After this little digression it will be well to turn to more serious things—cutlets, for instance. Obtain from the butcher a couple of well-trimmed mutton cutlets, and from the greengrocer sufficient green peas that, when shelled, you will have a breakfast-cupful. Melt a walnut of butter in the Chafing Dish. Into the melted butter drop a tablespoonful of flour and a sprinkling of chopped chives. A teaspoonful of Worcester sauce and three drops of Tabasco, together with salt at discretion, will suffice for flavouring, and care must be taken that the mixture does not boil. Put in the cutlets, and when they begin to turn brownish add the peas, and half a cupful of milk. About fifteen minutes should cook the meat through if your spirit flame be strong, otherwise it may take somewhat longer. A very good substitute for Worcester sauce, in this connection, is Sauce Robert, which it is unnecessary to manufacture, as it can be bought ready made, and well made too, of the Escoffier brand. With certain meats it is an excellent condiment.
By the way, in some very old cookery books Sauce Robert was termed Roe-Boat sauce, an extraordinary orthographic muddle. An omelette was likewise known as a “Hamlet.”
This suggests the somewhat too sophisticated schoolboy’s description of Esau as “a hairy, humpbacked man, who wrote a book of fables and sold the copyright for a bottle of potash.”
It may be deemed superfluous, and in that case I apologise beforehand, to insist on the most scrupulous cleanliness in dealing with the Chafing Dish and its adjuncts. Not only should the dish itself be kept spotless and thoroughly scoured, but the stand, the lamp, the implements, and the glass and china should be immaculate. Servants are easily persuaded to look after the cleaning process, and do it with a certain amount of care, but it can do no harm to understudy their duties and add an extra polish all round oneself. It gives one, too, a personal interest in the result, otherwise lacking. I recommend the use of at least three dishcloths, which should be washed regularly and used discreetly. The Chafist who neglects his apparatus is unworthy of the high mission with which he is charged, and deserves the appellation of the younger son of Archidamus III., King of Sparta. Cleanliness is next to all manner of things in this dusty world of ours, and absolutely nothing conduces more to the enjoyment of a mealet that one has cooked oneself than the knowledge that everything is spick and span, and that one has contributed oneself thereto by a little extra care and forethought.
A word of warning here. Never use “kitchen butter,” or “kitchen sherry,” or “kitchen eggs,” or “kitchen” anything else; use the very best you can afford.
An armoury of brooms, brushes, scrubbers, soap and soda is in no way necessary. A couple of polishing cloths and a little, a very little, of one of the many patent cleaners is all that is required. A clear conscience and plenty of elbow-grease does the rest.
The British equivalent of the continental charcutier is of inestimable service to the Chafist. At his more or less appetising emporium, small quantities of edibles can be purchased which are excellently well adapted for the cult of Chaffinda, especially if one be inclined towards the recooking of cold meats, instead of the treatment of them in a raw state. Both have their advantages—and their drawbacks. It is a general, but totally inaccurate, belief that meat once cooked needs only to be hotted up again. Nothing could be more fatal to its flavour and nutriment. A certain amount of the good juices of the meat must inevitably have been lost during the first process, and therefore great care must be taken in the second operation to tempt forth, and, in some cases, to restore the natural flavour. Cold cooked meat needs long and gentle cooking, a strong clear flame, without sudden differences in temperature, and it may be taken as a general rule that cold meat needs practically as long to cook as raw meat.
Browned Tongue.
For example, take half a dozen slices of cooked tongue, spread on each of them a modicum of made mustard, and let each slice repose for about two minutes in a little bath of salad oil (about enough to cover the bottom of a soup plate). Put the slices one on top of another until they make a compact little heap. Put the heap of tongue between two plates, so as to expel the superfluous oil. Let it remain thus for half an hour. Then put a nutmeg of butter in the blazer, dismember the heap of tongue, and put the slices into the frizzling butter and turn them until they are brown. A little sauce, Worcester, Robert, or Piquant, may be added to suit individual taste. Serve very hot, with sippets of toast.
I have ventured to christen this dish Browned Tongue, which is simple and descriptive, but every Chafist is entitled to call it what he likes. There is little, if any, copyright in Chafing-Dish titles. Alexandre Dumas, author and cook, protests against the mishandling of names: “Les fantaisies de saucer, de mettre sur le gril, et de faire rôtir nos grands hommes.”