The spirit of cookery

MACARONI AND NUDELN 3S9 analogous to macaroni, tlio difference being that it contains eggs, while the latter do not contain any. It may be prepared in all the ways in which Italian paste is cooked, and has the additional advantage that it can be prepared in the house in small and large quantities, on the day on which it is wanted or long before, dried and kept in store, whereas macaroni have to be bought ready made, and cannot be produced in the kitchen. Nudeln can be eaten in gravy soup, with Parma cheese or Gruyere, with coulis of ham, with brown gravy ; they may be garnished with fried breadcrumb, with brown butter ; they are excellent as entremets with roast meat, at times when potatoes are bad or vegetables rare, and then may be made to alternate with haricot beans. They may be eaten with dried and stewed fruit, and are, like macaroni, under all circumstances a digestible, nutritious, agreeable kind of food. CHAPTER XXXI. SOUFFLES, PANCAKES, AND PUFFS OR CROPLETS. All the preparations under this head are made of flour, eggs, milk, or cream and butter. Souffles consist of mostly cooked batters made of some kind of starchy flour, eggs, milk, or cream, and butter ; the boiled batter is mixed with the eggs, etc., and placed in a suitable vessel, mostly consisting of tin-plate, and rapidly rebaked. They can be flavoured with aromatic substances, such as vanilla, ginger, chocolate, coffee, or fruit-jam ; but when the latter is introduced in quantity the souffle becomes a kind of pudding, and loses its specificity. Souffles must be light, porous, spongy like froth ; as their rising is entirely due to the evolution of steam, they must be brought to the table hot, in the inflated condition, before they have time to collapse.* As the starch or Hour, by the aid of which they are made, contributes little to the specificity of the souffles, they should Ije named either after the flavouring and characteristically prevailing ingredient only, or both the floury base and the flavouring should be named. B.g., a chocolate souffle made with rice-flour should be distinguished from that made with potato-flour, as they taste somewhat differently. The kinds of flour useful for souffles are wheat- flotor, groimd rice, IMtato-starch, arroioroot starch, tainoca swelled starch, toiles-mois, and rough ground Italian paste, called semolina. The flavourimj may be orange, lemon, orange-flowers, cinnamon, vanilla, ginger, chocolate, coffee, or any kind of essence or liqueur. The fruit-jams to be mixed or given with them may be apricots, peaches, nectarines, and all kinds of plums. Of fruit, raspberries, currants, strawberries, gooseberries, apples, and pineapples have been put in souffles, but their addition not only compromises their success, but appears to us to destroy their character. Such additions of fruit and acid flavours, if desired at all, had better be made in the shape of sauce.