Practical gastronomy and culinary dictionary

Special care must be exercised to keep the fat from falling into the fire, as the sudden blaze conveys a smoky flavour to the meat. But, above everything, take care not to pinch the meat in turning, or the juices will run out, and much of the flavour be lost. At the first cut from a well- cooked steak or chop, especially a steak, the gravy should burst forth. The value of the gridiron is, perhaps nowhere better known than in England, especially in 82 PRACTICAL GASTRONOMY relation to chops, steaks, kidneys, the blade-bone, or even a small shoulder of mutton, all of which may be sent to table in the highest perfection from a clear fire managed by careful and competent hands ; although it is still not so widely appreciated as it deserves to be in the preparation of many a small dish of fish, fowl, and meat or bone, to say nothing of a grilled mushroom^ either alone or as an accompaniment to any of them. Notes on Salads and Salad Dressing. Salads are now, as they ^v^ere a couple of hundred years ago, composed of certain pot-herbs, to which are added various aromatic odoriferous herbs or fournituresy as the French call them, which greatly add to the zest of the mixture. There are about twelve of these herhes de fourniture, namely, garden-cress, watercress, chervil, chives, scalhons or green onions, tarragon, pimpernel or burnet, parsley, hartshorn, sweet basil, purslane, fennel, and young balsam. Cresses are wholesome and anti- scorbutic, chervil is a purifier, chives a stimulant, tar- ragon stomachic and corroborant, while parsley is carminative, and the remaining herbs are all pronounced by Lemery in his " Traite des Aliments" to have medicinal virtues. NOTES ON SALADS AND SALAD DRESSING 8B Salads, of course, vary with the season. Chicory or endive is in season at the end of autumn, and it is not usual to add any herhe de fourniture to that salad. Some in France place at the bottom of the salad-basin containing an endive salad a small crust of stale bread rubbed over with garlic, which gives a slight flavour to the dish. Later in the season another species of chicory called scarole is had recourse to. It is not so tender as chicory proper, but has as much flavour, and is quite as wholesome. Chicory, according to Lemaire, is of a cooling nature, and creates an appetite. Winter salads are generally composed of mdche or corn salad, rampions and chopped celery. Sometimes also in winter a salad is made exclusively of chopped celery,, seasoned with oil and mustard. Garden or water-cress is also a winter salad. It is good to mix it with slices of beetroot ; and in France, more especially in Provence, ohves are often added. Towards February the salad most in vogue is an endive called barbe de Ca^ucin, or Capucin's beard. It is seasoned like the white succory. The lettuce generally appears about the commence- ment of Lent, but the better sort of lettuce does not make its appearance before Easter. It is the most popular of all salads. Herbes de fourniture are added to it, in which anchovies and chopped chives are mixed.. Sometimes, as a variety, prawns and shrimps are added. Next comes the Roman lettuce, less watery, and 84 PEACTICAL GASTRONOMY