The makers of the Chafing Dish sell a useful methylated spirit can, with a curved spout to fill up the asbestos wick. It will be found that a good filling will burn for thirty to forty minutes, which is ample for all ordinary purposes. Much of course depends on the quality of the spirit used, and, further, the wick will only become thoroughly saturated after half a dozen usings, and will subsequently require rather less spirit. I have found that water boils in the “Blazer,” or handled Chafing Dish, in about ten minutes, and instructions on bottled or preserved food, soups and the like, must be slightly discounted. Thus if one is told to boil for twenty minutes, it will be found that fifteen minutes in the Chafing Dish will be ample in nearly all cases.
As this is mainly a true story of my own personal adventures among the pots and pans, I can hardly do better than describe the first dish I tried my ’prentice hand upon, with the devout wish that all neophytes may be as successful therewith as I was.
Beef Strips.
The experiment, the preliminary exercise, if I may so term it, has no name, although it savours somewhat of the Resurrection Pie, unbeloved of schoolboys. Let us call it Beef Strips. Cut three thick slices from a rather well-cooked cold sirloin of beef, cut these again into strips a quarter of an inch wide and about three inches long. Take care that they are very lean. Chop up half a dozen cold boiled potatoes (not of the floury kind) into dice. Put the beef and the potatoes into the Chafing Dish. Light the lamp and see that the heat is steady, but not too strong. Add at once a good-sized walnut of butter, a teaspoon of Worcester sauce, salt and pepper. For at least ten minutes turn over the mixture continually with a wooden spoon until it is thoroughly heated. Turn it out on to a hot dish, and garnish with half a dozen tiny triangles of toast.
This is a simple luncheon or supper dish which takes little time, and—to my taste at least—is appetising and satisfying. Like all Chafing-Dish preparations, it can be cooked on the table, with no more protection than a tray under the wrought-iron stand, and a square of coloured tablecloth upon your white one to receive possible splashes or drops.
Jellied Ham.
Now for exercise number two, which I have christened Jellied Ham, and commend as a dish very unlikely to go wrong in the manipulation.
Get your flame steady and true, and put a small walnut of butter in the dish. When it is fluid, add a good dessert-spoonful of red currant jelly, a liqueur glass of sherry, and three drops of Tabasco sauce. Drop into this simmering mixture a few slices of cold boiled ham cut thin and lean, and let it slowly cook for six to eight minutes. If you wish to be extravagant, then instead of the sherry use a full wine-glassful of champagne. It is by no means necessary to eat this with vegetables, but if you insist on the conjunction, I would recommend a purée of spinach, directions for which appear hereafter.
This Jellied Ham is an agreeable concoction, which I find peculiarly soothing as a light supper after having seen an actor-manager playing Shakespeare. This is, however, after all only a matter of taste.
It has always seemed to me that different forms of the drama require, nay demand, different dinners and suppers, according to the disposition in which one approaches them. For instance, before an Adelphi melodrama, turtle soup (mock if necessary), turbot and rump steaks are indicated, whereas a musical comedy calls for an East Room menu, and an Ibsen or G. B. Shaw play for an A.B.C. shop or a vegetarian restaurant respectively. But I only hint at the broad outline of my idea, which is capable of extension to an indefinite limit.