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

vinegar is allowed to evaporate before the sauce is added. A receipt for making sauce piquant will be found under the heading of Capers. Another form of usinggherkins is to make gherkin sauce. This is made by cutting up some gherkins into very thin slices, boiling them in a stewpan with a little vinegar and a little pepper, and allowing them to simmer gently for a short time on the fire. Should the sauce not be liked acid they should be kept simmering on the fire until nearly all the vinegar has evaporated. As gherkins themselves are acid, as a rule this will be found the best plan. Should the sauce be liked acid, of course they should not be allowed to simmer so long. After they have simmered a small quantity of good brown gravy or a little good strong veal stock should be added, and the whole boiled for some little time over the fire. The sauce should be allowed to simmer for some time, and skimmed, when it can be put by for use. This sauce is to be served hot. Gherkins are used in making what is called Flemish sauce, which is a mixture of butter and flour, onions, parsley, shredded carrot, and a little thyme and mace boiled in i some cream mixed with some good strong stock and a small quantity of Tarragon vinegar. Some gherkins are cut up and put into this sauce. One very useful purpose to which gherkins can be applied is for ornamenting fish, such as filleted soles. Green gherkins will contrast very prettily with some pieces of the skin of red chilies cut the same size. Gherkins cut in thin slices are also a very great improvement to almost all kinds of mayonnaise salads, especially lobster salad and shrimp salad, very often fresh slices of cucumber areused for ornamenting mayonnaise salads. Gherkins, cut into very thin slices, produce quite as good an effect so far as ornamenting goes, and to my mind impart a far better flavour, the acid mixing well with the lobster and rendering it all the more appetising. Pickled gherkins are also sometimes served whole as appetisers. Some foreigners, and especially Italians, will eat them whole like children in this country eat apples. GERMAN SAUSAGE— See SAUSAGE. GIBLET SOUP. — Giblet soup is supplied preserved in tins. The soup can be warmed up by placing the tin in a small saucepan of boiling water, and keeping it on the boil for about a quarter of an hour or twenty minutes, when the tin can be opened and its contents turned out into soup-plates and served. The tin can also be opened when cold and the contents turned into a small saucepan and warmed over the fire. When tinned soups are used, very often they will bear the addition of a little more stock. This is sometimes necessary, as one tin is not sufficient of itself for more than two persons. The cook must also add a little more seasoning or flavouring. I would recommend a trial of the following for giblet soup. Open the tin of soup, turn it out into a saucepan, and add to it half its quantity of really good stock. Stir in a good-sized dessert-spoonful of brown roux (see Roux, Brown), place it on the fire for a short time, and add a bead of garlic. Add now a small teaspoonful of extract of meat and a little cayenne pepper. Let the soup simmer gently in the saucepan for five or ten minutes in order to allow it to throw up the fat or butter it now contains owing to the presence of the brown roux.