The "Queen" cookery books: Entrees

dripping or butter ; then pour over it a wineglassful of light French wine and the same of good clear stock, and bake in a quick oven from ten to fifteen minutes, watching it closely, and adding a very little more stock should it show signs of drying up too much. This is the general rule for preparing a gratin of any kind, but it is naturally subject to variations according to the foundation meat; for instance if you intend to gratiner beef or mutton, alternate the meat slices with sliced tomato or parboiled Spanish onions ; if veal or lamb, or chicken is used, employ sliced cucumber, artichoke bottoms, or mushrooms, whilst for veal or chicken some thinly sliced ham or tongue will also be found an addition ; many people also approve of the addition of finely grated Parmesan cheese to the breadcrumbs and it undoubtedly adds a flavour ; then others use red wine such as claret or Burgundy and brown stock for brown meat, leaving the white wine and the white stock for the more delicate meats, in short like most other rechauffes the gratin may be varied to suit individual tastes. Next comes the familiar (far too familiar) mince, almost as great a trial as hash, yet, like it, capable of all sorts of dainty developments, if we will accept the French hachis for our English mince. (By the bye, how few people seem to realise that the Scotch “ haggis ” is only a form of the French “ hachis.”) To begin with, please remember that for a mince deserving the name, the mincer must be taboo, unless its knives are kept in such a delicate condition of cleanliness and sharpness as to ensure the meat being really minced (hackee, or chopped), and not torn and reduced to a stringy pulp, as is all but invariably the case if entrusted to the ordinary cook’s mincing machine. Choose your meat, whatever it may be, and remember, if thriftily inclined, that the more kinds of meat used the merrier. Remove all skin, sinew, gristle, and a good deal of the fat, and chop it up as finely as possible with a sharp chopping knife ; add to it a fifth of the quantity of meat, of sausage meat, and half as much breadcrumbs as you have sausage meat, seasoning it with pepper, salt, and a little parsley. Now put into a pan a nice piece of butter, according to the amount of meat you have, and, as soon as this melts, lay in a finely chopped shallot or a small onion, and let it brown delicately, keeping it stirred in the process. (Be careful your pan does not rest flat on the coals, or its contents will certainly catch.) Then turn into it the meat, &c., sprinkle it with a teaspoonful of fine flour, and keep it well stirred over the fire for five minutes, at all events (more if you have a rather large quantity of meat), then pour into it from half a gill of good stock upwards, according to quantity, and let it cook very gently over a slow fire for half an hour, when you add a tiny squeeze of* lemon juice, and serve garnished with fried croutons, plain or spread with savoury butter. This may be varied by serving it in a wall of potato, either nicely mashed and browned, or served in the form of potato snow. Or, again, a little curry powder may be fried with the onion, the mince being prepared exactly as before, plus the curry powder, and served in a wall of rice ;