"On The Subject Of Entertaining" - Part III, Menus and Recipes for Special Occasions

BRIDGE LUNCHEONS

Sometimes the hostess who is entertaining at bridge decides on a luncheon rather than serving refreshments afterward.  this is delightful to the guests, and sometimes easier for the hostess, especially if she serves at the card tables.

Cover each table with a luncheon cloth, place the napkins and arrange the necessary silver, glassware, etc, dispensing with both bread-and-butter plates and floral centerpieces.  Plan your menu so that you can arrange the entire main course on the individual plates before bringing them to the table.  If hot bread is served, butter it before placing it on the plates.  Then after luncheon is over you need only remove the used dishes in a tray or tea wagon, fold up the luncheon cloths, and quickly arrange the necessary "tools" for playing bridge.

But what will you give them to eat?

Hera are a few menus that may help, together with recipes.

Bridge Menus

Tomato Juice Cocktail

Sweetbread and Almond Salad

Cheese Biscuits

Celery, Radishes

Orange Layer Cake

Iced Tea

Jellied Shrimp Salad

Cheese Biscuits

Pickled Peaches       Crisp Celery

Honey Ice Cream Cake

Coffee

Chicken Timbales

Asparagus Tips with Hollandaise Sauce

Nut Graham Muffins     Currant Jelly

Chocolate Refrigerator Cake

Iced Coffee

Jellied Chicken Soup

Molded Tuna Salad with Cucumber Dressing

New Peas

Brown Bread Fingers

Sponge Cake     Peaches with Sunshine Sauce

Iced Tea 

Sweetbread and Almond Salad.  1 pair sweetbreads, 1 cup blanched almonds, mayonnaise, radishes.  Soak sweetbreads in cold water for one hour, changing the water two or three times.  Then drain and plunge into boiling water to which one teaspoon vinegar has been added and cook for fifteen minutes.  Next drain and place immediately into ice cold water to blanch.  Let stand ten minutes.  Wipe dry and chill.  Dice sweetbreads and mix with almonds, and add just enough mayonnaise to bind.  Garnish with radish roses.  Serves six.

Honey Ice Cream Cake.  Cut slices of Sponge or Angel Food Cake three inches square and one-half inch thick, and arrange on individual dessert plates.  Top each piece of cake with a square of chocolate or vanilla ice cream, and then garnish each with two tablespoons strained honey and one tablespoon salted pecans.

Chicken Timbales.  Melt three tablespoons of butter; add one-half cup soft bread crumbs and one cup of milk; cook for fie minutes, stirring constantly.  Add one-half teasopon of salt, a little pepper and paprika, one tablespoon chopped parsley, one and one half cups cooked chicken cut into dice, and three eggs slightly beaten.  Mix well and turn into individual buttered timbale molds, filling them two-thirds full.  Set molds in pan of hot water, cover with greased paper, and bake at 325° F. for thirty minutes.  Serves six.

Molded Tuna Salad.  To one can of flaked tuna, add one cup stiff mayonnaise, one chopped, hard-cooked egg, one-fourth cup chopped olives, one tablespoon capers and one teaspoon chopped chives.  Soften one-half tablespoon gelatin in one-fourth cup cold wter, place over hot water until dissolved, then add to the fish mixture and stir lightly with a fork, being careful not to break the fish.  Put in cold wet mods and chill.  Six individual molds.

Cucumber Dressing.  To one-half cup thick cream, add one-fourth teaspoon salt, a speck of pepper and two tablespoons vinegar.  Beat until stiff.  Just before serving add one cucumber which has been pared, chopped very fine and drained.

Sunshine Sauce.  Boil one cup sugar with one-third cup water to 238°  F. or the soft-ball stage.  Pour this sirup over the stiffly-beaten yolks of two eggs.  Continue beating until creamy.  Add two tablespoons vanilla.  Just before serving, fold in one cup stiffly-beaten cream.

The Detroit Times Cook Book, 1936.