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

penny pots, it forms a very cheap as 1 well as valuable addition to the break- [ fast table. CHICKEN-AND-HAM SAUSAGE.— See J Sausage. CHICKEN, ESSENCE OF.— Essence of chicken is a concentrated form of [ chicken stock, and is sold in tins. When used as chicken broth or chicken soup, it requires to be added to two or three tunes its own amount of water. It is an extremely useful preparation for cooks to have in the house, as it enables them to prepare . some good bechamel sauce at, comparatively speaking, a very few minutes’ notice. In making bechamel sauce cooks should always bear in mind that the great secret is that the milk or cream, whichever is used, must be boiled separate. Most persons will know the difference in the taste of good coffee to which cold milk has been added or boiling milk. J ust so in sauce ; unless the milk is made to boil, and the same with the cream, the sauce will be spoiled. To make bechamel sauce from essence of chicken proceed as follows : — Take about three times as much as there is ' essence of chicken, and place this in a small saucepan — if enamelled all the better — with a couple of bay-leaves. Let the milk boil up, being careful not to let it boil over. If an enamelled saucepan is used the enamel retains the heat, and the milk will often boil over even after the saucepan has been removed from the fire. It is a wise precaution to have ready a spoonful of cold milk, which can be thrown into the saucepan to prevent such a catastrophe. Then add to the boiling milk the essence of chicken. This essence can be assisted in flavour by rubbing the bottom of the saucepan in which it is warmed up with a large slice of onion or a bead of garlic, though as a rule garlic is not a desirable flavour in conjunction with milk or cream, unless used with very great caution. A slice of raw ham boiled in the white sauce greatly improves the flavour. Pepper and salt can be added to taste, but in all white sauces, soups, etc., white pepper is to be preferred to black. This sauce can be thickened with white roux— (see Roux, White)— or with cornflour, arrowroot, etc. , and it can be used to mask over boiled turkey, boiled fowl, etc. Should it be required to ornament cold turkey, cold boiled fowls, etc., it is not a good plan to thicken it with roux, but gelatine should be added in sufficient quantities to ensure the sauce forming a jelly when cold. White sauce should be used for this purpose when it is just on the point of setting, and if the birds themselves are quite cold, the mere contact with the cold flesh will be sufficient to entirely set the sauce. The cook’s own good taste will in all probability be sufficient to ornament these cold birds when they are covered with the white sauce. I would suggest thin strips of green gherkin, black truffle, and red tongue, besides sprinkling the surface with coarselychopped parsley. A very pretty way of ornamenting cold boiled chickens which have been masked over with bechamel sauce made from essence of chicken is to place a tongue between two boiled chickens. The tongue should be glazed a rich dark-brown mahogany colour, and should be ornamented with what cooks know as white piping, or, in other words, clarified butter dropped from a funnel so as to form some fanciful design. This contrasts well with the mahogany background.