Sauerbraten.—One of the great national dishes of Germany is sauerbraten. Lay a piece of beef in a deep dish and pour a cup of vinegar over it. Let it remain in this 2-4 days, turning and basting it every day. To prepare for cooking wipe it dry; cut strips of fat bacon the size of a little finger; roll them in a mixed seasoning of salt, pepper, and pounded cloves. Make holes in the meat with a large skewer, and put in the pieces of bacon. Make butter hot in an iron pot or stewpan just large enough; put in the beef and set it over a brisk fire, letting the steam escape to hasten the browning; dredge it with flour, and turn it when one side is brown. When the meat is nicely coloured add about 1 pint water, 2 carrots, quartered lengthwise, a large onion or two sliced, 2 or 3 bay leaves, 1 teaspoonful whole pepper, a blade of mace, ¼ lemon peel, and a good sprinkling of salt. Cover closely, and let it steam slowly 2-3 hours, adding a little water when necessary. At serving time take up the meat, and keep it hot while you skim the fat off and strain the gravy. The unbroken carrots may be laid round the meat. Add lemon juice or vinegar if the sauce requires more acid; thicken with flour, give it a boil up, pour a little over the meat, and serve the rest in a sauceboat.
Schmarn Batter.-½ lb. flour, the yolks of 4 eggs, a little salt, sugar, either nutmeg or grated lemon, and cream or milk enough to give a rather thick batter; must be briskly and well stirred. Then add the whites of the eggs, whisked to a snow; about 2 oz. butter must be made quite hot in a stewpan, and into this pour the batter over a brisk fire. Cover, and let it remain till a nice brown crust has formed at the bottom, of not too dark a colour. As soon as this incrusting takes place, break up the schmarn with a little iron spatula or fork, and let it set and brown again; then break it up smaller by tearing it lightly apart, and serve it without delay. If salad is to be served with schmarn, leave out any flavouring of nutmeg, &c., if disapproved of, as also the sugar. To the above schmarn either cream, stewed prunes, or fruit syrup may be added at table.
Schmarollen.—Let a pint of new milk boil, stir in 1 oz. sugar with flour enough to thicken it; boil until the mixture no longer hangs to the sides of the pan, then turn it out and when cool stir in 4 well-beaten eggs. Have 1½ pint milk boiling in a stewpan, and with a spoon dipped each time in water, cut klösse out of the mass, and simmer them in the milk a few minutes. Turn all into a dish, cut 2 oz. butter over them, and bake it a pale brown in a quick oven.
Spatzen.—Stir flour into cold water or milk, with a little salt, to make a thick batter, beat it well with a wooden spoon; drop little flakes or buttons into boiling water. This is easiest done by putting some of the batter on a trencher or flat plate and flaking it quickly off into the pot with a knife, dipped constantly in the water. Boil them 5 minutes; they will swim on the top when done; strain and dish them. Have ready a piece of butter melted in a stewpan, and a handful of crumbs in it, crisped brown; pour this over the spatzen, and serve while they are light and hot. A piece of butter may be stirred in as they are dished. If preferred richer, use an egg or two and milk for the batter.
Sticklerspersgrod.—For this simple and cheap dish, well flavoured, ripe, red gooseberries are used; 4 lb. gooseberries, with ½ lb. raspberries, keep them stirred gently in a stewpan over a clear fire till the fruit is quite soft, then mash and strain the juice through a cloth; make this juice quite boil, then add ½ lb. sugar and 6 oz. cornflour or arrowroot, let it boil 10 minutes, stirring it all the time; wet a mould with cold water, pour in, and when cold turn it out. 1 pint juice to ¼ lb. cornflour are the best proportions. To be eaten in soup plates, with sifted sugar and milk.
Stölle.—Mix 2 oz. dry yeast with ½ pint warm milk and ½ lb. flour. Set this to rise. Take 1½ lb. flour, ¼ lb. sugar, 4 eggs, 1 oz. bitter almonds pounded, ½ nutmeg, the grated rind of a lemon, a little salt, and milk enough to work these into a dough. Add to this the light sponge dough, and mix both well. Add ½ lb. softened butter, ½ lb. stoned raisins, ½ lb. currants, 2 oz. sweet almonds, cut in slices, and the same of candied peel. Knead the whole, cover, and set it to rise. When light flour the paste-board, turn the cake out, and mould it into a long roll. Lay it on a flat baking tin; cut, with a knife, 2 slits all along the roll, near 1 in. deep, so that the 3 divisions on the top are equal in width. Set it to rise. Bake it in a moderate oven. When done rub it over with butter, and strew sugar over when cold.
