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Savoury Entremets: Diable
Sardines au Parmesan are sardines on strips of toast spread with grated Parmesan. Without the Parmesan, they are called sur croûtes; sprinkled with chopped olives, à la Toscane. en papillotes are boned, stuffed, and served in papers. farcies are stuffed ; au Diable, devilled. à la Suisse are fried in batter. They are sometimes called en fritot. Crevettes en surprise are shrimps served in little rolled slices of brown bread and butter, garnished with small salad. en mascarade are served on croûtes with Mayonnaise sauce, covered with aspic whipped to a froth.
Mousses aux crevettes are rich frothy creams made with pounded shrimps. They are usually served in little cases.
Rissolettes à la Normande are very small rissoles of shrimps.
Huîtres à la Saint-Patrice are oysters served raw on croûtes spread with bloater roe. au caviar are served on thin slices of lemon spread with caviar, on croûtes of fried bread.
Anges à Cheval are oysters wrapped in little siices of bacon, broiled and served on toast.
Harengs à la Duchesse-creams of pounded herring set in little moulds of aspic.
Fritot aux harengs—little fillets of herring fried in batter. These fritters are also made with dried haddock-merluche fumée.
Fritot à la Russe-fritters made of a cream of any dried fish, fried in batter.
Friantines à la Madras are little fritters made of curried fish.
Cassolettes aux Indes are small patties of rice filled with dried haddock devilled.
This is the savoury course: a small, hot, salty dish served near the end of dinner, after the sweet things. Nearly everything on the page sits on toast or fried bread, and nearly all of it can be made in minutes from something already preserved.
- Where it came in the mealThe savoury was a short English course between the sweet and the fruit, meant to take the sugar off the palate before the last of the wine. That explains the whole page: sardines, oysters, shrimps, herring, anchovy, cheese, mustard and cayenne, in portions of two mouthfuls.
- Devilled means mustard and heatAu Diable is a treatment, not an ingredient: mustard, cayenne and a sharp bottled sauce, worked into or over the food and then browned. The devilled dried haddock in the little rice patties at the foot of the page is the same idea moved to another fish.
- Anges à ChevalOysters wrapped in thin bacon, grilled until the bacon crisps, served on toast. It needs no translation and no improvement. Use small oysters, and stretch the streaky bacon thin with the back of a knife so it cooks through before the oyster toughens.
- Bloater roeA bloater is a whole herring lightly salted and cold-smoked, and its soft roe, pounded with butter, is what is spread under the raw oysters in Huîtres à la Saint-Patrice. Smoked cod’s roe is the available substitute and does the same job.
- Merluche, used looselyThe page glosses merluche fumée as dried haddock. Strictly, merluche is hake. In this book the word covers any cured white fish, which is a useful warning about how precisely to read its French elsewhere.
- Tinned fish, earlySardines appear here as a finished ingredient to be set on toast, stuffed, battered or devilled. A good tin of sardines in oil is still exactly the right thing. This is one of the few pages in the book whose ingredients have got easier to obtain rather than harder.
The savoury was the course a kitchen made while the table was eating something else. Everything here is small, assembled rather than cooked, and built on something already smoked, salted, tinned or potted. That is not a matter of taste. At the end of a long dinner the range was crowded and the staff were clearing, and the course that came last had to be the one that needed least. A page of shrimps in brown bread and oysters in bacon is a page about timing.