Take ½-lb. of brown haricot beans. Wash and stew them with 1-qt. of hot water and some small onions for 3 hours, stewing down to 1-pt. Strain, and add pepper, celery-salt and butter when serving. This bean tea or broth, so prepared, will be found to be very savoury and of the same taste and appearance as beef tea, while being much richer in nutriment.
240. Mock Chicken Broth.
A valuable substitute for chicken broth, which is in every way superior to the decoction obtained by stewing the flesh and bones of the bird, can be made by stewing and serving white haricots in the same manner as in the previous recipe.
241. Hygiama Apple Purée.
Select two or three sound ripe apples, wash and rub in hot water, remove core and all bruised or dark parts, but not the peel, cut in small pieces, place in a covered jar or casserole with a cupful of water, or sufficient to prevent burning. Cook gently until apples are soft; then rub all through a fine sieve. Mix a tablespoonful or more of Hygiama with just enough water to form a paste, mix this paste into the apple, with just a touch of cinnamon or nutmeg if liked, and serve with pieces of dry toast, twice-baked bread or rusks.
242. Oat Cream.
A most excellent recipe for invalids and anæmic patients is prescribed by Dr. Oldfield, as follows: Boil 1 pint milk, sift into it a large handful of crushed oats. Simmer until it is thick as raw cream. Strain and serve; the patient to take ½-pint, sucking it through a straw slowly.
243. Linseed Tea.
Few persons realize the good qualities of linseed tea. It is useful for weak, anæmic and delicate persons; it produces flesh, is soothing in bronchial cases, and laxative. If made thin, and flavoured with lemon, it is quite palatable, and many persons get fond of it. The seed should be whole and of best quality, and it only requires stewing until the liquor is of the consistency of thin gruel.