FoodNetArchive

The thorough good cook

1895

Page 26 · 2 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1895. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
M. Octave Suzanne was once so courteous as to send me, from the Place Parmentier, Xeuilly, near Paris, a copy of a little book of a hundred and seventy pages, ]3urporting to be the third series of his " Petite Encyclopedic C'ldinaire," being "Cent Cinquante Manieres d'Utiliser les Restes"; a concise little manual for the use of housekeepers who are at a loss to know how to make dainty dishes out of scraps. I read the manual from beginning to end with great interest, and I hope with some benefit to myself, in which benefit I now wish my readers to share. The author good-naturedly tra- verses Poileau's famous assertion — to be sure, the i^rcat satirist made it in verse, and poets are apt to be somewhat arbitrary in their statements — that a dinner warmed up again was never good for anything, ^f. Suzanne }»roves to demonstration that when a dinner, or what remains of it, is re-cooked with skill and discrimination, " metamorphosed .Avith taste, and presented under an appetising form," it can be made quite as good, if not better than it was in its original shape. CHATS ABOUT COOKERY. 31 Thus the author of the " Little CuHnaiy Encyclopaedia " tells us how to " accommodate "' the " restes," or scraps of beef, mutton, veal, poultry, game, tish, and even of bread. Let us see how he deals with the staff of life. The house- holds must be few in which there will not be found remains of the bread of yesterday, or of the day before 3'esterday. These stale crusts may be made into " panada," by putting the bread broken into bits into a stew-pan, covering it with water, and steaming it with salt and pepper. The bread must be allowed to soak for twenty minutes ; then the stew- pan is put on the fire, and stirred with a wooden spoon until it boils. An ounce of butter is now added, and the "panada" is allowed to simmer gently for an hour. Just before serving, another piece of butter must be added, and the yolks of three eggs. If you like, you may moisten your "panada" with broth or with milkPanada, instead of water. " Klossen," German fashion, may be made from A'ery stale bread soaked in hot milk, then drained and put into a stewpan with butter. It is seasoned with salt, pepper, and gingerKlossen ; then it is made into little rolls, poached or steamed, and finally these are served up in the form of a pyramid, accompanied by any one of a long list of sauces, the composition of which M. Suzanne exactly prescribes. You may have over your stale bread-rolls Spanish, Becha- mel, mayonnaise, Tartar, ravigote, mustard, mint, horse- radish, curr}^ tomato, piquante, or Maitre d'Hotel sauce, AVith a little hunger, which is the best sauce of all, " Klossen " will be found, I should say, a very appetising dish. Finally, the stalest of stale bread can be utilised by grating it, and passing it through a tammy for use in egging and bread-crumbing cutlets and rissoles. M. Suzanne has in his manual half a dozen recij^es for making bread puddings, in the French, German, and English manners. He has also had the good sense to imjDort into his voluiiie a capital recipe for that truly British dish, bubble-and-squeak, and 32 TEE THOROrGE GOOD COOK.