A guide to modern cookery

small peas or asparagus-heads cohered with butter just before dishing up. 799—MOUSSELINE DE SAUMON A LA TOSCA Combine one and one-half oz. of crayfish cream-cullis with each pound of the salmon _mousseline_ forcemeat. Mould and poach as above, drain, and arrange in a circle on a dish. Garnish each _mousseline_ with a thin slice of milt cooked in lightly-browned butter, four crayfish tails cut lengthwise into two, and a slice of truffle at each end. Coat with a light Mornay sauce, finished with crayfish butter, and glaze quickly. N.B.—In addition to these two recipes, all the garnishes suitable for fillets of sole may be applied to _mousselines_. Garnishes of early-season vegetable purées also suit them admirably, and therein lies an almost inexhaustible source of variety. 800—COLD SALMON When salmon is to be served cold it should, as far as possible, be cooked, either whole or in large pieces, in the _court-bouillon_ given under No. 163 and cooled in the latter. Pieces cooked separately may seem better or may be more easily made to look sightly, but their meat is drier than that of the salmon cooked whole. And what is lost in appearance with the very large pieces is more than compensated for by their extra quality. In dishing cold salmon the skin may be removed and the fillets bared, so that the fish may be more easily decorated, but the real gourmet will always prefer the salmon served in its natural silver vestment. In decorating cold salmon use pieces of cucumber, anchovy fillets, capers, slices of tomato, curled-leaf parsley, &c. I am not partial to the decorating of salmon with softened butter, coloured or not, laid on by means of the piping-bag. Apart from the fact that this method of decoration is rarely artistic, the butter used combines badly with the cold sauces and the meat of the salmon on the diner’s plate. Very green tarragon leaves, chervil, lobster coral, &c., afford a more natural and more delicate means of ornamentation. The only butter fit to be served with cold salmon is Montpellier butter (No. 153), though this, in