FOR THE KITCHEN

Southland Times, Issue 19634, 30 September 1922, Page 14 (Supplement)

FOR THE KITCHEN

ADVICE FROM AMERICA. BATTER, DOUGH AND PASTRIES. The four essentials in all batters, doughs, and pastries are flour, liquid, salt, -and a leaven. These four must always be in definite proportions; but the nen-essentials. such as sugar, shortening, spice, fruit, and flavouring, may vary’ according to individual taste (says an American expert). The proportions of the essential ingredients should be committed to memory and followed rather strictly. The liquid may be milk, water, beaten eggs, or a mixture of any two of them, or all three. For a thin batter have equal parts of flour and liquid, a cupful of flour to a cupful of liquid; for a thick batter twice as much flour as liquid; for a soft dough three times as much flour as liquid; for a. stiff dough four times as much flour as liquid. For the proportions of the dry ingredients one cupful of flour calls for one-fourth of a teaspoonful of salt, and one cupful of flour calls for two level teaspoonfuls of baking powder. If you remember that one cupful of flour will make four ordinary-sized muffins, biscuits, gems, or pancakes, you will see that, you can construct a recipe to serve as many or as few persons as you wish. All flour mixtures are derived from either the thin batter, the thick batter, the soft dough, or the stiff dough. Have a test for the right consistency of the various mixtures, since different kinds of flour vary in strength or thickening qualities. A thin batter should be about the consistency of thick cream; it should pour sluggishly, but immediately find its level. A thick batter should also pour, but should require a full minute to settle, or find its level. A soft dous& should be rather wet and sticky and should spread in the bowl or on the board. A stiff dough should be firm, keep its shape, and not stick to the fingers or the moulding board. WHAT TO MAKE WITH THIN BATTER. Thin batter, wi\h or without the addition of sugar, butter, eggs, or any of the monessentials that shotAl be used according to individual taste, can made into pancakes, waffles, fritters, popovers, and puffs. Cold. rice, left-over cereal, or mashed potato may be added to the pancake batter, and, when so added, makes tempting and wholesome breakfast surprises. A French pancake is nothing but a common pancake, made very' thin and glorified by being spread with jelly, rolled, and sprinkled with powdered sugar. It is then good enough for dessert. Waffles usually need the addition of egg, one egg being eqfial to a quarter of a cupful of liquid. Eggs and butter are complimentary to one another in a batter, for the egg ’toughens and the butter shortens; the egg makes the batter light, the butter makes it heavy. For this reason, whenever egg is used, unless the object is to toughen, somewhat and lighten a good deal, butter must be added. The maximum of richness is gained by the use of equal parts of each, but in a pinch as little as one level tablespoonful of butter may be allowed to each egg. Fritjgr batters call for only a mere trace of butter to give smoothness. An excess of butter will cause a fritter to fly to pieces, if cocked in deep fat. For popovers and

