After the squabs the sweets. Few housekeepers will think a Christmas dinner complete without mince pies and plum-pudding, but I cannot suggest a way in which to make them, for truth to tell, I never prepared either, and I’m above offering you any recipes which I’ve not tried, no matter how true they may be. Consult your cookery books if you’ve not a favorite method of your own for preparing these aids to indigestion, and select those that seem least harmful.
Of course, there will be upon the table till dessert is served celery, olives stuffed or plain, salted almonds or pecans, etc. I know that you know this, but had I neglected to mention it more than likely you would have accused me of being ignorant of the necessity of having these side dishes at a dinner.
After the sweets the biscuit, cheese and coffee, and if the cheese is to be of a particularly rich flavor, such as Camembert, Roquefort, or Brie, then by all means serve with it some of the little Bar-le-Duc currants, both red and white.
Are you to have wine? Then make it sherry with the soup, champagne with the goose, and the very best burgundy to be had to accompany the squabs.
I fancy there is nothing more that I can suggest that will add to your happiness or that of your guests, who will probably feel very grateful to you for spreading for them a feast “delectable to eat and to behold.” For yourself, you will probably feel very grateful that Christmas comes but once a year.
You shall not be put off with any side issue in these very last pages, but shall have dished up for your critical examination a list that I promise you shall be a hodge-podge, a mélange, or, if it please your sense of the fitness of things better, a macédoine of the best edibles the market affords.
Doubtless when you have been in Western cities you have dined many a time and oft at those sky-high restaurants overlooking one of the Great Lakes, and have had the waiter, with an air of honesty made perfect by practice, point out to you the very spot where the whitefish you were at the minute admiring had been pulled in scarcely three hours before. If so, you know the delicious and unapproachable flavor of the fish in their purest and best estate. And yet they reach eastern markets in a remarkable state of freshness and are inexpensive enough to warrant any one in trying them for a change from the kinds that are more common here.
Baked Whitefish
Broiled over a hot fire and served with a simple sauce made of melted butter, lemon juice and a sprinkling of cayenne they are good enough to serve at any meal for anybody. But you can make a more elaborate dish from them by going to work in this way: Scale a rather good-sized fish, split it, remove the backbone, and then season the fish well with salt and pepper, dip it in beaten egg, then in bread-crumbs, again in beaten egg, and lay in a well buttered baking pan. Bake in a hot oven till it is colored a good brown. Take it up on a hot dish, set the baking pan having in it the hot butter on the top of the range and cook in it for a minute or two half a pint of drained oysters; arrange the oysters round the fish and pour a little melted butter over all, with a garnishing of fried parsley. If you are having this dish for luncheon, have with it some potato croquettes, but if it is intended for dinner and a roast or rich entrée is to follow, then have a dainty salad of crisp radishes with a handful of capers shaken over them.