Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Or they can be set, each resting on a square of fried bread, in a flat fire-proof dish slightly buttered, each Egg being moistened with a few drops of melted butter, and then baked in the oven for five minutes. Strew some raspings of crust over them just before serving. Eggs Fareis, however, are much the best when served cold. For this pour half a pint of liquid aspic jelly into a flat dish, so that it may be three-eighths of an inch deep. When the aspic is quite cold and firm take a cutter an inch and a half in circumference, dip it in warm water, and cut out with it as many rounds of jelly as you have half -eggs. Arrange the Eggs round a dish, and chop up the remaining aspic jelly for garnish. Place in the centre cold fillets of sole masked with mayonnaise, or a cut of cold salmon masked with aspic, or a well-dressed salad. Or the Eggs may be set in a border of aspic, and little balls of shrimp butter may be placed between each Egg. Another way of serving hard-boiled Eggs is to halve them and set them upright, leaving the yolks as they are. Set each half on a square or circle of fried bread in a fire-proof dish, moisten with a little melted butter, and bake till quite hot. Serve in the same dish, with a pat of maitre d’hotel butter, or any fancy butter, the size of a shilling, melting over each half-egg. Wyvern is the only author known to me who gives full and clear directions as to Omelettes. His Omelettes are not the elaborate and decorated pudding-like creations of a chef, but the light frothy dish which is served in a minute at a French cabaret. or road-side inn. English cooks make many mistakes in Omelettes, and each mistake is fatal to success. For instance, they try to cook an Omelette over an ordinary kitchen fire, they use too many eggs, they beat the eggs, they add milk, they fold the Omelette, they fry it after it has set (I have even known a cook put an Omelette in the oven), and they take far too long over the cooking process. An Omelette cannot be cooked too quickly, and should go instantly from the pan to the plate. It should not be neatly shaped like a bolster or a crescent, for if it is it will cease to be an Omelette at all, and will become an over-cooked, heavy, leathery egg-pudding. An Omelette should never be stiff enough to take a neat shape. To begin with, the Omelette-pan must be kept for the making of Omelettes only. It must never be washed, nor rubbed with anything likely to scratch the surface. When done with, the Omelette-pan should be carefully cleaned with pieces of soft paper, and then thoroughly wiped with a clean cloth. The best Omelette-pans are those made of fire-proof French china, with sloping sides ; a ten-inch pan is ample for a three-egg Omelette, and a tvTelve-inch pan for one of six eggs. An ordinary kitchen fire is of no use in making Omelettes, for they absolutely require a clear brisk fire under the pan. The kitchen fire will only answer if it can be brought up nearly level with the hot-plate, with a surface of clear live coals. The Chafing Dish, with its powerful spirit-lamp, is by far the best thing to use in cooking Omelettes ; and it has the additional advantage of being so portable and so easily managed that the Omelette can be cooked in an ante-room, or even in the dining-room, and served without 4°3