FoodNetArchive

Cooking for profit

1886

Page 349

Presented as published in 1886. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
ction over the awards of prizes and while even this was being but poorly attended there were a thousand " temperance lunch houses," *<coftee taverns," "oyster houses," " railway eating sta- tions," "chop houses," restaurants and hotels of every description where the real cookery exhibitions were going on and in which the public were really interested which had no more part nor lot in the Aquarium exhibition than if it had been in some distant country. They are all inter- ested in the art of cooking for large numbers but not in pieces montees. There was one good idea of a hot»l cook who entered for exhibition three sauces, but little known; that idea will be amplified in the American exhibition into a show and sampling of all known sauces. There will be a display, for prizes, of the best ways the best cooks have invented of orna- menting the individual dishes of each separate hotel dinner; there will be prizes for the best ten ways of cook- ing certain specified articles of diet and the requirement of the proper name attached to every dish. There will be exhibitions of rapid waiter- work given at dinners served to members at nominal prices for this purpose, and the specially ornamental cooks who set out very grand ban- quet tables but never succeed in getting their patrons half waited upon, will have the opportunity to look on and learn how meals are served to hundreds or thousands at once. THE END. ^ COOKIJNG FOR PROFIT. Oit Suggestions for the Decoration of Small Dishes. For Restaurant Orders and Course Dinners. Cases (caisses^ of various shapes can be made by a simple method similar to that of makino^ a kind of crisp waffle. It is well enough to have the iron or copper shapes but they are not indispensable. Take common tin patty-pans, mix up a pancake batter or the same as used for pineapple fritters, that is rather thin; even flour batter-cake will do. Make some lard hot, dip the patty- pans in, then dip the outsides in the batter, drop into the lard and fry slowly. Soon the batter becomes dry and crisp like a shell. Pull it off, drain on paper, dip the patty- pans again until you have enough. Use these shells or cases instead of puff-paste patties to fill with stewed terrapin or scrambled brains, ragout of chicken liver, etc. Very small ones as thin as paper can be used to set around a dish, some filled with grated horseradish, others Wiihrnaitre (T/iSf el butter^ with peas or aspara- gus points. Other shells or cases are made by shaping rice croquettes or potato croquettes in any desired form, egging and breading them either once or twice and frying as usual. When done of a handsome clear brown color cut out the top and re- move the inside and fill up with minced chicken, minced kidneys, any curry mixture or ragout, giblets, sweetbreads or brains. Another resource for small orna- mental dishes is the carving of raw potatoes, sweet potatoes and turnips into shapes like cups or tumblers, fry them slowly in lard or oil enough to cover them till done, drain on paper, sprinkle with salt and use them in the ways above described. Similar shapes may be cut out of bread and fried in the same way. The common method of orna- menting a spoonful of meat and sauce in an individual dish with a heart-shaped or leaf-shaped crouton of fried bread is good with the excep- tion of being too common. The 204