WOMAN'S WORLD

Evening Star, Issue 17543, 24 December 1920, Page 3

WOMAN'S WORLD

[BY VIVA.]

/ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. " Smiler."—After . shelling the walnuts let them stand for a few minutes in cold ■water. The skins will then come off quite easily. Q- —Some weeks ago I gave the recipe you s«ek. If you ask, at our. office to look through the past copies of the £aper you will find what you require.

HOUSEHOLD RECIPES.

Surprise Buns (by request).—-Required : Three cups of flour, half a cup of sugar, half a cup of butter, half a cup of milk, two eggs, one teaspoonful of cream of •tartar, half of soda. Rub the flour and butter very finely together, add the cream of tartar. Dissolve the soda in the milk. Beat the eggs and sugar together till of a light creamy appearance. Mis all together t and form into buns, and put jam in the ' centre of each. Bake in a quick oven. Pineapple Souffle.—Beat the yolks of three eggs slightly, add the grated rind and juice of one lemon, half a cupful of sugar, and a few grains of salt. Cook, 6tirring constantly, until the mixture thickens, then remove from the range, and add two-thirds of a cupful of shredded pineapple and one and a-half tablespoonfuls of granulated gelatine which has been soaked in two tablespoonfuls of cold ) '■ -water. When the mixture begins to thicken, beat half a cupful of heavy cream And the whites of three eggs beaten until Stiff. Turn into a mould first dipped in cold water, and chill. Remove it from the mould, and serve with or without thin cream. Lemon Jelly is far from the ordinary if a trick or two is played with it. To two and a-half cupfuls of boiling water add one cupful of sugar and four cloves. . Again hrinct to the boil and boil two minutes. Remove from the range. Add two tablespoonfuls of granulated gelatine soaked j in half a cupful of cold water, and halt a cupful of lemon juice. Strain half the! mixture into a mould first dipped in cold j water. To the remaining half add the j white of one egg beaten until stiff, half a cupful of canned sliced pineapple cut in pieces, and a quarter of a cupful of raisins • seeded and cut up. Fill the mould with the second mixture, and chill thoroughly. Remove from the mould, and garnish with sections of candied cherries and sfices of pineapple cut in fancy shapes. A Vegetable Hot-pot,—Required: One pound of tomatoes, one pound of peeled and sliced marrow, one pound of potatoes, half a pound of onions, half a pound of j beans, two ounces of margarine, about a pint of stock, three ounces of macaroni, seasoning. Prepare all the vegetables according to their land, cutting the potatoes' in halves, marrow in thickish blocks, ! slicing tomatoes, and shredding the beans. The macaroni break' into short lengths. Melt the margarine in the casserole or hot-pot, applying a gentle heat. Add the onions and fry a good brown.' This process makes just all the difference to the flavor: do not forget it. EiD the casserole with layers of the vegetables, saving all the potatoes for the top layer. Fill about a' quarter of the casserole with well-sea-soned stock: not more, as the vegetables will themselves supply plenty of moisture. Cover closely and bake for about an hour j and a-half, or till all the vegetables are tender and the potatoes browned. Serve . accompanied with brown bread-and-butter. A Meat Omelet.—Hade with about two ounces of cooked veal and a mere suggestion of cold bacon, not enough for a ! mince or scallop. Required: About three tablespoonfuls of cooked chopped meat of any sort, two eggs,'two tablespoonfuls of milk or gravy, one ounce of margarine, one teaspoonful of chopped parsley, one teaspoonful of scraped onion, seasoning to taste. Chop the meat or meats very finely. Beat the eggs till frothy. Add the meat, parsley, milk, onion, and seasoning. Cook the omelet in a small frying-pan. . Rub it all over with a scrap of dripping: this lessens the risk 'of the mixture sticking. Put in the 'margarine, or. clean beef dripping will do. Heat it gently till it has just ceased bubbling. Pour in the egg mixture. Let the underpart of the mixture set, raise it up with the flat of the - knife, and let some of the unset mixture flow'under. Continue to do this till all the mixture is very lightly set. Then tip the pan up towards you, shape the mixture with the knife against the side of the pan, making it into a bolster-like cushion. Cook it for a minute or two 'till the under side is lightly browned. Next, with a dexterous twist of the wrist, knife, and pan, roll the omelet over to the other side of the pan, and brown the surface that was uppermost. Turn at once on to a hot dish; serve at once with a , little hot, strong gravy, if liked, or merely bread-and-butter. Supposing there is no meat, you can use fish in the same way. If.fresh eggs are scarce, use preserved or dried eggs as available. Mystery Pudding.—Made from about half a quart mould of jelly and ■ half of a pint mould of cornflour, and a teaspoonful of the vanilla custard served with it. Required: About a pint of jelly of any sort, about half a pint of cornflour or other mould, about a gill of custard, three * or four tablespoonfuls of jam or fruit. Put the jam or fruit (scrapings from jam ,or marmalade pots do excellently) into a glass dish. Cut the mould into large ■ cubes, and lay these on the jam, gently warm the jelly till it is just liquid—the cooler you can keep it the better. Pour this gently into the dish, and leave till cold. Then pour over the custard, grate over a little nutmeg, and serve cold. Gooseberry and Rhubarb Jelly.—Required : One quart of cut-up gooseberries and rhubarb mixed, one gill of water, half an ounce of gelatine, sugar to sweeten, one graed lemon rind,.few drops of cochineal. Top and tail the goosebervies, wash, wipe, and cut up the rhubarb. Put these in a saucepan with the water, lemon rind, and about four tablespoonfuls of sugar. Simmer till the fruits are quite soft and pulpy. Dissolve the gelatine in about four tablespoonfuls of hot water, but be verv careful not to let the gelatine boil, or It will taste and smell like glue, even when cold. Mash down the fruit well with a fork, strain in the gelatine, taste to make sure it is sweet enough. Color a pretty delicate pink with a drop or two of cochineal, and pour into a wet mould. Leave till cold and set. Then dip the mould into warm water, slip out. the shape on to a dish, and serve with custard or cream.

