The wisdom of following the canapé with the simplest soup possible will be quite apparent, if I mistake not, some time before the dinner is a thing of the past. Why not, therefore, prepare it in this way? Take a chicken, cut it in pieces and put it into a saucepan with two quarts of water to simmer gently until the scum begins to rise, skim until every particle is removed, then add salt, a carrot, an onion, two slices of turnip and three celery stalks. Boil gently for two hours, strain and serve, and your family and guests will have reason to bless the hour when you set before them a chicken consommé.
After the soup? Well, suppose you lay in a deep dish fit to be placed in the oven a bed of medium-sized oysters; season them with salt, pepper, and a few small pieces of butter; sift over them some fresh bread-crumbs and pour in a little sherry with some of the oyster liquor; repeat the same operation until the dish is full, then besprinkle the whole with bread-crumbs; scatter small pats of butter here and there, and set the dish in a hot oven for fifteen minutes to color a light brown, then serve, and serving be modestly proud of the fact that you have prepared a dish which sometimes appears upon the menu at Delmonico's as "Huîtres au Gratin à la Crane." Order it the next time you are lunching or dining at that hostelry and compare your effort with that of the famous chef at Delmonico's. For your sake, as well as for my own, I trust that you will find that the success turned out by your own cuisine gains by the comparison.
Are you still wavering in your opinion as to whether your choice shall fall on turkey, ducks or goose for the Christmas dinner? Let it be goose then, for if properly cooked and served they go far toward clinching the success of the feast. But "properly cooked and served," there's the rub. And isn't it enough to amaze a contemplative person to note how wide apart are the conditions which different housekeepers define by that phrase? Nevertheless I am going to tell you how it seems to me a goose should be prepared to answer the description. If the bird is of medium size then you will want to boil and mash eight or ten large potatoes; to them add half a dozen small onions which have been peeled and chopped as finely as possible; then season with white pepper and salt to taste. Add at least half a pint of cream or rich milk, about three ounces of melted butter, and three eggs beaten to a froth. Whip the potato till it is light and smooth and fill the inside of the goose with it. When it is sent to the table have it garnished with very small onions which have been boiled till tender without losing their shape, and then fried a light brown in butter. Nothing can be better for a sauce than the giblets boiled till tender, then chopped finely and returned to the water in which they were boiled, with a little Madeira, and a gill of button mushrooms cut in halves; thicken with a tablespoonful of browned flour braided with an equal quantity of butter.