Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

Separately take 12 or 15 wing-bones of chickens, basted and well trimmed ; let them soak during 1 or 2 hours in tepid water, drain and put them into a small saucepan, cover them with stock, and boil up. One hour is enough to cook them. Drain the wings, trim them very neatly, bone them, put them in the soup-tureen, add some fried crusts of bread of the same thickness as the vegetables, also a bunch of chervil and a pinch of sugar, and put all together into the soup-tureen. The boiling of all these vegetables must be done quite slowly, so as to prevent the stock being disturbed. Gnocchi a la Creme. — Make a paste (pate a choux) as follows : — Ingredients : 4J oz. of flour, 4J oz. of butter, If pint of water, 3 whole eggs (4 if small), a pinch of salt and of sugar. Put the water, salt, and sugar in a small saucepan on the fire ; when it begins to boil, add the flour all at once. Stir quickly with a wooden spoon, and, when well mixed, put the saucepan on a slower fire ; let it dry for a few minutes, and when smooth mix in the eggs, one by one, till smooth and thick, sticking to the saucepan. If the paste seems a little too dry, add a little cream — 2 or 3 spoonfuls. Add by degrees FEBRUARY 31 3 or 4 spoonfuls of grated Parmesan cheese. Take a smaller saucepan of water with some salt in it. When the water is boiling, remove it to the edge of the fire. Then take two tablespoons, and fill one with the paste, flattening it with a knife warmed in warm water so as to form the paste into an oval shape; warm the other spoon, and push it under the quenelle to remove it from the first spoon ; then drop it into the boiling water. When all the quenelles are shaped in this way and thrown into the saucepan, put it on to the open fire, and let the quenelles poach for some minutes. As soon as they feel firm to the touch, remove the Gnocchi one by one with a strainer, and place them on a cloth till wanted. Make a Bechamel white sauce. Butter a souffl6-dish, place the quenelles round the bottom, in a single row one beside the other, sprinkle this first row with a little grated Parmesan, and add on the top another layer of Gnocchis, laid on alternately to the others. Hide the Gnocchis entirely with the sauce Bechamel, dust them over with a little grated Gruyere, sprinkle them lightly with some melted butter, and put them to bake in a slow oven till well browned without being burnt. Given about forty to forty-five minutes of baking, the Gnocchi should swell to twice their original size. Serve at once. Bechamel Sauce. — Cut into little squares the half of a carrot and a small onion ; take a small saucepan, put in a good bit of butter, add the vegetables, fry them lightly without letting them brown. This done, add a good tablespoonful of flour, and let the flour cook quite gently for several minutes on a moderate fire ; be es- pecially careful that it does not stick or get coloured, which would quite spoil its quality. This done, let it cool for a moment, then add little by little one pint and a half of boiling milk ; work and stir the sauce without 32 POT-POURRI FROM A SURREY GARDEN