The housekeeper's guide to preserved meats, fruits, vegetables, &c

cupboard. By its means any cold dish can be made handsome at a few minutes’ notice, more especially if she also take the precaution to have by her a small quantity of glaze. Macedoines can also be used as a garnish for different dishes served hot. One of the prettiest dishes in which macedoines can be brought into use is mutton cutlets with macedoines. First of all, with regard to cutlets, which can be either cooked plain on a gridiron, or fried after having been egged or bread-crumbed. I would here advise housekeepers strongly on the subject of mutton cutlets cut from loin of mutton. There are few dishes more wasteful than roast loin of mutton, so often met with in English households. Where young children are concerned, and are made to finish up all they take, perhaps the dish is not so very extravagant, but in the houses of other persons, who are at liberty to leave what they lilce, it will be too often found that loin of mutton is treated as follows — the bone is left half picked on the plate, and very often the end is left entirely. Now in ordinary households it is extremely unpleasant to be placed in the dreadful alternative of waste on the one hand or warming-up and using what is left on the plates on the other. For my own part I should be in favour of using up the bones on the plates. There is a good deal of nonsense about the horror of using-up pieces left. Still it is a disagreeable subject, and the best way to overcome the difficulty is as follows : — Take a loin of mutton and bone it. If you do not know how to bone it, get the butcher to do it. However, boning is a very simple process. The great secret of all success in boning is this — never let the edge of the knife leave the bone. By this means, and this means only, there will be no waste. The boning having been successfully accomplished, the bones, which will be very bare, can be used for making soup ; part of the fat can be trimmed off and run down for dripping. The end can be cut off, trimmed, and made into a nice little dish, Irish stew being the best form in which it can be served. The ends can be stewed for a long time, as they are considerably tougher than the other part, and an Irish stew forms a very excellent method of serving up these ends. Now with regard to the prime part itself. Cut the cutlets in slices rather less than half an inch in thickness. Now that the whole of the bone has been removed there is no difficulty in cutting them. If the bone had been left in the cutlets would have been very unequal in thickness. Next give each piece of meat a slap with the side of the chopper. Then flour it, dip it in beaten-up egg, and cover it with some dry bread-crumbs. Add a little pepper and salt. If the cutlets are required to be very nice, various other tilings may be added. For instance, a little dry mushroom-powder, a little powdered dried truffle, some dried scraped ham, etc., can be pressed into the raw meat before it is floured. When the cutlets are dry dip them in well beaten up egg, and then cover them with some very dry bread-crumbs. Put the cutlets by ready for use. There is a very great art in serving mutton cutlets. The chief secret is this — the cutlets should not be cooked till the very last moment. Good mutton cutlets should be a bright golden-brown outside, and when cut they should be red inside.