Dumplings
Half a pound of beef fat finely chopped; half a pound of flour; half a pound of breadcrumbs, three eggs, a tumblerful of milk, with salt and pimento are to be mixed well together, divided into balls the size of a turkey's egg, tied in cloths, and boiled three-quarters of an hour. Norfolk Dumplings. -A tumbler of milk, three eggs, salt, and as much flour as will make a stiff batter. Drop the batter in spoonfuls into boiling water, and let them boil for ten minutes.
Fruit Dumplings. - Fruit enveloped in paste No. 4. Line a basin with the paste, put in the fruit, cover it over, tie it in a cloth, and boil it for a couple of hours.
DUTCH schools of painting and of cookery have been fond of the sea and of fish. Their fish sauce is pre-eminent Duxelles in Europe, producing so much goodness of result by such simplicity of means, that it is perhaps the most useful of all the sauces. Pray always bear in mind the precise difference between the Dutch or Holland and the English sauce. Whereas the English use flour to make the vehicle of their melted butter, the Dutch use yolk of egg; in the one no egg, in the other no flour.
Dutch or Holland Sauce - Sauce Hollandaise. -Heat to the boiling point two tablespoonfuls of water with pepper, nutmeg and salt. Stir well into this two yolks of eggs, but do not let it boil again. Melt gradually into it four ounces of fresh butter with a whisk. It ought to be a smooth, thick cream, and should be finished with lemon-juice. It is an admirable sauce for fish, but when served with vegetables (as asparagus, artichoke, cauliflower), it is usual to increase the quantity of acid. An easier way for beginners. - Put all the above-named ingredients together into a saucepan, which is to be placed in a second saucepan half filled with cold water. Put it on a moderate fire, stirring the inner saucepan continually. As soon as the water in the outer one boils the sauce is ready. DUXELLES is the name given to a combination of mushrooms, parsley, and shalots, which are chopped together finely and used for flavouring. It is convenient to have a short name by which to refer to such combinations. Others of the same order will be found, along with Duxelles, in the article on Faggots. But as Duxelles is to most persons a word perfectly unintelligible-Beauvilliers wrote it Ducelle, Viard Durcelle-it has been proposed by the later authorities, Dubois, Bernard and Gouffé, to change the name to that of Fine Herbs, which is even more objectionable, as expressing too much. The mushroom is, strictly speaking, a herb, but it would not obviously be understood as such; and the mushroom is the central figure of the Duxelles. Then, again, the epithet of fine, Duxelles which has reference not to flavour, but to the mincing, can scarcely be claimed for the Duxelles as against other faggots-the Ravigote, for example. The name of Duxelles will probably hold, because it commemorates, though indirectly, the name of the artist who first brought the combination into prominence. La Varenne was the first great French cook of modern times; and his cookery book, published in Paris about 1650, may be described as, on paper at least, the starting-point of modern cookery. He was lord of the kitchen of the Marquis d'Uxelles ; and he describes himself on the title-page of his book as "Escuyer de Cuisine de M. le Marquis d'Uxelles." It was not he, however, who gave the name of Duxelles to his mushrooms: he called them Champignons à l'olivier. What is the meaning of this name is not quite clear, but the successors of La Varenne brushed it aside, and adopted Duxelles instead, which did at least this much honour to La Varenne that it connected the mushroom alliance which he favoured with the kitchen where it originated. The original receipt for the Mushrooms à l'olivier is worth quoting, for it will serve to show how the more recent Duxelles differs from it. "Cut them (that is, the mushrooms) in quarters, and wash them in several waters. Place them between two plates, with an onion and salt, and then upon the chafing-dish that they may get rid of their moisture. Press them between two plates. Then take fresh butter with parsley and cibol, and fry (fricassez) them. After that, set them to stew, and when they are well done, you may add cream to them or blancmanger." In the course of time this receipt became developed into what is now known as Duxelles-which is composed of equal weights of mushrooms, parsley and shalots.
These are chopped very fine, and fried for five minutes in a saucepan, with rasped bacon, pepper and salt. That is the receipt of Beauvilliers, and it has been followed ever since, though one may have leave to doubt whether it Eel is altogether satisfactory. The parsley and the shalots, being each of equal weight with the mushrooms, overlay. them and rob them of the importance which La Varenne gave to them. The mushrooms become still further dwarfed in the composition if an equal weight of truffles or truffle trimmings should be added. It would be much better in taste, and more respectful to La Varenne, to reduce the quantity of parsley and shalots.
Duxelles Sauce is made by adding Duxelles to about six times as much of Brown or Spanish sauce, and letting. it simmer for a little. In the receipt of Beauvilliers the sauce is finished with yolks of eggs well beaten, but not allowed to boil, and with lemon. These additions are not necessary, and tend to load the sauce.
EL.- "The eel," says Badham, "is found in the East and West Indies, wriggling under the ice of Greenland, and winding his way without let or hindrance through the very heart of the Celestial Empire: enjoying every temperate latitude, and ubiquitous over the globe as man himself. The all but universal spread of this species makes its absence from some waters the more remarkable and difficult to explain. Sometimes physical obstructions seem sufficient to account for this, -as for instance for its absence from the lake of Geneva, there being no inlet hitherward up the Rhine: but neither is it found in the Danube, where no such difficulty occurs, and into which, had eels the will, they might easily like other fish find a way." But eels are mysterious in their ways; and how little we know of them may be gathered from a single fact that far and wide as they are spread, and long as they have been loved by the races of mankind, we know next to nothing of their matrimonial rrangements and their Eel manner of birth. If there are births and marriages among them, they certainly take care not to announce it in the newspapers. No male, no female has ever been found in roe. All we know is that there happens to be an everlasting supply of infant eels; that the full-grown eels have a suspicious way of not being very well in the months of April, May, and June; and that ever since the time of Aristotle they have been observed to be pushing their snouts up the rivers in spring and downwards in autumn. Never has a secret been so well kept; never have clandestine marriages been so successful.
