KITCHEN ITEMS.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXII, Issue 4740, 23 August 1902, Page 4 (Supplement)

KITCHEN ITEMS.

When making a frying batter, make a hole in the centre of tho flour, and break in tho eggs one at a time. Do not beat them first. Tho hatter will be found much lighter. Cucumber chips.—Cucumber is excellent, if cut into strips; well floured and fried a light brown. ■ Servo with chops or steak?. . Boiling old potatoes.—When boiling old potatoes, which are apt to go a very dark colour, put a tablospoonful of milk into the water in which they are boiled, and you will find they will ho beautifully white when cooked. Sir Henry Thompson’s Brown Broad. —Take 21b of coarsely ground whole wheatmeal and £lb of fine flour (or, better still, of fine Scotch oatmeal), mix thoroughly, working in a sufficient quantity of baking powder and a little salt; then rub in 2oz of butter, and make it into dough with a wooden spoon (using cold skim milk or milk and water) till it is of a soft consistency, that can be almost poured into tho ring, which should bo about lin high and 7 or 8 inches in diameter; bake without delay, in a quick oven at the outset, letting them finish at a lower temperature. This bread he advises to bo baked in a flat cake, rather of tho shape of an ordinary tea cake, to allqw it to bo cooked sufficiently; for he says if made up in the form of ordinary loaves, the meal being a bad conductor of heat/ if cooked sufficiently to be fit to oat inside, will have a crust more like flint than bread: whilst if the crust is of the right consistency, the inside will bo simply dough. If preferred, yeast, brewers’ or German, can be used instead of tho bailing powder, mixing it in tho ordinary’way with warm milk and water, allowing tho cakes to rise for an hour near tho fire. When yeast is used, medium oatmeal may replace the fine kind, which is indispensable when baking powder is used. Grease on the kitchen table. —If hot grease bo spilled on tho kitchen table or floor, pour cold water upon it. This will cause it to harden quickly, and prevent it soaking into tho wood. To remove grease which has soaked in, cover tho stain with a paste made of. fuller’s earth, mixed with hot water, and leave it on overnight. In tho morning it may bo swept off, when probably the greaso will have disappeared, if not, repeat the process. To clarify butter.—When butter is cheap always take a good quality for this purpose, and thus prepared it is ready to hand for frying in a saute pan for sauces or to use instead of salad oil for salads. Put tho butter into a clean enamelled pan over a slow fire, let it gradually melt, take all the scum off the tup, and let any sediment fall to the bottom. Then pour the clear part very slowly through muslin into dry jars and cover with white paper, through which prick some holes with a fork.