30
ENTRÉES.
can also be hare if preferred, should have been previously roasted, rather underdone, and allowed to get perfectly cold): put into a dish a gill each of good malt vinegar, port wine, and mushroom ketchup, in which you have previously dissolved a good spoonful of red currant or rowan jelly, with a teaspoonful of quatre épices or cook’s pepper, a salt- spoonful of salt, five or six peppercorns, a sliced onion, and about a dessertspoonful of minced thyme and parsley (cold cooked meat needs only a few hours steeping, but if raw should be left in all day). This marinade is strained and added to the thick brown sauce in which the meat is to be heated; it is then boiled up sharply all together till reduced a fourth part, when the meat is laid in and allowed to heat (not boil) very gently in the bain-marie; then, if served round a mound of French beans with its sauce, it forms a decidedly excellent entrée, though it belongs properly to the réchauffés. For venison you use what is called a cooked marinade, prepared thus: fry together for five minutes four ounces of sliced carrot, double that of sliced onion, a good spoonful of minced mixed herbs, and double that amount of minced parsley, with an ounce of well clarified beef dripping; then add to this a pint of vinegar, a pint of common claret, and a pint of water. (or omit the wine and use a quart of water), rather more than an ounce of salt, half an ounce of freshly ground pepper, and a blade of mace; let this all boil up, then simmer for half an hour, after which it must be strained and used at once when cold, or it can be bottled and kept till wanted.