that _any_ wine will do. I have known cases where people have ordered a
few bottles of what they chose to call cooking sherry from the grocers,
and filthy stuff it has been—enough to spoil anything. If you think
turtle soup does not deserve a glass of good wine, my advice is, do not
make any. It is no use adding a glass of some horrible concoction called
sherry or madeira, and then tasting the soup and saying, “Ah! it is not
a bit like what we had at Francatelli’s.” Of course it is not, and you
have only yourselves to blame. The same thing applies to real
mock-turtle. “What does he mean by _real_ mock-turtle?” I can imagine
you saying. But we live and learn. This is exactly the question I asked
a waiter many years ago. We were discussing the important subject of
what I should have for dinner.
“Soup, sir? yes, sir; very nice mock-turtle sir—real mock-turtle, sir.”
This led to the disclosure—it was in the country—that it was made from
calf’s head, not pig’s head.
Now, more than three-parts of the mock-turtle soup sold in London—I do
not mean in the better-class hotels or restaurants—is made from pig’s
head, and very nice it is too. Were it really made from calf’s head, it
could not possibly be sold for the money. At some future period, when
speaking on the all-important subject of “economy” in cooking, I will
give you the recipe. Half a pig’s head can be bought for ninepence; nine
persons out of ten would not tell the difference between soup made from
it and soup made from calf’s head. As the pieman said to Sam Weller,
“It’s the seasoning as does it.”
In the above directions, I have only mentioned what I consider
absolutely essential. When so many things are mentioned in recipes,
people are apt to despair of trying them. However, there are several
little things that might be added to the above stock during the period
of making cooking with advantage: some chicken-bones, bearing in mind
that they must have no white sauce in connection with them, or the soup
will never be clear. A mushroom would be another little improvement; any
odd scraps of meat, especially roast meat, may be added. The only
difference between clear turtle and thick is that the latter has some
brown thickening added to it. But it is, in my opinion, a great mistake
to begin dinner with a thick soup, which is a capital thing to lunch off
in cold weather, but it is apt to spoil the very best sauce—viz.,
appetite. The best recipe I know of for this sauce is exercise. Of
course it is quite possible to have too much of a good thing, and this
was the opinion of a certain gentleman, who once went out to dinner, as
follows:—
He was a short, middle-aged gentleman, with a waistcoat that conveyed
the idea of having swallowed a water-melon. He was not, as may be
imagined, fond of exercise as a rule, and consequently took a cab to go
out to dinner. Unfortunately, the cab was old and rotten, and the bottom
gave way and came clean out, seat and all. The unlucky man inside had
consequently to trot the whole way through the mud. As the cabman, quite
unconscious of what had happened, drove on at a brisk pace, the
middle-aged gentleman fruitlessly endeavouring to attract his attention
all the time. On arriving at his destination, his feelings, as well as
his legs, can be better imagined than described.
Cooking is a high art. There was some great foreign Minister, I forget
who, who owed his great success as a diplomatist to his cook.
Suppose, for instance, some young man required a little assistance from
his father. Who, in his senses, would broach the subject half an hour
before dinner? No, send home a woodcock, and tell the cook to take great
pains with it, and send it up unexpectedly. Tell the butler to get up a
particular bottle, such as ’34 port, or ’48 Château Margaux, or a bottle
of very old East India madeira. Wait till the old gentleman is about
half-way through his bottle, and then approach him with respectful and
affectionate confidence.
I have got another recipe for an old aunt, worth thousands. It is, as I
say, worth thousands—_i.e._, if the aunt be old, rich, and capable of
making a will. Yes, I will tell, and in so doing probably make hundreds
of fortunes for others, some of whom may perhaps some day recollect me.
The recipe is as follows:—Make the tipsy-cake with brandy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XVIII.—FISH DINNERS.
We have discussed the subject of wedding breakfasts, which are so
similar to nice little suppers that we were unable, when so doing, to
give many practical recipes; but we will endeavour to make amends on the
present occasion, and will commence by blowing our own national trumpet,
by maintaining that we English, in cooking fish, beat the French as
completely as they beat us in the making of entrées. There is ofttimes a
connection between wedding breakfasts and fish dinners.
