a very little garlic, green ginger, turmeric powder, a little powdered cinna- mon and cloves, and the chilli strips aforesaid. Coriander- seed, cummin-seed, cardomoms, fenugreek, chilli-powder, poppy-seed, &c., ought, on no account, to be used. The most agreeable combinations are prawns with cu- cumber, crab with vegetable marrow, or any firm-fleshed fish or tender chicken with either of those vegetables. For example, I will select a prawn and cucumber curry :- (a)-Take a good-sized cucumber, or two small ones, cut them lengthwise into quarters, remove the seeds, and peel off the green skin. Cut them into pieces two inches long and one inch thick, and put them into a stew-pan with plenty of water, half an ounce of butter, and a tea- spoonful of salt. Simmer them until three parts done; then drain the liquid off, and turn the pieces of cacumber out upon a clean dish, and cover them up. (b)-The prawns should be prepared very carefully; and here permit me to observe that if prawns are fresh, and properly cleaned, no evil effects need be dreaded by those who look upon them as dangerous. Throw two table-spoonfuls of salt into a gallon of water, put the pan on the fire, and when the water boils fast, slip into it about a pound and a half of prawns weighed in their shells. Boil, and as soon as the prawns turn a rosy pink, stop, drain them from the water, let them get cold, and shell them, removing their heads completely. Next pass a knife down the line of the back of each prawn, slightly open the groove as it were, and pick out of it the black gritty dirt that you will find there. Carry out a similar process with the inner line, and cast the cleaned prawns CURRIES-CONTINUED. 301 into a basin of spring water. Having washed them again thoroughly, pick them out, and dry them on a cloth. If very large, you must now divide them in halves length- wise, and sever each half in twain. Dust them over with flour, and put them on a dish. They are now ready. (©)-Choose a very large cocoanut, the fresher the better, break it in half, and, with a cocoanut scraper, remove the whole of the white flesh, casting it into a bowl. Upon the raspings thus obtained, pour a breakfast-cupful of boiling water, leave it for a quarter of an hour, and then strain the liquid off. This is the best or “ number one" infusion, which must be put away, and not added to the curry till the last thing before serving. Return the raspings to their bowl, and pour over them a pint and a half of boiling water, stir well, and let the liquid stand for half an hour. It should then be strained, and the nutty atoms squeezed dry in muslin, so that every drop of the cocoanut essence may be secured. The liquor thus obtained is the “num- ber two” infusion. Our preparations are now complete. (d)—Put two ounces of good tinned butter into a stew- pan, and mix into it, as it melts over a brisk fire, a white Bombay onion shred into rings, and a clove of garlic finely minced. Lightly fry, but do not allow the onions to turn colour before adding a table-spoonful of good flour, a dessert-spoonful of turmeric powder, a tea-spoon- ful of salt, and a scant one of sugar, a tea-spoonful of mixed cloves and cinnamon powder, and, by degrees, the “ number two infusion.” A breakfast-cupful of thick chicken broth, or fish consommé-made by simmering some fish bones, prawn shells, and scraps of fish, in water, with an onion, a carrot, and some parsley—may now go in to assist the composition, together with a heaped-up table- spoonful of sliced green ginger, and three green chillies cut into Julienne-like strips. The liquid is now ready for the prawns, so remove the stew-pan from the fire, and 29 302 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. place it in a bath of boiling water, to keep warm, while you add the prawns and the slices of partly-cooked cucum- ber. It will be found an excellent plan to permit the curry-now all but ready-to rest for about half an hour, at the expiration of which the pan may be placed over a moderate fire, and its contents brought to simmering point. When satisfied that both the prawns and vegetable are tender, the “number one" infusion may be stirred in, and with it a tea-spoonful of lime-juice. Five minutes' sim- mering will now complete our task, and the curry can be dished up, and served. It should be noted carefully that the water found inside a cocoanut is not “cocoanut milk” according to the cali- nary vocabulary. The infusion is what should be used in curry-making Fillets of any firm-fleshed fish, or even neat fillets of chicken, may be treated precisely in the manner I have described. As, however, it is necessary partly to cook prawns, crabs, lobsters, shrimps, &c., separately, a longer process of simmering will be necessary for raw fillets. The pieces of chicken should be lightly tossed in butter in a sauté-pan with a finely-shred onion, before being put into the curry sauce. The moli is prepared in this manner :-Melt a couple of ounces of butter, and fry therein an onion sliced into rings, and a clove of garlic minced, a few strips of green chilli, and some slices of green ginger; stir into it a table-spoon- ful of flour, and add by degrees the “number two infusion" just alluded to. Work this to the consistency of a rich white sauce adding a little broth if necessary, heat up some slices of cooked fish or chicken in it, and finish off, as already described, with “number one infusion,” and a tea-spoonful of lime-juice. A little turmeric powder may be used if the yellow colour be considered desirable. If raw fish be used, the simmering process will be necessary. CURRIES-CONTINUED. 303 Old Indian cookery books give a number of recipes for KUBÁB curries, for the most part of purely native design, and requiring condiments and ingredients which were per- haps appreciated by our forefathers who adopted an almost Oriental method of life. The best kubáb, to my mind, is one made of tender mutton or veal, and treated as fol- lows: Cut the matton into thickish pieces, about an inch square and half an inch thick; cut out of some slices of good bacon some pieces an inch square also, but about a quarter the thickness of the mutton; cut up some pieces of parboiled white onion upon the same pattern as the bacon, and some thin slices of green ginger to match. Impale these mixed pieces upon small plated or silver skewers, or upon thinly-cut wooden ones, maintaining the order I have given, viz., first a piece of mutton, then a piece of bacon, then a bit of onion, and lastly, the thin slice of green ginger. Having repeated this until the skewer is filled, go on with another. When all have been completed, the kubábs should be simmered in a good curry sauce as recommended for chicken curry. Before being added to the sauce, however, they should be lightly tossed in butter in a sauté-pan with an onion sliced, a tea-spoonful of salt, and one of sugar. The introduction of the slice of bacon is a very great improvement. The “ QUOORMA,” if well made, is undoubtedly an excel- lent curry. It used, I believe, to be one of the best at the Madras Club, in days when curries commanded closer attention than they do now. Cut up about a pound of very tender mutton without any bone, and stir the pieces about in a big bowl with a dessert-spoonful of pounded green ginger, and a sprinkling of salt. Melt a quarter of a pound of butter in a stew- pan, and throw into it a couple of white onions cut into 304 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. rings, and a couple of cloves of garlic finely minced. Fry for about five minutes, and then add a tea-spoonful of pounded coriander-seed, one of pounded black pepper, half one of pounded cardomoms, and half one of pounded cloves. Cook this for five minutes, then put in the meat, and stir over a moderate fire until the pieces seem tender, and have browned nicely. Now, take the pan from the fire, and work into it a strong infusion obtained from four ounces of well-pounded almonds, and a breakfast-cupful of cream. Mix thoroughly, adding a dessert-spoonful of turmeric powder, and a tea-spoonful of sugar. Put the pan over a very low fire, and let the curry simmer as gently as possi- ble for a quarter of an hour, finishing off with the juice of a couple of limes. This, it will be perceived, is another curry of a rich yet mild description. The total absence of chilli, indeed, constitutes, in the opinion of many, its chief attraction. According to the ancient canons by which the service of curries was regulated, CHUTNEYS of various kinds were considered as essentially necessary as the lordly platter of rice which, of course, accompanied them. These may be divided into two distinct classes : the preserved or bottled chutneys, and those that are made of fresh materials on the spot. Of the former I need say nothing: they are easily procured, and most people know the kind that suits them best. But concerning the latter, I think a little reflection will be found advantageous. There can be no doubt that the presentation of these chutneys,—the little hors d'oeuvres, so to speak, of the curry service,-has of late years passed quietly into desuetude. This has been the result, to be sure, of the disappearance of carries from the menu of the modern dinner, and the very moderate degree of attention that they now command at our hands. Assuming, however, that those who still occasionally patronize the dish would rather see it at its best, and CURRIES-CONTINUED. 305 served correctly than not, I will go on with a few recipes that will be found easy enough. Fresh chutneys should be served in saucers which should be tastefully arranged upon a tray. Four or five varieties can be presented together, so that there may be an oppor- tunity of selection. Caviare dressed with a few drops of lime juice and a dust of yellow pepper; roes of fish pounded with a little butter; potted prawns ; potted ham; crab paste ; lobster paste; and sardine paste, are hors d'oeuvres that can accom- pany the chutneys and materially assist them. The best fresh chutneys are : tomato, cucumber, mint, brinjal, cocoanut, mango or apple, tamarind, and potato. For tomato chutney :-Remove the seeds and watery juice from two or three ripe tomatoes, chop them up with a quarter their bulk of white onion, and season the mince with a little salt; add a pinch of salt, two green chillies chopped small, and a little bit of celery also chopped, give the whole a dust of black pepper, and moisten it with a tea-spoonful of vinegar-anchovy vinegar for choice. For cucumber chutney :-Cut the cucumber into thin strips an inch long; say three heaped up table-spoonfuls; mix with them a tea-spoonful of finely-minced onion, one of chopped green chilli, and one of parsley; moisten with a dessert-spoonful of vinegar in which a pinch of sugar has been dissolved, a dessert-spoonful of salad oil, and dust over it salt and black pepper at discretion. Brinjal chutney is made in this manner :-Boil two or three brinjals, let them get cold, scrape out the whole of the inside of the pods, pass this through the sieve to get rid of the seeds. Rub a soup-plate with a clove of garlic, empty the brinjal pulp therein, dress it with a tea-spoon- ful of minced onion, one of green chilli, one of vinegar, 306 CULINARY 707TINGS FOR MADRAS. and a very little green ginger, season with salt and black pepper, pat the mixture into a little mould, and serve in a saucer. Cocoanut chutney consists of pounded cocoanut, flavoured with minced onion and green chilli, green ginger, and an atom of garlic, moistened with tamarind juice, and season- ed with red pepper and salt. Mint chutney is made in the same way, substituting pounded mint for cocoanut. Scald the mint leaves before pounding them. Mango or apple chutney is made like cucumber chutney with the addition of a tea-spoonful of chopped green ginger. Tamarind chutney is a good one :—Pound together a table-spoonful of tamarind pulp and one of green ginger, season it with salt, a tea-spoonful of minced green chillies, and one of mustard seed roasted in butter; mix thorough- ly and serve. Mashed potato chutney is flavoured with minced onion, green chilli, salt, pepper, vinegar, and a pinch of sugar. With these relishes, carries are undoubtedly far nicer than when sent up unassisted. Treacher's tinned Bombay ducks when presented with curries only require crisping in a brisk oven. Papodums may either be toasted on a griddle over some clear embers, or fried in hot fat. Thin slices of raw brinjal, and green plantains, similarly fried, like potato chips, are nice with curries. Mulligatunny. If it be admitted that the knack of curry-making has gradually passed away from the native cook, I think it must also be allowed that a really well-made mulligatunny is, comparatively speaking, a thing of the past. Perhaps, MULLIGATUNNY. 307 then, a few words regarding this really excellent, and at times, most invigorating soup may be acceptable. In attempting this, I am anxious to address my observations to vegetarians, as well as to those who have no objection to eat meat, for I hope to be able to show that a very ex- cellent mulligatunny can be made without any assistance from flesh or fowl. This preparation, originally peculiar to Southern India, derives its name from two Tamil words—molegoo (pepper), and tunnee (water). In its simple form, as partaken of by the poorer natives of Madras, it is, as its name indi. cates, a “pepper-water" or soupe maigre, which Mootoo- samy makes as follows:-He pounds together a dessert- spoonful of tamarind, six red chillies, six cloves of garlic, a tea-spoonful of mustard seed, a salt-spoonful of fenugreek seed, twelve black peppercorns, a tea-spoonful of salt, and six leaves of karay-pauk. When worked to a paste, he adds a pint of water, and boils the mixture for a quarter of an hour. While this is going on, he cuts up two small onions, puts them into a chatty, and fries them in a des- sert-spoonful of ghee till they begin to turn brown, when he strains the pepper-water into the chatty, and cooks the mixture for five minutes, after which it is ready. The pepper-water is, of course, eaten with a large quantity of boiled rice, and is a meal in itself. The English, taking their ideas from this simple composition, added other condiments, with chicken, mutton, &c., thickened the liquid with flour and butter, and by degrees succeeded in concocting a soupe grasse of a decidedly acceptable kind. Oddly enough, we undoubtedly get the best mulliga- tunny now-a-days in England, where it is presented in the form of a clear, as well as in that of a thick, soup. In an artistic point of view, the former is infinitely the better of the two, as I shall endeavour to explain later on. Never- theless, the thick is by no means to be despised. The 308 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. superiority of the English adaptation needs but little explanation, for it may safely be attributed to the fact that the soup is composed upon a really strong foundation in the shape of stock, an important point that most Indian cooks slur over. This reminds me of an anecdote, which an old friend and fellow-enthusiast on the subject of cookery, communi- cated to me as follows :-He was at home on furlough, and happened to visit an old uncle, whose early years had been spent in the Navy. The Admiral (for the old gentleman had attained that rank) was of a somewhat dictatorial nature, and had acquired a habit of asserting his opinions with a closed fist and vehement superlatives. Conversa- tion one day turned upon mulligatunny, and the ancient mariner declared vociferously that he had never tasted the soup properly made since serying in the West Indies in the Penelope frigate in the year 1823, angrily shutting up his nephew for daring to observe that it could be fairly well prepared in the East. Now, my friend was far too wise in his generation to contradict his uncle, “but," said he, “I determined to circumvent him.” Accordingly when, after some little time, the Admiral went up to London, he was lured into an ambuscade at his nephew's house. “I made the mulligatunny myself,” said my friend, “the basis of which was a good veal stock, prepared, of course, the previous day. My method of procedure was as follows:-I cut up a large sweet onion into fine rings, and fried them in two ounces of good butter, till about to turn yellow. I then stirred in three table-spoonfuls of Barrie's Madras mulligatunny paste, adding sufficient stock to bring the mixture to the consistency of mayonnaise sauce. This I tasted, and, finding that it required a little sub-acid, I administered a table-spoonful of red currant jelly and a few drops of lemon juice. Having stirred this in well, I put in a dessert-spoonful of Madras chutney, and MULLIGATUNNY. 309 added stock enough to produce a thin soup-about three pints in all. This I allowed to simmer (to extract the flavours of the various ingredients) for a quarter of an hour, while I pounded four ounces of sweet almonds in a mortar with a little milk, using a breakfast-cupful al- together. When fully pounded, I strained the almond milk into the soup, and stopped the simmering. The next step was to pass the whole of the liquid through a tin strainer into a clean bowl to catch up lumps of onion, chutney, &c. The mulligatunny having been skimmed, was now ready, all but the thickening. This process was carried out in due course, with two ounces of butter and two of flour. The soup was brought to boiling-point, and, off the fire, just before serving, a coffee-cupful of the best cream I could get was stirred into the tureen as the soup was poured into it.” When this was presented to the Admiral, the old gentleman was delighted, and, altogether forgetting his previous asseveration, exclaimed that he had not eaten such a basin of mulligatunny since serving on the East India station in the Cockatrice in the year 1834. “I knew,” concluded by friend, "that the dear old man was thinking of calipash' and calipee' when he pitched into me on the previous occasion, but I was not such an ass as to suggest that he had made a mistake.” This recipe of my friend's may be taken as a very good guide for a mulligatunny made with pure meat stock extracted from veal, mutton, beef, or fowl, and ready-made paste. Yolks of eggs may supply the place of cream, and cocoanut milk may be substituted for the lait d'amandes. The addition of either almond or cocoanut milk is, how- ever, a sine quâ non, if the object be to obtain a soft, creamy, well-flavoured, thick mulligatunny. The strain- ing must also be carried out carefully, and the thickening as well. Rice is served with mulligatunny, but it is, I think, a 30 312 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. For ordinary mulligatunny maigre, however, plain eau de cuisson may be employed. This most useful liquid is too often thrown away by ignorant native cooks, or an- nexed by the wary ones for their own food. It is the water in which certain vegetables have been boiled. As a matter of economy, house-keepers should make a note of this. Suppose you want to make a salade cuite, i.e., a salad of cooked vegetables, the water in which the carrots, onions, leeks, peas, flageolets, French beans, and young turnips are boiled will provide you with an excellent stock for ordinary white sauce, or mulligatunny. The ordinary chicken or mutton mulligatunny, made without assistance in the way of stock, may, with some little pains, be sent up in better style than our cooks, as a rule, are satisfied with. We do not want a thin yellow liquid with queer-looking leaves and bits of fried onion floating in it. We ask for a smooth, creamy potage, free from any lump or floating substance, and garnished with a few choice pieces of the chicken or mutton of which it was composed. Cut up a well-nurtured chicken or young fowl as if for fricassée, soak the pieces in cold water for a quarter of an hour, then slice up a couple of good-sized onions, and put them, with two table-spoonfuls of butter, into a stew-pan on a good fire. Fry the chicken and onions together till slightly browned, then pick out the chicken, and stir into the butter a couple of table-spoonfuls of mulligatunny paste or curry-powder (Barrie's “Madras,” if possible). Cook the paste or powder with the butter and onions for five minutes, and then stir in a couple of pints of warm water. Add the chicken; and if the pieces are not quite covered, put in water enough to do so. Let the contents come to the boil, then ease off the fire, and simmer for half an hour very gently. While this is going on, pound a couple of ounces of almonds in a mortar, with a coffee- MULLIGATUNNY. 313 capful of milk, give it a pinch of sugar, and let the mix- ture stand till wanted. Now, having ascertained that the chicken is quite tender, stir in a dessert-spoonful of good chutney, a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, and a tea- spoonful of lime-juice, and, after five minutes' simmering, strain off the whole of the liquid into a bowl. Pick out the nicest pieces of chicken for garnish, and put them aside. Now, skim the surface of the liquid, and, when quite clear of grease, proceed to thicken it, using a table- spoonful of butter and one of flour, and stirring in the soup slowly. All having been poured in, strain into the sauce- pan the almond milk, using a piece of muslin in order to catch up the bits of nut. Let the mulligatunny come to the boil, and serve. The chief points to observe are : First, the use of a really good paste or powder ; next the simmering and ad- dition of a pleasant sub-acid ; then the straining, skim- ming, and thickening; and lastly, the introduction of the almond milk. Instead of almond milk, cocoanut milk (the infusion of the nat, I mean) may be used, and a table- spoonful of cream, or a couple of raw yolks of eggs, may be stirred into the tureen with the soup, by degrees, just before serving. The choice pieces of chicken should also be served in the mulligatunny. For mutton mulligatunny follow this recipe, substitut- ing a neck or breast of mutton for the chicken. It will be seen from these observations that, while there is no difficulty whatever in making mulligatunny of a superior, as well as of an ordinary kind, it is a soup that demands no little care and attention. Whether it is worth the trouble or not is a question that can only be decided by practical experiment. I have no hesitation in recom- mending the trial. CHAPTER XXX. Camp Cookery. LTHOUGH no doubt there are many of my readers who have by long experience acquired the knack of making themselves thoroughly comfortable under canvas, and who, being fond of nice food, and au fait in culinary science, contrive to eat and drink in camp as laxuriously as in cantonment, there must be, I take it, a good many travellers, sportsmen, soldiers, and others whose duties demand several months of tent-life per annum, who would like to pick up a wrinkle or two in the matter of cookery under difficulties. A friend of mine, who in addition to his passionate devotion to la chasse, possesses the keenest affection for his dinner, assured me, once upon a time, that good bread was the back-bone of happiness,--gustatory happiness, that is to say,-in the jungle. In cantonment even, this man despised the miserable travesty called bread furnished by the native baker. They say that he once saw it being made, never thought of it again without a shudder, and preferred a home-made roll for ever afterwards. He car- ried his roll with him, so to speak, into camp, and with the aid of a talented servant, was able to bake hot, clean, white bread daily, at a distance of many marches from an English dwelling place. He used Yeatman's baking powder, imported Australian or American four, and a CAMP COOKERY. 315 little salt. Butter and milk were added in the case of his fancy petit pain, and he occasionally mixed oatmeal with the flour for variety. I often envied my friend's bread, yet never took the trouble to follow his example until comparatively lately. My conversion was brought about by Mr. Woolf of 119, New Bond Street, who introduced me to the “ Acmé cook- ing stove,"'* and gave me many a séance with regard to the use of Yeatman's baking powder for which his firm are the London Agents. The man who could remain un- convinced after one of Mr. Woolf's pleasant demonstrations, would be a stoic indeed. You are shown how to make a pound loaf,—"cottage” pattern, in rolls, or in the tin. This is placed in the stove oven whilst you examine the numerous clever contrivances for the kitchen,-principally American inventions,—which form the spécialités of the establishment. In less than half an hour the loaf, baked to perfection, is placed upon the table. Now here are two invaluable articles for the dweller in tents :--a composition, perfectly climate-proof, by which he can turn out an excellent loaf of light, clean bread; and the oven to bake it in. The “ Acmé Stove” is cheap, portable, strong, and easily managed. It is fed by mineral oil, kerosine or parafine, and in addition to the oven, provides the cook with a capital kitchen range adapted for boiling, stewing, frying, and even grilling. The size I recommend, after upwards of two years' experience of its working,—more than a year of that time having been spent at Madras,-is fitted with double wicks four inches wide. One of these stoves with its ordinary appurtenances can be purchased for £2, s.15. For that sum you have a capital oven, with baking dishes * Now eclipsed by the “ Florence” which is worked exactly like the Acmé" but with numerous improvements.-W. 316 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. and a griddle, a radiator, a kettle, and a frying-pan. Ordinary sauce-pans of a certain diameter can be used with it. A Warren's cooking pot, fitted to the stove, is furnished for £1-1, and a griller for five shillings and sixpence. When not wanted for cooking, it can be used for heating a room, for which purpose, you use the radiator, or ornamental chimney, previously mentioned. Thus adjusted, it is also very useful for airing damp linen, or drying wet clothes ; you have merely to place a large circular basket over it, and spread the things thereon, for the chimney is so contrived that the heat radiates laterally, and there is therefore no chance of burning, scorching, or smoking. In camp, the first thing the Acmé would do for you would be to boil the water for your tea: if a raw December, or January morning in the Deccan, or on the plateau of Mysore, you would not object to the operation being performed inside your tent, for the warmth would be very pleasant. It would then bake the bread for your breakfast, and warm up any réchauffé destined for that meal at the same time. During the day it would make the soup, and in the evening be available for work for dinner. I do not say that you could do without a charcoal fire, but the stove would do a large portion of the day's cooking, and in a way vastly superior to any ordinary fire, either in camp or cantonment. In soup-making, for instance, and in stewing operations, you possess the power of producing the exact amount of heat you need by turning down the wicks at will. I have made a pot-au-feu, in a Warren's kettle placed upon my Acmé, the like of which I defy a native cook to produce with a common cook-room fire, simply on account of this regulating power. A gallon flask of kerosine oil should be made to fit the stove box for short periods of camp life. If a man were settled in a standing camp, or out in his district for an indefinite CAMP COOKERY. 317 period, he would, of course, require a keg of oil. I use my stove for some hours daily, and my month's expenditure does not exceed ten quart bottles. Another of Mr. Woolf's valuable inventions, which I can strongly advise the traveller to obtain, is the “ Lang spirit lamp": the large one costs five shillings and six- pence, and is a never failing source of comfort on a journey. In camp it would be found a most useful appendage to the Acmé stove for light work, such as boil- ing milk for coffee, cooking eggs in all sorts of ways, heat- ing sauces, frying bacon, &c. I use mine for omelettes almost every day in cantonment, for which work it is admirably adapted. With a “ Lang lamp” you can make a cup of tea or coffee in the train, by the side of the road, on arrival at a public bungalow, or under a tree whilst the lascars are pitching your tent: and by its aid, and that of a small frying-pan, you can devil a biscuit, fry a rasher, poach an egg, or cook a kidney, to accompany the tea or coffee. It is fed by methylated spirit, a gallon of which woald last for at least two months. Having thus directed your attention to two excellent appliances for the camp kitchen,* I will return to the sub- ject of baking bread, for your servants can always contrive a field oven for you without difficulty, which, though infinitely inferior to that of the stove, will perform the task required of it fairly enough. But in wet weather, the owner of an Acmé will, of course, laugh and grow fat, whilst his neighbour with only Ramasámy's fine whether make-shift to fall back upon, will beg for bread. I have baked at home regularly now for over two years using, for ordinary bread, Yeatman's baking powder, * There are, I dare say, cooking stoves, fed by mineral oils, patented by other firms, which are similar to the Acmé in working and quite as good. I have confined my remarks to the one which I have thoroughly tested. 318 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. American flour, salt, and water; for fancy rolls, the same with butter, and milk; and have discovered, after many experiments, that in this country, the proportions of baking powder to flour which are laid down in the paper of directions accompanying each tin, have to be increased. For eight ounces of flour, for instance, I find that I have to use two tea-spoonfuls of Yeatman. I may say without hesitation that very few bread- makers hit off perfection at starting. I struggled through many disheartening attempts, before I turned out the thing I wanted. The common mistakes are overworking the dough, and using too much liquid. The mixing of dough with the proper quantity of fluid can only be acquired by practice, and all beginners knead too heavily through over zeal. Watch a professor. The fair-haired artiste who demonstrates bread-making at Mr. Woolf's, makes a pound loaf with three-quarters of a tea-cupful of water; her touch is as light as a feather, and the dough is made with wonderful swiftness. I have taught my servant to use two wooden spoons to work his dough with, the result is satisfactory as regards the lightness of the bread, and to those who dislike eating food mauled by, native fingers, the system is especially attractive. If by any, chance. your dough has been made too sloppily, and from its patty-like consistency, you feel convinced it will be heavy, bake it in a tin. The paraphernalia of the home-baker should be:-* large enamelled iron milk başin, two wooden spoons, a flour dredger, scales to weigh the flour, some patty-pans for rolls, some small tips for ditto, a baking-sheet, a half pound and pound loaf tin, and a cake tin: these various things are not expensive, they should be kept in the house (when in cantonment) away from the cook-room, as clean as possible, and be scrupulously reserved for their own purposes. Having provided yourself with this equipment, CAMP COOKERY. 319 you should use Yeatman's baking powder, the best import- ed flour you can gety oatmeal occasionally, salt, and either good butter made at home, or that of any well-known brand preserved in tin. Here is a reliable receipt for four nice breakfast or dinner rolls :- eight ounces of flour, one dessert-spoonful of good butter, two tea-spoonfuls of Yeatman's powder, one salt-spoonful of salt, four table-spoonfuls of milk. Rub the butter into the flour with one of the wooden spoons after having spread the latter in the enamelled pan, sprinkle the salt over it, and mix your dough as lightly as you can, using both wooden spoons, and shaking the milk into the flour by degrees. When nicely formed, add the baking powder (last thing of all mark) stir it well into the dough, divide it into four equal portions, pat them into shape with the spoons, and place them in four patty-pans well buttered: These must be put on the baking-sheet, and slipped into the oven, which should have been heated to receive them to such a degree that you can hardly bear your hand inside it. The time taken in bak- ing depends upon the sort of oven you employ: as soon as the rolls brown very slightly, having risen into nice round forms, they are ready. This recipe may be altered to five ounces of flour, and three of oatmeal, for a change. “ French Rolls" :-Half a pound of flour, a dessert-spoon- ful of butter, one small egg, two tea-spoonfuls of Yeat- man's powder, a salt-spoonful of salt, and four table-spoon- fuls of milk. Work the butter thoroughly into the flour. Beat the egg up briskly with the milk, and strain it into another cup, dust the salt over the flour, and gradually add the eggy-milk till the dough is formed; then mix the baking powder into it thoroughly; form the dough into two nice oblong rolls, place them on a sheet of well buttered 320 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. paper, on the baking tin, and set them in the oven ; look at them after twenty minutes' baking, and take them out as soon as their colour indicates that they are done. “Half pound plain loaf” :-Half a pound of flour, two tea-spoonfuls of Yeatman's powder, a salt-spoonful of salt, and four or five table-spoonfuls of water. Work this as above, 'reserving the baking powder to the last, set the dough in a tin, or form it in the well-known "cottage" shape, and bake. The ordinary cookery book receipts for fancy breads can be safely followed if you remember the proportion of the baking powder to the pound of flour, and, where eggs are propounded, make an allowance for the difference which exists between the English and the Indian egg. In using Yeatman's powder, do not let your made rolls, or bread, stand waiting for the oven : see that your baking appara- tus is all but ready before you commence making the bread. You will observe that I recommend the baking powder to be put into the dough, not mixed with the flour in a dry state to start with. In London Mr. Woolf follows the latter method. I cannot explain what causes it, but I have found that the bread never turns out so satisfactorily here, if the powder be put in early: the temperature may have something to do with this; at all events, experience seems to show that the powder expends its effect to a great extent, during the working of the dough, if mixed with the flour first; whereas, if put in as a finishing touch, the bread being rapidly consigned to the oven, the result is invariably satisfactory. I advise home-bakers to make rolls rather than large loaves. There is less waste with them. A roll is either eaten in toto or left untouched. If intact, you have merely to dip it in milk, and put it into the oven-damp; it will turn out again almost as freshly as a new roll. Bread; CAMP COOKERY. 321 once cut, is apt to get dry, and with the exception of being sliced for toast, or grated for bread-crumbs, is not very presentable a second time. In baking, be very careful that your flour is well sifted and thoroughly dry. In a moist climate like this it is advisable to dry it in the oven before using it; the sifting must be carried out by a sieve. I have made very eatable bread with carefully sifted country flour, the sifting of which is an imperative neces- sity, be it observed, unless you have no objection to a gravelly loaf. Now, let us discuss the animal and vegetable food of camp life, taking soups first :- Many people think that because they cannot get beef in camp, they cannot have a freshly-made soup. Now, there are a few capital soups requiring no meat at all, which are known as “soupes maigres.” I will give you two :- “Soupe à l'oignon":-Slice a couple of Bombay onions ; powder them well with flour, let them fry awhile in a stew-pan with plenty of butter; before they begin to brown at all, add water, pepper, and salt, let the whole boil till the onions are well done and serve with croûtons of fried bread. Grated Parmesan should accompany. “ Soupe aux choux" :-Let us assume that you have taken a cabbage or two with you when you left cantonment. Cut the cabbage into quarters, put them into a sauce-pan with a good sized slice of bacon, some slices of a Bologna sausage, and a bag containing sweet herbs, a clove of garlic, pepper, and a little spice; add water enough to cover the whole, and let the soup simmer till the cabbage is done, serve with croûtons of fried bread. A bacon bone would assist the undertaking greatly. But you need not condemn yourself to “soupes au maigre” whenever there are sheep, and fowls, to be had, 322 CULINARY FOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. when you can shoot game, and lastly, when you are pro- vided with tinned soups, and preserved vegetables, espe- cially that excellent tablet called “Julienne.” In camp, bottles of dried herbs, and tinned provisions are, of course, indispensable, and you should be provided with potatoes, carrots, and onions before starting. Soups in tins can be turned to excellent account in this way :-Kill a good full-sized fowl, cut it up, and put it, giblets and all, into a stew-pan; cover it with water, and let it come very slowly to the boil, skimming off the scum which may rise during that process ; when the boiling stage has been attained, take the pan from the fire for a minute and throw into it a Bombay onion, cut into quarters, any fresh vegetables you may have brought out, a bag of mixed sweet herbs, a clove of garlic, a dozen pep- per corns, a pinch of parsley seed, a few drops of celery essence, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, a tea- spoonful of sugar, and a dessert-spoonful of salt. Now, let the pan boil again till the onion is soft, and then reduce the fire for the simmering stage. When the pieces of fowl are nice and tender, the broth is ready: long cooking will avail nothing : so lift up your pan, and strain off the broth into a bowl, it will be beautifully bright and clear ; slightly tinted with caramel (page 35) and served hot with a dessert-spoonful of Marsala and a dissolved dessert- spoonful of “ Julienne,” this consommé de volaille will be found sufficient for two hungry men. When used in con- nection with a tin of soup, the broth should be poured from the bowl into the pan again, and the tin of soup added to it ;* a slow process of boiling should now bo commenced, during which any scum, the soup may throw up should be studiously removed, for all tinny impurities will thus be got rid of : when all but boiling, a table- * If a thick soup, like mockturtle for instance, you must thieken the consommé with a little flour.