LUNCH DISHES

Trout shells au gratin (241)
Chicken in jelly (114)
Aubergines au béchamel gratin (242)
Roasted salt meadow square with juice (243)
Tomatoes with curry (216)
Mocha soufflé (244)

DINNER DISHES

Spanish soup (220)
Omelette with artichokes (245)
Veal sweetbreads à la champenoise (112)
Chicory bread (221)
Toad pigeons (246)
Fruit tartlets (192)

241. Trout shells au gratin.
Two or three small river trouts of 150 grams each, 60 grams of butter, 20 grams of flour, fine salt, 50 grams of grated Gruyere cheese, a quarter of a liter of milk, pepper powder, grated nutmeg.

Melt a third of your butter; add the flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg; then add the milk, pouring it little by little and stirring with a wooden spoon until it boils completely; immediately remove from the heat. Then put in this sauce another 20 grams of butter and half of the grated cheese. Cover the pan and keep warm.

It is preferable to use scallops, rather than ruolz or even silver shells. On the butter that you have left, take a piece as big as a hazelnut; with this, butter the inside of a shell. Put the trout flesh divided into fillets; cover with a quarter of the sauce; sprinkle with cheese. There you have a shell garnished. Do the same for the other three. This work can be done in advance; in this case, the shells are put in the fridge, where you keep them until the moment of making them au gratin.

To make them au gratin, put a light layer of coarse salt on a rimmed baking sheet; place the shells on it upright; put them in a very hot oven for seven to eight minutes. To serve, arrange the shells on a napkin in a round dish, or place them on the silver ones which are generally on a foot. Serve immediately.

242. Aubergines à la Béchamel Gratin.
Three pretty aubergines, 125 grams of butter, 100 grams of grated cheese, one and a half deciliters of milk, a tablespoon of flour, salt, pepper, chopped parsley

Peel your aubergines; cut them into slices lengthwise. Six slices per eggplant. Put these slices in a deep dish and salt them. Leave them like this for an hour, so that they give off their bitter water through the action of the salt. When they are removed from the deep dish, carefully pat them dry in a cloth. About a quarter of an hour before the end of the previous operations, make a Béchamel sauce. With the eggplant slices pat dry, put 100 grams of butter in a frying pan; sauté the slices over a high heat until they are almost cooked. At the end of this incomplete cooking, pepper them, but lightly; do not salt them.

Take a gratin dish, dip six slices of eggplant one by one in the Béchamel sauce, so that they are sufficiently moistened; arrange these six slices at the bottom of the gratin dish; sprinkle them with grated cheese. Dip six more slices, one by one, in the Béchamel sauce; make a second layer that you sprinkle as well. Do the same for the third layer. Finish with a layer of grated cheese. Quickly melt the remaining butter and pour it over the surface of the dressing in the gratin dish. Put this dish in the oven, heating at moderate heat; brown for a quarter of an hour. Serve immediately after removing from the oven.

243. Roasted square of salted meadow lamb with juice.

One pound of square taken from the cutlets of the nut, 30 grams of butter or "Végétaline", salt, pepper.

Take a deep dish with a rack. Before putting the rack in, spread 15 grams of butter on the bottom of the roasting dish. Pour in a deciliter of filtered water, or just five tablespoons.

Place the rack, place the square of salted meadow lamb on it after having buttered the top; to grease the surface of the piece of mutton well, the remaining butter is enough. Salt and pepper and put in the oven.

The heat of the oven must be high, because the meat must be quickly seared. A browned crust will thus form almost immediately and will retain the best part of the juices inside. Cooking time, fifteen minutes per pound. During roasting, baste the rack of mutton from time to time with the cooking juices. The rack must also be turned, but only once.

Serve straight out of the oven with the juices placed in a very hot sauceboat; the dish in which you placed the rack of pre-salted meat must have been prepared very hot.

244. Mocha Soufflé.
A quarter of a liter of milk, five egg whites, three egg yolks, 125 grams of caster sugar, 25 grams of rice cream, 50 grams of coffee beans, a pinch of salt, a little butter and icing sugar.

Boil the milk. Meanwhile, put the coffee in the oven on a baking sheet to heat it well. When the milk is boiling, remove it from the heat; pour the coffee into the milk; cover and let it infuse for ten minutes.

Beat the three egg yolks in a salad bowl with 100 grams of your sugar; add the rice cream; pour in the milk, straining it. Return this preparation to the heat in a saucepan and stir gently until boiling; immediately remove from the heat, and cool the preparation by winnowing it back and forth.

Take a pleated porcelain cup. Lightly butter the inside and sprinkle this coating with a little caster sugar. Beat the egg whites until stiff, sprinkle them with the rest of your sugar, and beat them again. Mix a quarter of it into the mixture that you have just cooled. Give the whites another whip.

Then pour the mixture onto the whipped egg whites and mix everything with a spatula, not with the whisk, because you would make the dough collapse. Pour into the timbale; raise into a dome; make a rosette with a fork. Heat the bottom of the soufflé for a moment on the stove; then slide it into the oven. After ten minutes, sprinkle with a little icing sugar. After which, in another five minutes, you can send it to the table on a round dish lined with a tea towel.

245. Artichoke Omelet.
Six eggs, two green artichokes, tender, of equal size and as much as possible without hay; 100 grams of butter, chopped parsley (a teaspoon), salt, pepper.

Cut the tail of each artichoke; remove the first leaves; then cut the top of the other leaves very short. Split each artichoke in two. Cut each half into thin slices lengthwise. Put 75 grams of butter in the dough. Put your artichoke slices in it. Salt and pepper. Cover the pan for a moment, so that the slices cook before browning. Let cook over moderate heat. Then uncover; let the slices brown, taking care to turn them over. When they are ready, remove them. Wipe your pan well.

In a slightly hollow dish, break your eggs, beat them. In this regard, it is useless to recall that, for the complete success of an omelette, the eggs must be broken and beaten at the last moment. Salt them, pepper them, beat them briskly, add the chopped parsley. The eggs must be well seasoned and well beaten.

Heat the remaining butter in the pan. When it is hot, quickly add the artichoke slices to the beaten eggs and immediately pour everything into the pan,

Slide one or two small pieces of butter under your omelette while it is being made. Slide your omelette into the serving dish, taking care to stop the movement just halfway, and throwing the second half of the omelette on top of the first, so as to give it the shape called "in a turnover". Serve immediately.

246. Toad pigeons. Two young pigeons, bacon, olive oil, salt, pepper, parsley and spring onions, breadcrumbs or breadcrumbs, butter, mayonnaise or hot sauce, shallot and gherkins, lemon juice.

Prepare two young pigeons larded with bacon, tied and tied; cut off the head and legs; split them on the back; flatten them with the cleaver without breaking the bones. Rub them with olive oil, salt, pepper, parsley and chopped spring onions. Bread them with breadcrumbs or breadcrumbs; put them on the grill or in the oven in a deep dish; place a few small cubes of butter on top. Then place them on mayonnaise or on a hot sauce with juice with a chopped shallot and sliced ​​gherkins, or even on fresh butter kneaded with lemon, or on a green sauce with olive oil. chopped parsley, salt, pepper, a little shallot and a juice.

THE FIREPLACE CRICKET.