LUNCH DISHES

Glazed ham (211)
Trouts à la béarnaise (223)
Beef paupiettes (224)
Geneva-style eggplants (213)
Chicken tartare (126)
Moscow bomb (225)

DINNER DISHES

Barley cream with sorrel butter (226)
Tomato omelette (227)
Veal sweetbreads à la champenoise (112)
Tomatoes with curry (228)
Roasted pigeons with morels (150)
Small flans with fromage blanc (198)

223. Trouts à la béarnaise. A pound and a half of very fresh small trout, flour, butter, a few mushrooms, a tablespoon of vinegar, a teaspoon of parsley, salt, pepper.

After killing the trout, gut them through the belly; wash them quickly with milk and dry them. Roll them in flour, but very lightly, and fry them in butter. As soon as they are cooked, arrange them on a very hot dish. Wipe the pan well, put in 20 grams of butter; add a few mushrooms cut into very small pieces; fry them; moisten with a tablespoon of vinegar; sprinkle with a teaspoon of chopped parsley; salt and pepper; pour over the trout and serve promptly.

224. Beef Paupiettes. Four small, long, thin slices cut from the rump steak, lean veal or chicken meat, without nerves (about 250 grams), 125 grams of breadcrumbs soaked in broth, a few mushrooms, a shallot, parsley, pepper, four strips of bacon, a little broth, a small liqueur glass of good cognac, butter.

Pound the 250 grams of lean veal or chicken with the 125 grams of breadcrumbs soaked in broth; add a few mushrooms, a shallot and parsley chopped together very finely; mix everything well while pounding. Season. Garnish one side of your slices of beef with this stuffing; then roll them up, then wrap them in a strip of bacon. Tie them up so that the stuffing does not escape. When all your paupiettes are prepared, put them in the bottom of a small braising pan with butter, scraps of bacon, and brown them for a moment. Deglaze with a little hot broth and a small liqueur glass of good cognac, and let cook over a very low heat for half an hour.
When serving, if the sauce is too reduced, moisten it with one or two spoonfuls of broth; it should however be a little short. Arrange the paupiettes on a hot dish; baste them with the sauce, give hot plates at the same time.

225. Muscovite Bomb. A third of a liter of milk, three egg yolks, 125 grams of powdered sugar, 170 grams of wild strawberries, a glass of whipped cream, 20 grams of green colored almond paste, four wafer cones.

With two thirds of the sugar, the milk and the egg yolks, make a custard that you leave to cool. Pass the strawberries through a cheesecloth sieve; add the rest of the sugar to this puree and cover, in order to prevent the aroma of the strawberries from evaporating. The cream being well cooled, mix it with your puree and set in the ice cream maker. The ice cream being very firm, mold it in a slightly domed bomb mold, and place the mold in a container surrounded by crushed ice and salt.
Prepare the almond paste and make leaves representing as much as possible five strawberry leaves. Take a large strawberry and candied it in a sugar syrup. Fill your cones with the whipped cream and sprinkle this cream with small strawberries; unmold the ice cream; on the top of the dome, place the five leaves and, in the middle, your candied strawberry; then, all around, prick the four cones.

226. Cream of barley with sorrel butter. One liter of broth, one tablespoon of sorrel butter, one and a half tablespoons of barley flour, 20 grams of butter.

In a little cold broth, or simply in water, dilute the barley flour; when it is perfectly smooth, without lumps, pour it gently, stirring, into the boiling broth; let it cook gently for ten minutes. Add a tablespoon of sorrel butter, and leave another five minutes on low heat. In the meantime, fry small croutons of bread in butter; place them in the soup tureen and pour the cream of barley over them. 100 grams of butter, 100 grams of sorrel. In an earthenware or porcelain saucepan on the fire, put the butter; add the sorrel leaves, well pruned and well washed; cover the saucepan; let it melt over low heat, stirring very often with the wooden spoon; you should obtain a fairly consistent purée. When the sorrel is completely melted, pass it through a large sieve, and reserve it for sauces or soups.

Sorrel butter.
This sorrel butter is a valuable aid that can be kept for eight to ten days, if it is prepared exactly in the proportions indicated.

227. Tomato Omelette. A pound and a half of very red and fleshy tomatoes, eight eggs, olive oil, very fresh butter, an onion, parsley, thyme, bay leaf.

Take two or three tomatoes according to their size; carefully remove the skin, then cut each one in two, widthwise, and squeeze out the seeds. Put in a frying pan some olive oil or butter, as you like; let it heat and add the tomato halves; fry them gently, taking care not to let them blacken; sprinkle them with salt and pepper. In the other hand, break five eggs into a plate; beat them with a fork; season them.

When the tomatoes are well melted and well cooked, put them in another frying pan, so that the omelette does not stick; add a good knob of butter, and, as soon as it is hot, throw the beaten eggs into the pan. Then make your omelette over high heat, slipping a few pieces of butter underneath from time to time, which makes the operation easier.
Turn the omelette over on a long dish, folding it in two; surround it with a few hard-boiled eggs cut into four or six parts, lengthwise; then pour over a few spoonfuls of good, well-seasoned tomato coulis that you have prepared in advance,
Tomato coulis. Once the omelette is finished, you should still have half of your tomatoes left; cut them into quarters and put them in a saucepan with half a glass of water, a chopped onion, a sprig of thyme, half a bay leaf, parsley; let everything cook for about half an hour. Then pass them through a sieve, pressing them with the wood mushroom, to extract all the juice. Put this purée back on the heat; add oil or butter (oil is preferable); salt, pepper strongly and let simmer gently, until the coulis is well reduced and consistent, without adding flour.

228. Tomatoes with curry. Four beautiful tomatoes very red and well fleshed, salt, pepper, oil, 40 grams of Caroline rice, broth, half a teaspoon of curry, veal juice.

Cut the tomatoes in two in the direction of the roundness; empty them of their seeds with the handle of a teaspoon. Place them in a dish going to the fire; season them with salt, pepper, oil and put them in a moderate oven. During this cooking, prepare a good risotto, that is to say have 40 grams of Caroline rice; wash it well and put it to cook in a little good pot-au-feu broth, wetting it little by little, so that it cooks while remaining firm, the grains well separated and not in mush. Season with salt (very little, because of the broth) and kary powder, to the value of half a teaspoon. Remove the eight half-tomatoes from the oven; garnish the inside with the risotto; baste generously with good veal juice; put in a high oven for ten minutes. Serve in the baking dish.

THE HOUSEHOLD CRICKET.