Teas and Ham.—Required: One pound of raw lam, about two breakfastcupfuls of shelled peas, two teaspoonfuls of chopped onion, salt and pepper. Trim and' cut the ham into fairly large cubes. Put these in a heated frying pan with the onion and fry a crisp, light brown. Meanwhile cook the peas in boiling water, to which add a teaspoonful each of salt and sugar and a sprig of mint. When the ham is fried and the peas cooked and drained mix the two together in a saucepan and add the seasoning, to taste. Heat thoroughly, pile on a hot dish,' and make a border round the peas with sippets of toast or fried bread. HINTS. A Good Average Time-table Required for Cooking Foods.—Asparagus, about twenty to twenty-five minutes; Globe artichokes, thirty to thirty-five minutes ; Jerusalem artichokes, ditto; French beans, fifteen to twenty-five minutes; young broad beans"; fifteen to twenty minutes; haricot beans, two to two and a-half hours; small beetroot, one hour and a-half to two hours; young broccoli, ten to fifteen minutes; Brussels sprouts, ditto; spring cabbage, fifteen to twenty minutes; large cabbage and savoys, thirty to forty minutes; new carrots, twenty to twentyfive minutes f old cabbage, one hour to one hour and a-half; medium cauliflower, twenty to twenty-fivo minutes; young head celery, forty-five to sixty minutes; leeks, one hour; lentils, one hour and ahalf to two hours; Spanish onions, one •hour to one hour and a-half; large parsnips, fifteen to twenty-five minutes,; green

Viva mu in this column answer all reasonable questions relating to the home, cookery, domestic economy, and any topic of interest to her sex. t But each letter must bear the writer's bona fide name and address. No ■ •*>«« : inhalever will be taken of anonymous correspondents. Questions skmuld be concisely put and the writer's nom de plume clearly written.

peas, fifteen to twenty-five minutes; split peas, two and a-half to three hours; new potatoes, fifteen to twenty-five minutes j old potatoes, twenty-five to forty.minutes ; salsify, forty-five minutes to one hour and a-half, according to size ; seakale, twentyfive minutes; sorrel, twenty minutes; spinach, twenty to twenty-five minutes; old turnips, three-quarter hour to one hour; new turnips, fifteen to twenty minutes; turnip ,tops, twenty to twentyfive minutes; vegetable marrows, twenty to twenty-five minutes. Grilling: Steak, lin thick, about eight minutes; steak l£in thick, eight to ten minutes; loin chops, ditto; neck chops, five to eight minutes ; sheep's kidneys, five minutes; mushrooms, seven to ten minutes; split mackerel, ten to fifteen minutes ; salmon steak gin thick, fifteen .to twenty minutes. Brown vinegar is much better to uso for flavoring than white, but the latter improves the color, especially of red -cabbage! If meat should become the least tainted dip in vinegar, and soak it for fifteen minutes in the same if you deem it to be the least tough. Be careful when cooking not to overheat margarine or butter, because it loses its nourishing properties, and acquires a bad flavor.

Salads and green vegetables that have to be kept for a day, or perhaps longer. should be wrapped up in wet paners and placed on 1 stone floor if possible, and keep the paper slightly damped.

Judging from statistics contained in the ' Official Year Bock' of ' Australia, the "bride of eighteen summers" would appear to be almost a myth as far as the Commonwealth is concerned. According to the authority mentioned, for the five years 1907-11 the average age of Australian brides was 25.70, compared with an average of 25-92 years for the five years 1912-16, and 25.77 years for 1919. As the average age of all bridegrooms during 1919 was 29.10 years, it follows that brides are on an average rather less than three and a-half years younger than bridegrooms. The opinion was recently expressed by Mrs Hardy, wife of the captain of the American Davis Cup team, in an interview, that motor-power, instead of nervous energy, will be largely used to relieve the over-pressure en women who are overworked in domestic duties. The modern devices for housework are expensive ; but in time the manufacture will increase, and they will come more within reach of the general public. It was' Mrs Hardy's idea that a convenient disb-vra. r £ing machine in a home was quite as urgent a necessitv as a typewriting machine in an office, and would be thus recognised in time. She was of opinion that the " day girl" was not going to be a success generally, as she arrived after breakfast and left before dinner, thus throwing the heavy part of the dav's Tontine on the housewife. This method of employing labor was also found to be very expensive, and the American women had found that the crux of the problem lay in lessening the work by the aid of scientific appliances.

Time was when most of us thought that the less civilised people were the less clothes they wore, says a writer in the ' Western Mail'; hut an epigram, come across lately, indicates that' things have changed, for it reads: "Modern .modes show us that the more civilised we become the lesß clothes we w-ear." If appearances go for anything, there is much truth in the epigram, "for scarcity of clothes seems rather a feature in present fashions. The feature, however, is one not altogether approved of in' manv places in various parts of the world. The craze of wearing as little clothing as possible seems to have been extended to bathing attire too, for from Dinard, a fashionable Brittany resort, comes news of indignation having been caused by some vervdaring effects displayed in a "bathing dress com' petition, where the bathing costumes were of very delicate materials and attractive designs. 'Many of them are said to have been startling in their meagreness. Does the average girl or woman think the scarcity craze pretty or becoming? To many people it is just silly, not to say grotesque, and in most instances outre in style, which is seldom good style. *