VOL-AU-VENT OF FRESH STRAWBERRIES WITH WHIPPED CREAM.
1381. INGREDIENTS.--3/4 lb. of puff-paste No. 1208, 1 pint of freshly-gathered strawberries, sugar to taste, a plateful of whipped cream.
_Mode_.--Make a _vol-au-vent_ case by recipe No. 1379, only not quite so large nor so high as for a savoury one. When nearly done, brush the paste over with the white of an egg, then sprinkle on it some pounded sugar, and put it back in the oven to set the glaze. Remove the interior, or soft crumb, and, at the moment of serving, fill it with the strawberries, which should be picked, and broken up with sufficient sugar to sweeten them nicely. Place a few spoonfuls of whipped cream on the top, and serve.
_Time_.--1/2 hour to 40 minutes to bake the _vol-au-vent_.
_Average cost_, 2s. 3d.
_Sufficient_ for 1 _vol-au-vent_.
_Seasonable_ in June and July.
STRAWBERRY.--Among the Greeks, the name of the strawberry indicated its tenuity, this fruit forming hardly a mouthful.
With the Latins, the name reminded one of the delicious perfume of this plant. Both nations were equally fond of it, and applied the same care to its cultivation. Virgil appears to place it in the same rank with flowers; and Ovid gives it a tender epithet, which delicate palates would not disavow. Neither does this luxurious poet forget the wild strawberry, which disappears beneath its modest foliage, but whose presence the scented air reveals.
WEST-INDIAN PUDDING.
1382. INGREDIENTS.--1 pint of cream, 1/2 lb. of loaf-sugar, 1/2 lb. of Savoy or sponge-cakes, 8 eggs, 3 oz. of preserved green ginger.
_Mode_.--Crumble down the cakes, put them into a basin, and pour over them the cream, which should be previously sweetened and brought to the boiling-point; cover the basin, well beat the eggs, and when the cream is soaked up, stir them in. b.u.t.ter a mould, arrange the ginger round it, pour in the pudding carefully, and tie it down with a cloth; steam or boil it slowly for 1-1/2 hour, and serve with the syrup from the ginger, which should be warmed, and poured over the pudding.
_Time_.--1-1/2 hour. _Average cost_, with cream at 1s. per pint, 2s. 8d.
Sufficient for 5 or 6 persons. Seasonable at any time.
YEAST DUMPLINGS.
1383. INGREDIENTS.--1/2 quartern of dough, boiling water.
Mode.--Make a very light dough as for bread, using to mix it, milk, instead of water; divide it into 7 or 8 dumplings; plunge them into boiling water, and boil them for 20 minutes. Serve the instant they are taken up, as they spoil directly, by falling and becoming heavy; and in eating them do not touch them with a knife, but tear them apart with two forks. They may be eaten with meat gravy, or cold b.u.t.ter and sugar, and if not convenient to make the dough at home, a little from the baker"s answers as well, only it must be placed for a few minutes near the fire, in a basin with a cloth over it, to let it rise again before it is made into dumplings.
_Time_.--20 minutes. _Average cost_, 4d.
_Sufficient_ for 5 or 6 persons. _Seasonable_ at any time.
YEAST consists princ.i.p.ally of a substance very similar in composition, and in many of its sensible properties, to gluten; and, when new or fresh, it is inflated and rendered frothy by a large quant.i.ty of carbonic acid. When mixed with wort, this substance acts upon the saccharine matter; the temperature rises, carbonic acid is disengaged, and the result is _ale_, which always contains a considerable proportion of alcohol, or spirit. The quant.i.ty of yeast employed in brewing ale being small, the saccharine matter is but imperfectly decomposed: hence a considerable portion of it remains in the liquor, and gives it that viscid quality and body for which it is remarkable. The fermenting property of yeast is weakened by boiling for ten minutes, and is entirely destroyed by continuing the boiling. Alcohol poured upon it likewise renders it inert; on which account its power lessens as the alcohol is formed during fermentation.
YORKSHIRE PUDDING, to serve with hot Roast Beef.
1384. INGREDIENTS.--1-1/2 pint of milk, 6 _large_ tablespoonfuls of flour, 3 eggs, 1 saltspoonful of salt.
[Ill.u.s.tration: YORKSHIRE PUDDING.]
_Mode_.--Put the flour into a basin with the salt, and stir gradually to this enough milk to make it into a stiff batter. When this is perfectly smooth, and all the lumps are well rubbed down, add the remainder of the milk and the eggs, which should be well beaten. Beat the mixture for a few minutes, and pour it into a shallow tin, which has been previously well rubbed with beef dripping. Put the pudding into the oven, and bake it for an hour; then, for another 1/2 hour, place it under the meat, to catch a little of the gravy that flows from it. Cut the pudding into small square pieces, put them on a hot dish, and serve. If the meat is baked, the pudding may at once be placed under it, resting the former on a small three-cornered stand.
_Time_.--1-1/2 hour. _Average cost_, 7d.
_Sufficient_ for 5 or 6 persons. _Seasonable_ at any time.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
[Ill.u.s.tration]
CHAPTER XXVIII.
GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON CREAMS, JELLIES, SOUFFLeS, OMELETS, & SWEET DISHES.
1385. CREAMS.--The yellowish-white, opaque fluid, smooth and unctuous to the touch, which separates itself from new milk, and forms a layer on its surface, when removed by skimming, is employed in a variety of culinary preparations. The a.n.a.lyses of the contents of cream have been decided to be, in 100 parts--b.u.t.ter, 3.5; curd, or matter of cheese, 3.5; whey, 92.0. That cream contains an oil, is evinced by its staining clothes in the manner of oil; and when boiled for some time, a little oil floats upon the surface. The thick animal oil which it contains, the well-known _b.u.t.ter_, is separated only by agitation, as in the common process of _churning_, and the cheesy matter remains blended with the whey in the state of _b.u.t.termilk_. Of the several kinds of cream, the princ.i.p.al are the Devonshire and Dutch clotted creams, the Costorphin cream, and the Scotch sour cream. The Devonshire cream is produced by nearly boiling the milk in shallow tin vessels over a charcoal fire, and kept in that state until the whole of the cream is thrown up. It is used for eating with fruits and tarts. The cream from Costorphin, a village of that name near Edinburgh, is accelerated in its separation from three or four days" old milk, by a certain degree of heat; and the Dutch clotted cream--a coagulated ma.s.s in which a spoon will stand upright--is manufactured from fresh-drawn milk, which is put into a pan, and stirred with a spoon two or three times a day, to prevent the cream from separating from the milk. The Scotch "sour cream" is a misnomer; for it is a material produced without cream. A small tub filled with skimmed milk is put into a larger one, containing hot water, and after remaining there all night, the thin milk (called _wigg_) is drawn off, and the remainder of the contents of the smaller vessel is "sour cream."
1386. JELLIES are not the nourishing food they were at one time considered to be, and many eminent physicians are of opinion that they are less digestible than the flesh, or muscular part of animals; still, when acidulated with lemon-juice and flavoured with wine, they are very suitable for some convalescents. Vegetable jelly is a distinct principle, existing in fruits, which possesses the property of gelatinizing when boiled and cooled; but it is a principle entirely different from the gelatine of animal bodies, although the name of jelly, common to both, sometimes leads to an erroneous idea on that subject. Animal jelly, or gelatine, is glue, whereas vegetable jelly is rather a.n.a.logous to gum. Liebig places gelatine very low indeed in the scale of usefulness. He says, "Gelatine, which by itself is tasteless, and when eaten, excites nausea, possesses no nutritive value; that, even when accompanied by the savoury const.i.tuents of flesh, it is not capable of supporting the vital process, and when added to the usual diet as a subst.i.tute for plastic matter, does not increase, but, on the contrary, diminishes the nutritive value of the food, which it renders insufficient in quant.i.ty and inferior in quality." It is this substance which is most frequently employed in the manufacture of the jellies supplied by the confectioner; but those prepared at home from calves"
feet do possess some nutrition, and are the only sort that should be given to invalids. Isingla.s.s is the purest variety of gelatine, and is prepared from the sounds or swimming-bladders of certain fish, chiefly the sturgeon. From its whiteness it is mostly used for making blanc-mange and similar dishes.
1387. THE WHITE OF EGGS is perhaps the best substance that can be employed in clarifying jelly, as well as some other fluids, for the reason that when alb.u.men (and the white of eggs is nearly pure alb.u.men) is put into a liquid that is muddy, from substances suspended in it, on boiling the liquid, the alb.u.men coagulates in a flocculent manner, and, entangling with it the impurities, rises with them to the surface as a sc.u.m, or sinks to the bottom, according to their weight.
1388. SOUFFLES, OMELETS, AND SWEET DISHES, in which eggs form the princ.i.p.al ingredient, demand, for their successful manufacture, an experienced cook. They are the prettiest, but most difficult of all entremets. The most essential thing to insure success is to secure the best ingredients from an honest tradesman. The entremets coming within the above cla.s.sification, are healthy, nourishing, and pleasant to the taste, and may be eaten with safety by persons of the most delicate stomachs.
RECIPES.
CHAPTER XXIX.
BAKED APPLE CUSTARD.
1389. INGREDIENTS.--1 dozen large apples, moist sugar to taste, 1 small teacupful of cold water, the grated rind of one lemon, 1 pint of milk, 4 eggs, 2 oz. of loaf sugar.
_Mode_.--Peel, cut, and core the apples; put them into a lined saucepan with the cold water, and as they heat, bruise them to a pulp; sweeten with moist sugar, and add the grated lemon-rind. When cold, put the fruit at the bottom of a pie-dish, and pour over it a custard, made with the above proportion of milk, eggs, and sugar; grate a little nutmeg over the top, place the dish in a moderate oven, and bake from 25 to 35 minutes. The above proportions will make rather a large dish.
_Time_.--25 to 35 minutes.
_Average cost_, 1s. 4d.
_Sufficient_ for 6 or 7 persons.
_Seasonable_ from July to March.
b.u.t.tERED APPLES (Sweet Entremets).