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

I will take the simple case of a small mould of blanc-mange. Say we have an ordinary fluted mould at the top of which is a cucumber. Underneath this there is a sort of raised mound, and then a pedestal. Suppose we pour the blancmange into the mould at once, let it set, and turn it out. The result may be very nice so far as eating goes, but the dish can scarcely be termed an artistic one. Let the cook act as follows : — Place in the cucumber enough water to just All it. Pour this into a glass, and mark on the outside the exact point to which the water rises. Throw the water away, and fill up the glass to this point with some of the liquid blanc-mange, and colour it a bright green with some of the green colouring matter. Now pour this carefully into the mould, so that it sets in the cucumber,' taking care also that none overflows. If it is cold weather, or if there is a little ice in the house, this small quantity can be made to set almost immediately. In the mean time take sufficient jelly to fill the next layer in the mould — that part which stands above the pedestal and underneath the cucumber. Open a bottle of any kind of jelly that may be in the house, and colour this a bright carmine with some of Breton’s vegetable colouring .matter. This jelly will now be perfectly bright and red. If bottled jelly is used, which is always bright, when the lights are placed on the table the jelly will flash like a ruby. Plunge the mould in ice again, and then carefully fill up the remainder of the mould with blanc-mange. What a difference does this mould now present to what it did before ! The white pedestal on the top of which rests the ruby-red cushion, on which, in turn, lies the green cucumber, will be extremely pretty. Another very pretty way is as follows : — Suppose the centre of the mould is ornamented with cucumber, and that the edge of the mould is | surrounded with little domes. The 1 cucumber can, of course, be filled with | blanc-mange, coloured green, and the little domes can be filled with brightcoloured jelly and the remainder of the. mould with blanc-mange. There is no doubt that the green cucumber contrasts best against the white. The mould would perhaps look better treated as follows : — First take a mould of jelly and colour it a bright red with carmine. Let this be the base of the pedestal, and on the top of it have a thin white layer of blanc-mange, and on the top of the whole the green cucumber. This, however, is all a matter of taste, and taste is not to be taught in books. These colouring matters can be used for a very great variety of purposes beyond that of sweets. . I may mention one sweet here that it is very useful for, namely, that of pistachio cream, a receipt for making which will be found under the heading Pistachio Kernels. We all know pistachio kernels are green. Still, it would be impossible to use a sufficient quantity of them to impart agood bright colour to the cream. When, therefore, the cook is making pistachio cream, she will find it a very great assistance to add some of the green vegetable colouring matter. One other very nice dish in which this green colouring matter is extremely useful is that of green-pea soup.