Fifty dinners

Now, having four nicely fried slices of bread made very hot in the oven, lay over them the kidney paste, cover with the custard, and serve as hot as possible. MENU XXVII. {A bstinence — Spruig.) Potage a la bonne femme. Filets d’anguilles k la tartare. Saumon au riz ^ la Cingalese. Asperges au beurre. (Eufs k la neige moulds. “Toasted cbeese.’’ Fry four ounces of minced onions in a stewpan with two ounces of fresh butter over a low fire, without colouring the onion, for five minutes ; next add four ounces of well-picked sorrel -leaves, , soup an ounce of chervil, and about two ounces (,,/ai^re). of lettuce-leaves, all shredded, with a saltspoonful of salt and one of castor sugar. Stir over the fire for five minutes more, and then mix in an ounce of flour ; cook this with the vegetables another five minutes, after which moisten by degrees with three gills of milk and three of water (warm), bring slowly to the boil, and simmer for thirty-five minutes. Break an egg into a small bowl (both white and yolk), beat it well, adding an ounce of butter. Take the soup off the fire, put a gill of it into the bowl with the egg, mix and melt the butter. Put four nice slices of French roll which have been dried in the oven at the bottom of the soup tureen, pour in the soup, stir into it the liaison from the bowl, and serve. Mind that the egg is thoroughly beaten, or flakes of the white will set when the soup is added to it and spoil the appearance of the whole. For bonne femme an gras moisten with broth instead of milk and water. Skin and clean an eel of about a pound in weight, cut it into pieces three inches long, put these into a stewpan, cover with fish broth, and simmer [illustration: Fried eels] seventy minutes. Let the pieces of eel sauce. get cold in the broth, then dram them. Wipe them dry, egg and bread-crumb them, and then fry in very hot fat till of a golden brown colour. Dry well, and dish up on a napkin garnished with fried parsley. Tartare sauce should be sent round in a boat separately, for which see Menu XV. A piece of salmon (say two pounds), should be procured for this. It will be found better to cut it into _ , two nice slices than to cook it entire, and 3. Salmon , -i 1 ■ with rice, to lollow the process detailed in Menu xv. Ceylon instead of ordinary boiling. When cooked lay the pieces of salmon under a weight on a flat dish, strain off the broth in which they were poached, and turn it to Cingalese sauce by following the process given for Cingalese soup (Menu iv.), but using half quantities. When required, heat the salmon up gently in the sauce ; fillets of cucumber separately cooked may be served with it as a garnish, and rice boiled as in Menu iv. should accompany. Boil the asparagus in salted water in a non-tinned vessel. If the bundle be placed upright in a frame according to Sir Henry Thompson’s method, with the TOASTED CHEESE. green ends out of the water, so that they may be steamed while the stalks are boiled, so much the better. Drain thoroughly, and dish them upon a hot silver legumière with beurre 4- Asparar , , • • TVT • gtlSWlth fondu prepared as given in Menu xix. i, utter. accompanying. A slight sharpness imparted by lemon juice, tarragon, or anchovy vinegar is an improvement.