Russe_ style was first introduced into this country, nearly all those
persons who may be described generally as homely people, who make a
point of always keeping well in the wake of fashion rather than the van,
we say those persons had an idea that the new style was very elegant,
but that they could not afford it. We believe that there is still an
impression abroad that a dinner _à la Russe_ must necessarily be a very
expensive affair; we will therefore proceed to describe a cheap but
nice-looking little dinner, and, if space permit, how to make the
dishes.
In the first place, flowers, like Mrs. Scratchit’s ribbons, make a great
show for sixpence. Where there is a good garden, there ought to be no
difficulty in making a dinner-table look nice. All that is required is a
little taste. It is well to bear in mind, however, that in selecting
flowers, dark-green leaves and the colour blue or violet should not be
forgotten. We will suppose, therefore, the table arranged: the dessert
and plenty of flowers, and nothing else, for we do not believe in the
modern compromise so often seen—_i.e._, some dishes placed on the table,
as well as the dessert.
Now for the dinner. First—say the time of the year be the
present—Julienne soup, bright as sherry, with just a taste of tarragon
in it; a turbot or brill, with lobster sauce; a dish of chicken cutlets,
white as snow, with little small green and red leaves in the centre of
each, about half an inch long, and a little red lobster-claw
representing the bone, served in a silver dish, with aspic jelly piled
up in the centre. Another entrée of eggs and spinach—always a
pretty-looking dish—some lobster cutlets, and some rissoles. Next a
haunch of mutton—_i.e._, a small roast leg of mutton cut outside the
room haunch-fashion, parallel with the bone—and red-currant jelly handed
with it. In small households, where a large quantity of cold meat is
undesirable, this is far preferable to a large haunch, and of course it
is exactly the same thing, so far as taste and appearance are concerned,
when cut. Next, by way of game, have some roast larks, served up in
little paper cups containing a rich forcemeat.
Only one fowl, and that a moderate-sized one, will be necessary to make
both the chicken cutlets and the rissoles. We will now calculate roughly
the saving in this dinner when compared with the old-fashioned one we
have mentioned.
In the first place, Julienne soup can be made far cheaper than
mock-turtle; but we will leave the question of the cost of the soup out
altogether. Next the fish; here again the saving only consists in the
fact that it is possible to have a small fish when it is not put on the
table, but impossible to have only just enough when it is. Now,
warmed-up fish is never nice, yet how often do we see a splendid turbot
or cod-fish go down, not a quarter of it eaten!
A cod-fish, by-the-by, is not a particularly easy dish for a cook to
serve properly done and yet looking really nice. I shall never forget
the look of dismay on a certain face when the cover was taken off a
remarkably fine cod that had been specially sent down from a famous City
fishmonger. The cook, too, was really a good one, and knew that raw
cod-fish is simply uneatable. Probably the man, in bringing up the fish,
had shaken the dish somewhat roughly, or set it down on the table with
too much of a bang. However, the whole of the meat had fallen from the
bones in a sort of shower on to the dish, and the gaunt skeleton
remained alone, an awful sight, like some of those pictures of the
desert with the remains of a camel being hovered over by one or two
vultures. In fact, it looked so exceedingly ridiculous that nearly every
one laughed, in which laughter the host wisely joined. It was indeed a
pretty kettle of fish!
It is, however, in the entrées and joints where the great saving will be
found. First let us roughly guess the cost of the old dinner: Sirloin of
beef, or haunch, about 14lb., 14s., taking of course present prices; two
capons, 10s.; tongue, 6s. 6d.; small ham, 12s.; pigeon pie, say 3s. 6d.,
which would be cheap; oyster patties, eight at 6d. each, 4s.; beef
olive, 2lb. of steak, &c., 2s. 6d.; curried rabbit, the rabbit being 1s.
6d., 2s.; stewed kidneys, say 1s. 6d. Now this all added up comes to £2
16s. Next let us take the other dinner: One fowl, 3s. 6d.; mushrooms,
one tin, 9d.; cream, 3d.; lobster, 2s.; eggs and spinach, 1s; leg of
mutton, 8lb., 8s.; calf’s liver for forcemeat, 3d.; larks, one dozen,
1s. 6d.; about 1½lb. of ham or bacon, 1s. 6d.; which, added up, comes to
17s. 9d.
