Instruction in cookery (Methuen's text-books, Thompson)

In making small meat puddings and tarts, 2 oz. flour and 1 oz. suet or dripping may be allowed, and about 2 oz. of meat. 3 oz. of flour and 1 oz. suet will make an open tart the size of a pudding plate. In an ordinary household the waste of bread is terrible, and I give some recipes for various kinds of bread puddings, which may prove useful for these school-children’s dinners. They are taken from the Leeds Training School recipes, an excellent book of which has lately been published at 1s. 6d. Savoury Pudding — Ingredients : 1 lb. bread crusts, 1 tablespoonful dried sage, 4 tablespoonfuls oatmeal, 2 eggs, 6 oz. suet (finely chopped), about ^ pint milk, 4 onions (half boiled), salt and pepper. Method — Soak the bread in cold water until soft, and then drain. Now beat up with a fork, add the suet, onions (finely chopped), sage, meal, and seasoning, and, lastly, the beaten egg and milk. Make some dripping hot in a pan, pour the mixture in, and bake in a quick oven. Cut in squares and serve. Cheap Cabinet Pudding — Ingredients : A few large raisins, 1 egg, J pint milk, 1 tablespoonful fine moist sugar, 3 oz. stale bread. Method — Well grease a basin with butter, stone the raisins, and place them with the sticky side against the basin in a pattern. Add the sugar to the milk to dissolve it, beat up the egg, add the sweetened milk to it. Cut up the bread into small squares, strain the custard on to it, turn into lined basin, cover with greased paper, and steam 45 minutes. Scrap Bread Pudding — Ingredients : J lb. scraps (old bread), 3 oz. suet (finely chopped), 1 egg, about i pint milk, 3 oz. currants, 2 oz. moist sugar, salt, nutmeg grated. Method — Soak the crusts in cold water until soft. Drain all the water away, and press with the hands as dry as possible. Beat it up with a fork, add the chopped suet, currants (cleaned), salt, sugar, nutmeg, and, lastly, beaten egg and milk. Turn it into a greased basin, cover with greased paper, and steam ij hours. The same pudding may be baked, and if so, a little more milk should be used. It should be turned into a greased pie dish and baked from 45 minutes to 1 hour. The savoury pudding is excellent served with thick brown gravy, or with pork, or with ‘ poor man’s goose,’ or with breast of mutton rolled and stuffed with sage and onions and then baked. A very little of the egg or custard powders may be used in the milk for the cheap cabinet pudding, and a little flavouring, such as vanilla, is often used in these, which always brings back the familiar flavour of the penny ices eaten by the children. Pieces of crusts of bread well baked may be put into 5—2 cheap stews and soups to thicken them and to improve the colour of the gravy or soup, but they should be removed before serving. LIST OF SUITABLE DINNERS I append a list of suitable dinners, with notes on them. Potatoes and sometimes a second vegetable are presupposed in each case, but these dinners should properly only be cooked by second-course girls. Boiling and Baking Dinners — Boiled pork and pease pudding. Boiled fish, parsley sauce, suet pudding and treacle. Baked and stuffed hearts, cheap cabinet pudding. Baked and stuffed breast of mutton, savoury pudding, jam tarts. Baked and stuffed fish, baked puddings with currants in them. Soups and Frying — Pease soup, pancakes.