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July 25
Menu: Tournedos of Lamb Rissole Potatoes; Carrots; Peas; Grape and Pimiento Salad; Frozen Cheese; Toasted Crackers; Iced Coffee Tournedos of Lamb-Six lamb chops cut 2 inches thick, will be required. Remove bone and fat and with skewers arrange in 6 circular pieces. String Beans Puree of Fruit Steak with Fresh Mushrooms Riced Potatoes Lettuce and Watercress Salad Cherry Blanc-mange Coffee Around each wrap a thin strip of July 28 bacon, fastening in place with wooden skewers. Sprinkle with salt and pepper, place on well Criscoed broiler, and broil over clear fire 15 minutes. Remove to hot platter, garnish with rissole potatoes, and pass mint jelly with them. The potatoes are done in this way: Peel and wash 8 Bermuda potatoes of uniform size, put in ice water for 15 minutes, dry in a towel, and fry until delicate brown in hot Crisco. Drain on paper, then bake until soft. Remove to serving platter, and pour around 1 cup of rich white or cream sauce or 1 cup of heavy cream scalded and seasoned.
This page is a fragment: the running heads ("Coffee," "July 28," "July 26") have collided with the text, and the opening line naming what gets wrapped in bacon is missing. The mint jelly and the fifteen-minute broil point to lamb — chops, noisettes or kidneys — and the potato method stands on its own regardless.
- The missing ingredientWhatever is wrapped in bacon is not named on this page. Mint jelly served alongside was a usual accompaniment to lamb in this period, so it may well be bacon-wrapped lamb chops or kidneys; treat quantities as your own decision.
- CriscoThe book is a promotional volume for the shortening, so Crisco appears wherever fat is needed. Any neutral high-smoke-point oil or shortening works for greasing the broiler rack and frying the potatoes.
- "Broil over clear fire"A clear fire is a coal fire burnt down to steady heat with no smoke or flare. Under a modern overhead broiler, put the rack about 4 inches from the element and turn the pieces once; fifteen minutes will likely carry lamb well past pink, so judge by internal temperature rather than the clock.
- Wooden skewersSoak them first or they scorch under direct heat. Toothpicks do the same job for a single rasher around a chop.
- Bermuda potatoesA thin-skinned early crop shipped from Bermuda to the American east coast in spring and summer. Small new potatoes or waxy fingerlings of even size are the closest thing now.
- Rissole potatoesThe name comes from French rissoler, to brown. The double cooking here — fried whole until coloured, then baked until tender — is the point. The book gives no oven temperature; use a moderate oven and bake until a skewer goes through easily.
- The cream sauceA cup of béchamel or of scalded heavy cream, poured around rather than over, so the browned surfaces stay crisp. Season it firmly; unsalted cream against fried potato tastes flat.
- YieldEight potatoes and a cup of sauce suggest roughly four servings.
The Story of Crisco was published by Procter & Gamble in 1913, two years after the shortening went on sale, with recipes credited to Marion Harris Neil. The dated day-by-day menu scheme to which these running heads belong is the device of Neil's separate Crisco title A Calendar of Dinners, which gave a dated menu for every day of the year — solving the housekeeper's daily planning problem while ensuring the product appeared in almost every dish, from pastry to broiler grease. This page shows the collision of two such dated entries, which is why it opens mid-sentence. The pairing itself is thoroughly late-Victorian: bacon wrapped around lean lamb to baste it, mint jelly as the sweet-sharp foil often said to be the standard accompaniment to the meat, and potatoes finished in cream.
This page is a fragment: the running heads ("Coffee," "July 28," "July 26") have collided with the text, and the opening line naming what gets wrapped in bacon is missing. The mint jelly and the fifteen-minute broil point to lamb — chops, noisettes or kidneys — and the potato method stands on its own regardless.
- The missing ingredientWhatever is wrapped in bacon is not named on this page. Mint jelly served alongside was a usual accompaniment to lamb in this period, so it may well be bacon-wrapped lamb chops or kidneys; treat quantities as your own decision.
- CriscoThe book is a promotional volume for the shortening, so Crisco appears wherever fat is needed. Any neutral high-smoke-point oil or shortening works for greasing the broiler rack and frying the potatoes.
- "Broil over clear fire"A clear fire is a coal fire burnt down to steady heat with no smoke or flare. Under a modern overhead broiler, put the rack about 4 inches from the element and turn the pieces once; fifteen minutes will likely carry lamb well past pink, so judge by internal temperature rather than the clock.
- Wooden skewersSoak them first or they scorch under direct heat. Toothpicks do the same job for a single rasher around a chop.
- Bermuda potatoesA thin-skinned early crop shipped from Bermuda to the American east coast in spring and summer. Small new potatoes or waxy fingerlings of even size are the closest thing now.
- Rissole potatoesThe name comes from French rissoler, to brown. The double cooking here — fried whole until coloured, then baked until tender — is the point. The book gives no oven temperature; use a moderate oven and bake until a skewer goes through easily.
- The cream sauceA cup of béchamel or of scalded heavy cream, poured around rather than over, so the browned surfaces stay crisp. Season it firmly; unsalted cream against fried potato tastes flat.
- YieldEight potatoes and a cup of sauce suggest roughly four servings.
The Story of Crisco was published by Procter & Gamble in 1913, two years after the shortening went on sale, with recipes credited to Marion Harris Neil. The dated day-by-day menu scheme to which these running heads belong is the device of Neil's separate Crisco title A Calendar of Dinners, which gave a dated menu for every day of the year — solving the housekeeper's daily planning problem while ensuring the product appeared in almost every dish, from pastry to broiler grease. This page shows the collision of two such dated entries, which is why it opens mid-sentence. The pairing itself is thoroughly late-Victorian: bacon wrapped around lean lamb to baste it, mint jelly as the sweet-sharp foil often said to be the standard accompaniment to the meat, and potatoes finished in cream.