FoodNet

Practical West African cookery

1910

Page 77

Presented as published in 1910. Historical recipes may not meet modern food-safety standards. Cook from the modern interpretation, not the original instructions.
3. Pour the mixture into a cake tin, place it in a hot oven, if possible do not open the oven door for the first twenty minutes, and bake for one and a half hours. 158 ODDS AND ENDS. Tea. A tin of tea should always be kept tightly shut, or the contents will lose all their flavour, for this reason it should never be left in the kitchen where it will surely remain open. If possible, give out only a week’s supply at a time. A quarter-of-a-pound should be enough for one man, and a small teaspoon will make one cup of tea. Keep a small kettle solely for boiling water for tea, coffee and cocoa, and it is always best to put the tea your- self into the teapot and to have the boiling water brought to you. If you make your boy look on it as a sort of “ju ju palaver,” he will quite enjoy racing across the compound to bring you the water as hot as possible. It will be just off the boil, but all the same, better than what would be made in the kitchen. Fresh, cold water must be used and taken off the fire as soon as it has reached boiling point, i.es, as soon as it bubbles. No man need endure the trial of drinking tea out of a tin teapot during the whole of his tour. An earthenware one can be bought at the Niger Co., and being part of the “ju ju ” and therefore to be handled carefully, may last for many months. Breakfast Coffee. — Put half-a-pint, i e., an ordinary tumbler or a breakfastcupful of cold water in the small enamel saucepan. When boiling fast, put in a good dessertspoonful ground coffee. Boil for five minutes with the lid on. Stand for a few moments near the fire to let the grounds settle, then strain into the coffee pot through the coffee strainer. Keep the pot warm near the fire while you bring half-a-pint of milk to the boil If you use Ideal, ODDS AND ENDS. 159 allow two good tablespoonfuls to a small half-pint of water or the coffee will be poor. These quantities will give a breakfastcup-and-a-half of coffee. If sugar is scarce, native honey can be used to sweeten it. Black Coffee. — The best and safest way is to make it one-self. Messrs. Picard, Regent Street, sell a simple one- cup coffee machine, which is excellent, uses very little coffee, and, if the water is brought to you boiling as for tea, your coffee will always be good. Messrs. Picard have also a speciality of ground coffee, which can be sent out fresh every two or three months. If you use an ordinary coffee pot, what is generally known as the French pattern in earthenware or tin, with double strainer, is the best. Allow one dessertspoon of coffee and one coffee cup and a quarter of water for each cup. Put the coffee in the space between the two strainers. Heat the water in the small kettle and as soon as it begins to boil, pour it slowly through the top strainer on to the coffee. Not much more than a teaspoonful should be poured on at a time, and the water in the kettle should be kept boiling. It will take almost six minutes to make a cup, but the full flavour of the coffee will have been brought out. It is as well to stand the pot in a saucepan of hot water while the water is being poured on, especially if several cups are being made. Serve in the coffee pot itself.