Domestic French Cookery, 4th ed Part 2

BREAD SAUCE.

Take four ounces of grated stale bread; pour over it sufficient milk to cover it, and let it soak about three quarters of an hour, or till it becomes incorporated with the milk. Then add a dozen corns of black pepper, a little salt, and a piece of b.u.t.ter the size of a walnut. Pour on a little more milk, and give it a boil. Serve it up in a sauce-boat, and eat it with roast wild fowl, or roast pig.

Instead of the pepper, you may boil in it a hand full of dried currants, well picked, washed, and floured.

SAUCE ROBERT.

Put into a sauce-pan a quarter of a pound of b.u.t.ter, with a spoonful of flour. Simmer them till of a fine brown color. Mince half a dozen large onions, and a large slice of cold ham. Put them into the pan, with another piece of b.u.t.ter, and a very little broth or warm water. Skim the sauce well, and let it stew gently for twenty minutes. Before you serve it up, stir in a table-spoonful of lemon-juice or vinegar, and a tea-spoonful of mustard. This sauce is used chiefly for fresh pork, or white poultry.

SHALOT OR ONION SAUCE. (SAUCE RAVIGOTE.)

Take a handful of sweet herbs and the same quant.i.ty of shalots or little onions, and cut them up small. Put them into a sauce-pan, with some vinegar, salt, pepper, and sufficient broth or warm water to cover them.

Let them boil gently for a quarter of an hour. Take the sauce from the fire and set it on the stove, or on the hearth, and stir in (till it melts) a piece of b.u.t.ter rolled in flour, or a spoonful of olive oil.

UNIVERSAL SAUCE.

Take a pint of good broth, or a pint of drawn b.u.t.ter. Stir into it a gla.s.s of white wine, and half the peel of a lemon grated. Add a laurel leaf, or two or three peach-leaves, and a spoonful of vinegar. Let the mixture simmer on a few coals or on hot ashes, for five or six hours or more, and it will be good to pour over either meat, poultry, or fish, and will keep several days in a cool place.

LOBSTER SAUCE.

The lobster being boiled, extract the meat from the sh.e.l.l, and beat it in a mortar. Rub it through a cullender or sieve, and put it into a sauce-pan with a spoonful of veloute (or velvet essence) if you have it, and one of broth. Mix it well, and add a piece of b.u.t.ter, some salt, and some Cayenne pepper. Stew it ten minutes, and serve it up, to eat with boiled fresh fish.

SPINACH FOR COLORING GREEN.

Take three handfuls of spinach, and pound it in a mortar to extract the juice. Then put it into a sauce-pan and set it over a slow fire. When it is just ready to boil, take it off and strain it. By stirring in a small quant.i.ty of spinach-juice, you may give any sauce a green color.

GARLIC b.u.t.tER.

Take two large cloves of garlic and pound them to a paste in a mortar, adding, by degrees, a piece of b.u.t.ter the size of an egg. You may with a little of this b.u.t.ter give the taste of garlic to sauces. Some persons like a piece of garlic b.u.t.ter on the table, to eat with roast meat.

HAZELNUT b.u.t.tER.

Having scalded and blanched some hazelnuts, pound them to a paste in a mortar, adding gradually a small quant.i.ty of b.u.t.ter.

This is good to eat with wild fowl, or to flavor the most delicate sauces.

LARDING.

Larding with slips of fat bacon greatly improves the taste and appearance of meat, poultry, game, &c. and is much used in French cookery.

For this purpose, you must have a larding-pin (which may be purchased at the hardware stores); it is a steel instrument about a foot in length, sharp at one end, and cleft at the other into four divisions which are near two inches long, and resembling tweezers.

Bacon is the proper meat to lard with; the fat only is used. Cut it into slips not exceeding two inches in length, half an inch in breadth, and half an inch in thickness, and smaller if intended for poultry; they will diminish in cooking. Put these slips of bacon (one at a time) into the cleft or split end of the larding-pin. Give each slip a slight twist and press it down hard into the pin, with your fingers. Then run the pin through the meat or fowl (avoiding the bones), and when you draw it out on the under side it will have left the slip of bacon sticking in the upper side. Take care to arrange the slips in regular rows and at equal distances; have them all of the same size, and let every one stick up about an inch from the surface of the meat. If any are wrong, take them out and do them over again.

Fowls and birds are generally larded on the breast only. To lard handsomely and neatly, practice and dexterity are requisite.

Cold poultry may be larded with slips of the fat of cold boiled ham, and when not to be cooked again, it may be made to look very tastefully.

The slips for cold poultry should be very small, scarcely thicker than a straw.

PART THE SECOND.

MEATS.

VEAL a LA MODE.

Rub a fillet of veal all over with salt, and then lard it. Make a seasoning of chopped sweet-herbs, shalots, mushrooms, pepper, salt, and powdered nutmeg, and mace. Moisten it with sweet oil, and cover the veal all over with it. Put the veal into a tureen, and let it set for several hours or all night. Then take it out, covered as it is with the seasoning, and wrap it in two sheets of white paper, well b.u.t.tered, and roast or bake it. When it is quite done, take off the paper, and sc.r.a.pe off all the seasoning from the veal. Put the seasoning into a sauce-pan with the gravy, the juice of half a lemon, a piece of b.u.t.ter rolled in flour, and a little salt. Give it a boil, skim it well, and pour it over the veal.

VEAL CUTLETS.

Make a seasoning of grated bread, minced ham, chopped parsley, salt, pepper, and chopped mushrooms if you have them. Mix with it some yolk of egg. Cut the veal into small thin slices, rub them all over with lard, and then spread the seasoning over both sides. Wrap up each cutlet carefully in white paper, oiled or b.u.t.tered. Bake them slowly for three quarters of an hour, and serve them up in the papers.

BLANQUETTE OR FRICa.s.sEE OF VEAL.

Take the remains of a cold roast fillet, or loin of veal. Cut it into small thin pieces. Put them into a stew-pan with a piece of b.u.t.ter rolled in flour, salt, pepper, a few small onions minced, a bunch of sweet-herbs chopped, and one or two laurel or peach-leaves. Mix all together. Pour in a little warm water, and let it boil gently five minutes or more. When you take it off, stir in some lemon-juice and some yolk of egg slightly beaten.

G.o.dIVEAU.

Take a large piece of fillet of veal, free from fat or skin. Mince it small, and then pound it in a mortar till it is a smooth paste.

Afterwards rub it through a cullender or sieve.

Soak some slices of bread in warm milk, and rub the bread also through a sieve. There must be an equal quant.i.ty of bread and veal. Take the same proportion of b.u.t.ter, and beat it in a mortar with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and chopped parsley to your taste. Then put all together. Beat two or three eggs till very light, and add them gradually to the mixture. Make it into round b.a.l.l.s or into long rolls, and fry them in b.u.t.ter. Or you may put it into a pie (without a lid) and bake it.

G.o.diveau is a very fine stuffing for poultry or wild fowl.

CALVES' LIVER BAKED.

Lard the liver with bacon, and let it lie three or four hours in a covered tureen with a seasoning of parsley, shalots, laurel and thyme chopped small, a little pepper and salt, and two table-spoonfuls of sweet oil. Turn it several times. Then wrap it up in thin slices of bacon or cold ham, and bake or roast it about an hour and a quarter. Add to the gravy the yolk of an egg, and some minced onions and chopped sweet-herbs.