A guide to modern cookery

slightly flattened, and trimmed to the shape of hearts or ovals; except when they have to be stuffed. In the latter case, they are opened in the thickness, by means of the point of a small knife, to form sacks; and, in the resulting interstice the selected stuffing is inserted, with the help of a piping-bag fitted with a little, even pipe, and in a sufficient quantity to fill out the _suprêmes_ well. _Suprêmes_ and cutlets are always cooked without liquor, or almost so; for should any moistening liquid even approach the boil, it would immediately harden them. If they be desired poached, it would be best to cook the whole fowl, and cut them from the latter when it is cooked. This is how they are prepared, according as to whether they be required colourless or _sautéd_; though the brown method of preparing them is applied more particularly to cutlets. _Cutlets or suprêmes sautéd_: Season them with salt; roll them in flour; set them in a vegetable pan containing some very hot clarified butter, and quickly _gild_ them on both sides. These pieces of fowl are so tender that they are cooked and _gilded_ at the same moment of time. _Cutlets or suprêmes prepared without colouration_: Season them, and set them in a vegetable-pan, containing some fresh, melted, unclarified butter. Roll the _suprêmes_ in this butter; add a few drops of lemon juice; thoroughly seal the vegetable-pan, and put it in a very hot oven. A few minutes suffice for the poaching of the suprêmes, which are known to be ready when they seem resilient to the touch, and are perfectly white. _Important Remarks_: Chicken _Suprêmes_ or cutlets should never be allowed to wait, lest they harden. They should be cooked quickly, at the last moment; dished and served immediately. The shortest wait is enough to spoil them, and to make an insipid and dry preparation of what should be an exquisite dish. N.B.—The recipes given hereafter for _suprêmes_ may of course be applied to fillets, cutlets, _ailerons_, blanc de poulet, &c. 1584—SUPRÊMES DE VOLAILLE AGNÈS SOREL Line some