A guide to modern cookery

Add one and one-half tablespoonfuls of blanched asparagustops, stewed in butter, to the omelet. Having dished the omelet, open it along the middle, and lay a nice little faggot of asparagus-tops in the interspace. 515—OMELET A LA PROVENCALE Rub the bottom of the omelet-pan lightly with a clove of garlic; put two tablespoonfuls of oil into the utensil, and heat it until it smokes. Throw into the oil a fine, peeled, pressed, and pipped tomato, cut into dice and besprinkled with a pinch of concassed parsley. Cook it quickly, tossing it the while, and add it to the beaten and seasoned eggs. Make the omelet in the usual way. N.B.—The nature of this preparation demands the use of oil in treating the tomato, but, failing oil, clarified butter may be used. 516—OMELET WITH KIDNEYS Add to the omelet a tablespoonful of calf’s or sheep’s kidney, cut into dice, seasoned with salt and pepper, sautéd quickly in butter, and cohered by means of half-glaze. Having dished the omelet, divide it down the middle, lay some reserved kidneydice in the interspace, and surround with a thread of half-glaze. 517—OMELET A LA ROSSINI Add to the beaten and seasoned eggs one tablespoonful of cooked foie gras and as much truffle, cut into small dice. Having dished the omelet, place in the middle thereof a small rectangular piece of heated foie gras, and two slices of truffle on either side of the latter. Surround it with a thread of halfglaze flavoured with truffle essence. 518—OMELET WITH TRUFFLES Add to the omelet one tablespoonful of truffles, cut into dice. Make the omelet, dish it, and lay a row of fine slices of truffles upon it. Surround it with a thread of melted meat-glaze. 519—HOT LAPWINGS’ AND PLOVERS’ EGGS Note.—In the chapter on hors-d’ceuvres, where recipes were given which deal with lapwings’ eggs, I made a few remarks relative to their freshness, and indicated the procedure for boiling them soft and hard. 520—SCRAMBLED LAPWINGS’ EGGS Proceed as for ordinary scrambled eggs, all the recipes given for the latter being perfectly applicable to lapwings’ eggs. They require, however, very great care in their preparation, and it should be borne in mind that one ordinary hen’s egg is equal to about three lapwings’ eggs. 521—LAPWINGS’ EGGS A LA DANOISE Poach the eggs as directed in the recipe dealing with the process, and dish them up in tartlet-crusts garnished with a purée of smoked salmon. 522—OMELET OF LAPWINGS’ EGGS Proceed as for other omelets, but one ordinary hen’s egg is generally added to every six lapwings’ eggs in order to give more body to the preparation. All the omelet recipes already given may be applied to lapwings’ eggs. 523—LAPWINGS’ EGGS A LA ROYALE Garnish as many small tartlet moulds as there are eggs with chicken-forcemeat. Poach, turn out the moulds, and hollow out the centres of the tartlets in such wise as to be able to set an egg upright in each. Place a soft- or hard-boiled egg on each forcemeat tartlet, coat the eggs with a light purée of mushrooms, besprinkle with chopped truffles, and arrange in a circle on a dish. 524—LAPWINGS’ EGGS AU TROUBADOUR Select as many large morels as there are eggs. Remove the stalks, and widen the openings of the morels; season them, and stew them in butter. Boil the lapwings’ eggs soft. Garnish each stewed morel with an egg; set them on little tartlet-crusts garnished with a light, foie-gras purée, and arrange them in a circle on a dish. COLD EGGS The preparation of cold eggs is not limited by classical rules; it rests with the skill and artistic imagination of the operator, and, since fancifulness and originality are always closely allied to artistic imagination, it follows that the varieties evolved may be infinite.