This class of meat and fish dishes calls for neatness and accuracy in treatment. To insure success one should possess accuracy of eye and a steady hand combined with experience. The dealer is usually quite well satisfied, if he cuts chops of about the same thickness: and he could not be trusted to fillet the breast of a chicken. If this or similar work be required, it needs be done at home and time allotted to it.

Dishes of this class are favored for entrées or for luncheon dishes. When neatly fashioned, dressed crown shape or in straight rows, one overlapping another, with an appropriate accompaniment of purée, small vegetables, sauce or salpicon, they present a sightly appearance. Chops served unboned, though treated similarly, are not included in this division on account of the presence of bone. Among the materials thus used the most important are fillets of fish, which are fully treated in the chapter on fish, the fillet of beef, the "best end of the loin" of lamb, mutton or veal, a slice of veal from the fillet, the breast of fowl or birds, sweetbreads, calf's liver and brains.