Consomme Of Game

If you are to send up entrees of partridges, you must have ready a consomme of partridges. Put into a stew-pan a few slices of veal, the backs, etc. of partridges to be laid over them. If you moisten with a consomme containing ham, there is no occasion to put in any more; if not, a few slices of ham will not be amiss. If your entrees are with truffles, add the parings of your truffles void a fewmushrooms. When the consomme is sufficiently done, strain it through a cloth, or silk sieve, and use it when you have an opportunity.

Consomme Of Rabbits

Mark* the various consommes with the bones and trimmings of rabbits. Do the same as for a consomme of partridges; put in truffles if your entrees are to be with truffles.

Sauce A La Lucullus

Lucullus was one of the most renowned epicures of ancient Rome; it is very natural of course to assign the name of a man who has brought the art of cookery into so high a repute, to a sauce which requires so much pains, attention, and science for its production, and which can only be sent up to the table of a wealthy and true connoisseur. After having worked the fillets, as indicated at the entrees, you have the legs and loins left to make the sauce, which is to be proceeded in as follows. Put into a small stew-pan a few slices of ham, about one pound or two of veal, and the legs and rump of a partridge on the top of the former, moisten with about a wine-glass of good consomme, put the whole on a slow fire in order to sweat it through; thrust your knife into the partridge, if no blood comes, moisten with boiling consomme, enough to cover the meat; season with a bundle of parsley and green onions, a few blades of mace, one clove, a little thyme, half a bay-leaf, four or five allspice, the trimmings of truffles and mushrooms; let your consomme boil till the partridge is well done, then strain through a silk sieve; reduce the consomme to a very light glaze. Then take a sufficient quantity of veloute, and mix a spoonful of glaze of game with it; but as this glaze would make the sauce of a brown colour, you must have a few spoonfuls of thick cream to mix with it. You must have for your saute, some truffles cut into the size of a penny. Put them separately into clarified butter with a little salt.

When you are going to send up the dinner, sautez or fry gently the truffles, and when done drain the butter off: put them separately into a small stew-pan with a little essence of game and truffles. As you are to mask those parts only which are not decorated, take up the fillets and dip them into the sauce, but no deeper than the part which you have glazed slightly, in order to render the truffles blacker. When you have dished a large fillet and a small one alternately, you mask the filets mignons with the remainder of the sauce, and put in the middle the truffles, cut to the size of a penny, which have been lying in a sauce like that which has been used for the fillets *.

Veloute, A New Method

As it is not customary in England, as it is in France, to allow a principal cook six assistants or deputies, for half a dozen or even ten entrees, I have thought it incumbent on me to abridge, to the best of my abilities, the various pre-parations of sauces, etc. Put into a stew-pan, a knuckle of veal, some slices of ham, four or five pounds of beef, the legs and loin of a fowl, and all the trimmings of meat or game that you have, and moisten with boiled water, sufficient to cover half the meat; make it sweat gently on a slow fire, till the meat is done through; this you can ascertain by thrusting your knife into it; if no blood flows, it is then time to moisten with boiled water, enough to cover all the meat; then season with a bundle of parsley and green onions, a clove, half a bay-leaf, some thyme, a little salt, and some trimmings of mushrooms. When the sauce has boiled long enough to let the knuckle be well done, skim off all the fat, strain it through a silk sieve, and reduce† this consomme till it is nearly a glaze; next take four spoonfuls of very fine flour, dilute it with three pints of very good cream, in a stew-pan big enough to contain the cream, consomme, flour, etc.; boil the flour and cream on a slow fire. When it boils, poor to it the consomme, and continue to boil it on a alow fire if the sauce be thick, but on a quick fire if the sauee be thin, in order to thicken it. Season with salt, but put no pepper. No white sauce admits pepper, except when you introduce into it something chopped fine, pepper appearing like dust should therefore be avoided; this sauce should be very thick. Put it into a white bason through a tammy, and keep it in the larder out of the dust.

This sauce is the fundamental stone, if I may use the expression, of all sorts of little sauces; especially in Eng-land, where white sauces are preferred. On this account I have relinquished the former method. In summer time I was unable to procure any butter fit for use. I accordingly was forced to do without, and discovered that my sauce was the better for it. You must always keep this sauce very thick, as you may thin it whenever you please, either with consomme, or with cream. If it were too thin, it could not be used for so many purposes.

* When this sauce is made with great care, it is certainly the ne plus ultra of the art. † Reduce, means to boil down till reduced.