The handy dictionary of cookery

Take two apples ; peel them ; chop them up ; also two onions prepared {see Onions) and finely minced. Put into a saucepan one ounce of butter or dripping; when it is quite hot put into it the minced apples and onions ; cook these all over the fire ten minutes ; the onions will brown, but the apples will not. Then add one tablespoonful of curry-powder, one tablespoonful of rice flour ; cook these raw material well together, as this is the foundation of all good curries. Then add half a pint of stock or water ; boil it up well and remove the scum as it rises ; flavour with the juice of half a lemon, a good pinch of salt and pepper. Pass all through a sieve. Put the curry into a clean pan and add to it the cold meat cut up ; stir over the fire till hot through, but do not allow it to boil. JVoIe. — Any cold meat may be curried except beef. Uncooked meat may be used, but it would need very slow cooking in the curry, and very finely mincing before being put into it. Curry should be a paler colour for fish than for meat. Curry Cream. Melt two ounces of butter in a pan ; stir into it two onions and two apples, peeled and chopped, also twenty-four green gooseberries or two sticks of rhubarb, a tablespoonful of curry powder, a blade of mace, twelve peppercorns, half a teaspoonful of salt, a little grated nutmeg. Cook these over the fire until the vegetables are soft ; pass as much as possible through a hair sieve ; add to it the milk from a small cocoa-nut, also half the white part grated, the yolks of three eggs beaten and the white of one, half a pound of finely minced chicken, the juice of half a lemon and half a pint of whipped cream ; stir all well together ; pour into a greased mould ; cover the top with greased paper, and steam half an hour {see Steaming, p. 75). Serve with boiled rice. Curry of Prawns. Melt in a saucepan two ounces of butter ; skin and scald an onion, chop it up finely j put it into the pan with the butter. Peel an apple ; cut it up and add it also. Stir these over the fire in the butter ten minutes ; the onion will brown, but the apple will not. Next stir in a dessertspoonful of rice flour, the same of grated cocoa-nut, curry powder, and a saltspoonful of chutney, the juice of one lemon, a very little salt, and half a pint of stock. Stir these well over the fire till soft enough to pass through a sieve. Rub them through a wire sieve ; put the sauce into a clean pan with half a pint of whipped cream ; add twelve prawns shelled. Leave them seven minutes in the sauce. Place the prawns in the centre of a dish •, pour the sauce over ; garnish with twelve prawns in their shells. Rice must be served on a separate dish. Custard of Macaroni. Boil a quarter of a pound of macaroni till soft ; beat up the yolks of two eggs with a tablespoonful of sugar; pour over them half a pint of boiling milk. Stir carefully till thick, do not allow it to boil. Grate three ounces of cheese. Cut up the macaroni into neat pieces ; put a layer into a dish ; pour over it a little custard ; sprinkle some grated cheese over this. Then add another layer of macaroni, custard, and cheese. Beat the whites to a stiff froth ; pile them on the top, and brown in the oven or before the fire. Custard Sauce.