Hilda's diary of a Cape housekeeper

Boil a nicely-cleaned calf’s head in water, add to it some salt, 20 peppercorns, a few bay leaves, and a white onion. Boil for three hours, or until quite tender, and see that the bones can easily be removed. Cut the meat into square pieces. Now make a sauce in a frying-pan by taking 2 ozs. butter, let the butter get brown in the pan, then add a tablespoonful of flour and stir it about till it is nice and smooth ; add to this a cupful of the stock in which the meat was boiled, add also a wineglass of sherry, and some cayenne pepper. Let this gravy get quite boiling hot, then put the squares of meat in it before serving. Should we not do well to consider the pecuniary and sanitary, to say nothing of the moral advantage, of kindness to animals killed for food ? The little leaflets published by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to A nimals have much struck me, and by kind permission of the Society I print some of their papers in the Appendix, describing how to kill calves, rabbits, and poultry with least pain to the creatures. I reproduce the directions in hope of sparing suffering to the animals. September 17. — Our near neighbours the M s are going into Cape Town with us to-morrow to a concert, and as we shall have to start too early for dinner, we have suggested having a “ high tea ” before going, and a cold supper, but with hot soup, on our return. Besides the usual cold things, I have decided to have a Dutch herring salad, a savoury of eggs, and the cold fruit pudding, which follows. Sep. HERRING SALAD. PENGUIN EGGS Dutch Herring Salad.— For the Dutch herring salad (Mrs. Spence’s recipe) take — 3 salted herrings. I large Spanish onion. A tablespoonful of chopped parsley. I hard-boiled egg, separating yolk from white. Soak the herrings in cold water for a night, then boil for five minutes and separate the fish from the bones. Cut the onion in thin slices, pour boiling water and salt over them to take off the roughness of the onion, drain it off and strain, mix the fish and onion together with some salad oil, pepper, and vinegar. Garnish the dish with chopped parsley and hard-boiled eggs (white chopped and yolk crumbled), and beet-root cut in slices and stamped out with a cutter, arranged prettily in a pattern on the top of the salad. Penguin Egg Savoury. — The savoury will be a very nice one, made of hard-boiled penguin eggs mashed very fine, add a little piece of butter, some anchovy paste, a little cayenne and salt, and spread on hot buttered toast. Penguin eggs are brought in quantities from a small island on the West Coast, and are plentiful in June, July, and August. Fruit Pudding. — The cold fruit pudding is one we often have for Sunday supper. Boil I lb. of any kind of fruit — apples, quinces, plums, etc. — to a pulp, and sweeten to taste. When cold add a very little butter, and four well-beaten eggs. Butter a mould well and sift into "it a thick layer of bread-crumbs, pour the fruit gently into the mould so as not to disturb the crust of crumbs, then cover the top of the mould with a layer of crumbs half-an-inch thick. Bake for an hour in a moderate oven, and turn out when cold. This is Mrs. E. Eksteen’s recipe. “BLIND HARE.” A NICE GRAVY Sept. September 19. — “Blind Hare” (Mrs. Becker’s). — Take — li lbs. steak finely minced (mutton will do). 2 slices of stale bread, soak in milk and squeeze dry.