Devilled Lobster
INGREDIENTS for dish for 4 or 5 persons. -A large lobster, some salad dressing, cayenne and finelygrated bread-crumbs. AVERAGE COST, 2s. 6d.
Cut the meat in small dice. Make a salad dressing, using butter in the place of oil, mix it with the lobster, adding cayenne and 3 tablespoonfuls of bread-crumbs. Put the mixture in the shell, put some bread-crumbs and bits of butter over the top, and bake of prepared rennet; thick cream, pounded cinnamon, or grated nutmeg. AVERAGE COST, 10d.
Make the milk blood-warm; put it into a deep dish with the brandy, sugar, and rennet; stir it all together, and cover it over until it is set. Then spread some thick or clotted cream over the top, grate some nutmeg, and strew some sugar over, and the dish will be ready to serve.
TIME. About 2 hours to set the milk.
SEASONABLE at any time.
Dinner, being the grånd solid meal of the day, is a matter of considerable importance; and a well-served table is a striking index of human ingenuity and resource. The elegance with which a dinner is served depends, of course, partly upon the means, but still more upon the taste of the master and mistress of the house. It may be observed, in general, that there should always be flowers on the table, and, as they form no item of expense where a garden is, there is no reason why they should not be employed every day.
The variety of the dishes which furnish forth a modern dinner-table does not necessarily imply anything unwholesome or anything capricious. Food that is not well relished cannot be well digested; and the appetite of the overworked man of business, or statesman, or of any dweller in towns, whose occupations are exciting and exhausting, is jaded, and requires stimulation. Men and women who are in rude health, and who have plenty of air DORMERS. and exercise, eat the simplest food with relish, and commonly digest it well; but those conditions are out of the reach of many men. They must suit their mode of dining to their mode of living, if they cannot choose the latter. It is in serving up food that is at once appetising and wholesome that the skill of the modern housewife is severely tasked; and she has scarcely a more important duty to fulfil.
It is, in fact, her particular vocation, in virtue of which she may be said to hold the health of the family, and of the friends of the family, in her hands from day to day.
The following aphorisms and short directions in relation to dinner-parties are well deserving of notice:- "Let the number of your guests never exceed twelve, so that the conversation may be general.
Let the temperature of the dining-room be about 68°. Let the dishes, if few in number, be proportionally good.
To invite a person to your house is to take charge of his happiness so long as he is beneath your roof. The mistress of the house should always be certain that the coffee is excellent; whilst the master should be answerable for the quality of his wines and liqueurs."
Dinners à la Russe are now so general as to need no comment here. The dishes are cut up on a sideboard, and handed round to the guests, and each dish may be considered a course. They should not be attempted if there be not sufficient servants to wait, or without an experienced carver amongst them; but even if the joints and birds are put upon the table, everything else may be handed. The table for a dinner à la Russe should be laid with flowers, plants and foliage, and (if liked) some of the dessert dishes. A menu or bill of fare should be placed by the side of each guest.
Dormers. (Cold Meat Cookery.)- INGREDIENTS for dish for 2 or 3 persons. - 1/2 lb. of cold mutton, 2 oz. of beef suet, pepper and salt to taste, 3 oz. of boiled rice, 1 egg, bread-crumbs, made gravy. AVERAGE Cost, exclusive of the meat, 4d.
Chop the meat, suet, and rice finely; mix well together, and add a high seasoning of pepper and salt, and roll into sausages; cover them with egg and bread-crumbs, and fry in hot dripping of a nice brown.
Serve in a dish with made gravy poured round them, and a little in a tureen.
TIME.- hour to fry the sausages.
SEASONABLE at any time.
DROP CAKES.