Little French dinners

Then fry one ounce of butter with the same quantity of flour and add to it, gradually, threequarters of a pint of the milk the watercress was boiled in ; let the sauce boil, strain, and mix well with it the watercress butter, etc. ; strain once more into a saucepan and place it at the side of the stove. Put the tin containing the fish into the oven for twelve minutes, and when done, arrange the fillets in a circle on a dish and pour over them the sauce as hot as possible. The addition of a spoonful of cream at the last moment is a great improvement. Escalopes de Beef Rossini (Collops of Beef with Foie Gras). — Cut a tender fillet of beef into eight neat slices or "escalopes"; beat them lightly with a cutlet bat and trim them in oval pieces about three inches across and three-quarters of an inch thick. Season them with pepper and salt and cook them in butter in a saute pan over a brisk fire for about three minutes and a half on each side. Then brush over each " escalope " with warm glaze and place them on croutons of bread, cut the same size, and previously fried in butter. On the top of each " escalope " now lay a thin slice of foie gras with a slice of truffle in the centre ; arrange them in an entree Little French Dinners. 15 dish, mask them lightly with the following sauce, previously prepared, and garnish with the truffle trimmings : — Cut a carrot and an onion in slices, add to them a shallot minced, a rasher of bacon cut in dice, some parsley, a sprig of thyme, some cloves, whole pepper to taste, and fry all till brown in two ounces of butter. Then stir in one ounce of finely sifted flour, and when cooked, add gradually about three-quarters of a pint of good brown stock and a spoonful of French tomato conserve; let the sauce boil for ten minutes, then strain into another saucepan and let it simmer by the side of the fire for half an hour. Add salt if necessary, boil up again and flavour with a dash of Marsala. Hand round at the same time Pommes de Terre Anna. — Plentifully butter a saute pan or a round baking tin with fresh butter. Pack closely in this a quantity of slices of raw potatoes cut of equal thickness, seasoning with salt and a little pepper after each layer. When the pan is full, put a few pieces of butter on the top, cover the pan and put it into a brisk oven. When the potatoes are done, turn them into a dish and serve at once. They should come out like a cake and be crisp outside and soft within. Tomates a la Victoria (Stuffed Tomatoes). — Cut the tops off and hollow out the insides of some nice round tomatoes. Dress a small quantity of salad, broken up in small pieces, with oil and vinegar in the proportion of three to one, and a seasoning of pepper and salt, and fill each tomato with the salad. Then stone some olives and fill them with anchovy butter, made by pounding and rubbing through a fine hair sieve an ounce of anchovies mixed with an ounce of butter. Put one olive in the centre of each tomato, sprinkle each with chopped capers and parsley and serve. Riz a la Cannelle (Rice with Cinnamon). — Put six ounces of rice into a tinned copper saucepan containing 1 6 Little French Dinners.