-W. CAMP COOKERY. 323 spoonful of Marsala should be added, and the soup served. The pieces of fowl if not over-cooked, may be served in the form of fricassee, or be bread-crumbed or dipped in batter and fried, and served with maccaroni and tomato conserve. Very valuable stock, remember, can be made from cold roast mutton bones-(do not try raw mutton, the taste will be tallowy)-assisted by bacon skin, bones and trim- mings, a thick slice of Brunswick or Bologna sausage, and a chicken, or any game you can spare. Birds that have been mauled in shooting can thus be utilized. Purées of game can be made if you have taken out your utensils if not, you must make the game broth as strong as possible, helped by a fowl as stock, and thicken it with flour. The addition of Marsala or port is, of course, a sine quâ non. Tinned fish served,----as you sometimes see salmon at a dinner party,-plainly, and hot is positively nasty, and in no way improved by a cold sauce like tartare. Who, after a moment's reflection, could send up hot fish with a cold sauce ? Preserved salmon, fresh herrings, and other tinned fresh fish, if served with tartare or mayonnaise sauces, should be served cold, after having been carefully drained on a sieve from all the tinny juices which adhered to them. Select nicely sized pieces, place them on a dish with any garnish you may have such as olives farcies, capers, sliced gherkins, and rolled anchovies, and send the sauce ronnd in a boat. If you want a hot dish of tinned fish, you must choose the nicest pieces and gently warm them up in a rich matelote sauce, velouté or poulette, or you must wrap them in oiled paper and broil them a moment. All trimmings and odd bits can be saved and worked up as rissoles, or in any of the ways. I have mentioned for cold fish in my chapter on réchauffés. 324 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. of ita it. Alf an hour drained Fresh-water fish is often to be had by men out in camp. In cooking them, many recipes hereafter given for filleted fish may be followed : clean them thoroughly, wash them well to get rid of all muddy taste, scale, trim, and soak them after cleaning, in water. A fish like murrel may be treated like a pike :-after having been carefully cleansed, and trimmed, stuff it with turkey forcemeat (page 108) sew it up, trim it in a circular shape with its tail in its mouth and bake it in a pie-dish surrounded by chicken stock about half an inch deep. A glass of any white wine like hock, chablis, or sauterne may be put into the stock, an onion also, and any vegetables you can spare. The fish should be basted every now and then, and when it has absorbed the gravy and seems soft, take it out of the oven. Put a pat of maître d'hôtel butter on the top of it, and serve in its own dish with a napkin folded round it. A good sized murrel will take from twenty minutes to half an hour in baking. A stuffing made with a tin of oysters, well drained and cut up, mixed with a half pint of bread-crumbs soaked in milk or stock, some spiced pepper, a little chopped very finely pared lime peel, and a couple of minced anchovies, all stirred together, and bound with a couple of eggs, is highly acceptable with a murrel. If you have no oysters, pound a good quantity of fresh-water shrimps, and mix them with the staffing. Eels ought to be slightly boiled first, whatever you do with them, you then get rid of their oiliness. After being thus treated, you can cut them into fillets for frying, for stewing, or for a pie. Eel fillets dipped in batter, and fried in oil or fat (lots of it) with a plain sharp sauce are delicious. The matelote will be found in the menus. Tinned Australian, and other preserved lumps of meat, are valuable additions to the store box of the jungle- wallah, but they require very delicate handling, because they are almost always overdone. The really nutritious CAMP COOKERY. 325 part of a tin of Australian meat is the gravy that sur- rounds it. Ramasámy knows this, so beware of un- righteous dealing, see the tin opened, and have every atom of the gravy strained off into a bowl. In cold weather, during such nights as you have in the Deccan during December and January for instance, the gravy in these tins becomes a jelly, so before you open one, set it on the fire in a sauce-pan surrounded by hot water for ten minutes or so; then open it, and strain the gravy from the tin into a bowl; turn the meat out carefully upon your sieve, and pour some hot water gently over it; catch the water in a bowl below the sieve, and add it to the gravy. Now, the gravy of a two-pound tin of beef will, as a rule, give you an excellent stock for two basins of soap :-skim the fat that may rise to its surface, and put it into a sauce-pan with a bag of dried sweet herbs, an onion cut into quarters, any vegetables you can spare, some pepper-corns, a pinch of spice, and salt according to the quantity: simmer this gently to extract the flavour of the things you have added, and in about a couple of hours you will have an excellent consommé, quite fit to be served as soup, with maccaroni, vermicelli, a couple of poached eggs, or Julienne, grated cheese accompanying; a table-spoonful of Marsala will be a grateful finishing stroke. Or it may be thickened like mock-turtle, and served with forcemeat balls. The meat should be treated in this way :-choose the nicest looking pieces, trim them neatly, and if of a fair size, brush them over with egg, bread-crumb them, and brown them in the oven, serving a good sauce,-tomato, soubise, or piquante for instance, with them. Or you can cut the meat into collops, and hash them very gently in a carefully made gravy. Lastly, you can mince it and serve it in many nice ways, (vide page 173). An excellent method may be thus described :-Having 32 326 CULINARY JOTTINGS FOR MADRAS. made your mince and flavoured it with a little chopped olive, anchovy, sausage meat, &c., bind it with a little good sauce thickened with a couple of eggs, and let it get cold : make a good sized thin pan-cake, take it from the pan when almost done, put it on a dish, and arrange some slices of cold cooked bacon upon it, lay the mince upon the bacon, give it a dust of spiced pepper, and fold the pan-cake over it: brush it over with an egg, bread-crumb it, and bake it a golden brown in your oven. The pan- cake should be just large enough to envelope the mince in one fold securely. If you look apon a tin of preserved meat as a dish that has been cooked once, and has accordingly to be dressed en réchauffé, you will not fail to turn it to good account. But warmed up as it comes from the tin, unaided, and carelessly dished, it presents an irregular mass of sodden and tasteless diet which few would care to touch unless driven to do so by the calls of ungovern- able hunger. Messes like Messrs. Crosse and Blackwell's “ ducks and green peas,” “Irish stew,” “ox cheek and vegetables," &c., should be avoided carefully, but if you find that your butler has sent such things to camp, you must pick the meat out of its surroundings, dress it with some fresh chicken meat, as a rissole, croustade or a mince, and cook the gravy and vegetables with some fresh chicken broth as a sauce. I have already spoken of tinned vegetables, (pages 163 to 165) and also of the produce of the country. The traveller ought to try and find out what country garden stuff can be got from the villages near his camp. The recipes I have given will be found easy, and the monotony of tinned food will be much relieved by an occasional nicely dressed dish of common vegetables. CAMP COOKERY. 327 I will conclude this chapter with three very reliable recipes for cooking a hare. If you have shot the hare yourself so much the better, for then you will not find its heart, liver and kidneys gone. Skin, clean, and wash the animal well, saving the three parts I have mentioned care- fully, and the blood. When quite clean, wipe the carcass inside and out, and let it soak in the marinade mentioned at page 65 all day, turning it every now and then. As the hour for cooking approaches, fill the hare with a well- made stuffing as for turkey (page 108). The kidneys and heart should be minced, and fried in fat bacon, with a little onion; when done, the contents of the pan should be poured into a bowl to cool, and when cold, pounded to a paste, and mixed with the stuffing. The back of the hare should be larded, or covered with thin slices of bacon pinned down with little skewers, it should then be roasted, a constant basting of melted butter or clarified beef suet being kept up throughout the process. When nearly done, the bacon strips should be removed, and the back lightly dredged with flour; the skin should be allowed to brown, and run into crisp blisters : the hare should then be served,—with a sauce made as follows :- First make a good pint of the best gravy you can : cut the liver into dice, take a small sauce-pan, melt an ounce of butter in it, throw into it an onion finely shredded, toss the onion till it colours nicely, then throw in the chopped liver, shaking the pan for a minute or two : next add a little gravy, stir well, pour in all the gravy and simmer till the liver is cooked. Now, strain the gravy, pour into it the marinade of port wine, vinegar, ketchup, and red currant jelly in which the hare was soaked, put it on the fire in a sauce-pan, and pour in very slowly as it warms the blood you saved in the first instance; continue stirring, and the sauce will thicken, throw into it the liver pounded to a paste, stir and serve very hot. P A Ꭱ Ꭲ I I. THIRTY MENUS, WORKED OUT IN DETAIL. NOTES. IE menus have been thoroughly revised and cor- 2 rected. They are all susceptible of being doubled for larger parties than those for which they have been designed; and though each of them is given in French, the English names of all the dishes will be found in the margin of the detail of instructions. . Those who are anxious to adopt the more modern form of menu will find a note at the end of each of the larger bills-of-fare showing what alteration is necessary to effect their object. I have not attempted to treat of sweet dishes in this work, but the entremets sucrés chosen for each bill-of-fare have been carefully described. For hors d'oeuvres, please consult the chapter I have devoted to them. The recipes given for the treatment of fish apply, it will be found, to the varieties of the finny tribe best known and esteemed at Madras, viz. :—the seer, pomfret, sole, grey mullet, and whiting. Of these the first being a large salmon-shaped fish, which is cut up and sold much in the same manner as salmon, is susceptible of being similarly cooked. Small seer are flabby and unfit for the table. The pomfret may, as far as its flavour and the texture of its flesh are concerned, be best compared perhaps with 33 334 NOTES TO MENU. the turbot or brill, but as it never reaches as great a size as either of those fish, it can be trimmed when desired in fillets, and cooked like soles. The sole and whiting can be treated exactly like the fishes of the same name at home. The only difference being that the Indian sole is, as a rule, wanting in the depth of flesh possessed by the European variety when in proper season. The mullet is a far larger fish than the English grey mullet, and not nearly as rich. If taken in back-waters, it requires very careful cleaning to rid it of the muddy taste it acquires in such circumstances. Remembering the peculiarities of these fish, a little rew flection will enable my readers in other parts of India to apply the recipes I have given to almost any fish that may be at their disposal. A fish that can be easily dressed in fillets may be treated as a pomfret or sole. One that is large and firm enough to be sliced can be cooked as the seer. Long trout-shaped fish may be served as mullet, and can be baked whole, or roasted à la broche. Bony fish are best prepared in the form of purée :-boiled, passed through the sieve, and sent up as a soufflé, or a crème. The becktie of Calcutta seems specially adapted to treatment as codfish ; at the same time it may be cooked in almost every way laid down for seer fish. The hilsa, again, approaches very closely if it does not surpass the mackerel, and may be dressed similarly. Those who may try to use this book in England should remember that ordinary eggs in India are far smaller than those at home. I calculate that five Indian eggs equal three English. Again: the cream so often pro- pounded in my recipes is not nearly as thick and rich as English cream : the use therefore of cream may be tem- pered with discretion. WYVERN. MENU NO. I. For a party of eight. Consommé aux quenelles. Seer aux concombres. Crème de volaille truffée. Grenadins de boeuf à la Béarnaise. Selle de mouton aux haricots verts. Galantines de cailles, sauce tartare. Epinards à la crème. Pain de fraises. “ Pudding” glacé aux abricots. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-Our first step must be the making of a bright, clear, consommé according to the directions up with given at page 33, to flavour which in quenelles. this instance we must not forget a little dried basil, (which should go in with the vegetables) and a table-spoonful of Madeira to finish with. We can make the quenelles of fish, game, chicken, or of tinned lobster if we like. Let us choose prawn quenelles, and proceed as follows:-Pound a dozen and a half well- cleaned prawns with half their bulk of crumb of bread, soaked in stock; work in with the paste two whole raw eggs, and season it with a pinch of salt, a dusting of white, or Nepaul pepper, and a tea-spoonful of anchovy quelle des soup 336. MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. sauce : when thoroughly blended, and of the right consist- ency, form your tiny olive-shaped quenelles between two tea-spoons, poach them for about five minutes in boiling stock or water, drain them, and add them to the soup at the last moment. Quenelles used as garnish for soups should be lighter and more delicate than ordinary quenelles. Various shapes may be obtained by pressing the mixture into the poaching pan through a paper funnel , 2.—This is a dish of neatly trimmed slices of seer, plainly stewed in a clear broth made Seer with cucum. from chicken bones and the fish trim- bers. mings. Put into the broth with the fish a few slices of carrot, and onion, a table-spoonful of dried sweet herbs, and a glass of chablis : simmer gently, and when done, drain the fish, and strain the gravy. Thicken the latter with butter and flour, and add to it some previously cooked fillets of cucumber about an inch long, and half an inch thick, and the pieces of fish : heat altogether, till the stew steams freely, and serve. For directions for preparing the cucumber, see page 156. 3. Here we have a mould of crème or pain de volaille, nicely truffled. Choose a large fowl, Mould of chicken or two good sized chickens, and cut off cream. all the white meat you can for the purée. With all the bones, skin, and scraps assisted by two sheep's feet, cleaned and cut up, and the giblets saved before the roasting, make as strong an essence as you can, following the rules for “ fowl essence” (page 98). Strain when done, let it get cold, skim it, and then proceed to thicken it; when as thick as a rich mayonnaise sauce, strain it, and set it in the bain-marie. You must treat your purée thus :-melt two ounces of fat bacon in a sauté-pan, throw in some pepper, salt, and the meat of the fowl; work them together for five minutes over a bright fire, then empty the contents of the pan into MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 337 a mortar, and pound the meat and bacon to a paste; add half their bulk of crumb of bread soaked in stock, and half a tin of white mushrooms, and when thoroughly incor- porated, pass the whole through a hair sieve. Moisten the purée with some of the sauce already described, while pounding it, and when finished, add four whole raw eggs. Now, butter a plain mould, and fill it with your purée, introducing a good allowance of truffles cut into dice, and steam it as you would a pudding in your Warren's pot, or in a stew-pan plunged into a larger vessel full of water. When done, let the mould get cold, and then turn it out. While the mould was being steamed, reduce the re- mainder of the sauce to a white glaze, let it get cool, and pour it gently over the mould (which should be set on ice) until the glaze coats it completely. When set, the pain is ready. If steamed in a border mould, the centre may be filled with pointes d'asperges, fonds d'artichauts, flageolets or macédoine de légumes moistened with pure iced cream. 4.-Choose a nice fillet of beef, or the tender meat of a piece of the ribs. Trim this into thick Fillets of beef Béar. heart-shaped fillets of a size large naise fashion. enough for one person each ; lard them with fat bacon, and set them to marinade all day, as described in Chapter VIII, page 65. When ready, drain them, and stew them gently in as rich a stock as you can make from the meat and bones you had over after shap. ing them, assisted by a glass of Marsala : when done, keep them hot in the bain-marie. · For the sauce, proceed as follows :-put into a stew-pan the yolks of seven eggs, one ounce of butter, one pinch of salt, and a little pepper: stir over a low fire till the yolks begin to thicken: take the pan off the fire and stir in one 338 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. ounce of butter more : again stir over the fire for two minutes and again remove the pan, adding another ounce of butter. Repeat the process again twice, using in all five oances of butter, stir till the sauce is rich and creamy looking, finally adding a dessert-spoonful of tarragon vine- gar, and a table-spoonful of chopped parsley. A little water added with the butter prevents cardling. Dish the grenadins round a ring of carefully mashed potato, introducing a slice of crisply fried bacon between each of them, and serve the sauce piping hot in a boat. In the hollow formed by the potato ring, you can put some flageolets à la maître d'hôtel, or petits pois. 5.-Speaks for itself. Pray follow my advice about trimming your French beans, (page Saddle of mutton 137) and dish them with a pat of with French beans. butter boiling hot, added at the very last moment. The best way by far to cook the beans provide ed they are young and tender, is in the jar like peas, (page 135) or in the steamer of a Warren's pot; trim the beans as explained already, and put them into the jar or steamer, with a table-spoonful of butter, a dessert-spoonful of sugar, and a large tea-spoonful of salt. Steam the jar as described for peas : when done, drain the beans, and serve with a pat of butter boiling hot. Unless French beans are young and tender, it is useless trying to cook them in the jar. A tin of haricots verts should, in this case, be substituted. : 6.-Buy eight fat quails, four sheep's tongues, half a Quails boned and pounds of gravy meat. Make gravy at rolled, with tartare sauce. once with the last, stew the tongues, and bone the quails: throw the bones into the gravy, and all scraps you may have of bacon, MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 339 &c., next trim your cold sheep's tongues, and cut eight nice fillets, the size of a walnut, from the centre of them. Now, place your boned-birds, breast downwards, on a board, and dust them over with spiced pepper. Pro- ceed to make a forcemeat thus:-Melt a couple of thick slices of fat bacon in a frying-pan ; when melted, throw in three table-spoonfuls of the lamb's liver, with those of the birds too, cut into dice, and one onion shredded finely ; cook the liver in this, and when done, empty the contents of your pan, melted bacon and all, into a mortar, throw in the remains of the sheep's tongues which were left after making the fillets, a pinch of salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg, work this to a paste, pass it through the sieve, add some finely minced parsley, a dessert-spoonful of spiced pepper, a little grated lime peel, and a table-spoonful of chopped truffles (saved from entrée No. 1); work this again thoroughly, and spread a layer of it over the flatten- ed quails : place one of the tongue fillets in the centre of each quail, and spread another layer of your forcemeat over each. Now, gather the birds into shape neatly, sewing the skin together securely, and stew the little galantines in the previously made gravy, with a little red currant jelly, a glass of sherry, and half a wine-glass of vinegar: when done, lift them out, drain off the gravy, and reduce it to a glaze (page 219): paint your galantines over with the glaze when cold, arrange them upon a dish which should be set upon ice, and garnish your dish with parsley, and slices of lime. Sauce tartare, also iced, should accompany. 7.–For this dish (see page 146) I recommend you to try little shortbread biscuits in which Spinach with some finely grated mild cheese has cream. been mixed; the cakes should be heart-shaped, or round, and quite crisply baked like cheese-fingers. 340 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 8.-A simple, and refined cold sweet entremets. Dilute . a pot of strawberry jam with suffi. Mould of straw cient water to make enough syrup to berries. fill your mould, strain it, colour it a rosy pink with a drop or two of cochineal, and add a glass of liqueur or brandy; melt an ounce of gelatine, and strain it, when cold, into the syrup, stirring well :-decorate a plain mould with almonds, put it on ice, and pour your strawberry syrup into it by degrees ; cover it over, and set it in ice for two hours ; turn it out, and serve it with cold custard in glasses, or iced cream. If in season, you can, of course, make the syrup with fresh strawberries; and when filling the mould, you may add to its attractive- ness by setting layers of whole fruit (fresh or preserved) in it in the style of a jelly. 9.—Make a cake case (see Menu No. IV,) with finger biscuits, or slices of sponge cake and Iced apricot cream let it get firm. Make a rich custard, pudding. flavour it with a dash of liqueur, and mix into it half an ounce of dissolved gelatine. Work the mixture in the ice pail until it begins to freeze well, then stir into it a good allowance of chopped crystallized apricots and a coffee-cupful of rich cream well whipped. Mix well in the ice pail, and then fill a mould with the frozen mixture, completely covering it with lumps of ice. It should be left thus for an hour, when it will be ready to turn out and serve. The mould should be just large enough to be covered by the cake case. NOTE.--To adapt this menu according to the new régime, serve the saddle after the fish, and instead of galantines of quails, let the birds be roasted with a slice of fat bacon over their breasts, and sent round with bread sauce, fried crumbs, and filbert chips of potato. A plain salade or water-cress should accompany the rôt. MENU NO. II. For a party of eight. Potage à la Julienne. Darnes de seer à la Périgueux. Filets de boeuf au crème d'anchois. Cassolettes à la financière. Selle de mouton aux petits pois. Quenelles de perdreaux en aspic. Artichauts en coquilles. Eufs à la niege. Crème de pistache glacée. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-The French preserved Julienne is now regularly received by a well-known firm at Julienne soup. Madras. Armed with one of these tablets, you can achieve a Julienne soup which will at once show you what a lamentable burlesque of the true potage Ramasamy. Having made a good, strong, and clear consommé sufficient for your party, all you have to do is to cut off a portion of your Julienne tablet, which should be simply placed in a sauce-pan with a large allowance of boiling water, or weak stock, and allowed to cook until the pieces of vegetable detach themselves, and appear nice and tender : drain them when thus ready, and add them to 34 342 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. your consonmé with a pinch of sugar, and a table-spoon- ful of Madeira. Each tablet is marked for five portions. Remember that a portion is enough for two persons : I have found a table-spoonful of crumbled Julienne enough for three basins of soup. To preserve the tablet in this climate, I recommend you to break it up carefully, and cork it down in a dry bottle. For the benefit of those who cannot avail themselves of this excellent preparation, the following directions may be given :-Take equal parts of carrots, turnips, leeks, onions, and celery ; cut them all into thin strips not more than the eighth of an inch across, and an inch long. Put them into a sauce-pan with a couple of ounces of fresh butter, a tea-spoonful of powdered sugar, a little pepper, and a pinch of salt. Toss them lightly on the fire until they take colour slightly, say for five minutes or so, cover them with a little broth from the consommé and carefully remove the grease thrown up by the butter. Let the vegetables thus cooked remain in the gravy near the fire, nice and hot, until the time of serving, when they should be added with a few leaves of lettuce and of sorrel finely shredded to the rest of the consommé, brought to the boil, finally skimmed, and sent up. 2.-Stew a couple of handsome slices of seer fish in a good broth made from bones and trim- Seer with trutile mings, assisted by an onion, a carrot, a bunch of parsley, a dessert-spoonful of preserved thyme and marjoram, a minced anchovy, a dozen pepper corns, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, a table-spoonful of Harvey sauce, a table-spoonful of vine- gar, a table-spoonful of chablis or sauterne. Let the fish slices cook slowly in this broth, and when done, drain and place them in a very hot dish, carefully covered up. Strain the broth in which they were cooked, thicken it, add a little well browned gravy, and throw into it a couple sance. MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 343 of table-spoonfuls of chopped truffles (previously tossed in a frying-pan in an ounce butter, and a table-spoonful of Madeira) and let the sauce simmer for ten minutes to extract the flavour of the truffles. When ready, pour it over the slices and serve. 3.-Broil the fillets (which should be cut from the under- cut of a sirloin, larded with bacon, and Fillets of beef with marinaded all day) over a bright fire, anchovy cream. and serve them round a chaplet of mashed potato, in the centre of which you may place a purée of spinach, or a bunch of water-cress. For the sauce (which should go round very hot, in a boat) take six anchovies from the tin, wipe them dry, free them from the oil, and pass them through the sieve: add the pulp to about half a pint of good velouté (page 99) heat it up, and as you serve, enrich the sauce with a ladle- ful of good cream. 4.–Make your cassolettes as follows:-peel two pounds of potatoes, cook them as usual; when Potato cases with done, stir into them the yolks of five ra gout, Financière fashion. eggs, add a little grated mace, a little salt, and stir them over the fire for five minutes. Now, pass them through the sieve : pat them to a paste, and flatten that out on your slab about two inches thick. Let it get cold: then with your cutter, cut it into cylinders (or little drums) two inches in dia- meter. Egg and bread-crumb each cylinder, and fry these potato drums till they are a bright golden yellow. Now, carefully slice off the top of each drum (say) a quarter of an inch thick; place the caps so obtained on one side, scoop out the interior of your drums very carefully, and put the cases out of the way, well covered up. As dinner time draws near, fill up each cassolette, with a portion of ragout à la financière, (q. v.) place the caps on the top of each, and a few minutes in the oven will bring them to 344 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. perfection. The cases should, of course, be prepared early in the day, and the ragout also : the former should only be filled up just when required. Serve the cassolettes upon a napkin, and garnish them with fried parsley. 5.-Order your saddle some days beforehand and you will get a good one. Roast it, and Saddle of mutton serve it with red currant jelly, pota- with green peas. toes, and green peas dressed as you may like best, vide page 136. 6.—These are quenelles* of par- Quenelles of par- tridge meat, truffées, set in aspic jelly, tridge in jelly. iced, and served with sauce tartare. 7.-This is a dainty little entremets de légume to be Artichoke scallops. specially noted by people living on the * Hills where globe artichokes reach perfection. At Madras we can occasionally try it when the vegetable is procurable. Its chief charm is that it looks nice, is easily eaten, and renders all the trouble of side-plates for leaves, &c., unnecessary. You must use silver plated coquille shells (easily and cheaply made locally), butter them, and fill them with plain artichoke purée made as follows :-Boil the artichokes ; when cold, strip them of their leaves, scraping off all the pulp which adheres to them with a silver dessert-knife : then extract the “chokes,” and add the “bottoms” of the artichokes to the leaf pulp. Mash the whole together with a silver fork, dust it with salt and pepper, mix a coffee-cupful of thick cream with it, stir it well, and fill the coquilles, dust over the surface a layer of very finely sifted bread-crumbs, sprinkle some little bits of butter over the crumbs, bake till thoroughly hot, brown the surface with a hot iron, and serve on a napkin. This is equally practicable with * For the process of making quenelles, vide Menu No. 6, and for Aspio, see Menu No. 9. MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 345 Jerusalem artichokes (topinambours) with which a little grated Parmesan may be used. 8.-Beat ap the whites of six eggs to a stiff froth with three ounces of sugar. Have a pint Egg snow. and a half of milk previously sweeten- ed in a sauce-pan on the fire, and when it boils, drop your egg-froth in separate table-spoonfuls upon its surface. A few seconds will cook each spoonful of froth on one side, then turn it over, and when cooked on the other side, place it in a glass dish. When all the egg-froth is thus cooked, strain the milk free from the bits of eggs that may be in it, and make a rich custard with it, using the yolks of the eggs; flavour this as you like best: when cold, pour the custard gently into the glass dish (not over the boiled whites) and the snow will rise, and float on the surface of the custard. Sprinkle over the snow balls, and surface generally, a few of those tiny sugar plums called “ non pareil,” and serve. 9.—This is an ice flavoured with pounded pistachio nuts, a pale green colour, and highly Pistachio cream ice. delicious. Blanch four ounces of pistachio nuts, pound them in a mortar with six ounces of sugar and a few drops of rose water; when quite a smooth paste, add a pint of new milk very gradually. When the milk and paste have amalgamated, make a rich custard by placing the mixture en bain-marie, and adding the strained yolks of ten eggs : when the custard has formed nicely, strain it through a fine sieve ; whisk it well adding enough spinach-greening (page 50) to tint the mixture a very pale green, and freeze it, working into it a coffee-cupful of whipped cream in the asual way when half frozen. Note.—To adapt this menu, serve the saddle after the 346 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. fish, and instead the partridge quenelles give pintade au cresson, a guinea fowl roasted and served with water-cress, and a plain salad. Instead of the coquilles of artichoke, croustades d'artichauts, i.e., the same preparation of vege- table served in little oval saucers made of short-bread pastry may be substituted. MENU NO. III. For a party of eight. Consommé de bécassines. Darnes de seer à la Peg Woffington. Côtelettes de mouton à la Moscovite. Kramouskys aux huîtres. Chapon à la Française. Canards sauvages, sauce bigarade. Petits pois au beurre. Pain de pruneaux. “Pudding” glacé aux fraises. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.- Prepare a bright clear consommé for your eight Clear snipe soup. covers. Slightly roast six snipes ; let po them get cold, divide them into con- venient pieces, mash them in a mortar and throw the whole, with the exception of the livers of the birds, into the consommé; let it come to the boil, skimming carefully, and then remain simmering all the afternoon : towards evening, strain the liquor from the bones, and set it to cool; pick from the remnants of the snipe sufficient meat to form a dozen tiny quenelles the size of an olive: pound this meat in a mortar with the saved livers, a pinch of salt, some chopped parsley, a little thyme, and a dust of Nepaul pepper, or spiced pepper; stir in a very little red carrant jelly and a few drops of portwine; stiffen this 348 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. with a little bread-crumb soaked in stock, and bind the whole with two eggs ; let it get cold, roll it out, and divide it into little portions, form them between two tea- spoons, and poach till done just before serving the soup, into which they should be put at the last minute : the consommé itself having been meanwhile clarified, assisted by half a glass of Madeira, and again heated almost to boiling point. 2.-Divide a cut of seer fish into eight nice collops about half an inch thick; flatten them Seer slices with Peg on a board, butter a pie-dish, pour Woffington sauce. into it half a pint of broth made from the fish trimmings, and a glass of chablis or hock and lay them therein ; pepper and salt them, sprinkle them with some minced parsley, and a little shallot, and spread a sheet of buttered paper over them : bake for about ten minutes in a quick oven, and when done, remove the paper, and arrange the slices neatly in a hot dish. For the sauce :—To the liquor from the pie-dish add a quarter of a pint of cream, a table-spoonful of walnut catsup, and half one of anchovy sauce; boil these together, and just before you remove the sauce-pan from the fire, stir in well a bit of butter the size of a walnut rolled in flour, with a thought of red pepper. 3.-For this dish select the nicest choplets you can from a neck of mutton ; trim them Mutton cutlets in the Russian manner. very neatly, lard them with fat bacon, and introduce some pieces of truffle judiciously here and there by making incisions with a sharp, pointed, root knife. Pieces of tongue may also be inserted in this manner : they should be cut square at the head and tapering to a point like nails. Meat treated by this process is called clouté by French cooks. MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 349 When ready, stew the cutlets very tenderly in gravy made from the bones, flap, and trimmings ; take them out, and set them to get cold with a weight above them; when cold, mask the cutlets on one side only with reduced béchamel, or Espagnole sauce. When this mask or glaze has set, trim the edges neatly, and the cutlet is ready. You must now prepare the socle or stand upon which to arrange your cutlets. This is made of ground rice, and is not intended to be eaten. Wash a pound of rice, and boil it gently with a little salt. When soft, pound it in a mortar, and mould it to the shape required. In this case we want a circle about three inches high with a hol- low centre for a salad, and sloped gently on its outer rim to admit of the cutlets being laid upon it securely. When formed satisfactorily, the socle should be coated with butter or white sauce, and the cutlets arranged round its outer face. They should have their masked sides out- wards. The hollow centre of the socle should be filled with a salade cuite of mixed cold cooked peas, flageolets, French beans cut in diamonds, stars of carrot, &c. The top of the socle may be formed sufficiently wide to admit of a garnish of white of egg, turned carrots, &c., being laid upon it. When completed, this entrée should be kept in the ice box till wanted. With the exception of the mayonnaise dressing, which should be separately made, and poured over the salad just before serving, it can be made early in the day, and is consequently so much off the cook's hands as the dinner hour arrives. It will be found vastly better than the everlasting pâté de foie gras en aspic. Iced cream may be used instead of mayonnaise dressing, and the salade may be composed of flageolets, pointes d'asperges, 8c., alone. 4.-The difficulty in this dish is the batter which should be most carefully considered. 35 350 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. Beat up the yolks only of three eggs, with a table-spoon- Oyster Kramouskys. ful of brandy, one of olive oil, and ayse three or four of cold water : mix into this three table spoonfuls of flour, and a salt-spoonful of salt; beat this to a paste for ten minutes, preparing a rather thicker batter than you would for ordinary fritters : at the time of using, stir in the whites of the three eggs whipped to a stiff froth. Wash your oysters (about a dozen and a half good ones) early in the day. Parboil them, if fresh, beard them, and put them to marinade for two hours in the juice of three or four limes, a sliced onion, some whole pepper and a few cloves. Lift them out of this when wanted, cat them up, bind the mince together with a liaison of yolks of eggs and thick white sauce, and let it get cold and firm. Then divide it into six portions, each the size of an ordi- nary wine cork, and place them on six slices of previously boiled bacon ; roll up your bacon fillets, and fix them with white of egg ; dip them now into the batter, and lay them, ever so gently, in your frying basket, plunge this into a seething bath of fat, and fry a golden yellow. Serve prettily garnished with curly parsley. Instead of bacon, very thin wafer-like pancakes may be used cut into pieces the required size : and cow's adder is recommended by some authors. 