Girl's home manual of cookery, home management, home nursing and laundry

Beat eggs slightly, add sugar and salt, stir and add slowly the hot milk. Strain into a buttered dish, grate a little nutmeg on the top. Set dish in a pan of warm water. Bake in a slow oven until set, or the custard may be steamed at a low heat. When cooked a knife will leave it clean. Serve with stewed fruit. Caramel, coffee or chocolate may be used as for liquid custard. Sweet or Savoury Custard for an Invalid. Make as above using less sugar. Make a small quantity, one egg. Savoury custard is often a pleasant change to an invalid. .Use one egg and %.cup good beef tea. Steam or bake in a cup. Blanc-mange or Cornstarch Mould. 2 cups milk. 4 tsp. salt. 6 tbsp. cornstarch. Y% tsp. flavouring. 3 tbsp. sugar. Mix sugar, cornstarch and salt together, stir in a little cold milk to make a liquid. Put the remainder of milk in. top part of double boiler to heat. When milk boils, stir up “the cornstarch and stir boiling milk whilst pouring in the cornstarch. Stir and boil five minutes: Add flavouring. Pour into a wet mould and chill. When set turn on to a glass dish and serve with stewed fruit. Varieties. Before serving the pudding may be decorated with cherries and angelica. A little cochineal added: before moulding to half the mixture makes a variety in colour. Fruit juice, such as rhubarb juice, may be used instead of milk. Chocolate: Mould. Make as above by adding to the cornstarch 3 tablespoons cocoa and an extra spoonful of sugar. Flavour with vanilla. GELATINE Gelatine for cooking purposes is obtained by boiling the connective tissue, bone, cartilage, gristle and skin of animals and fish. This is strained and purified. A coarser kind, known as glue, is obtained from hides, horns and hoofs of animals. The purest form of gelatine is isinglass, obtained from the air bladder of the sturgeon. The commercial product saves much labour and time and is of equal value to the home prepared. Gelatine, when added to liquids with seasoning and flavouring, makes an attractive jelly. Properties. Gelatine softens in cold water, dissolves in hot, and jellies on cooling. A good gelatine has little or no taste, colour or odour and no sediment when dissolved in water. It is an expensive food. Digestion. Gelatine is very easily digested. It also aids the digestion of other foods by causing the gastric juice to flow more freely. Value in Diet. Gelatine is somewhat like the protein group, but is not a true protein. It will not build up or repair tissue but it is a sparer of protein. Its food value is very small, the sugar with it provides some heat. It makes a pleasant addition to the diet of a convalescent, being attractive and easily digested, and since it is a protein-sparer it helps to prevent a feeling of faintness from which invalids sometimes suffer. Gelatine dishes are suitable to serve at the end of a substantial meal, where an attractive dessert rather than nutriment is required. Caution. Jelly should be kept covered, as it is a good material for bacteria to grow in. Method I.—Directions for Clearing Jellies. (1.) Use a large enamel saucepan, absolutely clean and without chips. (2.) Put all ingredients with liquid, all cold, egg shells (clean and crushed), whites (slightly whipped), into saucepan. Leave to soak half an hour if possible, The egg whites clear the liquid, for as they thicken and rise they entangle and hold the various impurities. The shells form a filter, The acid and sugar help in clearing. (3.) Heat slowly to extract flavour and to allow impurities to collect and rise. Whisk all together until jelly begins to simmer. Then stop at once, let it well boil up. If whisking is continued after boiling begins it prevents the scum tising properly and the jelly is not clear.