Soufflé de Filets de Sole à la d'Orléans
Choisissez des filets de sole bien blancs, les parer et ciseler, les farcir d'une farce de poisson aux truffes et rouler en forme de paupiettes, faites pocher doucement avec du vin blanc, faire réduire la cuisson, ajouter trois cuillères de béchamelle, le toute étant bien réduit lier avec deux jaunes d'œufs et mélanger à votre appareil en ajoutant de belles lames de truffes fraîches chauffées au beurre assaisonné de sel et beaucoup de mignonette, placez vos paupiettes sur un croûton très mince dans une timbale en argent et recouverte de l'appareil à souffler, faites cuire pendant quinze minutes au four en soupoudrant de parmesan (cheese) dessus de façon à prendre belle couleur.—Ce plat doit être servi de suite.
Choose very white fillets of sole, cut and shape them to the proper size, stuff them with a fish stuffing made with truffles, and roll them up en paupiettes (in thin pieces, with the force-meat inside). Well boil down the liquor, add three spoonfuls of Béchamel sauce, and when the whole is well reduced add two yokes of eggs, and mix in your soufflé pan, adding some nice slices of fresh truffles, warmed in butter, seasoned with salt, and plenty of mignonette pepper. Place your paupiettes on a very thin crust in a silver timbale. Place in the soufflé apparatus, cover over, and cook in the oven for fifteen minutes, first having sprinkled it on the top with Parmesan cheese so as to make it a good colour. This dish must be served immediately.
[CHAPTER XIX]
THE MERCERS' HALL (CHEAPSIDE)
It is not the least pleasant part of writing of dinners and those who eat them that it brings me some varied correspondence, and perhaps the pleasantest letter I have received was one asking me if I would like to dine with the Company of Mercers; for if I would, my correspondent offered to send me an invitation.
If there was one City Company that I was anxious to dine with it was the Mercers, for most of my forebears had been of the guild. My great-great-uncle, who was Lord Mayor and an M.P., and who fell into unpopularity because he advocated paying the debts of George IV., was a Mercer; my great-uncle was in his turn Master of the Company, and my grandfather, who was a very peppery and litigious old gentleman, has left many pamphlets in which he tried to make it warm for everybody all round because he was not raised to the Court of Assistants when he thought he should have been. I had looked out Mercers' Hall in the Directory, and found its position put down as 4 Ironmonger Lane, Cheapside; so a few minutes before seven o'clock, the hour at which we were bidden to the feast, I found my way from Moorgate Street Station to Ironmonger Lane, and there asked a policeman which was the Mercers' Company Hall. He looked at me a little curiously and pointed to some great gates, with a lamp above them, enshrined in a rather dingy portal. I passed a fountain, of which two cherubs held the jet and three stone cranes contemplated the water in the basin, and found myself in a great pillared space. A servant in a brown livery, of whom I asked my way, pointed to some steps and said something about hurrying up. At the top of the steps a door led me into a passage, on either side of which were sitting gentlemen in dress-clothes. I looked at them and they looked at me, and I thought for a second that the Mercers' guests were rather a queer lot; and then the true inwardness of the situation burst on me. I had come in by the waiters' door.