Ingredients.—Slices of bread, butter, Cheshire or Gloucester cheese, mustard, and pepper. Mode.—Cut the bread into slices about ½ inch in thickness; pare off the crust, toast the bread slightly without hardening or burning it, and spread it with butter. Cut some slices, not quite so large as the bread, from a good rich fat cheese; lay them on the toasted bread in a cheese-toaster; be careful that the cheese does not burn, and let it be equally melted. Spread over the top a little made mustard and a seasoning of pepper, and serve very hot, with very hot plates. To facilitate the melting of the cheese, it may be cut into thin flakes, or toasted on one side before it is laid on the bread. As it is so essential to send this dish hot to table, it is a good plan to melt the cheese in small round silver or metal pans, and to send these pans to table, allowing one for each guest. Slices of dry or buttered toast should always accompany them, with mustard, pepper, and salt. Time.—About 5 minutes to melt the cheese. Average cost, 1½d. per slice. Sufficient.—Allow a slice to each person. Seasonable at any time.
Note.—Should the cheese be dry, a little butter mixed with it will be an improvement.
CHEESE SANDWICHES.
Ingredients.—Slices of brown bread-and-butter, thin slices of cheese. Mode.—Cut from a nice fat Cheshire, or any good rich cheese, some slices about ½ inch thick, and place them between some slices of brown bread-and-butter, like sandwiches. Place them on a plate in the oven, and, when the bread is toasted, serve on a napkin very hot and very quickly. Time.—10 minutes in a brisk oven. Average cost, 1½d. each sandwich. Sufficient.—Allow a sandwich for each person. Seasonable at any time.
CHEESECAKES.
Ingredients.—8 oz. of pressed curds, 2 oz. of ratafias, 6 oz. of sugar, 2 oz. of butter, the yolks of 6 eggs, nutmegs, salt, rind of 2 oranges or lemons. Mode.—Rub the sugar on the orange or lemon rind, and scrape it off. Press the curd in a napkin, to get rid of moisture; pound it thoroughly in a mortar with the other ingredients till the whole becomes a soft paste. Line 2 dozen, or more, tartlet-pans with good puff-paste, garnish these with the cheese-custard, place a strip of candied-peel on the top of each, and bake in a moderate oven a light colour; when done, shake a little sifted sugar over them. Currants, dried cherries, sultanas, and citron may be used instead of candied-peel. Time.—20 minutes to bake. Average cost, 6d. per dozen. Seasonable at any time.
CHEROKEE, or Store Sauce.
Ingredients.—½ oz. of cayenne pepper, 5 cloves of garlic, 2 tablespoonfuls of soy, 1 tablespoonful of walnut ketchup, 1 pint of vinegar. Mode.—Boil all the ingredients gently for about ½ hour; strain the liquor, and bottle off for use. Time.—½ hour. Seasonable.—This sauce can be made at any time.
CHERRIES, Dried.
Cherries may be put into a slow oven and thoroughly dried before they begin to change colour; they should then be taken out of the oven, tied in bunches, and stored away in a dry place. In the winter, they may be cooked with sugar for dessert, the same as Normandy pippins. Particular care must be taken that the oven be not too hot. Another method of drying cherries is to stone them, and to put them into a preserving-pan, with plenty of loaf sugar strewed amongst them. They should be simmered till the fruit shrivels, when they should be strained from the juice. The cherries should then be placed in an oven cool enough to dry without baking them. About 5 oz. of sugar would be required for 1 lb. of cherries, and the same syrup may be used again to do another quantity of fruit.