She also cleaned the calf’s brains, carefully removing all the slime and fibrous skin, but without breaking them; then she told Marta to put them, half an hour before dinner, into well-salted water in which was a small bunch of parsley and a bay leaf, to boil for twenty minutes; then she was to have ready some fried circles of bread, the size of a tea-cup and half an inch thick. (See _frying_, Chapter IV.) When the brains were done they were to be taken up and divided, and a neat piece put on each round of bread, and on the centre of each a small piece of pickled gherkin or red beet, and then they were to have poured over them brown butter, made as follows: One table-spoonful of butter melted in a little saucepan till it was a pale brown (not the least burnt), then a tea-spoonful of lemon juice and the same of finely chopped parsley was to be put in it. She warned her if the butter should get the least bit too dark it would be spoilt, and it would darken even in carrying from the range to the table, therefore to remove it as soon as the color _began_ to change. The following were the ways in which the remains of the head were disposed of. Though Molly was tired of it by the time it was gone, Harry was not, and she could not but recommend it to Mrs. Lennox as an economical dish to have for a large family, provided she bought only a large fleshy head; a bony one is not worth the trouble of cooking. The pieces already boiled in the soup made two small _entrées_ for Wednesday and Thursday; the first was simply some pieces simmered half an hour in a very little of the soup, then taken up and a Hollandaise sauce poured over it. (See recipe, Chapter XXIX.) The second was the quite celebrated one. CALF’S HEAD EN TORTUE, made as follows: A table-spoonful of butter was melted in a saucepan, a table-spoonful of flour mixed with it and allowed to bubble; then a cup of the clear soup reserved for the purpose was put to it and stirred, to make a thick, smooth sauce; the juice of a large tomato (Molly used a little pulp of canned tomato, as the season was over) was strained to it, and the liquor from half a can of mushrooms and a dozen of the mushrooms; the pieces of meat were laid in this sauce and stewed for twenty minutes very gently, with great care that they might not burn. While this was cooking, a small saucepan was put on, half full of fat, and made _very hot_; then one egg for each person was broken into separate cups; these were dropped one at a time into the smoking fat, just as if it were water, and they were to be poached; one minute was enough to brown each one, and _only one was done at a time_, or while one was taken out the other would harden in the intense heat of the fat. The eggs were perfectly round and brown. They were laid round the dish of meat, and between them tiny green gherkins. CHAPTER XXXIX. IDEAS AND SUGGESTIONS ON SEVERAL SUBJECTS.