For a dinner of six.

Potage a la puree de becassines.

Crepinettes de poisson.

Cotelettes de mouton a la Milanaise.

Dinde braisee, au chou-fleur.

Pain de foie gras.

Asperges en branches.

Souffle au chocolat.

Fromage, hors d'oeuvres.

Dessert.

1. - Make a good strong stock for six basins (at least a quart and a half) with a shin of beef, and one good-sized chicken cut up into fragments; flavour it highly with sweet herbs, and mixed vegetables. Take six snipes, and lightly roast them : pick the whole of the meat from their breasts, and save it; mash the bones that remain, and put them in a bowl with the trails. When the stock is quite ready, strain it, return it to the pot, and throw into it the bowlful of mashed snipe bones, two glasses of portwine, a dessert-spoonful of red currant jelly, and a dessert-spoonful of crystal-vinegar. Let the contents of the pot simmer slowly for an hour and half, skimming off any scum that may rise, and when you have thus extracted the essence of the snipe fragments, strain the liquor from the bones, and set it in a bowl to cool. Now pass the snipe meat that you saved through the mincing machine, and pound it thoroughly to a paste, using a little of the soup to help that operation. When the pounded meat is ready, skim any fat that may have risen on the surface of your soup, take a roomy sauce-pan, place it on the fire, put a couple of ounces of butter into it, stir into the butter a table-spoonful of flour, work it to a smooth paste, and then add, by degrees both soup and snipe paste, keeping the spoon at work the whole time. When all is expended, let the puree reach the boil in order to thicken properly. At the last, add a glass of port, a tea-spoonful of red currant jelly, and the juice of a good lime. Now get your tureen ready, break a raw egg into a cup, saving the yolk carefully; mix a little of the soup with the yolk, and when well mixed, pass it through a perforated strainer into the tureen. Lift the sauce-pan from the fire, and pour it over the strained egg. Serve. Additional richness would be obtained if you were to pour into the tureen with the soup, stirring as you did so, a coffee-cupful of boiling cream.

Snipe puree.

2. - Choose any nice fish, and about an equal amount of prawns - the whole being sufficient for six portions. Boil the fish and prawns, and when cold, make a nice salpicon, or coarse mince of them, with some chopped mushrooms. Mix the mince in a sance-pan with some rich veloute, and bind it with a couple of eggs, let it get cold again, and divide it into six nice portions, just as you would for "kramouskys." Now make a large pancake, or two small ones, and when not quite done, take them from the pan, spread them on a flat dish, and from them cut six pieces about four inches square. Place your salpicon portions in the centre of each, and wrap them up neatly, set the folded pancakes on a well-buttered flat silver dish, egg them, bread-crumb them, pour some melted butter over them, and bake until a nice golden brown; serve in the same dish, laid upon a napkin. The pancakes should be nice and thin, and you should season your salpicon with "spiced pepper." "Dutch sauce" (not Hollandaise you know) should accompany.

Fish rolled in pan-cakes.

3. - This is a dish of neck chops, nicely trimmed, which have been larded with bacon and set en marinade all day, and then bread-crumbed, secundum artem, with finely sifted crumbs, some minced parsley, a very little shallot, and a little grated cheese, all shaken together, the crumbs and cheese in equal proportions. When nicely crumbed with this mixture, the cutlets must be fried a golden yellow in abundance of fat, and served round a hollow mould of "savoury rice" with some maccaroni d V Ita-lienne in the hollow in the centre, a recipe for which will be found at page 189.

4. - Truss the bird nicely, lard its breast, stuff it with very carefully made turkey stuffing as explained at page 108, and place it in a deep stew-pan upon a bed of sliced bacon. Put a couple of sheep's trotters, cut into small pieces, round it, with a sliced Bombay onion, two carrots, some chopped sweet herbs, whole pepper corns, lime peel, and a clove of garlic. Pour into the pan a good pint of gravy made from the giblets, trimmings, and any scraps you may have, with a wine-glassful of Madeira, and cook the bird gently with live coals on the stew-pan lid, as well as under the vessel, for about three hours, brown the larding on the breast by passing a red hot iron close to it, and serve. Strain the gravy, thicken it, add some minced truffles, and send it round in a boat. Potatoes and cauliflower accompanying.

Mutton cutlets, Milanaise fashion.

A hen turkey braised.

5. - A small tin of Pate de foie gras will do for this little parly. Cut a thick slice of fat bacon into dice, and fry it with a seasoning of spiced pepper, some minced shallot, par-lev. and marjoram : when the bacon is melted, add some finely minced liver (that of the foregoing turkey could be spared) fry it in the hot bacon, and then tarn the contents of your saute-pan into a bowl to cool. Now break up the . pick out the truffles, and foie gras, and place them on one side; pound the pate forcemeat, and the cooled liver and bacon, together with the crumb of a roll, soaked in a stock, say about a quarter the balk of the meat, and pass this through the sieve : you have now three things : - the pounded force-meat and roll, the foie grew, and the truffles : choose a nice sized plain mould, butter it, and pack it with alternate layers of forcemeat, and foie gras, dotting the truffles in according to fancy: - when packed, steam the mould in your bain-marie for three-quarters of an hour; let it get cold, turn it out, glaze, and ice it. Serve with dry toast.

6. - One remark only here: - Please do not spoil your asparagus by pouring an indifferent white sauce like thin " conjee" over it. All you have to do is this : gently warm the asparagus in its own tin in the bain-mane-pan (immersed in a bath of hot water) drain it from its liquor as soon as it is hot (if y<>u keep it longer it will be spoilt) and turn it carefully into a hot dish. Put a pal of fresh, or of the "Denmark" tinned butter on the top of it, give it a squeeze of a lime, and serve. A pat of maitre d'hotel or anchovy butter, may with advantage supply the place of plain butter.

N.B. - For heaven's Bake, no toast.

7. - For the chocolate souffle take two ounces of chocolate, and grate it into half a pint of milk, add a few drops of vanilla essence, and Mould of foie gras.

Asparagus.

Chocolate souffleboil the milk so that the chocolate may become thoroughly dissolved: when this has been done, the flavoured milk should be thickened with two tea-spoonfuls of potato-flour, or corn-flour, then strained, and set to get cold. The yolks of four eggs and a glass of liqueur should then be beaten up with the cold batter, the whites of six eggs being added in the shape of a stiff froth just before baking. A proper souffle case or tin should be used to ensure success.

Gateau Napolitain.

Take of powdered lump sugar the weight of twelve eggs in their shells, and take half that weight of potato flour; separate the whites from the yolks of the eggs, beat up the latter with the sugar, adding a few drops of essence of lemon. Whisk the whites to a stiff froth, mix the two together, and incorporate with the mixture, quickly and effectually, the potato flour, beating it all the time with the egg whisk. Pour into a plain mould, buttered. Bake in a quick oven until done. When cold, cut the cake in horizontal slices half an inch thick. Spread half the slices of cake with apricot jam, and half with chocolate icing. Arrange the slices one over the other, so as to form the cake again. Trim the slices neatly, and ice the cake completely over with chocolate icing. This must be done quickly, and the icing should be kept hot, for it soon sets. Ornament the cake with any bonbons or sweet-meats, which must be put on before the icing has time to cool.