Little French dinners

Potage Dodds (Dodds Soup). — Cut with a vegetable scoop a quantity of carrots into very small balls and boil them in white stock ; boil also in white stock and separately a small quantity of turnips cut in the same way. When the vegetables are done, strain them into a saucepan, adding as much well-flavoured white stock as is wanted for soup, together with a few spoonfuls of French tomato conserve and some plainly boiled rice in quantity according to taste. Add pepper and salt, bring the soup to the boiling point and serve. Filets de Merlans a la Cherbourg (Fillets of Whiting a la Cherbourg). — Take a shallow stewpan, butter it well, make a layer of roughly chopped mushrooms, on which lay the fillets of whiting, sprinkled with salt and pepper. Add a few oysters and moisten the whole with some white wine, the juice of a lemon and some of the liquor from the oysters, Put the lid on the stewpan and cook the fillets over a brisk fire ; when they are done, take them out carefully and arrange them on an entree dish. Strain the liquor in which they were cooked and let it reduce over a very sharp fire, adding a small piece of butter, then pour it over the fish, which should have been kept warm in the meantime and serve as hot as possible. Noisettes de Mouton a la Roumaine (Fillets of Mutton, a la Roumaine). — Take a piece of the best end of a 72 Little French Dinners. neck of mutton, take away all the bone, trim off any superfluous fat and skin and then cut it up into fillets from half to three-quarters of an inch in thickness. Trim them neatly, flattening them slightly with a cutlet bat, sprinkle them on both sides with pepper and salt and fry them in hot butter over a brisk fire. Turn them, and when they are done on both sides add about one ounce of glaze previously melted ; turn the noisettes over in it and dish them up in a circle alternated with tomatoes prepared as follows : Choose medium-sized tomatoes as round in shape as possible, cut off the tops, remove the pips and some of the pulp and put a small piece of bread in the hollow. Place the tomatoes on a buttered tin well rubbed with a shallot, cover them with a buttered paper and cook them in the oven for about twenty minutes ; then remove the pieces of bread and fill the tomatoes with some fresh haricot beans (flageolets), which have been first cooked in boiling salted water and then drained thoroughly and tossed in plenty of butter with pepper and salt to taste, and a sprinkling of chopped parsley. Chou de Mer a la Milanaise (Sea-kale with Cheese). — Carefully wash and brush the sea-kale to remove any sand and grit, cut out any black parts from the roots, and tie up the shoots into small bundles. Cook them in boiling salted water for about twenty minutes, drain and keep hot. Have ready mixed on the fire an ounce of butter and a dessertspoonful of flour, moisten with half a tumblerful of the water in which the sea-kale was cooked, bring to the boil and then mix in two or three tablespoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese, and add, off the fire, the yolk of an egg. Arrange the sea-kale on a dish, pour the sauce over and serve at once. Gateau des Trois-Preres (" Trois-Freres " Gateau). — Put six eggs into a basin, add six ounces of caster sugar and beat them well together for a quarter of an hour. Then Little French Dinners. 73