Of course it will be said that in the first dinner there was plenty left
to keep the house for several days, and in the second but very little.
This is perfectly true; but it is this of which I complain. The
old-fashioned style was, when ten people came to dinner, to cook enough
for thirty. This seems to me to be folly. Of course some allowance must
be made for the character of the visitors; the little dinner _à la
Russe_ we have mentioned would be exceedingly unsuited to hungry
schoolboys, or an agricultural labourers’ feast; but then one doesn’t
ask these sorts of people to late dinners. The average guest is one who
has had a substantial lunch—in the case of ladies—or one whose appetite
is jaded with worry and anxiety, and requires a certain amount of
tickling. The same dinner would not do for a dealer on the Stock
Exchange, and a healthy country gentleman, who spends half his time on
horseback, and has not a care in the world. We mention this, as one of
the arts of giving dinners is to adapt the dinner to the guests, and the
guests to one another.
But we must now turn to the practical part, which is, how to make the
chicken cutlets, &c. First, early on the morning previous to the dinner,
boil the fowl in some _clear_ stock or some water; take it out and let
it get cold; cut off all the meat, cutting the breast into thin slices;
scrape all the bones, and place the latter back in the stock to boil
down. If water has been used, the usual vegetables must be placed
in—viz., an onion stuck with six cloves, a small head of celery, a
turnip, carrot, a bunch of parsley, and pepper and salt. When the whole
is reduced to about a quart, strain it carefully off; remove every
particle of fat, and if not clear, clear it with the white of two eggs,
by whipping them up with a little cold water, adding them to the stock,
boiling briskly for a few minutes, and then running the whole through a
jelly-bag. Next, again place the stock in an enamelled saucepan, and let
it boil down to about a pint. Take a third of this and put it into a
little enamelled stew-pan for the aspic jelly. Now, this jelly requires
rather a decided flavour; add therefore a couple of beads of garlic, and
let these simmer sufficiently long to give the stock—one-third of a
pint—what may be called a foreign smell. The fowl-bones will probably
have been sufficient to cause this to set into a firm jelly when poured
out on to a plate and allowed to get cold; should, however, it not be
firm enough, a little gelatine must be added to it. Should the jelly
require a little colour, a small piece of toasted bread, such as is used
for toast-and-water, will be found best for the purpose—of course put in
when the jelly is hot. When the jelly is set, it must be cut up—two
silver forks are best for the purpose—and piled up in the centre of the
silver dish, for the chicken cutlets to be placed round it.
Next we have two-thirds of a pint of strong stock left in the saucepan.
Add to this about half an ounce of gelatine and a couple of bay-leaves,
and let it boil till the gelatine is quite dissolved; take out the
bay-leaves, and pour it off into a basin, and take off any little scum
that may have risen from the gelatine. Next pour some cream—about half a
tumbler—into an enamelled saucepan; as soon as it begins to boil, pour
the warm stock on it, take it off the fire, stir with a spoon for a few
minutes, and pour it into a small basin for use. Now this white sauce,
which is exceedingly nice, when cold will be a hard jelly, looking like
blancmange.
Next take the slices of chicken and a few _thin_ slices of ham, pour a
little of the white sauce on to a plate, and before it has time to cool,
cover the plate with very thin slices of chicken; dip the ham into the
stock, and spread it over the chicken, again covering the ham with some
more thin slices of chicken. Cover the whole, by means of a spoon, with
some more white sauce, taking care to leave a little sauce for use
afterwards.
Now when all this sets, which it will do very quickly, it becomes like a
large white cake, barely half an inch thick. Cut this white cake into
little oval pieces, the size and shape of the lobster cutlets, with a
sharp penknife; take up each cutlet carefully, and with a small spoon,
or end of a silver knife, cover the edges with the white sauce, which
must be _nearly_ set. Next cut some tiny green leaves out of some
pickled gherkins, and some red leaves out of some beetroot, or the red
skin of a chilli, and place four little leaves, two of each in the
centre of each cutlet, star-shaped; a drop of white sauce will make it
stick. Place a little piece of parsley, not much bigger than a pin’s
head, in the centre of the star; stick a little lobster-claw,
three-quarters of an inch long, in each cutlet, and place them in a
silver dish, round the aspic jelly, with a small piece of fresh,
bright-green parsley between each cutlet, by way of garnish; and few
prettier dishes can be handed round than the one in question.