5.-The capon in this receipt should be braised, with a pint of good stock round it, an onion Capon in the French and two carrots, sliced, half a glass of way. sherry, and pepper and salt to taste : a few slices of fat bacon should be pinned over the breast, and the larding needle may be used also. Braise gently till done. Lift the capon out of the pan, strain and reduce the gravy in which it was cooked, add a couple of table- spoonfuls of minced truffle, and pour this over the bird MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 351 before serving ; sippets of dry fried bacon, and slices of lime may garnish the dish. 6.-Roast the wild ducks, and serve them with this sauce :-Pare as thin as possible the Roast wild ducks rind of two oranges (sweet limes), cut with Bigara de sauce. them into thin shreds and boil them in water for five minutes, drain, and put them aside. Melt an ounce of butter in a sauce-pan, stir, into it a dessert- spoonful of flour, and a breakfast-cupful of common stock (made with scraps, and the giblets of the ducks,) pepper, salt, and the juice of the oranges, with a pinch of sifted sugar, a table-spoonful of Marsala, and a tea-spoonful of chilli vinegar; now add the boiled rinds, stir till the sauce boils, and serve in a boat. 7.-Wash the contents of a tin of petits pois in cold water, by emptying the tin into your Green peas with strainer and pouring a jug of water butter. over them. Put them into a jar, (or small sauce-pan with a close fitting cover) with a large spoonful of fresh butter, a tea-spoonful of sifted sugar, and a tea-spoonful of salt with a little bundle of mint leaves : secure the top of your jar and immerse it within a large sauce-pan (the water should half cover the jar,) steaming the peas until thoroughly hot. Stir in a little more butter, pick out the mint, and serve on a very hot silver dish. Minced ham fried in butter and mingled with the peas is nice, if you happen to have ham in the house, vide page 137. 8.-An effective and most excellent sweet dish. Pat half a pound of prunes into a sauce- Prane jelly. pan with two ounces of white sugar, a slice or two of a lime, a little cinnamon, and sufficient claret and water, mixed half and half, to cover them : stew gently till the fruit is quite tender : lift the sauce- pan from the fire, drain off the liquor, stone the prunes : 352 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. pass the fruit through the sieve, and save the palp in a basin. Crack the stones, and throw the prune kernels into the pulp. Steep about an ounce of gelatine in the liquor that you strained off, put it on the fire and let it dissolve, mix it with the prune pulp, and pour in a liqueur glass of cherry brandy and a glass of good red wine. Decorate a plain border mould with blanched almonds, fill the mould with the prune liquid, and set it upon ice to form. When required, turn out the pain, and fill the centre of the mould with whipped cream. Unlike ordinary jellies this one is dark tinted, and opaque, but its flavour is quite beyond question. 9.-Line a pudding mould (see Menu IV) with finger biscuits, or slices of sponge-cake. Iced padding with Make a rich custard sufficient in strawberries. quantity to nearly fill the mould; be generous with the egg-yolks, and do not use flour if you want a creamy pudding ; tint the custard a pale rosy-pink with a few drops of cochineal, strain, whip it well as soon as it is formed, and flavour it with strawberry syrup; when ready, add half an ounce of dissolved gelatine to it, and work as described for “iced apricot pudding,” Menu No. 1, adding crystallized strawberries to the frozen cus- tard, and a coffee-cupful of whipped cream. NOTE.—To adapt this menu, strike out the chapon à la Française, and insert, after the fish, Filet de boeuf à l' Italienne, page 189, MENU NO. IV. For a party of eight. Consommé de poisson. Filets de pomfret à la poulette. Croquettes de canard à la bordelaise. Côtelettes de mouton au crème de fromage. Chapon au chou-fleur. Crème de topinambours. Gelée de marasquin aux fruits. Charlotte à la Sicilienne. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.—This is a clear soup flavoured with fish. A crab for instance answers the purpose admir- Clear fisb soup. ably, but any fish will do. Let us take the crab. Make ordinary clear consommé for the number you expect. One large crab or two small ones will suffice for eight basins. Boil the crab: drain and clean it: pick out the flesh, saving that of the claws for garnishing. Pound the rest of the meat and shells in a mortar, put the whole of it into the consommé you have made, with a little bag containing a quarter ounce of dried basil, and boil gently for half an hour, strain through a fine sieve, or tamis cloth,-it should now be bright and clear, -heat it up again, and pour it into your soup tureen over some little quenelles made of the claw meat you saved. 356 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. made thus :-Parboil two, or three, fair sized Bombay onions, cut them up roughly and put them into a sauce- pan with a ladleful of butter, a pinch of sugar, and pepper and salt to fancy ; let them cook slowly so that they do not take colour, add a table-spoonful of boiled rice, or pearl barley, and a cupful of broth and let the simmering go on till the lumps of onion are quite soft; then add a heaped up table-spoonful of finely grated cheese, stir this in well for a minute or two, then lift it up, and work the mixture through the sieve as you would a purée. Heat it up gently in the bain-marie, and at the last stir in a table-spoonful of rich cream. Serve the cutlets round a wall of 'savoury rice and fill in the centre with French beans à la maître d'hôtel. Let the sauce go round in a boat with the entrée : it ought to be a thick creamy- looking sauce of the consistency of tartare. 5.-Lard your capon, roast him with the utmost care, basting with melted butter; let a Capon with cauli. Bombay onion be put inside the car- flower. cass, and sew up the vent; be parti- cular with your staffing; and let a curl of crisply fried streaky bacon accompany each plate. The bread sauce must be carefully composed, and the cauliflower and potatoes freshly turned out, that is to say, not ruined by being hawked about with your entrées. 6.-For this excellent entremets de légume, see page 149,-As you have already used crème Mould of Jerusalem alem de fromage in this menu, serve the artichokes. mould (if hot) with a garnish of tomato purée, (q. v. page 242.) if cold, with pure cream, iced. 7.-Put two ounces of gelatine in an enamelled stew-pan with three quarters of a pound of Jelly with fruit. sugar, beat three whites of eggs, MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 357 moisten them with one quart of water and the juice of one lime; pour the whole into the stew-pan containing the gelatine, and put it on the fire, whisking the liquid con- tinually until it boils. Take the pan from the fire, let the liquid cool, and strain it through a jelly bag, pouring it back and straining again until it is quite clear. When cold, flavour the jelly with maraschino, a wine-glass will be sufficient, and let it rest awhile. Now prepare a macédoine of fruits, preserved cherries, strawberries, apricots, greengages, and raspberries, and fill the jelly mould as follows :—first set it upon ice, and pour into it about one-eighth thickness of the jelly, arrange some fruit tastefully in this layer, cover it with jelly, and continue layers of fruit and of jelly until the mould is nearly full, then finish it with jelly only, cover the mould with ice, and turn it out when finally set and quite firm. Iced cream en bloc may accompany. 8.—This is an iced pudding flavoured with chocolate. First note the way in which the case Iced Charlotte à la should be made, which is applicable to Sicilienne, all iced puddings in cake cases. Cut the slices of cake the length of the depth of the mould, the eighth of an inch thick, and an inch and a half wide : cat a circular piece the size of the bottom of the mould. Make a cement with the whites of three eggs, and an ounce of finely sifted sugar. Arrange the slices round the side of the mould slightly overlapping one another, and cement them firmly together, fixing their ends to the circular top placed at the bottom of the mould. When the cement dries, the case will be quite firm. Choose a mould for the ice slightly smaller than this case, so that the latter may cover it nicely. When firmly set, the cake case may be turned out upon a dish, and its outside brushed over with some thin cement, and sprinkled over 36 358 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. with chopped pistachio nuts, almonds, sagar plums (non pareils) or crystallized sugar. For the ice :-Dissolve two ounces of chocolate in a pint of boiling milk, when quite smooth, and cold, add half a pint of cream, a tea-spoonful of vanilla essence and the yolks of ten eggs : make a custard of the mixture adding two ounces of sugar. Stir in half an ounce of dissolved gelatine while the custard is warm, and whip it briskly and put it into the freezer. Freeze, mixing into the half- frozen custard a coffee-cupful of whipped cream. Turn it out when ready, cover with the case, and serve. NOTE.-To adapt this menu, you need only insert after the fish, Boeuf à la mode, vide page 123. MENU NO. V. For a party of eight. Potage à la Brunoise. Seer à la Napolitain. Côtelettes de mouton à la Reforme. Croustades de lapin à la reine. Entrecôte de boeuf à la Châteaubriand. Salpicon de gibier en caisses. Tomates au gratin. Beignets de pêches. “Pudding” glacé aux cerises. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-Brunoise is a soap something like Julienne, but of a distinct character on account of the Brunoise soup. manner in which the vegetables are prepared for it. Make consommé enough for your party. Cut some carrots, turnips and celery into dice : melt a piece of butter in a sauce-pan, add pepper, salt, and a tea- spoonful of powdered loaf-sugar. First put in the dice of carrots and toss them on the fire till they begin to brown, next the celery, and lastly, the turnips with a little chop- ped onion. Work them all together, and after a few minutes, add some of the consommé : set the sauce-pan by the side of the fire, and let it simmer; during this process the butter will be thrown up to the surface in the form of MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 361 round a ring of mashed potato, with purée de pois verts in the centre, sending round in a boat separately a sauce made as follows:- Put into a sauce-pan, one Bellary onion cut into rings, two sprigs of curled parsley, two ounces of pounded lean ham or bacon, a clove of garlic, a carrot cut up, and a tea-spoonful of thyme leaves ; cover them with a pint of Espagnole sauce (page 96) and add two tea-spoonfuls of anchovy vinegar, and one of chilli vinegar. Boil up, sim- mer for ten minutes, skimming carefully, then boil again reducing the sauce to the thickness of cream : now add a dessert-spoonful of red currant jelly and one of good mush- room ketchup; stir till the jelly is dissolved, adding half a glass of Madeira ; stir again, and pass the sauce through the strainer : keep it hot in the bain-marie, and add just before serving, the following mixture :—the whites of two hard-boiled eggs, four black Leicestershire mushrooms, two gherkins, and half an ounce of lean ham, all chopped up into small dice, and dusted over with white pepper. 4.-Take eight stale dinner rolls, which have been lightly baked in cylindrical tins about Bread cases filled two inches in diameter ; cut them so with rabbit ragout. as to leave a case about an inch and a half deep : scoop out every atom of crumb, and trim the tops that you cut off neatly, so as to form a lid for the top of the hollowed rolls. Fry the cases and their lids in butter till of a golden yellow, and set them on one side to dry. Choose a small rabbit, some tongue ham or lean bacon, a few sweet-breads if you can get them, and have ready some cocks' combs, sliced mushrooms, a little grated lime peel, and a slice of traffle for the top of each croustade. Now remove the fillets from the rabbit's back and divide them into pieces, or cut them with a cutter about the size of a shilling. Put the rest of the rabbit into a stew-pan 362 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. with the usual vegetables to yield a good broth, and with it make a rich white sauce flavoured with some milk of almonds; butter a sauté-pan, and cast into it your pieces of rabbit fillet with some slices of onion and carrot. Fry the rabbit gently, and then add enough gravy to cover the pieces. Stew the contents of the pan carefully. Now pack your croustades exactly like miniature vols-au- vent, with pieces of rabbit, slices, or dice of tongue or ham, the rabbit's kidney, and the other ingredients, cut to fit the cases, moistening the whole well with your creamy velouté : put a slice of truffle on the top of each, and cover it with the cap that you cut to fit it. A few minutes in the oven will bring the croustades to perfection, when they should be quickly served on a napkin, garnished with crisply fried curly parsley. Send round dry toast with this dish. 5.-Trim a good joint of the ribs of beef by cutting the tender meat boldly in one long piece Ribs of beef with from the bones : the tough flap, can Châteaubriand sauce. either go into the stock pot, or be set with the bones to produce a good gravy for the joint, the latter for choice. Fold and tie the long piece of meat in shape as best you can (it will look rather like “roly-poly pudding”) and preserve all the fat you can find which should be fixed with skewers : lard it with fat bacon, wrap it in buttered paper and tie it to your spit with string. Let it be roasted over a clear fire, and served in thin slices. Châteaubriand sauce is made in this way :-Add half a tumbler of chablis or sauterne to a half a pint of Espagnole sauce, boil them together and reduce a little : then strain. Boil again, adding off the fire two ounces of maître d'hôtel butter, let it thicken and serve it in a boat as hot as pos- sible. Potatoes, French beans, and a nice salad should accompany. 19 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT.. 363 cases. 6.—This is an economical dish, for you can use in it the gravy of the mushrooms saved in No. Minced game in 2, the liver of the rabbit which com- posed part of No. 4, and the remainder of the bottle of truffles opened for No. 4. Take four snipes and four wild pigeons, or three partridges and three pigeons, or any game you can get. Roast the birds, detach the meat from their breasts and set it aside ; take pint of gravy and the mushroom liquor of No. 2, some lean bacon, chopped onion, spiced pepper, sweet herbs, and grated lime peel, make the strongest game essence you can. Strain, thicken with butter and flour, and reduce this, making the thickest and richest sauce possible : give it assistance with red currant jelly, a glass of red wine, and a little vinegar. Save the livers of the birds, and add that of the rabbit; chop them into dice with some fat bacon, and some finely minced shallot, toss all together in a frying-pan for a few minutes, then turn the contents of the pan into your mortar, and pound them to a paste, mixing with the composition a table-spoonful of truffle trimmings minced small, and some spiced pepper. Now take the breast meat you saved and cut it into dice, pack your well buttered paper or china cases with a mixture of sauce, meat, and the liver paste, dredge some crumbs over the surface of each case, place them in the oven till quite hot, and then serve. 7.-Empty a dozen large tomatoes preserving the cases as well as you can; stuff them with Tomatoes au gratin. " the following composition :—To the pulp of the vegetable (q. v. page 158) add sufficient bread-crumb to thicken it somewhat, and beat up some eggs in the proportion of one egg to two cases, mix the whole thoroughly, flavour with a couple of pounded anchovies, a tea-spoonful of minced olives, and one of 364 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. capers.; stuff the cases, dust them over with grated Par- mesan, lay them on a well-buttered dish that will stand the oven, and bake for ten minutes just before they are wanted, serving them in their own dish buried in a napkin. 8.–Be very careful with your preparation of the bat- ter for these fritters (page 195); cut Peach fritters. the peaches (American ones in tin are excellent) into neat pieces; dust them with powdered sugar, and let them lie in a little maraschino, or any nice liqueur till wanted, then dip them in your batter, and fry them in abundance of boiling fat; drain them on blotting paper, and serve them dusted over with pounded loaf sugar, finely sifted. In the case of raw fruit the peaches cut in halves, peeled, and stoned, should be carefully stewed in syrup with a dash of liqueur and a little lime juice first, then set to get cold, and after being drained, dipped in batter, &c., as above explained. All fritters should be served without delay. 9.-This iced pudding is similar to that given in Menu No. III substitating cherries for Iced pudding with strawberries. The only difference I cherries. would suggest in this :- I would first make a rich custard, retaining the pale yellow colour, and adding the preserved cherries to the partly frozen custard, with a liqueur-glass of kirsch. In all other respects follow the directions given in Menus No. I and III. NOTE.-To adapt this menu, braise the entrecôte and serve it after the fish, insert pintades or cailles au cresson instead of the salpicon en caisses, and save the salad to accompany the rôt. coccoPago MENU NO. VI. For a party of eight. Consommé au maccaroni.* Filets de pomfret aux fines herbes. Epigrammes de mouton aux épinards. Quenelles de volaille au macédoine de légumes. Quartier d'agneau aux petits pois. Chaud-froid de bécassines. Chou-fleur au gratin. Reine-claudes à la crème. Charlotte Russe au praline. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-Proceed to make a bright clear consommé in the usual way: boil till tender in milk or Clear soup with weak stock some pieces of maccaroni: maccaroni. when done, drain them, let them get cold, and cut them into thin rings, add them to your con- sommé just before serving, with a dessert-spoonful of sherry to which a few drops of tabasco or chilli vinegar have been added, let a plate of grated Parmesan be hand- ed round with the soup. * If able to procure small Italian pastes such as stelle, gnioccoli, pesci, anellini ricci, 8c., treat them as explained for maccaroni and call your soup "consommé aux pâtés d' Italie. 37 366 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 2.-Divide a good sized pomfret into eight nice fillets : -put the bones and trimmings with Fillets of pomfret an onion cut up, a carrot, a bit of with berbs. celery, sprig of parsley and a pinch of salt into some water, and boil them at once; meanwhile spread your fillets on a board, brush them over on one side only with a beaten egg, now shake over them a tea- spoonful of finely minced parsley, the same of cooked onion chopped fine, a dessert-spoonful of minced mush- room, and a little white pepper: roll up your fillets and pin them into shape with a small skewer. Now strain off your liquor from the bones and trimmings, give it a table- spoonful of chablis or sauterne, and set your fillets in it to simmer gently till done (they should take about twelve or fourteen minutes) take them out, draw out the skewers, set them on a very hot dish, and cover them up. Now melt a lump of butter quickly in a sauce-pan, work a spoonful of flour into it: throw in a little salt, with a pinch of sugar, and moisten with as much of the fish broth as will make a nice white sauce to cover your fillets; add, as you take the sauce-pan off the fire, the yolk of an egg, a tea-spoonful of anchovy vinegar, a table-spoonful of very finely chopped parsley, a tea-spoonful of minced marjoram, and a tea- spoonful of minced garden cress. Pour it over your fillets and serve. 3.-Braise a breast of mutton in a stew-pan with some white wine and water, an onion, two Epigrams of mutton tomatoes, carrots, celery, whole pep- with spinach. per, salt, a clove of garlic, some pars- ley, and a tea-spoonful of dried thyme. When sufficiently done to enable you to remove the bones, draw the pan from the fire, take out the breast, and pick out the bones; then place it flat on a dish with a heavy weight upon it: strain the broth and vegetables in which the meat was cooked, putting the vegetables aside, and setting the gravy to cool. MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT 367 These operations should be performed early in the day. When the breast has become thoroughly cold, remove the weight, and divide the meat into eight nice collops. Brush them over with egg, and bread-crumb them with some very finely sifted stale bread-crumbs crisped in the oven. Let them stand for an hour, and repeat the process,-re- crumbing them again. Now fry them in boiling fat a nice golden yellow, take them out, drain them dry, and arrange them round a ring of spinach (page 145) garnished with hard-boiled eggs neatly cut up, and fried parsley. For the sauce :-skim every atom of fat from the gravy you set to get cold, put a lump of butter in a sauce-pan, work a little flour into it when melted, gradually add your gravy; stir well, and let the sauce thicken, add some caramel colouring, a dessert-spoonful of sherry, and a tea- spoonful of red currant jelly, and put this into a hot sauce boat, and serve. The sauce should be as thick as ordinary rich cream. A few dice of sliced cornichons (gherkins) may be mingled with the sauce, or minced mushrooms if you have them. 4.—Choose a nice pullet not quite full grown; cut it up, saving all the meat from the breast, Chick wings, back, and thighs and the liver: with mixed vegetables cut into dice, and throw the skin, fragments, bones, and heated up in nicely Alavoured ivhite sauce. giblets, into a sauce-pan to make broth for the sauce. Now make a coffee- cupful of stiff paste with a little butter, flour, water, and a pinch of salt; when ready, take half the quantity of butter that you have of chicken meat, and half the amount of the paste that you have of butter: mince the chicken in batter; bind the mixture with three eggs, flavour it with a little spiced pepper, and from the quenelles between two table-spoons. For a dinner party, you would, no doubt, put a nice piece of truffle inside each quenelle. 368 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. For the sauce :--take equal portions of carrot, peas, turnip, French beans, and cucumber, all previously boiled; cut them into dice and heat them up in a white sauce made with the water in which they were boiled, and enriched with the chicken broth, which should be slightly flavoured with almond. In this case make your socle of savoury rice instead of the usual mashed potato: that is, boiled rice, flavoured with salt, a little spice, the pulp of a tomato, and a little finely grated cheese, stirred well with melted butter, and made firm by the addition of the yolks of two or three eggs, according to the quantity required. This should be set in the silver dish, formed in a circle, brushed with egg, bread-crumbed, and slightly browned in the oven; the quenelles, carefully poached, should then be arranged round it, the macédoine being poured into the centre. 5.-Order the quarter of lamb beforehand, roast it very carefully, and serve it with a nice Quarter of lamb mb dich of oneen dish of green peas, potatoes, and mint with green peas. sauce (hot) in a boat. 6.-The chaud-froid will require one snipe a head :- take your eight birds, and roast them Fillets of snipes over a bright fire, let them get cold, dressed with cold remove the breasts, forming two fillets of the breast of each bird. Next make the richest sauce you can by boiling and simmering all the bones, remnants of meat, and the trails of the snipe in as much common stock as will cover them well; dried thyme, lime peel, a pinch of spice, a tomato, one onion sliced, and some lean bacon or ham should accom- pany the bones; after you have simmered this for half an hour, strain the liquor clear, and thicken it with butter and flour as previously described ; slice two or three truffles, toss the slices in a frying-pan with an ounce of butter, adding a table-spoonful of Madeira, let the truffles simmer sauce. MENU FOR A PÁRTY OF EIGHT. 369 and the timp straight. Tem evenly so awhile, and pour the contents of the pan into the sauce, stir continually, flavour it with red currant jelly, half a glass of Madeira, and lime juice, reduce it to a firm glaze, and put it aside to get cool. Glaze the fillets. Decorate a border mould with hard-boiled egg, gherkins, and olives, fill it with aspic jelly, and set in the ice-box. As dinner hour approaches, turn out the border of jelly, and pack the hollow in the centre of it with layers of glazed fillets, and the pieces of truffle here and there, let the whole remain as long as you can in ice, and serve with crisp, dry toast“ in waiting.” 7.-Choose a nice cauliflower and boil it carefully; it should be under rather than over- Baked cauliflower. . done. Slice the stem evenly so that the cauliflower will sit up straight. Place it in a neat dish that will stand the fire, well buttered,—the flower in the centre, and the tender leaves neatly arranged round it, -give it a dust of white pepper and a dream of salt, then pour round, so that all the crevices may be filled, a break- fast-cupful of velouté au fromage, page 242. Sprinkle a layer of grated Parmesan over the surface, and bake the dish in a quick oven for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour,-lastly, by passing a red hot iron just over the top, brown the surface of the cheese. 8.—Turn the greengages out into a glass dish, dissolve an ounce of gelatine, and stir it with Greengages in cream. me a liqueur-glass of maraschino into the syrup: set the dish in the ice-box to get firm and cold, and serve with a canopy of whipped cream resting on the surface of the congealed fruit. 9.-Line a mould with finger biscuits as described in Menu No. IV. Put a couple of ounces osse of sugar in a copper-pan; melt it till with burnt almonds... it is very hot; then stir into it a quarter of a pound of blanched Jordan almonds for a few Charlotte Russe 370 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. minutes. Now spread the almonds on a dish to cool, and when cold, pound them to a purée saving a few, which should only be minced roughly, and stirred into the ice when nearly formed. Mix a pint and a half of very rich custard, and stir the burnt almond purée into it while quite hot, strain, whip, and add half an ounce of dissolved gelatine. Next put the custard into the pail, adding a breakfast-capful of whipped cream, and finishing it as explained in the menu previously quoted. NOTE.—The only change necessary in this menu is to send the quarter of lamb after the fish, and roast the snipes, serving them with fried potato chips, bread-crumbs, and a nice salad. MENU NO. VII. For a party of eight. Consommé à la Royale. Pomfret à la maître d'hôtel. Filets de pigeon á la Genevoise. Côtelettes de mouton à la Maintenon. Dindon á la Périgueux. Jambon au Madére. Canapés de bécassines. Eufs aux topinambours. Bavaroise de cocoa à la moderne. “Pudding” glacé à la Nesselrode. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.—This is a bright clear soup into which tablets of consolidated custard are cunningly in- Clear soup with cus- troduced. Proceed therefore to make tard tablets. consommé for eight covers, and make your custard thus :-mix the yolks of four eggs with a little water and a pinch of salt, strain the mixture, and divide it into three equal portions; colour one with cochi- neal, one with spinach-greening, and leave the third plain : pour them into three little moulds previously buttered, and dip them into a pan of hot water: steam just long enough to set the custards : take them off the fire, and when cold, turn the moulds out on a napkin: cut them up into dice or any pretty shapes with your vegetable cutter as gently as possible, and add them to the soup just before 372 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. serving. The colouring of the custard is obviously op- tional. I have found a slight deviation from this receipt very nice, as follows:-mix a small omelette, flavour it with parsley and shallot, and let it set rather more firmly than you would were it required for breakfast: let it get cold, and cut it up for the soup with the vegetable cutter as described for the custard. Grated Parmesan should be handed round. 2.—Divide your pomfret into nice fillets, egg them on one side, and shake over the egg some Pomfret, maitre finely minced curled parsley. d'hôtel fashion. Sim- mer the fillets, neatly rolled up and skewered, in broth made from their own bones and trim- mings, and dish them on a hot dish as soon as they are done. Now melt an ounce of butter in a small sauce-pan, work into it a table-spoonful of flour, moisten with half a pint of the liquor in which the fillets were cooked, throw in a table-spoonful of finely chopped curled parsley, and finish the sauce, of the fire, with the yolk of an egg beaten up with the juice of a lime: pour over the fillets and serve. 3.-Lightly roast eight young pigeons : slice the breasts of the birds off whole, and place the Fillets of pigeon si with Genevoise sauce. eight portions so obtained en marinade 18u in oil, vinegar, minced parsley, and shallot. Take the bones, trimmings, livers, &c., and put them into a sauce-pan with a good breakfast-cupful of gravy; simmer this until you have extracted the essence of your pigeon scraps, and then strain it. Now chop up an onion, and one clove of garlic (a sine quâ non) very small: stir a piece of butter the size of an hen's egg at the bottom of a sauce-pan over the fire, and throw in your chopped onion, &c., let it slightly brown, and then add the gravy you previously made, with two or three anchovies chopped into dice, pepper and salt to taste, and MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 373 the juice of a lime, with one glass of claret. Bring this sauce to boiling point, let it simmer awhile, and then strain it. Replace it in the sauce-pan, thicken it with butter and a little flour, colour it with caramel, and place your six fillets in it to gently heat up without coming to the boil; when quite hot, place the fillets in their dish, pouring the sauce round them and serve, with a crisply fried curl of bacon, between each of them. Petits pois verts should fill the centre of the dish. 4.-Put eight nicely trimmed choplets of mutton into a ... stew-pan with some scraps of bacon, Mutton cutlets à la Maintenon. onion, carrot, dried herbs, pepper, salt, and a pinch of grated nutmeg, with a pint of good gravy, and a glass of sherry, and gently stew the little chops till done. Now lay them out on a large dish, covered by another with a weight upon it; when quite cold, trim them finally into shape if necessary. Meanwhile strain the gravy in which they were stewed, remove all fat, and set it on one side. Now mince an onion very small, and a few capers, with two or three truffles also. Fry the onions a golden brown, add the minced capers and truffles with pepper, salt, and a spoonful of chopped parsley, moisten with a little of the gravy, thicken it with a couple of eggs, and then put the mince away to get cold : cat some papers for your cutlets and oil or butter them: now spread your cold thick mince over your cutlets liberally, roll them, or rather fold them in their papers most carefully, and broil them on the grid-iron sufficiently long to heat them thoroughly ;-or if preferred, they can be just as well heated in the oven. Serve your cutlets in their papers, and let a rich sauce be handed round in a boat made of the remains of the gravy originally got from the cooking of the cutlets, slightly thickened with butter and flour, flavoured with red currant jelly, anchovy vine- gar, and a spoonful of sherry, all judiciously applied. 38 374 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. Roast to The “ Maintenon cutlets” may be placed round a ring of mashed potatoes filled with celery purée. 5.-Choose a nice turkey, prepare the bird for roasting, stuffing it very carefully as directed Périgueux sauce. tarkey with at page 109. Let sauce Périgueux, (page 97) steaming hot, be passed round in a boat, cauliflower, and potatoes accompanying. 6.—Directions for boiling a ham with Madeira will be Ham with Madeira. . found at page 117. If you are able to *** obtain a few nice slices of a good, well-boiled ham, I may mention (as an economical hint) that tossed in butter in a frying-pan, with a table-spoon- ful of Madeira, the slices will do very well to accompany the turkey, but take care that they pass from the pan to the plate, so to speak,-as hot as possible. 7.-Slightly roast eight snipes ; fillet them as you did the pigeons, saving the trails ; make Baked fillets of snipe the richest sauce you can of the bones, on toast. moistened with stock and helped up with vinegar, red currant jelly, and a little sherry. Now prepare eight pieces of fried bread for the eight breasts, butter them, and spread the trails over them ; pepper and salt them; place a breast of snipe upon each trail toast, bake till quite hot, and just before serving, pour your thick rich sauce, reduced almost to a glaze, over them: let crisply fried bread-crumbs surround your toasts. Use Nepaul pepper. 8.–For this entremets turn to page 239. Prepare the eggs as laid down for “ Eufs farcis,” Eggs with Jerusalem page 238, and be sure that the dish artichokes. is served quite hot. 9.-Melt three-quarters of an ounce of gelatine in a stew-pan over the fire, with half a pound of sugar, a pint of water, a liqueur-glass of brandy or sherry, and Bavarian crea cocoa. 376 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. cream is nearly set, work in the raisins, currants and citron: now close the mould, and bury it in ice for a couple of hours. Observe that Nesselrode pudding is not served inside a cake, or finger-biscuit case. NOTE.—To adapt this menu, introduce a Filet de boeuf à l’Italienne (page 189) after the fish, cut out the canapés de bécassines, and substitute flageolets à la crème as an entremets de légume with the rôt. A hen turkey (dinde) may be served instead of the cock-bird, and a nice salad must, of course, accompany. Green butter with herring roes. Make a quarter of a pound of fresh butter from cream that you have set at home, and put it in ice : boil a hand- ful of spinach till tender, and then pass it through the sieve : save the pulp carefully and give it a dust of pepper. Take the roes (soft) of two herrings à la sardine from the tin, wipe them carefully to get rid of the oil, then pound them, in a mortar, and pass them through the hair sieve. Mince very finely a large bunch of curly parsley, so as to have at least a heaped up table-spoonful of it when minc- ed; mince a dozen capers, and then mix the whole of the ingredients together with a wooden butter bat, and shape it as you like, setting it again in ice till wanted. There are numerous varieties of “green butter": this recipe has, however, been proved to be a nice one, and will be found useful when anchovies in oil may happen to be unobtain- able. djie yp MENU NO. VIII. For a party of eight. Consommé aux points d'asperges. Filets de pomfret sauce aux câpres. Chaud-froid de volaille à la Palestine. Côtelettes de mouton à la Valois. Dinde braisée à la jardinière. Salmis de cailles. Aubergines à l'Espagnole. Gelée de Bordeaux. Parfait au chocolat. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.- Prepare a clear, well-flavoured consommé for eight. Take a small tin of asparagus, open it, Clear soup with and turn the pieces out apon a dish, asparagus tops. draining from them all the liquor of the tin. Choose American asparagus if you can, because it is so much greener than either the French or English. When drained, cut the tender ends of the asparagus into pieces half an inch long using a dessert-knife. Put them away carefully, and throw the tough ends into the consommé. When strained, and ready to serve, add to the soup the chopped green points, heat it up to concert pitch, and serye. 378 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. Pomfret fillets with 2.–Fillet the pomfret, and make a fish gravy with the bones and trimmings, flavoured with with an onion and a little celery: simmer caper sauce. your fillets, nicely rolled in little curls, in this gravy; drain them, and dish them on a hot dish. For the sauce, make a sauce blonde with butter, and flour, moistened with the liquor from the fish; when smooth, add a dessert-spoonful of finely minced capers, and off the fire, just as you serve, the yolks of two eggs, well mixed with some melted butter. Pour the sauce over the fillets. A few drops of any aromatic vinegar will improve this sauce. 3.