It has often happened that a little party of four or more have taken a
run down the river to Gravesend or North Woolwich; the fish dinner has
been enjoyed, the discussion on “What are whitebait?” concluded in the
usual manner—viz., that no one knows; the well-iced cup has washed down
the devilled bait; the stroll on the balcony, the cigar, the
water—perhaps the moon—the heavy shipping dropping slowly down the
river, &c., have followed in due course.
But we cannot always be running down the river; but the happy little
wife is suddenly seized with the following happy thought—“Suppose we
have a fish dinner at home!” I will tell you how to do it, right away
from the flounders souchet down to the devilled whitebait at the finish,
and if you exercise a little judgment, I can assure you that it is by no
means so expensive or extravagant an affair as many think.
It must however, be carefully borne in mind that the one secret of
success in the management of a little dinner consisting of a variety of
dishes is—forethought. The cook should consequently divide the dinner
into two distinct classes—viz., those dishes which can be cooked
beforehand—_i.e._, in the morning of the day—and those which require
cooking at the last moment. To illustrate what I mean, I would mention
stewed eels and whitebait. It is obvious that the first can be prepared
hours beforehand, and will simply require warming up, but that the
latter cannot be cooked till within a minute of its being sent to table.
I will now give a list of fish from which the fish dinner can be chosen,
but at the same time would strongly recommend, where it is possible,
some common-sense person to go early in the morning to Billingsgate
Market, and pick out, say, half a dozen different kinds of fish, of
course choosing those that are in season, and consequently cheapest:
flounders, souchet and fried; eels, souchet, fried, and stewed; salmon,
plain boiled and with piccalilly sauce; red mullet, _en papillote_;
soles, filleted and fried; whiting; turbot, boiled; smelts; lobster
cutlets; whitebait, ordinary and devilled; shrimps, curried.
Of course I do not mean that you are to have all these fish at once, but
as under ordinary circumstances it is almost impossible to get just what
fish you may ask for, I give a variety, so that if one is not to be
obtained, you may have some others to fall back upon. I would, however,
at starting, remind you that _the_ dish in a fish dinner is the
whitebait.
We will first start in the dining-room, and suppose the time to be the
hour of dinner. The table is laid for four; a green glass is placed, in
addition to an ordinary sherry one, by the right-hand side of each
person. The sherry is tapped, and let us trust it is dry, and free from
fire, as sweet sherry is quite out of the question at a fish dinner. We
will also suppose a bottle of chablis or sauterne to be on the
sideboard, with a corkscrew run into the cork, ready for drawing. On the
sideboard, also, are two plates, containing plenty of thin brown bread
and butter, with not too much butter on the bread, and that, too, really
fresh, without a turnipy flavour.
If you possess that comfort, fish-knives, all the better, but
dessert-knives do very well as a substitute. We will suppose, then, two
silver forks placed to each person, and the remainder of the silver
forks on the sideboard ready for use, for recollect a series of fishes
will soon exhaust even a large establishment of forks. Have ready,
therefore, outside the door, a large jug containing hot water and soda,
and a jug of ordinary water by its side. As the forks are taken out of
the room, wipe them on a cloth, plunge them into the hot soda and water,
and then into the ordinary water, wipe them on a clean cloth, and they
are ready again for use. Half a dozen forks or more can be washed this
way in half a minute.
We will next descend to the kitchen, and we there find everything neatly
arranged. In the sink is already placed a large tub of boiling water and
soda, and by its side another tub or basin of cold water. You will
probably run short of plates, and certainly will of vegetable-dishes,
and consequently I would recommend you, if possible, to borrow of a
friend a couple of these latter dishes. In front of the fire, or on the
hot-plate, is a pile of hot plates.