Strudels.—This form of pastry can only be described by the English term roly-poly, in a very diminutive size. There are various ways of making the paste, but they all agree in this one particular—that it must be worked into a tough dough and very smooth. One way is to beat 2 eggs and the yolks of 2 others, warm a piece of butter the size of an egg and add it to the eggs with a little salt, work in by degrees as much fine flour as will form a dough; knead this till quite smooth. Divide the paste into small balls, roll them round in the hands, then with a smooth rolling pin roll them out as thin as possible. They should be the size of a saucer, but rather oval. Spread over them whatever they are to be called after. Roll them up, when the shape will be larger in the middle, and tapering off at both ends. Lay them 1 in. apart in a baking tin or large stewpan that has been well buttered, cover, and either bake them in the oven or over a slow fire, with red coals on the lid to draw them. When they are risen and beginning to colour, pour some hot milk over, and finish baking a very pale brown.
Zweibach.—(a) Ingredients: 1 lb. flour, ¼ lb. sugar, ¼ lb. butter, ½ pint milk, and 2 tablespoonfuls good yeast. Warm the milk and stir the yeast into it. Put the flour in a pan, and throw the sugar among it. Make a hollow in the middle, and stir the yeast and milk into the hollow like a thin batter. Cut up the butter on the flour, cover, and set it to rise. Then beat it until the dough no longer hangs to the hand or spoon. Let it rise again till it cracks on the top. Cut and mould from the dough long cakes 1 in. thick, 5-6 in. long, and 2 broad. Set them on a buttered tin 2 in. apart; let them rise on this, then brush them over with milk and bake them. Next day slice them open with a sharp knife, lay them on a tin with the crust under, and put them in a cool oven till they are crisp and baked yellow. (b) Beat 6 eggs well, melt ¼ lb. butter in ½ pint new milk, stir into this ¼ pint fresh yeast and 3 oz. powdered sugar. Then stir in, by degrees, as much flour as will make a batter so thick that the spoon moves with difficulty. Cover and place it in warmth to rise. In about an hour sprinkle flour in, and work it well together, but not to a stiff dough. Form cakes as described in (a), and finish the same way in all particulars. Either caraways or anise seeds may be mixed in them. The latter are very good and wholesome for infants’ food.
Indian.—Bhartas.—Bharta holds the same relative position in the cuisine of the East that salad does in that of the West. Bhartas can be made of every kind of vegetable, either singly or in combination, and many kinds of fruit; also with meat, fish, &c. From this it will be seen that it is impossible to give recipes for every kind of bharta, nor is it really necessary, as, once the spirit of the thing in its various forms is mastered, anyone with ordinary ingenuity will be able to successfully work out the problem for themselves. The components of a bharta consist of, first, a chatni or zest, and, secondly, the substantial part being a vegetable, vegetables, fruit, meat, fish, &c. The latter constituent is in most cases cooked, but there are a few exceptions in which its nature will permit of it being used either raw or cooked—tomatoes for example. Bhartas prepared with meat and fish are eaten as dishes by themselves, while the more substantial vegetable bhartas may either form a separate dish or be used as an accompaniment to curry, &c. For the Chatni or Zest.—Ingredients: 6 spring onions, 2 green chillies, the juice of ½ lemon; salt to taste. Mode: Slice the onions as fine as possible, chop the chillies crossways in circles, mix together, add the salt, squeeze the lemon juice over all, and let the whole soak for ¼ hour at the very least. The onions must be of a fairly good size. The chillies may be increased if the palate will permit, and for appearance sake half may be green and the other half red, but fresh of course. When limes are procurable, the juice of a whole one may with advantage be substituted for that of the lemon. Cayenne pepper and ordinary onions may be used when fresh chillies and spring onions cannot be had. Mustard oil may be omitted but it is a great improvement to all bhartas.
Brianees.—Brianees are spiced dishes somewhat resembling a mixture of curry and pilau. They consist of meat, fish, or cheese, highly seasoned and partially fried, which is put in a saucepan with condiments of various kinds, carefully covered over, and then steamed or boiled. The following example will suffice: Zarebrian Punneezee.—Ingredients: ½ lb. cheese; 2 lb. rice; a small quantity clarified butter; ½ lb. onions; 1 oz. flour; ¼ lb. dried pea flour; cinnamon, cardamoms, cloves, saffron, ½ teaspoonful of each; ½ oz. green ginger; ¾ oz. salt. Cut the cheese into small round slices, and sprinkle them with flour; then fry in clarified butter till brown. Grind the cardamoms and cloves, and add to the cheese. Spread a few clean little sticks on the bottom of a saucepan (this is the native way of preventing any substance from being burnt at the bottom of the pan), and place the cheese on them. Fry the green ginger, onions, and curry stuff, and add the mixture to the cheese. Parboil the rice, and put it over with a small quantity of the rice water. Colour a little rice with saffron, and put it into the saucepan under the rice on one side, and the dried pea flour on the other; then pour a little hot clarified butter over. Make a plain biscuit or thin cake of flour and water, and place it on the rice. Cover the saucepan, put a live coal or bit of charcoal on the top of the lid, and boil the whole until the rice is done.