-Cover the breasts of two good-sized chickens with paper, and roast them without letting Chicken chand-froid Palestine fashion. them take colour : when cold, remove the breast meat as neatly as you can, also the flesh of the thighs and drumsticks. Out of the pieces thus obtained, trim a number of neat fillets as nearly the same size as possible, dredge a little flour over them and cover them up. For chicken chaud-froid sauce :-Take all the bones left after the above operation, skin, necks, pinions, &c., and make a strong chicken broth with them, adding an onion, some celery, a carrot, a bunch of parsley, a few almonds, pepper, and salt, to flavour it well. When the broth is ready, strain it into a bowl, skim it, and proceed to make with it a rich velouté sauce, using for a pint of broth an ounce of butter and one of flour: strain it and let it get cold, and then add to its thickness by stirring into it one- third of its quantity of liquefied aspic, or plain strong meat jelly, and reducing it over the fire till it coats the spoon. Now take it from the fire, and add the yolks of three eggs, and (if available) a table-spoonful of thick cream. Pour some of this over the pieces of chicken completely coating each piece, as it were, with a thick white glaze. Put 380 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. gravy, thicken it, and cut up the vegetables into dice; add them to the gravy again, heat this in a sauce-pan quickly, and pour it over the bird. Serve with potatoes à la Duchesse and a cauliflower. 6.—Choose eight nice quails, clean the birds carefully, pat a roll of boiled bacon inside each Salmis of quails. e bird and sew up their vents. Truss the birds as for roasting. Melt some butter in a frying- pan, and give the quails a turn or two therein till they colour nicely. Next put them in a stew-pan, cover them with a rich gravy, and stew them till they are done. Lift them out, thicken the gravy with butter and flour, colour it with caramel, add half a glass of Madeira, the livers of the birds pounded, a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, a dash of chilli vinegar, and some finely minced mushrooms; heat the quails up in this sauce, and serve as hot as possi- ble, dry toast accompanying. 7.—Parboil eight very young brinjals, the size of a small hen's egg, cut them in halves Brinjals with brown lengthways, pick out the seeds with the point of a vegetable-knife, butter them, and dredge over the surface of each a layer of grated mild cheese; now arrange them neatly on a silver dish, well buttered, or any dish that will stand the oven, and bake for ten minutes; pour round them a capful of well made thick brown gravy, and serve in the dish in which they were cooked, placed on a napkin. 8.—The ingredients for this delicious jelly are:-A bottle of sound claret, six ounces of Claret jelly. white sugar, a glass of brandy, the rind of one well-washed lime, and the juice of three; one tea-cupful of raspberry syrup or half a pound of raspberry jam. Boil all together, add an ounce of isinglass, and strain through muslin. Decorate a jelly mould with sauce. MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 381 crystallized cherries, set it upon ice, pour some of the liquid jelly into the mould, and set the .cherries ; after that, gradually add the liquid till the mould is completed. Thoroughly consolidate the jelly in ice, and serve with iced cream. 9.-Make a pint and a half of strong chocolate, using boiling milk, and two ounces of the Parfait of chocolate. e best chocolate; sweeten it to taste, and let it get cool. Now take an enamelled-pan and break into it the yolks of ten eggs, strain the made chocolate, and add it to the eggs, stirring continually over a low fire, or in the bain-marie until the custard thickens satisfac- torily. Mix half an ounce of dissolved gelatine into the custard, strain, and whip it well while warm and let it get cold. Set a mould in the ice-pail, and when the custard has cooled nicely, pour it into the mould, freeze in the usual way, using the spatula frequently, when the cus- tard seems nearly frozen, add a wine-glass of very cold syrup flavoured with vanilla, continue the working, and then pour in a pint of well-whipped cream. Finish the freezing thoroughly, close the mould securely, and bury it in ice for a couple of hours. Then turn the parfait out on a napkin, and serve. If you are fortunate enough to be able to use cream instead of milk for the making of the chocolate in the first instance, the parfait will be all the nicer. NOTE.—To adapt this menu, serve the hen turkey after the fish, and let the quails be roasted and sent round with the usual accompaniments. MENU NO. IX. For a party of eight. Potage à la reine. Pomfret à la Vénitienne. Petits casseroles aux grandes-crevettes. Boudins de pigeon aux olives. Gigot braisé à la chevreuil. Aspic de perdreaux. Champignons au gratin. Flan d'abricots. Riz glacé à l'Impératrice. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-Prepare your stock as usual but without colouring. Remove the flesh from a cold roast Purée of chicken. fowl, excluding all skin, and browned parts : add to the meat so obtained, half its bulk of bread- crumbs soaked in stock, and pound both together in a mortar, with twelve sweet, and three bitter almonds, and the hard-boiled yolks of four eggs. Mash and cast all the bones into as much uncoloured beef stock as you think you will require for eight basins, and let them simmer for two or three hours. Pass your pounded fowl and crumbs through the sieve to get rid of lumps, gristle, &c., moisten- ing it with a spoonful or so of stock to assist the operation. MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 383 tas impret, Venetian Pom fashion. When near the dinner hour, strain off your stock from the bones, and place it to get cool, removing all the fat that may rise to the surface. Now take a sauce-pan and melt an ounce of butter at the bottom of it, stirring in a table- spoonful of flour; add a little stock, and work the paste so obtained without ceasing, gradually pouring in stock, and adding pounded fowl, until you have exhausted your supply. Let the purée now come to the boil; remove the sauce-pan from the fire, and as you pour it into the tureen, stir into it a coffee-cupful of cream, (or that quantity of milk with which the strained yolk of an egg has been mixed) and serve. 2.-Dress your fish in fillets, and bake them in a bat- tered dish with a slice of tomato laid upon each of them, and a little chop- ped parsley and shallot, sprinkled over them. When done, arrange them upon a hot silver dish, and serve with the following green sauce :-Boil a little spinach, and when done, squeeze it through a piece of muslin: save the pulp you obtain for colouring. Now make some melted butter, assisted by a little fish stock made from the trimmings of the fillets and some vege- tables, with a spoonful of chablis or sauterne ; throw into it some finely minced parsley, a very little shallot, some chopped capers, and gherkins, and colour the whole with the spinach-greening. The white fish, the brilliant green sauce, and the scarlet slice of tomato with each portion, present a tasteful combination of colours, which might almost “tempt the dying anchoret to eat.” 3.-Put a pound of the best table rice into a stew-pan with a quart of water, an onion, and Little cases of rice two ounces of clarified suet. Simmer with prawns. till the rico is soft, yet quite whole. Drain it, and pound it to a paste in a mortar with a table- spoonful of grated Parmesan, some butter, pepper and salt 384 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. Stir into this the yolks of three eggs, and powder it with a little spiced pepper. Pass all through the sieve, and pat it to a paste on your pastry slab, about one and a half inch thick. When quite cold, cut it into cylinders two inches long, and an inch and a half in diameter; egg and bread-crumb them, fry them, a golden yellow in butter, and let them get cold ; then cut off one end, and scoop out the interior of each cylinder; fill it with a rich prawn salpicon well diluted with velouté sauce : fix the end on again with white of egg. Heat in the oven and serve upon a napkin. N.B.-A casserole is literally a sauce, or stew-pan; the term was originally given to cases made of rice or potato which were moulded on that pattern. 4.-Roast six pigeons early in the day; pick the meat from them, save the livers, and throw Pigeon boudios with all the bones into a small sauce-pan olives. with some lean bacon, as much stock as you can spare (to the extent of half filling the sauce- pan) some whole pepper, a sliced carrot, a bunch of pars- ley, and a clove of garlic, a muslin bag containing some mixed sweet herbs, and any scraps of raw meat you may have lying idle. With this make a strong gravy, by simmer- ing it slowly antil almost half wasted : now strain the liquor from the various ingredients, and set it to get cool. Meanwhile, stone a couple of dozen French olives, and par- boil them, skim the fat that may have risen on the top of your sauce, and then add the olives chopped into dice. Let the sauce rest awhile. The meat of the pigeons should now be thoroughly pounded with half its bulk of bread-crumb, to a paste, the livers incorporated with it, and some fat bacon; when you have worked this quite smooth, pass it through the sieve, season it with pepper and salt, and then fill six little buttered moulds with it, here and there slipping in a slice of truffle, and some pieces of 386 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. flavoured with tarragon, decorate a plain mould with white of hard-boiled egg, slices of truffle and cornichons, pour in a little jelly and set the garnish, then pack your mould with the fillets of partridge between layers of the paste and slices of truffle. Ice this, and present it with sauce ravigote (also iced) in a boat, and dry toast. .“ Aspic Jelly."--This requires attention; the common flavourless jelly, consolidated with isinglass, should be avoided if possible. In order to turn out an aspic, fit to present at a dinner party, you must proceed in this way :- Put into a stew-pan an ox-foot cleaned and cat up, with a bacon bone, or a slice or two of ham or bacon, any scraps of raw meat, such as cutlet trimmings you may have, or, better far, a young fowl cut up as for fricassee, with a few mixed vegetables, &c., as for soup. Add a cup of cold water, cover the pan, set it on the fire, shaking it occasion- ally: when the pieces of meat begin to take colour, add a little more water, and in about half an hour, pour in enough water to cover the contents of the pan completely ; put in a tea-spoonful of caramel, and then let the vessel simmer for three hours very gently. When ready, strain the liquor off into a bowl, let it get cool, skim it carefully, add a tea-spoonful of sugar, and table-spoonful of tarragon vinegar, clarify it, (q. v. page 33) and strain it finally through a clean cloth, producing a clear, amber-coloured liquid, which will set of its own accord without isinglass, if put in the ice-box. A couple of calf's feet, or four sheep's feet may be used. 7.-In wet weather excellent mushrooms are procurable Baked Mushrooms. me at nearly every station in this Presi- dency; assuming that on this occasion we have been fortunate enough to get a dish of a dozen nice ones, a very toothsome entremets can be made of them. in this manner :--First, be careful in eleaning them; cut MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 387 the stalks down, leaving only a little of them within the hollow of the mushroom, peel off the skin that covers the convex side of the fungus, brush away any particles of earth or sand that may adhere to the pink gills on the concave side, and by patting the top of each mushroom, shake out all grit. It is a very great mistake to wash a mushroom if you can possibly clean it in the way I have described. When satisfactorily prepared, clean the stalks you cut off, and chop them up. Put into a sauce-pan an ounce of butter and stir into it half an ounce of flour, when mixed, add half a pint of made gravy; stir well and throw in the chopped stalks, a table-spoonful of chopped curled parsley, a tea-spoonful of minced onion, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a dasting of pepper : simmer the sauce until it is thick and rich, add a spoonful of cream, and then strain it. Now butter a silver dish liberally, place the mush- rooms upon it head downwards, fill their hollow parts with the thick sauce, and set the dish in the oven (a brisk one) for ten minutes. As soon as the mushrooms flatten themselves, as it were, they are done. Serve on the same dish wrapping a napkin round it. 8. This dish is not a difficult one. Choose a tin of American apricots, drain off their juice Apricot custard. and place the fruit at the bottom of a glass dish ; add enough syrup to the juice of the fruit to cover them, pour into it a wine-glassful of noyeau or maraschino, and half an ounce of dissolved gelatine ; when cold, set the glass dish upon ice, and pour the syrup round the fruit by degrees, letting it congeal like jelly and embedding the fruit firmly. Leave the dish in the ice, and then make enough rich custard to form a layer an inch thick on the top of the congealed fruit, mix into the custard half an ounce of dissolved gelatine, and flavour it · with vanilla : when quite cold, pour the custard by degrees over the layer of fruit; it should consolidate also ; garnish 388 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. the surface of the custard with whipped cream in two colours, pink and white (the pink coloured with a drop or two of cochineal), and serve straight from the ice. 9.-Gently boil a quarter of a pound of the best rice till about half done, then drain it and Iced rice à l'Impéra. put it into a stew-pan with a pint and trice. a half of good boiling milk, and six ounces of sugar, add a coffee-cupful of boiling cream, stir well, and simmer till the rice is done. Let it get cold. Next mince up some mixed dessert fruits, greengages, cherries, apricots, &c., (preserved ginger, and citron if you like), moisten with a table-spoonful of maraschino or noyeau and put the mince away upon a plate. Now strain the milk and cream from the rice, add milk enough to fill the mould you have chosen, and turn it to a rich custard with eight eggs : next set the freezing pail in the ice, put the custard into it, and work it with the spatula till nearly frozen. You must now add the rice, with two whites of egg à la meringue, made in this way :-put two ounces of sugar into an enamelled sauce-pan, and heat it with a little water till nearly boiling, whip two whites of egg, and add them to the sugar, whipping all the time; this, when cold, is what you want for the ice. Continue working the spatula, and when the mixture is all but frozen, add a coffee-cupful of whipped cream the minced fruit, and a liqueur-glass of liqueur; stir well, freeze a little longer, then fill your ice mould, and bury it in ice until it is required. NOTE.—To adapt this menu, serve the leg of matton after the fish, and instead of the aspic of partridges give poulet au cresson with salade or roast game. A poulet, with really nice creamy bread sauce, and water-cress (if MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 389 the fowl be a plump home-fed one), makes a very accept- able rôt. Meringues. Put the whites of seven eggs into a bowl, and whip them as stiffly as possible, add half a pound of sugar, mix well, and with a spoon set portions of the mixture at inter- vals on sheets of buttered paper : each piece should be the size and shape of an egg: dredge some pounded sugar over them, and put them in the oven upon a baking-sheet. As soon as they assume a pale yellow tint, remove them from the oven, detach them from the paper, and cut them in halves with a very sharp knife. Scoop out the inside with a spoon as carefully as you can, and return them to a moderate oven to dry. After that you can fill the pieces with any nicely flavoured whipped cream, join the halves together with white of egg cement (page 357), and serve piled up upon a napkin. MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 391 cover it with water and let it simmer slowly for an hour, skimming all fat, and scum that may rise: take it up (it will be about half done), remove the bones and set it, with a weight upon it, on a dish to flatten and get cold. Now throw your shin, &c., into the soup kettle, adding to the cold head liquor already there, the bones just removed, sufficient cold water to cover the bone and meat com- pletely and an ounce of salt. Proceed now as for consommé skimming very carefully, and retarding the boiling point as much as you can by periodical additions of water : when boiling takes place, ease off the fire, and add two Bombay onions in quarters, a head of celery, a couple of carrots, the rind of two limes, a large bunch of parsley, a quarter ounce of dried basil, (sold in bottles) a tea- spoonful of dried thyme, and of marjoram, (the herbs in a muslin bag) a dozen pepper corns, two anchovies cut up, half a wine-glass of mushroom ketchup, a table- spoonful of sugar, and a tea-spoonful of caramel. Simmer slowly now for about three hours, skimming the surface occasionally, and on no account permitting the vessel to boil. Now strain very carefully, and set the soup in a bowl to cool and throw up all grease. Cut the cold head into one-and-a-half-inch squares, skim the cool soup well, and pour it into a large sauce-pan adding the pieces of head. Let the pieces cook slowly for half an hour, then drain them, and again strain the soup: clarify it if neces- sary adding a glass of Madeira, and the juice of a lime. Let this be heated up finally when required, and pour the soup into the tareen over a dozen or so carefully selected pieces of the head arranged therein. Serve, with limes cut into quarters, which should be handed round followed by the Madeira. The basil is most necessary, and the whole success of the soup depends upon strict attention to the flavouring herbs and ingredients. Select gelatinous, not meaty pieces, for the garnish. 392 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. For the thick :-Go back to the period when you strain- Thick mock-turtle. ed the soup and set it to get cool. * Take a large sauce-pan, and melt at the bottom of it three ounces of good butter, mix into it three ounces of flour, when it looks nice and velvety, gently add the soup, stirring it in by capfuls. Put into it the pieces of head, a glass of Madeira, and the juice of a lime. Let the soup come to the boil to thicken properly, and let it simmer slowly immediately afterwards, constantly stir- ring to prevent the meat sticking to the bottom of the pan. When ready (which you will decide by testing the meat) you can add a little more Madeira if you find it needed, and serve. Some people make small forcemeat balls of hard-boiled eggs pounded with some parsley, pepper, salt, spice, flour, and a raw egg; or of chicken, with a little ham or tongue, savoury herbs, crumb of bread and eggs; these they poach in gravy, and add to the soup when serving. I think however that the soup costs trouble enough without them, and, so many people misunderstand what they are, that making forcemeat balls is often lost labour. 2.-Choose a good deep cat of seer fish. Take about a pint of thin brown gravy, a little onion, Seer with mush. a carrot cut up, a bit of celery, and some parsley ; flavoar it with a table- spoonful of chablis or sauterne, and one of mushroom ketchup, a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, and a little lime juice : stew the fish in this liquor very gentiy. When done, strain it, thicken the gravy with butter and flour, adding a dozen “black Leicestershire" mushrooms; heat up without boiling, and serve. 3.-Roast a fair sized fowl, protecting the breast from burning by a buttered paper; when Crêpinettes of fowl cold, carve the bird carefully, picking truffled off all the white meat you can; remove rooms, MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 393 the skin from these pieces and put them aside. Break up the carcass, and throw it, with all fragments of skin and bone, and the giblets of the fowl previously saved, into a sauce-pan, with as much stock as will cover the whole : add two onions, a clove of garlic, a carrot, sweet herbs, pepper, and salt, and simmer the contents of your pan as long as you can, finally adding half a glass of sherry, and bringing the broth to the boil. Now strain it, remove all fat that may rise, and reduce the sauce a little ; thicken it with butter and flour, take it off the fire, and stir in the yolks of two eggs beaten up with the juice of a lime. Let the sauce get cold. Next slice up four good sized truffles and toss the slices in a frying-pan in some melted butter, adding a liqueur-glass of Madeira, and a little stock; when the liquor boils, stop, and pour the contents of the pan into a bowl. Make one or two very thin pancakes, cut out of them eight pieces, five inches long and four wide, and put them aside. Now make the nicest mince you can of the cold fowl, diluting it with the cold sauce, and adding the liquor in which the truffles were cooked. Stir in a raw egg as it leaves the fire and let it get cold. Spread the pieces of pancake on a big dish and cover each of them with some very thinly sliced cooked bacon; dot over the bacon the cooked truffles, on the centre of each lay a good table- spoonful of the mince, fold the pancakes over, fix them with white of egg, bread-crumb, and bake them a pale brown on a well buttered dish. Serve upon a napkin. 4.—This is an effective entrée :- Make enough of the best puff-paste to form eight or nine Hare patties, finan. pastry cases of the usual patty shape, cière fashion. bake them in the oven, and put them aside when done. As serving time approaches, fill each with a share of thoughtfully composed rugout à la finan- cière (the same that you would prepare for a vol-au-vent, 394 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. only a little more minced) of hare, heat in a quick oven for a minute or two, and serve. N.B.-Touching ragouts à la financière and à la reine : the former is brown, the latter white. For financière you must therefore use Espagnole, and for à la reine, béchamel. Oysters, chicken, rabbit, tongue, sweet-breads, liver, cocks- combs, truffles, mushrooms, and game, form the chief com- ponent parts of the plat. Select your ingredients ; trim the pieces of meat into small collops, and gently stew them; that is, heat them up salmis fashion, in either the rich brown, or the delicate white sauce I have named ; the meat having been previously dressed, of course, requires no cooking. Bearing these general rules in mind, the ragouts will not be found very difficult. 5.—Lard the fillet carefully, and tie it up into a con- venient shape for roasting. Roast it Fillet of beef with French beans. over a brisk fire, and when sufficiently on done, serve it with some minced an- chovies and olives, tossed in melted butter, poured over it at the last moment. For the haricots verts :-Remember not to allow your cook to cut the beans into the vermicelli-like strips you see so frequently. All that is necessary is to peel off the external fibre which rans round the outside edge of the pod, leaving the pods so peeled intact. Next choose a roomy, two-pound jam jar, or any vessel that you can close securely; put the beans into it with a table-spoonful of good butter, a dessert-spoonful of sugar, and a salt- spoonful of salt. Cover the vessel tightly and steam it for an hour in boiling water. When done, drain the bean pods, and serve them in any of the ways mentioned at page 138. Steamed in this way the French bean of Indian growth tastes exactly like its parent as eaten in France. You will never boil French beans again after cooking MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 395 them in the manner I have described : a spoonful of melted maître d'hôtel butter, or, better still, a coffee- cupful of poulette sauce is an improvement just before 83 serving 6.-Roast the plovers (the grey bird will do for this dish) and proceed as you did to com- Plovers in cases. pose the salpicon de gibier in Menu No. 5, all your buttered cases with pieces of the plovers, and pour round, and over them your thick glaze. Bake for five or ten minutes, and serve. 7.—Prepare a purée of spinach as described at page 146, Spinach patties. drain it very dry, and then moisten it with cream, adding a very little nut- meg : make eight bouchées (miniature oyster patty shapes) of puff pastry, fill each bouchée with spinach purée, give them a cap of buttered egg (page 235), heat up in the oven, and serve on a napkin. 8.-Make enough plain clear jelly, flavoured with any nice liqueur, to fill a pretty border ha u d-froid of mould, and get ready a mixed collec- tion of dessert fruits,--a few of each sort,-such as greengages, apricots, cherries, strawberries, pears, &c., cut them into pieces, and garnish the mould as tastefully as you can. When the garnish has set, complete the jelly with layers of the remaining fruit, and set it in ice. For the centre, to imitate a savoury chaud-froid, you must make a breakfast-cupful of vanilla blanc-manger, dipping slices of preserved apples into it to counterfeit fillets of chicken masked in white sauce; set them on ice for the blanc-manger to congeal, and then pack the centre of the jelly with them ; garnish the white fillets with slices of prunes to represent truffles, and a few plain, slices of apple cut with fretted edges to imitate cocks- combs. fruit. 396 MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 9.-For this effective ice, you must have four small ice pails, and make a different ice in each Iced pudding, med. pail, viz. :—No. 1, strawberry cream ley. (Menu No. 3); No. 2, crème de pistache (Menu No. 2); No. 3, parfait au chocolat (Menu No. 8); and No. 4, vanilla cream. Make half a pint of each of these, and set your mould in the ice : when the four ices are well frozen, mix them at hap-hazard by casting large spoonfuls of them one after the other into the mould :- say, first, half the vanilla, then a quarter of the chocolate, then half the strawberry, followed by a quarter of the pistachio, some more chocolate and vanilla, and so on, till full. Work the spatula, and blend the colours without any fixed pattern, press the whole together firmly, freeze thoroughly, and serve. To adapt this menu, serve the fillet of beef after the fish, and send up the plovers nicely roasted, with bread sauce, crisp potato chips, and a salad. A curl of crisply fried bacon should accompany each bird. To make a vol-au-vent case. Make very carefully a pound of puff-paste, following the directions given at page 263. Give the paste six turns, and roll it out three-quarters of an inch thick. Cut out of this as neatly as possible an oval piece the size you wish your vol-au-vent to be. You will then have an oval piece of pastry three-quarters of an inch thick: turn it over upon a buttered baking-sheet, brush the surface and side with a beaten egg, and mark out the interior oval, leaving an inch margin all round. Let the knife cut this tracing to a depth of a quarter of an inch. Now put the sheet in the oven, and when the paste is baked, remove the inner oyal (for a cover) which you will find has risen : then MENU FOR A PARTY OF EIGHT. 397 scoop out the uncooked paste inside the case : brush the whole case thus formed with egg again, and bake it for about five minutes. After this the pastry will be ready. Remember that in the first baking, the oval wall will have risen three or four inches high. S . MENU NO. XI For a dinner of six, Potage à la crème d'orge. Orlys de seer, à la Hollandaise. Poulette à la St. Lambert. Carré de mouton farci. Bécassines rôties. Petits pois au lard. Tartelettes de limon. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-Boil half a pint of pearl barley in a quart of clear stock till it is reduced to a palp; pass Pearl barley soup Pin it through a hair sieve, and add suffi- cient additional stock uncoloured, and very well flavoured, to bring the purée to the consistency of cream; put it now in a sauce-pan on the fire till it comes to the boil, then stir into it off the fire the yolk of an egg thoroughly beaten up with a gill of milk (or cream if you can spare it) serve with dice of bread, dipped in stock, and crisped in the oven. 2.—Divide a cut of seer-fish into six nice collops about two inches long, half an inch thick, Seer fritters with ondan inch wide and an inch wide. Let them “mari- Lot thomsomoni Hollandaise sauce. nade” in a little lime juice or vinegar, pepper, salt, onion, and sweet herbs. Half fry, or bake MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 399 them, and let them get cold. Prepare some batter as follows:-Beat up together the yolks of two eggs (save the whites) with one table-spoonful of brandy, one of salad oil, and four or five table-spoonfuls of water. Amal- gamate with this three table-spoonfuls of imported flour, and a pinch of salt. Beat the mixture well for a minute or two, and bring it to the right consistency by adding water, or flour, as the case may require. When ready, add, at the last moment, the whites you saved, whipped to a froth : dip your collops into this, and lay them one by one in your frying basket, dipping it immediately into a deep sauté-pan, filled with boiling fat; as soon as they turn a nice deep yellow, lift them out, drain them on a sheet of blotting paper, and serve them, crisp and dry on a napkin garnished with fried parsley, and slices of lime. With sauce-Hollandaise in a boat. (q. v. page 84.) 3.—Take two nice chickens, cut them up as if for fri- cassee, steep the pieces in cold water Chicken, St. Lam- for half an hour, then drain them, bert fashion. and select the following pieces, viz. :- the four wings, the four legs, two breasts, and four thighs, and put them aside covered up. Take all that remains, viz. :—the backs, pinions, necks, livers, gizzards, and. trimmings, and, with an onion cut up, some pepper corns, a few spoonfuls of meat gravy, a bit of lime peel, a tea- spoonful of ketchup, and salt, make as good a pint of broth as you can; when ready, fish out the livers, and strain the broth. Now put into the stew-pan the selected joints of the chickens, cover them with the strained broth, and stew them gently till done, with one carrot, and a handful of French beans. Now pick out the chicken, strain the broth, and put the vegetables aside. Proceed with the broth to make a nice velouté (rich white sauce) flavoured with a dozen sweet almonds pounded, and a blade of mace; thicken in the bain-marie with the yolks and put themacks, pinions, necat' up, some peppe 400 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. of three eggs : when satisfactory, strain and put in the pieces of chicken, heating them without boiling. Cut the carrot, and French beans, with the livers you saved, into dice, and when you dish the chicken, garnish your entrée with them. A casserole of mashed potatoes, shaped like the pastry case of a vol-au-vent, and nicely ornamented, can hold the chicken, and the garnish should be sprinkled over the surface. 4.-Order a shoulder of the best mutton you can get, bone it carefully, wash it, dry it, and Shoulder of mutton flatten it out upon a clean board. stuffed. Dust it over with pepper and salt, and lay over it a number of thin slices of cold cooked bacon. Make a good bowl of turkey stuffing (page 109) and spread it evenly over the bacon, roll the meat care- fully up, and secure it in shape with tapes. Put four ounces of butter into a stew-pan, and turn the roll of mutton over in it till it takes colour. Now pour in a pint or so of good broth made from the bones and trimmings, with two Bombay onions cut up, a clove of garlic, a carrot sliced, six pepper corns, a blade of mace, a good piece of celery, a dessert-spoonful of sugar, a dessert-spoonful of salt, a tambler of chablis or sauterne, and half a glass of brandy. Braise the mutton in this until it is done. Dish it on a hot dish, and brown its surface with a hot iron. Strain off the gravy, remove the fat, flavour it as for game with half a glass of Madeira, a dessert-spoonful of red carrant jelly, the juice of a lime, and a few drops of chilli vinegar; let it boil up, pour it round the mutton, and serve. Garnish the dish with small white onions (the size used for pickling) glazed, and send round potatoes i la maître d'hôtel. 5.-Roast the birds properly over a bright fire (Rama- sámy will bake them if he can, or fry Roast snipes. them in a frying-pan) and serve them MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 401 on hot buttered toast, smothered with crisply fried bread- crumbs. A nice salad, butter, and Nepaul pepper should go round. 6.-Cook the peas as recommended at page 135, cut a thick slice of bacon into small dice, Green peas with fry them till they are dry and crisp, fried bacon. mix them with the peas, and serve. 7.-If your cook can make really nice puff pastry, this Lemon cheesecakes. simple little entremets will be quite fit me for a place in your menu. For the mixture, proceed as follows :-melt four ounces of butter in an enamelled sauce-pan, stir into it the yolks of four eggs, and four ounces of finely pounded loaf sugar, and when dissolved, the juice of three limes; mix the syrup well, and add a liqueur-glass of noyeau, or curaçoa. Now line eight or nine round patty pans with puff-paste, and fill them half full with the mixture, leaving room for it to rise in the baking: when done, dust over the cheesecakes some finely pounded loaf sugar, and serve them upon a napkin, hot. Salade Russe. This is an effective dish for a luncheon party :-Boil some carrots and some turnips in salted water with a small piece of butter, but do not let them be overdone; when cold, cut out of them, with a vegetable scoop, a number of pieces the size of an olive; cut some beetroot in the same way, and likewise some truffles. Take equal parts-say a cupful—of each of the above, and a similar quantity of fresh haricot beans ready cooked, and of asparagus points prepared in the same way. Two table-spoonfuls respec- tively of capers, of French pickled gherkins cut into the shape of capers, and of anchovies, perfectly cleaned, and cut into small pieces ; a couple of dozen or more olives stoned, one table-spoonful of parsley minced fine, and one 402 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. of shallot, also minced. Mix the whole lightly together with a sauce, made with raw yolks of eggs, oil, vinegar, pepper, and salt, (page 190.) Ornament with hard-boiled eggs, caviare, prawns, olives farcies, pickles, truffles, &c. Sweet capsicums are a nice addition, not only for their flavour, but on account of their brilliant colour. Sia MENU NO. XII. For a dinner of six. Purée de grandes-crevettes. Merlans à l'Américaine. Côtelettes de mouton au parée d'oseille. Galantine de chapon au salade. Sarcelles au cresson. Céleri au beurre. Crème d'abricot à la Moscovite. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.- Make a strong clear consommé with beef, bone, vegetables and herbs, as usual : when Prawn purée. done, strain it into a bowl to be ready when wanted. Pick enough cold boiled prawns to fill a half-pint pot to the brim : pound these in a mortar with a good allowance of butter till you get them to a pulp : flavour this with salt, and a little spiced pepper to taste : now melt an ounce of butter in a sauce-pan, and incorpo- rate therewith a table-spoonful of flour; mix this with the prawn pulp. Next take about the same quantity of bread- crumb well soaked in stock (the consommé) that you have of prawn, and add it to the prawn pulp also, off the fire, mixing the two together by degrees thoroughly, and gradually adding the consommé till you find you have a soup a little less thick than that you want eventually to get. You now set the sauce-pan on the fire, and stir 404 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. vigorously till it boils, and thickens ; take it off the fire then, and let it get cool, to enable you to remove any fat that may rise, after which the purée should be pressed through a hair sieve into a bowl. When wanted, it must, of course, be re-heated, and served with dice of fried bread. This soup is well worth the little trouble it requires : it is, of course, a relation of the bisque family. A coffee- cupful of boiling cream, or of milk in which the yolk of an egg has been whipped, may be added, but I think the purée is generally rich enough without that assistance. Let my ap-country friends follow this recipe, using a tin of lobster, well drained, and washed: their efforts will result in “bisque de homard.” In this case the coral of the lobster gives the soup a rich orange colour. The Ameri- can canned lobster, prawns, and shrimps, make excellent bisques. 2.-Cut and trim three nice whitings in fillets, brush them over with egg, and bread-crumb Whitings in the de them with some finely sifted white them with some finels American way. crumbs ; fry them a golden yellow in boiling fat, drain, and serve them with this sauce :-Melt a dessert-spoonful of butter in a small sauce-pan, stir in a dessert-spoonful of flour, add half a pint of warm fish gravy, let it thicken, and finish it with the juice of a lime, a little salt, a pinch of sugar, a few drops of tabasco, and a heaped up dessert-spoonful of chopped capsicums. 3.-Choose a first rate neck of mutton, divide it into the neatest cutlets you can, give them a Mutton cutlets with dust of pepper and salt, and place sorrel sauce. them en marinade for the rest of the day. For the sauce you want one Bombay onion, two handfuls of sorrel, one lettuce, and two table-spoonfuls of butter. Take a light sauce-pan, melt the butter at the bottom of it; throw into it the onion very finely shredded, toss this about till it turns a pale yellow, and then add themu MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 403 the whole of the sorrel and the lettuce also finely cut up. Stir the vegetables about in the melted butter till they begin to change colour, and then pour into the sauce-pan about half a pint of gravy slightly thickened with flour; stir this well, and put in a tea-spoonful of white sugar, three salt-spoonfuls of salt, and a good dusting of black pepper. Let the vegetables boil for about five minutes, then, if you find the sauce too thick, or as cooks say, "stodgy,” dilute it with a little more gravy, till it assumes the consistency of a rich purée, ease the fire and let the sorrel simmer for half an hour. At the end of that time it will be ready to accompany your cutlets, which should be drained from their marinade, dipped in melted butter, and grilled over a bright clear fire. Prepare a circle of mashed potato, fill it with the purée burning hot, and arrange the cutlets round the outside of the circle, with bunches of water-cress for garnish. 