The dish is somewhat troublesome, but then its appearance repays the
trouble, besides which it does not require much standing over the fire.
The latter part can be done sitting down. The basin containing the white
sauce can be placed in a larger basin containing hot water, to prevent
it setting too soon.
Instead of beetroot, a thin leaf of truffle looks much better, in which
case a red bead of lobster-coral should be placed in the centre of the
star, instead of the parsley. However, recommending truffle is rather
useless, for the simple reason that persons rich enough to use them
generally keep a cook, to whom these instructions would be unnecessary.
The next point is the rissoles. Take all the remains of the fowl—_i.e._,
about half—taking great care that no pieces of bone or skin remain, and
chop it up with half the tin of mushrooms, and a good slice of fat ham.
Chop up separately, _very_ finely, a piece of onion about as big as the
top of the finger down to the first joint; sufficient parsley, when
chopped, to fill a tea-spoon; enough thyme to cover a sixpence; add a
little cayenne pepper and salt. Mix the whole well together, and if a
sausage-machine is in the house, of course run it through it; but if
not, some pains and time must be spent over the chopping. Roll it up
into small balls, dip them first into some well-beaten-up egg, and then
into some fine bread-crumbs, and fry; and serve with some gravy poured
round, exactly as the mutton cutlets were done in the previous article,
though of course these rissoles are far superior to those made from
mutton.
Next with regard to the forcemeat for the paper cases for the larks.
These paper cases can be bought at the pastrycook’s, but they are easily
made at home, much cheaper, out of stiff note-paper. Take a quarter of a
pound of calf’s liver, cut it up into small pieces, and fry in about the
same quantity of rather fat ham. Chop up finely a bead of garlic, a
piece of lemon-peel the size of the first finger-nail, a tea-spoonful of
parsley, and the remaining half of the tin of mushrooms; add a little
cayenne pepper and some salt, and enough aromatic mixed herbs to cover a
sixpence (these herbs are composed of white peppercorns, cloves, one
portion; marjoram, basil, thyme, nutmeg, mace, half a portion; dried
bay-leaves, a quarter of a portion; well pounded and sifted, and put by
in a stoppered bottle for use). Chop the whole very finely, and put it
by in a small stew-pan to keep hot till wanted. Place a dessert-spoonful
of this rich forcemeat at the bottom of each paper case. The paper cases
should have the chill taken off them, by being placed before the fire
for a minute. Then place a small roast lark on the top of each case.
Larks take only about ten minutes or a quarter of an hour to roast,
according to their size, and ought to be eaten directly they are cooked.
The cases should be placed in a silver dish, with parsley between them.
This is a very savoury dish, and at the same time a very cheap
substitute for game for a dozen people. Should there be no mixed herbs
ready, a little nutmeg and mace will be found to flavour the forcemeat
sufficiently for ordinary purposes.
Of course, in comparing the above two dinners, we have purposely taken
rather extreme cases. What we would impress upon housekeepers is that
many of these pretty, savoury little dishes, though they may give
considerable trouble, are nevertheless very cheap. By simply looking
ahead for a day or two, and a little industry on the part of others in
the house than the cook only, a dinner often may be given combining
elegance with strict economy.
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VIII.—HOW TO GIVE A NICE LITTLE SUPPER.
The Christmas season is essentially one for parties—Christmas
parties—those happy gatherings where old and young meet together for
mutual enjoyment, and where the presence of children forms an excuse for
grown-up people to enjoy a round game, or look on at feats of
legerdemain with as much enjoyment as a middle-aged, grave-faced
Frenchman feels when going slowly round on horseback on a roundabout.
Perhaps if we were all of us at times more childlike we should be none
the worse for it, especially in this high-strung, tear-away age. But I
must leave off moralising, or else you, like the children at the party,
will be thinking what a long time they are about the supper, which,
after all, is the event of the evening.
As we have said, the party is a mixed one, and therefore we must manage
our supper on the principle of meat for strong men, as well as milk for
babes.
