Culinary jottings

8. — Make enough plain clear jelly, flavoured with any nice liqueur, to fill a pretty border C h a u d-f r 0 1 d of mould, and get ready a mixed collection of dessert fruits, — a few of each sort, — such as greengages, apricots, cherries, strawberries, pears, &c., cut them into pieces, and garnish the mould as * tastefully as you can. When the garnish has set, complete the jelly with layers of the remaining fruit, and set it in ice. For the centre, to imitate a savoury cliaud-froid, you must make a breakfast-cupful of vanilla blanc-manger, dipping slices of preserved apples into it to counterfeit fillets of chicken masked in white sauce ; set them on ice for the blanc-manger to congeal, and then pack the centre of the jelly with them ; garnish the white fillets with slices of prunes to represent truffles, and a few plain slices of apple cut with fretted edges to imitate cockscombs. 9. — For this effective ice, you must have four small ice pails, and make a different ice in each ^^^Iced pudaiug, med- ^^-j^ ^ -^ ._;^t^ j^ strawberry cream (Menu No. 3) ; No. 2, creme de pistachio (^lenu No. 2) ; No. 3, parfait an chocolat (Menu No. 8) ; and No. 4, vanilla cream. ^lake half a pint of each of these, and set your mould in the ice : when the four ices arc well frozen, mix them at hap-hazard by casting large spoonfuls of them one after the otlier into the mould : — say, first, half the vanilhi, then a (piarter of the chocolate, then half the strawberry, followed l)y a quarter of the pistachio, .some more chocolate and vanilla, and so on, till full. Work the spatula, and blend the colours without any fixed pattern, press the wliole togetlier firmly, freeze thoroughly, and serve. To adapt this mcnu^ serve the fillet of beef after the lisli, and send up the plovers nicely roasted, with bread sauce, crisp potato chips, and a salad. A curl i.t ciisply fried bacon should accompany each I)ird. To make a vol-aii-veut case. ^lake very carefully a pound of puff-paste, following tlic directions given at page 263. Give the paste six turns, and roll it out three-quarters of an inch thick. Cut out of this as neatly as possible an oval piece the size you wish your vol-au-vent to be. You will then have an oval piece of pastry three-quarters of an inch thick : turn it over upon a buttered baking-sheet, brush the surface and side with a beaten egg, and mark out the interior oval, leaving an inch margin all round. Let the knife cut this tracing to a depth of a quarter of an inch. Now put the sheet in the oven, and when the paste is baked, remove the inner oval (for a cover) which you will find has risen . then scoop out the uncooked paste inside the case : brush the whole case thus formed with egg again, and bake it for about five minutes. After this the pastry will be ready. Remember that in the first baking, the oval wall will have risen three or four inches high. [illustration: MENU NO. 23] For a dinner of six. Potage a la creme croisee. Orly de seer, a la HoUandaisc Poulettc a la St. Lambert. Carre de mouton farei. Becassines rotics. Petits pois an lard. Tartelcttcs de limon. Fromage, hore d'oeuvres Dessert.