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

Some cayenne pepper should be added, say a saltspoonful of cayenne to three tablespoonfuls of lobster butter. This will prevent the lobster butter from going bad. It is a bright red colour, and very much resembles red lead in appearance. Lobster butter is invaluable, and is essential for making good shrimp sauce, lobster sauce, and bisque soup. By adding the cayenne in sufficient quantity lobster butter may be made so that it will keep good for months. It imparts a bright red colour to the sauce which cannot be matched. When cooks attempt to colour lobster sauce or shrimp sauce with cochineal the result must be an inevitable failure. Tins of Halford’s curries are exceedingly useful to those who live in bachelor apartments, who by this means can always ensure a nice hot supper at any hour without giving trouble to servants. The tin can be warmed up over the fire or over a gas-jet or spirit lamp. There are very ingenious little stands now sold at one shilling each which will fix on to any gas-jet, and on this the saucepan can be placed. There are many persons who would gladly welcome a nice dish of hot curry on a cold winter’s night, and the only reason they do not have one is that they have not taken the precaution to always have on hand one or two of these convenient tins. CURRY PASTE. — There are various kinds of curry paste sold, and these vary somewhat in flavour and quality, but of all the curry pastes I think by far the best is that of Captain White. Captain White’s curry paste is also recommended by the well-known and distinguished chef at the Freemasons’ Tavern. Curry paste is generally best used in conjunction with curry powder. The best way of making curry is as follows : — Take four good-sized onions, slice them up, and fry them in the frying-pan a nice brown colour. Take also some carrot and the trimmings of a head of celery. Fry all these till they are sufficiently tender in some butter, and till the onion is a nice brown colour without being burnt black. Then take a large sour apple, peel it, cut out the core, slice it up, and add it to the vegetables in the frying-pan. To this add a pint of good brown gravy. Let the whole boil for a few minutes, and then rub it all through a wire sieve into a basin. It is essential that the whole of the onion, the carrot, the head of celery, and the apple should be sent through the sieve. Good curry cannot be made unless the cook has sufficient patience to send the whole through. Then add to this a tablespoonful of Captain White’s curry paste and a tablespoonful of curry powder. The curry sauce is now formed, and can be added to any kind of meat that may be required. One great reason why Indian