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Entrées: Quenelles
Ham for an entrée may be minced or pounded, steamed in little moulds, and served with spinach as Petits pains de jambon aux épinards. Quenelles of ham as Quenelles de jambon à la D'Artois are served with peas; aux champignons, with mushrooms.
Petites crèmes de jambon en Mayonnaise are little creams of ham, served with salad and Mayonnaise sauce, garnished with aspic. Ham is also dressed as a soufflé, and in little iced soufflés or petites mousses.
Pig's Ears dressed as- Oreilles de porc à la Ste. Ménehould are breadcrumbed and baked, and served with Rémoulade sauce. braisées are braised and served in the stock, on dressed spinach. à la Lyonnaise-cut in strips and cooked in stock with slices of onion, etc.
Pigs' Feet are dressed en marinade in the same way as sheep's feet; and as- Pieds de cochon à la Ste. Ménehould pickled, breadcrumbed and fried. à la Marseillaise-stuffed, and served with Soubise sauce.
POULTRY A very large number of dishes can be made with chickens, and they are, perhaps, more useful than anything else in the preparation of entrées.
Cut in joints, they are dressed in the following ways:- ENTRÉES.
Poulet à la Tartare-breadcrumbed and broiled; served with Tartare sauce and pickles. à la Tyrolienne-breadcrumbed and fried; served with tomato sauce and fried parsley. à la bonne femme-stewed and served in white sauce. au chasseur-soaked in oil with onion, etc., breadcrumbed and broiled; served in "Vin de Madère" sauce with chopped ham. à la Chabert-cooked in oil with tomatoes, chopped parsley, shallots, etc. à la Marengo-cooked in oil, and served in Italian sauce with the oil in which it was cooked. en kari is curried, and served with rice. Garnished with little heaps of grated cocoanut. and of sultanas, it is à la Simla. à la Provençale-covered with a white onion sauce, sprinkled with breadcrumbs and browned. en marinade-soaked in vinegar with herbs, etc., and fried in batter. sauté-the joints are sauté, and served in a sauce of stock, wine, chopped mushrooms, etc. sauté aux truffes-sauté, and served in brown sauce with truffles. à la Demidoff-sauté, and served with a border of rice, and brown sauce with wine. à la Pondichéry-sauté, and served with a border of rice, and brown sauce with purée of apples, orange juice, and shreds of orange peel.
Fricassée de poulet-cooked in a white sauce with mushrooms, cocks' combs, pieces of sweetbread, etc. à l'ancienne-cooked with flour, butter, milk, young onions, etc.
Fritot de poulet-the joints are seasoned with oil and herbs, floured, and fried. Served with tomato sauce, it is à la Orly. À la Suisse, they are fried in batter.
Small fillets cut from the breast of fowls are dressed as- Filets de volaille, or poulardes, au suprême, on a border, covered with Suprême sauce. aux champignons-covered with white sauce with cream and mushrooms. If slices of truffles are substituted for the mushrooms, the dish is called aux truffes instead of aux champignons. à la Duchesse-sauté, and dressed in a crown, with cocks' combs in the centre, and white sauce with cream, etc. à la Talma-half of them larded, braised and glazed, and half stuck with pieces of French beans and sauté; arranged alternately on dressed spinach, and served with brown sauce. à l'Ambassadrice-cut in slices, and coated with forcemeat of fowl with chopped truffles; breadcrumbed, half of them with chopped truffles and half with chopped ham mixed with the crumbs, and sauté. Arranged alternately; a purée of cucumbers with cream in the centre.
ENTRÉES.
Filets de volaille à la Dumas-masked with a purée of cucumbers with white sauce, etc., breadcrumbed and fried; served on a purée of cucumbers with cream. à la Nesselrode are served cold, masked with a white sauce with cream, etc., and dressed alternately with glazed slices of tongue on a border of hard-boiled eggs; a salad in the centre with Mayonnaise sauce. aux concombres are arranged in a circle alternately with stewed pieces of cucumber; served with a purée of cucumber. aux pointes d'asperges are coated with Suprême sauce, and dressed alternately with pieces of tongue of the same size; asparagus points in the centre.
Suprême de volaille is the same dish served with Suprême sauce, and with truffles instead of asparagus in the centre. It may be served cold as Chaudfroid de filets de volaille au suprême.
For Suprême de volaille à la Royale, the fillets are dressed on an ornamental border of vegetables, with a macédoine garnish in the centre, and a small piece of truffle or tongue on each fillet.
Ham, then a pig’s ears and feet, then the longest run of chicken dishes in the book. This is where the chapter stops being about luxury and starts being about what a household actually had to use up.
- QuenellesA quenelle is forcemeat — meat or fish pounded to a paste with fat, panada and egg — shaped between two spoons and poached. The pounding was the labour and a processor now does it in a minute; the modern name for the result is a mousseline.
- Pig’s ears and feetBoth are still sold, and both are mostly skin, cartilage and gelatine, which is why the page breadcrumbs and fries them only after long cooking. Nothing here is edible without the slow stage first: the crumb coat is the finish, not the cooking.
- Only the filletsFilets de volaille means the two breast fillets and nothing else. Each of these dishes quietly assumes the rest of the bird is going into something else on the same table and then into the stockpot. A cook who buys a tray of breasts is starting at the point where the page has already spent most of the chicken.
- Cocks’ combsThey appear several times as a garnish and cannot be bought at all now. Where a dish wants them for texture, blanched sweetbread or a firm poached mushroom fills the space, though the page is really using them to signal expense.
- Jointed, not carvedEvery poulet dish here begins by cutting the bird into joints. It is taken apart raw and the pieces cooked in a pan with a sauce, which is why there are forty variations: once the chicken is in pieces the dish is decided entirely by the fat it is cooked in and what goes into the pan afterwards.
- A dropped headingThe capitalised ENTRÉES. in the middle of the poultry list is the running head from the top of the printed page, caught up in the text. There is no dish of that name.
The page moves without comment from little iced mousses of ham to a pig’s ears, and that is the most informative thing about it. The chapter that calls for foie gras and truffles also expects the kitchen to deal with the feet and the head, because the household was buying animals rather than cuts. The chicken list is the longest run in the book, and the reason is given outright on the page: chickens are more useful than anything else in the preparation of entrées. One bird could be jointed and turned into any of forty named dishes with no change in the shopping at all, which is exactly what a cook needs when a different card has to go on the table every night.