Mary smiled. "Well, as a concession, I will say that you can have it once in a long, long time, provided you conscientiously make up beforehand for the extravagance by going in for a regular diet of cheap things. When you do indulge, buy a large fowl, because that goes farther for the price. Stew it till it is tender, and serve it in sections. Cut the breast in four pieces, and lay two away; cut the second joints lengthwise, take out the bone and lay half the meat away with the breast. Cook some boiled rice, to put around your platter; have plenty of gravy, and the first four pieces will do very well for two people. For the second dinner, brown the corresponding four pieces, and serve these with sweet potatoes. The third night, open the drumsticks, take out the bones, fill the centres with stuffing, and brown these. Serve them on toast, like birds; you might well pretend that is what they are, too. You will still have the bits on the wings, neck and back for a nice luncheon dish or for croquettes; and the liver, gizzard, and heart should go into an omelette. After all, a fowl is not too expensive for two people provided they will make three meals of it; not too expensive for an occasional change, that is. It would be too much for daily consumption."
"It would do provided the fowl was not too tough," corrected Dolly.
"It is tolerably sure to be tough, but long cooking corrects that. Try this sometimes: instead of simmering it, cut it up and fry each piece a little; as you do so, put them in a kettle and add a very little water. When all are in see that the water just covers them; put a cover on and put this away in the tireless stove, or simmer it very slowly on the back of the range for four or five hours. It will come out brown and tender."
"And put all left-over gravy and bones in the stock pot," Dolly muttered to herself as she wrote this down. "Now, before I forget it, tell me why the drumsticks are to be served 'on toast?' I see I have that expression down over and over. Are you so awfully fond of toast as all that?"
"Toast, my dear child, is the way of making a small dish larger. When things are scanty it conceals the fact as nothing else does. Don't you know how often the cook-books say, 'serve with sippets of toast?'"
"Now you mention it, I do seem to recall the phrase, though I thought it said 'snippets' of toast. I supposed they were a sort of garnish, like parsley."
"They are a garnish, but at the same time they are one of the small economies of cooking. They get rid of bits of bread, and at the same time give an air to a dish while they help eke it out.
"And now for the left-overs of meat. I have spoken of some of those as we have gone along, but there are heaps and heaps more. If you have a good deal of meat left over you can have English rissoles, for one thing; generally you make them out of beef, but not necessarily. You chop the meat, mix it with gravy and a raw egg to bind it, add a few crumbs and some seasoning, and roll the whole into balls. Dip each one in flour and fry it in a wire basket. Beef olives are thin slices of beef with a spoonful of crumbs put on each slice, and these rolled over once and pinned in place with a tiny wooden skewer—in other words, a wooden toothpick. Any other meat can be used in the same way. Mutton can be served a la marquise; that is, mince it, mix it with boiled rice and curry-powder and a tiny bit of onion, and a raw egg to bind it all; make into balls and fry them. Sliced mutton is nice dipped in French dressing and broiled. Cottage loaf is good, especially for an extra busy day. For that, line a dish with mashed potato, put the minced and seasoned meat in the centre and cover with more potato; bake this and turn out in a mould. Tomato sauce goes well with this dish by way of gravy. Baked hash is just minced meat mixed with gravy, pressed into a mould and baked in the oven till it will turn out.
"When you have only a little meat left over and can make none of these dishes, try soufflé; I have never found anything so good to help out. You chop the meat till you have a cupful; or, if there is less, measure everything else in the same proportion. With a cupful take as much white sauce, a little minced onion and parsley, salt and pepper, and put it all on the fire with two beaten egg yolks. Cook this three minutes; take it off and cool it, and fold in the stiffly beaten whites. Put it in a buttered baking-dish and bake it half an hour and serve at once while it is nice and puffy.