This section is from the book "Choice Dishes At Small Cost", by A. G. Payne. See also: Larousse Gastronomique.
Tarragon is a herb easy to grow in any garden. It is very valuable for flavouring fish sauces, and also for improving the flavour of salads. One or two leaves only, chopped with a little parsley, give a salad made of lettuce (see Salad) a high-class tone. Tarragon-leaves are sometimes laid in strips on the breasts of roast fowl just before sending to table hot. It is a powerful herb, and a little goes a great way.
A few leaves cut into threads are a great improvement to spring soup.
Make some mayonnaise sauce as thick as butter. (See Mayonnaise Sauce.) Add to, say, a quarter of a pint of sauce, a tea-spoonful of chopped parsley, which has, if possible, two tarragon-leaves chopped with it, a piece of onion or shalot the size of the top of the little finger. Or the chopping-board on which the parsley was chopped can be first rubbed with a bead of garlic or a slice of onion. Also add a teaspoonful of made French mustard - English mustard will do, but it is not so good - and a saltspoonful of anchovy sauce.
Tartar sauce should be served with grilled salmon, grilled trout, etc.
Teal, like snipe, should be sent to W table underdone. They should be plucked and drawn, roasted before a quick lire, or in a fierce oven, basted with butter, and sent to table directly they are cooked. When teal follow a joint the cook should be warned not to put them down for some time after the joint is served; ten minutes will almost cook them. Send cut lemon and cayenne pepper to table with them. A little good brown gravy should also be served with them in a tureen.
Tench requires very careful cleaning, as it has a tendency to be muddy. The best way to cook it is to bake it in the oven, and baste with a little butter and a glass of French white wine, or, if this cannot be obtained, some lemon-juice and butter. When it is done, add a little gravy to the butter and lemon-juice. Thicken it with a little corn-flour (see No. 13), and a teaspoonful of soy and a little cayenne pepper. When fresh-water fish like tench are plentiful, and caught probably for nothing, it is well worth while to have a bottle of cheap French white wine to cook them in. Either stewed or baked, a very little makes them palatable. (See Fish, Fresh-water).
Tench can also be grilled. Baste with a little butter while grilling, and take care the fish does not stick to the gridiron, which should be rubbed with a piece of fat. Flour the fish first. Serve with Tartar sauce or cut lemon and cayenne. Thickening white and brown, (See No. 12).
The fins of the Thornback, which is a fish of the Ray species, can be boiled like skate and served with black butter. It is a coarse cheap fish, but not often sold.
This is an imitation of Tipsy Cake. Cut some bread in slices, smear both sides over with jam, pile them up on a dish, moisten them with raisin or cowslip wine, and sprinkle with powdered sugar. Pour a cheap custard over the whole, and stick it over with blanched almonds (see Almonds, To Blanch.) cut into thin strips.
 
Continue to: