The housewife's referee

Oysters, Devilled, a la Creole. — Place a layer of oysters in a shallow baking pan, spread with breadcrumbs, bits of mustard, butter, and vinegar ; season with salt and pepper, put in the pan in alternate layers ; put breadcrumbs and butter on the top. Squeeze over a little lemon juice and bake. Oyster Kromeskies a la Royale ; Kromeskies d'huitres a la Royale. — Blanch a dozen oysters, remove the beards and cut into small pieces. Have ready half a pound of cooked chicken (or veal), which has been finely minced, two mushrooms, and a small slice of lean bacon ; add the oysters and pound all together. Then mix one ounce of butter and one ounce of flour together in a stewpan, and add sufficient milk to make a thick paste. Stir till it leaves the sides of the pan, and turn on to a plate to cool ; add the oysters, etc. , to this paste ; season with a little THE HOUSEWIFE'S REFEREE pepper, salt, and a few drops of lemon juice. Divide the mixture and roll into pieces, rather smaller than an ordinary wine cork ; dip each into light batter and fry in a wire basket. Garnish with fried parsley. Oyster Salad. — Take a quart of oysters and one large bunch of celery. Mix and cover with mayonnaise. Crisp small leaves of celery should be used as garnish. Oysters, Scalloped. — Open the oysters carefully, give them a scald in their own liquor, wash them in it free from grit and beard them neatly. Butter the scallop shells and shake some fine breadcrumbs over them ; fill them with alternate layers of oysters, crumbs of bread, and fresh butter cut into small bits, pour in the oyster liquor after it has been strained, put a thick smooth layer of breadcrumbs on the top ; moisten them with clarified butter, place the shells in a Dutch oven before a clear fire, and turn them till the tops are brown all over, and a rich golden brown all round. Serve very hot. Pike a la Izaac Walton. — Stuff a pike with oysters, anchovies, and sweet herbs, with a little spice; tie it up with tape and plug the spare spaces in its belly with butter, bathe it in orange juice and baste with claret. Serve hot. Piquda. — This is a fish of the pike order. Fried in batter made with cornflour and eggs, it is very tender, and much eaten in Teneriffe. Prawn Curry. — If prawns are very expensive, the Baratarea tinned ones answer very well. Empty a tin of them into half a pint of white stock, with four tablespoonfuls of cream and a dust of mace. Mix one teaspoonful of curry powder with the same quantity of flour, and one ounce of fresh butter. Stew these very slowly altogether for an hour. Squeeze in the juice of half a lemon, add a little salt and a quarter of a teaspoonful of brown sugar and serve in the centre of a ring of rice. Patna rice must be used and boiled in the usual way of curry rice, which should be arranged round the dish like a wall ; then take a smallsized egg cup, fill it with rice, press it in and turn out on the top of the wall. One of these should be put at regular distances all round and the curry poured into the middle of the ring.