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Blancmanger

It is needless to give the old receipt for this, because nobody would eat it. In the days of the English king Richard II. it was a fowl first roasted, then - Blancmanger cut to pieces and served in syrup which was whitened with milk, rice, and almond paste. As late as the days of Madame de Maintenon-that is, at the end of the reign of Louis XIV. --the court physician, Fagon, ordered it to be prepared of the breasts of fowls and almond milk for consumptive patients; and later on, when we come to the article Gallimawfrey, it will be seen that the title of the dish implies a fowl.

For the modern receipt, the best and simplest is that of Carême, and depend upon it when Carême is simple he has right upon his side. He is loud in his praise of it, and hazards the prophecy that Blancmanger prepared in his simple way will always be preferred to other creams, and even to the most beautiful jellies, because of the pleasant, nourishing, and soothing qualities of the almond. Unhappily for his renown as a prophet, Blancmanger is losing its popularity, because although the almonds may be as good and as loved as ever, the world has ceased to believe in isinglass, and laughs to scorn the gelatine which is too often used instead of it.

Blanch a pound of sweet almonds and twenty bitter ones. Pound them in a mortar, moistening them from time to time with half a spoonful of water to keep them from turning to oil. When they are pounded quite smooth, pass them into a bowl, and mix them with five wineglassfuls of filtered water. Then arrange a napkin over an oval dish, so that the almond milk may be poured into it and strained through it by twisting it at either end. Add twelve ounces of sifted sugar, and when this is dissolved pass the Blancmanger a second time through the napkin. Next mix into it, somewhat more than warm, an ounce of clarified isinglass. Last of all pour it into a mould which has been rubbed with sweet oil of almonds, and which has been settled on ice. The Blancmanger thus prepared will be delightful in itself, but any flavour wished for may be added to it-as rum, lemon, vanilla, coffee, chocolate, strawberry.

Blanquette...

BLANQUETTE is as good a name as one could get for a white sauce, and it is a name which might well be adopted in England, where it would be thoroughly understood. There is absolutely no difference between a Blanquette sauce and the so-called Allemande or German sauce, unless it be this-that occasionally there is chopped parsley put into the former. A Blanquette of fowls, of sweetbreads, or of veal, means simply the serving of these things in the white Allemande. The white parsley and butter sauce which is so common in England with boiled chickens is but a rough and ready Blanquette. The Poulette sauce is the same thing, with sometimes chopped mushrooms added and with a squeeze of lemon.

BLEU (au bleu). - A phrase of the French kitchen for the simplest method of cooking fish. It means cooking it either in plain salt and water, or in white wine with parsley and onions. Originally the wine was red; and hence the name blue-the common red wine about Paris being called small blue (petit bleu), as we say small beer in England. What with the old style and the new, however, there is an odd medley of colours-white, red, and blue.

BLONDE DE VEAU is described at length in the article on Soup. It is a double veal broth, which is much in request for mixing with soups and sauces for its smooth gelatinous texture, and also for its fine colour and flavour, which are brought out by making it fall to a glaze at an early stage of its preparation. Perhaps it is overrated; it certainly was at one time. Early in the last century it became all the rage in France. There is a letter of Voltaire's in which he invites St. Lambert to visit him at Cirey. "Come to Cirey," he says. "There Madame du Châtelet will not poison you. There is not a spoonful of beef gravy (jus) in her kitchen; everything is done with blonde de veau : we shall live a hundred years, and you will never die." • Boarshead