A LITTLE helpful hint to start with. I have noticed

in friends' houses where the ice is made in the freezer part of the refrigerator that due to spillage or leaky ice trays the freezing base gets to resemble the icy wastes of the North Pole, all jagged ice rocks and lumps which make for more frozen spillage each time you put the trays back. Next time you defreeze find a suitably sized plastic tray to hold the ice trays, then when it gets iced up you simply take it out, rinse off and return, instead of the dreary de-freezing process.

I have been reading the wonderful My Gastronomy by the splendid Nico Ladenis and thought to pick out some of his more simple receipts for you. Digby Anderson will give it a proper review, I believe, but here are a few foretastes. As Ladenis is a restaurateur most of the dishes are for two, so you must just multiply at will.

Escalopes of fresh salmon in chive sauce

8 oz fresh salmon 1 tablespoon fruity olive oil salt and cayenne pepper 61/2 tablespoons of the chive sauce per helping 1 tablespoon of chopped chives

Slice the salmon very thinly using the same technique as for smoked salmon. Put the slices in the middle of a heat-proof gratin dish (Ladenis says two good porce- lain plates but this frightens me). Brush the slices with the oil and arrange untidily overlapping each other. They look rather tidy in the yummy illustration but there you are. Dust very lightly with the salt and cayenne pepper. Surround with the chive sauce and sprinkle with the chopped chives and place in a very hot pre-heated oven Gas 9, C240, F475 for three to five minutes. Do not allow the salmon to be overcooked and dry. Serve with a good dry white burgundy.

Now for the sauce. This makes 1-11/2 pints.

Sauce creme de ciboulette

7 fluid oz white fish stock 3 fluid oz Noilly Prat vermouth 2 fluid oz good white burgundy 4 oz finely chopped shallots 4 oz finely chopped leeks (the white part) 17 fluid oz double cream 2 fluid oz sauternes 2 tablespoons of chopped chives 2 oz sliced butter salt and pepper

Put the fish stock, vermouth, white burgundy and shallots in a stainless steel pan and reduce over a moderate heat to four tablespoons. Place the chopped leeks and V4 pint of water in another pan and reduce to two tablespoons. Pass this through a fine sieve into the first pan. Add the cream, the sauternes and 11/2 table- spoons of chopped chives, bring to the boil then whisk in the sliced butter until it melts entirely. Season and strain carefully. Scat- ter the remaining chives just before serv- ing.

Here is a way to make those rather tasteless little poussins really delicious.

Poussins with muscatel grape brandy (l'Eau de Vie de Frontignan)

2 corn-fed poussins 2 oz butter 6 rashers of bacon pepper and salt 2 pints rich port 2 teaspoons tomato purée 2 teaspoons finely chopped tarragon 2-4 tablespoons muscatel brandy

Smear the birds all over with butter and sprinkle with fresh-ground pepper. Wrap three rashers of bacon round each crea- ture. Roast in a heavy cast-iron pan in a pre-heated oven Gas 8, C230, F450 for 20 minutes. Turn the oven down to Gas 5, C190, F375. Push the bacon off the birds into the bottom of the pan, baste and cook the birds for another ten minutes. Remove the birds and keep warm.

Discard the bacon and pour off the fat. Add the port to the pan, bring to the boil and stir in the tomato purée, simmer until the sauce becomes syrupy, season with salt and pepper, mix in the tarragon; bring back to the boil then add the brandy, stir quickly then pour over the poussins which you could have dismembered or split in two according to your tastes. Garnish with some fine muscatel grapes. Serve with a fruity, medium-dry white wine or a slightly chilled young fruity red.

Two medium carrots sliced finely on a mandoline cooked in a tablespoon of re- duced chicken stock, 2 oz of butter and 1 teaspoon of honey for seven minutes then seasoned with salt and pepper would be excellent with these birds.

Jennifer Paterson