Fifty dinners

With twopennyworth of fish cuttings make a quart of good broth, assisting it with vegetables and dried herbs, as has already been described. Procure three dozen mussels, choosing small ones. See that they are thoroughly scrubbed and freed from sand and seaweed, and cook them in the manner described at page 2. Pick the mussels from their shells, removing the hard beards from them, and lay them aside for garnish. Take the broth in which they were done, add sufficient fish broth to it to bring it to three half-pints ; thicken this with three-quarters of an ounce of butter, and the same of flour ; boil up, skim, and strain it into a bowl ; warm up again, and finish with the yolk of an egg beaten up in a coffee-cupful of the soup, and all the picked mussels. Lemons cut into quarters may be handed round. Prepare the smelts as recommended in Menu ii. Lay them in a row on a fireproof china dish, or on J34 BLACK SALSIFY IN SHELLS. a silver dish for gratins, which should be buttered and sprinkled with finely chopped parsley. Now brush over the upper sides of the smelts with beaten egg, and shake over them a nice layer of chapelurc (finely sifted brown crust raspings). Give this time to set, and then baste over with melted butter ; set the dish in the oven for about five or six minutes, and then serve the smelts in the dish, with lemon and brown bread and butter accompanying. A nice cut of turbot having been procured, cook it in the manner described for haddock in Menu xv. Cover it closely on a hot dish, while you turn the broth in which it was poached to a sauce, with potatoes. using three-quarters of a pint of it, and reducing that by fast boiling to a pint. To this add a gill measure of pounded shrimps and a tablespoonful of cream. Remove the covering from the piece of turbot, put it on another well-heated dish, pour the sauce over it, and garnish it all round with a chain of potatoes shaped as, and about the size of, plover’s eggs. These should be steamed in the patent rapid steamer, for if boiled they are apt to crumble. Scorsonera, the black-skinned salsify, can be got in the winter if you order it beforehand, although it is far less common than the white. Never peel or scrape this variety, wash it well, wipe it, boil, cool, and then peel it. Now bruise it with a silver fork, season, and moisten the pulp with good white sauce ; arrange this in shells. in buttered scallop shells, dust finely sifted crumbs over them, bake till browned slightly, and serve. The delicate oyster-like flavour ought to be carefully preserved, so abstain from spice or sauces of commerce. Cut out of a stale madeira cake a dozen round croutes, two inches and a quarter in diameter, and a quarter thick. Fry these gently in butter 5-5- Cake of a light golden colour, and set them crusts with apricots. aside to cool. As this is proceeding, make a