The stewed eels are in a small stew-pan on the side of the fire; the
salmon and pickle sauce, in another stew-pan, ready; the curry sauce is
likewise ready, say in a little egg-saucepan, and a small basin on the
dresser contains the shrimps ready picked. The red mullet, _en
papillote_, is ready in the tin in the oven, and the lobster cutlets are
also ready arranged to be what the cook calls “popped in the oven” at
the proper moment. But before going any further I will run as briefly as
possible through the methods of preparing these dishes, some of which
have been described before, but may have been forgotten. First, the
stewed eels. Some good stock has been placed on the fire early in the
morning, and into it have been put some button mushrooms out of a tin,
and if possible a few very small spring onions; the stock has been
thickened with some brown thickening—_i.e._, butter and flour fried a
brown-colour; to this have been added about a dessert-spoonful of
mushroom ketchup and another dessert-spoonful of port wine, and a little
cayenne pepper. The eels have been cut into pieces about two inches
long, and placed in this and allowed to simmer slowly for an hour, or
longer; the cook has then taken each piece of eel out very carefully, so
as not to break them, and allowed the stock to boil up and settle; this
has been skimmed once or twice, for a good deal of fat, or what looks
like it, will be found on the top. The eels have then been put back in
the stew-pan, and the whole allowed to simmer until the eels are as soft
as possible, when the dish is finished, care being taken not to break
the pieces when turned out. Next, the salmon and pickle sauce. This can
be made from fish left the day before. Cut the cold salmon into pieces
about three or four inches long and one and a half inches square, and
simply warm these pieces up in some good strong brown gravy to which has
been added about half a tea-spoonful of Worcester sauce, and about half
a tea-cupful of mixed hot pickles in which cucumber, as indeed it
generally does, slightly preponderates; take also care to have three or
four chillies with it. Have the gravy a dark colour and well thickened,
so that the pieces of salmon may be covered with it; a little arrowroot
mixed with cold water may be added to the sauce in order to obtain the
necessary thickness.
Next, the curry sauce in the little saucepan. This may have been, and
should be, made long before; some curried mutton the day before for
dinner will be found an advisable dish, as the sauce left will do for
the shrimps, and a very little is necessary. Curry sauce is made by
frying say six large onions in a stew-pan with butter till they are
browned; three large apples added, and dissolved in it, some brown
gravy, the whole thing rubbed through a tanning or sieve, taking care
that all the onion _is_ rubbed through; then a table-spoonful of curry
paste and a dessert-spoonful of curry-powder added, and the whole
thickened with brown thickening to its proper consistency. Have ready,
hot, about half a tea-cupful of this sauce, add to it about half a
salt-spoonful of anchovy sauce, put the shrimps in it for one minute
only, turn them out, and serve some plain boiled rice with them on a
separate plate.
Next, the red mullet. First take a piece of white foolscap paper, and
oil it all over, next chop up a tea-spoonful of capers fine, next cut up
into slices about three ounces of butter, lay the slices on the paper,
sprinkle half the chopped capers on it, pepper and salt it, and lay the
mullet on the butter, on its side, put the rest of the butter on the top
with the capers and a little more pepper and salt, fold the paper over,
and fold the edges over and over, so as to make the foolscap sheet of
paper into the shape of those old-fashioned apple turnovers—a fat
semi-circle; put this into a tin greased at the bottom to prevent the
paper sticking, and put it in the oven. A small mullet will bake in half
an hour; a very large one, nearly an hour. Send the fish up to table in
its paper. If the butter or some of it has run out into the tin, pour it
into the dish on which you place the paper.
Next, the lobster cutlets. These have, of course, been prepared before,
and only require making hot in the oven. A lobster has been bought
containing coral, which coral has been pounded in a mortar with about
the same quantity of butter, and a pinch of cayenne, and some of this
has been added to the meat of the lobster, pounded in a mortar with some
more butter and some very finely-chopped onion and parsley, a piece of
the former about as big as the top of the thumb, and a tea-spoonful of
the latter, being the proper quantities; a little ordinary pepper and a
tea-spoonful of anchovy sauce have been added, and the mass shaped into
little pats about as large as oval picnic biscuits; these have been
egged over and covered with very fine bread-crumbs, then fried in hot
fat for about a couple of minutes, and a little piece of red claw stuck
into each at the finish by way of garnish.
