Mrs. Roundell's Practical cookery book

Anchovy Toast. — For this Wyvem gives two excellent recipes. (1.) Wipe and drain two anchovies, split them open, take out their spines, and pass them through a hair sieve into a bowl. Stir the yolks of two raw eggs into the anchovy pulp. Fry four toasts, put them into a very hot dish, or set them in the mouth of the oven. Now melt a tablespoonful of butter in a saucepan, set the pan in the bain-marie, or in a larger pan of boiling water, stir the anchovy pulp and egg into the melted butter, let it thicken, and when quite hot spread it on the toasts, and serve at once. (2.) Put a soup-plate over a small basin of boiling water, melt a dessertspoonful of butter in the plate, add the well-beaten yolks of two raw eggs, and stir in as much anchovy sauce as will colour it salmon-pink. If you use more it will be too salt. Keep all very hot. During this time another person must be carefully toasting slices of bread. Let each toast be brought straight from the fire, turned over on both sides in the anchovy mixture, and serve at once in a very ANCHOVY TOAST 51 1 hot dish. Or let the toasts soak in the mixture and then crisp them in the oven. For specially good Toasts of nearly all sorts, including anchovy, savoury custard poured over the surfaces at the last moment is much to be recommended. For this : Separate the whites from the yolks of two eggs, and reserve the whites for some other dish. Allow two ounces of butter to each yolk. Put two tablespoonfuls of water into a small saucepan, and let it boil. Take it off the fire, and stir the two yolks of eggs well into the hot water. Lower the fire, and over very gentle heat add ounce by ounce the four ounces of butter, whisk all till it thickens smoothly, season with pepper and salt, and pour over the anchovy toasts. Be careful the custard does not approach boiling, for if it does it will curdle and become lumpy instead of being thick and smooth. Anchovy Toast thus covered is often given the ridiculous name of Scotch Woodcock. A real Woodcock Toast is quite different, for it is intended to resemble the flavour of the trail peculiar to a woodcock. For this : Take two freshly-boiled fowls’ livers (if possible from geese), pound them to a paste, mixing with it an ounce of butter, a teaspoonful of anchovy sauce, or the pounded flesh of one anchovy, a pinch of salt, the yolk of a raw egg, and a tablespoonful of melted glaze. If possible make the glaze from game bones. Dust a little herb pepper over the mixture, pass it through the sieve, and set it aside on a clean plate. Prepare four squares of fried bread half an inch thick, spread the liver paste over them, and set them in the mouth of the oven to retain their heat, but not to burn. Now heat up in the bain-marie a breakfastcupful of the savoury custard, cover the Woodcock Toasts with it, and serve at once. Bloater Toast. — Take off the head, tail, and skin of the bloater, fry the bloater in butter, and when cold pick all the meat from the bones. Pound the meat and the roe with half an ounce of butter, season well with pepper, add a pinch of Nepaul pepper, and pass through a hair sieve. Melt a quarter of an ounce of butter in a little stewpan, stir in a quarter of an ounce of flour, mix well and moisten with a gill of broth or milk, add the bloater puree till the sauce is as thick as jam, and spread it liberally over six fried toasts.