Judging by my own experience, there are few occasions on which I have
felt more decidedly hungry than after a Christmas party. Really, to see
some good-tempered persons hard at work amusing children, after perhaps
having had a hurried early dinner, is quite enough to arouse pity. They
have indeed earned their supper.
There are, perhaps, few opportunities for exercising taste better than a
cold supper, where every dish is placed on the table at once. It would,
however, be impossible to enter into the detail of the arrangements of
the table without knowing with tolerable accuracy the resources of the
establishment. For instance, where there are plenty of silver dishes, as
well as cut-glass ones, to arrange a table handsomely would be far
easier than where there are neither.
I would, however, give a few general directions. Have some flowers—real
ones, if possible—and also mix plenty of green leaves with them. Try and
alternate the dishes in colour. For instance, do not place a white mould
of blancmange next to a dish of custard or a mayonnaise salad. Again, do
not overcrowd the table.
We will go through a variety of dishes suitable for supper, explaining,
where necessary, how they should be made, and also giving hints as to
how they may be improved in appearance.
First, a very good dish is a cold roast turkey, glazed. What a
difference, however, in appearance between one that has been glazed and
one that has not! Did you ever notice a plank of mahogany just fresh
planed, and contrast it with the well-polished flap of a Spanish
mahogany dining-room table? Now there is almost as much difference
between cold tongue, or turkey, or fowl, or pheasant unglazed and
glazed, as there is between a mahogany plank unpolished and polished.
I will not enter here into an elaborate description of the proper method
of making glaze, beyond describing it as good rich stock, boiled down
till it has the appearance of strong liquid glue. In making glaze, great
care should be taken so as not to allow it to remain too long on the
fire. As soon as the stock begins to turn colour, remove the stock-pot
from the fire, and quickly slacken the heat, otherwise the contents will
get burnt, and much of the flavour destroyed, especially if the glaze be
intended for the purpose of making either soup or gravy. The simplest
method of obtaining glaze is to buy it ready-made—it is sold in
skins—only take care to get it at a thoroughly respectable shop.
Now, to glaze a turkey is so very similar to varnishing one, that
perhaps the easiest method of describing the operation is to say:—Melt
some of the glaze in a little basin, and add, if you like, a very little
water to it. Then take a fairly stiff brush and paint the turkey all
over, drumsticks and all, making the breast particularly shiny. You will
now see how very much the turkey has improved in appearance. It has, in
fact, a rich mahogany look. If you are glazing, say, a couple of fowls,
the principle is just the same. You will see the difference directly. By
doing one first, and then comparing the two, you will understand the
meaning of the simile I have given in reference to the mahogany.
Next, take some nice fresh bright-green double parsley, and fit some
into all the hollow places you may observe about the turkey, of course
trying as much as possible to make each side look alike. Place the
turkey on a good-sized clean dish, and garnish it with some more parsley
and cut lemon. I will try and describe, as some may not know how, the
best method of cutting lemon for garnish. Cut a lemon in half the
ordinary way, and then with a sharp knife cut off a thin slice, which is
of course a complete circle, the centre being white, and the
circumference a thin rim of yellow peel. Cut this in half again, thereby
leaving you two semicircles. Next cut the semicircular rim—only the rim,
or peel, or circumference, whichever you like to call it—through with a
knife, and pull the two quarters of circles open with your fingers, till
they stand exactly opposite each other. The hard white part of the lemon
in the middle is quite sufficient to keep them together, if no violence
is used. When I say pull them open, I mean only so far as, were another
piece exactly like it placed over it crossways, they would again form a
round slice of lemon.
Now, a lemon cut up in this way makes a very pretty garnish for various
dishes, besides cold game and poultry—as, for instance, a boiled fish,
such as a turbot, on which has been sprinkled some lobster-coral,
surrounded with lemon cut in this manner, alternately with a little
parsley and a few little crayfish, looks far different to what it would
plain.
Just so with our turkey. There is one more thing to set it off, and that
is, if possible, get a fine, small, white camellia, just tinged here and
there with pink. Now, as camellias are not easily obtainable, and even
if there be a few in the greenhouse, they would probably be coveted on
such occasions as that we are speaking about for the purpose of adorning
far more beautiful creatures than turkeys, your best plan will be to
make a camellia.
