HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5855, 24 April 1897, Page 3

HOUSEHOLD HINTS.

Fruit Sauces should be thickened with arrowroot, which will not spoil their colour or transparency. When Washing Black Materials rinse once in salt water to fix the colour, and lastly in cold water.

To Boil Bkussels Spkouts. — Trim ami wash fr c sprouts perfectly clean, and let them lie in cold water for an hour. Sot them on in a large pan full of boiling water, ami cook till tender. Drain off the water directly they are cooked, and serve very hot. Peach Roll. — Make rather rich suet crust rolled out in a long sheet. Cut up the peache3 rather fine and spread thickly on the paste, sprinkling liberally with sugar. Koll up and fold the ends over. Then wrap in a strong cloth, tie closely and steam for two hours in a steamer. It is eaten with either a hard or soft sauce.

Chocolate Pudding. — Put a pint and a half of milk in a basin and let it heat. Mix ftrar tablespoonfuls of scraped chocolate in a saucepan with, two tablespoonfuls of boiling water and four of sugar ; when the paste is smooth and glossy, pour it in the hot milk. Mix four tablespoonfuls of cornflour with half a pint of cold milk, add a scant teaspoonful of salt, pour in the boiling milk and stir a few minutes. Pour into a fancy mould, and let it stand forty-five minutes.

Cream Pie. — Mix half a pound of sugar, three tablespoonfuls of flour, a quart of milk and the yolks of five eggs in a saucepan; flavour with alittlo grated nutmeg and lemon or vanilla extract. Boil the mixture twenty minutes. Line a deep pie till with rich pastry, bake till partly done, fill up with the cream, then bake till quite done. Make a meringue of the whites of a couple of the eggs and a little powdered sugar, pour it over the pie and return to the oven to brown slightly. Peach Trifle.— Take some nicely peeled and sliced peaches, two cups of milk, four tablespoonfuls of sugar, three eggs and a small stale sponge cake. Make a boiled custard of the milk, the yolks of the eggs and half the sugar. Slice the cake, lay it in the bottom of a glass dish and cover with the peaches well sweetened. Beat the whites of the eggs, with the remaining two spoonfuls of sugar, to a stiff meringue and heap lightly on top. All the ingredients should he very cold before they are mixed, and the custard is poured over the "trifle" when served.

TuipuF Tops and Poached Eggs.;*-.

Trim Toff all stale leaves and properly cleanse the greens in several waters. Drain them, wipe dry in a cloth and throw into a large panful of fast boiling water, add a little salt. Do not put a lid on to the pan. Cook for about a quarter of an hour. Drain very dry on a colander, squeezing out all the water. Make the turnip tops hot, chop finely with butter, and season, witltjjepper and salt. Make a flat mould of the puree, and poach as many eggs as you require, set on the greens, pour a good brown gravy round, and serve very hot. Bird's Nest Pudding.— Pare and core eight apples, but do not break them. Arrange tbein in a good-sized pudding dish and fill the places where the cores were with sugar. Then with one pint and a half of milk, three ounces of, flour and four eggs make a batter. , Pour, this pver. the apples and bake till the fruit is done. For the sauce, beat one-fourth of a pound of butter very light, and half a pound o£ powdered sugar and one-fourth of a pint of cream. Stand the bowl containing, the mixture in hot water and stir till it is creamy, which should be in about two minutes. . .

Invalids' Jelly.— A delicately-flavoured dish. Take a quarter of an ounce of beat gelatine, and soak it in one gill of water for ten minutes. Rnb three ounces of lump sugar on to the peel of a lemon, avoiding the white part, which gives a bitter flavour. Place the gelatine, water, and sugar in an enamel saucepan, and stir over the fire till dissolved. Squeeze and 3train the lemon-juice, and add to the gelatine, etc. Beat up an egg, and, when the gelatine is hot, pour it over, stir well till all is mixed, place in a wetted mould, and put aside till set. Or the jelly may be flavoured with orange peel and juice.'

Some Uses of Charcoal. — Charcoal laid flat while cold, on a burn, causes th» pain to abate immediately. By leaving it ou for an hour the burn seems almost healed when the wound is superficial, Tainted meat surrounded with it is sweetened. Foul water is purified by it. It is a great disinfectant, and- sweetens offensive air if placed in shallow trays round apartments. It is bo very porous that it absorbs and condenses gases rapidly. One cubic inch of charcoal will absorb one hundred cubio inches of gaseous ammonia. Charcoal forms an excellent poultice' for malignant wounds and sores. In cases of what is called f( proud flesh " it iB invaluable. It gives no disagreeable odour, corrodes no metal, is a simple and safe sweetoner and disinfectant. A teaspoonful of charcoal in half a glass of water often relieves a sick headache.