MEALS AND HOW TO COOK THEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13368, 24 December 1906, Page 9

MEALS AND HOW TO COOK THEM.

.SUPPER DISHES. i BY. CORDON BLEU. The following suggestions for some wupper dishes arc suitable for theatre suppers and occasions when something more than light refreshments are- required. 1 have in this paper made up a. menu of hot and cold dishes, but will also give details of a cold collation on a future occasion.

At this season of the year there arc often children's parties to be thought of. I append a menu of a sit-down supper suitable for young folks. It must be confessed that the average child of to-day is by no means so easily satisfied as the youngster of a generation ago, he or she having become, as it were, a connoisseur in food, and quite ready to criticise any dish with their elders, so that it becomes daily more and more difficult to combine hygienic attention to correct food' with due regard to juvenile palates and tastes. i shall, at all events, endeavour to coinbine the two, and venture to hope that the dishes composing the menu I here submit will at least meet with the youngsters' approval. A THEATRE SUPPER. Sea Crayfish Mayonnaise. (Hot) Mutton Cutlets Andalouse. Aspics of Chicken and Tongue. Iced Asparagus, Cream Sauce. (Hot) Orange Omelette Soufflee. Devilled Ham Croutes. SKA CRAYFISH MAYONNAISE. Procure a cooked sea crayfish, remove the meat carefully from the- tail, and cut from it a few neat slices, chop the remainder, mixing with it sonic finely-chop-ped gherkens, parsley and a few capers, adding sufficient thick Mayonnaise sauce to bind the whole. Wash and well drain some lettuce, which break in small pieces with the fingers, put in a basin' and season with one spoonful of Tarragon vinegar, salt, pepper!, and two spoonfuls of Lucca salad oil. Having boiled hard and put to get quite cold three eggs, cut them in four, and with the aid of a little gelatine dissolved in a few drops of water stick the quarters in an oval or circle on a china dish, placing them with the yolks outwards. When set, place a good layer of your .seasoned lettuce salad in the circle of eggs, finishing high in the middle. On this put a layer of the chopped up fish, raising-,to a point in the middle. ' Now coat the whole over with some stiff' Mayonnaise since, and place round on the sauce just above the circle of eggs, your slices of crayfish. Ornament the top part of the Mayonnaise with slices of gherken, and some capers, and stick the inside of a heart of lettuce on the top. Place .some alternate slices of beetroot and cucumber around en the dish, and it is ready to serve. .„ CUTLETS OF MUTTON ANDALOUSE. . Take a cupful of Carolina rice, and having melted a piece of butter the size of an egg. in a stewpan put in your rice, together with a little finely-chopped oniou (or better still shallot), and stir sharply over the fire for some ten minutes, taking care not to. colour the rice; now add two cupfuls of good broth, season highly with salt and pepper, and add three tablespooni'uls of tomato catsup. Stir, over the fire until it boils, then "place a cover on the saucepan, and put in a medium hot oven to finish cooking for thirty minutes, during which time it must not be touched with a spoon. When taken from the oven the rice will have absorbed the .broth, and on , "- touching'with a fork .each' grain' will detach, but oh the other hand, if stirred with a spoon, the rice would all stick together. Put by to keep warm. Cut some tomatoes in slices, season with salt, pepper, and chopped parsley, place on a buttered tin, and put in a hot oven for about eight minutes, in which time they ought _ to be cooked. Now trim some cutlets from a neck of mutton, cleaning with the. knife the bone