Entrees made easy

Pick, wash, and dry the parsley thoroughly. Have ready some hot fat from which a very pale blue vapour is beginning to rise, drop in the parsley, only leaving it long enough just to crisp. Drain on apiece of kitchen paper in front of the fire. Frying Batter. Whip 2 eggs, and mix in with them about 2 tablespoonsful of flour (enough, that is, to make a stiff batter) ; then add slowly to this J of a pint of milk, and salt and pepper to taste ; cover and leave it for 1 or 2 hours. Anything that is to be fried must be quite dry before it is dipped in this. To Marinade Meat. It is well worth the trouble to marinade fillets of beef, mutton cutlets, and such like, especially if the meat is not very tender, and rather dry. Put into a plate 1 gill of salad oil, | gill of vinegar, 1 small shallot, a sliced onion, 1 bay leaf, 4 or 5 cloves, 8 peppercorns, 1 saltspoonful of salt, a strip of thinly pared lemon rind, 1 or 2 sprays of parsley and thyme, and leave the meat to soak in this for an hour upwards. CHAPTER II Cutlets are always looked upon as a great standby, and when at her wits' end, the unfortunate housekeeper proposes cutlets with a sigh of relief. But although a very everyday dish, it is by no means one that is always properly prepared. There is really quite an art in trimming a cutlet, but once thoroughly grasped it presents but few difficulties. First of all when ordering cutlets, always see that the neck of mutton is properly hung, and have the chine bone (that is the top of the ribs) removed by the butcher, as then the joint can easily be divided into cutlets by the cook cutting halfway between each bone with a sharp, strong knife. If however the neck is a large one, the line of the bone should be followed, allowing a small margin all round, and thus leaving a boneless piece of meat between every two cutlets. There are always seven cutlets in a neck of mutton, and, therefore, if more than this number are required, the boneless pieces of meat must also be trimmed, and served alternately with the cutlets proper. Take each cutlet separately, place it on a wetted meat board, and with a wetted knife, or even a wetted rolling pin, beat it carefully into shape, so as to make the meat level with the bone, then trim off all superfluous fat and skin ; put the point of the knife in just where the lean meat really ends, cut right down to the bone, cutting away everything down to the tip, and scrape the bone quite clean. When the cutlets are all trimmed, cut the bones to equal length ; they are then ready to be cooked. But as well as neck cutlets there are the loin cutlets or noisettes, which are certainly juicier, but require even more careful trimming to make them dainty, and not simply unappealing-looking chops. Remove the meat whole from the loin, and divide this into cutlets of the desired thickness. If the loin has been already jointed, free each cutlet from the bone; in either case trim off all superfluous fat, roll