Common-sense papers on cookery

Space will not here allow of my going through all the dishes advisable to have at a nice little supper, so I will confine myself to a few general directions. Recollect you want to please children, without making them ill. Now, for the purpose I would always recommend a good large corn-flour pudding, made in a mould, and coloured a nice bright pink with cochineal. This can be made nice and sweet, and may be flavoured with a few drops of essence of almonds, or a little essence of vanilla. The dish is very simple and wholesome, and yet looks very pretty. You will very likely hear a little child say, "I will have some of that pink thing, please and, luckily, that pink thing is the least unwholesome thing on A Nice Little Supper. ioi the whole table. It is the jams and pastries that do the harm. With regard to jellies, I would add, try and get it bright. This requires patience and a jelly-bag. Also, as it will keep with ease, make it at least two- days before you want it, so as not to drive yourself to have a lot to do on the day of the supper. In making jelly, whether orange or lemon, gelatine is the simplest, easiest, and cheapest method. Do not grudge the sherry, and also put a few coriander-seeds into the jelly when it is boiling. You will find this greatly improve the flavour. But we must not forget the grown-up people, and under the circumstances they enjoy a good lobster salade mayonnaise. I have given directions before how to prepare this king of cold sauces. As, however, you are making a mayonnaise salad, it is almost as easy to make two as one. Have a lobster salad and a smoked-salmon salad. This smoked salmon must be cut into very thin slices, and simply placed round or mixed up in the salad just as it is — raw. If you possibly can, have these two mayonnaises placed in silver dishes, and get a few little crayfish or a few good prawns to add to the usual garnish of capers, anchovies, olives, cut hard-boiled eggs, &c., which I described in a preceding chapter. In making mayonnaise sauce you will use two, or Common-sense Cookery. perhaps three, raw yolks of eggs. Now what are you going to do with the whites ? Why not whip them up into a stiff froth, and use that for ornamental purposes? For instance, suppose you have that nice simple dish, stewed pippins, on the table. Take a dessert-spoonful of foam shaped like an egg, and place it on the top of each pippin. Have also in readiness a few of those tiny, pretty little sweets called hundreds and thousands, and sprinkle a few lightly on the white egg-froth. Contrast this dish with the pippins as they were before. The change is marvellous, and yet costs almost nothing. Yet many "persons would think, casting their eyes over the table, “ Ah ! that dish came from the pastrycook’s.” One or even two piled-up dishes of almonds and raisins, being, if there are not too many almonds, dark dishes, form a favourable contrast with the light ones. A supper-table, to look really nice, must not have too many white dishes.