ANSWERS TO QUERIES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VIII, Issue 39, 26 September 1891, Page 422

ANSWERS TO QUERIES.

‘Disdain.’—The great thing to observe in cooking tripe is to let it simmer very gently for some hours, a thing cooks so often fail to do. Some persons like tripe served in one large piece, and others prefer it cut up in square pieces; but that, of course, is simply a matter of taste. Take the tripe and well wash it in cold water, then put it into a stewpan, cover it with cold water and well season it with salt. Bring the water to boiling point, and then strain it from the tripe and well rinse in cold water and wipe it. Then cut it up. For one pound take three or four goodsized onions, and put them into a stewpan with the tripe, add a little salt and pepper and a pint of milk ; bring the milk to the boil, and then let it simmer for three hours very gently ; take the tripe out of the pan, and rub the sauce and the onions through a fine hair sieve; return the puree to the pan, and add a dessertspoonful of flour, which has been mixed with a little cold milk, and an ounce of butter ; let the sauce boil a few minutes, then add the tripe, and when it is thoroughly heated arrange in a pile on a dish and pour the sauce over it; and, I need hardly add, serve it very hot. ‘ Stupide.’—ls not that rather a hard nom de plume 2 For pigeons, truss the birds as if they were going to be braised, and put them into a stewpan, with a little butter or grease ; add a bunch of herbs and three ounces of raw bacon chopped up in small dice shapes, and two onions cutup into small pieces ; put the cover on the pan, and let the contents fry until they are a nice brown ; then add half a pint of stock, and let them simmer for three-quarters of an hour with a buttered paper over them. The stock will probably reduce during the time the pigeons are being cooked, and you must add a little more. When cooked remove the trussing strings or the skewers, place the birds on nicelyfried crofttons and after removing the fat, reboil the gravy, and then pour it round the birds.

Magic-lantern Slides. — The only pigments available are the transparent and a few of the semi-transparent. Beginning with the best for the purpose, the transparent include Prussian blue, gamboge, carmine, verdigris, madder brown, indigo,crimson lake, and ivory black. The semi-trans-parent include raw sienna, burnt sienna, cappah brown, and vandyke brown. No particular method of mixing the colours is requisite. Ordinary oil or water colours will do, but they must be ground extremely fine. The pencils must be small, and their points unexceptionable. The best vehicle to use for thinning the colours is ordinary megilp, and not a drop more than is necessary should be added, for if the colours are made too thin they will run into each other and spoil the painting. If water colours are preferred, the best medium for laying on the first wash of colour is a hot solution of transparent gelatine. When this is dry and cold it admits of shading and finishing without being disturbed, provided the pencil is handled gently and the medium be cold water. The oil paintings are not usually varnished, but the transparency of the water colours is heightened by a thin coat of the purest mastic varnish In colouring the pictures the quality of the light which is to show them must be considered. If the lime light is employed, colour as nearly as possible to nature. The rays of light from an oil lamp are greatly deficient in blue, the yellow preponderating : so you must arrange the tints accordingly. For instance, the greens must be bluer than natural, the yellows incline to orange, and all shades of violet eschewed.