Cookery book and general axioms for plain cookery

(3) If butter is used 1 oz. will be required, and then the sauce must be made according to the method for melted butter, see page 23. FISH CAKES. Ingredients : -1 lb. cooked fish (any scraps). 1 lb. mashed potatoes (warm). 1 tablespoonful milk, or 1 oz. butter. 2 eggs (not required if the mixture is baked). f teaspoonful salt 1 or to taste. | teaspoonful pepper J Parsley. Frying fat (clarified mutton fat, or suet, or lard). Bread crumbs. Method: — Put plenty of clarified dripping or lard into a saucepan (a low stewpan is the best) to heat gradually. Be move any skin or bones from the fish, and shred it finely with two forks. Put the potatoes, salt and pepper into a basin ; add the milk (if butter is used, melt it before adding it) and one egg to bind it, and mix thoroughly ; but do not make it too moist. Stir the fish in lightly, divide the mixture into small portions, and shape it with a knife on a floured board into cakes about 1 inch thick. Put the bread crumbs on a sheet of clean paper. Beat the other egg on a plate, brush the cakes over with it, and dip them in the crumbs. Try the fat, and if hot enough, fry them about 5 minutes ; drain on kitchen paper, and cover with paper also, to absorb the fat. Arrange on a hot dish. N.B. — (1) Any dish containing cooked potatoes will be much lighter if they are warmed. An easy method for warming them (if they are not just cooked) is to put them in a basin, and place it over a saucepan of boiling water. This prevents them getting dry, which they would be liable to in an oven. (2) Frying is a quick method of cooking, though not an economical one ; but this mixture is very good baked. Pile it in a greased dripping-pan, and bake about 20 minutes in the oven or before the fire. The egg, bread crumbs and frying fat would then be dispensed with. (3) Fat for frying should be as free from salt as possible, as the salt prevents browning, so that clarified mutton fat and clarified dripping are both very good for this purpose. PEA SOUP. Ingredients : — 1 pint split peas. f Two pennyworth cooked or uncooked bones. ( 2 quarts cold water. or 2 quarts of bone stock. 1 oz. dripping. 2 onions (parboiled and chopped finely). 1 turnip. 1 carrot. A strip of celery, or a few celery leaves or seeds. 1 teaspoonful brown sugar. 1 „ salt. Pepper to taste. Mint and toast. Method: — Wash the peas and soak them overnight in 2 quarts of cold water. Put the peas into a saucepan with the water in which they have been soaked, the bones, and the salt, sugar and dripping (the latter helps to soften the peas), let it heat very slowly ; this will also make the peas soften more readily. Skim it well before it boils, because the action of boiling will carry the scum down, and the soup will not be so good. Prepare the vegetables, and cut them into small squares ; add them when the soup boils and simmer very gently about 2 hours, or until the peas are reduced to a pulp. Then take the bones out, season to taste and serve with powdered mint and squares of toast. N.B. — (1) The soup is much improved bypassing it through a wire sieve, before the mint is added. (2) This will be a richer and better soup if the bone stock is made according to the receipt page 13. (3) The bones must not be put into boiling water, or soup, or the nourishment will not be extracted.