The "Queen" cookery books: Entrees

It is evident that these dishes can be varied ad infinitum by changing the sauces and garnishes used for them ; for instance, arrange on a hot dish some nicely mashed potato, shaping these heaps into rounds flattened on the top, and on each of these place a delicately larded grenadin (of the round sort), and then fill up the top, by means of a rose pipe and bag, with a rosette of either sauce Cambridge, Cazanova, or Creme Raifort a l’Alceste and send to table at once ; these would manifestly be grenadins a la Cambridge, or Cazanova, or a l’Alceste, according to the sauce chosen. Or, again, choose pearshaped, neatly larded grenadins, and dish them alternately with crisply fried croutons cut to match, and spread with anchovy butter, garnishing outside with scraped horseradish, and filling the centre with oyster sauce, when they could be 6tyled tournedos aux huitres, or d la Whitstable, or aux Marenncs, as you choose. Almost every chef adapts names in this way, as the fancy r strikes liim, when le thinks of some slight variation of an every day dish. Of course if this variation should happen to be somewhat out of the common, the name becomes known, and after a time passes into the kitchen vocabulary, where it takes a recognised place, like the Chateaubriand, and the cotelettes a la Reform, &c., but more often the fame is purely local and of transitory importance. In the ordinary good French menus special names, unless of first rank, are seldom given, the dish taking its name from the accessories and sauce which garnish it. This is an excellent plan, as it conveys far more idea of the nature of the dish than, say, cotelettes a la Sirdar , or filets a la presidente, both of which have ere now figured on menus de circonstance. A very delicate yet nameless dish is made by mounting each little larded round of beef on a hot artichoke bottom, previously flavoured with white pepper and salt, a little minced tarragon, oil and vinegar, and then serving it with a very rich supreme sauce round it. Another variante is to broil the round and unlarded filet , and mount it on little mounds of rather stiff mushroom puree, placing just enough very firm mayonnaise on the top to fix there a turned olive stuffed with an anchovy preserved in oil, or a little anchovy butter. It should be remembered that a touch of savoury butter, anchovy especially, both on th© dish and on the meat, adds enormously to the flavour of beef or mutton. For instance, try this : Have ready some croutons two or three sizes larger than your grenadins, lay on each of these a broiled slice of tomato, and on this again the delicately broiled grenadin, with on the top a rosette of Perigord butter. As French women say, vous m'en clirez des nouvelles, if your cook has taken trouble with the dish. For this Perigord butter, mince down five or six good sized truffles, and cook them for a few minutes in a gill of Madeira or sherry with a seasoning of pepper ; pound these when cool in a mortar, with 4oz. of butter and half of a well washed anchovy till perfectly smooth, and use.