How, you will ask, can this be done? Very simply. Cut it out of a turnip
with a penknife. It really is not nearly so difficult as you would
imagine. Take a sharp knife and a little scoop, and try and see how near
you can get to making it resemble a flower. Then stick a little piece of
wood into it, and tie on two or three bay-leaves. Take the feather-end
of a quill pen, and dip it into the cochineal bottle, and just tint the
edges only.
I have no doubt but that these directions will be followed by several
young ladies with a taste for drawing. I should feel much obliged if
they would write and tell if their first attempt was successful.
If you want to see these cut flowers in perfection, take a walk down
Covent-Garden Market, where, if you choose to pay for it, you can
receive lessons in artificial vegetable-flower making.
Next stick our flower, whether real or artificial, in the turkey; the
shape of the bird and a little taste will tell you about where.
A tongue can be glazed in an exactly similar manner, a curly paper frill
tied round the root, and a flower placed on it.
So, too, a ham can be glazed. But there is one method of ornamenting a
ham which deserves notice.
We will suppose the ham ready glazed. Have you ever seen one, the top
round the rim ornamented with a white substance which looks like
beautiful white fresh butter, or even sugar?
Now, it is very easy to ornament a glazed ham with this composition, and
one advantage is, you can put words on the ham, such as “A Merry
Christmas,” or, on the occasion of a child’s birthday, the name of the
hero of the feast.
The way to do it is as follows:—Get some nice white clarified lard, and
melt it in a cup in the oven, and add a little salad oil to it, so as to
make it thinner when it is cold.
Next roll up a sheet of fairly stiff note-paper like a cone, and hold
this cone near the point in the right hand. Pour a little of the hot
lard into the cone, and so regulate the pressure on the paper with the
right-hand thumb and finger as to allow the melted lard to drop out or
run out in a very thin stream at the point. This lard will settle
directly it comes out, and turn quite white on getting perfectly cold. I
would advise you to practise designs on a black shining tea-tray, as it
will scrape off with a spoon and do again. With a little practice and a
natural gift for such things—for a clumsy-fisted Mary Ann would make an
awful mess of it—it is wonderful what beautiful designs can be formed
this way, such as a harp or a rose.
In making a spiral border round the edge of the ham, it sometimes looks
a little prettier to have a small pink spot in the centre of each
circle. This is done by simply colouring the melted lard with a few
drops of cochineal. But I would warn you against having too much pink in
ornamenting. Just a touch, as in the case of the turnip-flower, is all
very well, but it must be but a touch. We wish some persons would bear
this in mind in using rouge.
Another exceedingly useful supper-dish is well-cut beef sandwiches. If
these are cut thin, with just a little butter, mustard, and salt, you
will always find them eaten. But a word about appearances. Have them
piled up on a snow-white dinner-napkin, folded, if possible, at the
bottom of a silver dish, and well garnished with small pieces of bright
double parsley.
I need scarcely mention that every particle of crust must be cut off.
Just contrast such a dish with what you get, say, at a railway-station
refreshment-room the ham—they never have beef—coming out bodily with the
first bite, and having a mouldy taste, which makes you regret that you
didn’t try either the butterscotch or the Banbury cakes, which generally
form the only alternatives.
Space will not here allow of my going through all the dishes advisable
to have at a nice little supper, so I will confine myself to a few
general directions.
Recollect you want to please children, without making them ill. Now, for
the purpose I would always recommend a good large corn-flour pudding,
made in a mould, and coloured a nice bright pink with cochineal. This
can be made nice and sweet, and may be flavoured with a few drops of
essence of almonds, or a little essence of vanilla. The dish is very
simple and wholesome, and yet looks very pretty. You will very likely
hear a little child say, “I will have some of that pink thing, please;”
and, luckily, that pink thing is the least unwholesome thing on the
whole table. It is the jams and pastries that do the harm.
With regard to jellies, I would add, try and get it bright. This
requires patience and a jelly-bag. Also, as it will keep with ease, make
it at least two days before you want it, so as not to drive yourself to
have a lot to do on the day of the supper. In making jelly, whether
orange or lemon, gelatine is the simplest, easiest, and cheapest method.
Do not grudge the sherry, and also put a few coriander-seeds into the
jelly when it is boiling. You will find this greatly improves the
flavour.