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The "Queen" cookery books: Breakfast and Lunch Dishes

1904

Page 19 · 7 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1904. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
this requires very dainty treatment. Sauce d ’ TJxelle ; Have ready half a pint of some rather extra thick white sauce, either Allemande, bechamel, or veloute (the first is, perhaps, the best), and add to it a good tablespoonful of d’Uxelle mixture (equal jjarts of mushroom and parsley, and half a part of shallot or chives, all finely minced and stewed in butler, with a good seasoning of pepper, salt, and lemon juice), and finish off with the liaison of one egg yolk beaten up with a spoonful of milk or cream and a tiny morsel of fresh butterEggs d'Uxelle. This sauce, when required as a sauce and not for a coating, is naturally not so much reduced and consequently thickened. CEnfs d la Portugaise. — Choose ripe, rich-coloured tomatoes, all of a size, either large enough to hold an egg in each half or else just the size for one. Scoop out the seeds and core with a spoon, pressing out as much of the water as you can; season the insides with salt, coarsely ground black pepper, minced parsley, chives, and mushrooms. Set these tomatoes on a well-buttered baking tin, break a fresh egg carefully into each, and put the pan into the hot oven till the eggs are poached. Serve on fried croutons or plain, as you please, with any sauce to taste, or preferably good meat gravy, lightly thickened with tomato pulp, and seasoned with a dash of lemon juice and coralline pepj)erCEnfs d la Portugaise. The above will be sufficient to give some idea of the variety to be obtained from eggs, but a few words must lastly be said concerning omelets, which, for some inscrutable reason, are always looked on as an impossibility by the ordinary “ good plain cook” ; 38 BBEAKFAST AND LUNCH DISHES. yet in reality few things are simpler to make. Take a new frying-j^an (and keep it only for omelets), put a small piece of butter, lard, or dripping into this, and fry it till it smokes strongly and begins to turn brown ; then pour it away, and carefully wipe out the pan with a piece of soft paper. (Please re- member an omelet pan should never he washed, on i:»ain of burning the omelet, but it should be kept delicately clean by wiping it out most carefully with soft clean paper every time it is used.) Now beat lightly together two or three whole eggs, according to the size of your omelet, till the whites and yolks are well mixed, but nothing more ; then season this egg yolk to taste with pepper, salt, minced parsley, &c. Now melt some butter in the frying-pan, using -g-oz. of butter for each eggOmelet, and when this has ceased to smoko, pour into it the egg mixture ; let it rest quietly on the fire for a minute or so till a thin layer of cooked egg has formed on the bottom of the pan. You can soon see if the egg has properly set by tilting up the pan a little, which will be shown by the puffs of steam that will rise. Now lift the edge of this set part with a broad-bladed knife (a palette knife is best) and allow as much of the uncooked egg to run under as you can, repeating this till no fluid is left and the top of the egg is as much set as for scrambled eggs. Slip the knife right under the omelet and fold over one half on to the other and draw it on to the hot dish ready for it, or, if preferred, lay the dish on the pan, reversing the latter so that the omelet falls gently over into the dish, and serve at once — for an omelet will not wait 1 EGGS. 38