Beaten light with milk and butter, and smoothed into a mound, should be served with the fish. If you have a pretty butter-print, wet it, and stamp the top of the mound.
Remember that everything tastes better for looking well.
Larded Sweetbreads, Stewed.
- 3 or 4 fine sweetbreads.
- ¼ lb. fat salt pork, cut into “lardoons,” or long narrow strips.
- 1 cup of gravy (saved from the roast calf’s head of yesterday).
- 1 tablespoonful of tomato or other catsup.
- Juice of half a lemon.
- Season with pepper.
Parboil the sweetbreads for five minutes. The water should boil when they are dropped in. Take out and lay at once in ice-cold water. This makes them firm. Leave in this five minutes, wipe dry, and set aside to get cold. Then lard with the strips of pork, passing them quite through, so as to project on both sides. If you have no larding-needle, use a long-bladed penknife. Put them into a saucepan; cover with the gravy. If there is not enough, put in a few spoonfuls from the boiling soup. The gravy should be cold, however, when poured over the sweetbreads. Stew about twenty-five minutes after the boil begins. Take out the sweetbreads; thicken the gravy with browned flour, add catsup, lemon, and pepper, the lardoons having salted it sufficiently. Lay the sweetbreads upon a hot dish, pour the gravy over them, and serve; in carving, cut perpendicularly.
Stewed Celery.
- 2 bunches of celery, the white stalks only, scraped and cut into short pieces.
- 2 beaten eggs.
- 1 cup of milk.
- 1 tablespoonful of butter rolled in flour.
- Pepper, salt, and a pinch of nutmeg.
Stew the celery in a little salted hot water until quite tender. Drain off the water and put in the milk, cold. So soon as it boils, stir in the butter, rolled in flour, pepper, salt, and nutmeg. Add a few spoonfuls of the hot milk to the beaten eggs that they may not curdle in the saucepan; put with the celery and sauce over the fire; boil up once, and dish.
Omelette Soufflé.
- 8 eggs.
- 5 tablespoonfuls of powdered sugar.
- 1 tablespoonful of butter.
- Vanilla or rose-water flavoring.