Mix half a pound of sifted flour with four yelks of eggs, a little salt, and half a pat of butter; let these ingredients be placed on a paste slab, putting the yelks of eggs, etc, in the centre of the flour; then knead them into a firm, smooth, compact paste; and after allowing it to rest in a damp cloth for half an hour, spread it out with the rolling-pin until it becomes nearly as thin as a sheet of paper. Place the paste, thus rolled out, lengthwise on the slab, then, with the paste-brush dipped in water, moisten its whole surface, and lay thereon, about two inches apart from each other, some small round balls of raviolis farce of the size of a cob-nut, in rows. This farce is prepared as follows: - Put the white parts of a boiled or roasted fowl, pheasant, or partridge, into a mortar; pound the meat thoroughly, and add thereto about four ounces of fresh-made curd, two ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, two spoonsful of blanched spinach, pepper, salt, and nutmeg; moisten with four yelks of raw eggs, and mix the whole well together into a smooth compact body, ready for use.

Wrap the outer part of the paste, when the raviolis farce has been laid on it, over the outer row of balls, cover them as if for making puffs, finish them by fastening down the paste with the thumb, and then cut them out with a small round fluted cutter into half-moons; and as they are cut out, place them on a large dish, there to be left for some time, in order to dry the surface, so that it may more resemble Italian paste. Having repeated this operation until you have made five or six dozen raviolis, after they have been dried in the larder, proceed to blanch them; this is done by throwing them into a large stewpan containing some boiling broth, and allowing them to continue boiling therein for a quarter of an hour ; then drain the raviolis on to a napkin.

Next take the lining of a soup-tureen, butter it, place therein a layer of raviolis and a layer of grated fresh Parmesan cheese, and so on alternately, until the silver tureen-lining be filled; shake some grated cheese on the top, and moisten with two glasses of old Madeira, and a ladleful of the gravy made for the purpose, and then put the lining into the oven, or on a slow stove-fire, there to reduce the gravy to a gratinate. Brown the top over with the heated salamander, and send to table with the remainder of the clear consomme in the soup-tureen.

This soup should be thus served: With a gravy-spoon help a part of the gratinated raviolis, in a soup-plate, and add to these a ladleful of the consomme.

376. Rice A La Florentine

Prepare a thin puree of rice, and moisten it with consomme of fowls; finish by adding two ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, a leason of six yelks of eggs, half a pint of cream, a pat of butter, and a little minionette pepper; then pour the soup thus prepared into the soup-tureen, and send to table with.two plates of very small croquettes of rice, which are to be handed round with the soup. The croquettes of rice here alluded to, are thus made: - Wash and blanch half a pound of Carolina rice, and boil it in a little broth with two.ounces of fresh butter, and a pinch of minionette pepper, and a little salt; when done, add two ounces of grated Parmesan cheese, and four yelks of eggs; work the whole on the stove-fire for five minutes, spread it on a plate, and when this paste is sufficiently cold, mould it into very small round balls. Just before dinner-time, dip these in some beaten egg, and roll them in flour ; then put them into a large-sized parsley frier, and immerse them in a quantity of hot clean lard; fry them of a fine deep yellow color, and send to table in two hot plates, on napkins, to be handed round with the soup as before stated.