Fifty dinners

Choose two or three small round dinner rolls which have been baked in tins, and will stand upright. Scoop out all the crumb, and fry the cases so obtained a golden yellow colour in melted butter. Drain them. Now pick enough cooked shrimps to fill them, cut these into quarter-inch pieces, toss them in melted butter, with a pinch of mace, pepper, and salt ; then pound them in a mortar, moistening them with sufficient white sauce to bring them to the consistency of thick cream, seasoning with pepper, salt, and a pinch of mace ; now fill the cases, shake a little bread-crumb over the surface of each, place them on a buttered baking-tin, and heat them for five minutes in the oven, serve as soon as the tops take colour. This recipe can be followed, substituting cooked fish of any kind, lobster, crab, or prawns. The shells, roughly chopped and boiled in water with an ounce of onion, seasoning, and a teaspoonful of dried herbs, will provide a good liquid for the white sauce] A good way of cooking old birds, applicable also to pheasants and grouse : — Prepare three old part- io8 ridges as for boiling : fill each of them with a tablespoonful of chopped onion, previously blanched, the livers and hearts of the birds minced, [illustration: Partridges seasoned with spiced pepper, salt, and rolled with soulnse . .. r , , sauce. in a slice oi boiled bacon, lake a stewpan and put into it an ounce of butter, the giblets of the birds, any scraps of meat you may have, a slice of lean bacon, a two-ounce onion cut into quarters, a few peppercorns, and a seasoning of salt and pepper : fry till turning colour, and then moisten with a pint of white broth, boil up and simmer : when you have got a broth to your mind, strain it off. Next cut two ounces of streaky bacon in pieces one inch long and half an inch thick : put half an ounce of butter into a stewpan, fry the bacon pieces therein, and when turning colour, put in the birds, and cook them for five minutes : add eight ounces of onions cut into quarters, cover all with the broth, and simmer the partridges therein very slowly until perfectly tender. When done (they will take an hour and a quarter), take them out, and drain them, replacing them in the hot pan in which they were done, with the cover on. Now strain the broth, and with it make a rich soubise sauce as follows : — Pick out the onions stewed with the birds, pass them through the sieve, and proceed with half an ounce of roux and the broth aforesaid, to make a rich puree ; when boiling hot, dish the birds, pour the onion puree over them, and serve, garnished with curls of crisply fried bacon. The roux should, of course, be prepared beforehand to prevent delay : the puree ought not to occupy more than ten minutes in preparation. The yolks of two eggs should be added to DEVILLED SARDINES. 109 it if possible. Instead of potatoes try riz a V Ilalteunc, for which please turn to Menu iv.