Corn Meal Muffins.—Warm milk, 1 pint; flour, 1 cup; sugar, 1 tablespoonful; salt, 1 teaspoonful; compressed yeast, 1 cake. Mix well, and add enough corn meal to make a thin batter. Set to rise overnight. In the morning add 1 teaspoonful soda dissolved in warm water, and 1 oz. melted butter. Bake in muffin tins. These yeast muffins do not, like those made with soda, get heavy when cold.
Cream Toast.—Toast even slices of white bread a light golden brown. Scald the cream, and thicken with a very little cornflour, just the consistency of custard. Simmer till well done and no raw taste left. Stir in a piece of butter, and pour some of it evenly between layers of the hot toast.
Crullers.—Rub 2 oz. butter into 10 oz. flour and 1 tablespoonful white sugar. Knead into a stiff paste, with 3 eggs beaten—if the eggs are not sufficient to moisten the flour, 1 spoonful milk can be added. Flavour with lemon or almond, and leave it an hour covered with a cloth. Pinch off pieces, the size of small eggs; roll them out into an oval shape the size of your hand, and the thickness of half-a-crown. Cut 3 slits with a paste cutter or knife, in the centre of each oval; cross the 2 middle bars, and draw up the 2 sides between; put your finger through, and drop the cruller into boiling lard in a stewpan wide enough to admit of 3 at once. Turn them as they rise, and, when a light brown, take them up with a fork and lay them on a dish, with paper underneath them. They are best eaten within 2 days after they are made; but, if kept longer, it recrisps them to place them in a moderate oven for 10 minutes; 2-3 lb. lard are required, and what is left will do again with the addition of a little more.
Johnny Cake.—Mix together 2 teacups Indian meal, ½ cup flour, 2 tablespoonfuls brown sugar, 2 teaspoonfuls cream of tartar, 1 of soda carbonate, and 1 of salt. Rub in 1 tablespoonful butter, add milk enough to make a cake batter, and bake in a greased pound cake tin. It is best eaten hot, with plenty of butter.
Waffles.—(a) Rice.—Boiled rice, 1 cup; eggs, 3; butter, 1 oz.; sour milk, 2 cups; salt and soda, 1 teaspoonful each. Stir the rice to separate the grains well; add the butter creamed, and the eggs frothed; dissolve the soda, stir into the milk; add to the mixture with flour enough to make a batter, rather thick; heat the waffle irons and rub well with butter; fill ¾ only, and bake carefully.
(b) Raised.—Sifted flour, 1 qt.; salt, 1 teaspoonful; warm milk, 1½ pint; compressed yeast, ½ cake, or 3 tablespoonfuls liquid yeast: creamed butter, 2 oz. Set the yeast, with the warm milk, butter, and salt, to rise overnight. When required in the morning, add 3 eggs, well beaten, and ½ teaspoonful soda dissolved in warm water. Heat the waffle irons, butter them well, and fill nearly ¾ full; take care not to scorch them.
(c) Cream.—Sifted flour, 4 cups; soda, cream of tartar, and salt, 1 teaspoonful each; eggs, 3; cream, 2 cups. Mix the soda and cream of tartar, and salt with the dry flour, mix the beaten yolks with the cream, and make a smooth batter. Add the whites of the eggs beaten to a froth. Butter the waffle irons, and fill ¾ full. Bake a light brown.
Cape.—Bobotie.—Take a small leg of mutton and mince it very fine, add to the bones and sinews 1 pint water and let it simmer slowly for ½ hour, then soak a thick slice of white bread in the hot broth and when cool mix it with the meat, to which add 6 eggs, well beaten. Take 2 large white onions, chop them very fine, with a clove of garlic and some salt, fry them in butter until brown, then stir in 1 tablespoonful good Indian curry powder and mix the whole well together. Put into a pie dish or cups, putting a lemon leaf and a small lump of butter into each cup, then put in the meat mixture: beat up an egg with a little milk and rub over the top, cover with lemon leaves and bake for 1 hour. As lemon leaves are not always obtainable in England, a small piece of lemon peel for the flavouring, and vine leaves to keep from burning would perhaps not be a bad substitute.
Sasatijs.—Much the same as the Indian “kabobs.” Take a leg of mutton and cut the best part of it—about 3 lb.—into small squares, then chop a plateful of sliced white onion fried in butter, to which add 1 tablespoonful of good curry powder and 1 cup tamarind water or vinegar; stir the meat into the sauce, and let it stand for a whole night, then thread the meat upon thin bamboo sticks, or very slender wooden skewers, lean and fat pieces alternately; grill upon the gridiron just before they are required, and serve very hot with rice. The sauce must be boiled and also served very hot. This is a favourite dish at Cape picnics, and when travelling with the bullock waggon. The sasatijs are always left on the bamboo sticks when served up. To boil rice for Sasatijs.—To 1 cup good whole rice take exactly 3 cups cold water, add a pinch of salt; boil in an enamelled saucepan, but do not stir the rice. When the water is apparently all absorbed by the rice, tilt the lid of the pot and let it steam dry.
Dutch.—Bloaters, Pickled.—Take 1 doz. bloaters, wash them thoroughly, well drain and dry them, and lay them in enough milk to completely cover them. When they have lain in this for 24 hours, drain them thoroughly, and lay them in a pie dish with 6 slices of lemon and the same quantity of Spanish or Portugal onion, 4 bay leaves, 2 oz. capers, 12 cloves, and about 18 peppercorns, and as much oil and vinegar in equal proportions as will completely cover the herring. Lay them by in a cool place till wanted.