FoodNet

Hilda's diary of a Cape housekeeper

1902

Page 52 · 3 recipe records on this page

Presented as published in 1902. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
“ The feeding of small chicks costs very little, and the sooner they can be sold after hatching the more profitable it is.” April 27. — Curry Pie. — I see that all the recipes in Hilda! s Where is it are for curry to be served with boiled rice ; but a very nice way is to make a curry pie, for which Mrs. Hill’s recipe is excellent. Cut the meat up small, fry some onions brown and the meat with them, put meat and onions in a pie-dish, and half fill the dish with good gravy in which you have smoothly mixed a dessertspoonful of curry-powder. Cover all over, but not too thickly, with mashed potatoCurry Pie with which you have mixed a little of the curry gravy, and bake the pie a nice brown. Some boiled rice may, if liked, be mixed with the meat and onions. This is a nice dish for children’s dinner as a change. Burnt Cream. — There is an excellent recipe for burnt cream, or “ creme- brulee ” (a most delicious dish), in Mrs. Earle’s Pot-pourri from a Surrey Garden. The following, the “ Cambridge recipe ” for the same dish, is rather dif- ferent, but will have to be tried when eggs are plentiful, for it needs no less than nine yolks of eggs ! Ingredients : i| pints of very good cream, 9 yolks of eggs, I lb. powdered sugarBurnt Cream (Creme Brulee). Put the cream in a stew-pan, and put it on the stove to boil. Have the yolks ready beaten with a tablespoonful of sugar. When the cream boils add the yolks and make it custard. When the custard is made strain it into a shallow dish and 117 April VINEYARDS AND GRAPES bake for about ten minutes, till thoroughly set. Then take it out of the oven and let it cool gradually for a quarter of an hour. Sprinkle the remainder of the sugarCustard over the top to make a crust. Have a red-hot salamander ready, and hold it over the sugar near enough to burn the same a good rich brown (it should be like a sheet of brown glass over the custard). Then put it into a cool place and do not serve till quite cold. I have seen a red-hot poker used for such things where a salamander was not at hand. April 28. — Vineyards. — ’After the vintage is over at the end of April, the vineyards are temporarily pruned or cut clean, as they call it here ; but the actual pruning, when only about four branches are left for bearing, is done in June and July. Every one who comes to the Cape will at once notice that the grapes are pruned into small bushes, and planted from three to four feet apart, in rows, either way. (They are planted from well-selected cuttings early in August.) Grapes will bear fruit the second year. Unfortunately “ Oidium,” which has been such a scourge for more than thirty years in the Colony, necessitates the frequent use of sulphur, which is blown on to the vines and small bunches of grapes, by means of bellows, and if carefully done, completely removes the oidium, which is a small fungus, and looks like mildew. Grapes are very successfully exported to England. The hanepot is one of our most delicious dessert grapes, and carries very well. I should recommend any one who intends farming in South Africa to take in The Agricultural Journal, pub- 118 AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. LOCUSTS April