Now these five nice dishes are all ready, and we presume the dishes have
also been got ready to put them in. First of all we will take flounders
souchet. Pick out the smallest flounders you can, boil them in some
water with a little salt, when tender take them out with a slice,
keeping the white side uppermost, and place them in a vegetable-dish of
boiling water, drop into this water two or three little sprigs of clean
double parsley, and serve quickly, handing round the brown bread and
butter. Eel souchet can be done in exactly a similar manner. The cook
must now have ready two frying-pans, one filled with hot boiling fat,
and the other with fresh lard for the whitebait, to which we shall come
by and by. We shall now suppose the fish for frying ready on a dish on
the dresser, and we will take eels, filleted sole, flounders, whitings,
smelts, &c.; now these must be all treated alike, first they must be
dried, then floured, then dipped in well-beaten-up egg, then dipped in
_fine dry_ bread-crumbs, and then sprinkled over with fine bright golden
bread-raspings, in order to insure the colour being right. Suppose the
cook has just sent up the flounders souchet; let the next course be
fried eels, and salmon and pickle sauce. Take the eels ready prepared
and throw them into the boiling fat; if the fat boil, four or five
minutes is ample time, if the fat is deep enough to cover the fish. Take
a hot vegetable-dish, turn out the salmon and sauce into it, and put on
the cover; next take a clean napkin and warm it, and fold it up, and put
it on a hot dish; hold a dish-cover to the fire for a minute, and cover
over the napkin; take the eels out of the fat and put them for half a
minute on to a hot coarse cloth to drain, put them on the clean napkin
with a few pieces of green parsley round, and send them up with the
salmon. Suppose the next course is turbot, smelts, and red mullet; the
turbot, or rather a slice of one, is supposed to be boiling in a
saucepan; take it out and put it on a cloth to drain; take first half a
dozen smelts and pop them into the fat you have just taken the eels out
of; a very short time will cook them. Place the turbot on a fish-napkin,
put a piece of parsley on the top of it, and place the fried smelts
round the edge. The red mullet simply wants slipping off the tin on to
an ordinary dish just as it is, and the next course is done. The lobster
cutlets might be sent up with some fried fish instead, as we presume no
one would think of having all this fish at one dinner. We therefore now
come to the whitebait, and will attempt to describe the secret of having
this really delicious and delicate fish well cooked. Of course, in the
first place, it is absolutely indispensable, to have the fish perfectly
fresh, and in an unbroken state, and it is on this account that
whitebait is always had in the greatest perfection at the various hotels
which overlook the river where the whitebait is caught. We will suppose,
therefore, the whitebait is ready. Now everything depends upon
expedition. The whitebait must be first dried and then plunged as
speedily as possible into boiling fat. First we will suppose ready on
the fire a deep frying-pan full of _boiling_ lard; in order to insure
the lard being sufficiently hot, let a drop of water fall into it and
see if it hisses; next have ready a wire whitebait-basket, then throw
the whitebait into some fine dry flour on a cloth; don’t be afraid of
having too much flour, as in these water-side hotels the flour is an
inch thick; next shake the whitebait free of the flour in a wide sieve,
something like what is used for sifting oats; this is for the purpose of
getting rid as much as possible of the flour, to avoid the whitebait
being pasty and clammy. Next, having put this floured whitebait into the
wire basket, plunge it into the boiling fat—one minute will more than
suffice to cook it—throw it on to a hot cloth for a few seconds to
drain, and serve it _very_ quickly. Whitebait sent to table properly
should burn the mouth with fire-heat. Do not try and cook too many at a
time, as they are liable to stick together. Also shake the wire basket a
little in cooking them, for the purpose of avoiding this
sticking-process; and when they are thrown on to the cloth, if you see
one or two sticking together, separate them. Properly cooked whitebait
should be crisp, but at the same time slightly soft in the middle, when
eaten. There are two kinds of devilled whitebait—black devil and red
devil; the former consisting of adding black pepper in the middle of
cooking; and the latter, black and cayenne mixed. Have the pepper,
whichever is fancied, ready in a pepper-box, lift the whitebait-basket
out of the boiling fat, shake it and pepper the whitebait at the same
time, put the basket back into the fat for a few seconds, and then turn
the whitebait out on to the cloth. It will be found best to send up the
whitebait in two dishes, first the ordinary, second the devilled; thin
brown bread and butter should be handed round with it, besides some
lemon cut into quarters.
It will sometimes be found that with whitebait are mixed a few shrimps
or very small eels; these should properly be removed before sending to
table, as they have the effect of destroying the appearance.
It may perhaps seem superfluous to add, that whitebait requires no
sauce, yet the following conversation actually occurred at North
Woolwich, where whitebait are caught and cooked in the greatest
perfection:—
_Visitor._—“Waiter, these whitebait are not so nice as they were last
time.”
_Waiter._—“Perhaps, ma’am, you would like them better if you did not
take anchovy sauce.”
