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

A roast oyster is an oyster placed deep shell downwards on the gridiron for a few minutes. Directly the oyster opens it is done. Be careful not to waste the liquor. These little delicious appetisers, or bons bouches, are sometimes called “ flying angels.” When cayenne pepper is added to the anchovy paste and sprinkled over the oyster they are called “ devils on horseback.” Anchovy paste is a very useful addition to the breakfast-table. A very little added to buttered toast or plain bread- and-butter will often enable a person with a delicate appetite to make a start, whose breakfast otherwise would con- sist of a cup of tea. There are very many persons who absolutely cannot eat breakfast. The doctor says, “ Oh, you should try,” and he orders a tonic. Try my tonic, viz., a piece of bread- and-butter cut as thin as a wafer. Then the slightest of smears over with anchovy paste, double the bread-and- butter over, and now try. You will probably want another piece, and having once begun the stomach is roused from its dormant state, and you will be able to follow on with more substantial food. There are many persons whose habits are of necessity late, and who require a morning’s pick-me-up in the shape of a brandy and soda before they can take any breakfast. The habit is somewhat injurious, and a thin anchovy sandwich cut as I have described will often be found to have the same effect. ANCHOVY SAUCE.— Anchovy sauce is the best known of all fish sauce. Its uses are almost unlimited. One of its great properties is the power it possesses, when used in small quantities, of bring- ing out and assisting other flavours. For instance, take the case of oyster soup. Suppose you have got the soup ready for pouring over the oysters, and as I shall describe under Oysters, you have used up a tin of oysters, added the liquor, and rubbed the tinned oysters themselves through a wire sieve. We will suppose the soup is ready ; taste it. Say you have a quart. Now add a brimming teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, and taste the soup again. What a difference ! You do not taste any anchovy, but the soup seems as if you had quite doubled the quantity of oysters used in preparing it. Anchovy sauce is added to melted butter, or, still better, handed round with it. Indeed, in every hotel and house in England anchovy sauce is a necessity with every kind of boiled and fried fish. It should also be handed with lobster sauce and shrimp sauce, as the majority of persons will be found to add more. A little anchovy sauce should be used whenever boiled fish is wanned up. Also in fish vol-aux-vents a little anchovy sauce is requisite, as well as in vol-aux-vents of oyster, shrimp, and lobster, and all other shell-fish, as well as Bisque soup. A very nice, cheap, and easily made Scotch woodcock can be made with the assistance of anchovy sauce. First make a piece of hot buttered toast. Have ready a couple of hard-boiled eggs hot. Remove the outer shells, put them in a basin with a little butter and mince them with a knife and fork. Put just enough butter to r*ake the pieces of egg c CROSSE AND BLACKWELL'S