Widgeon.—Plainly roasted, sent in very hot with their own gravy, lemon juice, and cayenne; potato shavings—potatoes to be cut in thin strips, fried a light brown in boiling lard, then placed on blotting paper to remove grease, placed in hot vegetable dish and served. 3s.
Tipsy Cake.—Take a sixpenny Madeira cake, cut it in three rounds, spread the rounds with raspberry jam, scoop out the middle of the top slices, soak it in a quarter of a pint of sherry until tender; fill up centre with preserved fruit, and cover with whipped cream. Outside cost, 2s.
College Pudding.—Butter a shape, stick it all round with split raisins, line with brown cut from a sally lunn, cut the rest in slices, and put it with a few ratifias and macaroons into the mould; beat two eggs in enough milk to cover the pudding; add a tablespoonful of sugar, cover it with a buttered paper and a cloth; boil it for an hour. Cost, 1s.
Apple Shape.—Two pounds of apples, boiled to a pulp in half a teacupful of water, juice of one lemon, two ounces of sugar, half an ounce of gelatine, soaked in quarter of a pint of water; mix well together, and rub together through a hair sieve whilst hot; butter a mould, pour in, leave until cold. Serve with custard made as follows:—Quarter of a pint of milk, one egg, teaspoonful of corn-flour, sugar to taste; bring the milk to boiling point, and add other ingredients; stir until thick, remove from fire, set to cool; when cold pour it over the shape. 10d.
Macaroni Cheese.—Quarter of a pound of macaroni, two ounces of butter, three ounces of Cheddar cheese, pepper and salt to taste, half a pint of milk, one pint of water, bread-crumbs. Boil the macaroni until tender in the milk and water, sprinkle cheese and some of the butter among it, then season with the pepper, and cover all with finely grated bread-crumbs. Warm the rest of the butter and pour it over the bread-crumbs; brown it before a fire, and serve very hot. Cost, 9d.
Soup, 2s. 10d.; fish, 8s.; beef olives, 1s. 2d.; mushrooms, 2s. 6d.; mutton, 10s.; widgeon, 3s.; sweets, 3s. 10d.; cheese, 10d. Total cost, 1l. 12s. 2d.
I think the receipts given above would form the nucleus for any amount of moderate entertainment, but I may speak of two capital books which would assist any young housekeeper, and which have done me so much good I should be ungrateful not to mention them. One is Mrs. de Salis’s ‘Entrées à la Mode,’ published by Longmans at 1s. 6d., and the other is Mrs. Beeton’s ‘Household Management,’ a 7s. 6d. book, but one no mistress of a household should ever think of being without.
Though naturally invalids’ cooking does not come in properly when one should be thinking of nothing but pleasant matters, cooking reminds me of a valuable piece of information given to me by a friend, and at the risk of being called to order I must just give one hint in regard to beef-tea, the making of which is often very wasteful and tiring to an invalid’s patience, and which can be made most successfully by taking a nice juicy beefsteak and cutting off all the superfluous fat; then this should be salted and peppered to taste, and floured on both sides; then the bottom of a stew-pan should be covered with just enough water to keep the meat from sticking, and the meat should be allowed to stew by the side of the fire from one hour and a quarter, according to size. The gravy is excellent rich beef-tea, while the steak itself is beautifully tender and fit to be sent to table. One or two allspice berries put in with the meat give a flavour of wine, and thus we have good pleasant beef-tea for an invalid and luncheon for ourselves, with none of the waste that often accompanies the making of what is all too often a tasteless, greasy, and disagreeable compound.
Another dish for a convalescent is made by treating a chop in the same way as a steak as regards the pepper, salt, and flour. It is then put on a plate with a tablespoonful of water, covered with another plate exactly the same size, and put into a slow oven for more than an hour. When cooked, the top plate should be turned down to the bottom, so the chop is hot to the last, and has not been disturbed, and is so tender and thoroughly cooked it does not need masticating, and it is also so nice that many clergymen are glad to find this ready for them after leaving church, instead of the orthodox cold supper. It literally cooks itself, and is therefore no trouble on Sundays; while for a country doctor, whose hours are uncertain, and who all too often subsists on either sodden or scorched-up food, it is a perfect dish, and should be recollected by all those good housewives who are often enough at their wits’ end to find something nice for the bread-winner when he returns home after a long and fatiguing drive over country roads and open moors.