HINTS AND RECIPES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 79, Issue 204, 29 August 1936, Page 3

HINTS AND RECIPES

| To test the heat of an oven for cake j : baking, place on a shelf a sheet of I white paper. If the paper turns brown {almost immediately the oven is too ; hot. If in about four minutes the * paper turns light brown the oven is right for small cakes; if it turns dark yellow it is right for large cakes. When cooking cod, rub a little salt down the backbone before putting it on to boil. When it is cooked you can remove the bone without any trouble. Place half-lemons upside down on a saucer and cover with glass to prevent them getting mouldy quickly. Finger-nails that are inclined to be brittle should be soaked occasionally olive oil. Pewter that is very dirty can be cleaned by soaking it for three or four days in water with a small quantity of potash added. Then it should be rubbed with a clear duster dipped in olive oil mixed with precipitated chalk. Polish with a dry. soft duster. If you are making treacle tarts, and you find you have run short of treacle, try adding a desertspoonful of brown sugar to the treacle. You will find that the sugar will melt into it, and the tarts will taste just as though all treacle had been used. If you want to get all goodness out of bones or meat, you must start to cook it in cold water. When you want the goodness kept in, you put meat into boiling water: but for soup you want, to extract, all you can, so cold water is the thing, which must be brought very slowly to the boil. Stale pieces of bread should never be thrown away, but should be piaced in tins in a cold oven, where they will keep good and crisp for weeks. When breadcrumbs are needed a few pieces can be taken out and crushed I with a rolling-pin in a few seconds, or a quantity can be crushed and stored : in a glass jar and kept airtight. From the moment of delivery, milk should be carefully preserved ’ from contamination. Covers of butter-mus-lin for jugs, glasses, basins, or other milk containers cut in squares and hemmed, can be made for a fpw pence. Uncovered milk and water are absorbents of bad odours, especially of the acid fumes from gas-fires. To Make Biscuits Crisp. Biscuits that have lost, their crispness are unpalatable. If they are soft, spread them one by one in a bak-ing-sheet and place them in a moderately warm oven for five minutes. ! Set. them upon a tray to cool, after i which they will be found to be as crisp as when first purchased. Cleaning Carved Furniture. I It. is often a difficult matter to get at the dust deeply laid in the heavy carving of some furniture. The easiest means of dealing with it is by the aid of a paraffin brush. Soak a now painter’s brush in paraffin for a while then hang up to dry. This will not only reach deeply indented parts, but it will absort all dust. The brush may be washed and treated again with ■ paraffin when necessary. Some Fish Recipes. Cod Mornay.--Steam some fillers of cod between buttered plates, with a little lemon juice and a small piece of onion. Take off the skin and put in greased fireproof dishes. Cover with cheese sauce, sprinkle with grated cheese and breadcrumbs and brown in the oven. Fish Stewed in Milk.—lngredients; 11b. any white fish, loz. butter, loz. flour. 1 pint milk, chopped parsley, salt and pepper. Wash fish, sprinkle with salt and pepper, lay it in a large piedish, and add enough milk to cover. Cover with a plate and cook in a moderate oven for about half an hour. 1 Remove fish and keep hot. To make the sauce, melt fat in sausepan, add flour and work together with wooden spoon. Add the milk and the liquor from the fish, bring to the boil and cook for five minutes, stirring all the time. Add seasoning and chopped parsley. Lay fish on a hot dish and cover with sauce, and serve. Steamed Fish Mould.—Remove the bones and skin from a pound of any uncooked white fish. Chop finely and mix with 3cz. chopped suet. 3oz. breadcrumbs, a little salt, pepper, I chopped parsley, and two eggs well beaten with half a pint of milk. Make the mixture fairly stiff and press into a well-buttered fireproof mould. Steam for one hour, turn out on to a hot dish, garnish with parsley, and serve with egg sauce, made as follows: lioz. butter, loz. flour. * pint milk lemon juice, pinch of salt, and two hardboiled eggs. Melt the butter in a saucepan, stir in the flour and milk. Bring slowly to the bo 1, stiri ring gently all the time. Chop the j eggs finely and add to the sauce.