The "Queen" cookery books: Breakfast and Lunch Dishes

the fire and let all just come to simmering point and get perfectly hot. Now add to it a teaspoonful of strained lemon or lime juice (do not use lime juice cordial, as a cook of ours once did with disastrous results !), and about a cupful of very strong cocoanut milk ; let it all get thoroughly hot, and serve with rice. Cooked fish, hard-boiled eggs, and vegetables are all delicious in this form. Remember, if cocoanuts or almonds are not available, Brazil nuts make a very rich and most satisfactory “mi.k.” Malay cooks infuse the flesh of a large nut in half a pint of absolutely boiling water for fifteen or twenty minutes, then strain this off, reserving it, as the strongest, to be added at the last to the curry ; they then cover the nut with a full half a pint, or even more, of boiling water, stirring this well together, and letting it stand fully twice as long as the first infusion, finally extracting every drop of liquid by strong pressure. For those who may wish to try this form of curry powder here is a Malay recipe for its preparation : Turmeric, twelve parts; dry ginger, eight parts; chillies, two parts ; cardamums, four parts ; cinnamon and cloves, two parts each. Pound this all to a fine powder, sift together through a muslin, and keep in a closely stoppered bottle. Needless to say, in the East the powder is almost invariably freshly made, many of the ingredients also being fresh. For a Cingalese curry, garlic (not necessarily in any large quantity) is de rigueur. Kebobs, or cabobs, as they are sometimes called, are simply pieces of meat cut into neat shapes and passed on to small skewers, alternately with slices of parboiled onion, parboiled bacon, and H 2 green ginger, nicely browned in loz. or so of butter, with a small minced onion and a little salt, and then finished off in curry sauce. Sliced chicken with bacon and mushrooms make delicious kabobs if jjrepared with the Cingalese curry sauce. For Dr?/ Curry all that is needed is to take the remains of any curry left over from the day before and pick out all the meat or vegetables, lifting each piece with its fair share of sauce. Now for 12oz. to 16oz. of this melt ^oz. of butter or clarified dripping in a pan, lay in the curry stuff, and leave it to dry over a low fire, stirring it pretty constantly so as to heat and dry it at the same time. This is a very slow process, and must in no case be hurried, or it is a fore-doomed failure. When dry and powdery on the surface, serve on squares of fried bread thickly strewn with minced chives, coralline and black pepper, &c. Vegetables are particularly good thus. Rice is a factor in curry that may not be overlooked, and I give here the regular native cook’s recipe. Well wash in two or three cold waters 6oz. or 8oz. of Patna rice, then put it on in a large pan with a good quantity of fast boiling water (a gallon is none too much) and keep the rice boiling hard in this for about fifteen minutes (this prevents any chance of burning) ; then test it by pressing a grain between your finger and thumb ; if it rubs to powder it is ready, and must be at once poured off’ into a colander. Pour in cold water from a jug held well above the rice, or turn the cold water tap on to the rice in the colander, drenching it well. Now return it to the hot stewpan, covering it with a