puffs no leaven is necessary, except air vigorously beaten in. Egg may be used to increase their tenacity. A hot popover with a hole punched through it as it comes from the oven, and with the hole filled with apple sauce, makes an appetizing sweet for luncheon. Chopped raisins or currants may be added to the popover for variety. WITH A THICK BATTER. The thick batter is the muffin batter. It can also be used for fritters. Cooked cereal and cold mashed potatoes can be added to this batter for variety. Sugar added to the ordinary muffin batter, from half to twothirds as much as you have used of flour, makes a plain cake, a cottage pudding, or a layer cake. Except in mid-winter, when eggs are very high, you would, of course, ~use eggs in the last-named varieties. Chopped ripples, peaches, figs, raisins, or fresh berries, stirred into a sweetened muffin batter, made as plain or as rich as you please and spiced with clove or nutmeg, if you like those flavours, make an excellent steamed, pudding; or baked will give you an astonishing variety of quick cakes. To make bacon muffins, add some diced and fried bacon to the batter; also use the tried-out fat. Bacon griddle cakes are equally good. Nuts may be added and the mixture bpked as a loaf. When you add berries to the batter, such <is blackberries or blueberries, wash, dry, and flour them before adding them to the batter. WITH SOFT DOUGH. The soft dough is the baking-powder biscuit dough, and scones, shortcakes, turnovers, dumplings, crullers, a plain crust for a meat pie or for a deep-dish fruit pie, can all be made from it, as can a score of other dishes that you can invent for yourself by adding spice, fruit, either fresh or dried, nuts, chocolate, or even chopped cold meat. Biscuit dough offers as many variations, if not more, than muffin batter. By increasing the amount of sugar and shortening, you will have a shortcake mixture. The dough is rendered more tender and crumbly when the fat is increased. The biscuit mixture may be formed into little balls and steamed for dumplings. You may roll the dough out quite thin . and lightly and sprinkle the surface with grated cheese and paprika, making several folds in the dough to enclose the cheese. Sprinkle some over the top, cut in narrow strips, and bake. These cheese straws are nice to serve with salads. A mixture of sugar and cinnamon may be used in place of the cheese and the surface sjirinkied with a mixture of chipped beef, raisins, currants, and citron. The whole should be rolled like a jelly roll. Cut in about inch slipes and bake with the cut side down. Cinnamon sandwiches arc delicious. Jelly or gfv-ted maple sugar is often used in the same'fcwuy. Chopped nuts in biscliit dough are good. With the addition of egg and the use of less liquid, you will have a still richer dough, from which scones are made. These are usually cut in diamond shape and brushed with a sugar and egg mixture before baking. Cooky dough contains more eggs, sugar, and shortening and le&s milk and leavening. The stiff dough is the bread dough, the pie crust dough, the hard cooky and the gingerbread dough. Sweet breads and rolls may be made from it. For these extra sugar and shortening are added to the straight dough, and in addition 1 or 2 well-beaten eggs and extra flour enough to make the dough suitable for kneading. Do not add any more flour than is absolutely necessary, or the dough will be compact and the finished product will not be light and tender. The sweetened dough will rise slowly, but not until it has doubled its bulk should it be shaped into rolls, braids, or other forms. CINNAMON FRUIT BUNS. Cinnamon fruit buns are made by rolling the dough, when it is light, into a sheet about half an inch thick, brushing over with butter, and sprinkling with brown sugar, cinnamon, and currants, then rolling it up like a jelly roll and cutting it in slices about 14 inches (hick. Place the slices upright in a greased pan and, when light, bake as usual. For a raisin bread add to the dough used for "sweet rolls 4 cupful raisins. To rpake apple kuchen, bake the sweet dough in a sheet with the following mixture on top: Three tablespoonfuls of sugar, 1 tablespoonful of cinnamon, 2 tablespoonluls of melted butter, and 4 sliced apples. Press the slices of apple into the dough with the sharp edge downward. If you want the best results from any of the mixtures above described, remember that, since egg is thickening and leavening as well a?’wetting, you can reduce the amount of flour to the extent of two tablespoonfuls, and of baking powder to the extent oUj teaspoonful for each egg that you use. A trace of sugar, say about 1 teaspoonful to 1 cupful of flour, will give to plain flour mixtures a certain softness of flavour that many persons like. THE HOME COOK. PICKLED WALNUTS. ingredients.—Walnuts; brine; 2ot. each of biack and white peppercorns, allspice, and whole ginger; 8 cloves, 4 blades of mace, 2oz. mustard seed, and 1 teaspoonftil of salt, 1 teaspoonful of horse radish, to every two quarts of vinegar required. Method.—Scald the walnuts and rub off the skins. Put them into an unglazed earthenware crock, and pour over a-cold brine made by boiling 6oz. of salt to, each quart of water. Leave the nuts in the brine for three days, stirring every day. Drain, pour on fresh brine, and leave for two days; again drain, then cover with fresh brink for four days. Drain and spread dishes to dry in the sun until they turn black, from 12 to 24 hours. Pound all the condiments except the horse radish well together. Pack the walnuts in layers into clean, dry, wide-necked bottles. Threeparts fill the bottles, then pour in sufficient prepared vinegar, while hot, to fill the bottles. Cork tightly and cover with wet bladder. Keep for at least a month before using. To prepare the vinegar boil it with the grated horse radish and half an ounce of bruised root ginger to each quart of vinegar required. BLACK CURRANT WATER ICE Ingredients. —1 pint of black currant 1 pint of syrup for ices, the whites of 2 eggs. For the Syrup.—l pint of water, 11b. of loaf sugar, A lemon. Put the sugar and water into a pan, stir until t-he sugar has melted, then bring to the boil and boil for 10 minutes. Add the lemon juice. Skim often. Strain through muslin. Use when cold. Method.—Stalk 21b of currants, wash them in a colander, put them into a double pan or into a jar placed in a pan of boiling water, and coek until the juice flows freely; strain through a clean cloth. Measure the juice, and to each pint add the same quantity of the sugar syrup. When quite cold put into the freezing pot,’packed round with ice and salt, and freeze in the

usual way. When half frozen add the stiffly whipped whites of 2 eggs and mix well, then continue to freeze. Serve in glasses with a little whipped cream, which has been placed on ice, on the top. The cream may be omitted. Note.—Red currant or red currant and raspberry ice may be made in the same manner. PILAU OF COLD BEEF. "In'gredierrts.—ilb. of rice, 3 onions, 2oz. of margarine, 4 teaspoonful of saffron or turmeric, loz. of raisins, loz. of almonds, -Jib of cooked meat, salt, pepper. Method.—Boil the rice as for curry and drain well, slice two onions and chop finely; cut the meat into small shreds about as thick and half as long as a match. Melt the margarine in a stewpan, add the onions, and fry for five minutes; add the meat, and fry without browning for four or five minutes, then add the well-drained rice, saffron, and seasoning, and stir over the fire until the rice is thoroughly hot. Peel and slice the thiifrl onion and fry until, brown and crisp, blanch and shred the almonds, and fry with the raisens. Pile the mixture on a hot dish, pyramid form, and sprinkle with the fried, onion, almonds, and raisins. Serve very hot.