Culinary jottings

When used in connection with a tin of soup, the broth should be poured from the bowl into the pan again, and the tin of soup added to it;* a slow process of boiling should now be commenced, during which any scum the soup may throw up should be studiously removed, for all tinny impurities will thus be got rid of: when all but boiling, a table- * If a thick soup, like mockturfcle for instance, you must thicken the consommd with a little flour. — W. spoonful of Marsala should be added, and the soup served. The pieces of fowl if not over-cooked, may be served in the form of fricassee, or be bread-crumbed or dipped in batter and fried, and served with maccaroni and tomato conserve. Very valuable stock, remember, can be made from cold roast mutton bones — (do not try raiu mutton, the taste will be tallowy) — assisted by bacon skin, bones and trimmings, a thick slice of Brunswick or Bologna sausage, and a chicken, or any game you can spare. Birds that have been mauled in shooting can thus be utilized. Purees of game can be made if you have taken out your utensils if not, you must make the game broth as strong as possible, helped by a fowl as stock, and thicken it with flour. The addition of Marsala or port is, of course, a sine qua non. Tinned fish served, — as you sometimes see salmon at a dinner party, — plainly, and hot is positively nasty, and in no way improved by a cold sauce like tartare. Who, after a moment's reflection, could send up hot fish with a cold sauce ? Preserved salmon, fresh herrings, and other tinned fresh fish, if served with tartare or mayonnaise sauces should be served cold, after having been carefully drained on a sieve from all the tinny juices which adhered to them. Select nicely sized pieces, place them on a dish with any garnish you may have such as olives farcies y capers, sliced gherkins, and rolled anchovies, and send the sauce round in a boat. If you want a hot dish of tinned fish, you must choose the nicest pieces and gently warm them up in a rich matelote sauce, veloiite or poulette, or you must wrap them in oiled paper and broil them a moment. All trimmings and odd bits can be saved and worked up as rissoles, or in any of the ways I have mentioned for cold fish in my chapter on rechauffés. Fresli-water fish is often to be had by men out in camp. In cooking them, many recipes hereafter given for filleted fish may be followed : clean them thoroughly, wash them well to get rid of all muddy taste, scale, trim, and soak them after cleaning, in water. A fish like murrel may be treated like a pike: — after having been carefully cleansed, and trimmed, stuff it with turkey forcemeat (page 108), sew it up, trim it in a circular shape with its tail in its mouth and bake it in a pie-dish surrounded by chicken stock about half an inch deep. A glass of any white wine like hock, chablis, or sauterne may be put into the stock, an onion also, and any vegetables you can spare. The fish should be basted every now and then, and when it has absorbed the gravy and seems soft, take it out of the oven. Put a pat of maître d'hôtel butter on the top of it, and serve in its own dish with a napkin folded round it. A good sized murrel will take from twenty minutes to half an hour in baking.