Modern cookery for private families

or cream to each pound, as many good potatoes as will form a crust to the pasty of quite three inches thick; put the cover on the mould and arrange these equally upon it, leaving them a little rough on the surface. Bake the pasty in a moderate oven from three-quarters of an hour to an hour and a quarter, according to its size and its contents. Pin a folded napkin neatly round the mould, before it is served, and have ready a hot dish to receive the cover, which must not be lifted off until after the pasty is on the table. Chicken, or veal and oysters; delicate pork chops with a seasoning of sage and a little parboiled onion, or an eschalot or two finely minced; partridges or rabbits neatly carved, mixed with small mushrooms, and moistened with a little good stock, will all give excellent varieties of this dish, which may be made likewise with highly seasoned slices of salmon freed from the skin, sprinkled with fine herbs or intermixed with shrimps; clarified butter, rich veal stock, or good white wine, may be poured to them to form the gravy. To thicken this, a little flour should be dredged upon the fish before it is laid into the mould. Other kinds, such as cod, mullet, mackerel in fillets, salt fish (previously kept at the point of boiling until three parts done, then pulled into flakes, and put into the mould with hard eggs sliced, a little cream, flour, butter, cayenne, and anchovy-essence, and baked with mashed parsneps on the top), will all answer well for this pasty. Veal, when used for it, should be well beaten first: sweetbreads, sliced, may be laid in with it. For a pasty of moderate size, two pounds, or two and a half of meat, and from three to four of potatoes, will be sufficient; a quarter of a pint of milk or cream, two small teaspoonsful of salt, and from one to two ounces of butter must be mixed up with these last.[115] Footnote 115: A larger proportion of cream and