Many hints with regard to rechauffes were given in the first chapter, but it may be as well to risk repetition in the attempt to enforce on the British cook the fact that a rechauffe is not a twice-cooked dish, deprived of all its goodness and succulence by over cooking. It is not too much to say that there are few dishes nicer than the despised hash, when well made, and it may be added few nastier if the opposite is the case. All meat intended for reheating must be deprived of any string, sinew, skin, and especially of all over-cooked parts, and fat, if too predominant, must be judiciously trimmed away. Now, if you contemplate a hash, cut this meat into neat, moderately thick slices, dust these very lightly with a little sifted flour, and pepper (white for white, and freshly ground black for brown meats), have the sauce whatever it may be, ready prepared, and lay the meat in this, cover it down, and let it all soak together till wanted; then allow it to heat as gently and slowly as possible, being careful to remove the meat the moment it shows the least sign of cooking.

As a general principle hashes are far better if made in what our grandmothers called a hash-dish, now better known as the American chafing-dish (not the only thing by the way originally our own, that we have received back under a new name from our thrifty cousins across the sea, and many thanks to them for it). A chafing-dish should form an indispensable part of the table service in any daintily inclined household. Hashes may be varied almost indefinitely according to the meat to be served. Mention has been already made of beef or mutton hash, and of salmi, which is simply a hash of game specialized by its rather strongly flavoured sauce; then there is the fricassee, a hash of poultry usually, cut into neat joints instead of being sliced (this, reckoned in England a dainty name for a dish, lies under much the same obloquy in France as does our corresponding word, "hash," at home, for, while we say of anyone blundering that he or she " has made a hash of it," so the French contemptuously dub a bad cook a fricasseur, and when wishing to describe an utter muddle, say scornfully c'est une veritable fricassee); then there is the emince, like our own hash produced from slices of beef or other meat, but in this case the meat in question is actually allowed to simmer steadily but gently for an hour exactly.

It certainly is a delicious dish as anyone who tries the emince de boeuf aux tomates given further on will readily admit, but its chief merit depends on the exact obedience paid to the cooking time, one hour, neither more nor less. Then again there is the gratin; this derives its name from the fact that the ingredients at the bottom of the pan, and on its surface, are gratines, or browned and caught by the heat of the dish in which they are cooked. For this purpose you require a fireproof china dish of nice appearance as it must come to the table; the white Limoges fireproof china is about the nicest, but there are also very pretty royal blue, and rich dark green dishes now to be had, that are well worth looking at. (Of course if preferred a silver dish may be used, but in this case be very particular to stand this on a folded sheet of kitchen paper, in a baking tin with boiling water about one-third the height of the inner silver dish, all round it, or else the latter will infallibly be burned, if not altogether spoiled.

This hint may be well observed by cooks anxious to reheat any little plat without turning it out of its dish, but never forget the doubled sheet of paper as this absorbs the moisture and prevents the bottom of the silver dish from catching, as it infallibly would do, even if its sides were protected by the outside water). Having chosen your dish, in shape and size according to what you intend to use it for, strew the bottom with a fairly generous layer of freshly made sifted white breadcrumbs, finely minced parsley, mushrooms, shalot, young spring onions or chives (according to what you have), and either grated fat bacon or tiny morsels of clarified dripping or butter, according to the gratin you are making; these ingredients should properly be well mixed first, and then spread at the bottom of the dish; season with pepper and salt, then lay in your meat, and cover it with another layer of breadcrumbs, Ac., putting on this some more tiny bits of dripping or butter; then pour over it a wineglassful of light French wine and the same of good clear stock, and bake in a quick oven from ten to fifteen minutes, watching it closely, and adding a very little more stock should it show signs of drying up too much.

This is the general rule for preparing a gratin of any kind, but it is naturally subject to variations according to the foundation meat; for instance if you intend to gratiner beef or mutton, alternate the meat slices with sliced tomato or parboiled Spanish onions; if veal or lamb, or chicken is used, employ sliced cucumber, artichoke bottoms, or mushrooms, whilst for veal or chicken some thinly sliced ham or tongue will also be found an addition; many people also approve of the addition of finely grated Parmesan cheese to the breadcrumbs and it undoubtedly adds a flavour; then others use red wine such as claret or Burgundy and brown stock for brown meat, leaving the white wine and the white stock for the more delicate meats, in short like most other rechauffe's the gratin may be varied to suit individual tastes.

Next comes the familiar (far too familiar) mince, almost as great a trial as hash, yet, like it, capable of all sorts of dainty developments, if we will accept the French hachis for our English mince. (By the bye, how few people seem to realise that the Scotch "haggis " is only a form of the French "hachis.") To begin with, please remember that for a mince deserving the name, the mincer must be taboo, unless its knives are kept in such a delicate condition of cleanliness and sharpness as to ensure the meat being really minced (hachee, or chopped), and not torn and reduced to a stringy pulp, as is all but invariably the case if entrusted to the ordinary cook's mincing machine. Choose your meat, whatever it may be, and remember, if thriftily inclined, that the more kinds of meat used the merrier. Remove all skin, sinew, gristle, and a good deal of the fat, and chop it up as finely as possible with a sharp chopping knife; add to it a fifth of the quantity of meat, of sausage meat, and half as much breadcrumbs as you have sausage meat, seasoning it with pepper, salt, and a little parsley.