Arrange your filleted soles on a buttered dish, sprinkle them with white wine, and cook them for ten minutes. Then drain the fillets, and arrange them on an oval dish. Boil down the liquor rapidly, with a little good _velouté_ sauce and a piece of crayfish butter. When your sauce is ready, throw into it the tails of the crayfish, and cover the fillets of sole with it. Round the edge of the dish place quenelles of crayfish decorated with truffles, and serve.
_Vous préparez vos croûtes avec de la brioche en tranches d'un centimètre d'épaisseur, que vous faites rôtir légèrement au four après les avoir saupoudrées au sucre. Vous les dressez en couronne sur un plat rond, au milieu, mais avec quelques losanges d'ananas au centre. Vous prenez des bananas pas trop mûres, mais surtout bien saines. Vous les jetez avec leur peau dans de l'eau froide que vous mettez a bouillir. Après deux minutes d'ébullition, les bananes sont cuites. Vous les retirez, vous les épluchez, et les rangez sur votre plat autour des croûtons. Vous arrosez l'ananas et les bananes d'une sauce abricot parfumée au Kirsch, et vous servez bien chaud, après avoir décoré de quelques fruits confits. C'est très simple. Toutes les ménagères peuvent faire ça. C'est cependant la façon la plus exquise de manger la banane._
You prepare your pieces of bread, or brioche, in slices about half an inch in thickness, and bake (or toast) them lightly in the oven, after having sprinkled them with sugar. Arrange them in the form of a crown upon a round dish, placing them in the middle, but with some pieces of pineapple in the centre. Take some bananas, not too ripe, but perfectly sound and good, throw them into cold water with their skins on, and let them boil. After boiling for two minutes the bananas will be done. Take them out of the water, peel them, and arrange them on the dish, round the croûtons. Sprinkle the pineapple and the bananas with apricot sauce flavoured with kirsch, and serve very hot, after having ornamented the dish with preserved fruits.
He, a gentleman on the Stock Exchange, who has generally a stock of good stories, mentioned in the course of a letter to me that he had heard a really good tale of the last bye-election, and would tell it to me the next time that we met, as it was too long to write. Now, that particular election is fast becoming ancient history, and if that story had to be retailed to my circle of country friends, it would have to be done quickly. Therefore I wrote to my stockbroker, who lives in Shaftesbury Avenue, and asked him to name a day to come across the way, and dine at the Monico.
