The encyclopaedia of practical cookery

the whites of the eggs. Butter a pie-dish, pour the above mixture into it, and bake until browned on the top. Hominy Pudding- as a Vegetable. — Wash 1 breakfastcupful of Hominy in plenty of water to free it from dust : put it in a saucepan with 1 pint of water and a small lump of salt, and boil it for one hour without stirring, but should it get too dry, 1 teacupful of milk can be added. When cooked, take 2 breakfast-cupfuls of the Hominy, and mix with it while still hot 1 1/2oz. of butter and 1 teaspoonful of sugar. Beat two eggs and 1 teacupful of milk, then mix with the Hominy ; turn the whole into a shallow dish, and bake in a quick oven. Serve the Hominy as a vegetable. Hominy Soup. — Make as much clear soup as will be required, and season it highly. Add about 2 breakfast-cupfuls of Hominy for every 3 pints of the soup, and boil for half-an-hour. Break three eggs into a soup-tureen, pour in 1 teacupful of milk, and beat them well. Pour the soup gradually over the beaten eggs, stirring continually, dust over a small quantity of finely-chopped chives and grated nutmeg, and serve. Stewed Hominy. — Wash 1 breakfast-cupful of Hominy, put it over the fire in a saucepan with 2qts. of cold water, bring it slowly to the boil, and boil it gently for about four hours, or until it is quite soft ; then drain, and place it where the water will evaporate. Prepare a cream sauce as follows : Put 2 table-spoonfuls of butter in a saucepan on the fire and partly melt it ; when soft, gradually stir into it 1/2 pint of cream or an equal quantity of milk ; if cream is used, add it to the Hominy as soon as hot ; if milk, take it off the fire when hot, stir into it the yolks of two eggs, and mix with the Hominy. Serve the Hominy directly the milk or cream is added to it, remembering that the eggs used with the milk will curdle if the Hominy is allowed to boil after they are added to it. HONEY (Fr. Miel; Ger. Honig; Ital. Mele; Sp. Miel). — Up to the time of the juice of the sugar-cane finding its way into this country, Honey was used for all purposes of sweetening. It formed also the basis of fermented liquors known to the Anglo-Saxons as mead and metheglin (see Mead), and was considered of so much value and importance that bees were bred and tended with as much care as is now bestowed on cattle. Honey is described by Blytli as “a sweet substance obtained by the bee from the nectariferous glands of flowers, and is elaborated in the body of the bee, and ultimately deposited in the honeycomb.” An analytical examination of Honey shows that it contains grape-sugar, manna, gum-mucilage, extractive matters, wax in small quantities, pollen of flowers, and odoriferous substances. The sugar consists chiefly of grape-sugar, which crystallises, and may lie filtered out by straining through a cloth ; but there then remains an uncrystallisable sugar which has not been exactly defined. There are several varieties of Honey met with in our markets, which are classified as follows : Virgin Honey, or that which flows spontaneously from the cells of young bees that have never swarmed. Ordinary Honey, obtained by heat and pressure. English Honey, produced by bees which have mainly collected it from clover, furze, or broom flowers ; and Narhonne Honey, gathered chiefly from rosemary, and other highly-scented flowers.