On one occasion some persons demanded melted butter with their
whitebait. Whitebait in perfection should be small, but near the end of
the season are, of course, far larger and by no means so delicate as in
early spring. Waiters are proverbial for presence of mind, and on one
occasion, when the whitebait was brought up, about the size of sprats,
quietly answered the intended complaint of “Waiter, these whitebait are
very large,” by saying—“Yes, sir—very fine, sir.”
The curried shrimps are generally served last of all, and then some
meat—generally a roast fowl or duck—but, as a rule, no one eats much of
this after all this fish. In a private house it would be better to have
a little cold roast beef and salad to finish up with, as in ordinary
kitchens a roast duck or fowl would be terribly in the way during
cooking the dinner.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
XIX.—WEDDING BREAKFASTS.
My chapter on wedding breakfasts must not consist in simply saying,
Don’t have one; though I must in the name of common sense enter my
protest against the vulgarity—for it is nothing else—of giving one out
of proportion to the means of the giver. Where money is no object, of
course the simplest plan is to go to some first-rate confectioner’s, and
let them supply the breakfast at so much a head. Where, however, economy
is a necessity, much can be done with a little good management to avoid
waste. I will give an instance of a wedding breakfast that took place
during the last six months, and the cost. For it often happens that
during the last week before the wedding there is so much to be done at
home in the trousseau line that any elaborate cooking in the house is
almost impossible. The following bill of fare is one supplied for over
sixty persons, at 14s. a head, in February last:—
POTAGES.
Printanier.
Purée d’Artichauts à la Palestine.
ENTRÉES CHAUDES.
Chartreuse de Homard à la Cardinal.
Petites Timbales à la Grande Duchesse.
Quenelle de Volaille à la Sefton.
Côtelettes de Tortue.
————
Saumon à la Mayonnaise.
Dindon aux Truffes.
Gelatine de Veau à la Jardiniere.
Langues de Bœuf.
Pâtés de Faisans à la Française.
Jambon, braisé. Poulets rôtis.
Faisans rôtis.
Anguilles en Gelée à l’Aspic.
Petits Pâtés aux Huitres.
Pâté de Foie-gras en Aspic.
Mayonnaise de Filets de Soles.
Salades de Homard.
————
Gâteaux de Fruit à la Richelieu.
Fauchonette à la Prince de Galles.
Macédoine d’Abricots.
Gelées de Citron. Gelées de Marasquin.
Crêmes d’Ananas.
Petits Choux à la Madère.
Chartreuse d’Orange a la Tangier.
Gelée à la Dauphine.
Meringue à la Suisse.
Petites Patisseries à la Bonne-bouche.
Meringues à Crême à la Curaçoa.
Fruit, &c. &c.
Glacés.
Boudins à la Princesse Alice Maude.
Now a breakfast like this, including as it does two soups and four hot
entrées, cannot as a rule be done in a private house. This of course
does not include wine; and when the breakfast is ordered from a
pastrycook’s, I would always recommend the wine to be supplied from the
home cellar. A first-class cold breakfast from a good pastrycook’s, with
soup and ices, will cost about 12s. 6d. a head; and unless the weather
be really very hot, soup is always desirable. Without soup and ices, a
saving of about 1s. a head can be made.
There are many persons, however, who cannot afford even so much as 10s.
a head for a breakfast from the pastrycook’s. When, therefore, the
breakfast is made at home, it had better be all cold except the soup;
and the great secret of success will be found to be in the old
adage—“Never put off till the morrow what can be done to-day.” Have
plenty of flowers, and if summer-time, have plenty of ice. Were I to go
through a set of dishes, I should simply be repeating what I have
already said under the heading of “How to Give a Nice Little Supper.”
Fruit, flowers, and ice make the greatest and best show possible for the
money. Then, too, a few dishes can be bought which are not easily made
at home. Some of those Italian shops where they sell ices have excellent
meringues very cheap.
Perhaps the greatest sacrifice of all to that monster, Custom, is the
wedding-cake. I suppose there never will be a case of a couple
sufficiently strong-minded to forego themselves this luxury, on the
ground of “what _would_ people say?” Unless the cake required be very
large, it is by no means a difficult thing to make at home, and it can
be sent to be baked at the baker’s, who will probably know it only
requires a moderate heat, and that the oven should be kept at an even
temperature all through the baking-process.