The London market is chiefly supplied with eels from Holland; but there are none so good as those caught in the Thames, which are the most silvery of all. There are four kinds: the snig, the grig, the broad-nosed and the sharp-nosed. The broad-nosed are the darkest and least valued; the sharp-nosed are the brightest and best ; and those caught in the Thames, besides being remarkable for their silvery appearance, surpass the Dutch eels in sweetness of taste.
Skinning eels alive is a needless barbarity. Kill the eel by piercing the spinal marrow just behind the head with a skewer; but take care not to cut off the head, or the eel will wriggle as if it were alive.
When a fish is naturally rich the simplest way of cooking it ought always to be the best. There are excellent judges who prefer the eel plain-boiled in salt and water, sprinkled in the dish with parsley and sage, and served with English butter-sauce, sharpened with lemon-juice. Some, indeed, enjoy it waterzootje. Strange to say, however, this very rich fish is most appreciated when it is most disguised. Take for example Collared Eels.- This is the most approved method of boiling the eel, if he is to be boiled at all. Skin, split and bone a large Thames eel. Season it well, by rubbing i with chopped parsley, sage, a sprig of lemon-thyme, and t Eel mixed spices finely pounded. Roll it up, collar it with tape, and boil it in salt and water. Serve it with a sharp sauce or say English sauce with plenty of lemon-juice. Spitchcock. The name for a broiled eel; though it might be applied to anything else done in the same way. The word is so corrupt that it has come to be used ignorantly. It is a corruption of spitstuck, and is equivalent to the French en brochette. Anything done en brochette, or on a skewer, might be called spitstuck or spitchcock. It is really broiled; and the following is the receipt for broiled eels. Slit up the eel and bone it; wash and dry it; cut it in pieces about three or four inches long; dredge these with flour, which is to be wiped off so as to leave all dry. Dip the pieces in a thick batter made of melted butter, yolk of eggs, minced parsley, sage, shalot (very little shalot), pepper and salt. Roll them next in fine breadcrumbs or in pounded biscuit. Dip them in the batter again, and roll them again on the breadcrumbs. The pieces may now, to justify the name of spitchcock, be impaled on small spits, or as the French say, en brochette. But whether thus impaled or not, they are to be broiled on or before a clear fire to a light-brown tint. Eels may thus, too, be broiled whole, or they may be roasted in a Dutch oven. Let them be sent to table garnished with parsley fried crisp, and with a sauceboat of English butter-sauce sharpened with lemon-juice.
Fried Eels, or Eels à la Tartare. - Cut the eel in pieces three or four inches long, and let them cook for twenty minutes in a Mirepoix of red wine; let them also cool in the liquor, which ought to be nearly a jelly when cold. Take out the pieces, and roll them in fine breadcrumbs, dip them in two or three yolks of eggs which have been beaten up in the liquor. Roll them again in the breadcrumbs, and fry them. Serve them with Tartar sauce. The English way is much more simple. If they Eel are to be boiled at all beforehand, it is enough to do so in water, salt and vinegar. But this preliminary process is often dispensed with. The eels are cut in pieces and boned, rubbed with salt, pepper, and mixed spices, brushed with egg, and rolled in crumbs. They are then fried, and sent to table with fried parsley and Tartar sauce. Fried eels come to be expensive inasmuch as the fat in which they are fried will not serve for other fish. Stewed Eels. Chop small two shalots and pass them in a little butter for five or six minutes. Add some red wine and a faggot of parsley, together with a spoonful of vinegar, nutmeg, pepper and salt. Put the pieces of eel into this, and let them stew for twenty-five or thirty minutes. Take the eel out and keep it hot till its sauce is ready, which sauce will be made in the following manner: -Add butter and flour to the liquor in which the eel has stewed, together with a little essence of anchovies. Cook this for about ten minutes. Then dish the eel and strain the sauce over it. Stewed eels may also take the form of a matelote with any amount of garniture; or they may be served in a poulette sauce.
Eel Pie. This used to be a famous pie, but we hear little of it now. The following is the Richmond receipt :- Skin, cleanse, and bone two Thames eels. Cut them in pieces and chop two small shalots. Pass the shalots in a little butter for five or six minutes, and then add to them a small faggot of parsley chopped, with nutmeg, pepper, salt, and two glasses of sherry. In the midst of this deposit the eels, add enough water to cover them, and set them on the fire to boil. When the boiling point is reached, take out the pieces of eel and arrange them in a pie-dish. In the meantime add to the sauce two ounces of butter kneaded with two ounces of flour, and let them incorporate by stirring over the fire. Finish the sauce with the juice of a whole lemon, and pour it Eggs among and over the pieces of eel in the pie-dish. Some slices of hard-boiled egg may be cunningly arranged on the top and in among the lower strata. Roof the whole with puff-paste; bake it for an hour; and lo! a pie worthy of Eel-pie Island. It is a great question, debated for ages on Richmond Hill, whether this pie is best hot or cold. It is perfect either way.