French dishes for American tables

171. Snails a la Provengale. Take four ounces of wood-ashes, which put in a cloth, and tie securely. Then place in a saucepan with about a quart of water, and boil fifteen minutes. Wash well four dozen snails, and put them in your saucepan, and boil them about fifteen minutes. Then take one out, and try with a larding-needle if you can remove it easily from its shell, and, if so, drain the snails, and take them out of their shells. Put into a saucepan on the fire a tablespoonful of oil, half a dozen mushrooms chopped very fine, some parsley, a clove of garlic, three shallots, all chopped fine, salt, a little red pepper, and a very little nutmeg. Add a tablespoonful of flour, and moisten with three sherry-glasses of white wine, and, as soon as your sauce begins to boil, add your snails, and boil gently for thirty minutes. Your sauce must be thick. Mix the yolks of three eggs in a tablespoonful of milk, and add to your sauce when it has ceased boiling. Put a snail in each shell, and enough sauce to fill each one. Sprinkle breadcrumbs on top, send to the oven for about ten minutes, and serve. 172. Clams on Toast. Take fifty clams and roast them very slightly, after which take them out of their shells, chop them fine, and, with all their juice, which you have carefully preserved, put them into a saucepan with a little butter, and stew for a few moments. Just before serving, season them with a little red pepper and a very little Tobasco pepper. First serve to each person a piece of toast, and then the clams to be poured over the toast. 173. Soft Clams steamed. Put some boiling water in a saucepan, in the bottom of which lay a brick. Put fifty soft clams in a pan, or in some utensil which may be placed inside your saucepan, and on top of the brick, so that the water shall not touch the clams. Boil quickly about five minutes, covering the saucepan with a lid. Then, if your clams are done, serve them in their shells, with a sauce separately, composed of a little chopped shallot, a little melted butter, salt, pepper, and a little vinegar or the juice of a lemon. 174. Clams au Gratin. Prepare exactly as for oysters au gratin (Art. 150). 175. Mussels a la Mariniere. Take fifty mussels in their shells, remove the black, stringy species of moss attached to them, put them in a covered saucepan on the fire, with about a quarter of a glass of water ; toss them for three or four minutes in the saucepan, or until the shells are opened, then drain them, remove one shell of each, leaving the mussel in the other half, and serve them in the following sauce : Chop fine two shallots, which put in a saucepan on the fire, with a tablespoonful of vinegar, reduce one half, and add a teaspoonful of chervil and tarragon chopped fine ; boil for a moment, then add half a pint of sauce Allemande (Art. 81), and a sherry-glass of sherry.