Practical West African cookery

Any remains of cold beef or even mutton cut in small squares and mixed with sliced yam or sweet potatoes and, if possible, tomatoes, tatassa and onion, is a good way to use up any cold meat. Other salads can be made with mustard and cress, which is also good mixed with lettuce or yam salad, tomatoes and onions, boiled green paw paw and tomatoes, etc. Fish and chicken salads are given in their respective chapters. Cooked macaroni makes a very good salad, cut in small pieces, mixed with lettuce, hard boiled egg and minced fowl, seasoned with a mayonnaise (see index). Chutney Salad. (1). Boiled or steamed yam or sweet potatoes sliced and mixed with minced raw onion, minced chutney (parsley) and the ordinary seasoning makes a very good salad. So many extra ingredients and utensils are needed for the making of sweets that we have been obliged to give only the plainest and most ordinary ones. We do not even give a boiled pudding, knowing the doubtful condition of the necessary pudding cloth. Quite a number of dishes can be made with Brown and Poison’s excellent cornflour, which it is almost a necessity to have. We have given at some length three of the best ways of using it. The “Prevet” brand of dried apples is perhaps the best. They can be had from any export firm in tins containing one dozen squares. As soon as the tin has been opened, put the squares in a tin with tight fitting lid and they will keep good for any length of time. Half a square will make a small dish for one man. A quarter of a square is enough for an apple sauce or as a flavouring for curry. Other dried fruits of the same brand are very good, but apples and mirabelles are the best. Custards can be made with Bird’s Custard Powder, but the fresh custard is so much better and so easy to make that it is worth while to teach the cook how to do it. The only point of importance is that it should be made, not in a saucepan in direct contact with the fire, but in a pudding basin or a cup standing in a saucepan filled with boiling water. The proportions of Ideal milk to water vary a good deal in the following recipes according to the consistency required. Rice Pudding. (I). 1 heaped up tablespoon rice. £ pint milk (if Ideal, 1 tablespoon to the rest of water.) 3 lumps or 1 dessertspoon sugar. £ teaspoon butter. 2 or 3 drops vanilla essence. 1. Wash the rice. This quantity will be enough for one man only. 2. With a feather paint the inside of the smallest piedish with a little of the butter. Drain the rice, put it in the dish, pour over the milk, add the sugar and vanilla and float on top the little piece of butter that is left. Bake in a slow oven for a good hour. If you have no oven, the rice can be simply boiled in the small enamel saucepan with the milk, sugar and vanilla. Boil slowly till the rice has absorbed all the milk, stirring from time to time so that the rice does not burn. Note.— A pudding made of native rice will only take about half an hour to bake. A milk pudding can be improved by adding a few figs. Wash them, soak them, cut them in half and put them in the dish with the rice or tapioca. They will cook gently with the pudding and make it all the nicer. Tapioca Pudding. (I). 1 level tablespoon tapioca. £ pint fresh milk (if Ideal, I tablespoon to the rest of water).