Home Intersts.

Otago Witness, Issue 1584, 1 April 1882, Page 28

Home Intersts.

Arrowroot is far better for the thickening of soups than wheaten flour. A ham (if not too old) soaked for one hour, then taken out and wiped, and a flour-and-water crest made to completely cover it, and baked in a moderate oven, cuts fuller of gravy and of finer flavour than a boiled one.

Apple custard is a pleasant dish for dessert. Beat 1 cup of sweet cream to a stiff froth with an egg-beater ; beat 5 eggs very light and mix with the cream ; grate 4 large tart apples and dissolve 3 table-spoonfuls of gelatine in a little warm water ; stir this into the cream, then add the grated apples. To flavour a roast of beef deliriously, to make it tender, and to give variety, which is essential in that family where beef is the staple meat eaten— to do all this, nothing more is required than a large lemon ; cut it in two pieces, squeeze all the juice upon the roast, then after peeling the lemon roll it up in the roast. When the lemon is used no water is needed. The roast should be a fat one, to ensure good gravy, and the lemon acid will remove the oily taste sometimes objected to. Brain cutlets is a dish highly esteemed by the French, and but little known by the English. Your butcher will procure for you, say, two pairs of bullocks' brains, which you must soak in several waters, well salted, for about five hours, then parboil so that you may remove the skin or fibre easily. Put away, and when cold cut into nice cutlets (every brain should make three cutlets), dip m egg and bread crumbs, fry a golden brown, garnish with fried parsley. Egg and Toast.— For this a perfectly fresh egg is necessary. Put a pan half full of hot water on the stove, with a little salt in it, let it come to a full boil, break your egg carefully in it, cover and put back on the stove till the white is firm. Take out of the pan with a skimmer, and slide into a bowl of hot water while you make and butter your toast. _ Take up the egg carefully on a perforated skimmer, shake dry, trim off any ragged edges,- and serve immediately on the toast. Sprinkle a little salt and pepper on the egg. If this is well and neatly donei it is appetising for a sick person. ' ( Stewed Liver.-— Brown two pieces of bacon in a saucepan, add a finely cut onion, peppercorns, and mace ; simmer for a quarter of an hour ; add liver cut in slices, washed and dried ; simmer again for 20 minutes or half an! hour till done. Make bread dumplings with it. Take bread crumbs, with a little flour mixed with an egg and a very little baking ponder, first flavouring with nutmeg, a handful of finely chopped parsley, a little chopped lemonj and some suet ; amalgamate with water or milk as you like. Now brown the dumplings in butter or lard, and then let them steam through for 10 minutes with the gravy. When served; this makes an inexpensive, tasty dish. The Virtues of Borax.— The excellent washerwomen in Holland and Belgium,' who get up their linen so beautifully white, use refined borax as a washing powder instead of soda, in the proportion of one large handful of powder to about 10 gallons of boiling water. They save in soap nearly one-half. All the large washing establishments adopt the same mode. For laces, cambrics, &c, an extra quantity of the powder is used ; for crinolines, requiring to be made stiff, a strong solution is necessary. Borax being a neutral salt does not in the slightest degree injure the texture of the linen. Its effect is to soften the hardest water, and therefore it should be kept on every toilet table. To the taste it is rather sweet; it is used for cleaning the hair, and is an excellent dentifrice, and in hot countries it is used in combination with tartaric acid and bicarbonate of soda as a cooling beverage. Good tea cannot be made with hard water. All water may be made soft by adding a tea-spoonful of borax powder to an ordinary-sized kettle of water, m which it should boil. The saving in the quantity of tea used will at least be onefifth.