LA BONNE CUISINE

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 235, 3 October 1936, Page 3 (Supplement)

LA BONNE CUISINE

CONTINENTAL IDEAS. SOME TESTED RECIPES. (By A FRENCH CHEF.) The difference between good cooking and bad cooking is extraordinarily like the difference between good dressing and bad dressing —a mere matter of attention to detail. And in cooking attention to detail is as important as it is in the world of feminine fripperies. Below you. will find some tested French recipes which are easy to make and taste very good:— Chaudfroid of Chicken. Two taiblespoonfuls of butter, 1 plump chicken, 1 onion, 1 leek, white stock, i gill boiling milk %oz blanched pistachio nut, 1 dessertspoonful gelatine, pepper and salt, 2 carrots, 1 calf's foot, water to cover, 1 egg yoke, 3 tablespoonfuls flour, 1 tinned pimento, 1 blade mace. Method: Truss, singe and clean chicken. Place in saucepan, add sliced, prepared carrots, onion, leak and calf's foot. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Add mace, and cover with white stock and water. Cover and simmer for one hour, then reduce stock to a jelly after removing bird. Cool and strain stock and, when cold, skim off fat. Melt butter in saucepan. Stir in flour, and when it begins to brown add milk gradually and half pint of stock. Stir till it comes to the boil. Boil a few minutes and cool slightly.' Then add the beaten egg yolk and cook again for a few minutes, but do not boil. Leave to cool, then stir in gelatine, dissolve in two tablespoonfuls water. Place chicken on a rack with a dish below, and coat with the sauce when thick enough. Leave the sauce to set, ai*d then garnish the whole with ornaments cut from the pimento and chopped blanched pistachio nuts. Serve with salad. Enough for six persons. Here is another delicious chicken recipe: Chicken Bonne Femme. One plump chicken, 1£ pints stock, soz peeled and sliced tomatoes, i tablespoonful chopped parsley, 3oz scrape.l carrots, salt and pepper, 3oz peeled onions, Alb button mushrooms, 1 tablespoonful flour, 3 tablespoonfuls butter, puff pastry triangles to garnish. Enough for six persons. Method: Joint and skin chicken joint.?. Melt butter in saucepan. Add sliced carrots and the onions cut into equal, thin rings. Cook for ten minutes, stirring frequently, then add the joints and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for another ten minutes, stirring occasionally. Add peeled mushrooms, flour, stock and tomatoes. Stir until boiling. Cover and simmer for 30 to 45 minutes, or till tender, and add parsley. _ Serre in a hot dish garnished with triangles of flaky or puff pastry. Scallops of Ham and Vegetables. Two gammon rashers, two scraped carrots, one sprig parsley, salt and pepper, four large peeled potatoes, one peeled onion, three-quarters pint of milk. Method.—Slice potatoes thinly. Place a layer in a greased baking dish. Chop onion, carrots and parsley finely. Season potato with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle with vegetable mixture. Cover with a gammon, after removing rind, and cutting ham, in flour. Repeat layers. Add milk. Bake in a slow oven for two hours. Enough for four persons. Tomato Croquettes. Six medium tomatoes, three tablespoonfuls minced onions, pepper, salt and paprika to taste, fried parsley to garnish, two egg yolks, three tablespoonfuls minced cold ham, two and a half ounces stale breadcrumbs, one saltspoonful tarragon vinegar. Fat to fry. Method. —Scald, peel and chop tomatoes to a pulp. Add one and a half cupfuls crumbs. Bring to boil, then take off and stir in ham, onion, vinegar, egg-yolks, and pepper, salt, and paprika to taste. Cool on a plate and, when firm, shape into small sausages. Egg and crumb. Fry in. deep, smoking hot fat till crisp, and brown. Garnish with fried parsley. Enough for six persons. Whipped Cream With Almonds. Thirty blanched almonds, six tablespponfuls powdered sugar, one egg yolk, one salt vanilla, one quart thick cream. Method- —Cut the "blanched almonds very small, place them, with the powdered sugar, in a saucepan, and stir them continually until they are brown. Pour them on a well-sugared board; crush them with a rolling pin to small crumbs. Stir together the egg yolk and four tablespoonfuls of the thick cream. Then add vanilla, and the almonds. Turn the mixture into a dish and cover with whipped cream. Fairy Cakes. Beat np well one egg, two ounces castor sugar, two ounces self-raising flour, and flavouring. Put in small paper cases ajid bake for ten minuted in a light gas oven.