A guide to modern cookery

Rock-salt.—This is found on the market in the forms of cooking and table-salt. If the kitchen is only supplied with cooking salt, the quantity required for several days should be dried, pounded in the mortar, and passed through a fine sieve; and then put aside in a dry place for use when wanted. Even table-salt, as it reaches one from the purveyor, sometimes needs drying and passing through a sieve before being used. Spiced Salt.—This condiment, which serves an important purpose in the preparation of pies and galantines, is obtained from a mixture of one Ib. of table salt with three and one-half oz. of spices (No. 181). This kind of salt should be carefully kept in a very dry place. 2. THE VARIOUS KINDS OF GARNISHES FOR SOUPS, RELEVES, AND ENTREES, HoT oR COLD STUFFINGS AND FORCEMEATS 189—VARIOUS PANADAS FOR STUFFINGS Panadas are those preparations which go to make the leason of forcemeats and which ensure their proper consistence when they are cooked. They are not necessary to every forcemeat ; for the mousseline kind, which are the finest and lightest, do not require them. Nevertheless, they are useful for varying the taste and the uses of forcemeats, and I thought it advisable to introduce them here. The reader will thus be able to use either forcemeats with a panada base or mousseline forcemeats; in accordance with the requirements and his resources. 190—A. BREAD PANADA Put one-half Ib. of the crumb of bread and one-half oz. of salt into one-half pint of boiling milk. When the crumb has absorbed all the milk, place the saucepan over a brisk fire and stir with a spatula until the paste has become so thick as not to cling any longer to the end of the spatula. Turn the contents of the saucepan into a buttered platter, and lightly butter the surface of the panada in order to avoid its drying while it cools. 191—B. FLOUR PANADA Put into a small saucepan one-half pint of water, a little salt, and two oz. of butter. When the liquid boils add five oz. of sifted flour thereto, stirring the while over a brisk fire until it reaches the consistence described in the case of bread panada. Use the same precautions with regard to cooling. 192—C. FRANGIPAN PANADA Put into a stewpan four oz. of sifted flour, the yolks of four eggs, a little salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Now add by degrees three oz. of melted butter and dilute with one-half pint of boiled milk. Passthrough a Strainer, stir over the fire until the boil is reached; set to cook for five minutes while gently wielding the whisk, and cool as in the preceding cases. 193—CHICKEN FORCEMEAT WITH PANADA AND BUTTER Remove the tendons from, and cut into cubes, one Ib. of chicken-meat. Pound, and add one-third oz. of salt, a little pepper and nutmeg. When the meat is well pounded remove it from the mortar, and place in its stead one-half lb. of very cold panada (see No. 190). Finely pound this panada, and then add one-half lb. of butter thereto, taking care that the two ingredients mix thoroughly. Now put in the chicken-meat, and wield the pestle vigorously until the whole mass is completely mixed. Finally, add consecutively two whole eggs and the yolks of four, stirring incessantly the while and seeing that each egg is only inserted when the one preceding it has become perfectly incorporated with the mass. Rub through a sieve, put the forcemeat into a basin, and smooth it with a wooden spoon. Test the forcemeat by poaching a small portion of it in salted, boiling water. This test, which is indispensable, allows of rectifying the seasoning and the consistence if necessary. If it be found that the forcemeat is too light, a little white of egg could be mingled with it; if, on the cther hand, it should be too stiff add a little softened butter.