Instead of frying the filet de sole for dinner, Molly intended to have what is called by cooks turbans of sole, with béchamel. She put the bones and fins left from boning a flounder (see directions, [Chapter XIX].) into a pint of water, and let them stew slowly at the back of the range; then she rolled up the filets and fastened each with a wooden toothpick, and set them to keep cool until she was ready to cook them.
For the miroton of beef she cut from the braised beef of the night before some very delicate slices and laid them in an oval dish; then she put a large table-spoonful of butter in a small saucepan, and let it get very hot, and poured into it a cup of rice, which had been boiled till just dry and tender, but not broken; this was fried, with frequent stirring, till pale brown, when it was poured over the beef, making a cover. The cold gravy, which was a solid jelly and rather too highly flavored for the purpose, was diluted with an equal quantity of hot water and a pinch of salt; a tea-spoonful of brown thickening was stirred into it, and enough poured over the rice to moisten the whole, but not make it “sloppy;” the dish was then put into the oven to remain for half an hour.
Marta had put on the potatoes early, and when they were boiled she mashed them (keeping them quite hot) with a fork, beating it rapidly back and forth till they were white and light; then Molly took them herself, and told her to strain the bones from the fish broth or stock, to put a salt-spoonful of salt in it, and set it to boil again; then to chop some parsley very fine, to cut a thin slice of blood-red pickled beet, and cut from it with a thimble (in the absence of the proper tube) little disks the size of a dime.
Molly seasoned the potatoes highly, putting to them (there was a scant pint) a dessert-spoonful of butter, salt, pepper, a grate of nutmeg, and a little parsley. Then she beat an egg and added part of it, keeping out only enough to brush over the balls when made. She formed each about the size of a small orange, and brushed them over with the egg. They were placed on a buttered tin and put in the oven to brown.
The turbans of fish were now put in the boiling stock, and boiled till they were milky-white instead of clear—about eight minutes; then Molly took them up with a skimmer, and in a small saucepan stirred a dessert-spoonful of butter and one of flour together, letting them bubble a few seconds, and then poured a gill of the fish stock and half one of milk to it, stirring all the time (in fact, making white sauce, but using part fish stock instead of all milk, which makes béchamel for fish; made with veal or chicken stock it is béchamel for meat). When seasoned with a little pepper, the little rolled filets were placed standing up in a small dish, and the sauce poured all over them to mask them entirely; then Molly took a little parsley on the end of a knife and carefully sprinkled it over the same, which, being thick, allowed it to rest upon it; then a disk of the blood-red beet was laid deftly on the top of each turban, and a very pretty dish was the result.
“Now, Marta, I leave you to bring the dinner in as soon as Mr. Bishop is ready. I have left the iced coffee packed ready; all you have to do is to wipe every spot of ice and salt from the outside, and then fill two cups from it. Pile each cup very high with the whipped cream, and bring in the cake at the same time.”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
FRICASSEED CHICKEN—LEMON HONEY—FRENCH ICING TO KEEP.
The next day Molly, while showing Marta how to cook the dinner, added two other articles to those she liked to have always ready. Cake, as she said, was so little eaten by Harry and herself that a loaf lasted a week, even with Marta’s help, for she, like most of her countrywomen, lived largely on soups, and salad, and vegetables, and cared little for sweets. She did not care to have the same cake, over and over again, and had she had preserves in the house, would have found it easy to convert it into something more attractive. Had she been keeping house long enough, jams and jellies would have been in her store-room; peaches were now the only available fruit, and by the time Molly was settled enough to think of doing them up, they were both poor and dear, and in the boarding-house they had been rather surfeited with canned peaches, therefore she had let them go. She had lately been unearthing several old recipes of her mother’s and grandmother’s, and some of them she meant to try. There was one called “lemon honey.” It was of more modern date than the others, and as her mother had written under it “nice change from preserves for cake,” she decided to make it. She required for it half a pound of sugar, the rind and juice of a large fresh lemon, the yolks of three eggs and white of one, and three ounces of sweet butter.