Chicken Saute a la Creole: Clean, singe and cut in joints two spring chickens, dividing the breasts lengthwise, and cutting drumsticks from thighs. Season well with salt and pepper. Melt in a frying pan two large tablespoonfuls butter, add the chicken, and let it brown slowly for five minutes. Have three large onions sliced thin—add them and let brown but take care not to scorch in the least. Dredge in two tablespoonfuls flour, and let it brown. Then put in half a dozen large tomatoes peeled and sliced, let them brown but cook slowly, letting the pan barely simmer. Add chopped parsley, thyme and bay leaf, also two cloves of garlic finely minced, and if you have them, half a dozen sweet green peppers, freed of seed and cut in shreds. Stir well, cover and let smother for twenty minutes, stirring now and then, but keeping the pan covered. Add a cup of consommé if in hand, otherwise a cup of boiling water, cook very slowly a full half hour, seasoning to taste. After seasoning, cook ten minutes longer. Serve very hot.
Roasted Quail: Take six quail, fat, fresh and tender, pick, draw, singe, and wipe with a damp cloth inside and out. Butter inside, and sprinkle with salt and pepper lightly. Butter all over the outside, truss, and bind around with a thin slice of fat bacon. Put a tablespoonful of butter in the roasting pan, fit in the quail, and roast in a hot oven twenty to thirty minutes, according to size. Put six slices of hot buttered toast in a hot dish, and lay a quail on each. Add half a spoonful of butter, a little boiling water, and the juice of a lemon to the gravy in the pan, cook three to four minutes, stirring well, strain, set back on stove to cook two minutes longer, then pour evenly upon the breasts of the birds so it will soak in the toast. Garnish with sliced lemon and watercress, and serve with green grape jelly. If grape leaves are to be had, wrap the birds in them instead of bacon, after preparing as directed, roast, take up on toast, garnish with fresh young grape leaves, and serve with either spiced grapes or grape jelly.
Creole French Dressing: Put three tablespoonfuls of olive oil in a deep, small bowl, add to it a saltspoon salt and half one of pepper—more if taste approves. Add alternately drop by drop, a teaspoonful of made mustard, and a tablespoonful vinegar. When well mixed, add the yolk of a hard-boiled egg, mashed very smooth, and stir until blended. Serve with lettuce, celery or potato salad.
Mayonnaise Dressing: Chill a small bowl, also a fresh egg, and your salad oil. Put the yolk of the egg in the bowl—which if it is summer, should sit in cracked ice. Add drop by drop chilled oil, working it in as you drop it. When you have added a spoonful begin dropping in lemon juice, working it likewise into the yolk. It will harden the egg—stir till very hard, then add more oil, drop by drop, working it in with a fork. Repeat, until you have used the juice of half a lemon, and two gills of oil. When the egg begins to curdle add salt and pepper to taste—but do not put them in until the last. Keep and serve very cold.
Remoulade Dressing: Put three hard boiled egg-yolks into a bowl, mash smooth, add to them half a teaspoonful made mustard, one tablespoonful Tarragon vinegar, with salt and Cayenne to taste. Next add, drop by drop, three tablespoonfuls olive oil, after which put in the yolk of a raw egg, and stir until light. Finish with the juice of half a lemon, added very gradually. Much depends on the mixing—if hurried or carelessly done, the sauce will curdle. This is standard for cold meat of every sort, also heavy salads, and fish.
Drip Coffee: Two things are essential—an absolutely clean urn, and sound coffee, freshly parched, and ground neither too fine nor too coarse. The water must be freshly boiled. Put a cup of ground coffee in the strainer, pour upon it about two tablespoonfuls of boiling water, let it stand until the water drips through and there is no more bubbling, then pour on more water, but not too much, let it drip, keeping both the strainer and the spout covered to prevent the loss of aroma. Repeat until you have used almost five cups of water—this for four cups of strained coffee, as the grounds hold part of the water. Keep the pot hot while the dripping goes on, but never where the coffee will boil. If it dyes the cups it is too strong, but beware of making too weak.
Bruleau: Put into the special bruleau bowl, which has its own brandy ladle, three ladlefuls of brandy, along with the yellow peel of half an orange, a dozen cloves, a stick of cinnamon, a few grains of alspice and six lumps of sugar. Let stand several hours to extract the essential oils. At serving time put in an extra ladleful of brandy for every person to be served, and two lumps of domino sugar. Pour alcohol in the tray underneath the bowl, light it, and stir the brandy back and forth until it also catches from the flame below. Let burn two or three minutes—if the lights have been extinguished as they should be, the effect is beautifully spectral. After the three minutes pour in strong, hot, clear, black coffee, a small cupful for each person, keep stirring until the flame dies out, then serve literally blazing hot. This "burnt water" known in more sophisticated regions as Café Diabolique, originated in New Orleans, and is the consummate flowering of Creole cookery.
Cakes, Great and Small