Modern cookery for private families

is not at hand, the brains may be boiled in water. NO. 15. CHESTNUT FORCEMEAT. Strip the outer skin from some fine sound chestnuts, then throw them into a saucepan of hot water, and set them over the fire for a minute or two, when they may easily be blanched like almonds. Put them into cold water as they are peeled. Dry them in a cloth, and weigh them. Stew six ounces of them _very_ gently from fifteen to twenty minutes, in just sufficient strong veal gravy to cover them. Take them up, drain them on a sieve, and when cold pound them perfectly smooth with half their weight of the nicest bacon rasped clear from all rust or fibre, or with an equal quantity of fresh butter, two ounces of dry bread-crumbs, a small teaspoonful of grated lemon rind, one of salt, half as much mace or nutmeg, a moderate quantity of cayenne, and the unbeaten yolks of two or of three eggs. This mixture makes most excellent forcemeat cakes, which must be moulded with a knife, a spoon, or the fingers, dipped in flour; more should be dredged over, and pressed upon them, and they should be slowly fried from ten to fifteen minutes. Chestnuts, 6 oz.; veal gravy, 1/3 of a pint: 15 to 20 minutes. Bacon or butter, 3 oz.; bread-crumbs, 2 oz.; lemon-peel and salt, 1 teaspoonful each. NO. 16. AN EXCELLENT FRENCH FORCEMEAT. Take six ounces of veal free from fat and skin, cut it into dice and put it into a saucepan with two ounces of butter, a large teaspoonful of parsley finely minced, half as much thyme, salt, and grated lemon-rind, and a sufficient seasoning of nutmeg, cayenne, and mace, to flavour it pleasantly. Stew these _very_ gently from twelve to fifteen minutes, then lift out the veal and put into the saucepan two ounces of bread-crumbs; let them simmer until they have absorbed the gravy yielded by the meat; keep them stirred until they are as dry as possible; beat the yolk of an egg to them while they are hot,