Potage au Riz,
In plainer English, rice-broth, can be achieved for to-day, with little trouble, by the help of the liquor in which your mutton was boiled on Tuesday. Wash and soak a cup of rice in cold water. At the end of half an hour, add it, with the water in which it has soaked, to the mutton-broth, from which you must first take the fat. Boil very slowly two hours, and should the water sink below the original level more than an inch, replenish with boiling. In another saucepan heat a cup of milk, thickened with a tablespoonful of rice-flour. Season the mutton-broth with pepper and parsley—it will hardly need salt. (Boil up and skim, before the parsley goes in.) Pour the hot milk over two beaten eggs, stir in well; add to the soup in the kettle, and take instantly from the fire.
English Pork Pie.
- 3 lbs. of lean fresh pork, cut into strips as long as your finger.
- 6 large juicy apples.
- 2 tablespoonfuls of sugar.
- Pepper, salt, and mace to taste.
- 1 cup of sweet cider.
- 2 tablespoonfuls of butter.
- Good pie-paste for an upper crust, made according to receipt given for Thursday of second week in this month.
Put a layer of pork within a pudding-dish; season with pepper, salt, and nutmeg, or mace. Next a layer of sliced apples, strewed with sugar and bits of butter. Go on in this order until you are ready for the crust, having the last layer of apples. Pour in the cider, cover with a thick crust of good pastry, ornamented around the edge; make a slit in the middle, and bake in a moderate oven one hour and a half. Should the crust threaten to brown too fast, cover with paper. When nicely browned, brush over with butter and close the oven door for a moment; then wash well with white of egg. Eat hot. You will find it very good, odd as the receipt may seem.
Mock Stewed Oysters.
Scrape and drop into cold water a bunch of salsify, or oyster-plant. Cut into short pieces and stew tender in boiling water, a little salted. Drain off nearly all the water, and pour into the saucepan a cup of cold milk. When again hot, add a heaping tablespoonful of butter and a handful of fine cracker-dust, with pepper and salt. Stir very slowly for five minutes, and pour out. It should be about as thick as oyster soup.
Potato Balls.
Mash potatoes with a little butter and salt, and let them get cold. Then work in a beaten egg. Make into balls about twice the size of a walnut, with floured hands, roll them well in flour, and fry yellow-brown in good dripping or lard. Drain in a colander, and pile upon a flat dish.
Lemon Jelly and Light Cake.
- 5 lemons—juice of all and grated peel of two.
- 2 large cups of sugar.
- 1 package of Coxe’s gelatine, soaked in two cups of cold water.
- 2 glasses pale sherry.
- 1 pint of boiling water.
Stir sugar, lemon-juice, peel, and soaked gelatine together, and leave, covered, for an hour. Then pour over them the boiling water; stir until the gelatine is dissolved; strain through a flannel bag, without pressing. Add the wine, and let all drip, untouched, through double flannel. Pour into a wet mould. In cold weather, or if set on ice, it will be ready for use in six hours. Pass a basket of light cake with it.