The handy dictionary of cookery

Melt in a saucepan one ounce of butter ; stir into it one ounce of flour, then half a pint of milk ; stir to boiling. Add a little salt, a grain of cayenne pepper, and the liquor from half a tin of oysters. Stir carefully, drop in the oysters cut in half, remove it from the fire, and serve hot. Oyster Soup. Melt in a saucepan two ounces of butter, cook in it one tablespoonful of corn-flour; add two quarts of fish stock, made from the bones of fish {see Fish Stock) ; a little grated nutmeg, salt, cayenne pepper, the liquor from a tin of oysters. Stir to boiling; allow it to boil ten minutes; this will enable all the fat and scum to rise to the top ; remove it carefully; cut in half two dozen oysters, put them in the soup tureen, and pour the boiling soup on to them. The yolks of two eggs may be whipped with a gill of cream, and put into the tureen with the oysters, and the boiling soup poured upon them. Oysters, Vol-au-Vent of. Roll out some puff pastry rather more than an inch in thickness, and with a tin cutter cut out a piece of paste an oblong shape nearly the size of a small dish ; take a smaller cutter, and cut it half through an inch from the edge. Bake it in a hot oven ; remove the lid and any soft part from the inside ; fill with the above mixture for oyster patties ; put on the lid, and serve. Parkin. Mix three-quarters of a pound of oatmeal, six ounces of treacle, two ounces of butter, two ounces of moist sugar, one ounce of ground ginger. Mix into a paste with milk ; roll it out ; form into biscuits, and bake. Parsnips, Boiled. Wash the parsnips ; scrape them from the wider end ; put into a pan with plenty of boiling water to cover them, and a little salt. Boil them two hours if large. Serve in a vegetable dish with melted butter or not, according to taste. Partridges. Patridges, like other game, should be hung for some little ' time before cooking. They should be chosen young, and are in season from the first of September to the early part of February. They may be cooked in a variety of ways. Partridges in Aspic. Take a roasted partridge ; cut off some neat fillets from the breast ; remove the skin while the bird is hot Put the fillets into a border mould. Cut all the meat from the bones of the bird ; put the bones into a pan to make aspic jelly (see Aspic Jelly.) Pour the jelly into the mould with the fillets. Set aside to become firm. Turn it out on a crystal dish •, fill the centre with radishes and lettuce leaves; arrange round the outside the following balls : — Take the meat cut from the bones of the bird, chop it very finely, rub it through a sieve. Mix with it the yolks of two hard-boiled eggs, a tablespoonful of finely chopped parsley, a very little salt and pepper, a good tablespoonful of bread crumbs, and the yolk of one raw egg. Mix all well together. Form into balls with a little flour on the hand ; brush over with a beaten egg ; toss in a sheet of paper containing bread crumbs. Have ready a pan of hot fat on the fire ; when you see a blue steam rise from it, drop in the balls and fry to a golden colour. When these are arranged round the mould, chop up some aspic jelly, of a lighter shade, and sprinkle over. Partridges, Boiled.