The "Queen" cookery books: Entrees

Timbales à la Pompadour. — Take as many little timbale moulds as you require, lining a third of their number with cream aspic, another third with tomato aspic, and the last third with cucumber cream, and fill up the little moulds with shredded chicken, minced lobster, prawns or shrimps, some cold cooked mushrooms and artichoke bottoms cut into dice ; add a small spoonful of rich white veloute, and cover over with stiff aspic or some of the lining sauce, as you choose ; put them on ice till set, then serve garnished with chopped aspic, alternating the colours. Turban de Foie Gras à la d'Uxelles. — Prepare a d’Uxelles mixture thus : Into a delicately clean pan put 1lb. of well washed and minced fresh mushrooms with an ounce of butter, salt and pepper, a teaspoonful of freshly minced parsley, and the same of minced chives, or one very finely chopped shalot. Let it cook at the side of the stove for about ten minutes, then add to it half a wineglassful of sherry, half a pint of good espagnole sauce, and rather better than 1 oz. of leaf gelatine ; let this just boil up, then set it aside to cool. Prepare a good savoury jelly by dissolving 1oz. of best leaf gelatine in half a pint of well clarified consomme, and, when this is setting, line some cutlet moulds with it ; then put in a layer of the d’Uxelles mixture, which should be just on the point of setting, and on this place a nice piece of pâté de foie gras ; cover it well over with more d’Uxelles, and lastly glaze with a little savoury jelly, and put these aside to set. Turn the rest of your savoury jelly into a border mould to the depth of 1in. or 1in., and, when this is set, turn it out and mount the d’Uxelles cutlets (neatly trimmed) on this, and fill up the centre with a delicate walnut and celery mayonnaise, This dish may be garnished in various ways, as with a truffle and new potato salad, a Royale or a Montglas garnish tossed in cream chaufroix, &c., with plovers’ eggs, whole truffles cooked in champagne, crayfish or prawns, &c., as you please. Needless to say, this does not imply that all these ingredients should be used in the same dish, but simply as variations. It can never be too strongly impressed on the British cook that too many flavours and an extravagant use of expensive material are simply vulgarity and utterly destructive of culinary perfection. The appearance of chaufroix dishes is, of course, a capital feature in their preparation, and must accordingly be carefully studied ; at the same time, all over colouring and over decoration must be scrupulously avoided. Set dishes, involving waxen cupids and uneatable combinations of all kinds, are utterly out of keeping for first-class private cookery, and are tours de force that should be strictly reserved for culinary exhibitions and such like. Moreover, it is well to be able to decide whether a dish is a sweet or a savoury at the first glance if possible. I admit it is not easy when a Neapolitan ice is just as likely to be savoury as sweet, and such a curious combination as an “ iced devil ” is possible. Of course, one has Dante’s authority for considering a frozen region part of the Inferno ; still, in matters culinary, it sounds a contradiction in terms. One garnish may be mentioned which often adds to the appear-