Practical West African cookery

1 dessertspoon butter. 1. Free the meat from skin and bone and mince it fine. 2. Pound in a mortar (a native one will do if you have no proper kitchen one) the cloves, berkono, nutmeg, salt and pepper. When well pounded together add the minced fowl and skinned sausages or potted meat or minced ham. Pound to a paste and add the butter, mixing it all well together. 3. Put the paste into an empty jar (an Imperial cheese jar is a good one), and pack it in as tightly as possible with the back of a spoon. Heat the lard, and as soon as it is melted, run it on top of the jar; it will solidify and keep out moisture. In the dry season, potted fowl can last a week and is very nice for breakfast. Poulet Mayonnaise. (II). The best parts of a roasted | 2 heads of lettuce, fowl. j 2 tomatoes. 2 tablespoons sliced cooked ! (A teaspoon chopped parsley yam or sweet potato. 1 and basil.) Sliced cucumber, cold cooked beetroot cut in dice, French beans or even tinned peas or beans can all be used in this salad. Free the fowl from skin and bone, cut in small dice and mix with the yam also cut in dice, the tomatoes cut in small pieces and the lettuce cut in strips. Pour over the mayonnaise (see index) (and sprinkle with the chopped parsley and basil if available). Garnish, if liked, with slices of hard-boiled egg. In stations where there is no properly run meat market, or no “ mutton club,” it is most inadvisable to buy meaton the native market. On the other hand, if you buy a sheep ior yourself alone or are made a present of one, it is difficult to know how to make use of it without too much waste. This is perhaps the best way : have the sheep killed at sunset, skin it and hang it till the following morning. Cut it up as early as possible. Keep the brains, kidneys, one leg, the saddle, the best end of the neck, and give the rest away. The kidneys can be used for breakfast, the brains and the cutlets from {he neck for lunch, and either the saddle or leg roasted or braised or boiled for dinner. These can go on for the next day as a cottage pie or mince for breakfast, and cold with a salad or curried for lunch. The trimmings of the cutlets and the poorer end of the saddle will make enough soup for both days. As soon as the sheep is cut up, the saddle and the leg should be salted and peppered and kept in the meat safe. If about mid-day doubts arise as to their safety, they should be turned in the frying pan in a little very hot butter or lard. If you intend to boil the leg, it can be plunged for a moment into boiling water instead. Both these methods will preserve the meat safely till the evening. Meat, so long as it is protected from dust and flies, should always be freely exposed to the air, which will slightly harden the outer skin and thus preserve the meat. If the meat does not seem quite clean or has not beeu properly protected from the flies, it should be washed in strong vinegar and water before cooking. Mutton or beef should only be wrapped in paw paw leaves if you have been obliged to kill it in the morning to eat the same day. The leaves make it tender but hasten decomposition. Beef should be kept and treated in the same way as mutton. The greatest care should be taken that the meat is sound.