ENTRÉES.
OYSTER PÂTÉS.
Beard and blanch one dozen of oysters. Make a sauce as follows: one ounce of butter, three-quarter ounce of flour. Melt over the fire; add half-a-cup of milk, half-a-cup of cream, and the liquor of the oysters; strain; reduce the sauce till it resumes the appearance of a cream; add the oysters, and have a dozen or fourteen pâtés made of puff paste; bake and fill the pâtés.
SWEETBREADS FRIED.
Lay two sweetbreads to soak in cold water and salt for two hours; put them on to boil, covered in cold water and salt; simmer slowly for one hour. Remove all the grit and skin, and cut the sweetbreads in the shape of a mutton cutlet; pepper and salt, egg and bread-crumb. Dish with fried parsley and green peas in centre.
LARDED FILLETS OF BEEF.
Take bacon, cut as for larded sweetbreads, and lard in the same manner. Place a few pieces of chopped suet at the bottom of a stew-pan, half an onion, one clove, a slight sprinkling of flour, brown, and add one cup of second stock. Cover with a close lid, and simmer slowly for one hour. Dish the fillets of beef, skim the grease, and sprinkle a few mushrooms in the sauce, and serve.
PLAIN MUTTON CUTLETS.
Take one and a-quarter lb. of mutton, divide it into chops by cutting down where the vein is in the bone. There is a bone at the fleshy end of the chop, take that off. Take all the fat clean away from the bone; scrape the bone clean; flatten the meat with a mallet dipped in cold water, then dip in egg and bread-crumb; fry to a light-brown colour, and serve with tomato sauce. Garnish with a few tomatoes round the base.
SWEETBREADS SERVED IN BEETROOT PÂTÉS.
Cook two large beetroots cut in the shape of oyster pâtés. Have one sweetbread cut in tiny pieces, and drop into a cup of thick, white sauce. Make six beetroot pâtés, fill them up with the preparation, and garnish with tiny bits of parsley round the beetroot. The remains of cold sweetbreads, or any kind of white meat, will do for this entrée.
CREAM OF CHICKEN.
Take the flesh from the breast of a chicken, place it in a mortar, and pound for ten minutes. Have two slices of bread soaked in milk; press the milk from it; pound it in the mortar with the chicken and the yolk of two eggs; pepper and salt. Pass through a wire and hair sieve; add a gill of switched cream; grease any kind of fancy shapes, and steam for ten minutes; turn out, and garnish with dice-cut pieces of ham, white of egg, and truffle. Dish on a border of mashed potatoes, and serve with sauce suprême. Serve green peas in the centre of this entrée.
CREAM OF RABBIT.
Take the fillets of the back of two rabbits; scrape and pound in a mortar with one ounce of butter, the yolks of two eggs; soak two slices of bread in sweet milk, press the milk out and pound in the mortar; pass through a wire and hair sieve. Switch a glass of cream and the white of the two eggs, and add to the pounded rabbit. Steam in timbale moulds, covered with white paper for fifteen minutes. Serve with a cream sauce, and fill the centre with a few whole tomatoes, stewed in a glass of water, with a half-ounce of butter; pepper and salt.
LARDED SWEETBREADS
are cooked in the same way as for frying—the first part. Keep the sweetbreads whole, trim them neatly, and have twenty stripes of bacon two inches long, and with a larding needle draw the bacon gently through the sweetbreads, reversing the lines. Place in a stew-pan with one ounce of butter, and brown the sweetbreads to a light-brown colour; pour over half-pint of stock or water; simmer slowly for twenty minutes. Take a spoonful of butter and flour, and add to the sweetbreads a few chopped mushrooms; pepper and salt. Strain the sauce over the sweetbreads, garnish with Brussels sprouts in the centre.
FILLET OF BEEF WITH FRIED POTATO CHIPS.
Take one pound and a-quarter of fillet steak, cut it into four round slices, broil before a clear fire; have one ounce of fresh butter mixed with a few leaves of chopped parsley; pepper and salt; form into round balls, and place on the top of the broiled steak. Serve with fried potato chips. Peel and slice four potatoes into a basin with salt and water; dry on a clean towel, and fry in hot lard. Serve round the fillets of beef.
ENTRÉE RABBIT À LA TARTE.
Take the fillets of two young rabbits, flatten them with a rolling-pin dipped in cold water. Dip in beaten egg and bread-crumbs, and fry a light-brown colour. Dish in a corner-dish, with a ring of mashed potatoes. On the bottom of the dish serve with sauce à la tarte.
These entrées will be found most economical for housekeeping, when served before dinner or for lunch with cold roast beef, garnished and glazed in the way described for glazing hams or tongues.
All entrées should be dished with a ring of mashed potatoes, or a ring on the bottom of the dish of rice, and dished in a circle, a garnish of vegetables in the centre, and sauce round the base.