80. Sea fish sailor.
A pound and a half of hard-fleshed fish (conger eel, eel, haddock, brisket, dogfish, etc.), a few thin slices of salted fatty bacon, parsley, onion, a glass of white wine, a glass of water or fish stock if you have it, half a glass of red Bordeaux, butter, flour.

Cut your fish into sections or slices of 50 to 75 grams, remove the skin.
In a frying pan, put a few thin slices of salted bacon, parsley, onion, season, then put the fish, a glass of white wine, a glass of water or fish broth. Boil, then immediately put in the oven for twenty minutes. Remove the fish, keep it warm.

Pour the sauce into a saucepan; add half a glass of red Bordeaux, boil, thicken with floured butter; season, pour over the fish and serve hot.

81. Normandy potatoes.
750 grams of pretty little long pink potatoes, two tablespoons of butter, two tablespoons of thick milk cream, one tablespoon of chopped parsley.

Peel your potatoes. Soak them for twenty minutes in cool water, then dry them. Place two tablespoons of very fresh fine butter in an earthenware or porcelain saucepan over the heat. When the butter is melted, but not too hot, add the potatoes, cover the pan, and cook over a very low heat.
After a while, the potatoes release water, which, mixed with the melted butter, forms a kind of thick broth, in which they must cook slowly. Keep them well turned, stirring the pan from time to time. When they are tender, remove the lid from the pan and finish cooking, but without letting your potatoes brown.
Salt them, drain the melted butter that remains at the bottom of the pan, and sprinkle them with two tablespoons of very thick milk cream. Then you sprinkle them with a tablespoon of chopped parsley. You sauté them two or three times in the cream over as low a heat as possible, and immediately you serve them.
You can also cook the potatoes in salted water; you remove their skin and just saute them in cream, but the first method is preferable.

82, Cream Cake.
For the base: 50 grams of sugar, 50 grams of flour, 25 grams of butter, two whole eggs, one yolk, one white.
Buttercream: 150 grams of butter, 100 grams of sugar, three egg yolks, 15 grams of starch and flour, (as much of each in this total quantity) half a quarter of a liter of milk, half a quarter of milk cream.
Put the 50 grams of sugar with the two whole eggs and the yolk. Beat everything and bring it up over a very low heat.
The best is to put a saucepan of cold water on an ordinary fire and then place the basin where you beat the sugar and eggs on this saucepan; with this method, the dough heats up more slowly. It is sufficiently raised when, by lifting it with the whisk, it remains on itself. The heat, at this point, should only be a little more than lukewarm.
At this first preparation, mix the flour; then add the butter, barely melted. Meanwhile, another person beats the white which should be firm and you add it. Cook in a very gentle oven.
For the cream, put 100 grams of sugar in a terrine; add three egg yolks and beat everything well with a spatula. Then add starch and flour.
Boil the milk, mix it little by little with your preparation and bring to the boil. We must not stop stirring it with the whisk until it boils, otherwise it would stick to the bottom.
When it boils, pour it onto the marble, but do not let it cool completely.
In a terrine, put your butter which is intended to complete your cream, after having worked it for a while in your hand. While beating the butter well, mix in your cream little by little, spoonful by spoonful. To be successful, this cream must, as a result of your work, double its volume, and you will thus have a delicious cream.

83. Golden cream soup.-
Half a liter of good broth, a pound of pumpkin, 75 grams of butter, 30 grams of tapioca, half a glass of old sherry, half a quarter of a liter of very thick and very fresh milk cream, 15 grams of flour, salt, 5 grams of sugar, cayenne pepper.

Make a broth with a kilo of beef, the giblets of a chicken, very few vegetables, two liters of water, 10 grams of salt, a clove, and leave to cook for six hours very gently.
Cut the pumpkin into square pieces, and cook it in boiling water for only five or six minutes. After this first cooking, remove the pumpkin pieces from the pan and run them under cold water, so as to completely refresh them; then drain them on a horsehair sieve. Do not put the pumpkin in contact with iron, which browns it and gives it a bad taste.
Melt 50 grams of your butter: just let it brown and mix in the flour, stirring constantly, with a wooden spoon, until the mixture is very lightly golden.
Then add a liter of your broth, defatted and hot: then add the sugar and cayenne pepper, stir with a whisk to avoid lumps, until it boils.
At this time, add the drained pumpkin pieces. Leave to cook for an hour. At the end of this time, pass through cheesecloth and keep this puree warm, without letting it boil.

On the other hand, in a small saucepan, boil the remaining half liter of broth. Pour in the pearls and cook, very gently, for twenty minutes in a covered pan.
approximately
Pour the soup where the pearls are and the half liter of soup, cover, into the soup tureen.
In the small saucepan that you have just emptied, put the milk cream and the sherry wine; bring to a boil and, very quickly, remove from the heat immediately.
Add the rest of your butter to this preparation and mix well.
Then pour this into the soup bowl over the pearls, then pour in the pumpkin puree that you have kept warm.

84. Braised shoulder of mutton with spinach
A shoulder of mutton, a rind of bacon 200 grams of fresh butter, 125 grams of spinach a small sprig of thyme, salt, pepper.

Bone the shoulder, add salt and pepper inside, tie into a round shape and add four half-cloves of garlic.
In a braising pan, place a large rind of bacon, 100 grams of butter and a small sprig of thyme at the bottom; pour four or five tablespoons of filtered water into it.
On this, place the shoulder, add salt. Close the braising pan with its lid.
Have a high heat to start cooking and as soon as the braising pan is heated, reduce the heat. Cook over low heat for three hours.
From time to time, you uncover the braising pan to turn the shoulder, and to add a spoonful of water to the juice. Close tightly each time.
While the shoulder is cooking, peel and wash your spinach. Bring salted water to a boil in a large saucepan; When it boils, add the spinach and cook for eight to ten minutes. Drain in a colander and squeeze. Chop them very finely.
In a saucepan, put 100 g of butter and melt it over low heat. Add the chopped spinach. Cook for about ten minutes in an uncovered pan. Stir from time to time with a wooden spoon and add salt.
When the shoulder is well braised, it has abundant juice.

On this juice, take the top which is very fatty and water your spinach with it; To do this, you need to take about a deciliter's worth, or seven tablespoons.
Serve the shoulder on a hot dish and the spinach in a hot vegetable dish.

85. Stuffed potatoes.
Four Dutch potatoes, 100 grams of sausage meat, 20 grams of onions, parsley, a quarter of a liter of good meat juice, an egg yolk, 30 grams of butter, 20 grams of goose fat , salt and pepper, a little dry white wine, a little lemon juice.
Chop onions and parsley. Mix with the sausage meat, egg yolk and butter. Salt, peel the potatoes, dig them with the handle
with a fork lengthwise, dry them well. Garnish them with stuffing.
Put the goose fat in the frying pan; when the fat is hot, put the stuffed potatoes in it and let them brown on one side. Flip them over.
Let them cook like this over low heat for an hour.
Once cooked, put them in a serving dish kept warm. Drain the fat in which they are stuck, put a little dry white wine in the pan, and scrape the bottom and edges with a fork, add the meat juice. With the frying pan then on a good heat, let this juice reduce by a quarter.
Next, add the rest of your butter. Remove the frying pan from the heat, pour a few drops of lemon into this juice, mix well. Pour this juice over the stuffed potatoes and serve.

THE HOUSEHOLD CRICKET