LUNCH DISHES

Cheese crusts (110)
Red mullet Marseille style (152)
Rabbit in jelly (72)
Timpani Parmentier (153)
Chicken tartare (126)
Rissoles with jam (154)

DINNER DISHES

Consommé with new carrots (155)
Eggs au gratin (132)
Sheep brains in chartreuse (133)
Peas in juice (156)
Mutton chops with artichoke puree (157)
Cherry pudding (139)

152. Red mullet Marseille style.
Four red mullets, olive oil, sprig of thyme, a few grains of fennel, tomato, garlic, parsley, salt, pepper, white breadcrumbs, butter.

With fish scissors, trim the fins of your mullet, cut the barbels; empty these fish well and wash them carefully; let them drain; pat them dry. After which, put them in a marinade composed of good oil and flavored with a sprig of thyme or a few grains of fennel; for an hour and a half, let them bathe in this marinade.

Prepare a good ember fire. Heat the grill. Remove the red mullet from the marinade and grill them. Since they are oiled, they will not stick to the grill. The red mullet should not be completely cooked by this grilling; you only need to grill them for three to four minutes on each side.

You must have prepared the tomato coulis by adding a small pinch of garlic. If you use canning coulis, be sure to add condiments; taking it out of the bottle, you put it in a saucepan, where you have heated a little oil with bay leaf, thyme, parsley, salt, chopped garlic clove and a little pepper. The coulis being hot, you put a light layer of it in a gratin dish. On top of that, you put away the red mullet, half-cooked by the grill; you cover them again with tomato coulis. You sprinkle everything with fairly fine white breadcrumbs; on top of all, a few small knobs of butter. Place the dish in the oven. Leave to cook for half an hour. Serve in the gratin dish.

153. Timbale Parmentier.
Red potatoes with white flesh one kilo, butter, salt, pepper, 125 grams of grated Gruyère.

To make this dish a success, you need to choose pretty red potatoes with white flesh. Peel them, cut them into thin slices, as for frying. Butter a deep, straight mold well. Put a layer of potatoes in the bottom, salt a little, pepper well; scatter a few small pieces of fine, fresh butter on top, and cover with a light layer of gruyere. Add a second layer of potatoes; salt, pepper; butter and sprinkle with cheese. Continue in this way until the mold is completely filled. Finish by adding a good quantity of small pieces of butter and sprinkling well with cheese. Cover and cook in a low oven for two hours.

Serve in the timbale or mold, and remember that the potatoes should neither cool nor be reheated.

154. Rissoles with frozen jam,
jam, frying, sugar, half-puff pastry

It sometimes happens, when spring arrives, that the jams in stock dry out. Here is an excellent recipe for using them pleasantly.

Make a small ball of half-puff pastry; you let it rest for half an hour. Then, you lower it to half a centimeter thick, and you cut it into several rounds, cutting with a knife around a coffee saucer. In the middle of each round of dough, you place a piece of dry jam, about the size of a walnut. You fold one side of the dough over; you pass a small brush soaked in cold water between the two edges of the dough, to seal them. Here are the rissoles ready to cook.

Here are two ways:
1° in the oven, after having browned the top of the rissoles with egg yolk mixed with water;
2° deep frying, after having dipped them in beaten egg and breaded them. In both cases, they are sprinkled with fine sugar.

155. Consomme with new carrots.
A small bowl of new carrots, very red, 100 grams of butter, 5 grams of powdered sugar, a liter and a half of broth.

Roast, wash and cut the carrots into small sticks half a centimeter thick and three centimeters long. Place them in boiling salted water and cook for ten minutes. After this time, transfer them to cold water to refresh them, then let them drain.

Melt 100 grams of butter in a saucepan and, before it browns, add the carrots, sprinkling them with 5 grams of powdered sugar. Stir them a little with a wooden spoon during this second cooking, very short, over a moderate heat. Pour over a liter and a half of good broth that you took care to prepare in advance, and that you kept warm from the moment you drained the carrots. Let the carrots cook slowly for an hour in the broth, with the pan on the corner of the fire, until it simmers.

156. Peas in juice.
Rousse sauce, a few tablespoons of veal, beef or chicken juice, 2 kilos of unshelled peas, four hearts of lettuce.

Make a good light and creamy rousse sauce. Add a few tablespoons of veal, beef or chicken juice, but never mutton juice. Pass this sauce. Put it in a saucepan where you then throw your previously peeled peas, of regular size. Add a cube of sugar, and place the pan over a moderate heat; keep it covered.

After twenty minutes, add four heads of lettuce to your peas, and continue cooking until the lettuces are tender, about 35 minutes in total. You can replace the lettuce hearts with thin asparagus tips, which you have cooked for a few moments in boiling salted water.

The red sauce. Put a tablespoon of butter in a saucepan; brown as much flour in it. Work and moisten the sauce with good beef or chicken stock. Then add juice to it and continue as directed.

157. Mutton chops with artichoke puree.
Four mutton chops, two large artichokes, a spoonful of butter, a little broth or a few spoonfuls of cream, salt, pepper.

Grill the mutton chops; it is the artichoke puree garnish that characterizes this dish; boil four large artichokes in water. When cooked, remove the leaves; they can be used in vinaigrette as a family lunch appetizer. Then remove all the hay and small leaves that are inside the artichokes. So all that remains is the hearts, which are quite large. Cut them into quarters and boil them slowly in half a liter of pot-au-feu broth until they are absolutely soft.

Pound them in a marble mortar and, when they are reduced to a puree, pass this puree through a fine sieve. Add a spoonful of butter divided into small pieces, a little broth or a few spoonfuls of cream, and put it back on the heat in a saucepan. Add salt and pepper. Simmer for a quarter of an hour and serve your mash under the mutton chops. Never use a steel knife to cut or clean artichokes; the steel blackens them. Use either a boxwood spatula or a silver knife.

THE HOUSEHOLD CRICKET.