The "Queen" cookery books: Entrees

Cold mutton, if cut into neat little wedge-shaped pieces and marinaded as described in the first chapter, then masked with Chevreuil sauce (stiffened with from joz. to |oz. of leaf gelatine to the half pint of sauce when boiled in, and served with any salad convenient — preferably French bean salad, made by tossing some cold cooked beans in a mixture of oil, lemon juice, and seasoning to taste), is a very dainty form of “ cold mutton.” The plain cold mutton can also be turned into an attractive dish if coated with tomato aspic and served with any kind of salad tossed in mayonnaise. Wedge-shaped fillets cut from cold roast beef are excellent if masked with Lorraine sauce, i.e., a gill, each of good brown sauce, tomato puree or conserve, and aspic, with half a wineglassful of sherry, and a teaspoonful of chili vinegar, all just boiled up together with a seasoning of black pepper, salt, and caster sugar, then used when just setting, and served with a mayonnaise of oysters and crisped celery. If you have time to prepare it, Neapolitan sauce is delicious with cold roast beef, made thus : Scrape a nice stick of horseradish very finely, and put it on the fire with 2oz. of glaze (or Liebig Co.’s extract of meat), a small pot of currant jelly, half a pint of red wine, and half a gill of much reduced espagnole sauce, brought to the boil with j[-oz. of leaf gelatine, and simmered together for twenty minutes, then tammied and either used as a mask or left on ice and used as a sauce, as you please. While on the subject of mayonnaise, it may be well to remark that many a good plated dish is irremediably spoilt by the acid of tlie dressing; therefore if you are going to use one of these dishes run over it all a layer of aspic jelly about the thickness of a florin and let this set quite hard before arranging the mayonnaise in it. Tins will effectually protect the dish, and is easily removed by washing the latter in boiling water. To coat the dish you proceed exactly as in coating a mould, i.e., you jDour the jelly, when just on the point of setting, into the dish and turn the latter round and round in your hands till the slowly coagulating jelly is evenly distributed over its surface. Lastly there are the souffles glaces, and the coquilles, or cases, en mayonnaise. These are very simply prepared. For the souffle, mince down the meat m 2 rather coarsely and either season it with a plain oil and vinegar dressing, or with mayonnaise of any kind. Have ready a neatly papered souffle dish, and lay in first a layer of aspic whipped to a stiff froth, then a layer of the seasoned meat, then more whipped aspic, and proceed thus till the dish is full right to the top of the papered band, and leave it on ice till set, when you remove the paper band, and send to table. This can be made with any scraps of meat, fish, flesh, fowl, or game as you please, of course varying the dressings to suit. For instance for white meats use white mayonnaise, or Maximilian sauce (for this adding enough tomato puree to tartare sauce to get it to a delicate pale pink) ; or Irlandaise sauce (a gill each of rich, thick mayonnaise, stiffly whipped cream, and aspic jelly, seasoned to taste with tarragon vinegar, coralline pepper, and caster sugar, with enough greening to bring it all to a faint green; then stir into it the shred meat, and about h