4.-A really tasty cold dish, garnished with blocks of broken aspic jelly, the whole fresh Galantine of capon. from the ice-box, and accompanied by a good salad is, to my mind, a worthy pièce de résistance for a little dinner party at Madras in the sultry month of May. A galantine too, is a dish that is well adapted for a Neilgherry picnic, the wedding breakfast, the luncheon, or supper, so let us discuss the following recipe : Choose a very fine fowl, capon, or hen-turkey; purchase one of Crosse and Blackwell's “ picnic tongues" (in the round tins) and proceed as follows :-Having cleaned the bird, and having carefully saved the liver, heart, and gizzard, lay it breast downwards on a board, and proceed to bone it (Ramasámy does this generally very cleverly) you may sever the pinions, legs, and neck, but draw the skin carefully over the places, and stew them up, so that the outer skin may be as whole as possible. Cut off all the meat from the pinions and legs (removing the sinew) 42 406 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. and flatten the carcass before you with a cutlet bat. Make a forcemeat as follows :-five ounces stale bread-crumb, five ounces minced fat bacon, the rind of a lime minced fine, a dessert-spoonful each of thyme and marjoram, some spiced pepper, and salt, a table-spoonful of minced parsley, all bound with four eggs : mix this as previously describ- ed, and keep it by your side in a basin. Now turn out the "picnic tongue,” straighten it, and cut a solid piece of the best meaty part to form the centre of your galantine : it should be nearly as long as the carcass of the fowl (leaving room for folding up) and nearly the full thick- ness of the tongue after the skin has been peeled off. Slice up the remainder of the tongue; separating fat slices from lean, and keep them on a dish handy; scraps may be minced fine, and mixed with the forcemeat. To make the foundation of your work as level as possible, you should trim nearly all the meat of the carcass of the fowl, with a very sharp knife, almost to the skin; the meat that is thus detached should be kept with that of the wings and legs. Lastly, mince together the liver, gizzard and heart, and “spice-pepper," and mince them well. First, spread a layer of the stuffing a quarter of an inch thick evenly over the fowl, upon that a layer of your slices of tongue (spice-pepper freely) upon that a layer of the meat you cut from the fowl (dust of salt) over that a second spread of forcemeat, then your minced liver, &c., and lastly, the block of tongue : fold over this the flatten- ed carcass, disturbing the layers as little as possible, and sew the galantine up securely with fine twine. Envelop this in a clean cloth, and tie it up carefully with cross strings to preserve the oval shape of the galantine. · Set this in a deep stew-pan, cover it well with weak stock in which a claret-glass of Madeira has been introduced, and simmer gently for three or four hours. When done, lift it out, drain it, take off the cloth, wrap it in a fresh dry MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 407 one, and place it on a dish with a heavy weight above it. When quite cold, take out your galantine, scrape off any fat that may be attached to the skin, glaze it, and set it in the ice-box, finally serving it garnished with broken lumps of aspic jelly. A galantine to be correct should, of course, contain a goodly allowance of truffles : these should be first cooked in butter and a little Madeira, and then introduced during the packing of the carcass, according to the artistic skill of the chef, in fairly large pieces; truffle trimmings should be minced fine and added to the forcemeat. Little dice of cornichons are effective if dotted about in the layer of stuffing, and pistachio nuts are an improvement. 5.—Let the teal be sent up most carefully roasted straight from the fire ; garnish each Roast teal with portion with a bunch of water-cress : water-cress. and send round butter, limes cat in quarters, and Nepaul pepper. 6.- This is a very simple, yet tasty entremets de légume : um especially to be recommended at Mad- Celery with butter. ras where Neilgherry celery soon loses its nutty crispness, and is consequently not so nice to eat raw. Trim four heads of fine white celery very neatly, wash them carefully, and when convinced that no earth re- mains hidden in the leaves, boil them in salt and water, or in milk if you can afford it. When tender, drain, split each piece in half, and serve as hot as possible upon a silver dish like asparagus. Butter plainly melted, as for “Dutch sauce,” page 89, should alone accompany the vegetable thus delicately dressed. Please do not spoil it by serving it with a 'conjee' made of flour and milk, called by Ramasámy " white sauce,” or with sodden toast beneath it. 408 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. fine sieve. Boilugh. Pass a poto almost as colas 7.-Now here we have a very recherché sweet dish. The spécialité of creams à la Moscovite con- Apricot cream à la sists in their being sent to table very Moscovite. cold, -not frozen as an iced padding, but so long buried in ice as to be almost as cold. The cream is easy enough. Pass a pot of apricot jam through a fine sieve. Boil a pint and a half of milk; mix into it when cool the yolks of ten eggs and make a rich custard. Stir into the custard when cool, an ounce and a half of dissolved gelatine, and then the strained jam. If not sweet enough, you must now add a little sugar. Set the liquid in a mould upon ice, and when you perceive that it is beginning to congeal, add half a pint of whipped cream, and a glass of noyeau. Stir the contents of the mould together, and then bury it in ice for at least two hours. Serve as cold as possible. Pickled steak, or chops. Place a steak in a deep dish with a couple of onions sliced, a clove of garlic, pepper corns, salt, some leaves of thyme, and marjoram, a bunch of parsley, and some lime peel. Add oil and vinegar (two table-spoonfuls of former to one of latter) sufficient to soak the meat well without actually covering it. Let it soak all day; lift it; when wanted, from the marinade, and fry lightly in butter : then (when coloured on both sides nicely) pour in the marinade, with a breakfast-cup of made-gravy, and stew the steak gently till thoroughly done.-Strain the liquor, free it from fat, reduce it a little over the fire, pour over the steak, and serve. This is just as good with a nice mutton steak, or a few juicy chops. MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. sauce-pan, mix into it half an ounce of flour; stir in, when the butter and flour have amalgamated, a breakfast-cup- ful of beef gravy, half a glass of sherry, a tea-spoonful of caramel, a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, one of Harvey, and one and a half of Anchovy sauce. Stir well, and pour piping hot into the centre of the potato ring. 4.—This is a capital method of cooking a fowl, the pro- cess is simply that of steaming, so you Fowl in the Ameri can manner. . will want your fish kettle, and a pan, big enough to hold the fowl, with a close fitting lid. Truss the fowl: place a big Bombay onion inside the bird, with a couple of slices of bacon; sew ap the vent, pin a strip of bacon over the breast, and set the bird in the pan (without any water or gravy round it) carefully securing the lid with paste if necessary. Immerse the vessel containing the fowl in the fish kettle or any larger pan full of cold water, and set it to boil. Cook it slowly for upwards of an hour without removing the lid which should be scrupulously kept closed. In about an hour and a quarter (after the water came to the boil), you can take the fowl out, and place it at once on a hot dish well covered up. Now strain off the gravy that you will find has been drawn from the fowl, and save it for the “oyster sauce,” which make in this way as fast as you can :- Mix an ounce of butter with an ounce of flour at the bottom of a sauce-pan, add the fowl Oyster sauce. sauce. gravy, the liquor from a tin of oysters, and the beards of the oysters cut off : (save the oysters themselves separately) throw in some pepper corns, the peel of a lime, salt to taste, and, as the mixture boils, a table-spoonful of Harvey sauce: after it has come to the boil, strain the sauce carefully, add the oysters you saved, hcat it up again : take it off the fire : pour in a coffee- 412 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. cupful of boiling cream (or milk in which the yolk of an s egg has been stirred, and heated up to the consistency of thin custard) and serve poured over the fowl. Whilst this sauce is being made, it would be wise perhaps to leave the fowl in the vessel in which it was cooked, carefully cover- ed up and kept in the hot water bath. As soon as the sauce is ready, it can be dished up, upon a cradle of well boiled maccaroni. 5.—This is a dish of “Bombay onions stuffed with kidneys," a most excellent savoury Onion stuffed with entremets if carefully done. Take six kidoeys. large Bombay onions : have ready ten sheep's kidneys, scalded, and skinned, but uncooked. Boil the onions till three parts done; take them out, drain them; slice off the top of each one (as you would treat an egg) and carefully remove the inside, leaving a hollow big enough to hold two small kidneys cut into eight pieces ; take two anchovies, pick out their spines and cut the fish into little squares : have some minced parsley handy, a lime, and some of the inside of the onion that you scooped out, minced and peppered ; put a lump of butter into the onion case first, then a little of the minced onion peppered, then your pieces of kidney, with little bits of anchovy here and there, and crown the top again with minced onion, and a pat of butter : a drop or so of lime juice should be given during the packing, and an occasional dust of spiced pepper. Now place the cap on again, and when the six onions are stuffed, lay them in a buttered baking dish, and bake in a slow oven for an hour. When done, pour a brown sauce (separately made) over them and serve in their own dish. 6.-A recipe for these toothsome little fondues will be found at page 249. Serve the Fondues of cheese in paper cases. moment they rise, dished upon a nap- kin. 414 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. the water; and continue the washings, so to speak, until the water remains quite clear after the sediment has set- tled at the bottom of the bowl: about three changes of water generally suffice for this. When satisfied that the grated potato has been thoroughly cleansed, take it out of the bowl, drain it, and spread it out upon dishes to dry and bleach in the sun, turning it frequently. When quite dry, pound it in a mortar, and pass the flour so obtained through a silk or hair sieve. Bottle it securely in dry bottles, and cork it down tightly. It will be white and quite flavourless. MENU NO. XIV. For a dinner of six. Consommé de perdreaux. Matelote d'anguilles. Poulet à la Villeroy. Longe de mouton à la soubise. Topinambours au gratin. Canapés de caviare. “Pudding" à l’Orleans. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-Buy three partridges in addition to your customary soup meat: pluck the birds, draw them, Clear partridge soup. e and cut them up, breaking all bones of any size with a mallet. Set the soup meat for consommé as usual, and when you have obtained as strong a stock as possible therefrom, strain it, and let it get cool ; remove all fat that may rise to the surface, and when quite clear, pour it into a large sauce-pan, adding all the pieces of part- ridge, including the livers of the birds, &c.; set this on the fire to come slowly to the boil, skimming it very carefully ; after it has boiled, slack off the fire, and let the contents of your sauce-pan simmer slowly for an hour or more. Now strain the soup from the bones, clarify (it should be a nice, bright, clear consommé remember) and give it half a glass of Madeira, a pinch of sugar, and a few drops of chilli vinegar to finish with. 416 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. Some people serve pieces of the birds' breasts with the soup, or quenelles made of that meat, seasoned, and formed about the size of olives. 2.-Skin a couple of eels, clean, parboil, and divide them into two inch fillets for stewing. Put Stewed eels. into your stew-pan two ounces of but. ter, with a Bombay onion sliced ; stir over the fire for five minutes, and add half a pint of claret, and half a pint of stock, with a clove of garlic, a carrot cut up, and a bag of sweet herbs : boil this for ten minutes, stirring it well with your wooden spoon; now throw in a salt-spoonful of salt, a tea-spoonful of spiced pepper, the rind of a lime, and place the pieces of eel in the midst. Simmer this for half an hour. Arrange the pieces of the fish upon the hot dish, strain the gravy rapidly, thicken it, re-heat it almost to boiling point, add a pinch of sugar, and a table-spoonful of chopped parsley, and pour it round the fish. 3.-Cut up and cook a couple of nice chickens as ex- plained for poulet à la St. Lambert. Chicken à la Ville. After the pieces of chicken have been roy. stewed in their own broth, drain them, and make a rich velouté with the latter, thickening it with yolks of egg like custard. Dip the pieces of chicken in the thick sauce, and let them get cold; then bread-crumb them, and fry them a golden yellow in boiling fat. Drain them, and pile them on a napkin, garnished with small potato duchesses, and fried parsley. Send the rest of the sauce round in a boat after adding to it a heaped-up table- spoonful of minced mushrooms. 4.-Roast the loin to a turn, serve it with potatoes cook- ed in your favourite manner, red cur- Loin of mutton with rant jelly, and a purée of Bombay onion sauce. onions which should go round in a boat. ed in yo MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 417 For onion purée à la Soubise, you must simmer three onions in sufficient stock or milk to cover them till tender, mash them, and pass them, through the sieve ; work into the pulp that you then get, a coffee-cupful of cream, or milk enriched with the yolk of an egg, with a little gravy ; flavour with a little pepper, and salt, heat it up as hot as possible, and serve. Its consistency ought to be that of thick custard ; no flour please. If the onions be permitted to brown, and the purée be served of that color, the sauce is called à la Bretonne. 5.-The Jerusalem artichoke is one of the most useful vegetables we get. This is a very Jerusalem arti- simple, yet tasty dish of them ; its chokes baked with cheese. correct name is topinambours au gra- tin :-Boil the artichokes till quite tender, then mash them with a silver fork, moistening them with cream, (or milk with the yolk of an egg), sea- son with salt and pepper, place the artichoke in a buttered pie-dish, or in buttered coquilles, give the surface a layer of grated cheese, and bake till it takes colour. Let the vegetable rest upon its own merits for flavour : you do not want spices, or sauces: the cream is, of course, a grand adjunct, and the cheese harmonizes pleasantly with the general tone of the composition. 6.—Prepare six or eight neatly shaped slices of fried bread. Take from a tin of caviare Davide vaste enough roe to cover each piece nicely. Choose a small sauce-pan, melt an ounce of butter in it, stir in the caviare, dust it well with Nepaul pepper, and add the juice of a lime. When piping hot, spread the caviare over the fried bread (which should have been kept in the oven) and send up the canapés without delay. Or,--spread the caviare cold over the cold fried bread, mask the surface with thick mayonnaise sauce, and garnish with a turned olive upon each. Many prefer this method. 418 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 7.-Steep an ounce of gelatine in cold water. Make a rich custard with ten yolks of eggs, Orleans pudding three-quarters of a pound of sugar, and a quart of boiled milk. Add the gelatine to the custard while the latter is hot, and stir it until it is dis- solved; then strain it into a bowl. Cut up one ounce of candied orange peel, one ounce of citron, one ounce of raisins, and one ounce of currants, wash them well, dry them, and then toss the minced confitures in a frying-pan with a small tumbler of rum: as soon as the rum is absorbed, stop and take the pan off the fire. Put a mould upon ice, pour a layer of custard into it first with some of the minced fruit; when set, put a layer of crushed ratafias, then another layer of custard with fruit, again crushed ratafias, and so on till the mould is filled, cover it in ice and let it rest for an hour, then turn it out and serve. If cream be used instead of milk for the custard, a richer result may be obtained ; a good pudding is never- theless to be made with milk. Génoises au chocolat. GÉNOISE Pastry.—Take {lb. of the freshest butter, put it in a bowl, and warm it until it can be beaten with a spoon, add to it 4 oz. of powdered loaf sugar, and beat the two together until a smooth white cream is obtained, then add one egg, and keep on beating the mixture till it is smooth again, then add three more eggs in the same manner. The germ of the eggs should be removed. Lastly, incorporate quickly {lb. of fine flour with the mixture, and as soon as it is smooth, pour it out to the thickness of į in. on a buttered flat tin, which must be put into the oven at once. When done in about ten to fifteen minutes), turn out the slab of Génoise, and put it to cool, underside uppermost, on a sieve. There is some MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 419 knack needed in beating this paste to prevent its curdling. Should this happen, it can be remedied by beating as quickly as possible until the mixture is smooth again. Take a slab of Génoise, spread on the top of it the thinnest possible coating of apricot jam, then a coating of chocolate icing. Put it into a very hot oven for rather less than a minute, take it out, and place it in a cold place to get cool. Then cut it up with a sharp knife in any shapes you like. CHOCOLATE Icing.–Put into a sauce-pan {lb. of powder- ed loaf sugar, 2 oz. of grated chocolate, a tea-spoonful of vanilla essence, and about a gill of water; stir on the fire until the mixture assumes the consistence of a thick smooth cream. The following recipe I have to acknowledge with thanks from “Bahut Bursina":- “ BEIGNETS D'AVENCHES.—Take a new loaf and cut it into slices three quarters of an inch thick. Trim off all crust, cut into convenient slices, marinade in milk, or in cream if available, flavoured with your favourite essence. Take up the slices, drain them, and fry them in a deep bath of boiling fat, or butter, till a golden yellow : spread apricot or any nice preserve over them, and serve hot.” It would be better perhaps to call the dish croûtes à l'Avenches, as by the word beignet we generally under- stand that the thing to be fried is dipped in batter. MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 421 sauce. marie-pan to keep warm. Next return the liquor in which the hare was cooked to the stew-pan, set it on the fire, and let it throw up all grease, &c., in the form of scum, which skim off carefully. Now take a small sauce-pan, and mix therein the blood you saved, and some of the soup from the stew-pan: thoroughly amalgamate these in the bain- marie), and add the mixture slowly through the pointed tin strainer, to the gradually re-heating soup. Let it come nearly to the boil, and then serve it over the pieces of hare you preserved. This is Gouffé's receipt simplified. There are other ways of making hare soup especially that called potage à la purée de lièvre, which are always popular. The purée is, of course, assisted with pounded meat, red currant jelly, lime juice, and plenty of portwine. 2.-Divide three nice whitings in fillets. Dip them in batter (according to my old receipt) Fried whitings sharp and fry them a crisp golden yellow in a bath of boiling fat. Drain them and serve with the following sauce in a boat,-fry a Bombay onion finely minced, with one clove of garlic also minced, in butter at the bottom of a sauce-pan ; when turning brown, put in a table-spoonful of chopped parsley, a tea-spoonful of sugar, a coffee-cupful of vinegar, and a pint of beef gravy. A tea-spoonful of red currant jelly may next be stirred in, and a table-spoonful of mushroom ketchup. As soon as the mixture becomes nicely flavoured, and the juices of the various ingredients appear to be extracted, strain off the sauce. Now cut up a table spoon- ful of minced cornichons, add the mince to the strained gravy, heat it up to concert pitch, and send it round with your fried fish in a boat. 3.—Proceed with a nice sized chicken or small fowl as though you were going to make Chicken croquettes with asparagus points. quenelles, viz. :-Lightly roast it. Cut off the best meat, and put it aside. 44 422 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. Save all bones, skin and scraps, and make a nice clear white broth with them. Take of the fowl meat two parts, of cold boiled tongue one part, and of truffles one part. Mince all very finely and mix them together. Melt an ounce of butter in a sauce-pan, stir into it a table-spoonful of flour, moisten it with some stock, and then add the mince : flavour it with salt, pepper, and a little powdered thyme to taste, and stir it over the fire for three or four minutes : take it off the fire, and add two eggs beaten up with the juice of a lime and strained. Spread the mince out upon a large dish (it should be pretty stiff) and let it get cold. Now divide it into six or eight egg-shaped croquettes, introduce in the centre of each a piece of traffle the size of a shilling, bread-crumb them and fry them a very light gold colour. Prepare a circle of mashed potato, place it neatly in the dish you intend for your entrée, dis- pose the croquettes carefully round it, and between every croquette put a crispy fried curl of bacon, while a slice of truffle may repose upon each of them. . For the “asparagus points,” you must cut off the green ends of the stalks of a tin of asparagus. Heat them gently up in velouté, made with the chicken broth you drew from the scraps, slightly flavoured with almond, and enriched with a good spoonful of cream; give them a few drops of anchovy vinegar, and pour them into the middle of your potato circle. 4.-A fricandeau ought, I believe, to be reserved for a Fricandeau of beef. fillet of veal only, but I am bold enough a to suggest your trying one with beef, thus :-Get two undercuts of the sirloin, if one be too small, trim them into a neat shape, and attach them together by two good skewers. Lard them freely with fat bacon. If you cannot lard, having no needle, you must introduce a slice of bacon into each fillet by making therein a longi- tudinal incision; slip into it your slice of bacon, and pin 424 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 7.-Cut up a stale Madeira cake into slices, and with them line the bottom of a large glass Tipsy pudding. dish, tipsify them with wine, or any nice liqueur and spread a layer of any good jam over them, or one of preserved fruit like cherries, peaches, or apricots. Make a rich custard, and add to it an ounce of dissolved gelatine. When cold, set the dish on ice and pour a very little of the custard round the cake and fruit, letting it set by degrees. When at length the cake, &c., is firmly con- gealed in custard, complete its covering with the rest thereof, and let it consolidate. Garnish the surface with whipped cream, and serve straight from the ice. Beef Olives Cut thin slices of steak two inches wide by six inches long, pat on each at one end a piece of Oxford, or Bologna sausage meat the size of a pigeon's egg ; roll up each olive tightly and neatly, and tie it up with a piece of thread. Fry them in hot butter until they begin to take colour, then take them out, remove the string from each olive, and lay them by. Fry some onions a gold colour in but- ter, add a very little flour, sweet herbs, a few mushroom trimmings, pepper and salt quant. suff., and moisten with some very good gravy or stock; let the sauce boil, then strain it, and carefully lay the olives in it to simmer till done and ready to be served ; the sauce should cover them in the sauce-pan. It will be observed that olives are not used in this dish at all. It is difficult to discover how the word was chosen to represent little rolls of meat containing sausage salpicon. - 426 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. bones, and set it in a bowl to cool. Now pass the snipe meat that you saved through the mincing machine, and pound it thoroughly to a paste, using a little of the soup to help that operation. When the pounded meat is ready, skim any fat that may have risen on the surface of your soup, take a roomy sauce-pan, place it on the fire, put a couple of ounces of butter into it, stir into the butter a table- spoonful of flour, work it to a smooth paste, and then add, by degrees both soup and snipe paste, keeping the spoon at work the whole time. When all is expended, let the purée reach the boil in order to thicken properly. At the last, add a glass of port, a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, and the juice of a good lime. Now get your tureen ready, break a raw egg into a cup, saving the yolk carefully; mix a little of the soup with the yolk, and when well mixed, pass it through a perforated strainer into the tureen. Lift the sauce-pan from the fire, and pour it over the strained egg. Serve. Additional richness would be obtained if you were to pour into the tureen with the soup, stirring as you did so, a coffee-cupful of boiling cream. Fish rolled i 2.-Choose any nice fish, and about an equal amount of prawns—the whole being sufficient rolled in pan. for six portions. Boil the fish and cakes. prawns, and when cold, make a nice salpicon, or coarse mince of them, with some chopped mushrooms. Mix the mince in a sauce-pan with some rich velouté, and bind it with a couple of eggs, let it get cold again, and divide it into six nice portions, just as you would for “kramouskys.” Now make a large pan- cake, or two small ones, and when not quite done, take them from the pan, spread them on a flat dish, and from them cut six pieces about four inches square. Place your salpicon portions in the centre of each, and wrap them up neatly, set the folded pancakes on a well-buttered flat MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 427 silver dish, egg them, bread-crumb them, pour some melt- ed butter over them, and bake until a nice golden brown; serve in the same dish, laid upon a napkin. The pan- cakes should be nice and thin, and you should season your salpicon with “spiced pepper.” “ Dutch sauce” (not Hollandaise you know) should accompany. 3.—This is a dish of neck chops, nicely trimmed, which have been larded with bacon and set Mutton cutlets, en marinade all day, and then bread- Milanaise fashion, crumbed, secundum artem, with finely sifted crumbs, some minced parsley, a very little shallot, and a little grated cheese, all shaken together, the crumbs and cheese in equal proportions. When nicely crumbed with this mixture, the cutlets must be fried a golden yellow in abundance of fat, and served roand a hollow mould of “savoury rice," with some maccaroni â l'Ita- lienne in the hollow in the centre, a recipe for which will be found at page 189. 4.-Truss the bird nicely, lard its breast, stuff it with very carefully made turkey stuffing as A hen turkey explained at page 108, and place it in a deep stew-pan upon a bed of sliced bacon. Put a couple of sheep's trotters, cut into small pieces, round it, with a sliced Bombay onion, two carrots, some chopped sweet herbs, whole pepper corns, lime peel, and a clove of garlic. Pour into the pan a good pint of gravy made from the giblets, trimmings, and any scraps you may have, with a wine-glassful of Madeira, and cook the bird gently with live coals on the stew-pan lid, as well as under the vessel, for about three hours, brown the larding on the breast by passing a red hot iron close to it, and serve. Strain the gravy, thicken it, add some minced truffles, and send it round in a boat. Potatoes and cauliflower accompanying. braised. 428 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 5.—A small tin of Pâté de foie gras will do for this little party. Cut a thick slice of fat bacon Mould of foie gras. * into dice, and fry it with a seasoning of spiced pepper, some minced shallot, parsley, and mar- joram : when the bacon is melted, add some finely minced liver (that of the foregoing turkey could be spared) fry it in the hot bacon, and then turn the contents of your sauté- pan into a bowl to cool. Now break up the pâté, pick out the truffles, and foie gras, and place them on one side; pound the pâté forcemeat, and the cooled liver and bacon, together with the crumb of a roll, soaked in a stock, say about a quarter the bulk of the meat, and pass this through the sieve : you have now three things :-the pounded force- meat and roll, the foie gras, and the truffles : choose a nice sized plain mould, butter it, and pack it with alternate layers of forcemeat, and foie gras, dotting the truffles in according to fancy :-when packed, steam the mould in your bain-marie for three-quarters of an hour; let it get cold, turn it out, glaze, and ice it. Serve with dry toast. 6.-One remark only here :-Please do not spoil your asparagus by pouring an indifferent Asparagus. white sauce like thin “conjee” over it. All you have to do is this : gently warm the asparagus in its own tin in the bain-marie-pan (immersed in a bath of hot water) drain it from its liquor as soon as it is hot (if you keep it longer it will be spoilt) and turn it carefully into a hot dish. Put a pat of fresh, or of the “Denmark” tinned butter on the top of it, give it a squeeze of a lime, and serve. A pat of maître d'hôtel or anchovy butter, may with advantage supply the place of plain butter. N.B.-For heaven's sake, no toast. 7.–For the chocolate soufflé take two ounces of chocolate, and grate it into half a pint of milk, Chocolate soufllé. add a few drops of vanilla essence, and MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 429 boil the milk so that the chocolate may become thoroughly dissolved: when this has been done, the flavoured milk should be thickened with two tea-spoonfuls of potato-flour, or corn-flour, then strained, and set to get cold. The yolks of four eggs and a glass of liqueur should then be beaten up with the cold batter, the whites of six eggs being added in the shape of a stiff froth just before baking. A proper soufflé case or tin should be used to ensure success. Gâteau Napolitain. Take of powdered lump sugar the weight of twelve eggs in their shells, and take half that weight of potato flour; separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs, beat up the latter with the sugar, adding a few drops of essence of lemon. Whisk the whites to a stiff froth, mix the two to- gether, and incorporate with the mixture, quickly and effectually, the potato flour, beating it all the time with the egg whisk. Pour into a plain mould, buttered. Bake in a quick oven until done. When cold, cut the cake in horizontal slices half an inch thick. Spread half the slices of cake with apricot jam, and half with chocolate icing. Arrange the slices one over the other, so as to form the cake again. Trim the slices neatly, and ice the cake com- pletely over with chocolate icing. This must be done quickly, and the icing should be kept hot, for it soon sets. Ornament the cake with any bonbons or sweet-meats, which must be put on before the icing has time to cool, MENU NO. XVII. For a dinner of six. Consommé d'abatis. Darne de seer en papillote. Côtelettes de mouton au macédoine de légumes. Oie rôtie aux choux de Bruxelles. Moringakai au gratin. Crème Garibaldi. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Café noir. 1.-Take the giblets of the goose which forms part of the menu, clean them carefully, cut Clear giblet's soup souple them up small, and put them with an ounce of butter into a stew-pan with an onion shredded finely, and fry them a pale golden colour; add a glass of Marsala, and a little beef consommé, reduce to a glaze, and then pour in the remainder of the consommé which you make daily. Now throw in an onion, a clove of garlic, a muslin bag of sweet herbs, a stick of celery, a carrot, a dozen pepper corns, a dessert-spoonful of sugar, and one of salt. Simmer for two hours. When satisfied that you have extracted the flavour of the giblets, stop, strain the liquor, colour it with caramel, let it get cold, skim off all grease, clarify it if necessary, give it half a glass of Madeira, and a drop or two of tabasco, and serve very hot. For thick giblet soup, yon must thicken with butter and MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 431 flour, after the straining stage, aud serve it with croûtons of fried bread. I denounce the serving of fragments of the giblets in either the thick or clear soup. The flavour is all you require. 2.-Cut a parboiled carrot and one parboiled onion into thin slices, add some powdered Slice of seer ip dried thyme and marjoram and some paper. chopped parsley; mix this up with three table-spoonfuls of salad oil and cover your slice of seer with the mixture. Now wrap the fish carefully in a sheet of buttered paper and bake it for half an hour. When done, remove the paper very carefully and place the slice upon a dish made hot to receive it. Melt a dessert- spoonful of butter, add a dessert-spoonful of flour, a cupful of broth, and the vegetables, &c., in which the slice was cooked; boil this for three or four minutes, strain, and. pour it over the fish. 3.—Take the eight cutlets (small chops) which you can get from a neck of mutton, trim them Mutton cutlets with h neatly, and grill them over a brisk, mixed vegetables. clear fire: when done, arrange them round a circle of nicely mashed potato, in the centre of which must be placed a sauce au macédoine de légumes, which I have already explained; some French beans, a carrot, a turnip, and a piece of cucumber, previously boiled, cut into small dice, and heated up in some well made sauce blonde, a few green peas, and some pieces of boiled celery may be added if you can get them. 4.—Pick, draw, singe, truss, and stuff the goose (see Page 111). Roast it before a clear Roast Goose. fire, and serve it with either apple or tomato sauce in a boat: potatoes and Brussels-sprouts (if in season) should accompany. A capital addition to the goose's gravy is to be made in this way. After you have 432 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. cut a slice into the breast, let the gravy run out for a moment, then add to it in the dish (tipped up) a tea- spoonful of salt, a salt-spoonful of Nepaul pepper, a tea- spoonful of mixed mustard, and a glass of portwine. Stir these ingredients into the gravy, baste the bird well with it, and go on with the carving. 5.- If you summon up courage to try this homely dish, you will often order it again. Buy Baked drumstick seeds with cheese. ck enough young moringa pods to yield seeds enough to fill a little pie-dish. Boil them, and scrape out the seeds, and the tender flesh inside the pods, into a basin: stir into this a table-spoon- ful of cream, or a coffee-cupful of milk in which the yolks of two eggs have been well beaten; season with salt and pepper, and add a few drops of anchovy essence ; pass this into a well buttered pie-dish, and grate over the sur- face a good layer of Parmesan or any nice mild dry cheese. Bake for a quarter of an hour, and serve. If you can bake and serve the mixture in silver coquille shells,—one for each guest,—the entremets will, of course, look nicer. 6.—Make a rich custard with a pint of cream and a pint of milk, 1 oz. of isinglass, sugar to Garibaldi cream. taste, and the yolks of eight eggs. Flavour it with any essence you like, strain it, and divide it into three basins ; colour the first a bright red with cochineal, the second green with spinach greening, and leave the third its original colour. Whip each separately to a froth. These operations must be done while the custard is still warm. Set according to the following process :-Lay a mould on ice, pour some of the red cream into it to the thickness of about an inch. When this is set, pour in a similar layer of the plain cream, and, when this is set, pour in a layer of the green cream. Go on pouring in layers in the same way until the mould is filled. When the cream is quite set, turn it out, and MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 433 serve. Care must be taken in pouring in each kind of cream to get every layer the same depth. This is best done by measuring with water how much liquid will go to make a layer of the required thickness, and then getting a cup which holds just that quantity, and using it to mea- sure the cream. Perdreaux aux choux. This delicious dish deserves the closest attention, for it is perhaps the best way of cooking Indian partridges :- Prepare four partridges as for boiling, with their legs tucked in: lard their breasts with bacon and put an onion inside each of them. Cut a nice cabbage into quarters, blanch them, and steep them in cold water for an hour. Now take a roomy stew-pan, line its bottom with two car- rots, and two large onions sliced in rings, a sprinkling of powdered herbs, and a dusting of salt, and pepper. Put the partridges above this lining, inserting a quarter of cabbage between each bird, a slice of bacon here and there, and some slices of Bologna or Brunswick sausage. Moisten with sufficient well made gravy to cover the birds. Boil closely covered up, and then simmer for an hour and a half if the birds are tender. Dish with the cabbage in the centre, and the birds placed neatly round it, with the sliced sausage and bacon as garnish. Serve the gravy in a boat. a MENU NO. XVIII. For a dinner of six. Consommé de grandes crevettes. Filets de pomfret sauce au persil. Croustades de foie gras. Chapon braisé au purée de navets. Ortolans des Indes. Bandecai au gratin. Petits "puddings” angeliques. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Café noir. 1.-Prepare your ordinary beef consommé from your daily allowance of soup meat. Boil a dozen Clear prawn soup. good-sized prawns, save the liquor in which you have cooked them, reduce that a little, and throw into it the meat which you pick from the shells, and the shells pounded ; add the beef consommé, some pepper corns, a dessert-spoonful of dried basil tied up in a muslin bag, a bunch of parsley, and some celery leaves : let this simmer gently, strain after three hours' simmer- ing, clarify it, and add half a glass of Madeira. Quenelles of the prawn meat may be used as garnish. 2.—Cook the fillets in milk as I have described (page 81): or, if you cannot spare the milk, trim Fillets of pomfret your fillets, tie them in little knots, and with parsley sauce. simmer them in a liquor made from the MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. 435 bones and trimmings of the fish they were cat from, flavoured with a few vegetables. Make a melted butter sauce diluted with the broth in which your fillets were boiled, and add to it a table-spoonful of finely minced parsley, and a tea-spoonful of tarragon vinegar : an onion should be boiled in the water with the fillets, and pressed into the sauce through the sieve. 3.—Choose six or eight nice rolls that have been baked in small round tins : scoop out the Bread cases with crumb, and make hollow cases of them. foie gras. then fry them a golden yellow in butter. Open a small tin of pâté de foie gras, and make a cupful of thick Espagnole sauce (brown gravy). Proceed to pack your cases in this way :—first butter them, then fill them neatly with foie gras, pouring some gravy round the layers to moisten them, put a curl of crisply fried bacon on the top of each croustade, bake them till quite hot, and dish upon a napkin. 4.- Prepare a well fed capon as if for boiling, cutting off all superfluous bones, the pinions, Braised capon with neck, and legs below the joint, which, turnips. with the heart, gizzard, and liver (the giblets), throw into as much water as will cover them; adding a carrot and an onion sliced, and some whole pep- pers. Whilst this is producing a broth, stuff, and lard the capon with strips of fat bacon, and fill the cavity of its carcass with a couple of sweet onions. When your broth is ready, choose a deep stew-pan, and place the bird therein, with a carrot cut into slices, celery leaves and stalks, two onions, pepper corns, a bunch of parsley, some dried thyme in a muslin bag, and a glass of sherry. Braise the bird in this till done :-Meanwhile pound the liver you boiled in the broth, and get ready some tomato pulp (say) a tea- cupful. Lift out the capon, and dish it upon some previ- ously boiled maccaroni: strain off the gravy in which it 436 MENU FOR A DINNER OF SIX. was braised, thicken it, add the liver, and tomato pulp, give it a rapid boil up, and pour it over the bird. The stuffing of the capon helps to preserve its juiciness, and lends a nice flavour to it. Serve with purée of young turnips, and potatoes à la maître d'hôtel. 5.-The ortolan of India is, I think, the “ cholum bird" which is easily procurable late in the Indian ortolang. year. Truss the cholum birds, put a slice of bacon inside them, wrap a vine leaf round each bird and a piece of bacon over the vine leaf : tie the leaf and bacon in their place with a tape. Roast over a brisk fire, serving each little bird on a square of hot buttered toast, garnished with water cress, sauce bigarade' should go round in a boat. 6.—Butter a small pie-dish liberally, then fill it with the pulp and seeds of some well boiled, Bandecai au gratin. tender bandecais : dust the pulp with white pepper, and some grated cheese and pour a little milk in which the yolk of an egg has been beaten (or cream if you can allow it) in amongst the palp, dust a layer of cheese over the surface, and bake for ten or twelve minutes ; or the bandecai mixture can be baked in coquille shells, which should be served on a napkin. 7.-One ounce of flour, one ounce of bread crumbs, any essence to flavour, two ounces of sugar, Angelpuddings. • two ounces of butter melted in half pint of milk, and two eggs, well beaten up. Mix well: bake in small, buttered patty-pans till browned, then turn them out, and serve on a napkin, powdered sugar dusted over all, and sauce à la Royale in a boat. | | MENU NO. XIX. For a party of six. Purée de lièvre. Pomfret á la Provençale. Blanquette de volaille. Longe de mouton farcie. Turban de bécassines. Maïs à l'Américaine. Soupirs de nonne. Fromage, hors d'ouvres. Dessert. 1.-In a previous Menu I gave you a recipe for a hare Hare soup, (Purée.) soup, simplified from Gouffé. There is, however, another and a richer kind of soup, with which the pounded meat of the hare is in- corporated, which has many devoted admirers. It is composed in the following way :-Make your ordinary amount of stock from a shin and a half of beef. As the stock is being made, clean, and cut up the hare, saving the blood. Let the pieces soak for half an hour, or so, in cold water. When the beef gravy is ready, put the pieces of hare into a large stew-pan with a bacon, or ham bone, or a few lean slices of either, an anchovy, three Bombay onions cut into quarters, three carrots sliced, a bag con- taining a dessert-spoonful each of marjoram, thyme, and parsley, the rind of two limes, and a dozen pepper corns, 46 442 MENU FOR A PARTY OF SIX. let it boil. When well mixed and hot, place the batter on one side to get cool. As serving time approaches, break four eggs into a bowl separating the yolks from the whites ; beat the former, and whisk the latter to a froth. Add the yolks to the cool batter, stir thoroughly and at the last add the whisked whites. Prepare a deep bath of boiling fat, set your frying basket therein, and drop the batter into it, by dessert-spoonfuls at a time. Each spoonful will form it- self into a ball and turn gradually a golden yellow. When they are all done, drain and serve them in a napkin, dust- ed over with well powdered sugar, and this sauce in a boat :-Make a nice syrup (not too thick) with white sugar and water, stir in a glass of brandy or Madeira, give it the juice of a lime, and serve hot. Gâteau de pistache. The weight of eight eggs in their shells of finely- powdered sugar, that of two eggs of Pistachio nut cake. canes potato flour, and the same weight of pistachio nuts blanched and skinned. Beat up the sugar and the yolks of eight eggs well together with an egg whisk or with a fork, until the mixture assumes a white creamy appearance. . Sprinkle in (beating the mixture all the time) half the potato flour, and add the whites of four eggs whisked to a stiff froth. Then put in, in the same manner, the rest of the flour, the remaining four whites beaten to a froth, and lastly the pistachio nuts pounded to a paste in a mortar. Bake in a slow oven. Meanwhile put the whites of two eggs into a basin with a little lime juice and six ounces of sugar, well work the mixture with a wooden spoon, and as it gets thin, keep on adding more sugar until you get a smooth paste of the consistency of batter. Lay the icing evenly on the cake with a spatula, put it into the oven for a minute to set the icing, ornamen MENU NO. XX. For a party of six. Potage à la Nivernaise. Filets de soles, sauce à la pauvre homme. Filets de lapin à l'Italienne. Longe de monton braisée. Rouelles de sarcelles à la Wyvern. Tomates à l'Italienne. “ Pudding" à la “ Queen Mab.” Soufflé de vanille. Fromage, hors d'ouvres. Dessert. 1.-This is a soup in the style of Julienne, of which the Nivernaise soup. flavour is exclusively restricted to that of carrots. Having set your soup meat for stock as usual for a clear soup, you should take four good-sized carrots, wash them well, and cut out of them a number of thickish pieces the size and shape of a pigeon's egg, or a little smaller. When you have cat a couple of dozen such pieces, throw all the scraps and trimmings of the carrots into the stock pot, to flavour the soup well. Shortly before serving time, you must cook the trimmed carrots in this way :-Melt a table-spoonful of butter in a frying-pan, put into it the carrot pieces, which should have been all but boiled till soft in the soup, and toss them about 446 MENU FOR A PARTY OF SIX. sinews of each, or they will crinkle up in cooking, and look ugly. Cut each strip into three equal portions, cross- wise, flatten them with a bat, trim them neatly, lard them with bacon, and lay them upon a buttered tin in the oven sufficiently long to stiffen them; take them out, place them under a weight, and when quite cold and firm, dip them into some melted butter or sweet salad oil, and roll them in a mixture of bread-crumbs, and grated mild cheese, in equal proportions, dust over them some spiced pep- per, and a little salt and let them rest to set thoroughly. Next dip them carefully in a soup plate containing an egg beaten ap, and then roll them in very fine bread-crumbs. They may be left now till wanted. When that time comes, they must be fried in abundance of fat, and served, a pale golden yellow, round a circle of savoury rice, or maccaroni au parmesan. The centre of the circle may contain any nice purée of vegetable, or petits pois. All the remains of the rabbit, shoulders, legs, &c., can be made into a pie, with a chicken, and left to be cold for break- fast, or lunch, the next day. Or the meat may be pounded, and served as quenelles, or plainly stewed with vegetables for the former meal. Sauce Milanaise (given at the bottom of page 83) should accompany this entrée. 4.-Braise the loin attentively, strain and thicken the gravy in which it was cooked, and Loin of mutton serve with red currant jelly, mashed braised. potatoes delicately browned in the oven, and French beans (properly trimmed, and cooked in the jar, remember) over which a little boiling cream has been poured. 5.—The only part of a teal which the generality of people eat at a dinner party is the Teal fillets Wyvern's breast. breast. There is no tir There is no time to pick the scantily covered back, legs, and wings; way. MENU FOR A PARTY OF SIX. 447 besides, by the time the game reaches you, your hunger is so far appeased that you feel inclined for a slice, rather than a whole bird. Why waste the part of the bird that is never eaten ? I propose therefore to cut off the breasts, of the teal, whole, bones and all, and to divide each in half; to marinade these pieces all day in a little oil, lime juice, sliced onion, and sweet herbs, then to grill them over a bright clear fire, and to send them up piping hot, and full of juice straight from the gridiron. Early in the day, when I trimmed the breasts, I would throw every atom of the backs, legs, giblets, &c., into a sauce-pan with the usual concomitants of gravy making, and distil their essence by gentle simmering. This I would strain when done. I would then pick all the meat from the fragments, pound it à la purée, and add it, with butter and flour thick- ening, to the gravy of the bones, judiciously introducing a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, a dessert-spoonful of lime juice, some caramel colouring and a glass of red wine, or Madeira, with a few drops of 'tabasco' or chilli vinegar to finish with. This sauce I would send round in a boat, as hot as possible, following the grilled breasts. Tomatoes in the 6.-For this entremets de légumes, Italian way. please turn to page 159. 7.-Boil a pint and a half of milk with a few drops of . lemon essence and sugar to taste; then Queen Mab pudding. strain, and let it get cold. Beat up six yolks, and pour the flavoured milk upon them. Put this into the bain-marie, and stir gently over the fire until it thickens. Whip it well. Dissolve an ounce of gelatine in a little milk, add it to the above, and stir the custard until nearly cold, then pour the mixture by degrees into a buttered mould, adding two ounces of preserved cherries or finely chopped apricots and one ounce of citron peel or preserved ginger cut very small in layers, setting them carefully, and when the mould quite set, turn it out. 448 MENU FOR A PARTY OF SIX. 8.-I gave you a chocolate soufflé in Menu No. 16 ; this, is an entremets sucré of the same family, Vanilla soufflé. but composed of less delicate materials. Mix together in a sauce-pan one table-spoonful of flour, a small piece of fresh butter, half a pint of new milk, and a dessert-spoonful of powdered sugar: stir this over the fire to get thoroughly warm but no more; then put it on one side to get cool, stirring to prevent any scum forming on the surface. When quite cold, stir into it the yolks of four eggs, add a few drops of vanilla flavouring, mix this thoroughly, then throw in a table-spoonful of any liqueur you may have open, and the whites of six eggs whipped to a froth : mix the whole together, pour it into a soufflé tin, and bake in an oven at moderate heat. Serve the moment your eye tells you that the soufflé is ready. Potted prawns. Potted prawns, home-made, ought to be oftener seen at Madras, than they are. Whether eaten with cheese, spread on toast, or at office in the form of a sandwich, this preparation is most acceptable. Select some nice sized prawns, boil them, pick out very carefully all the grit, and that black line which runs straight down the back and underneath every prawn: wash them afterwards in cold water, and pour a lot of water over them as they lie on the top of your sieve. When satisfied that you have thoroughly cleaned them, dry them, and toss them in a little melted butter in a frying-pan until they have absorbed the butter; next pass through the mincing machine ; pound- them thoroughly in the mortar, and lastly press them through the wire sieve. Season the paste so obtained with salt, white and red pepper, a few drops of anchovy sauce, a little pounded mace, and work the whole together with some nice freshly made butter till thoroughly incorpo- MENU FOR A PARTY OF SIX. 449 rated : set it in an earthenware jar, and pour a spoonful of melted butter over the surface. Fritôt de volaille. This simple dish should be noted :- Cut up a well grown chicken as if for fricassée : marinade the pieces in salad oil with the juice of a lime, an onion sliced in rings, pepper and salt. Half an hour before serving, take out the onion, and wipe the pieces of chicken on a cloth, then dip them in milk, flour them well, and fry in plenty of hot fat accelerating the heat during the pro- cess. When the pieces are cooked, having been fried a golden yellow colour, pile them on a napkin garnished with crisply fried parsley. A nice sauce should accompany in a boat, bread sauce, poivrade, or Robert. Nouilles Take half a pound of sifted flour; put in on the paste board ; make a hole in the centre of the flour; break three eggs in it; add half an ounce of butter, and a pinch of salt; mix all into a nice smooth paste. Roll the paste out very thin, say about the sixteenth of an inch, let it dry, then cut it into ribbons an inch and a half broad; put five of these ribbons above one another, sprinkling a little flour between each; then with a knife cut through them crosswise, making thin shreds like vermicelli; shake them in a cloth with a little flour to prevent them adhering to one another, then throw them into two quarts of boiling water for six minutes. Use nouilles exactly as you would maccaroni. MENU NO. XXI. For a little home dinner. Potage à la Crécy. Pomfret sauce ravigote. Poitrine de mouton à la Wyvern. Purée de pommes de terre. Aubergines au gratin. Blanc-manger à la vanille. Fromage, hors d'ouvres. Dessert. Café noir. Breast of 1.–For the soup, read the receipt Carrot soup. already given, (page 48). Pomfret and ravi. 2.-Boil a little pomfret, and serve gote sauce. it with sauce ravigote, (page 85). 3.—Choose a nice breast of mutton, bone it, and put it en marinade all day in oil, vinegar, la Wyvern. on à chopped parsley and shallot. When wanted, take it up, dry it with a clean cloth. Parboil, and when cold again, bread-crumb it for ordinary baking, slipping a good slice of boiled bacon under the flap, or outer strip of meat. Meanwhile make a little broth with the bones, and any scraps obtained from trimming the breast into shape, set it to cool, and skim off the fat. Boil sufficient maccaroni, or nouilles, for two MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 451 people, and when done, drain off the water, and leave the maccaroni in the hot sauce-pan till wanted. Take a roomy sauce pan, and in it fry a sweet onion cut into shreds in an ounce of butter till it begins to turn yellow. Cut up a dozen tomatoes into quarters, and put them into the sauce-pan with the butter and onions : stew gently till done: turn them out upon a hair-sieve, work the tomatoes through the sieve; put the pulp which comes through into a sauce-pan, with a little melted butter and flour pre- viously prepared to receive it, and moisten the pulp with the broth you made from the scraps, till you have a nice creamy purée, season with a little salt and black pepper, and keep the sauce thoroughly hot after it has boiled up. Bake the breast, and dish up as follows :-place the mac- caroni first upon a very hot dish, put the baked breast of mutton upon it, and pour your hot tomato purée over the whole. 4.—Mash the potatoes thoronghly, and work them through a wire sieve to get them Mashed potatoes. smooth, add a little milk, as much butter as you can spare, and a little salt: form with the wooden spoon, and brown the outside in the oven. Do not let your cook waste an egg in endeavouring to glaze the outside of the mould! A well boiled sweet onion may be mashed with the potatoes if not objected to. 5.–Now this is well worthy of a trial :-Boil a couple of nice brinjals till tender, cut them in Brinjals au gratin. de halves lengthways, and scoop out the inside with a silver spoon, pass it through the sieve to get rid of the seeds, and put it into a bowl: butter the now empty cases, or pods : stir into the inside part that you scooped out a good spoonful of cream, and season with white pepper, salt, and few drops of anchovy sauce. Mix thorough- ly, and then re-fill your cases. Shake over the surface a 452 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. layer of grated Parmesan from the bottle, or any dry mild cheese that will grate. Bake for seven or eight minutes, and serve. Under the more ostentatious name of “ Les aubergines au gratin,” this lowly dish might fine favoar even at the dainty meal of an epicure. 6.-Blanch ten bitter almonds and two ounces of shelled sweet almonds; pound them to a paste Blancmange with with a little rose water, dilute with a vanilla. breakfast cupful of milk, let the liquid stand for an hour and then strain it. Put into a pint of fresh milk five ounces of sugar, and vanilla essence to taste ; pour it into an enamelled sauce-pan, and boil slowly till the sugar is dissolved; then stir in an ounce of dis- solved gelatine and pour the liquid through a strainer into a basin. Add the almond liquor, and a coffee-cupful of cream, pour the mixture into a mould, set it in ice, and turn it out when firmly set. Stewed prunes (cold) or any cold stewed fruit or jam may accompany. Prunes à la Chasseur. A dish for dessert that is generally speaking popular. Buy a glass jar of the best French Prunes in cherry brandy. erry plums, (prunes) and a bottle of good cherry brandy, take out a few plums, and pour as much cherry brandy into the jar as the plums will admit: the next day you can add more, for the plums will absorb the brandy; and so on for a day or two. Finally cork it down for a fortnight or so, then serve at dessert. Never let the jar be empty, but re-fill it as the plums are eaten. If slightly stewed first, the prunes absorb the liqueur more rapidly. MENU NO. XXII. For a little home dinner. Potage à la Palestine. Croustades de grandes crevettes. Perdreaux à la soubise. Eufs à la Suisse. “Pudding" à la Duchesse. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.—This is an especially favourite soup with those who Jernsalem artichoke are fond of the flavour of the Jerusalem artichoke. soup. There are two methods of composing it: to wit, au maigre (with milk) and au gras (with stock): I take the latter as the commoner form. Having washed, peeled, and boiled a nice dish of artichokes, pass them through the sieve; save the pulp so obtained, until your daily allowance of soup meat has yielded sufficient nice clear stock for the purée. Now proceed to amalgamate the two in the proper way, by melting an ounce of butter at the bottom of a sauce-pan first, incorporating therewith a dessert-spoonful of flour, and after that has been done, stock, and pulp of artichoke by degrees until you have 48 454 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. while, and when the purée comes to the boil, it will be ready to serve. On its way to the table, like all purées, it may be enriched by a table-spoonful of cream, or a little fresh milk into which the yolk of an egg has been stirred, but the addition is not essential. An old fowl makes a good stock for this soup, if assisted by a slice or two, or a bone, of bacon, or ham. Fried croûtons of bread should be handed round with it. Let those who rejoice in a dairy try the recipe au maigre thus :-Take as much milk as you want soup, and boil in it twenty pepper corns, some parsley,and a sweet onion. When thoroughly flavoured, strain the milk, mingle the pulp of the artichoke with it, as described for stock, and finish it off in the same manner : the cream must be added in this case. 2.-Choose two or three small dinner rolls which have been baked in tins, and will stand Prawn croustades. meno upright. Scoop out all the crumb, and fry the cases so obtained a golden yellow colour in melted butter. Drain them. Now prepare enough boiled prawns to fill them, cut them into quarter inch pieces, toss them in melted butter, with a little mace, pepper and salt; fill your cases, moistening the salpicon with a little white sauce, shake a little bread-crumb over the surface of each, place them on a buttered baking tin, and heat them for five minutes in the oven, serve as soon as the tops take coloar. This recipe can be followed, substitut. ing canned prawns, shrimps, or lobster. 3.-This is a capital dish for Darby when it pleases him to dine cosily with his Joan. Prepare Partridges with sou- the partridges as for roasting : fill each bise sauce. of them with a chopped Bombay onion (previously boiled in milk) seasoned with spiced pepper, salt, and rolled in a slice of boiled bacon. Make a broth with the giblets of the birds, any scraps you may have, a MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 455 slice of lean bacon, an onion cut into quarters, a few pepper corns, and a seasoning of salt and pepper: when you have got a broth to your mind, simmer the partridges therein until perfectly tender. When done, (they will take three- quarters of an hour) take them out, and drain them, replacing them in the hot pan in which they were done, with the cover on. Now strain the liquor in which the birds have been cooked, and with it make a rich soubise sauce as follows:-Simmer four large Bombay onions in milk till tender, drain them, chop them up very fine, pass them through the sieve, and proceed with melted butter, and the stock aforesaid, to make a rich purée ; when boiling hot, dish the birds, pour the onion purée over them, and serve, garnished with curls of crisply fried bacon. The onions should, of course, be prepared beforehand to prevent delay: the purée ought not to occupy more than ten minutes in preparation. A spoonful of cream should be added to it if possible. 4.-Butter a little pie-dish well, strew a good layer of mild grated cheese at the bottom of it, Eggs with cream. " pour over the cheese a coffee-cupful of cream, break four fresh eggs very carefully, and pass them into the cream without breaking them: dust a light layer of cheese over the surface, bake for about seven minutes (till the surface slightly colours) and serve. The eggs ought not to be done hard : the dish is not a pudding, but eggs, just set, in a creamy sauce with a little delicate cheese flavouring. Some people call this dish “ Eufs à la Suisse." 5.-Grate four ounces of fine stale crumbs, put them in a basin, and pour over them half a Duchesse pudding. wiede pint of boiling milk: cover the basin with a plate, and let the liquid soak into the crumbs, and get cold : now stir into the basin four ounces more of used all you have. The spoon must be kept going all the MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 457 cot, greengage, citron, or preserved ginger stirred in with the coffee-cupful of cream, will give you a nice iced pudding. Homard à l'Américaine. Open a tin of lobster : choose all the larger pieces for the dish you are going to make, and put all the mashed fragments aside to be ased in bouchées or croquettes for some other meal. Having washed and drained the firm pieces aforesaid, dry them, and cut them up into quarter inch collops, and pile them in the centre of a dish that will stand the oven. Now cut up a good sized Bombay onion, fry it in an ounce of butter, adding off the fire a sherry glass of chablis or sauterne : when the onion seems cooked, stir in a breakfast-cupful of rich thick brown sauce, and the same quantity of tomato purée; add a strong suspi- cion of Nepaul pepper, and reduce the mixture for five minutes. When nice and thick, pour the sauce over the lobster, put the dish into the oven, and when thoroughly hot, serve. cocos MENU NO. XXIII. For a little home dinner. Purée de rognons. Ecrevisse de mer au gratin. “Bifteck” à la jardinière. Pommes de terre à la duchesse. Beignets d'aubergines. “Pudding" à la “Sir Watkin." Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.–Take your daily allowance of soup meat as usual and make a strong consommé with it. Buy Kidney purée. six mutton kidneys and treat them as follows :—Wash them, dry them, slit them in halves, and plunge them immediately into boiling water well salted; let them remain in this bath for one minute only, take them out, and dry them in a napkin. This is an infallible recipe for the removal of that peculiar taste which many people dislike in kidneys; it should be followed always, no matter how you intend to cook them. Well, having thus blanched the kidneys, proceed to boil them gently with some dried thyme, marjoram, and a bag containing spice, &c., till they are very tender. Take them out, and pound them in the mortar, with one well washed anchovy : when sufficiently pounded, pass the paste through a wire sieve to get rid of fibre, gristle, &c. When ready, place the consommé in a bowl handy, and keep the kidney paste MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 459 ready in a soup plate. Take a roomy sauce-pan, melt an ounce of butter at the bottom of it over the fire, stir in a table-spoonful of flour; when nice and creamy, add a cup- ful of consommé, stirring vigorously, and continue to add consommé and kidney paste by degrees, working them well together, till you have used them up; now let the purée come to the boil; add a glass of port, a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, a tea-spoonful of good vinegar, and sufficient caramel coloring to give the soup a warm brown tint, stir well for a minute over the fire, and serve with croûtons of fried bread. A coffee-cupful of boiling cream, or a coffee-cupful of milk in which the yolk of an egg has been stirred, may be added to this soup off the fire for additional richness. It will be found so like a game soup that many will doubt its having any connection with kidneys. After a day's hard work, a rich sustaining soup of this kind is often very acceptable. 2.—Choose a nice crab, have it boiled, cleaned, and picked : place the meat in a soup plate, Baked crab. and give it a dust of black pepper. Boil till tender sufficient maccaroni to line the bottom of a small pie-dish, and grate a tea-cupful of mild cheese. Now rub the bottom of the pie-dish with butter, place the maccaroni thereon, and pour a coffee-cupful of well made white sauce over the maccaroni. Shake a dust of grated cheese over its surface. Next place the crab meat, well worked with melted butter, over the maccaroni, and, as you arrange it, dust it with black pepper. Over the crab dredge a nice dressing of the grated cheese, about one-eighth of an inch deep, and pour a little melted butter over the surface. Bake till the top takes colour, and serve. No sauce is necessary with this, but if you like, you can send round a sauce piquante, or any plain sharp relish of that class. MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 461 pieces of a convenient size and thickness for fritters—two inches long, and a quarter of an inch thick. Pick out the seeds. Prepare the batter I have previously described, dipping the pieces of brinjal in it, and frying them a crisp golden yellow in abundance of fat. Drain them quite dry, dust a little salt over them, and serve them with “ Dutch sauce” (q. v. page 89). 6.—Mix together in a bowl two ounces of chopped candied peel, four ounces of suet Sir Watkin's pude finely, minced, four ounces fine white ding. crumbs, one table-spoonful of flour, three ounces of sugar, two ounces of apricot jam, a liqueur- glass of caracoa, one dessert-spoonful of milk, and four fresh eggs.--When thoroughly mixed, put the ingredients into a buttered mould, and steam for three hours. APRICOT SAUCE should accompany the pudding, made as follows :-Put half a pot of apricot jam into a sauce-pan with half a pint of water, and a glass of brown sherry or Madeira; boil together, stirring well, then strain, and serve. Maccaroni au gratin. Many fail to hit off this homely dish as nicely as they could wish. The following is a simple recipe :- Take two ounces of maccaroni, throw it into boiling water, with a salt-spoonful of salt, and a pinch of pepper, boil, and as soon as tender, drain it well; put into a sauce- pan one ounce of butter, mix it well with one table-spoon- ful of flour, moisten with four table-spoonfuls of gravy (saved from the soup gravy), and a coffee-cupful of cream, or milk enriched with the yolk of an egg; add two ounces of grated cheese, one table-spoonful of mustard, salt and pepper to taste : place the maccaroni in a shallow well buttered pie-dish, by degrees pouring your mixture, made 49 462 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOVE DINNER. as above, amongst it; dust a thick layer of grated cheese over the surface, and as soon as it browns nicely in the oven, send it to table. Maccaroni au gratin should be quite moist, and thoroughly impregnated with the flavour of cheese : the presence of mustard should also be per- ceptible. Chaud-froid de filets de foie gras. This is a very nice cold entrée. Open a tin of foie gras, and slice it very carefully in slices about half an inch thick; out of these slices trim some nicely shaped fillets, Cashmeer shawl patterns, or ovals. Put them on a flat dish, and mask them with chicken chaud-froid glaze. When the glaze has set, trim each fillet neatly, and set them in a circle with their masked sides outwards upon a socle of ground rice which should be spread with batter for them to adhere to it. Points d'asperges, flageolets, or a macédoine, moistened with pure cream, should fill the centre of the circle. Serve very cold. MENU NO. XXIV. For a little home dinner. Consommé de laitue. Pomfret à la Normande. Pièce de boeuf en aspic. Courge-à-la-moelle au gratin. Pain de groseilles. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-Make a clear consommé as usual, and treat the let- tuce in this way :-Pick and wash one Clear soup with large, or two small cabbage lettuces, lettuce. dip them into boiling water for a few minutes, take them out, cut them into quarters : tie them together again : butter a stew-pan, place a couple of slices of bacon at the bottom of the pan, lay the lettuces on them, and cover them with stock: add two cloves, an onion, a tea-spoonful of sugar, and one of salt, and a tea-spoonful of dried herbs. Simmer the lettuces until done, take them out, drain them, and when dry, cut them into shreds with a dessert-knife : put the shredded pieces at the bottom of your tureen, and pour the consommé, boiling hot, over them. Serve. One average lettuce will be found enough for four basins. The broth in which it is cooked can be strained, and added to the soup: see, however, that it is clear. 464 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. SS 2.-Clean and trim a fine pomfret; draw off the dark skin and detach the flesh from the bone Pomfret in the Nor for. with a sharp knife: ta with a sharp knife: take the two sides mandy manner. so obtained, and season them on their respective inner sides (which you must first brush over with a well beaten egg) with pepper, salt, a little finely chopped parsley, and some minced mushroom, lay them together again : the fish resuming its former appearance. Now butter a flat silver dish, or one that will stand the fire, strew over the butter some minced onion, place the fish thereon, moisten it with a little chablis, or a light white wine of that class, and a capful of broth, and bake it in the oven. Whilst baking, make a good velouté, in which you should pour the liquor of a tin of oysters, and use the broth made from the bones and trimmings of the pomfret. When the fish is nearly done, take it out of the oven ; pour the liquor from its dish into your velouté : garnish the fish with the oysters of the tin previously mentioned, and some black Leicestershire mushrooms, over all pour your velouté-which should be nice and thick,- set the dish in the oven again for five minutes, and serve with croûtons of bread, buttered on each side, and coloured a pale brown in the oven. This will be found an excellent dish-far from difficult: velouté remember, is a rich creamy white sauce. 3.—Tie a nice piece of fresh brisket of beef into a com- pact shape and lard it with plenty of Brisket of beef in fat bacon : braise it in stock, and vege- jelly, (cold). tables with a glass of white wine : when done, take it out, remove the string, and place the meat in an oblong shape with a heavy weight upon it; when thoroughly cold, and set, trim it all round with a sharp knife, glaze it with its own gravy reduced, and set it in aspic in the ice-box. A plain oblong mould should be selected. When you turn it out, garnish with hard- MENU NO. xxv. For a little home dinner. Crème de riz aux haricots verts. Ragout de pomfret. Caneton aux petits pois. Pommes de terre nouvelles.* Podolong-cai au jus. “Pudding" anx figues. Fromage, hors d'oeuvres. Dessert. 1.-Make your stock for soup as usual. Boil a tea-cup- ful of rice till tender, work it through Rice purée with the sieve : amalgamate the pulp so ob- French beans. tained with the soup gravy by butter and flour as described for purées. Cut into dice a handful of jugged French beans, stir the dice into the soup as it thickens, and add a coffee-cupful of milk, with which the yolk of an egg has been mixed, off the fire, just before serving. The milk of a few pounded sweet almonds may be mixed with the rice pulp if the flavour be liked. 2.-This is a very useful recipe, practicable with all fish, which I specially commend to Ragout of pomfret. *** notice. Take a cold boiled pomfret (in this case) remove the skin and cut the fish into *« Mock new potatoes." MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 467 fillets of a nice length, dust them with pepper and salt, and put them aside. Slice finely half a Bombay onion, and a small carrot, fry the slices, till just colouring, in an ounce of butter, now add a pint of milk and water, two- thirds milk to one-third water, all the fish bones and trimmings, a few pepper corns, an anchovy, a blade of mace, and a pinch of salt; boil this up and simmer it afterwards till you have extracted the flavour of your in- gredients : now strain the liquor, and thicken it as for a sauce blanche, gently heating your fillets of fish in the same : garnish with little bits of red chilli (cut into dice, and sprinkled over the fillets) and serve. The point here lies in the flavouring of the white sauce in which you warm your fish : so do not omit any thing I have mentioned. 3.-"First catch your duckling" eh ? well, I know they are not easy to get, but let those who Duckling and green keep ducks in their poultry yard try peas. one before the breast-bone forms hard. The bone should be scarcely stronger than gristle if the bird be young enough. Roast, and do not stuff the duck- ling, let the basting be frequent, and froth the breast up nicely to finish with : serve, accompanied by green peas, and cook the potatoes according to any of the recipes given at page 136. N. B.—If your cook have a habit, as some have, of serv- ing the giblets of the duck in the gravy round the bird, pat an end to it forth with ;-it is one of those quaint relics of barbarism which still cling to certain Indian kitchens. 4.---This vegetable, known as the “snake vegetable," cut into convenient lengths, boiled, drain- in goca i in ed, its seeds removed, and the pieces gravy. finally heated up in a good brown gravy, is well worth trying when vegetables are as scarce as Pod MENU NO. XXVI. For a little home dinner. Potage à la purée de légumes. Darne de seer au gratin. Pintade au cresson. Haricots verts panachés. Croustades de bandecai. Beignets de bananes au rhum. Fromage, hors d'auvres. Dessert. Café noir. 1.