(e) 4 lb. raisins, 2 lb. currants, 2 lb. beef suet, 1 lb. moist sugar, 1 lb. flour, 1 lb. breadcrumbs, 8 oz. mixed candied peel, 3 tablespoonfuls golden syrup, ½ pint brandy, 1 nutmeg, 1 teacup beer, and 13 eggs. The above ingredients should be well mixed with a wooden spoon. This quantity will make 5 or 6 puddings, and should be boiled 11 hours; they will then keep good for some months (quite 6 months), and, when one is going to be served at table, should be boiled for 2 hours.
Plum Purée.—Stew a quantity of plums, with sugar to taste, and not too much water. When quite done pass through a hair sieve, stir well, and when cold it is ready.
Plum Tart.—Stone some plums and stew them for an hour, with plenty of sugar and half a tumblerful of water. Make a short paste with the white of 1 and the yolks of 3 eggs, 1 oz. butter, 1 oz. sugar, a pinch of salt, a little water, and sufficient flour. Roll it out to the thickness of a penny piece, line a mould with it, uniting the joints with white of egg, fill it with rice and bake it. When done remove the rice, put it in the stewed fruit, and serve.
Poor Knights.—(a) These can be made out of slices of stale bread neatly trimmed. They should be about ½ in. thick, and should either be cut in fingers, squares, or some other shape. Soak the pieces in milk long enough to soften them, but not to break. Drain the pieces and fry in boiling dripping until nicely browned on both sides. Place them on kitchen paper to drain, and then serve with jam or marmalade, put between every 2 slices; scatter some castor sugar on the top, and serve.
(b) The bread used in Germany for these is the “brödchen,” somewhat larger than dinner buns. These are cut into 3 rounds ½ in. thick; beat up 3 eggs in ½ pint milk, in which soak the bread till soft; then dip the pieces into brown breadcrumbs, and fry with butter over the fire till a golden colour, crisp, but not hard; put preserve between 2 pieces, sprinkle with white sugar, and serve hot. The bread from an ordinary English loaf is best, with the crust cut off before soaking.
Porter Jelly.—Put 1 cow’s heel into 5 pints water, boil it down to 3 pints; when cold, skim off the fat. Then put it into a pan with the rind of a lemon, a little cinnamon, sugar to your taste. When quite hot, just before it boils, add 1 tumbler porter, and the white of an egg to clear it; run it through a jelly bag. This may be taken either warm or cold, and is very strengthening.
Potato Pie.—For a pie for about 10 people, take a loin of mutton (it is more tender than beef), 4 sheep kidneys, a cow heel from the tripe shop, 20 oysters, ½ lb. mushrooms, an onion, pepper and salt. Cut the mutton into chops (taking off some of the fat, and also bones), the kidneys into about 4 pieces each, the heel into 9 portions, the onion sliced; mix all together, and put into a large pie dish; cover well with potatoes cut in pieces; a little water must also be put in, and then a good pie crust. It is a good plan to cook all in the dish a while before putting on the latter. If covered with another dish the top will not be brown. The large bones from the cow heel, mutton, trimmings of mushrooms and oysters, if well simmered, make good extra gravy, which can be poured in after the pie is cut into. The best dish is a large tin one, to be kept for the purpose. A clean table-napkin should be pinned round before sending to table.
Potato Pudding.—Boil 4 large potatoes, and pass them through a sieve; stir into them powdered loaf sugar to taste and the yolks of 2 or 3 eggs; add a few drops of essence of lemon, then the whites of the eggs whisked to a froth; mix quickly and well; pour into a plain mould, buttered and breadcrumbed, and bake for 20 minutes in a quick oven. Serve with sweet sauce.
President’s Pudding.—Cut some slices of stale bread, and dip each one in a custard made thus: Beat up 1 egg with a wineglassful of milk and ½ oz. pounded sugar, fry the bread quickly in butter, pile on a dish with layers of jam between the slices, pour a thin boiled custard over, and sift some sugar, then serve.
Primrose Pudding.—Make some batter with ½ lb. flour and ¾ pint milk; break 2 eggs into the flour, and stir well, add 2 oz. moist sugar and a pinch of salt, add gradually ¾ pint milk, stirring the ingredients all the time. Stir with a wooden spoon until the batter is perfectly smooth, let it stand an hour or more; then stir into it 1 qt. or more of freshly gathered primrose petals. Pour this mixture into a well-greased basin, put a buttered paper on the top, tie down the basin with a well-floured cloth and plunge it into perfectly boiling water, move it about a little for the first few minutes, and boil 1½ hour. Cowslips, rhubarb, or gooseberries can be used in the same way.