Cassell's dictionary of cookery

I will now run through a few of the most common faults that inexperienced cooks exhibit in serving various entrees. One very common one is putting too much in one dish. The quantity should always be in proportion to the dish. Indeed, I have seen dishes so piled up that, when first handed, persons have had considerable difficulty in avoiding a sort of shower of pieces on their plate. This is, of course, rare; but it will be very often found that dishes are so filled that any attempt at ornament or garnish is simply impossible. Another equally common fault is, that when any entrees are served that require gravy, the gravy is not only too thin but too abundant. With regard to gravy poured round entrees, few maxims can be better for the cook to bear in mind than — " Little and good." Perhaps few dishes would better test a cook than hashed venison, made, say, from the remains of a haunch, and as the same remarks would equally apply to hashed mutton, a short description will not be unpractical. We all know that generally inartistic dish called hashed mutton, once the scorn of Mrs. Gamp. Certainly a large dish — large enough to hold a haunch — in which thin slices of mutton float in an ocean of thin pale gravy, surrounded by sodden sippets of toast, cut in the old-fashioned wedge pattern, does not look tempting. Suppose, however, we serve hashed venison or mutton, nicely ornamented in a silver dish, as follows — premising that, should you not possess a silver dish, we would recommend an ordinary vegetable dish instead : — First, make some good strong gravy with a good colour, using up the bone of the joint for the purpose ; get the gravy to a good consistency, like that of double cream, dark in colour, and thickened with arrowroot in preference to brown thickening. Next, in cutting up the meat, take care to avoid pieces of skin and gristle, and also avoid having thick lumps of meat. Warm up the meat in this gravy, taking care, as before, not to let the meat remain in for a longer period than absolutely necessary. ■LES — ENTRIES— GARNISHIXG. lix Should the hash be venison, a little port wine and red currant jelly can be added to the gravy ; and should it be mutton, one or two onions fried soft and of a nice brown colour, and a dessert-spoonful of mushroom ketchup, wUl be found an improvement. Kext, take the dish, and, having thoroughly warmed it, pile the meat up into a pyramid shape in the centre of the dish, leaving the border of it as bare as possible. Pour the remainder of the gravy gently over the piled-up meat, and 'place round the edge, instead of toast sippets, the following garnish : — Stamp out with some cutters a few pieces of stale bread into the shape of hearts, and fry these pieces a nice bright golden-brown colour in some lard. Place these pieces near each other round the base of the pyramid, and place one — choosing the best looking — on the top of the pyramid, with a small silver arrow stuck in it. Of course this method of preparing the hash will give rather more trouble than the ordinary inartistic method, but then the difference in the appearance of the two dishes more than repays the trouble ; the one, in fact, is an entree, and the other a dish only suitable for an early dinner for children, and which, if served in the kitchen, would too often — alas for human nature ! — be more than half wasted.