The housekeeper's guide to preserved meats, fruits, vegetables, &c

It is essential in cooking whitebait that the oil or fat should be very hot indeed. The general degree of temperature must exceed what is required for frying other dishes. It is also essential that the whitebait should be taken out of the iced water in which they are kept and thrown into plenty of flour. The flour should be spread on a cloth, on which it should be at least an inch in depth, and the whitebait transferred quickly from the flour into the smoking hot fat, the whole process occupying only a few seconds. I have often watched the process of cooking whitebait some years back at North Woolwich. My friend Mr. Holland was justly celebrated for the excellence of his whitebait. His opinion, which is worthy of attention, was that the secret of good whitebait was this — the time occupied between its leaving the iced-water and plunging into the fat should be as few seconds as possible. The temperature of fat for frying whitebait, according to my experience, should not be greater than about 400 degrees. Sir Henry Thompson mentions for ordinary frying a heat of nearly 500. In cooking whitebait the cook is pretty safe when the oil begins to smoke. I cannot help thinking that, if the oil or fat were heated to a temperature of 500, the result would be a most unpleasant shower of blacks. Oil will not boil, and when Sir Henry Thompson speaks of boiling oil it is probably merely a figure of speech to describe the smoking period to which I have referred. OLIVES, VARIOUS. — Olives in this country can only be obtained preserved or pickled in brine. Those who have been fortunate enough to enjoy the fruit fresh know how deliciously juicy it is. There are two kinds of olives, French and Spanish. French olives are smaller, and are a dark green. Spanish olives are somewhat larger, and of a more yellowish-green colour. Which kind is the best is, of course, a matter of taste. For my own part, I prefer French olives to Spanish. Olives are very often served as a dish by themselves after dinner, but were very much more popular in what are known as the good old days, when people sat over their wine for an hour or two after dinner, than in more modern days, when but little wine is drank. Olives also can be used as an appetiser, or for serving before^ dinner as a hors d’ oeuvre. A very nice appetiser can be made from olives as follows -.—Take a little piece of fried bread the size of an ordinary draught" man. Take an olive and stone it. The proper way to stone an olive is as follows : — Take a knife, not too sharp, and cut longways into the olive in a slightly slanting direction till the edge of the knife reaches the stone. Now out carefully round the stone, taking care that the edge of the knife never leaves the stone. The stone will now come out perfectly bare, and the olive will then resume its shape, and, to all intents and purposes, have the appearance of an ordinary olive, though of course it is hollow in the middle. In making the appetiser this hollow should be filled up with a small piece of fillet of anchovy. Next take a little dab of mayonnaise sauce and place it in the centre of the fried bread. Stand the olive upright in this on its end, and then put another little dab of mayonnaise sauce on the top of the olive where the hole was.