Practical home cookery

A cod-fish, by-the-bye, is not a particularly easy dish for a cook to serve properly done and yet looking really nice. I shall never forget the look of dismay on a certain face when the cover was taken off a remarkably fine cod that had been specially sent down from a famous City fishmonger. The cook, too, was really a good one, and knew that raw cod-fish is simply uneatable. Probably the man, in bringing up the fish, had shaken the dish somewhat roughly, or set it down on the table with too much of a bang. However, the whole of the meat had fallen from the bones in a sort of shower on to the dish, and the gaunt skeleton remained alone, an awful sight, like some of those pictures of the desert with the remains of a camel being hovered over by one or two vultures. In fact, it looked so exceedingly ridiculous that nearly every one laughed, in which laughter the host wisely joined. It was indeed a pretty kettle of fish ! It is, however, in the entrees and joints where the great saving will be found. First let us roughly guess the cost of the old dinner : Sirloin of beef, or haunch, about 14 lb., 14s., taking of course present prices ; two capons, los. ; tongue, 6s. 6d. ; small ham, 12s. ; pigeon pie, say 3s. 6d., which would be cheap ; oyster patties, eight at 6d. each, 4s. ; beef olive, 2 lb. of steak, etc., 2S. 6d. ; curried rabbit, the rabbit being is. 6d., 2s. ; stewed kidneys, say is. 6d. Now this all added up comes to £2 i6s. Next let us take the other dinner : One fowl, 3s. 6d. ; mushrooms, one tin, pd. ; cream, 3d. ; lobster, 2S. ; eggs and spinach, is. ; leg of mutton, 8 lb., 8s. ; calf’s liver for forcemeat, 3d. ; larks, one dozen, is. 6d. ; about i^ lb. of ham or bacon, is. 6d. ; which, added up, comes to 17s. pd. Of course it will be said that in the first dinner there was plenty left to keep the house for several days, and in the second but very httle. This is perfectly true ; but it is this of which I complain. The old-fashioned style was, when ten people came to dinner, to cook enough for thirty. This seems to me to be folly. Of course some allowance must be made for the character of the visitors ; the little dinner A la Russe we have mentioned would be exceedingly unsuited to hungry schoolboys, or an agricultural labourers’ feast ; but then one doesn’t ask this sort of people to late dinners. The average guest is one who has had a substantial lunch — in the case of ladies — or one whose appetite is jaded with worry and anxiety, and requires a certain amount of tickling. The same dinner would not do for a dealer on the Stock Exchange, and a healthy country gentleman, who spends half his time on horseback, and has not a care in the world. We mention this, as one of the arts of giving dinners is to adapt the dinner to the guests, and the guests to one another. But we must now turn to the practical part, which is, how to make the chicken cutlets, etc. First, early on the morning previous to the dinner, boil the fowl in some clear stock or some water ; take it out and let it get cold ; cut off all the meat, cutting the breast into thin slices ; scrape all the bones, and place the