Lettuces Stuffed and Fried

Pare and wash some lettuce heads in several changes of water, blanch them in a copper basin and cook in boiling, salted water for twenty minutes; drain, refresh and press out the liquid from each one separately. Spread them on a cloth, open the leaves, and fill each lettuce with a forcemeat ball an inch and a half in diameter, prepared as follows: Take a quarter of a pound of cooked chicken meat, the same of cooked ham, the same of cooked mushrooms, and add a pound of veal udder, a quarter of a pound of soaked and pressed-out bread-crumbs, salt, pepper, chopped parsley, minced chives and five egg-yolks, the whole to be well pounded in a mortar. Enclose the forcemeat ball in the lettuce. Wrap each of these in a slice of fat pork, braise for one hour, drain and dip in egg and bread-crumbs, either whole or cut in two, fry to a fine color, and serve with a half-glaze sauce (No. 413) apart.