- Prepare early in the day the usual gravy soup, or Vegetable Puree, stock, that you order daily: take it om off the fire in the afternoon, and add two carrots, a turnip, an onion, a stick of celery, and a little pepper and salt. Boil together: when thoroughly done, drain off the soup and pass the boiled vegetables through the wire sieve. Now mix over the fire in a sauce- pan an ounce of butter, and a dessert-spoonful of flour, well, until you have exhausted the whole. Let it come to the boil. After you have taken the soup off the fire, stir in the yolk of an egg beaten up in a little milk: fried croûtons of bread should accompany this soup. 472 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. inside the carcass of the bird, before roasting, sewing up the vent afterwards. 4.-Line four little patty pans with pastry as laid down for “ cheese fingers,” page 220. Little. patties of Bake them, and when ready, fill each bandecai." case with a spoonful of bandecai purée as explained for “bandecai toast," page 229. Heat thoroughly in the oven dusting a little grated cheese over the surface of each croustade, and serve on a napkin. 5. Here are our old friends“ plantain fritters.” Mix Plantain fritters. with your batter (which should be made exactly like that I have given for kramouskys, with sugar instead of salt) a goodly spoon- ful of rum, or any liqueur you may have in the house open. The addition of a little liqueur is a great improvement. All who have tried pine-apple fritters with ram will not hesitate to apply the same test to plantains. Dust over your fritters before serving them a nice coating of finely sifted white sugar. The rum or liqueur should be poured round the sliced plantains, like a marinade, an hour before they are cooked: it can be used in mixing the batter after- wards. The batter should not be too thick, and do not forget to have the bath of fat hot enough. “Pudding" à la Viennoise. The following is Francatelli's recipe : twelve ounces of crumb of bread cut into small dice, Vienna pudding. two glasses of Madeira, a dessert spoonful of minced citron, two ounces sweet, and half an ounce bitter almonds pounded, six ounces of raisins, and a burnt sugar custard made with six yolks of eggs, one pint of cream, and two ounces of burnt sugar, sweetened with six ounces loaf-sugar. Put the bread, almonds, raisins MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 473 and citron into a basin, and pour the wine over them; put the two ounces of sugar into a stew-pan to brown, then pour in the cream, stir it round, and add the yolks of eggs previously beaten : thicken in the bain-marie, and strain the custard into the mixture in the basin, butter a mould and ornament it with candied peel, fill it with the mixture, and steam one and a half hours; serve with caramel custard, or sauce Royale. Half of the above will be found sufficient for a nice pudding. MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 477 quickly in the tin, with a white napkin pinned round it. Rabbit, or game, may be advantageously cooked in this way: petits soufflés de gibier make an excellent second course dish. A wreath of fresh parsley round the bottom of the napkin gives a neat finish to the plat. Boudins de saumon. Choose as many China ramaquin cases, or small dariole moulds, as you have guests ; butter them; and place them on one side. Make a good rich custard abstaining from sugar, and using a savoury seasoning of salt and pepper instead.-Empty a tin of salmon; choose a nice piece for each mould; place the pieces in a colander, and with cold water remove all oily liquid from them; dry with a clean cloth, and then put them into the moulds, pouring the custard round them. Now steam the moulds, and when set, turn out the boudins carefully. Send round hot, with Hollandaise sauce. MENU NO. XXVIII. For a little home dinner. Purée de tomates. Mulet au gratin. “ Beef-steak Pie" à la saprème. Rôties à la bécasse. Omelette soufflée. Fromage, hors d'ouvres. Dessert. 1.-Soup meat as usual for two, six or eight good sized tomatoes. Make your stock from the Tomato Soup. soup meat, and as it is simmering, prepare the tomatoes as follows :-Choose an enamel-lined sauce-pan of a fair size, throw into it the tomatoes cut into quarters, a tea-spoonful of dried basil, an onion shredded, a tea-spoonful of salt, two cloves of garlic, and a table- spoonful of butter : cook the pieces of tomato until they are quite soft, stirring them about lost they catch at the bottom of the sauce-pan: as soon as they seem ready, turn them out upon a sieve, pick out the garlic, and commence working the tomatoes through the sieve and save the pulp in a bowl. When dinner time is at hand, you must amal- gamate the pulp and stock in the prescribed way :-Melt an ounce of butter at the bottom of a sauce-pan, work & MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 479 eve the pr dessert-spoonful of flour into it till it looks smooth, then add a little stock, a little purée, and so on by degrees till you have exhausted your supply, let the soup come to the boil to thicken properly, and then serve it with croûtons of fried bread. 2.-Choose a good sized mullet, and a dozen prawns. Baked mullet. Clean the former carefully, and boil the prawns: when the latter have been boiled, shell and clean them, wash them well, dry them, and pound them thoroughly in a mortar with a lit- tle butter, and the crumb of a roll soaked in milk: pass this through the sieve, and season it with one anchovy, wiped free from oil, and chopped fine, a little curly parsley also minced, a little chopped marjoram, and a cold boiled onion shredded : give this a dust of pepper, and a little salt, and work it together thoroughly with a couple of raw eggs. Now lay your mullet on a flat dish, wipe it dry, and fill it with the prawn stuffing, sew up the fish securely. Butter a pie-dish, place the mullet therein, pour a breakfast cupful of broth round it, spread a little butter upon the top of it, and bake for about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour in a quick oven. A pat of maître d'hôtel butter should be placed on the top of the mallet before serving, and a spoonful or two of hock, or any light wine like chablis, poured round it during the baking, will be found an improvement. Baste the fish now and then during the cooking. 3.—Here is a really good recipe for a savoury pie. Buy a nice undercut of a sirloin of beef, An excellent Beef. steak Pie. to or and some coarser meat for gravy. Slice the undercut into thin slices crosswise, not lengthwise; place the slices on a flat dish and upon each slice lay a thin one of boiled bacon; give the whole a dusting of spiced pepper. Roll them up (each separately) and give them an external dusting of 480 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. spiced pepper. Take a pie-dish, rub it well with a shallot, butter it, and place a layer of the rolled slices over the bottom of it, now pour gently round the layer a cupful of strong gravy made from the coarser meat previously men- tioned ; repeat the process adding another layer of rolled beef slices, and more gravy, till the dish is packed; garnish the surface with pieces of hard boiled egg, and cover the whole with a good light crust, bake in the usual way and serve. Oysters, minced anchovies, chopped olives, and mushrooms may, of course, be mingled with the layers ; and a glass of Madeira may enrich the gravy if you desire perfection. Let me here point out that Ramasamy's ordi- nary pie is a cruel burlesque of that dish. He first cooks the meat independently, then covers it with crust, and finally bakes it. The glory of a pie consists in the whole composition being baked together : attention is, of course, necessary to keep the oven at the proper temperature, and to avoid hurrying matters, or, of course, the crust will take colour too soon, and your pie be burnt. For savoury pie crust, see Chapter XXVI. 4.-For this excellent entremets savoureux, see page 226. Be careful in having the toasts served Woodcock toasts. as hot as possible. 5.-A little omelette souflée will complete oor dinner nicely. Beat up the yolks of six eggs Omelet soufflé. with a table-spoonful of white sugar, flavour the mixture with lemon, vanilla, or ratafia essence : whisk. the whites to a stiff froth independently; then blend the two thoroughly. Put this into a small circular soufflé tin, and bake it in a very quick oven, send it to table the moment it is ready, dusted over with finely sifted sugar. A little preserve may accompany the omelette soufflée, and a few drops of any liqueur will be found an agreeable addition. The great thing is, to serve immedi- ately : you cannot therefore bake the soufflé in a distant MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 481 kitchen : the baking should be conducted as close to the dining-room door, as possible, and the dish should be brought in the nick of time. A proper soufflé tin is, of course, absolutely necessary for this dish. Pain de fromage. This is of mould of " cheese cream.” Make half a pint of rich custard, season it with salt instead of sugar, and a little Nepál pepper; whip it well, stir in three ounces of grated Parmesan or Gruyére, and half an ounce of dis- solved gelatine. Set the mixture in a plain monld on ice, and, while setting, stir in a coffee-cupful of whipped cream. Turn out the mould, garnish with sprigs of parsley, and serve cold. Following the same principle very excellent pains, or crèmes can be made with purées of delicate meats, fish, and vegetables. Crème de homard, crème de crevettes, crème d'artichauts, pain de gibier, 8c. If required to be served hot, the contents of the mould must be steamed like a pudding, the cream being stirred into the custard in the first instance. It is essential that the purées be thoroughly pounded, and passed through the sieve. Cold savoury creams are specially nice at luncheon. These dishes are sometimes called mousse de homard mousse de crevettes, 80. MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 483 Beef Steak 2. Boil the pomfret. The prawn sauce that I recom- mend is not the ordinary one com- Pomfret with prawn posed of melted butter (sauce blanche) purée. and lamps of prawn mixed with it. The composition I think very much nicer is a creamy purée of the shell-fish, a little thicker than ordinary mayonnaise sauce, made thus:-A dozen fair sized prawns, boiled, and cleaned, pounded to a paste in a mortar, flavoured with an anchovy, a little spice, pepper, and salt, and then worked with melted butter, flour, and a little broth, to the consistency I have mentioned. It should be served as hot as possible. 3.—I would stew the steak with a few nice vegetables, and dress the sorrel independently. { with Before you proceed to cook the steak, sorrel purée. make some gravy with scraps and trimmings : it would be as well indeed to order a little extra meat for that purpose, when you have got this to your mind, strain it off and keep it handy. Now take a frying-pan, melt a piece of butter at the bottom of it, and shred an onion therein; lay the steak upon it, and turn it about until it is well browned on both sides ; now lift it ap and place it in your stew-pan, with the gravy and vegetables, to simmer gently till done, which you can test with a fork. It ought to be as tender as possible if you are only careful enough to prevent galloping, that is, fast cooking: the slow simmering process is the thing needful. The vegetables cooked with the steak may be strained from the gravy, and cut up into neat dice, to garnish the top of the steak: the gravy must be saved for the sorrel which you must cook as follows:-. Put two good handfuls of carefully picked sorrel in plenty of boiling water, with a little salt, and a pinch of soda, blanch for five minutes, drain, and chop the leaves small on a board. Melt two ounces of butter in a sauce. 484 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. pan to which add a little flour, 'the sorrel, a tea-spoonful of sugar, and the steak gravy stirring vigorously to prevent the leaves catching at the bottom of the pan :—When the gravy and butter are thoroughly well absorbed, turn the sorrel ont, stir in the yolks of three eggs beaten up in a little milk, and pour the purée 'round the steak, which should have been kept hot whilst the last stage was com- pleted. The sorrel should, of course, be got ready before- hand. 4.—This way of cooking potatoes will be found at page 132:-Boil the potatoes till nearly Potatoes in an Amer. done : slice them in thick slices, and ican fashion. heat them, à la fricassée, in nice white sauce made with milk previously flavoured with onion, spice, pepper and salt. The yolk of an egg, a large spoon- ful of curly parsley minced fine, and a pat of butter the size of a rupee, should be stirred into the sauce-pan, off the fire, before serving. A few drops of lime juice are an improvement, and to those who think that they might not like the onion-flavoured milk, that of pounded almonds may be more pleasing. 5.-Order the duck to be roasted—not baked in the chatty oven, (which Ramasamy will Wild duck. certainly do if you do not take steps to prevent the sacrilege) and let it be nice and juicy, not dried up by over-dressing. I have known an ignorant Ramasamy stuff a wild duck like a tame-one ! need I do more than warn you that this is erroneous ? Having served the bird with all the gravy that was caught during the roasting on a very hot dish, what must we do for a sauce on the spot ? This will be found a good one :- Score the breast of the bird in the direction you intend to slice it, and let the gravy run out bountifully; to that add a table-spoonful of port, burgundy, or fruity Madeira, (the first if possible) give that a dessert-spoonful of lime-juice MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 485 and six drops of “tabasco," or a tea-spoonful of chilli vinegar ; stir the gravy round with a spoon, and baste the breast of the duck liberally with it, then go on with your carving. If you have a little sauce-boat on a spirit lamp by your side (a beautiful modern invention) the gravy can be heated therein, on the spot admirably. 6.-An apple charlotte (practicable also with plantains) Apple Charlotte. should be made in this easy way. Butter a small but deep pie-dish or plain mould: cut a thin piece of bread (to form the top of butter it on both sides, and put it into the mould ; now line the side of the mould with moderately thin strips of bread and butter, buttered on both sides : that is to say, cover both the inverted top and sides of the mould, mak- ing a case of bread and butter as it were. Within the case place layers of apples cat small, (or sliced ripe plantains) with apricot jam spread between each layer, some lime juice sprinkled over them all, and a good allowance of white sugar: when packed, cover the bottom of the mould with slices of bread and butter, the same as that used for the top and sides, and bake till the bread browns nicely. Use plenty of good butter please, and you will find this a simple but pleasant sweet dish: a sprinkling of any liqueur would, of course, add to the nice flavour of the fruit. Turn it out very carefully, and let cold custards accom- pany the charlotte. _ Florican rôti. . On account of its rarity in the Madras market, I have accidentally forgotten to include this, Roast florican. -the prince of game birds in Southern India,-among the various rôts I have suggested in the menus. It should be treated like a pheasant. Pick, draw, 52 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 489 Fried ol. side of the sole, from and up to within an inch of the head and tail ; slip a bert. knife under the flesh on each side of the cut, and loosen it from the bones; then egg and bread-crumb the fish with finely sifted crumbs, and fry it in plenty of fat, with the side bearing the incision uppermost. The edges of this will curl outwards in the process of frying, and the opening thus made should be filled at the time of serving with plenty of maître d'hôtel butter, the sole being sprinkled with fine salt. While the fish is being drained in front of the fire, the back-bone may be removed carefully, but this is not essential. 3.-After draining the rolled rib meat mentioned in No. 1, and letting it get cold, place it Bouilli. on a dish that will stand the oven, brush it over with egg, and dredge over it a coating of very finely grated dry cheese, and bread-crumbs, in equal proportions : set it in the oven to heat thoroughly, and brown the outside of the crumbs with a hot iron used salamander fashion. When ready, put the meat on a dish, and trim round it a circle of hot maccaroni freshly boiled, drained, and tossed in melted butter : over which pour a breakfast-cupful of rich tomato purée, with two table- spoonfuls of grated Parmesan or Gruyère, and serve. If you are careful not to over-do the boiling of the meat as previously noted, you will find this dish,-all details being carefully carried out,-a very eatable one. A nice thick brown gravy made with butter, flour, and some of the bouillon, flavoured with a spoonful of Marsala and a tea- spoonful of red currant jelly, should go round in a boat. This is also a nice way of serving a fowl. The broth being thickened à la poulette for sauce, and the vegetables worked through the sieve à la purée. 4.-Boil foar eggs hard, put them into a basin of cold 490 MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. water; when cold, cut them in halves Jerusalem artichokes with stuffed eggs. crosswise with a dessert-knife dipped in melted butter. Slice off a piece from each rounded end, so that the halves will sit upright, and prepare the yolks as laid down at page 238. Boil four large Jerusalem artichokes : when just done, and not overdone mind, lift them out of the water, and let them get cold: out of each artichoke, trim with a silver dessert- knife, two thick flat slices each capable of holding a half egg, butter the eight slices, lay them upon a flat silver dish well buttered, and set half an egg upon each of them : put on the top of each egg a little pat of anchovy butter, set the dish in the oven till the steam rises freely, and serve piping hot. If you can pour some melted maître d'hôtel, or prawn butter over them, the dish becomes quite worth serving at a dinner party. 5.—These you will remember as the charming friends “Maids of Honour." , we met at Richmond :-Line six tart- . let tins with puff paste, and fill the patties with this mixture:—Beat half pound sugar with yolks of six eggs in a basin, and pound together in a mor- tar two ounces of blanched sweet almonds, three bitter ones, two table-spoonfuls of orange flower water, the juice of four limes, and two potatoes (mealy ones) boiled, drained, and passed through a hair sieve. Mix the eggs, sugar, and almond paste. Turn a quart of milk to curd, crumble it, and beat it up with four ounces of good butter till quite smooth, then mix it thoroughly with the eggs, almonds, &c., adding a glass of brandy; and one of maraschino. Bake till thoroughly hot in a moderate oven, and serve with finely sifted sugar dusted over them. CURDS :-The richer recipes for cheese-cakes are com- posed, it will generally be found, with curds, with the method of making which some of my readers may be an- acquainted. A little lump of alum put into cold milk, and MENU FOR A LITTLE HOME DINNER. 491 then set on the fire, will turn milk to a card as quickly as anything, or two tea-spoonfuls of preserved ‘rennet' will turn a quart of milk; the homely way, however, is to boil a pint of water in a stew-pan, to beat two eggs up with a pint of milk, and to add the mixture to the boiling water, with the juice of a couple of limes. As the curd rises it should be skimmed of, and laid upon a sieve to drain. When dry, it is ready. Lobster piläo à la Turque. Choose the firm pieces of a lobster from the tin, trim them neatly, set them in a buttered sauté-pan and warm them thoroughly.. Arrange the pieces in a circle in a hot silver dish filling the centre with riz à la Turque (page 246). Pour some of the following sauce over the pieces of lobster, but not over the rice, and serve. Cut up a sweet onion, or half a dozen shalots, and throw the pieces into a small stew-pan with two ounces of butter. Fry till the onions begin to take color, then stir inia table-spoonful of good curry powder or paste; cook this for five minutes, then add a pint of plain gravy ; let the contents of the pan simmer now for a quarter of an hour while you make a coffee cupful of lait d'amandes in this way :-Blanch and peel a quarter of a pound of sweet almonds with one bitter one ; pound them in a mortar with a little milk; when well pounded, pour some boiling water upon them ; stir well, and then squeeze the milk through muslin. Stir this into the sauce, adding the yolks of two eggs, off the fire, before serving. On Coffee-Making certain occasions in the course of my jottings, I have mentioned the cup of café noir as the finishing a touch of a nice little dinner. I think, therefore, that I may as well say a few words regarding its composi- tion before I ask you to consider my menus ended. Although few may think themselves ignorant of coffee- making, I question whether its real secrets are generally known. Indeed to judge by the stuff that we usually get, I think, we may say that the art is comparatively rare. First, to be sure, you must “catch your coffee,” i.e. :--get really good berries, and be willing to pay a trifle over the usual price for them. That done, the next thing to learn is the roasting, an operation that should be conducted daily if you want well-flavoured coffee. The process is by no means as easy as many believe ; half the coffee we drink is ruined by ignorant roasting ; a burnt berry, mark you, will spoil the whole brew. The best way, I think, to roast the berries is to do a few at a time in a frying-pan over a very low fire, passing them straight to the mill (a hand-mill is quite indispensable) from the pan. A table- spoonful of berries will be found quite enough at a time. Melt a little butter, sufficient to lubricate the berries, and stir them about until they turn a light Havannah brown; if perchance a berry take a darker tint, throw it away as you would a reptile ; grind them at once as coarsely as The last, most worthy, recipe of all. fromad, even in th and that a time the rapid IT is not generally known, my dear Wyvern,” writes my learned, and very kind friend Ç. S., “ that the fumes of sulphur prevent the rapid decomposition of animal matter, and that a fine tender matton chop can be had, even in the hottest weather, by exposing the joint from which it is cut to the fumes of burning pastiles, placed in an air tight box, for two or three hours after the meat is brought home from market. A joint thus treated will keep perfectly for thirty-six hours, even in Madras, and be found deliciously tender the day after it was pur- chased. The pastiles should be composed as follows:- Eight parts of powdered sulphur, One and a half part of powdered charcoal. A quarter part of powdered saltpetre.... Mix all together, and make them into pastiles, adding just enough gum water for the purpose; shape them like pyramids, and dry them in the sun, A roomy box,-say a three-dozen case,-furnished with hooks to suspend the meat by, with a closely fitting door, and all crevices filled with putty, and pasted over with strips of strong paper, is the sort of receptacle you require for the fumigation. Suspend the meat, place two or three pastiles below it, light them, close the door securely, and leave well alone." . Our Kitchens in India. (Reprinted, by permission, from the Madras Mail.) EMEMBERING as we all can so well the cheerful Al aspect of the English kitchen, its trimness, its comfort, and its cleanliness, how comes it to pass that in India we continue year after year to be fully aware that the chamber set apart for the preparation of our food is, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the foulest in our premises—and are not ashamed ? In the matter of uten- sils, and the general accessories of culinary work also,- knowing what things are considered essentially necessary even in the quietest establishment at home, -why are so many of us satisfied with an equipment regarding the miserable inadequacy of which it would be as well to keep silence? Why, in short, in the one country are we scru- pulously careful that our food shall be clean, and in the other at all times willing, apparently, to eat dirt ? Over and over again have revolting facts been discover- ed in connection with the habits and customs of the cook- room. But instead of striking at the root of the evil, and taking vigorous action to inaugurate reform, we are abso- lutely callous enough not only to tolerate barbarisms, but even to speak of the most abominable practices as jests! Though cognizant, that is to say, of the ingenious nastiness of our cooks, we shrug our shoulders, close our eyes, and ask no questions, accepting with resignation a state of OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. 497 things which we consider to be as inevitable as it is dis- gusting. But stop a moment :-is it inevitable? Let us consider that point. The fons et origo mali, it seems to me, are to be detected without difficulty. Think, first of all, of the distances which as a rule separate our kitchens from our houses, and the fact that the room is part and parcel of a block of godowns—not unfrequently within easy access of the stables. Setting aside other considerations for a mo- ment, do we not at once perceive here two grave evils :- in the first place that proper supervision of the kitchen is almost out of the question ; and, in the second, that pro- miscuous gatherings of outsiders,—the friends, relations, and children (a fruitful source of dirtiness) of our servants, -can take place in it undetected ? Again : the room is generally constructed with as little ventilation and light as possible, its position with regard to the sun is never thought of, and arrangements for its proper drainage are rare. As there is no scullery, or place for washing up, &c., the ground in the immediate vicinity of the kitchen re- ceives the foul liquid (as well as all refused matter) which is carelessly thrown out upon it. The consequence is that hard by many a cook-room in this Presidency, there is a noisome cesspool containing an inky looking fluid, the exhalations from which can scarcely improve the more delicate articles of food which are sent from the house for preparation. Now follow me into the room. It is as black as Erebus. The pungent smoke from yonder wood fire, apon which some water for a bath is being boiled, penetrates every crevice. There is no chimney, you see, so the wall, up which the smoke is creeping towards an opening in the roof, is lined by an ancient coating of soot. Observe the mass of patriarchal looking cobwebs depending from the 493 OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. rafters, and the floor of mother-earth, greasy, black, and cruelly uneven in its surface. Pull yourself together now, for we are about to examine the kitchen table. It is, to begin with, a piece of furni- ture which it would be gross flattery to call a dresser. It is small, and very rickety. In colour it is a remarkably warm burnt umber. The legs which support it are be- grimed with dust which has become coagulated from time to time by grease, and smoked a rich sable. If you wished to do so, you could scrape off this filthy tegument with your pen-knife to the depth of the sixteenth of an inch. The top of the table is notched and scored all over with wounds inflicted by the chopper, the edges are all worn down, and there are tell-tale marks which prove that it is the custom of the chef and his assistants to mince parsley, herbs, onions, aye the meat itself of which those "chicken cutlets” that he delights to give you are made, upon the oily, nut-brown board. What are that stone slab and roller for, with traces of last night's spinach upon them? O! they are the pet articles de cuisine of tunny-cutch anmah to whose delicate fingers is entrusted the making of chutneys, and all pre- parations which are presented to you in the form of pulp. The boiled vegetable, or whatever it may be, is turned out upon the slab, and she rolls the pin backwards and forwards until the desired consistency is attained. How does she scrape the rolling pin, and the edges of the slab during this process, and how does she dish it? Hush, my friend, there is not a spoon in the kitchen. Cast your eye over that meagre array of degchees and of sauce-pans nearly as black inside as they are outside, and note that there is a spit there, a chatty oven in yonder corner, and nothing more. There is no cupboard, neither is there a rack for plates and dishes, but such small OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. 499 etcetera as the cook uses are thrust at hap-hazard upon that shelf, which, in griminess, you see, matches the table, whilst it comes in handily for his turband, and the folded leaf containing his snuff. You have seen enough now, and look as if you wanted a brandy and soda, so let us return to the house. On our way you inveigh against native filthiness, &c., &c. Come now, be just in your condemnations, for verily this is a case in which it behoves us to remember the beam which is in our own eye, before we seek diligently to pull out the mote which is in our black brother's eye. Who is really to blame for a great deal that I have shown you? Is it the cook's fault that a wretchedly mean, carelessly constructed godown is given him for a kitchen; that the place is inconveniently far from the house, and consequently open to every passer-by; that the furniture is absolutely nothing more than one table, far too small for culinary requirements, and one shelf; that owing to faulty construction, the room "smokes' dreadfully, and that there is scarcely sufficient light in it to detect dirt ? Is it the cook's fault that in the absence of proper ap- pliances he is forced to practise his native ingenuity, to use chatties for sauce-pans and stew-pans, to use the "curry-stone' for a mortar, his cloth for a sieve, and his fingers for a spoon or fork? Is it the cook's fault that, - since no plates and dishes are included in his cook-room equipment, he has no alternative but to place meat, vege- tables, &c., on his table; and that being without a mincing machine, or chopping board, he uses its surface in lieu of the latter? Why instead of denouncing the unfortunate man, I make bold to say that handicapped as he is, we have positively no reason to expect him to be clean ! Now I do not mean to say that the state of things that I have endeavoured to sketch obtains in every Madras establishment. On the contrary, I am quite sure that in 500 OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. some cases the utmost trouble is taken to make everything as clean and as nice as possible, that every available appliance is given to the cook with a generous hand, and that the mistress of the house prides herself upon visiting her kitchen and seeing that her orders are carried out. No: it is not to the energetic few that I dedicate these com- ments, but to the apathetic many who actually know not what they do—to themselves and to their friends-by permitting the preparation of their food to take care of itself. People who refrain from all interference, who hand everything over to their butlers, and take cleanliness for granted, do so, I know, sometimes through sheer ignorance, sometimes on account of idleness, and sometimes because they are not physically equal to the exertion. I frankly admit that the labour is frequently very disheartening. It strikes me, however, that if reform were made easier and pleasanter, many who are now content to let things slide' might wake up and become enthusiastic, while even those, who do not know what trouble means in the matter of perfecting their cuisine, would be thankful to find their daily task less irksome. Let us, therefore, briefly consider how that object might be achieved. Taking the kitchen itself first : why on earth should we continue to accept as places fit for the cooking of our food the dismal hovels that are attached to our godowns, and called cook-rooms ? These places may have sufficed for the culinary necessities of our forefathers, who chiefly preyed upon curry and rice, and lived to all intents and purposes à la mode Indienne. But nous avons changé tout cela. The delicate cookery which day by day gains popu- larity in India now demands a clean airy room, properly furnished, with plenty of light, and many accessories borrowed from civilized Europe. It has become essential, in fact, that to every house there should be attached a small building reserved solely OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. 501 for kitchen work and nothing else. It should be quite close to the house, and connected with the back verandah by a covered way. It should be constructed with a frontage towards the north or south so that the rays of the morning and evening sun may strike its sides. It should contain three rooms :-the work-room, the cooking-room, and the scullery, all opening into a good verandah. In the first, the food, pastry, &c., should be prepared; it should therefore be well ventilated, and have a good glass window or sky light, a large dresser, a marble pastry slab, a rack for plates and dishes, shelves for cups, jugs, bowls, &c., a cupboard for culinary stores, and a gauze meatsafe to protect meat, &c., from flies. Communication between this room and the cooking-room should be shut off so that no smoke could find its way into it: things should be carried to the kitchen viâ the verandah. The cooking-room should, if possible, contain an English or American range. Failing that, a country-made range upon English principles, the construction of which I will discuss by-and-by. It should be well ventilated, well lighted, and, in any circumstances, should contain a chimney. A table for dishing up, &c., would be required here, and also racks for ladles, dredgers, &c., with shelves for the utensils. The scullery being merely used for washing up, the drawing, cleaning, and placking of poultry, and work of that nature, would require a well made water-tight sink, communicating with an equally carefully made cistern, covered by a trap-door, outside the building : the cistern should be emptied every day, and well sprinkled with McDougall's disinfecting powder. A tap of Red Hills water in the scullery would be a great boon at Madras. 54 502 OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. The floor of room number one might be of chunam mat- ted over, that of number two should be paved with slabs of stone, and a similar one of stone should be laid down in the scullery. The day's work having been completed, the doors of the three rooms should be carefully locked, and the whole corps de cuisine dismissed, the keys being brought to the mistress of the house. The idea of the kitchen being used by a number of native employés as a sleeping cham- ber is obviously too horrible to need more than a passing remark. The two chief objections that will here suggest them- selves will be, I feel sure, on the one hand the difficulty of establishing the kind of kitchen I have described, and, on the other, the expense of equipping it according to the standard which obtains in England. I propose, therefore, to deal with those points independently, taking the kit- chen first. The little bailding that I advocate,-entirely separat- ed from the godowns, planned specially to meet culi- nary requirements, close to the house, and connected with it by a covered way,-in spite of its niceness theoretically, is, I admit, practically speaking almost an impossibility. Few owners of houses would go to the expense of a new building. I nevertheless offer the idea to those who are about to build de novo, and to such of my fellow coantrymen, who, interested in houses that they have purchased, may be tempted to make their “offices” as complete, and as home-like as possible. In what way, then, can anything be done to im. prove upon matters as they at present stand ? Well, a great deal, of course, depends upon circumstances. There are a good many houses that possess small build- 50+ OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. necessity open to admit light), and blows myriads of fine particles of charcoal ashes from the open fire-places over everything. By-and-by the dish is served at dinner. Monsieur le mari cheerfully receives his portion, but pre- sently encounters grit, and orders his plate to be taken away, murmuring something about the impolicy of petty economy in connection with flour. Madame la châtelaine, conscious of procuring the best of everything, replies- more in sorrow than in anger, yet withal warmly—and denies the unkind impeachment, though constrained to send her plate away also. And thus a cloud comes over what ought to be a very happy tête-à-tête, while indiges- tion, the natural result of irritation at meals, most pro- bably follows. Now the worst of it is that unless people happen to discover the real causes of accidents such as these themselves, they may wait until doomsday for enlighten- ment. The mental equilibrium of the native cook is in no wise disturbed by a dust storm, for he is perfectly accustomed to them; and the butler will assuredly invent a plausible excuse for the contretemps :—"little bit yegg- shell,” or “sugar mistake.” It therefore comes to this, that we must insist upon a nicer appreciation of the cleanliness and care that the preparation of food demands, and to accomplish that end satisfactorily a room of the kind I have described appears to me to be essentially necessary. I am perfectly aware that, in some instances, every species of obstruction will at first be thrust in the way of those who try to follow my advice, and, in others, that the change will be obeyed with reluctance. But deter- mination and tact combined will, I think, overcome opposi- tion after a time, and the very malcontents themselves will end by praising the now régime. OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. 