(For frying vegetables, and for apple, peach, or orange fritters.)
Cut a couple of ounces of good butter into small bits, pour on it less than a quarter of a pint of boiling water, and when it is dissolved add three quarters of a pint of cold water, so that the whole shall not be quite milk warm; mix it then by degrees and very smoothly with twelve ounces of fine dry flour and a small pinch of salt if the batter be for fruit fritters, but with more if for meat or vegetables. Just before it is used, stir into it the whites of two eggs beaten to a solid froth; but previously to this, add a little water should it appear too thick, as some flour requires more liquid than other to bring it to the proper consistence; this is an exceedingly light crisp batter, excellent for the purposes for which it is named.
Butter, 2 oz.; water, from 3/4 to nearly 1 pint; little salt; flour, 3/4 lb.; whites of 2 eggs, beaten to snow.
TO PREPARE BREAD FOR FRYING FISH.
Cut thick slices from the middle of a loaf of light stale bread, pare the crust entirely from them, and dry them gradually in a cool oven until they are crisp quite through; let them become cold, then roll or beat them into fine crumbs, and keep them in a dry place for use. To strew over hams or cheeks of bacon, the bread should be left all night in the oven, which should be sufficiently heated to brown, as well as to harden it: it ought indeed to be entirely converted into equally-coloured crust. It may be sifted through a dredging-box on to the hams after it has been reduced almost to powder.
BROWNED FLOUR FOR THICKENING SOUPS AND GRAVIES.
Spread it on a tin or dish and colour it, without burning, in a gentle oven or before the fire in a Dutch or American oven: turn it often, or the edges will be too much browned before the middle is enough so. This, blended with butter, makes a convenient thickening for soups or gravies of which it is desirable to deepen the colour; and it requires less time and attention than the French roux of page [10].
FRIED BREAD-CRUMBS.
Grate lightly into very fine crumbs four ounces of stale bread, and shake them through a cullender;[[59]] without rubbing or touching them with the hands. Dissolve two ounces of fresh butter in a frying-pan, throw in the crumbs, and stir them constantly over a moderate fire, until they are all of a clear golden colour; lift them out with a skimmer, spread them on a soft cloth, or upon white blotting paper, laid upon a sieve reversed, and dry them before the fire. They may be more delicately prepared by browning them in a gentle oven without the addition of butter.
[59]. This is not necessary when they are lightly and finely grated of uniform size.