The Household.

Clutha Leader, Volume XVII, Issue 835, 18 July 1890, Page 7

The Household.

» RECIPES. Bird Jelly for Convalescents. — Put 12 fat, well prepared robins, or six partridges, in a saucepan with oue quart of water ; cover closely, and set on the fire. Boil gently until the birds are ready to pull to pieces and the water is reduced to half a pint. Strain through a colander and piece of muslin, and skim off the grease carefully. Salt to taste, and pour into four little fancy moulds. This is very delicate and nutritions. A Toothsome Pudding. — Put 12 egg yolks in a bowl with a pound of white sugar and beat very light. Add half a pound of creamed butter. Shred up half a pound of citron, grate half a pound of cocoanut ; blanch and pound a quarter of a pound of alvnonds and add these with the grated rind of a fresh lemon. Last add the whites of eight eggs beaten into a stiff froth. Line four pie plates with puff paste, fill with the pudding and bake in a moderate heated oven. Do not cook rapidly. A Handy and Nice Dish. — When you haven't any bread quite convenient and do not want to bother with biscuits or hot cakes for supper, just' cut what you think enough of good water crackers in a rather shallow tin pan, cover with cold water slightly salted, cover with a plate and set back on the stove to soak and gradually heat. When nice and tender drain off the water, butter the crackers and set them, in the same pan, inside a moderately hot stove ; have the cover off the pan this time. You will find them ready for eating in about 15 or 20 minutes if the stove is hot enough. No milk or cream. Transparent Apples and Whipped Cream. — Pare 12 fine tart apples, cut in circular slices three quarters of an inch thick. Remove seeds and core carefully. Spread on dishes for two hours to dry slightly. Make a syrup of l£lb of loaf sugar and half a pint of water boil until rather thick. Now lay in half of the apples, and simmer for 15 minutes. Take out and spread on dishes while the rest cook. In 15 minutes take these, out and spread on dishes, returning the first half to the syrup. Be careful not to break the slices by rapid boiling. Cook until done and clear. Remove and finish cooking the rest. Lay all carefully in a glass dish. Add to the syrup the grated rind of two fivsh oranges, and the pulp carefully picked out as for marmalade. Simmer a little while and pour over the apples. Grate the rind of an orange and express the juice, add this, with one small teaspoonful of white sugar, to the pint of rich cream. Whip stiff and pile up over the apples, j This is a beautiful and elegant dessert. Francatelli's recipe for mutton hashed venison fashion is so successful in transforming that tough and tasteloss dish into an entree worthy of the name, that I am fain to give it here, very slightly modified. The mutton should be cut in larger and thicker pieces than usual, well floured and seasoned with pepper and salt. The sauce is prepared by chopping a teaspoonful of eschalot very fine and boiling it for five minutes with a glass of port wine, a dessertspoonful of Oude or Worcester sauce, a teaspoonful of Lifbeg dissolved in two tablespoonfuls of hot water, and a dessertspoonful of redcurrant' jelly. The meat should simmer very slowly by the side of the fire in this sauce for half an hour — if it boils it is spoilt — and be served in an entree or vegetable dish, garnished with fried sippets and accompanied by French beans. If it be carefully prepared in thisifashion, he will be a very captious critic who objects to hashed mutton. I am fain to say a few words as to the egging and breadcrumbing of croquettes, sweetbreads, cutlets, &c. It is simplo folly to imagine that the delicate golden crust which distinguishes such ' kick-shaws,' when they are the work of a first-rate cook, can be produced when crumbs of fresh bread, rubbed through a coarse wire sieve, are used. The breadcrumbs must.be dry, and they must be fine. Another cause of failure is the employment for this of bakers' raspings, which are often coarse, and always too deep iri color, besides tasting burnt. Odd scraps of bread dried (not burnt) in the oven, pounded and finely sifted, are the most satisfactory material. Again, it cannot be too often insisted on that it is useless to fry croquettes, &c , in a shallow fry-ing-pan. If a small, deep stewpan be used, the quantity of fat need not very greatly exceed what would be spread over the broad surface of the fryingpan. The stewpan method has one disadvantage, that only one or two croquettes can be fried at once, and so it takes rather more time and trouble.; but the difference in results well repays the slight amount of extra labor involved. The beaten egg works better, too, if a dessertspoonful . of water.be mixed with it. And another great point to be remembered is that the instant the object to be : fried is crisp and of a light gold color, it must be lifted on the skimmer or in the wire basket from the. fat, and set to drain in the screen.;-.. 0n a sieve, over which is folded, some /cooking, paper to absorb what, little, grease may remain on ': the surface of the.friture. Half a minute's superfluous frying may turn a triumph into what,' if not a failure, is a very modified success.—' E E ' in the Queen.