The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory Part 62

Take a pint of cream; blanch a few sweet almonds, and beat them fine; sweeten to your palate. Beat up the yolks of five eggs, stir all together, one way, over the fire, till it is thick. Add laurel-leaves, bitter almonds, or ratafia, to give it a flavour; then put it into cups.

_Custard._ No. 5.

Make some rice, nicely boiled, into a good wall round your trifle dish; strew the rice over with pink comfits; then pour good custard into the rice frame, and stripe it across with pink and blue comfits alternately.

_Almond Custard._

Blanch and pound fine, with half a gill of rose-water, six ounces of sweet and half an ounce of bitter almonds; boil a pint of milk; sweeten it with two ounces and a half of sugar; rub the almonds through a sieve, with a pint of cream; strain the milk to the yolks of eight eggs, well beaten--three whites if thought necessary--stir it over a fire till of a good thickness; when off the fire, stir it till nearly cold to prevent its curdling.

_To bottle Damsons._

Take ripe fruit; wipe them dry, and pick off the stalks; fill your bottles with them. The bottles must be very clean and dry. Put the corks lightly into them, to keep out the steam when simmering: then set them up to the necks in cold water, and let them simmer a quarter of an hour, but not boil, or the fruit will crack. Take them out, and let them stand all night. Next day, cork them tight, rosin the corks, and keep them in a dry place.

_Damsons, to dry._

Pick out the finest damsons, and wipe them clean. To every pound of fruit take half a pound of sugar; wet the damsons with water; and put them into the sugar with the insides downward. Set them on the fire till the sugar is melted; let them lie in the sugar till it has thoroughly penetrated them, heating them once a day. When you take them out, dip them in hot water, and lay them to dry.

_Damsons, to preserve without Sugar._

When the damsons are quite ripe, wipe them separately, and put them into stone jars. Set them in an oven four or five times after the bread is drawn. When the skins shrivel they are done enough; if they shrink much, you must fill up the jar with more fruit, and cover them at last with melted suet.

_Dripping, to clarify for Crust._

Boil beef dripping in water for a few minutes; let it stand till cold, when it will come off in a cake. It makes good crust for the kitchen.

_Dumplings._

Take of stale bread, suet, and loaf-sugar, half a pound each; make the whole so fine as to go through a sieve. Mix it with lemon-juice, and add the rind of a lemon finely grated. Make it up into dumplings, and pour over them sweet sauce without wine.

_Currant Dumplings._

A quarter of a pound of apple, a quarter of a pound of currants, three eggs, some sugar, bitter almonds, lemon or orange peel, and a little nutmeg. Boil an hour and a half.

_Drop Dumplings._

To a piece of fresh b.u.t.ter, of the size of an egg, take three spoonfuls of flour, and three yolks of eggs; stir the b.u.t.ter and eggs well together; add a little salt and nutmeg, and then put the flour to it.

Drop the batter with a small spoon into boiling water, and let it boil four or five minutes; pour the water from the dumplings, and eat them with a ragout, or as a dish by itself.

_Another way._

Break two eggs into half a pint of milk, and beat them up; mix with flour, and put a little salt. Set on the fire a saucepan with water, and, when it boils, drop the batter in with a large spoon, and boil them quick for five minutes. Take them out carefully with a slice, lay them on a sieve for a minute to dry, put them into a dish, cut a piece of b.u.t.ter in thin slices, and stir among them. Send them up as hot as you can.

_Kitchen hard Dumplings._

Mix flour and water with a little salt into a stiff paste. Put in a few currants for change, and boil them for half an hour. It improves them much to boil them with beef or pork.

_Yest Dumplings._

A table-spoonful of yest, three handfuls of flour, mix with water and a little salt. Boil ten minutes in a deep pot, and cover with water when they rise. The dough to be made about the size of an apple. The quant.i.ty mentioned above will make a dozen of the proper size.

_Another way._

Make nice light dough, by putting your flour into a platter; make a hollow in the middle of it, and pour in a little good small beer warmed, an egg well beaten, and some warm milk and water. Strew salt upon the flour, but not upon the mixture in the middle, or it will not do well.

Then make it into as light a dough as you can, and set it before the fire, covered with a cloth, a couple of hours, to rise. Make it into large dumplings, and set them before the fire six or seven minutes; then put them into boiling water with a little milk in it. A quarter of an hour will do them.

_Eggs._

Eggs left till cold will reheat to the same degree as at first. For instance, an egg boiled three minutes and left till cold will reheat in the same time and not be harder. It may be useful to know this when fresh eggs are scarce.

_Whites of Eggs._

Beat up the whites of twelve eggs with rose-water, some fine grated lemon-peel, and nutmeg; sweeten to your taste, and well mix the whole.

Boil it in four bladders, tied up in the shape of an egg, till hard; they will take half an hour. When cold, lay them in a dish; mix half a pint of good cream, a gill of sack, and half the juice of a Seville orange; sweeten and mix it well, and pour it over the eggs.

_Another way._

Beat two whites in a plate in a cool place till quite stiff and they look like snow. Lay it on the lid of a stewpan; put it in a cool oven, and bake it of a light brown for about ten minutes.

_Figs, to dry._

Take figs when thoroughly ripe, pare them very thin, and slit them at the top. To one pound of fruit put three quarters of a pound of sugar, and to the sugar a pint of water; boil the syrup at first a little, skim it very clean, and set it over coals to keep it warm. Have ready some warm water, and when it boils put in your figs; let them boil till tender; then take them up by the stalk, and drain them clean from water.

Put them into the syrup over the fire for two or three hours, turning them frequently; do the same morning and evening, keeping them warm, for nine days, till you find them begin to candy. Then lay them out upon gla.s.ses. Turn them often the first day, on the next twice only; they will quickly dry if they are well attended to. A little ambergris or musk gives the fruit a fine flavour. Peaches and plums may be done the same way.

_Small Flowers, to candy._

Take as much fine sugar as you think likely to cover the flowers, and wet it for a candy. When boiled pretty thick, put in your flowers, and stir, but be careful not to bruise them. Keep them over the fire, but do not let them boil till they are pretty dry; then rub the sugar off with your hands as soon as you can, and take them out.

_Flowers in sprigs, to candy._

Dissolve gum arabic in water, and let it be pretty thin; wet the flowers in it, and put them in a cloth to dry. When nearly dry, dip them all over in finely sifted sugar, and hang them up before the fire, or, if it should be a fine suns.h.i.+ny day, hang them in the sun till they are thoroughly dry, and then take them down. The same may be done to marjoram and mint.