at the end. Carefully fry in lard, giving them a. nice brown colour, drain the lard from the pan, and replace by some meat glaze thinned out with a little water, to the consistence of half • . glaze, bring the cutlets almost to the boil, and at once remove from fire. Make a border of potatoes on your dish, arrange the cutlets around on the top, fill the centre with your rice, sauce the" cutlets with some of the half glaze. Put the cooked slices of tomatoes in the dish around the *>» outside of the border and serve. For the potato border mash' three 'or four v boiled potatoes, and add the yolk of an egg. salt and pepper, roll out with the hand, and arrange on the dish.circular shape, flattening the top and sides with the handle of a tablespoon. LITTLE ASPICS OF CHICKEN AND TONGUE. Boil a chicken, and also a tongue, or, for the latter, a tinned tongue will do as well. Take .some fancy tin moulds (cutlet shape ! an 1 perhaps the best), lay them in a tin j with some very cold water, or a little ice and water. Now make some aspic in the usual way, and nut a layer in each mould. Now cut your chicken and tongue cold into slices, stamp them out a size smaller, and of the shape of your mould. Pass the contents of a tin of peas through a line sieve; add some thick bechamel sauce, in which you have pill a. little gelatine, melted with a few drops of wafeer; season highly with spit, pepper, and a pinch of castor sugar. Now put A layer of the puree of peas on a fillet of tongue ; place it tongue"* downwards in your mould, put a fillet of the chicken on ~ top. and fill up your mould with spice, which is on the point of .setting. Do. half your number of moulds by placing the tongue in first, and the ether half by placing the fillet of chicken first, putting the puree oi peas on the piece of chicken, instead of the tongue ; by this means, when dished up, each alternate mould will be red. and also white, thus having a pretty effect. Cut a piece of bread out to make a bonier, or two hall-circles will do; fry them a pale colour in hot fat; drain well op paper, and when cold mask them with some thick bechamel j sauce, strew thickly with chopped parsley. j and put on your dish: fill in the centre i with chopped aspic, and arrange j your cutlets on the border, thick end down, and the points meeting in the centre on the top of the aspic. Place a little bunch of parsley on the top, i and a little chopped aspic around in the dish, and serve. If two half-circles are ] cut out. for the border, when fried they are | fixed together with little pegs of wood to j make a round, and when covered with the j sauce will not show the joint. If liked, of j course, in place of the aspic in the centre of your dish, peas or mixed vegetables can be'substituted, and in that case a little melted aspic must be mixed with the cold vegetable to bind them, and also enable them to be dished up to a point to accommodate the aspics. ICED ASPARAGUS. CREAM SAUCE. Lay the contents of a tin or two of j asparagus, according to the number of guests, allowing about .six asparagus to j each, in a tin, and place the tin in pounded j ice. For the sauce put the yolks of three | eggs in a small .stewpan, with a knob of j butler, a squeeze of lemon, andateaspoonful of milk ; whisk over hot water until a custard is formed, taking care not to boil it, - or the eggs will curdle ; now whisk in sharply little pieces of butter until you have i used about two oi three ounces ; then season I with salt, pepper, lemon-juice, or vinegar, and when cold add a gill of whipped cream. —- Instead of the cream, while the sauce is r~ hot, about a gill of good bechamel sauce .an be used, but the cream, is recommended. Serve (he sauce cold in a' boat, and dish the asparagus up on a serviette.

