6. - Gently stew four partridges in stock with a carrot, an onion, a piece of celery, sweet herbs, and a glass of Madeira. When done, set the birds to get cold and strain the gravy in which they were done. Now cut off the fillets of the partridges, and pick all the other meat from the bones as well. The fillets should be put aside. Simmer the skin, bones (pounded), and scraps, in the gravy again with a little red currant jelly and lime peel, strain, and reduce it to a glaze. Next, pound the meat you picked from the backs, and thighs, with the livers, etc, and with your glaze make a rich savoury paste of it. Prepare your aspic jelly slightly flavoured with tarragon, decorate a plain mould with white of hard-boiled egg, slices of truffle and cornichons, pour in a little jelly and set the garnish, then pack your mould with the fillets of partridge between layers of the paste and slices of truffle. Ice this, and present it with sauce ravigote (also iced) in a boat, and dry toast.

Braised leg of mutton with vegetables.

Partridges in jelly.

"Aspic Jelly." - This requires attention; the common flavourless jelly, consolidated with isinglass, should be avoided if possible. In order to turn out an aspic, fit to present at a dinner party, you must proceed in this way :-

Put into a stew-pan an ox-foot cleaned and cut up, with a bacon bone, or a slice or two of ham or bacon, any scraps of raw meat, such as cutlet trimmings you may have, or, better far, a young fowl cut up as for fricassee, with a few mixed vegetables, etc., as for soup. Add a cup of cold water, cover the pan, set it on the fire, shaking it occasionally : when the pieces of meat begin to take colour, add a little more water, and in about half an hour, pour in enough water to cover the contents of the pan completely ; put in a tea-spoonful of caramel, and then let the vessel simmer for three hours very gently. When ready, strain the liquor off into a bowl, let it get cool, skim it carefully, add a tea-spoonful of sugar, and table-spoonful of tarragon vinegar, clarify it, (q. v. page 33) and strain it finally through a clean cloth, producing a clear, amber-coloured liquid, which will set of its own accord without isinglass, if put in the ice-box.

A couple of calf's feet, or four sheep's feet may be used.

7. - In wet weather excellent mushrooms are procurable at nearly every station in this Presidency ; assuming that on this occasion we have been fortunate enough to get a dish of a dozen nice ones, a very toothsome entremets can be made of them in this manner: - First, be careful in cleaning them; cut the stalks down, leaving only a little of them within the hollow of the mushroom, peel off the skin that covers the convex side of the fungus, brush away any particles of earth or sand that may adhere to the pink gills on the concave side, and by patting the top of each mushroom, shake out all grit. It is a very great mistake to wash a mushroom if you can possibly clean it in the way I have described. When satisfactorily prepared, clean the stalks you cut off, and chop them up. Put into a sauce-pan an ounce of butter and stir into it half an ounce of flour, when mixed, add half a pint of made gravy ; stir well and throw in the chopped stalks, a table-spoonful of chopped curled parsley, a tea-spoonful of minced onion, a salt-spoonful of salt, and a dusting of pepper : simmer the sauce until it is thick and rich, add a spoonful of cream, and then strain it. Now butter a silver dish liberally, place the mushrooms upon it head downwards, fill their hollow parts with the thick sauce, and set the dish in the oven (a brisk one) for ten minutes. As soon as the mushrooms flatten themselves, as it were, they are done. Serve on the same dish wrapping a napkin round it.

Baked Mushrooms.

8. - This dish is not a difficult one. Choose a tin of American apricots, drain off their juice and place the fruit at the bottom of a glass dish ; add enough syrup to the juice of the fruit to cover them, pour into it a wine-glassful of noyeau or maraschino, and half an ounce of dissolved gelatine ; when cold, set the glass dish upon ice, and pour the syrup round the fruit by degrees, letting it congeal like jelly and embedding the fruit firmly. Leave the dish in the ice, and then make enough rich custard to form a layer an inch thick on the top of the congealed fruit, mix into the custard half an ounce of dissolved gelatine, and flavour it with vanilla : when quite cold, pour the custard by degrees over the layer of fruit; it should consolidate also; garnish the surface of the custard with whipped cream in two colours, pink and white (the pink coloured with a drop or two of cochineal), and serve straight from the ice.

Apricot custard.

9. - Gently boil a quarter of a pound of the best rice till about half done, then drain it and put it into a stew-pan with a pint and a half of good boiling milk, and six ounces of sugar, add a coffee-cupful of boiling cream, stir well, and simmer till the rice is done. Let it get cold. Next mince up some mixed dessert fruits, greengages, cherries, apricots, etc, (preserved ginger, and citron if you like), moisten with a table-spoonful of maraschino or noyeau and put the mince away upon a plate. Now strain the milk and cream from the rice, add milk enough to fill the mould you have chosen, and turn it to a rich custard with eight eggs : next set the freezing pail in the ice, put the custard into it, and work it with the spatula till nearly frozen. You must now add the rice, with two whites of egg a la meringue, made in this way : - put two ounces of sugar into an enamelled sauce-pan, and heat it with a little water till nearly boiling, whip two whites of egg, and add them to the sugar, whipping all the time; this, when cold, is what you want for the ice. Continue working the spatula, and when the mixture is all but frozen, add a coffee-cupful of whipped cream the minced fruit, and a liqueur-glass of liqueur ; stir well, freeze a little longer, then fill your ice mould, and bury it in ice until it is required.

Note. - To adapt this menu, serve the leg of mutton after the fish, and instead of the aspic of partridges give poulet au cresson with salade or roast game. A poulet, with really nice creamy bread sauce, and water-cress (if the fowl be a plump home-fed one), makes a very acceptable rot.

Iced rice a l'lmpeia-trice.

Meringues.

Put the whites of seven eggs into a bowl, and whip them as stiffly as possible, add half a pound of sugar, mix well, and with a spoon set portions of the mixture at intervals on sheets of buttered paper : each piece should be the size and shape of an egg: dredge some pounded sugar over them, and put them in the oven upon a baking-sheet. As soon as they assume a pale yellow tint, remove them from the oven, detach them from the paper, and cut them in halves with a very sharp knife. Scoop out the inside with a spoon as carefully as you can, and return them to a moderate oven to dry. After that you can fill the pieces with any nicely flavoured whipped cream, join the halves together with white of egg cement (page 357), and serve piled up upon a napkin,