LUNCH DISHES

Financial pâtés (181)
Trout shells au gratin (229)
Calf's liver in matelote (176)
Aubergines au gratin with cheese (230)
Chicken sautéed peasant (214)
Quart of almonds (231)

DISHES FOR DINNER

Crécy purée with Japanese pearls (232)
Poached egg aspic (137).
Veal chops Charentaise style (233)
Artichoke soufflé (234)
Saddle of mutton English style (100)
Fruit tartlets (192)

229. Trout shells au gratin.
Two river trout weighing about 150 grams each, 50 grams of butter, 30 grams of flour, 4 grams of salt, 40 grams of grated Gruyere cheese, a fifth of a liter of milk, pepper, grated nutmeg.

Melt a third of your butter, add the flour, salt, pepper and nutmeg; then add the milk, pouring it in little by little, and stirring with a wooden spoon, until it boils completely; immediately remove from the heat. Then put in this sauce 15 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. Those made of metal prevent the heat from penetrating inside and below, while the scallops receive it equally everywhere. It is better, if you have silver ones, to place the shells on top, after they are browned.

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 filled shell.

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 time to brown them.

Put a light layer of coarse salt on a rimmed baking sheet; sit the shells on it well upright; put them in a very hot oven. Seven to eight minutes are enough to brown them well and heat the inside.

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.

230. Aubergines with cheese and gratin. -
Four eggplants, 100 grams of Gruyere cheese, 80 grams of butter or Végétaline", a little lean ham, a tablespoon of flour, fine salt, breadcrumbs.

Thinly slice the eggplants lengthwise; put them in salt to make their water bitter. Then, drain them on a cloth. Fry them completely in the pan. On the other hand, melt some of your butter in a saucepan; add the ham, cut into small cubes; cook it a little in the butter without letting it brown.
Then add the flour and milk little by little, so as to make a kind of slightly peppery Béchamel sauce, in which, once finished, you put the fried eggplant slices.
Then, remove the saucepan from the heat, and mix the grated cheese into its contents, reserving a little. Butter a baking dish fire; put the eggplants in it, with the rest of your butter; sprinkle with the rest of the cheese, then with breadcrumbs: Put in the oven, or cover the dish with a lid with edges garnished with fire, to brown. Serve hot, as soon as the surface of the dish, by browning, indicates that the gratinating is ready.

231. Quarter of almonds.

125 grams of blanched almonds, 125 grams of caster sugar, 125 grams of very fine butter, a large teacup of very cold and very vanilla whipped cream, cat's tongues.

Take 125 grams of carefully blanched almonds and then crushed to a powdered state, 125 grams of caster sugar, of which you reserve 60 grams, 125 grams of very fine butter. Make a fairly compact mixture of these three ingredients, in a fairly deep container. Add the value of a large teacup of very cold, very vanilla-flavored whipped cream; the 60 grams of sugar set aside will be used to sweeten the whipped cream, before mixing it with the almond purée that you have just prepared.

Butter the inside of a flan mold, line it with small vanilla biscuits (called cat's tongues), in the bottom and on the sides, taking care to place the biscuits lying one on top of the other.
Then pour in your thick liquid, this sort of purée that is almost in the form of dough. Line the top with biscuits, as well as the bottom and the sides. Put a lid that presses down a little on everything, and add a weight on the lid.
This cake should be prepared five or six hours before the meal in which it is to appear. Two hours before serving, put your mold in the ice. Unmold and serve.

232. Crécy purée with Japanese pearls.

Four pretty red carrots, two tablespoons of Japanese pearls, 1 liter of good pot-au-feu broth, well degreased and passed through a fine sieve, 50 grams of butter.

Scrape and wash the carrots. Take only the red part, cutting it into thin strips, as thin as shavings.
In a saucepan, put the butter and the carrot strips; cook over a moderate heat, stirring from time to time with a wooden spoon for about a quarter of an hour. After this time, add three quarters of a liter of the broth. Cover the saucepan. Now, the cooking must be very gentle and continue for an hour and a half; the carrots are then well melted and the broth has reduced by a quarter.

Pass this purée through a very fine sieve; then put it back in the saucepan, on the corner of the stove. Your puree, while waiting for the pearls to be prepared, must simply simmer.

While it is simmering like this, you have leftover pot-au-feu broth, already put on full heat in another saucepan, in order to have it boiling. Then, rain down the Japanese pearls, and let it cook like this for ten to twelve minutes, that is to say until they are very transparent.
Finally, combine the puree and the pearl broth, mixing them well on the heat, and, the soup being thus finished and very hot, pour it into the soup tureen and serve.

233. Veal chops Charentaise style.

Two veal chops, 100 grams of mushrooms, 30 grams of butter, I deciliter of roast veal juice, a clove of garlic, fine salt, pepper, parsley, two sheets of school paper.

Trim the chops, taking care not to leave any small bones; Only the nut and the handle should remain. Cut the root of the mushrooms and wash them without peeling them.

Peel the parsley and the clove of garlic. Chop the parsley, garlic and drained mushrooms together. Add the butter, a little pepper powder and salt; knead everything well, taking care that this manipulation does not melt the butter too much. There you have the stuffing. Oil your sheets of paper.

With the stuffing, garnish each chop on one side and place the garnished side on the sheet of paper. Tie them with a small string so that the paper does not open during cooking. Cook them like this for three-quarters of an hour on the gas grill, or one hour in a moderate oven. Towards the end of this cooking, reheat some good roast veal juice, the value of one decilitre.

To serve, remove the chops from their casing, and place them in a round dish; baste them with the veal juice that you have just heated. Garnish the bone of each chop with a paper sleeve, and serve immediately.

THE HOLDHOUSE'S CRICKET.