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

TURTLE SOUP, REAL, TINNED.— Real turtle soup is now sold in tins, but by far the greater proportion of these tins contain what is known as “ Invalid Turtle.” This soup is a very delicate form of nourishment, and has been universally approved by medical men as suited to the most delicate constitutions. Indeed this tinned soup is so admirably adapted for invalids, that it is a positive cruelty to convert it into soup suitable for tal ile purposes. In serving turtle soup for invalids, immerse the tin in boiling water for about twenty minutes; then take out the tin, dry it, open it, and pour the soup into a soup-plate. In the case of the invalid having that terrible loathing of food which is _ so often one of the most distressing symptoms of illness, it is far best to serve only a small portion at a time. It may sometimes perhaps require the addition of a pinch of salt and a teaspoonful of madeira or sherry, but this of course is purely a matter of taste. VANILLA, ESSENCE OF.— Essence of vanilla is one of the most useful of all essences sold for flavouring sweets of almost every description. It is sold in small bottles, but this essence should always be kept in glassstoppered bottles — indeed, so greatly does it deteriorate if exposed to the air, that, if it were possible, I would recommend housekeepers to have capped stoppered bottles, somewhat similar to those in which chemists keep ether and chloroform. In private houses where the cook has small bottles of vanilla in ordinary bottles corked up, she would do well to bear in mind that the amount of essence to be used will vary very considerably, according to the time the bottles have been in the house. I will take the simple case of a pint of good custard. If the essence of vanilla is really good and fresh, a saltspoonful of essence would be amply sufficient to impart a vanilla flavour to the custard. Should, however, the essence have been kept in the house for several months, with the probability of its having been carelessly corked, it is difficult to say how much would have to be put in it to impart the required flavour. Possibly as much as two teaspoonfuls. This may possibly be slightly exaggerated, but it only tends to prove the importance of having the essence very carefully corked. Essence of vanilla may be used for flavouring almost every kind of pudding that may be termed milky, and almost every dish that contains cream. Of course I am only speaking of sweets. One very delicious dish to be made from vanilla is vanilla whipped cream. The essence of vanilla, just like any other flavouring, must be added to the cream before it is whipped. A small quantity of essence of vanilla is also very useful to give tone to jelly. What I mean by giving tone is this. Do not add a sufficient quantity of vanilla essence to the jelly to make it vanilla jelly, but only a few drops to impart a slight richness of flavour, which nothing else will do, just in the same way as in colouring jelly we may add one or two drops of cochineal to give it a slight tone, without adding sufficient to make the mould of jelly pink. Perhaps one of the nicest sweets that can be made is tipsy cake, made from stale sponge cakes or brioche cake, spread with apricot jam.