Choice Cookery

sauce like d'Uxelles and Villeroi, or the cream used to mix croquettes, must always be made of stock that will jelly when cold. The sauce is used warm, and the articles are put to chill on ice, so that they are in a jellied condition. Now the fat into which they are plunged must be so hot that it sets the coating of egg and crumbs, which forms a thin shell, as it were, before the jelly has had time to melt; the shell once formed, the interior cooks in the intense heat very quickly. If the fat were not hot enough, croquettes would go all to pieces, and articles coated with sauce would lose the better part of it. To fry, you require a stewpan or iron kettle; those called Scotch kettles are best, as they set into the range readily. A frying-pan is only useful for sauteing in little fat. Articles to be fried must be immersed in fat, and no frying-pan is deep enough to do this safely. Put two to three pounds of clarified dripping or lard into the kettle, and let it get very hot. This will be after it ceases to sputter--some time after, perhaps; but you must now begin to watch for smoke to rise from the _centre_. Have near you some little squares of bread crumb; drop one in from time to time; only when it colors _immediately_ is the fat hot enough. At this point no time must be lost, and your frying begins. Of course you will have the articles you intend to fry right at hand. You will also need a large dish, in which you lay common butcher's wrapping-paper (often called "kitchen paper") and a perforated skimmer--some like a frying-basket, and for very small things it is an assistance; but for croquettes, cutlets, etc., it is not necessary: they can be laid on the skimmer and dropped in the fat. The easiest and safest way to fry is to use a cooking thermometer (pyrometers or frimometers they are sometimes called), and let the fat be 380 deg. for