Domestic

New Zealand Tablet, 15 December 1921, Page 41

Domestic

By Maureen

MILK PEPPERMINT LOZENGES. Boil together for about 10 minutes one pound of sugar and a quarter of a pint of milk or thin cream; then remove the pan from the fire and stir in a teaspoonful of essence of peppermint; beat the mixture until it is cool enough to drop a teaspoonful at a time, without it running, on to buttered paper. Do this as quickly as possible, as it soon sets in the pan; should this happen, warm it again for a moment. FRENCH SALAD. Take a large, firm cabbage-lettuce; one large is infinitely better than two small ones because the heart in the latter is not so close and more outside leaves have to be thrown away. Separate the leaves of the heart; they are so close that this is quite a difficult matter, but do not use a knife except to just cut off the stalk. Break the larger leaves across. Well rub the salad bowl with a cut head of garlic, press the head with a fork to extract all the juice, then throw the shreds of the head away. Place in the prepared lettuce leaves; put into a tablespoon a little salt and plenty of pepper, fill with salad oil, mix with a fork and pour over lettuce; repeat this three times; placein the same spoon a little made-mustard and a teaspoonful of sugar, fill with vinegar, mix and pour over lettuce, half fill with vinegar again and add, then with two spoons toss and turn the salad over and over for quite two minutes. All the dressing will become absorbed —there should be none in the bowl. Serve with .this one hard-boiled egg to each person. SPANISH SALAT). Make a salad exactly as in the previous recipe, but before mixing add some finely-sliced cheese, then add the dressing and toss and mix all together. The cheese and oil make this extremely nourishing. If mixed as described the oil will not taste in the least; it only gives a delicious richness to the greenstuff, as butter does to bread. PATTER AND FRUIT PUDDING. Ingredients: 3oz flour, .} pint milk, 2 eggs, a pinch of salt, a tablespoonful of sugar, fresh fruit. Mix the flour and salt, make a well in the centre and break in the eggs unbeaten, mix in the flour from the sides and gradually add half the milk, then while thick, beat the batter until the surface is covered with bubbles. Stir in the ..rest of the milk, cover and stand at least one hour. Prepare some fruit for cooking; if stone fruit is used, it must be ripe and the stones removed, if large plums cut each in half. Grease a basin and pul in the fruit sprinkled with

sugar. Fill up with the batter, cover loosely with greased paper and steam 1£ hours. Turn out and serve with sugar. This pudding may also be baked in a piedish. A FRUIT CAKE WHICH WILL KEEP. Weigh one pound of flour, and mix with it three pounds of raisins and currants, combined in the proportion of one pound and one-half of each. Put into the flour sifter a cup or two at a time, and sift until the flour and the floured fruit are separated. Add to the flour three teaspoonsful each of ground cloves and mace, also one large nutmeg grated, and sift once more. Cream one pound of butter until light and white; add gradually one pound of sugar, the juice and grated rind of one lemon, one-half a cup of treacle, and the beaten yolks of five eggs, added alternately with the flour sifted with spices, and the stiff-beaten whites of the five eggs. Lastly, add sufficient thick, tinned unsweetened milk, to mix all well. Line a round pan with well-greased paper, and pour in enough of the cake batter to cover the bottom. Have ready one-half a pound of citron, out into thin strips, and arrange some of these in the batter in the pan. Pour in another layer of batter, stick strips of citron into this, and so proceed until all the batter is used up. Cover with greased paper, and bake for three hours in a moderate oven with gradually increasing heat, removing flic paper at the end to brown the top. Or the cake may bo steamed for the first two hours, and baked for the third hour. Various methods are employed to keep the cake for a long time. It may have the paper removed and be iced all over at once. It may retain the paper and be iced on top. It may be stored in a tin box with an open bowl of water, the box closely covered. It may be placed in a layer of sugar an inch deep in a cake box, and then have sugar added to fill m around the sides and cover the top to the depth of an inch, A glass of brandy added is a great improvement, and keeps the cake good for a year.