Recherché entrées

Boil 2 oz. of fine semolina in \ pint of seasoned milk (bay-leaf, mace, peppercorns, and salt). When thoroughly cooked and firm enough to shape, take out the bay-leaf, mace and peppercorns and press it into a buttered oval flat mould. Turn it out when cold, wipe the shape and mask it with aspic, then place it on an oval dish and dress the little mousses neatly upon the semolina shape. Garnish the dish tastefully and serve with cold cucumber sauce (see Sauces). CASSOLETTES A LA STRASBOUKGEOISE. (p. 19.) CEUFS A lA PRINTANIERE. (P- 51.) Entrees of Game. 165 Mauviettes aux Nouilles. (Braised Larks with Small Nouilles.) 18 fat larks, mirepoix, 2 truffles, i table-spoonful Indian chutney, J lb. chicken farce, i oz. butter, i terrine or tin foie gras naturel, 2 oz. ham, i glass port wine, i gill demi-glace, i teaspoonful red currant jelly, J lb. Nouille paste (see page 28), seasoning. Bone the larks, season the inside, and coat with a very light chicken farce, to which a little rich cream has been added. Insert a fair-sized piece of foie gras in the centre of each, and truss the birds for braizing. Braize them on a bed of mirepoix in the usual way, and when done glaze them and let cool. To the mirepoix add the bones of the larks, and fry them a little over a quick fire ; pour off the fat and add the demi-glace sauce and a little stock. Reduce well, and strain into a small stew-pan. To this add the port wine, red currant jelly, and chutney, reduce again and strain. Keep hot with the larks. Make a neat border of nouille paste, fix it on an entree dish, brush over with egg and bake. With the remainder of this paste make very small nouilles (cut into fine shreds), cook these in salted water, and drain. Next fry or sauté them in butter, season to taste, and mix with finely shredded ham or tongue. Range this in the form of a pyramid in the dish with prepared border. Dress the larks on top, sauce over carefully, and send the remainder of the sauce to the table. Ortolans aux Cerises. Bone 6 or more ortolans, stuff them with a liver farce (see page 104), mixed with a few stoneless sour cherries. Place the birds in a sauté or braising pan containing I oz. melted butter, i bay-leaf and about 3 oz. cherry kernels. Cover with buttered paper and cook in the oven till the birds are tender. 1 66 Recherche Entrees. Prepare a base of farce or chicken forcemeat, poached in a border mould. Turn out on to a hot dish, cut the ortolans in halves, and range them neatly on top of the border. Pour off the butter from the sauté-pan and put in \ gill of veal gravy. Add a puree of sour cherries, previously moistened with a little port wine, and heat up. Put this in the centre of the dish, sauce over the birds with a thin demi-glace and serve hot. Filets de Sanglier à la Russe. (Wild Boar Fillets, Russian style.) Take about two pounds of lean wild boar (loin or leg is best), cut from them some slices about quarter inch thick, flatten these a little with a bat, and shape them into neat rounds. Place them in a shallow earthenware dish, sprinkle over with two table-spoonfuls of olive oil, two of marinade or vinegar, salt, pepper, a chopped shallot, and a dessert-spoonful of chopped parsley. Let them lay for two hours, drain and place them in a buttered sauté-pan, sprinkle with a little sherry and a pinch of cayenne, cover with a buttered paper, and cook in the oven for about fifteen minutes. Take up and glaze, place them on a dish on some timbales of the same size, lay a slice of hard-boiled egg on top of each, sauce over with sauce supreme. Sprinkle with a few drops of dissolved glaze and garnish with smaU heaps of grated horseradish and chopped ham.