VOL-AU-VENT À LA CRÊME. (ENTREMETS.)
After having raised the cover and emptied the vol-au-vent, lay it on a sheet of paper, and let it become cold. Fill it just before it is sent to table with fruit, either boiled down to a rich marmalade, or stewed as for the preceding vol-au-vent, and heap well flavoured, but not too highly sweetened, whipped cream over it. The edge of the crust may be glazed by sifting sugar over it, when it is drawn from the oven, and holding a salamander or red hot shovel above it; or it may be left unglazed, and ornamented with bright coloured fruit jelly.
OYSTER PATTIES.[[119]] (ENTRÉE).
[119]. These patties should be made small, with a thin crust, and well filled with the oysters and their sauce. The substitution of fried crumbs for the covers will vary them very agreeably. For lobster patties, prepare the fish as for a vol-au-vent but cut it smaller.
Line some small pattypans with fine puff-paste, rolled thin and to preserve their form when baked, put a bit of bread into each; lay on the covers, pinch and trim the edges, and send the patties to a brisk oven. Plump and beard from two to three dozens of small oysters; mix very smoothly a teaspoonful of flour with an ounce of butter, put them into a clean saucepan, shake them round over a gentle fire, and let them simmer for two or three minutes; throw in a little salt, pounded mace, and cayenne, then add, by slow degrees, two or three spoonsful of rich cream, give these a boil, and pour in the strained liquor of the oysters; next, lay in the fish, and keep at the point of boiling for a couple of minutes. Raise the covers from the patties, take out the bread, fill them with the oysters and their sauce, and replace the covers. We have found it an improvement to stew the beards of the fish with a strip or two of lemon-peel, in a little good veal stock for a quarter of an hour, then to strain and add it to the sauce. The oysters, unless very small, should be once or twice divided.