A guide to modern cookery

where the clear water they inhabit is constantly refreshed by strong currents. The two leading methods of preparing them are called, respectively, “Au bleu” and “à la Meunière.” Having already described the latter, I shall now give my attention to “Truite au bleu.” This preparation is held in very high esteem in Switzerland and Germany, where fresh-water trout are not only plentiful, but of excellent quality. 817—TRUITES AU BLEU The essential condition for this dish consists in having live trout. Prepare a _court-bouillon_ with plenty of vinegar (No. 163), and keep it boiling in a rather shallow basin. About ten minutes before dishing them, take the trout out of water; stun them by a blow on the head; empty and clean them very quickly, and plunge them into the boiling liquid, where they will immediately shrivel, while their skin will break in all directions. A few minutes will suffice to cook trout the average weight of which is one-third lb. Drain them and dish them immediately upon a napkin, with curled-leaf parsley all round. Serve them with a Hollandaise sauce or melted butter. N.B.—Fresh-water trout may also be served fried or grilled, but neither of these methods of preparation suits them so well as “à la Meunière” or “au bleu,” which I have given. SOLES. Sole may be served whole or filleted, and a large number of the recipes given for the whole fish may be adapted to its fillets. As a rule, the fillets are made to appear on the menu of a dinner owing to the fact that they dish more elegantly and are more easily served than the whole fish, the latter being generally served at luncheons. Nevertheless, in cases where great ceremony is not observed at a dinner, soles may well be served whole, inasmuch as no hard-and-fast rule has ever obtained in this matter. 818—SOLE ALICE This sole is prepared, or rather its preparation is completed, at the table. Have an excellent fish _fumet_ (No. 11), short and very white. Trim the sole; put it into a special, deep earthenware dish, the bottom of which