MENU XXIV

COtelettes de saumon k la p^cheur.

Ragotlt d'agneau au riz. Spaghetti fourr6 aux cbampignons.

Cr^mc h. rambaasadrioe.

I. Weigh, after removing the skin and bones, eight ounces of cooked salmon, three ounces of bread panada, and three ounces of butter ; bruise the fish and pound it in a mortar with the Salmon panada, the butter, and the yolk of one .pechcur. egg ; pass this through a hair sieve into a bowl ; now season the puree with salt, pepper, and a pinch of mace, add two whole eggs and a table- spoonful of cream or good white sauce ; butter a dozen cutlet-moulds, and fill them with the mixture, tapping them on the table to shake it well home, and smoothing the surfaces with a palette-knife dipped in hot water. Lay the cutlets in a wide saute-pan or baking-dish upon folded paper, pour boiling water round them to a little less than half their depth, push the pan into the oven, and simmer gently there until they are cooked firmly. Take them out then, let them get cold, when turn them out of their moulds, lay them on a flat dish over ice, mask them with white chaud-froid glaze tinted pink with lobster

8o FIFTY LUNCHES.

coral, and, when set, release them, trimming off the glaze which has escaped over the edges, and dish in a circle round a block of fried bread, garnished with parsley, filling round the outside space with broken jelly, hard-boiled eggs, and houtons rouges made as described for No. 4, Menu xxi.

White chaud-froid glaze : — Make a savoury custard with half a pint of chicken broth for meat, of fish broth or milk for fish, with three yolks, White strain, stir in two tablespoonfuls of aspic

glaze. jelly melted, stir well, cool, and use. If

no jelly be available this is a simple make- shift : — Boil two ounces of chopped mushroom in half a pint of milk, mix in a quarter ounce of soaked gelatine, strain off carefully, and stir in the yolk of an egg. Use light-coloured mushrooms, scraping off the dark gills to avoid colouring the sauce.

2. This can be made of neck cutlets or a shoulder boned and cut into neat fillets, a broth being made of the bones and trimmings at once. The White ragout ragout must be kept quite white. Having rice. trimmed the meat, proceed to blanch it by

■ plunging it into boiling water for three minutes. Take it out, put it upon a wire sieve, and let a douche of cold water pass over it from the tap. Have ready in a deep-sided saute or fricandeau-pan a bed of minced turnips, onions; and celery (four ounces of the first and two of the last) and a muslin bag containing a teaspoonful of dried herbs, lay the meat upon this bed and moisten all with the mutton

SPAGHETTI WITH MUSHROOMS. 8i

broth freed from fat, and milk in half-and-half pro- portions in quantity sufficient to cover well. Keep the pan over a low fire, never allowing the liquid to boil on any account, but simmering very gently, the surface covered with a sheet of paper, until the meat is three-parts done. Now take out the meat and muslin bag and pass the vegetables and the broth through a hair sieve, and, having mixed a rotix in the washed-out pan with half an ounce of butter and half an ounce of flour, stir in by degrees the puree obtained from the vegetables and broth ; bring to the boil, and if too thick add enough broth or milk to correct the mistake ; re- duce the heat under the pan, and put back the meat with three dozen balls of turnip, scooped out of fresh turnips, about the size of large playing marbles ; continue the simmering until the meat and the turnip-balls are , tender, then dish the ragout in this way : — Lay a circle of riz tomate (see No. 2, Menu iv.) round the edge of a hot silver dish, shaping it neatly with a wooden spoon ; arrange the meat in the centre of it, straining over it just enough of the sauce to mask it nicely, lay the turnips like a necklace all round the edge of the meat near the rice, and having given it enrichment with the yolk of an egg, send the rest of the sauce in in a boat.

3. Peel and cut off the stalks of half a pound of mushrooms, wash the peelings and chop them up with the stalks, boihng them up Spaghetti in half a pint of milk. Strain when the rooms. latter is flavoured, and thicken the milk, cooking therein the mushrooms themselves, cut

82 FIFTY LUNCHES.

into largish squares, and seasoning with salt and pepper. Keep this hot in the bain-marie while you boil and strain four ounces of spaghetti, stirring into it at once, while hot, an ounce of butter and two of grated Parmesan. With this line a buttered pie-dish or fireproof china legumiere, leaving a hollow in the centre, into which put the mushrooms, covering the surface with the remaining spaghetti ; smooth over the surface, dust it over with grated Parmesan, dot it over with bits of butter, and push into the oven till thoroughly hot and the surface has taken colour. Serve on a neatly folded napkin.

4. Put into a stewpan three gills of milk, three ounces of sifted sugar, and the zest of a lemon ; set on

the fire, bring to the boil, stirring in three- Ambassa- quarters of an ounce of soaked gelatine ; pudding. cool a little and empty the milk into a basin

in which six yolks of eggs, freed from whites, have been broken, place the bowl over a pan containing boiling water, and custardise its contents, stirring gently during the process, pass this through a hair sieve, and as it cools flavour it with a liqueur- glass of kirsch and whip it to a froth, passing in by degrees as you do so a gill of stiffly whipped cream. Next set in ice a plain charlotte-mould (pint and a half) ; having lined it with wetted paper, lay over the bottom of it a layer of ripe strawberries that have been marinaded with kirsch, pour in enough of the cream to set them, then arrange another layer, setting that, and continuing the operation until the mould is packed. When firm, dip the mould in a basin of hot

AMBASSADRESS' PUDDING. 83

water, wipe the bottom of it with a clean dry cloth, and turn out the pudding, setting it on a glass dish, and masking it with a rich strawberry syrup flavoured witli kirsch and lemon- juice.