This section is from the book "The Book Of Entrees Including Casserole And Planked Dishes", by Janet Mackenzie Hill. Also available from Amazon: The Book Of Entrees.
The materials for entrees composed of salpicon or chopped articles may be raw or cooked; one article or a combination of two or more may be used. In most of these entrees, especially if cooked materials that must be reheated delicately are employed, the heat is applied through the medium of a hot sauce. After the cooked ingredients are added to the sauce, the whole is kept hot, until the moment of serving, over hot water.
Only at the last moment should the mixture be transferred to toast, pastry or other cases. When china dishes - as egg-shirrers or tiny casseroles in silver holders - are to be used, the transference need not be delayed so long; still the mixture can be kept hot more easily in a large dish than in the small ones.
All cooked meats to be served in cream sauce should be cut into regular-shaped pieces of as nearly uniform size as possible. Fish for use in creamed dishes should, whenever convenient, be separated into flakes when hot. Oysters are brought quickly to the boiling point, without the addition of liquid, the saucepan being shaken occasionally meanwhile and then drained. If the oysters are large, cut them in halves before adding them to the sauce. One cup and a fourth of solid material should be allowed for one cup of sauce. When cream sauce is spoken of, the liquid employed in making the sauce is supposed to be milk. Better results are secured when half white stock and half thin cream or rich milk are used. The term Bechamel rather than Creamed should, however, be applied to the dish.
Any cold cooked fish may be used. Separate into flakes while hot if convenient. For two cups of fish a cup and a half of sauce is needed. Butter scallop shells; put in a little sauce, then a layer of fish and cover with sauce. Mix one cup of cracker crumbs into one-third a cup of melted butter and spread over the sauce. Pipe a little hot duchesse potato on the edge of the fish, brush this with the beaten yolk of an egg, diluted with one or two tablespoonfuls of milk, and set into a hot oven to brown the crumbs and the edges of the potato. Creamed oysters, shrimp, lobster or crabflakes may be prepared in the same manner. If oysters are used, bring quickly to the boiling point, drain and use the liquid (strained) with cream for the sauce. Often better results will be secured, if the article (fish or oysters, etc.) be stirred into the sauce, and this mixture used for filling the shells.
Press hot boiled potatoes through a ricer and season with salt, pepper, a little cream or milk and butter, as for the table. If convenient add one or two yolks of egg to each pint of potato. Keep the mixture quite consistent. Shape into ovals or rounds; "egg-and-bread crumb." Score the top of each lightly about a quarter of an inch from the edge. Fry in deep fat; cut around the scoring and take out the center, to leave a case with walls one-third of an inch thick. Use as cases for hot creamed fish, sweetbreads, chicken, peas, etc.
Remove stems and peel the caps of one pound of fresh mushrooms. Break the caps in pieces if large, if not leave them whole. Let simmer very gently ten minutes in two cups of milk. Skim out the mushrooms. Cream together two and one half tablespoon-fuls, each, of butter and flour, add half a teaspoonful, each, of salt and pepper and stir into the hot milk; continue the stirring until smooth and boiling; then add the mushrooms and let cook over boiling water. Beat the yolks of two eggs, add one-fourth a glass of sherry and stir into the mixture. Serve on toast or in cases.
2 cups of cooked salmon in flakes 4 hard-cooked eggs cut into half inch cubes
2 cups of Bechamel Sauce flavored with curry 1 cup of rice cooked as Turkish
Pilaf
Mix the salmon and eggs through the sauce; make a border of the pilaf on a serving dish and turn the fish mixture into the center. The recipe for Turkish Pilaf will be found in Chapter IV.
 
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