HOME INTERESTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3197, 23 June 1915, Page 69

HOME INTERESTS.

SUPPER RISSOLES. Mix together a teacupful of cold mashed potatoes and a teacupful of meat. To the3o add a teacupful of breadcrumbs, pepper, salt, a grate of nutmeg, and a teaspoonful of chopped parsley. Bind the whole with an egg, form into little flat cakes, egg and breadcrumb, and then fry in hot fat. This savoury may be served with coffee, bread, and butter. JELLY PUDDING. Four sponge cakes, a pint of jelly, a few pieces of tinned apricots or any suitable fruit, but no juice. Break the sponge cakes into a basin or mould, and put in the fruit. Dissolve the jelly and pour over while hot. A red jelly with the yellow apricots makes a very pretty mould. FIG TARTLET. Required: About Jib of pastry, Jib of dried figs, three tablespoonfuls of brown sugar, half a teacupful of chopped nuts, juice of one lemon, three-quarters of a pint of water, one ■egg. Line a tin with the pastry, but don’t bother to grease it. Examine, wash, and chop the figs rather coarsely. Put them in a saucepan, with the water, sugar, and lemonjuice, and simmer them for about half an hour, or till the figs are soft and thick. Add the nuts, and, when slightly cooler, the beaten yo.k of egg. Turn this mixture into tho tartlet, and bake it in a quick oven for about 20 minutes. Then whip the white of egg 'to a stiff froth, add a tablespoom'ul of castor sugar, and, if liked, a few drops of vanilla. Spread, this meringue over the fig mixture, dust with more castor sugar, and brown very lightly in the coolest part of tne oven. If you want to use mutton dripping for the pastry, beat it to a cream, and then stir in a tablespoonful ox lemon-juice, and as much carbonate of soda as will lie flat on a threepenny bit for each Jib of dripping. SHEPHERD’S PIE. Mince Jib of cold meat finely, season it with pepper and salt. Put it into a greased piedish, and pour over a quarter of a pint of gravy. Partly boil and chop an onion, and add it to the meat. Boil and mash Jib of potatoes, .and add a little milk. Spread this over the top of the meat like a crust. Put into a hot oven for about 20 minutes, or until nicely browned. LEMON BISCUITS. In a basin mix 6oz of flour, Jib of fine sugar. Rub finely into these loz of butter, and add half a teaspoonful of baking powder. Next, well beat an egg, adding to it a few drops of lemon essence. Mix to a firm paste, knead well, and then make into a long roll under the hands until the dough is about an inch in diameter. Cut the roll into inch pieces, and place these on a greased oven tin. Press the finger in the centre of each biscuit, and bake in a moderate oven for about a quarter of an hour. MOCK PORK AND APPLE SAUCT. This is a delightful vegetarian dish that all will do well to sample. Soak a pint of haricot beans overnight in water with a teaspoonful of bicarbonate of soda, or a small piece—that will cover a sixpence—of washing soda. In the morning strain the water off, and put the beans in a clean pan with a piece of butter the size of a walnut, two teaspoonfuls of sugar, half a teasponful of sage, a small chopped onion, and sufficient water to cover the beans. Let them boil until beans are quite soft. Then put the mixture through the mincing machine, afterwards allowing it to cool, as this will make it firmer. Next form the mixture into neat cutlet shapes. Coat them with flour or egg and'crumbs, and fry them a golden brown in hot, smoking fat. Heat up some cooked .apple sauce, and place a mound of it in the centre of a hot dish. Arrange tho cutlets daintily around the sauce, and serve very hot. TONGUE OMELETTES.

This is a. good way to use the last fragments of tongne, when it is too patchy to serve as a dish by itself. Cut the tongue up finely, removing all bristle. Melt a little dripping in .a fryingpan and put in the chopped tongue till it is thoroughly hot. Beat two eggs till frothy, add a tablespoonful of milk to them, pepper and salt. Pour over the tongue in the pan, and stir gently till the eggs are beginning to set. Cook until the bottom is nicely browned and tbe top set. Fold in two, slip on to a bot plate, and serve at once. DRIPPING- CAKES. Such delightful little rock cakes can be made with dripping. There is no excuse fertile use of butter or lard when there is dripping in the larder. Take Boz of flour and rub into it 2oz of dripping. Add 2oz of brown sugar, 2oz of cleaned currants, a pinch of salt, and a teaspoonful of baking powder. Mix the dry ingredients to a stiff paste with one beaten egg and a little milk. Beat the mixture well and put it in small heaps on a greased tin. Bake the cakes in a hot oven for about 10 minutes. CHEESE FINGERS.

Mix in a basin Jib of flour with a quarter of a teaspoonful of baking powder, an eighth of a teaspoonful of salt, a few grains of cayenne, and a shake of pepper. Add 3oz mfo doheese, just return the dish to tho Mositen to a -very stiff dough with a little milk, turn on to a floured board, and, after kneading the dough, roll it out a quarter of .an inch thick. Bake in a moderate oven until tho fingers are lightly browned, then brush with egg, and, after sprinkling with grated, cheese, just return the dish to the

oven for, say, a minute. Serve hot, piled neatly on a napkin. BOILED DICE. The secret of boiling rice correctly is one which is by no means always mastered by the Eng.ish cook. The Indian cook’s method is very simple. The well-washed rice is dried in a cloth and then strewed lightly into the fast-boiling, slightly-salted water. When' it begins to swell a teacupful of cold water is at hand to dash in at the crucial moment. This natural.y puts the water off the boil, and when it boils up again another cupful is added, and another, until the rice is swelled and cracked. While tho grains still remain separate the water is poured off, and tho rice is thrown into a colander to dry in front of the fire.