ORANGE OMELETTE SOUFFLE.

This is a very nice sweet, and if the directions are carefully followed out will be as light as a feather. Various flavours can be used, but orange or lemon give, perhaps, the best results with fruits. For orange flavour rub the rind of two oranges on two lumps of sugar, using the four sides of each lump, and with a roller, or a thick round bottle, rub the sugar to a powder. Put two yolks of eggs on a round-bottomed basin, and stir briskly with a wooden spoon, shaking in tin: while a small handful of castor sugar. Stir thus for about 10 minutes ; add the orange sugar, stirring for a minute longer; then add carefully the well-whipped whites of four or five eggs, according to the size omelette you wish to make. Now heap up the mixture lightly on a china dish, shape it with a knife, make a hole in the centre, to allow of the middle getting cooked ; score the outside "with the point of a knife, dust with castor sugar, and put in a medium hot oven for about eight to 10 minutes; place the dish on another the same size, but cold, and serve immediately. as, if left any time, the omelette will spoil. As the dish on which the sweet is baked is very hot it is advisable to place it on a cold dish for the convenience of handing round, but, of course, the omelette must not be. removed from its hot dish. DEVILLED HAM CROUTES. . Fry some slices of bread, cut round and of about the thickness of a half-crown in clean lard or butter,-and drain on paper. Now pass through a mincing machine two or three times some lean and fat ham, add a little beachmel sauce, dash of anchovy sauce, cayenne pepper and some Bengal or other clnitnee, taking care that the mix; hire is rather highly flavoured with the cayenne pepper and chutnee. Pile up the ham on the crusts or " croutes" of bread, and make up a. "devil" paste as already indicated in my previous articles, keeping on the stiff side, and cover your ham over with the aid of a tableknife, finishing each one with a 'little knob of butter. Pass in a very hot oven for six or seven minutes, dish up on a serviette, on a hot dish, and serve at once. SIT-DOWN SUPPER FOR A * CHILDREN'S PARTY. MENU. Little Cases of Schnapper. Stuffed Savoury Rolls. Savoury Cream Soufflets. Boned and Stuffed Turkey. Forequarter Lamb. Boiled Ham. .Roast Chicken and Tongue. Strawberry Fool. Orange Jelly. Banana Trifle. Russian Jelly. Mince Pies. Plum Pudding. Crystallised Fruits. Cakes. CASES OF SCHNAPPER. For the cases of schnapper, poach some fillets of the fish, let get cold in the liqueur, then cut up in medium-sized dice, mixing with them a tin of Barataria shrimps. (These shrimps are preserved in paper-lined tins, and are quite good and wholesome. Make some nicely seasoned fish sauce in the usual way, not having it too thick; when cool, mix in the fish mixture and fill little paper ramequen' cases. Sprinkle a little finely-chopped parsley over each, and place a prawn on each, with a few dice of chopped aspic. Dish up on a napkin and garnish with parsley. ,*, STUFFED SAVOURY ROLLS. Take some cooked roast beef, mince it up very fine with a, knife, or pass through the mincing machine, and season to taste, and mix with it some good brown sauce. Procure some little oval or round rolls. Cut a slice from the top, scoop out the crumb, and fill with the meat mixture, put a little shredded lettuce on top, and dish up.on serviette. ..-,,. SAVOURY CREAM SOUFFLETS. Put;ii'layer of aspic'jelly :in trie bottom of some little dariole moulds, and put in ice or cold water to cool. . Take the meat of a. boiled rabbit or a boiled fowl, and pass it several times through the mincing machine, mix with it some good white sauce, made .from the liqueur the rabbit or chicken was boiled in, and .season with salt, pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg, and add sufficient melted gelatine to stiffen the whole. When cooled, but not set, add a gill of whipped cream, cutting it into the mixture lightly with a spoon. Fill up your moulds, previously lined with aspic jelly,.and put away to set. Cut a- piece of bread to a size smaller titan your dish, cut the edges, fry a light golden colour, turn out your creams, arrange them on the bread, and put around little heaps of shredded lettuce and slices of cooked beetroot. BONED AND STUFFED TURKEY. Bone a fair-sized turkes leaving the drumstick and wing bones, to facilitate the trussing of the bird. Now make a veal stuffing with fresh breadcrumbs, chopped suet, savoury herbs, salt, pepper, a knob of butter, and, binding the' whole with two or three eggs, with this stuff the crop or front part of your bird. On the other hand, having purchased a few chicken livers, pass them through a sieve, together with the liver of the turkey, and mix with some sausage meat, and stuff the interior of the body of the- bird with this; now carefully form up the bird and truss it into shape, tie on several slices of fat bacon, and put to roast, basting frequently, and removing the fat bacon just before the bird is done, in older to colour the breast. In cooking, allow about 25 minutes to the pound, and in this case a little longer on account of your bird being stuffed with the raw sausage. When, cooked set aside to cool, with the breast downwards, to allow the juices to settle in the bieast, and thus keep that part of the bird from eating dry, which is often the case. Set up on a dish stud garnish. This way of serving a turkey will facilitate its carving. BOILEO HAM Served with the turkey is cooked in the ordinary way, the skin taken off, and after rubbing the ham with a little cold lard cover with browned breadcrumbs. Ido not advise a ham braised, or cooked in wine, for a children's party, but if desired a recipe can be given for such. FOREQUARTER LAMB, ROAST CHICKEN, AND TONGUE. These require no special details, being roasted in the usual way. For the joint of lamb, when done, and while still hot, rub over with a piece of butter, and strew over plentifully some chopped mint Or mint and parsley mixed. This gives it a, nice appearance for the table. The chickens when cold should be cut up, and dish up alternately with some slices of tinned tongue, and garnished with parsley. STRAWBERRY FOOL, ETC. Crush some ripe strawberries with a fork, sprinkle with sugar, and three-parts fill a glass compote dish. Now whip some cream, and with a spoon, cover the dish with it. decorating the dish with some crystallised cherries cut- in thin strips. For the banana trifle, use half-stale sponge cakes, soaked with vanilla- syrup, and half-slices of banana, and a rich vanilla custard, in which you have dissolved a little gelatine; ornament with angelica and slices of banana. The orange jelly can bo made direct with any of the jelly crystals, which give very good results, and for the Russian jelly, take, any flavour jelly, and just before it sets whisk sharply, until it comes like whipped while of egg, when at once pour into your molds. Turn out like ordinary jelly. These are extremely light, and care must Ik taken in turning out on to your dish. The mincemeat for your pies, and the plum pudding. I have already given recipes for. The cakes can be assorted, and are better bought, -and the crystallised fruits arrange in little dishes about the tabic, Together with a lew almond* and raisins. \