HORS-D'OEUVRES.--Small dishes, or assiettes volantes of sardines, anchovies, and other relishes of this kind, served to the
guests during the first course. (See ASSIETTES VOLANTES.)
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LIT.--A bed or layer; articles in thin slices are placed in layers, other articles, or seasoning, being laid between them. MAIGRE.--Broth, soup, or gravy, made without meat.
MATELOTE.--A rich fish-stew, which is generally composed of carp, eels, trout, or barbel. It is made with wine.
MAYONNAISE.--Cold sauce, or salad dressing. MENU.--The bill of fare.
MERINGUE.--A kind of icing, made of whites of eggs and sugar, well beaten.
MIROTON.--Larger slices of meat than collops; such as slices of beef for a vinaigrette, or ragout or stew of onions. MOUILLER.--To add water, broth, or other liquid, during the cooking.
PANER.--To cover over with very fine crumbs of bread, meats, or any other articles to be cooked on the gridiron, in the oven, or
fryingpan.
PIQUER.--To lard with strips of fat bacon, poultry, game, meat, &c. This should always be done according to the vein of the meat, so that in carving you slice the bacon across as well as the meat.
POELEE.--Stock used instead of water for boiling turkeys, sweetbreads, fowls, and vegetables, to render them less insipid. This is rather an expensive preparation.
PUREE.--Vegetables, or meat reduced to a very smooth pulp, which is afterwards mixed with enough liquid to make it of the consistency of very thick soup.
RAGOUT.--Stew or hash. REMOULADE.--Salad dressing.
RISSOLES.--Pastry, made of light puff-paste, and cut into various forms, and fried. They may be filled with fish, meat, or sweets.
ROUX.--Brown and white; French thickening. SALMI.--Ragout of game previously roasted.
SAUCE PIQUANTE.--A sharp sauce, in which somewhat of a vinegar flavour predominates.
SAUTER.--To dress with sauce in a saucepan, repeatedly moving it about.
TAMIS.--Tammy, a sort of open cloth or sieve through which to strain broth and sauces, so as to rid them of small bones, froth,
&c.
TOURTE.--Tart. Fruit pie.
TROUSSER.--To truss a bird; to put together the body and tie the wings and thighs, in order to round it for roasting or boiling, each being tied then with packthread, to keep it in the required form.
VOL-AU-VENT.--A rich crust of very fine puff-paste, which may be filled with various delicate ragouts or fricassees, of fish, flesh,
or fowl. Fruit may also be inclosed in a vol-au-vent. [Illustration]
SOUPS.
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CHAPTER V.
GENERAL DIRECTIONS FOR MAKING SOUPS.
88. LEAN, JUICY BEEF, MUTTON, AND VEAL, form the basis of all good soups; therefore it is advisable to procure those pieces which afford the richest succulence, and such as are fresh-killed. Stale meat renders them bad, and fat is not so well adapted for making them. The principal art in composing good rich soup, is so to proportion the several ingredients that the flavour of one shall not predominate over another, and that all the articles of which it is composed, shall form an agreeable whole. To accomplish
this, care must be taken that the roots and herbs are perfectly well cleaned, and that the water is proportioned to the quantity of meat and other ingredients. Generally a quart of water may be allowed to a pound of meat for soups, and half the quantity for gravies.
In making soups or gravies, gentle stewing or simmering is incomparably the best. It may be remarked, however, that a really good soup can never be made but in a well-closed vessel, although, perhaps, greater wholesomeness is obtained by an occasional exposure to the air. Soups will, in general, take from three to six hours doing, and are much better prepared the day before they are wanted. When the soup is cold, the fat may be much more easily and completely removed; and when it is poured off, care must be taken not to disturb the settlings at the bottom of the vessel, which are so fine that they will escape through a sieve. A tamis is the best strainer, and if the soup is strained while it is hot, let the tamis or cloth be previously soaked in cold water. Clear soups must be perfectly transparent, and thickened soups about the consistence of cream. To thicken and give body to soups and gravies, potato-mucilage, arrowroot, bread-raspings, isinglass, flour and butter, barley, rice, or oatmeal, in a little water rubbed well together, are used. A piece of boiled beef pounded to a pulp, with a bit of butter and flour, and rubbed through a sieve, and gradually incorporated with the soup, will be found an excellent addition. When the soup appears to be too thin or too weak, the cover of the boiler should be taken off, and the contents allowed to boil till some of the watery parts have evaporated; or some of the thickening materials, above mentioned, should be added. When soups and gravies are kept from day to day in hot weather, they should be warmed up every day, and put into fresh scalded pans or tureens, and placed in a cool cellar. In temperate weather, every other day may be sufficient.
89. VARIOUS HERBS AND VEGETABLES are required for the purpose of making soups and gravies. Of these the principal are,--Scotch barley, pearl barley, wheat flour, oatmeal, bread-raspings, pease, beans, rice, vermicelli, macaroni, isinglass, potato-muci- lage, mushroom or mushroom ketchup, champignons, parsnips, carrots, beetroot, turnips, garlic, shalots, and onions. Sliced onions, fried with butter and flour till they are browned, and then rubbed through a sieve, are excellent to heighten the colour and flavour
of brown soups and sauces, and form the basis of many of the fine relishes furnished by the cook. The older and drier the onion, the stronger will be its flavour. Leeks, cucumber, or burnet vinegar; celery or celery-seed pounded. The latter, though equally strong, does not impart the delicate sweetness of the fresh vegetable; and when used as a substitute, its flavour should be corrected by the addition of a bit of sugar. Cress-seed, parsley, common thyme, lemon thyme, orange thyme, knotted marjoram, sage, mint, winter savoury, and basil. As fresh green basil is seldom to be procured, and its fine flavour is soon lost, the best way of preserving the extract is by pouring wine on the fresh leaves.
90. FOR THE SEASONING OF SOUPS, bay-leaves, tomato, tarragon, chervil, burnet, allspice, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, clove, mace, black and white pepper, essence of anchovy, lemon-peel, and juice, and Seville orange-juice, are all taken. The latter imparts
a finer flavour than the lemon, and the acid is much milder. These materials, with wine, mushroom ketchup, Harvey's sauce, tomato sauce, combined in various proportions, are, with other ingredients, manipulated into an almost endless variety of excellent soups and gravies. Soups, which are intended to constitute the principal part of a meal, certainly ought not to be flavoured like sauces, which are only designed to give a relish to some particular dish.
SOUP, BROTH AND BOUILLON.
91. IT HAS BEEN ASSERTED, that English cookery is, nationally speaking, far from being the best in the world. More than this,
we have been frequently told by brilliant foreign writers, half philosophers, half chefs, that we are the worst cooks on the face of the earth, and that the proverb which alludes to the divine origin of food, and the precisely opposite origin of its preparers, is peculiarly applicable to us islanders. Not, however, to the inhabitants of the whole island; for, it is stated in a work which treats of culinary operations, north of the Tweed, that the "broth" of Scotland claims, for excellence and wholesomeness, a very close second place
to the bouillon, or common soup of France. "Three hot meals of broth and meat, for about the price of ONE roasting joint," our Scottish brothers and sisters get, they say; and we hasten to assent to what we think is now a very well-ascertained fact. We are glad to note, however, that soups of vegetables, fish, meat, and game, are now very frequently found in the homes of the English middle