may have
selected, and it must not be forgotten the plan of the work is that one
recipe shall serve as a key to many others.

A great many will very likely have delayed trying to make the sauces
until the dish for which they will be required is given. This is a
mistake, because it is less annoying to fail with a sauce with no dish
depending on it, than, say, when you have decided to have sole _a la
Villeroi_, the soles being ready, and fail with the sauce.

I hope that no failure will come to any one trying the recipes here
given, but in some cases, especially in sauces thickened with eggs, a
second's diverted attention may cause failure without fault of the cook.
Therefore it is best to make single experiments when there is no danger
of being disturbed, and when there is nothing else to be attended to.
The successful result need never be lost, for in the case of sauces they
can be reheated the next day in a bain-marie, or pan of hot water; the
same with the soups, and, indeed, most other things, except soufflees
and omelets.

But, above all things, never try a recipe for the first time the day you
wish it to appear perfect on your table; try it long before, and if you
fail, make the same thing over again, reading the directions very
carefully; some trifling caution or precaution may have escaped you. No
one ever learns to draw so simple a thing as a circle who is discouraged
at the first bad curve, and leaves it for easier lines. Keep on at the
thing you select to do until you succeed, always choosing _and
perfecting_ the easiest thing in each class first.

X.

ENTREES.

_Fillet of Beef._--This favorite dish with French and Americans may be
roasted whole, or cut so as to serve individually. To roast it whole, it
must be trimmed perfectly round, and either larded or not as taste may
dictate. A fillet weighing four pounds should be roasted three quarters
of an hour in a sharp oven. It may then be served _a la Chateaubriand_
by pouring over it half a pint of the sauce of that name, with
horseradish sauce, or brown mushroom sauce (brown sauce with mushrooms
added).

To serve individually, fillets are prepared in the following way: Cut a
fillet into eight slices three quarters of an inch thick; trim the
slices into perfect circles, all exactly the same size; flatten them;
put them in a hot pan, and saute for seven or eight minutes in two
ounces of butter; dress them round a dish, and pour over them the sau