505 It is downright nonsense to say that native cooks cannot work upon English principles. They manage very well on boardship, where their services are highly prized, yet their appliances are wholly European. The kitchen at the Madras Club, and those of several private houses, both here, and on the Hills, are fitted up entirely upon the Home system, yet the cooks do not complain. No: it seems pretty clear that if no other alternative present it- self, Ramasamy can fall into the way of using a range readily enough. I know of a case in which a young and zealous native chef absolutely begged his mistress to permit him to pre- pare his jellies, pastry, &c., in a spare room in the house, alleging as his reason that the kitchen was too hot and smoky: and I am perfectly sure that the majority of good Madras cooks would appreciate a similar concession. The recusants would, in all probability, be gentlemen who have become wedded to practices whereof their consciences are afraid. Pilferings of all kinds would, to begin with, become far more difficult, long absences would be soon detected, work properly the cook's could not be thrust upon the cook's maty, and drinking and gossiping during working hours would be knocked on the head. The furnishing of this “working room” could be man- aged without much trouble, and certainly inexpensively, in the manner already mentioned :-with a dresser of strong wood, a pastry table with marble slab, a cup-board, a rack for plates and dishes, a gauze safe, and a set of shelves. Delicate operations, such as the composition of high class sauces, the boiling of a jelly, or the simmering of fruit, could be carried on upon a mineral oil stove, or by means of a charcoal fire placed in a sheltered corner of the veran- dah close to the room; and such articles of diet need never be carried into the kitchen at all. But when pro- perly dressed, and prepared for roasting, stewing, boiling, OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. 507 ous other baseless nostrums in the usual course of things; for people could scarcely have forgotten--even forty years ago--that dwellings built for persons of three hundred a year at home were considered uninhabitable unless equip- ped with a kitchen range that at least cost thirty pounds. Of course, there was an excuse for the economy, one indeed, that is readily pleaded, I dare say, to-day :- An English range would be thrown away upon a native cook, he could never appreciate its advantages, and would fall back upon his own way of doing things the moment he was left to himself. With this ingenious subterfuge num- bers of people have been contented, and have willingly closed their eyes year after year to the wastefulness, and barbarity, of the native system. The consequence is that we now find ourselves in a some- what anomalous position. Whereas our taste have ander- gone a complete change for the better; whereas men of moderate means have become hypercritical in the matter of their food, and demand a class of cooking which was not even attempted in the houses of the richest twenty years ago,-our kitchens have been in no way improved, neither have their appliances or equipments undergone the change that is necessary to keep pace with the requirements of the times. Dinners of sixteen or twenty, thoughtfully composed, are de rigueur; our tables are prettily decorated; and our menu cards discourse of dainty fare in its native French. But what “nerves” we all have to be sure ! Could we but raise the curtain, and examine our cook- rooms, and all that in them is, just before we lead the way to the banquet, should we not be actually dumb-foundered at our own audacity ? Setting aside the things which I have already enlarged apon, it is no exaggeration to say that not one Indian kitchen in twenty possesses a proper equipment. The OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. 509 to its full extent, the English range, with its one fire, must surely consume less fuel than do the numerous open fires in an Indian cook-room. This is self-evident. According to the method that is followed in the latter system, a separate fire is required for each thing :-for the bath water, the kettle, the oven, the sauce and stew-pans, &c., &c. A range provided with a hot-plate, an oven, and a boiler, supplies with its one fire all these wants at once. Vessels, the contents of which require rapid boiling, are placed over the fire-hole, while things needing slow treat- ment, like soups, stews, &c., find a place upon the hot- plate, or flat surface of the range. The oven is, of course, always kept hot, and the boiler, if correctly filled, must contain an unceasing supply of hot water. If however these opportunities of economy be neglected, and if the cook be permitted to make up little fires, in addition to that of the range, here and there in the kitchen in his native fashion, the saving in fuel will, I grant, be small. I know that the “ Duff's cooking ranges,” which are set up for the use of British soldiers in the barracks of this Presidency, are generally condemned by the men as re- quiring too much wood. But then they are not utilized in a way by which economy is attainable. T. Atkins re- quires no soup; he is not particular regarding the tender- ness of the stew he eats; and he rarely wants hot water. He finds the oven alone necessary, for “Jack," the barrack cook-boy, can use the chatty, the grid-iron, or the frying- pan, in the verandah, over a small charcoal fire, with sufficient cleverness to satisfy his many masters. Yet the ranges in the hospital kitchens are thoroughly appreciated. Hot water is in constant requisition there, soup must be made daily, and meat has to be very carefully cooked. In order, then, to find English ranges economical as fuel consumers, people who buy them must take care that they are turned to their proper and full account. 55 512 OUR KITCHENS IN INDIA. the oven with that of the boiler, forming a very fair hot- plate. This iron sheet was movable at pleasure. The topmost outer bar of the cresset was also movable to allow a space for the admission of fuel when the hot-plate was fixed. The smoke was made to pass into a flue contrived with a few feet of ready-made stove piping, which passed through the wall of the kitchen at the back of the fire grate, and was then led up the wall to the roof. . But by far the best thing introduced in this locally de- signed kitchen was an English roasting "jack.” The "jack” itself was imported from home at a cost of half a sovereign; the fire screen, and dripping pan were made by the bazár tinman; the “jack” was hung from a beam fixed in the wall at a convenient height above the fire grate. Every joint was in this manner roasted more Anglico. Dripping, a thing previously unknown in the establish- ment, became a highly valued commodity; and the meat was invariably sent up full of gravy, and with that crisp browning that can only be obtained by carefully roasting. A little more charcoal was used in the “jack" system than in the old way with the spit, but the expense was more than balanced by the dripping gained, the good gravy, and the additional juiciness of the meat. Charcoal was used for roasting work, and good dry wood was found sufficient for soups, and all common boiling operations, when no roasting was needed. The strange thing was that both the butler and the cook were as delighted with the innova- tion as children with a new toy. I hope that this may encourage some of my readers to carry out a similar scheme. I have spoken of the American cooking stoves fed by mineral oil, in Chapter XXX. The popularity of these very excellent domestic articles is increasing daily, and I need scarcely point out their value in the reformed kitchen system that I have endeavoured to discuss. One of them INDEX. PAGE. 315 316 254 99 369 300 309 29 334 223 224 224 436 212 274 cmé stove the Do. do. working of... Aitchbone of beef, lo cure... Allemande sauce Almond (burnt) Charlotte Russe of (ice) Do. milk in curries ... Do. do. in mulligatunny American “canned" fruits, &c. Anchovy cream ... ... Do. toast Do. do. made at the table ... Do. do. top-dressing for .. Angel puddings ... Antipasto, the (hors d'æuvres) Aperture, the necessity of, in pie-crust Apple Charlotte ... Apricot cream à la Moscovite Do. cream (iced pudding) Do. custard ... Do. sauce ... Artichoke globe (artichaut) Do. do. à la Barigoule Do. do. à l'Espagnole Do. do. à l'Italienne à la Lyonnaise do. à la maître d'hôtel Do. do. à la möelle Do. do. à la poivrade ... Do. do. à la Provençale ... Do. do. au gratin Do. do. au sauce blanche, or béchamel 486 408 340 387 ឱ គឺនន់ដ៏សន៍ន៍ន៍ន៍ន៍ន៍ន៍ន៍ដ៏ 462 149 151 151 151 Do. 151 150 152 151 152 150 ...150 & 152 516 INDEX. PAGE. 153 152 344 Do. 150 229 153 344 150 IOT 148 do. 149 Do. 148 149 Artichoke globe bouchées Do. do. cold to treat Do. do. en coquilles do fritters ... do, on toast... do. petits pâtés of do. sauce for... do. scallops of do. to trim ... do. stems à la cardon ... Jerusalem (topinambour) à la Chetput... do. au gratin ... do. fritters ... Do. do. mould of ... Do. do. petits pâtes of Do. ways of cooking Do. do. with eggs ... Asparagus (asperges) .... Do. en branches ... peas... Do. points Do. points on toast Do. (tinned) Aspic de perdreaux Do. jelly to make Aubergines (brinjals) à l'Espagnole Do. au gratin Australian tinned meats ... ::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 149 do. 153 148 Do. 163 @:::::::: 163 344 386 380 Q 174 20 460 Racon value of in réchauffés Bain-marie pan the Baked crab ... Do. Drumstick seeds ... Do. Mushrooms Baking concerning Do. equipment for Do. stove a ... Ballotines of quails Bandecai croustades Do. in salad . Do. toast ... Do. Wyvern's way (au gratin) Barrie's Madras curry powder, &c. Batter for frying.... Do. in réchauffés ::::::: 195 & 350 INDEX, 517 PAGE. 374 137 337 98 :::::::::::::::::::::::::: 102 123 254 119 337 424 255 :::::::::::::::::::::::::: 115 255 271 277 Bavarian cream with cocoa Bavaroise de cocoa à la moderne Beans, broad ( fèves de marais) Do. country Do. do. à la bourgeoise Do. French (haricots verts) Béarnaise sauce Béchamel do. ... Beef and mutton Do. à la mode Do. brisket to cure Do. fresh, boiling of Do. grenadins à la Béarnaise Do. olives Do. pressed Do. salt boiling of Do, spiced ... Do. steak and vegetables Do. do. and oyster pudding Do. do. and oyster pie Do. do. pie ... Do. do. pudding Do. do. with sorrel purée Do, suet in pastry Do. do. to clarify Beetroot (Betterave) Do. leaves edible . Beignets d'ananas Do. d'artichaut Do. d'aubergines (brinjals) Do. d'avenches Do. de bananes ... Do. de pêches Do. de topinambours (fritters) Do. soufflés... ... Do. do. au Parmesan Bhindi, see bandecai Bigarade sauce for wild duck Binegun, see Brinjal Bisque de grandes-crevettes Do. do homard (note)... Blanc ... Blanc-manger à la vanille Blanquette of fowl Boiled chops Do. turkey ... Boiling... 180 271 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 262 262 157 157 & 225 201 150 462 419 473 364 148 202 202 165 :::::::::::::::::::: 351 :::::::::::: 165 403 404 16о 453 439 I21 119 114 518 INDEX PAGE 118 115 55 122 220 :::::::::: 306 :::::::::::::::: 155 155 439 354 473 395 ::: ...37 & 490 490 ....37 & 488 56 56 490 435 Boiling a ham .., Do. common errors in... Do. fish ... Do. to improve flavour of Bombay ducks... Do.. do. with curries Do. onions Do. do. au gratin Boned loin of mutton Bordelaise sauce Bouchées de bandecai (croustades ) Do. d'épinards Do. with fish Boudins of pigeon Do. of salmon Bouillabaisse ... Bouilli Do. à la Milanaise Bouillon Do. court for fish Do. do. à la Nantaise Do. with bouilli Braised capon ... Do. fresh brisket ... Do. hen turkey Do. do. å la jardinière Do. leg of mutton å la chevreuil Do. loin of mutton Braising Brawn, a good ... Do. of ox-head Do. seasoning Brazilnut milk in curries ... Bread cases for entrées ... Bread crumbing cutlets, &c. Bread crumbs to store ... Bread-making ... Do. do. ihings required for Bread (plain loaf) Do. sauce ... ... Breads, fancy ... Breakfasts à la Française Breast of mutton à la Wyvern Brine for pickling meat ... Brinjal toast ... Brinjals à l'Espagnole ... Do. au gratin :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 465 427 385 447 104 317 317 320 88 320 451 INDEX 519 PAGE. 305 ::: 365 Brinjals chutney Do. fritters ... Do. in salad ... Broiled cutlets ... Broiled seer en papillotes... Brunoise soup .... Brussels sprouts (choux de Bruxelles) Do. do. à la crème Do. do. à la Lyonnaise ... Do. do. à la maître d'hôtel Do. do. à la poulette Do. do. au beurre Do. do. au jus ... Burnt almond (praline) 359 143 144 143 143 144 143 143 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 216 216 217 ::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::: Butter fancy ... Do. fancy rules for making Do. green ... Do. home made expense of Do. in pastry Do. maître d'hôtel Do. necessity of in cookery Do. tinned, value of ... Buttered eggs ... Do. egg toast Do. do. with anchovy toast ... Do. do. with fish toast Do. do. with spinach toast ... 73 262 82 73 14 235 225 224 231 228 ... :::::: Xabbage au sauce blanche Do. in-pot-au-feu ... Do. leaves with forcemeat (farcis) Do. stewed... Do with rice and gravy Cabbages (Choux) to prepare for dressing Do. to steam Do. with rice Café à la Turque Do. au lait ... Do. noir .... Camp soups au maigre ... Do. do.' consommé à la Julienne Do. do. fowl stock for Do. do. miscellaneous stock for Do. do. tinned Canapés ::::::::::::::::: 142 143 142 141 142 140 140 142 & 246 495 494 494 321 322 323 324 324 188 & 215 520 INDEX. PAGE. 376 417 485 468 CO 435. 108 16T G 161 161 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 400 154 Canapés de bécassines ... Do. de caviare Canard sauvage Caneton aux petits pois ... Caper sauce ... Capon à la Française Do. braised with turnip purée Do. galantine of Do. stuffing ... Do. with cauliflower Carême sauce .. Caramel colouring Cardes poirées ... Cardoons à la möelle Do. to imitate Carré de mouton farci Carrots (carottes) Do. à la Flamande Do. à la Nivernaise Do. glacés Do. soup Do. to trim ... Cases bread Do. china Do. paper Do. potato . Do. "rice Casseroles de riz (to make) Do. of prawns Cassolettes à la financière Do. to make of potatoes Cauliflower (chou-fleur) to prepare for cooking Do. au gratin (Italian) without cheese Do. au gratin with cheese ... boiled Do. different ways of serving Do. plain boiling of Do. to trim Caviare toast ... Celery (céleri) ... Do. à la möelle Do. à l'Espagnole .. Do. to stew in blanc ... Do. with butter (entremets) Champignons au gratin ... Chapelure Charlotte à la Sicilienne (ice) 154 152 ... 72 & 363 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 344 383 383 383 343 144 Do. 145 Do. 145 144 144 145 144 417 522 INDEX PAGE. 304 328 33 353 430 390 409 434 371 415 347 377 445 475 464 366 483 Chutneys, service of Civet de lièvre (jugged hare) Claret jelly .. Clarified suet for pastry ... Clarifying soup ... Clear fish soup ... Do. giblet soup Do. mock turtle Do, ox-tail (queue de bæuf) Do. prawn soup Do. soup à la Royale ... Do do. of partridges ... Do. do. of snipes ... Do do. with asparagus points ... Do. do. with carrots... Do. do. with crusts ... Do. do. with lettuce ... Do. do. with maccaroni Do. do. with poached eggs Do. do. with quenelles Cocoanut flower stalks à l'asperges Do. do. toast ... Do. chutney Do. milk ... Cod's roe toast ... Code of rules for soup-making Coffee-making ... Cold fish, réchauffés of ... Do. meat slices like cutlets Do. vegetables, réchauffés of Colouring soup... Conserve of tomato Consommé Do. à la Royale ... Do. à l'Estragon Do. au maccaroni Do. aux cufs pochés aux pâtés d'Italie (note)... Do. aux pointes d'asperges ... aux quenelles.. Do. d'abatis (giblet) Do. de bécassines ... Do. de grandes-crevettes Do. de laitue Do. de perdreaux ... Do. de poisson Cooked vegetables in salads ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 335 230 230 306 302 230 39 493 170 34 242 Do. Do. 377 335 430 347 434 464 415 353 210 INDEX 523 PAGE. 176 152 & 346 373 Do. 427 348 154 360 379 Do. 355 431 465 Coquilles (scallop shells) use of Do. d'artichauts ... Côtelettes à la Maintenon Do. à la Milano à la Milanaise ... à la Moscovite ... Do. à la Nivernaise Do. à la Réforme ... Do. à la Valois ... au créme de fromage Do. au macédoine ... Do. au puré d'oseille Country vegetables Courge à la möelle au gratin Do. do. to cook Court bouillon ... Do. do. à la Nantaise Crab au gratin .... Do. coral butter Do. mock Do. mock toast Cream cheese Do. Garibaldi Do. in salad Do. in soups ... Crécy soup Crème d'anchois Do. de fromage Do. de pistaches glacée Do. de riz aux haricots verts Do. de volaille truffée ... Do. d'orge ... Crêpes (pancakes) Crêpinettes de poisson . Do. de volaille Cromesky, the ... Croquettes of chicken aux pointes d'asperges Do. of duck Do. to crumb ... Croustades de bandecai ... Do. de champignons Do. de grandes crevettes ... Do. de foie gras ... Do. of rabbit .... Do. de truffes à l'Espagnole Croûtes au pot ... Do. d'ananas Do. à l'Avenches 460 218 219 232 214 432 209 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::-: 345 467 336 398 175 426 392 199 421 354 71 473 487 :::: ::::::::::: 455 435 361 475 410 420 INDEX 525 Page. Cutlets to grill ... Do. to marinade Do. to stew ... Do. to trim ... Do. veal to lard ::::: 342 185 220 :::::: 166 379 427 319 277 Senarnes de seer à la Périgueux ... Déjeûner à la fourchette ... Devilled ham ... Dil pussund (young) Dinde braisée à la jardinière Do. do. au chou-fleur Dinner rolls Domestic 'pasty' a Dried haricot beans Drumstick-seed toast Do. do. au gratin Dry curry ... Duchesse pudding Duchesses potato Duck croquettes à la Bordelaise Do. stuffing ... Do. wild on Duckling and peas Dutch cheese in cookery ... Do. sauce ... D’Uxelles, or fines herbes... Do. sauce... 166 230 432 295 456 130 & 461 354 110 485 468 232 100 100 . do. Do. Do. O Le sau de cuisson (vegetable stock) 139 & 312 Eels stewed 416 Do. to cook .. 324 Egg and cream, a savoury custard of for toast 224 Ďo. toasts to vary 225 Eggs buttered ... 235 on toast ... 225 do with anchovy toast ... 224 Do. do. with cheese 236 do. with fish toast 231 Do. do. with spinach toast ... 228 Do. in sauces for thickening 101 Do. in soups ... 45 Do. poached on toast with cream... 224 Do. Snow 345 Do. to cook in various ways from 234 to 240 Do. :::::::: 57 526 INDEX. PAGE. 239 61 Eggs with cream .. Do. with Jerusalem artichokes Endive (chicorée) Entrées, classification of ... Do. garnishing of Do iced value of ... Do. place of in the menu Do. of pastry Do, selection of ... Do. socle (or stand) for Epigrams of mutton ... Epinards à la crème Equipment, for baking at home Do. kitchen Errors in toasting bread ... Espagnole sauce Do. do. descendants of Essence of fowl ... Do. of game Do. of mushrooms Do. of truffles 319 21 222 100 100 : 216 Do. 218 218 217 Do. 218 218 82 217 81 Nancy butter... do. crab coral ... Do. do. fish in ... Do. do. green ... do. hard boil eggs in Do. do. herring roes in Do. do. lobster ... Do. do. maître d'hôtel Do. do. prawn .. Fennel sauce ...' Fig pudding ... Fillets, concerning Fillet of beef .... Do. à la Béarnaise, à l' Italienne Do. aux haricots verts Do. in jelly ... , Do. with anchovy cream Do. with sorrel purée Fillets of mutton Do. of fowls and game Do. fish in curry Do. of hare ... Do. of partridges in jelly Do. 337 189 394 465 343 484 302 528 INDEX. PAGE. Do. 152 151 Do. 151 151 150 152 150 52 151 Fonds d'artichauts à la béchamel ... Do. à la crème ... à l'Espagnole ... à l'Italienne Do. à la Lyonnaise à la maître d'hôtel Do. à la möelle Do. au gratin cold treatment of Do. entiers Do. do. to trim Fondue, the ... Do. Brillat Savarin's ... Forcemeats ... Do. for game-pie ... Do. for galantines ... Do. in rabbit-pie ... Do. of liver à la foie gras Fowl a l'Américaine ... Do. à la Villeroy Do. boiled in the soup stock Do. grilled ... Do. jugged with vegetables 151 248 249 110 281 406 278 70 411 416 116 475 121 :::::::::::::-:::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 98 107 137 & 338 137 Do. roasting of a . ... French beans (haricots verts) Do. do. à la crème ... do. au fines herbes Do. do. au lard ... do. au crème de fromage do. au sauce blanche ... Do. do. in the jar ... Do. do. panachés... Do. do. iinned Do. do. wrong trimming of French rolls ... Fresh chutneys ... Fricandeau of beef Fried bread sippets (croûtons) Fritôt de volaille... Fritters (beignets) Do, batter for Do. fruit Do. oyster ... Do. pancake... Do. prawn pounded ... Do. rules for frying ... 319 304 422 49 449 195 198 201 200 :::: 198 201 196 INDEX 529 PAGE. 196 Frying, concerning Do. fish Do. medium ... . Do. pans concerning ... ::: 56 :::: 196 20 & 196 405 338 98 269 & 281 281 269 228 432 50 :::::::::::::::: 273 442 429 380 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 372 418 82 P H alantine of capon or turkey Do. of quails Game essence ... Do. pie ... Do. do. forcemeat for ... Do. do. raised... Do, soup Do. toast Garibaldi cream... Garnish for pie-tops Gâteau de pistache Do. Napolitian Gelée aux fruits ... Do. de Bordeaux Do. de prunes ... Genevoise sauce.... Génoises au chocolat Gherkin sauce ... Giblet soup Giblets not to be used as garnish Gigot à la Bretonne Do. braisé à la chevreuil Glaze to make ... Glazed carrots ... Do. onions ... Do. turnips (navets glacés) Gooseberries with gelatine (cold) Goose roast ... Do. do. sauce for Do. stuffing ... Gouffé's classification of sauces ... Do. fundamental sauces Gravy for a pie made out of scraps Do. for pies, a sine quâ non ... Do soup (pot-au-feu) Grenadins de beuf à la Béarnaise Green butter ... Do. do with herring roes Greengages in cream Green peas to cook variously Do. with butter... .. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 467 116 385 254 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 154 155 465 153 431 431 III 95 95 273 273 31 337 215 135, 136 530 INDEX PAGE. 166 Greens, country Do. country on toast ... Do. to serve in various ways .. Do. on toast Do. purée of Grilled fowl (Wyvern's way) Guinea fowl (pintade) with watercress 228 144 144 144 475 471 SAYAZ 255 16 70 225 231 328 328 393 279 32 328 108 420 437 W am of mutton Do. to boil Handing round dishes ... Hard-boiled egg toast ... Do do. with fish toast Hare hashed ... Do. jugged (civet de liévre) Do. patties à la financière Do. pie Do. roast ... Do. do. sauce for Do. do, stuffing for ., Do. soup ... Do. do. (purée) Do, to marinade Haricots dried (Soissons)... Do. verts ... Do. do, in salad (cold) Do. do. steamed ... Do. do. panachés Do. do. to trim ... Hash, concerning Do. gravy (at a pinch) ... Hashed hare ... Do. mutton to taste like venison Hen turkey braised à la jardinière... Do. do. do. with cauliflower Herbs seasoning in stuffing Herring roes green butter of Do. toast ... Hollandaise sauce Homard à l'Américaine Do. piläo à la Turque Hors d'œuvres, service of Do. do. combinations of garnishing do. serving oysters as ... Do. do. things composing .... 327 166 139 210 137 & 338 ... . 139 137 & 338 ... 67 & 168 169 328 66 379 427 107 376 230 84 457 Do. Do. do. 491 & 213 214 215 ... 6 & 214 214 INDEX 531 Hors d'oeuvres, to choose Horseradish sauce Hump to boil Do. to cure ... PAGE. 215 90 115 :: 254 456 340 357 369 375 ce vanilla cream Iced apricot cream pudding Do. Charlotte à la Sicilienne Do. Charlotte Russe au praline Do. Nesselrode pudding Do. parfait au chocolat ... Do. pistacio cream Do. pudding à l'ambigu (medley) Do. pudding with cherries Do. pudding with strawberries Do. rice à l'Impératrice ... Icing, chocolate... Indian corn, (maïs) à l'Américaine Do. do. à l'Italienne... Do. do. à la Napolitaine Do. ortolans .... Isinglass in soups forbidden ::::::::::::::::: 441 436 38 ::::::: 351 356 148 do. Do. do. do. Ujambon au Madère ... 118 Jelly aspic to make Do. claret (de Bordeaux) Do. of prunes, a capital ... Do, with fruits ... Jerusalem artichokes (topinambours) Do. do. au gratin ... 148 Do. bouchées ... 153 fritters 149 Do. do. purée (au gras) (Palestine soup).. 453 Do. do. (au maigre) do. 453 Do. do. mousse of à la Chetput 149 do. with eggs , 240 Jugged chops ... I21 Do. fish I 22 Do. fowl 122 Do. French beans (spécialité) 137 & 338 Do. hare (civet de lièvre) Do. jungle sheep 329 Do. peas ... 135 Do. steak ... 122 Jugging a tin for Do. ::: :::::::::: 328 ::::: I21 532 INDEX Julienne, preserved tablets of Do. soup ... Jungle fowl ... Do. sheep ... PAGE. 341 341 486 329 171 412 458 227 227 459 III H edgree (Kitchri) English way ... Kidney in onions ... ... Do. soup ... Do. the, cut out of a cold saddle, on toast Do. toast ... Do. to remove unpleasant flavour of Killing poultry .... Kippered seer fish Kitchen equipment Do. utensils ... Kramouskys, concerning ... Do. with oysters... Knolkhol Kubáb curry .. 184 21 20 199 350 154 303 368 317 262 116 385 401 463 101 100 166 468 amb quarter of, and green peas Lang spirit lamp, the Lard in pastry ... Leg of mutton à la Bretonne Do. do. braised à la chevreuil Lemon cheesecakes Lettuce soup ... Liaison of eggs ... ... Do. of flour and water... Lima beans ... Lime sauce for puddings ... Liver forcemeat (à la foie gras) Lobster à l'Américaine ... Do. piläo à la Turque ... Do. purée (bisque) Loin of mutton à la soubise Do. do. braised ... Do. do. en papillote Do. do. stuffed Luncheons ... Luncheon, dishes suggested for Do. office ... Do, party, a menu for do. features of 70 457 491 404 416 446 105 Do. INDEX · 533 Luncheon, the lady's Do. the sportsman's Do. the traveller's .... PAGE. 191 193 193 M accaroni..! : inhof 242 83 333 210 Do. a foreign dish of 242 Do. à l'Italienne... 187 Do. au gratin ... 241 & 461 Do. cheese, and tomatoes, with meat 174 Do. in soup 34 Do.. en velouté au fromage (à la milanaise) ... 241 Do. soup 365 Do. to treat ... 240 Do... with tomato ... Macédoine de légumes ... Made dishes, component parts of ... 70 Madeira or Marsala in soups ... Do. do. with ham ... 118 Madras fish compared with English Maids-of-honour... ... Maître d'hôtel butter ... Do. do do. with asparagus Do. do. do. with chops and steaks Do. do. sauce ... Maize (Indian corn, Maïs) 165 & 248 Do. à l'Américaine Do. à l'Italienne Do. à la Napolitaine ... 248 Malay curry ... Mango chutney... Marinade for mock venison Do. to make Do. value of Marinading joints Marrows vegetable, (courges à la möelle) Do. .do. au gratin 156 Do. do. beignets Do. farcis... Do. to strain do. (young) Marrow (möelle) to prepare for garnish Do. with artichokes ... Do. do. cardoons 16 Do do. celery .... Mashed potato ... 129 Do. do. chutney ore 1 333 33243*2*132*323**STRS SEE 9988 PPS BESTE 82 441 248 299 306 do. do. 155 Do. 163 160 152 160 306 534 INDEX. PAGE 416 58 211 91 190 88 169 170 363 175 306 369 Matelote d'anguilles Do. the ... Mayonnaise à la Gouffé ... Do. sauce Do. do. (W. H. H.) ... Meat, to keep fresh in hot climates Melted butter (sauce blanche) Do. do. do for sweets ... Menu, choosing entrées for the Do. do. fish for the Do. for a luncheon party Do. the composition of... Meringues Milk in soups ... Do. to flavour for fines herbes sauce Do. to prepare for bread sauce ... Mince gravy at a pinch for Do. ways of serving Minced game in cases Minces Mint chutney ... Do. sauce Do. wrong use of Mirepoix : Mixed vegetable sauce (macédoine)... Mock crab ... Do. do. toast ... Do. new potatoes Do. turtle, clear Do. do. thick Do. venison marinade for Do. white-bait... Möelle (marrow) to prepare Do. with cardoons Do. do. cardes poirées Do. do, celery Do. do. fonds d'artichauts Do. do. pieds d'artichauts Do do. salsify Moli, the ... Mollay-keeray (country vegetable) ... Do. do. salad ... Moringa-cai (country vegetable) Do. au gratin Do. toast ... ... Mould of chicken cream .... Do. of cheese do. 100 83 219 232 134 390 392 66 161 16r 160 152 161 161 302 166 536 INDEX. PAGE. 446 439 Mutton loin of braised .. Do. do. stuffed ... Do. do. wrapped in paper Do. pie domestic Do. do. raised ... Do. mulligatunny ... Do. shoulder of rolled and stuffed 31 400 B eopolitan cake Nesselrode pudding, (ice) Nivernaise soup Nougat Nouilles Nun's sighs (fritters) 220 455 239 239 345 237 Wat biscuit ... Èufs à la crème (à la Suisse) Do. à l'Indienne ... Do. à la maître d'hôtel Do. à la niege. Do. à la Suisse ... Do. au beurre noir Do. au fromage Do. au gratin... Do. au jus .. Do. aux oignons, Do. aux topinambours Do. brouillés ... Do. farcis ... Do, sur le plat... Oie rôtie Olive sauce Olives beef Do. farcies ... Omelette au Parmesan Do. aux fines herbes Do. aux légumes ... Do. aux tomates ... Do. elaborate .. Do. making rules of Do. Materials for making Do. soufflée... Do the Curé's to make Do. the “Pennaconda”. 的奶奶線 ​424 160 INDEX 537 PAGE, 182 183 155 153 ...83 & 417 417 412 418 398 Omelette, varieties of Do. with kippered fish Onions (Bombay) au gratin Do. (button) glazed Do. purée à la Soubise Do. do. à la Bretonne Do. stuffed with kidney, Orleans pudding Orlys of seerfish..., Ortolans des Indes Our vegetables classified ... Oven in pastry ... Do. temperature of, for baking pies Do. the stove concerning Ox-head brawn ... Ox-tail soup (clear) Do do. (thick) ... Oyster, and beefsteak pie Do. fritters Do. kramouskys Do. sauce ... 436 127 261 201 315 256 409 410 277 199 199 411 :::::: 428 340 :::::: 482 466 336 453 139 201 392 . .. 426 326 main de foie gras Do. de fraises Do. de fromage Do. de groseilles Do. devolaille Palestine soup. ... Panachés (haricots verts) ... Pancake-fritters ... Pancakes with chicken (crêpinettes) Do. with fish Do. with mince ... Papodums. (paparums) Parfait au chocolat Parsley sauce ... Do. to mince... Parsnips (panais). Do. glacés ... Do. sautés ... Do. various ways of serving Partridges à la soubise ... Do. , clear soup of ... Do. in jelly Do. quenelles of en aspic Do. with cabbage ... 306 381 81 IIO 154 154 153 454 415 385 346 433 INDEX. 543 PAGB. Do. 69 26 II2 20 168 258 Do. Do. ROU 487 Do. po Do. stuffing .. *** Do. 170 Ramasamy's cruel way of straightening a tongue 253 cutlet Do. difficulty about charcoal fish pudding 170 fowl plucking (?) habit of dishing ducks 467 ham garnish 118 hare paste ... hash Do. heedless use of sauces in a pie 273 Do. ideas of pastry ... kitchen butter method of spoiling wild ducks mistakes in cooking Bouillon ... do. in roasting ... 113 objections to boiling fowl with soup-meat 116 omelette ... 178 onion garnish for entrées 75 pie 272 Do. 107 tart pastry, concerning 262 Do. toast for garnishing Do. untrustworthiness in tin opening 325 Ramequins 249 Do. en caises 250 & 412 Ramequin toast ... 231 Ravigote sauce (cold) ... Do. do. (hot) ... Réchauffés, laws of 168 Reduced vinegar in sauces Do. wine do. ... Reform cutlets Relevé the position of in the menu Rémoulade sauce (cold) Do. do. green ... Do. do. (hot) ... Ribs of beef à la Châteaubriand Rice 244 Do. boiling of ... 244 Do. remarks on cooking Do. purée with French beans Do. savoury ... Risotto à la Milanaise Riz à la bonne femme Do. à l'Indienne 246 Do. à l'Italienne Do. à la Ménagère ... 92 85 IOO 100 :::::::::::::::::::::::: 245 ::::::::::: 466 368 247 245 245 247 544 INDEX PAGE. 106 113 Riz à la Milanaise Do. à la Napolitaine Do. à la Turque Do. au chou Do. à l'Impératrice (glacé) Do. casseroles de Roasting Do. table of time taken in Roast, hare Rolls, dinner ... Do. French Root vegetables en purée, &c. Rôt the position of in the menu Rôtiés des aufs à la crème Do. de bécasse Roux ... ... Rules for curing meat Do. do. frying ... Do. do. hors d'oeuvres Do. do. omelette making Do. do. pastry do. Do. do. pie do Do. do. réchauffés ... Do. do. roasting Do. do. salad-making Do. do. savory toasts ... Do. do. soup-making Russian salad ... 154 7 225 481 46 251 : :20::::::: 196 214 181 259 272 169 113 205 221 39 401 338 344 210 210 205 204 208 209 addle of mutton with French beans Do. do. with peas Salad, cooked vegetables in Do. do. country ... Do. dressing plain ... Do. do. principles of Do. do. with eggs Do. service of ... Do. tomato ... Do. with hot fish condemned Salade à la ma tante Do. Russe ... Salads, vegetables for ... Salmis de cailles Do. observations regarding the Salmon, boudins of Do. pie (cold) 207 210 546 INDEX. PAGE. 98 81, 100, & 410 440 431 446 224 476 468 366 90 190 D 83 Do. 100 port Do. ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 392 86 :::: 411 348 97 Sauce financière Do fines herbes Do for blanquette Do. for roast goose Do. for teal fillets Do. for top-dressing toasts for Victoria pudding Do. Hollandaise Do. horseradish Do. Time for puddings ... Do. liver for hare Do. macedoine Do. mayonnaise (ordinary) Do. do with raw eggs Milanaise mirepoix ... mushroom mustard ... Do. oyster ... Do. Peg Woffington Do. Périgueux piquante Do. , poivrade ... Do. Provençale Do. ravigote (cold) Do. do. (hot) Do. rémoulade (cold) ... do. (hot) ... Do. Robert ... Do, royale for puddings Do. salad (plain) do. with eggs ... Do. sorrel ... Do. soubise ... Do. do. au parmesan (Milanaise) Do. tartare (cold) Do. do. (hot) .. Do. tomato ... Do. velouté .... Do. do. au fromage Do. wild duck à la minute Do. Wyvern's Sauce-making materials ... Do. do. utensils ... Sauces, Gouffé's classification of Savoury pies, rules for ... Do. rice .... ... 85 & 421 85 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 438 92 85 92 Do. ... 85 & 474 205 Do. 208 405 ...83 & 417 ************** ... 79 & 94 272 368 INDEX 547 PAGE. 222 162 273 360 342 471 58 & 431 283 342 336 392 342 400 146 Savoury toasts ... Scrambled eggs... Scraps of mutton trimmings to use Seakale Seasoning for pies Seer à la Napolitain Do. à la Périgueux Do. au gratin ... Do, en papillote Do. fish pie Do. orlys of with Hollandaise sauce Do. kippered .. Do. slices a la Périgueux Do. slices with Peg Woffington sauce Do. with cucumbers Do. with mushrooms ... Do. with truffle sauce ... Shoulder of mutton, rolled, and stuffed Short bread biscuits for spinach Sir Watkin's pudding ... Snake vegetable in gravy Snipe, canapés of Do. chaud-froid of Do. pie Do. purée ... Do. soup clear Do. turban of ... Socles (stands for entrées) Soissons (dried haricots) ... Sorrel (oseille) ... Do. purée ... Sole fillets of, à la pauvre homme Do. fried à la Coibert Soufflé, chocolate Do. de volaille Do. vanilla ... Do. omelette... Soup à la bonne femme ... Do. à la Brunoise Do. à la Crécy (carrot purée) Do. à la Gladstone Do. à la Julienne ... Do. à la Nivernaise ... Do. à l'oignon (maigre).... Do. à la Reine... ... Do. à la Royale Do, aux choux (maigre)... ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 461 467 374 368 280 425 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: ::: 347 440 116 147 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 405 445 489 428 476 448 480 44 359 49 409 341 444 321 382 371 321 548 INDEX. PAGE. 482 489 ::::::::::::::: 377 335 359 474 ...33 & 263 353 430 430 420 437 321 458 365 325 311 & 321 390 392 312 Soup aux œufs pochés Do. aux pointes d'asperges Do, aux quenelles Do. brunoise ... Do. bouillon ... Do. croûte-au-pot Do. fat skimmed from, value Do. fish (clear)... Do. giblet (clear) Do. do. (thick) Do, hare Do do. purée Do. in camp Do. kidney purée Do. maccaroni... Do. made from tinned meat gravy Do. maigre ... Do. mock turtle clear ... Do. do. do. thick Do. mulligatunny thick ... Do. do. clear ... Do. oxtail (clear) Do. do. (thick) Do. Palestine (au gras) ... Do. do. (au maigre) Do. partridge (clear) ... Do. pearl barley (crème d'orge) Do. prawn (clear) Do. .do. (purée) Do. rice purée (crème de ris) Do. snipe (clear) Do. do. (purée) Do. tomato purée Do, vegetable purée Do. with lettuce Soup-meat, use of Soupe a l'oignon Do, aux choux Soupirs de nonne Soupes maigres ,.. Spiced beef ... Do. pepper ... Do. do. in pies Do. salt Spinach (épinards) Do. à la crème Do. à la Wyvern 309 409 410 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 453 454 415 398 434 ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 425 478 470 463 37 321 :::::::::::::: 321 441 311 & 321 255 III 273 INI . 145 339 423 550 INDEX. PAGE. III Stuffing for pork Suc colorant ... Syringe in salting meat, value of a ::: 35 :: Grie 380 39 475 117 113 74 :::::::::::::::::::::::: 323 323 24 Do. 320 326 325 abasco Tamarind chutney Tarragon in aspic jelly Do. in soups Tartare sauce (cold) Do. do. (hot) Teal roast, with watercress Do fillets, Wyvern's way Do. with bigarade sauce... Time in boiling ... Do. in roasting Tinned butters ... Do. fish (cold) Do. do. (hot) Do. do. treatment of ... Do. meat (Australian) do. a mince of ... Do. meats generally ... Do. do. soup from ... Do. do. to treat ... Do. vegetables Thick soups ... Thickening soups Do. sauces Do. to increase if necessary Toast anchovy ... Do. do. made at the table Do. artichokes on, Do. asparagus on, Do. bandecai, Do. beetroot leaves on, brinjal ... Do. buttered egg ... Do. cauliflower on, ... Do. cocoanut flower ... country greens on, cheese. ... drumstick seed ... Do. egg and cream eggs, ways of serving upon ... Do. foie gras ... Do. game 163 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: 43 46 100 ...46 & 100 223 224 229 229 229 229 229 Do brinini 224 229 230 229 Do. Do. 231 230 Do. 230 226 228 INDEX. 551 ::::::: PAGE. 225 227 227 222 232 229 226 224 232 230 230 228 .... 224 229 231 226 157 159 158 Toast hard-boiled egg ... Do. kidney ... Do. do. cut from a cold saddle of mutton on Do. making, rules for ... Do. mock crab Do.. mollay-keray ... Do. with pâté de foie gras Do. purées upon Do. ramequin Do. salmon ... Do. sardine ... Do. spinach Do. top-dressings for ... Do. vegetable marrow, and cucumber Do. Welsh rarebit Do. woodcock Tomatoes (tomates) Do. à l’Italienne ... Do. au gratin Tomato chutney Do, conserve Do. omelette Do. purée (soup) Do. salad ... Do. sauce ... Do. soup ... Tongue in jelly ... Tongues to cure ... Do. do. of deer and bison Do. to glaze ... Do. to straighten when boiled ... Topinambours à la crème Do. aux œufs Do. do. farcis Tourne-dos de beuf ... Traveller's luncheon, the ... Trimming cutlets Do. artichokes ... Do. do. bottoms Truffles, essence of Do. to prepare for pies Do. served in croustades Turban of snipes ... Turkey, boiled ... Do.' hen braised à la jardinière Do. do. do. au chou-fleur... Do. roast à la Périgueux 305 242 182 478 207 242 478 465 22 253 254 253 149 237 238 282 282 486 440 119 379 427 374