The "Queen" cookery books: Entrees

hash-dish, now better known as the American chafing-dish (not the only thing by the way originally our own, that we have received back under a new name from our thrifty cousins across the sea, and many thanks to them for it). A chafing-dish should form an indispensable part of the table service in any daintily inclined household. Hashes may be varied almost indefinitely according to the meat to be served. Mention has been already made of beef or mutton hash, and of salmi, which is simply a hash of game specialized by its rather strongly flavoured sauce ; then there is the fricassee, a hash of poultry usually, cut into neat joints instead of being sliced (this, reckoned in England a dainty name for a dish, lies under much the same obloquy in France as does our corresponding word, “hash,” at home, for, while we say of anyone blundering that he or she “ has made a hash of it,” so the French contemptuously dub a bad cook a fricasseur, and when wishing to describe an utter muddle, say scornfully c'est une veritable fricassee ) ; then there is the emince, like our own hash produced from slices of beef or other meat, but in this case the meat in question is actually allowed to simmer steadily but gently for an hour exactly. It certainly is a delicious dish as anyone who tries the emince de bceuf aux tomates given further on will readily admit, but its chief merit depends on the exact obedience paid to the cooking time, one hour, neither more nor less. Then again there is the gratin ; this derives its name from the fact that the ingredients at the bottom of the pan, and on its surface, are gratines, or browned and caught by the beat of the disb in which they are cooked. For this purpose you require a fireproof china dish of nice appearance as it must come to the table ; the white Limoges fireproof china is about the nicest, but there are also very pretty royal blue, and rich dark green dishes now to be had, that are well worth looking at. (Of course if preferred a silver dish may be used, but in this case be very particular to stand this on a folded sheet of kitchen paper, in a baking tin with boiling water about one-third the height of the inner silver dish, all round it, or else the latter will infallibly be burned, if not altogether spoiled. This hint may be well observed by cooks anxious to reheat any little plat without turning it out of its dish, but never forget the doubled sheet of paper as this absorbs the moisture and prevents the bottom of the silver dish from catching, as it infallibly would do, even if its sides were protected by the outside water). Having chosen your dish, in shape and size according to what you intend to use it for, strew the bottom with a fairly generous layer of freshly made sifted white breadcrumbs, finely minced parsley, mushrooms, shalot, young spring onions or chives (according to what you have), and either grated fat bacon or tiny morsels of clarified dripping or butter, according to the gratin you are making ; these ingredients should properly be well mixed first, and then spread at the bottom of the dish ; season with pepper and salt, then lay in your meat, and cover it with another layer of breadcrumbs, &c. , putting on this some more tiny bits of