Practical West African cookery

3. If you have no pastry roller, use a bottle rubbed with a little flour to flatten out the ball of dough. Always roll away from, never towards, you, and turn the paste about so that it gets rolled in every direction and has shaped into a broad oval. Roll lightly and quickly and stop as soon as you have obtained the right thickness. The dough can be made before preparing the pie, but it should not be rolled out till you are ready to lay it on the pie dish, Note. Fresh native butter, well washed and drained, can be used with an equal quantity of lard, and greatly improves the crust, especially for a tart. Bread Crumbs. — We mention two kinds in the foregoing recipes, white and brown. The white must be prepared just before using by putting a piece of stale bread in the oven ; take it out as soon as it is dry but has not at all coloured and is still quite white ; crush it by rolling a bottle over it. The brown bread crumbs should be made in advance. Cut thin slices of bread and put them in the oven with any bits of crust. Leave them there till they turn bright yellow and are quite crisp. The oven ought not to be too hot or the bread will burn. Take out the bread and crush it in a mortar or by rolling a bottle over it. If possible, sift the crumbs through a sieve and keep them in a wellcorked bottle. The cook should prepare these crumbs each time he has any bits of bread left over, so as to have a supply always ready. A Few Plain Dishes for Invalids. — We give a rough list of the most suitable recipes, indicating when necessary what ingredients had best be left out. Chicken Broth (page 37) Beef Tea Boiled Egg ... Poached Egg... Boiled Fish ... Plain Macaroni Boiled Chicken Bice Pudding Tapioca Pudding Blanc Mange Plain Custard Caramel Cream Jelly Arrowroot Barley Water Egg Flipp (page 39) (page 58) (page 58) (page 50) (page 68) (page 78) (page 126) (page 126) (page 131) (page 128) (page 129) (page 166) (page 166) (page 166) (page 167) Omit the onions, clove, nutmeg, and use very little pepper. Serve plain with a little boiled [rice. Omit the butter. n n Flavour with vauilla only. Omit the spirits ; could be flavoured with vanilla. Arrowroot. — One dessertspoon arrowroot, one teacup milk (if Ideal, one large dessertspoon to the rest of water), two lumps sugar. Mix the arrowroot to a paste in a cup with two dessertspoons cold milk. Put the remaining milk and the sugar in the small enamel saucepan. When boiling, pour it on to the paste and stir. The arrowroot can then be returned to the saucepan, brought to the boil and allowed to simmer for two minutes, but this is not necessary. Arrowroot can be made with water if no milk is available. Cornflour. — The same proportions and made in the same way as arrowroot, but in this case it is necessary to return the cornflour to the saucepan for an extra boil.