FoodNet

Pot-pourri from a Surrey garden

1898

Page 20

Presented as published in 1898. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
ceasing until it boils, remove to side of a slow fire, and let it cook for an hour. Strain the sauce through a flannel or muslin into a bain-marie, with a pinch of salt, and of grated nutmeg very little. Add a good bit of butter while working it with a small egg-whisk. The sauce should be very smooth, creamy, and of a good flavour ; if by chance it is too thick, this can be remedied by adding a few spoonfuls of good, thick, and sweet cream. Pate a Ravioli. — Ingredients for the paste : 9 oz. of flour, the yelks of 4 eggs, a pinch of salt, a little tepid water. Put the flour on a marble slab, make a hole in the centre, add the yelks of the eggs and the salt, make a paste, not too solid ; when it is quite even, let it rest for an hour or two, and cover it with a cloth to prevent it from getting dry. Preparation for Ravioli. — Forcemeat of chicken, or, failing this, one can use veal, if nice and white and tender. Ingredients : 4| oz. of meat, 2J oz. of panade, J oz. of fresh butter, 2 yelks of eggs, salt, and nutmeg. Eemove the sinews and fat carefully from the 4^ oz. of meat. Cut it into little squares, and pound well in a mortar. Add the panade little by little; when mixed, add (only a little at a time) the butter when quite cooled and solid, salt, and nutmeg ; mix these ingredients thoroughly, giving to them as much consistency as pos- sible. Now take some boiling salted water in a little saucepan, and test in it a little bit of the forcemeat the size of a walnut ; let it poach while well on the fire. If it is rather too firm, one can always add a spoonful of Bechamel or a little thick cream to moisten it. Parboil in water 1 Ib. of spinach, strain it on to a moistened sieve — the sieve must have been well wiped to ensure no water remaining in it. Pass the spinach FEBRUARY 33 through a fine wire sieve. This done, add to the force- meat two or three dessertspoonfuls of spinach, as much grated Parmesan cheese, some salt, pepper, and nutmeg, and a pinch of sugar. Mix all these well together. Now divide the paste into two equal parts ; roll one part out as thin as possible with a roller, keeping it square in shape ; slightly moisten the surface with a brush, put some of the forcemeat in a linen jelly-bag with a narrow tin socket at the bottom, and drop little balls of the force- meat all over the surface, in straight lines about 2 in. to 2J in. apart from each other. When the whole is covered, roll out the remainder of the paste to exactly the same size and shape, and place it carefully on the top of the other so as to fit exactly ; press down round each Eavioli with a small shaping-tin, so as to stick the two layers of paste together ; cut each Kavioli into rounds, and arrange them on a small lid of a saucepan floured over so that the paste should not stick to it.