MOULDS, CREAMS, &c.
55
purée a gill of mayonnaise, half a gill of stiffly-whipped
cream, a tablespoonful of white tarragon vinegar, a
pinch of salt, and a dust of caster sugar; colour with a
drop or two of vegetable green to make it a faint
cucumber green shade, and stir into it all just at the last
two tablespoonfuls of just liquid aspic.
Mousselines de Poisson.—These are simply very delicate
forms of fish cream, but are so pretty and acceptable that
it is well to give them. Dissolve ½oz. of best leaf gelatine
in three gills of good clear fish stock, then blend this with
1oz. of cold cooked fish, previously pounded till smooth
with 2oz. or 3oz. of butter, season with salt, coralline,
and white pepper, a few drops of essence of anchovy, a
little mace, and a little lemon juice, and when nearly cold
stir in a gill of whipped cream. Now pack a plain
charlotte mould with this mixture, place it on ice, or
in the ice cave, and when wanted turn it out carefully,
masking with any chaufroix sauce to taste. If pre-
ferred, when packing it tiny fillets of fish, halved prawns,
bearded oysters, &c., may be mixed with the cream. Sal-
mon thus treated and served with a pale green cucumber
sauce is a particularly pretty dish. So are cold red
mullet in white wine sauce, or whiting or smelts with a
delicate mousseline sauce over the mould. In short,
like most of these dishes, an intelligent cook can vary
them to any extent by her resources.
Red Mullet Cream (Mousseline de Rougets).—Remove
the heads and gills from 1lb. of red mullet; fry a table-
spoonful of very finely-minced shallot or chives in 3oz.
or 4oz. of butter, over a slow fire, till they are dry, then
lay in the mullet, season with coralline pepper, a dust of
mace, and a little powdered thyme and bay leaf, and fry
the fish pretty sharply. When cooked turn the whole
out on to a sieve, draining off the butter and liquor, and