The encyclopædia of practical cookery

Calf’s Ears with Tomato Sauce. — Prepare and blanch twelve ears ; put them into a saucepan with slices of fat pork or bacon and veal under them, add a seasoning of thyme, parsley, spice, bay-leaf, and carrots (in slices), pour in 1 wineglassful of white wine and about 1 pint of rich white broth. Cook the ears over a moderate fire until quite tender ; take them out, and drain thoroughly. With a sharp knife slit part of the gristle all round, and cut the thickest side very flat. Arrange them on a dish, over a little tomato sauce, standing them upright ; turn the thinnest part of the ears over, bind them down, and slit them several times at equal distances. Should the ears be at all coloured in cooking, they should be stuffed and fried, as the white effect would be spoiled. Calf’s Ears with Tortue Sauce. — Take four ears, cut, blanch, and put them into some wrarm water to extract the blood, &c. ; then put them into a saucepan with a little stock and boil until quite tender. Place a crouton of fried breadcrumb, 3in. high and 2in. square at the base, in the middle of a dish, and put one ear on each side. Prepare a ragout of truffles, mushrooms, quenelles, and gherkins, the gherkins having been previously steeped in cold water and made into a ball shape with a vegetable-cutter, and the whole mixed with some tortue sauce. Put the yolk of a hard-boiled egg in each ear, and put the ragout in small heaps in the space left between the ears ; on each of the heaps place a crayfish with the claws downwards, and a larded sweetbread on the [illustration: Fig. 304 Calf's Ears with Tortue Sauce] top of the crouton of fried bread (see Fig. 304). Serve with a little of the sauce in a boat. Calf’s Ears with Truffles (a la Perigord). — Prepare these the same as for Calf’s Ears with Tomato Sauce. Have ready a pain of veal forcemeat, baked in a hoop with the top slightly domed. Fasten an ornamental raised pie-paper round the pain, and set the ears round, one at the top, and into each ear put a small truffle. Dress over the forcemeat with sprigs of fried parsley and small attelettes garnished with truffles (see Fig. 305). Calf’s Ears with Villeroy Sauce. — Take four ears, blanch them, and cook in some good stock ; when nearly done, take them out, drain, wipe dry, and when cold cut each one into three pieces, lengthwise. Season with 2 or 3 table-spoonfuls of sweet herbs, previously cooked. Take the pieces up separately and dip them into a little hot villeroy sauce, and put them on a plate or dish a little apart, and when the sauce is cold and has set, lift the pieces of ears up with a knife and dip them first into breadcrumbs, then into beaten egg, and then into breadcrumbs again. Put them into a frying-pan of boiling lard, a few at a time, and fry. When done, take them out, put on a strainer to drain, and place them on a dish with a napkin spread over it. Serve with a little parsley, previously fried, put round for garnish.