COOKING HINTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 192, 15 August 1925, Page 26

COOKING HINTS.

Brown Bread. A correspondent asks for recipes for brown and wheatmeal bread. Technically wheatmeal bread is brown bread, though, paradoxically, the brown bread sold by our bakers is not always wheatmeal bread. However, the following recipes for wheatmeal or brown bread have been recommended: — (1) One lb wholemeal flour, an eggspoonful salt, 4 good teaspoonfuls baking powder. Mix with milk and water to a dough rather moister than would be used for scones. Pour into a well-buttered hilly, and place the billy in a saucepan half full of boiling water. Keep boiling hard for an hour and a half. Have the oven ready fairly hot; turn the loaf out of the billy and place it in the oven for about 30 minutes. This makes a crusty, fragrant loaf. (2) Six lbs wholemeal, finely ground, 2 teaspoonfuls salt, 1 cupful yeast. Add warm water or skim milk, if obtainable, sufficient to form into a moist dough. Knead for 20 minutes, but do not let the bread get cold. A plan recommended is to keep a hurricane lamp in a box under the dough while kneading. Put tho bread at once into four greased and floured 21b loaf tins. Set to rise, whic usually takes about five hours. Then put ;nto a hot oven and bake for one hour and a half. Piccalilli. To each gallon of strong vinegar allow 4oz curry powder, 4oz dry mustard, 3oz bruised dry ginger, 2oz turmeric, Jib skinned eschalots (baked slightly), £lb salt, 2 teaspoonfuls cayenne, Jib sugar. Put all these into a stone jar and cover with bladder (damped with a little vinegar). Set on the stove, and bring to boiling point, then draw aside, but keep on tho stove for three days, and stir three times each day. The pickle is then ready for gherkins, sliced, button onions, cauliflower, French beans, and celery. Before adding the vegetables they must be brought to boiling point in a brine strong enough to float an egg. Then drain and dry either in the sun or before tho flro, or in a cool oven. The pickles should be kept in the one jar, and are ready in two months. Doughnuts. "This is how to make genuine American doughnuts," writes an Australian housewife:—Two cups self-raising flour, 2 cups plain flour, Jib butter rubbed in, 1 cup sugar, 1 grated nutmeg, made into a fairly slack dough with one beaten egg and a cupful or more of milk. Put in an aluminium saucepan lib of lard or lard and beef dripping mixed, and when it boils put in doughnuts that are cut in rounds with a cutter with a hole in tho centre. Turn when brown on one side, and when cooked take out and place on white paper to drain. Sprinkle with castor sugar. Rabbit Savoury. Cut up and stew one rabbit till tender. Place in pie dish with some of the gravy thickened a little, and add a few slices of bacon. Make a savoury with one and a-half cups of bread crumbs, one heaped tablespoonful self-raising flour, one boiled onion, chopped parsley, thyme, ' salt and pepper. Mix all together with an egg, and spread over tho meat. Bake till brown. 1 Little Steak Pies. Half lb of steak, two sheep's kidneys (skin and split these and soak in salt and water), pepper and salt, two hardboiled eggs (if plentiful), one dessertspoonful flour. Cut meat and kidneys small, slice eggs, pepper and salt. Roll out Jib of pastry thin, and line a number of patty-pans or small china saucers. Put some of the meat mixture into each, moisten with water and cover with paste and make a hole in each. Put into a hot oven and let it be moderate. Cook for 40 minutes. Add a dessertspoonful of hot water or gravy through the hole in each pie before serving. Mutton can be used equally well, but in this case the kidney should be omitted. Egg and Bacon Pie (Excellent.) Half lb of short crust, Jib bacon, three e go s » pepper. Line a eandwich-tin with thfn pastry, standing the edge well up around the tin. Take off the bacon-rind and lay the bacon flat in the tin. Break in the eggs, and prick tho yolk of each. Sprinkle with pepper, cover with crust, glaze, and bake half an hour. Serve hot or cold. «

HOUSEHOLD HINTS. A dash of eau-de-Cologne in water is very refreshing when one is fatigued. Brass bedsteads must be well rubbed constantly with a dry duster, or they will tarnish. Mico will quickly disappear if birdlime is scattered by their holes and along their runs. When brown stock is needed for some dish and none is handy, dissolve a little meat extract in water and use it instead. To prevent glass dlshea breaking, place a wet cloth underneath the dish when you pour in hot fruit, custard, etc. To keep butter cool dissolve ealt in water and stand the dish in it. Cover with a wet cloth, and let the end 3 touch the water. A rent in linoleum may readily be mended by laying glue underneath and bringing the edges of the cloth together. Wash glasses in warm soapy water, then rinse in cold, wipe as soon as possible with a clean dry cloth, and polish with tissue paper. When putting away spare blankets for the summer do not omit to protect them from moth. Carbon is a great preventive. When children have to take cod liver oil, if the tip of the tongue is touched with essence of peppermint first the oil will be tasteless. When only a few drops of lemon juice are wanted pierce one end of the fruit with a silver fork, gently press out as much as is needed. This opening closes up, and the lemon will be the same as if unopened.

It is advisable to leave a sponge after use in a place where plenty of fresh air will reach it. A sponge of close, even texture is easier to keep clean than one having large holes.

Discoloured knife handles should be cleaned with lemon-juice and salt. Cut a lemon in half, dip it in salt, and with it rub the ivory. Wash off immediately with warm water, and wipe dry. When making boiled starch it is good to lather some pure soap upon it, adding some blue. The soap makes the clothes beautifully glossy, and th e iron will not stick if the clothes are rather damp when they are ironed.

Equal parts of salad oil and venegar is the best thing for cleaning new linoleum. If dirty, wash the linoleum first with soap and water. Soda rapidly destroys, it, but soap or grease improves the wear. Any hair brush may be cleansed by rubbing with flour. When quite clean, remove all traces of flour with a dry towel. This method preserves the varnish on the wa*d, and prevent* the bristles becondafr soft.