NOTES AND RECIPES.

Matamata Record, Volume X, Issue 884, 19 December 1927, Page 2

NOTES AND RECIPES.

Apple Preserve. —Take three pounds of cooking apples, peel and slice them. Make a syrup of 21b. loaf sugar and three-quarters of a pint of Water. Beil for ten minutes, and then arid the apples. Two ounces of preserved gir.g°r chopped very fine make a good improvement, or the grated rind of a lemon can be used. Boil for half an hour, stirring all the time. Apple Dumplings.— There are few nicer dishes than well-baked apple dumplings served with cream. Choose some rather large pare them and remove the core. Into the cavity put castor, sugar and a clove. 801 l out some short pastry to the thickness of an eighth of an inch, cut into rounds large enough to cover the apples. Place an apple in the centre of each round, wet the edges of tlm paste, and press v Pitiv to the top of the applePlace the .dumplings j:rn downva v ds. on baking-tin. and bake from twenty "n tl’i ty minutes in a moderate oven.

When a hot Oven is Nec e ssary.

A joint is tasteless if it is not put in a hot oven. Roast meat needs a very hot oven for a few minutes, to close the pores of the meat so that all the juice and flavour are kept. Steaks and chops cooked in a hot, dry pan are excellent, because the outside of the meat is hardened and none of the goodness escapes. To Dry Mushrooms.

Dried mushrooms are excellent for soups, stews and for frying. Secure firm mushrooms which have just opened to expose the fleshy gills, peel them and remove the stalks. Place them on wire trays in sunshine for several days if possible. Finish off the drying by placing the trays on the plate rack above the kitchen range or in a ;coolj oven. When the mushrooms are thoroughly dry and brittle, break them up into small pieces and store them in jam jars. An Improvement for Trays.

It is difficult to put down a heavilyladen tray as gently and quietly as one could wish, and consequently the polished surfaces of tables and sideboards are often scratched. This is very simply overcome by covering the bottom of trays with baize. Cut to fit anti fixed with some household glue from a tube, the job is quickly and neatly This recipe comes from a well-known Paris restaurant, and, while it produces an extremely tasty dish, it is well within the scope of the amateur cook. Allow three potatoes per head; peel them and cut them into quite thin, even slices.. Put them into cold water and leave them for a quarter of an hour.

Brush the sides and bottom of a fireproof dish with oiled butter. Dry each potato slice separately on a clean cloth and arrange them in layers m the dish. Pour over each layer a generous quantity of melted ' butter, and sprinkle lightly with salt. The dish should bo quite full, and the top layer spread with tiny bits of butter. Be sure the lid of the dish fits closely, and fix it on so that no air can get in. Bake in a fairly slow oven for threequarters of an hour; then remove the dish from the oven, cut the potato cake into quarters, turn each quarter upside down in the dish, cover, and leave in the oven for another ten minutes. Serve on a hot flat dish, with the butter poured round, accomplished. Artificial Silk. Do you know that when washing artificial silk the clothes should' never be wrung or twisted, because the threads lose half their strength when wet. This accounts for the mysterious holes and ladders that appear in quite new garments. It should always be ironed on the wrong side, otherwise you notice that peculiar glaze artificial silk goods often have after washing. • This tip was given to me by a manufacturer.