The "Fondue," or "cheese souffle" is the dish par excellence of which, when successfully made, the good cook has just cause to be proud. It requires the most delicate management, and an atom will ruin the undertaking, for with all souffles, to fall short of perfection means failure. Practice and experience go a long way towards turning out this piece de resistance satisfactorily, it is nevertheless one of those things in which the best hand may occasionally err; so, for a dinner party, beware of placing too great confidence in it, have another dish ready to go round in case the fondue fail to "come off," and do not enter it in your menu. Here is the best recipe I ever read for this dish :-

"Melt an ounce of butter in an enamelled sauce-pan, and stir into it a table-spoonful of flour. When the two are well amalgamated, put in a breakfast-cupful of hot milk, and about three ounces of grated Parmesan cheese. Stir the mixture on a very slow fire till it assumes the appearance of thick cream, and beware of its becoming too hot, or boiling, for that would be fatal. Now, put in one clove of garlic, a tea-spoonful of mustard powder, a dash of grated nutmeg, and some black pepper. Mix thoroughly, and if upon tasting you find that it is required, add a little salt. Keep on stirring the mixture at a very moderate heat for quite ten minutes, then remove the garlic, take the sauce-pan from the fire, stirring occasionally till the contents are nearly cold, then add the yolks of four eggs previously beaten up with a table-spoonful of milk, and well strained; mix well; lastly, incorporate swiftly with the mixture the whites of five eggs beaten to a froth, pour this into a deep round tin, and put it into the oven which must not be too hot. From twenty to thirty minutes baking will make the fondue ready for the table, to which it must be quickly sent, in its tin, with a napkin folded round it."- (G. C.)

If the early stage of preparing the fondue mixture were conducted in the bain-marie-pan, there would be no risk of overheating it.

A simpler recipe by the same author runs as follows :-

Make a thickish paste in a sauce-pan with milk and flour, taking care that it is quite smooth : add to, and thoroughly mix with it as much grated cheese as you have used flour, and a little over, a small quantity of salt, a little flour of mustard, and some pepper. Beat up, if you have used as much as a pint of milk for the paste, three or four eggs. Incorporate them with the paste, then fill a tin, or a number of small cases with it, bake a nice brown colour, and serve.

Brillat Savarin made a great fuss about his "fondue" but the dish he concocted was simply "oeufs brouilles au fromage." The modern "fondue" must be baked.

"Ramequins" or little fondues of cheese, are invariably popular. They are not hard to make: I choose a simple recipe which runs thus :- Put one ounce of butter in a roomy sauce-pan, with a quarter of a pint of water, a pinch of salt, and a dust of black pepper; boil it, and add two ounces of flour. Stir over the fire for four minutes, and then mix with it two ounces of grated Parmesan, and two eggs, one after the other. Put the paste thus formed on a buttered-baking sheet in lumps the size of a hen's egg, flatten them slightly, brush them over with an egg, bake in the oven, and serve on a napkin very hot.

"Ramequins en caisses"

Take two ounces of mild grated cheese, and two ounces of white bread-crumbs; soak the crumbs in milk, and pound them in a mortar with the cheese, and a little butter, till the whole is well mixed; now season the mixture with pepper and salt, adding a tea-spoonful of mustard powder, and the yolks of three eggs. Finally beat up the egg whites to a stiff froth, mingle it with the mixture, and fill your paper cases, which should be well buttered to prevent their burning outside, or "catching" the fondue within : bake them from ten minutes to a quarter of an hour, and serve them as soon as they have raised their heads, and have slightly taken colour.

Beignets a la Pignatelli

Put one pint of water in a stew-pan with one and a half ounces of butter, season with salt and pepper; boil, and add four and a half ounces of flour, and one ounce of grated Parmesan. Stir over the fire for three minutes, then add sufficient eggs to turn the mixture to a smooth paste. Add to the paste one ounce of lean cooked ham finely chopped. When mixed, form the paste into fritters, and fry in plenty of hot fat.

"Beignets souffles au Parmesan" will be found elsewhere, and several dishes demanding cheese amongst the menus.

N.B. - The best flour for fondues and souffles is potato flour, a recipe for which will be found in the menus. China souffle cases are nicer than paper ones.