Cut tender cooked chicken and ham, three-fourths chicken and one-fourth ham, into tiny cubes. The meat may be chopped, but it is preferable to have tangible pieces of small size. For one pint of meat, melt three tablespoonfuls of butter; in it cook four tablespoonfuls of flour and half a teaspoonful, each, of salt and paprika; when frothy stir in one cup of chicken broth and half a cup of cream; stir until boiling, then add a beaten egg; stir until cooked, then stir in the meat and let cool. The mixture should be quite consistent. Seasonings, as onion or lemon juice, celery salt, or chopped truffles, or fresh mushrooms, broken in pieces and sautéd in butter, may be added at pleasure. Have ready some flaky pastry or part plain and part puff paste. Stamp out rounds three and a half or four inches in diameter. If plain and puff paste be used have an equal number of rounds of each. On the rounds of plain paste put a generous tablespoonful of the meat mixture, spreading it toward the edge; brush the edge of the paste with cold water; make two small openings in each round of puff paste, press these rounds over the meat on the others, brush over with milk, or yolk of egg diluted with milk and bake in a hot oven. Serve hot with a tomato or mushroom sauce, or cold without a sauce. Cold corned beef is good used in this way. Rissoles are often brushed over with egg and fried in deep fat.
Cheese Salad in Molds lined with Strips of Pimento
Cheese Salad
Line each "flute" in small fluted molds with narrow strips of pimento. For this recipe six or seven molds will be needed. Beat one cup of cream, one-fourth a teaspoonful, each, of salt and paprika till firm. Soften half a level tablespoonful of gelatine in about one-eighth a cup of cold water; dissolve by setting the dish in warm water. To the dissolved gelatine add half a cup, generous measure, of grated cheese of any variety. Stir until cool, then fold into the cream. Use this mixture to fill the molds. When cold and firm unmold and serve with a plain lettuce salad. French or mayonnaise dressing may be used with the lettuce. Bread or crackers should also be provided. Hot pulled bread or toasted crackers are excellent. As the pimentos flavor the dish strongly, nothing that does not harmonize with them should be presented at the same time. If the pimento prove objectionable—they sometimes cause flatulency—strips of uncooked tomato may be substituted.
Plain Pastry
Sift together two and one-half cups of pastry flour, a teaspoonful of baking powder and half a teaspoonful of salt; work in half a cup of shortening, then stir in cold water as is needed to make a paste. Knead slightly on a floured board; cut off half the paste for the lower rounds.
Flaky Paste
Roll the other half of the paste into a rectangular sheet, dot one half with tiny bits of butter, fold the unbuttered paste over the other, dot half of this with bits of butter, fold as before, dot one half with butter, fold as before, then roll out into a thin sheet for the upper rounds. The paste may be chilled to advantage before rolling. In pastry making a magic cover may be used more successfully than a marble slab.
