Choice Cookery

a sticky white sauce. If bechamel does not become white jelly when cold the stock of which it is made is not stiff enough. _Lobster in Aspic_ is prepared as for salad, the solid meat cut in dice and rolled in mayonnaise, then in chopped chervil or parsley. Then proceed exactly as for the oysters. _Oysters a la Tartare._--The oyster-shells for serving oysters a la Tartare must be of good shape and exquisitely clean; therefore, when using oysters on the half-shell, always pick out any that may be deep yet stand well, and have a good shape; scald and scrub them, and keep for use. Scald as many fat oysters as required in their own liquor till firm--three minutes at boiling-point will usually do this; the oysters must be just plump, yet if underdone they will be flabby. Put them on ice, choose as many tiny leaves as you have oysters from the heart of a lettuce; they must all be of a size, or trimmed so, and the size only just large enough to line the shells without coming over them. Lay a leaf on each shell, cut each oyster in half, lay four halves in pyramid fashion on the lettuce leaf, and mask the top of each, just before serving, with Tartare sauce. Allow two to each person. FOOTNOTES: [71-*] See No. II. [77-*] See No. II. IX. VARIOUS CULINARY MATTERS. This little book does not pretend to go into what may be called the principles of cooking, except in so far as they are involved in the production of all choice cookery; and where it is considered that a principle is little known or too little attended to, the effort will be made to give it emphasis by reiteration here. By principles of cooking I mean the simple rules by which roasting, boiling, stewing, etc., are successfully accomplished. Any book or series of articles written a dozen years ago would have been of no real use without these rudiments, but within that period there have been cooking-schools started and cookery books written so exceedingly exact in directions