Hilda's diary of a Cape housekeeper

Steaks from the Under-cut of Beef. — This is a very good recipe. Take 2 lbs. beef, under-cut is best, but rumpsteak will do (i| lbs. if Australian), wash it in warm water quickly, cut two inches thick, and chop well with a blunt MISS ELLIOTT’S STONE CREAM May knife, this process makes it very tender ; lay it in a piedish and pour some milk over it, leaving it to soak for an hour. Now take some onions, cut in rings, and fry them a light-brown in fat. Take them out of the pan and keep hot. Put half-an-ounce of butter in the fryingpan and let it heat well. Now roll the beefsteaks in a mixture of flour, fine bread-crumbs, pepper and salt, and fry them in the hot pan on a quick fire, turning constantly. Be very careful 7iot to put a fork into the steaks, or all the richness will ooze out, but turn them with a knife. When brown, which will take about eight minutes, pop the steaks on a very hot dish, heap the fried onions on the top of the steaks, and serve quickly. This is the same as a recipe given me by Mrs. Becker. Miss Elliott’s Stone Cream. — For a pudding at luncheon we had stone cream from the following good old recipe of Miss Elliott’s. Put at the bottom of a glass dish 3 spoonfuls of lemon-juice with a little of the peel grated and some apricot sweetmeat, chopped small. Then take i pint of rich cream with ^ oz. of isinglass dissolved in two-thirds of a pint of water, and sugar to your taste. Let it boil 5 minutes, stirring it all the time ; strain it into a jug that has a spout or lip to it, and when the cream is almost cold pour it over the apricot in your dish, pouring round and round the dish till all is in. You may ornament the cream with what sweetmeat you please. The recipe adds — “ It is not intended this recipe should be as stiff as flummery.” What a nice old-fashioned name “Flummery” is! it sounds like nothing later than the end of last century, and that I dare say is the date of the “yellow flummery” and “white flummery ” which are among the old recipes belonging to Miss Elliott (of Holyhead). I will write them out 129 K May CREAM CHEESE. “ LEMON SOLID ” piesently, for they sound very good, but I must finish what I have to say about our little luncheon, which is merely that we had dessert on the table and a cake, cream cheese, and butter; and finished afterwards with coffee on the garden stoep. The cake we had was Mrs. Van der Byl’s sponge-cake, of which the recipe is printed in Hildas's "Where is it?" p. 28. There are many recipes for cream cheeses. Here is one of Mrs. Longley’s from the book of 1835, which I mentioned previously. Cream Cheese. — Put a dry cloth in the mould and fill it with thick cream, when it must remain undisturbed till it stiffens (about two days), then turn into a fresh cloth and replace in mould. Do the same daily till firm enough, then sprinkle a little salt on it and fold in a cloth for two 01 three days in a cool place, when it will be ready for use. Coffee as the French make it— Talking of the coffee after luncheon reminds me of a quaint extract in Mrs. Longley’s book, marked as being from the Household Almanack — no doubt an annual of those days. It is headed— “ To make coffee as the French make it.”