The complete Indian housekeeper & cook

For convenience sake also a proportional table is here inserted, giving the ratios required in what may be called foundational cooking in order to secure a good result. With the help of this a fairly intelligent woman will be able to vary her dishes to any extent, and lose nothing for want of knowing how to employ it : — 226 The Indian Housekeeper and Cook Tablk of Propoutions. 1. Batter 2. Cakes 3. Custards . 4. Gelatine Jellies and Creams 5. Farinaceous Shapes 6. Meat Moulds 7. Milk Puddings . 8. Pastry 9. Stock 10. Thickening Baked or boiled, 4 units flour, 8 eggs, IG milk. Frying batter, 1 unit flour, 2 liquid, 2 egg, J oil. Soufflé batter, 1 unit flour, 1 water, ^ butter, 2 egg. (This has to be boiled before frying.) A standard cake, 16 units self-raising flour, 12 sugar, 8 butter, 10 eggs. Baked, 6 units egg to 20 milk ; boiled, 8 to 20. 2 units chip or 1 unit ground gelatine to 20 liquid ; cream, 2 or 1 to 24. Cornflour, IJ unit to 20 of liquid ; rice, 8 to 20 ; sago, 4 to 20 ; ground rice, 6 to 20 ; semolina, 4 to 20 ; arrowroot, 1 to 20 ; tapioca, 3 to 20. Raw meat, 1 unit to 2 milk or stock ; cooked meat, 2 units meat, 1 panade, 1 milk, 1 egg. Cornflour, 1 unit to 20 of liquid ; arrowroot, 1 to 20 ; rice, 3 to 20 ; sago, semolina, and tapioca, 2 to 20 ; macaroni and vermicelli, 4 (solid) to 20. Puff, 4 units butter to 4 flour ; medium, 3 butter, 4 flour ; family, 2 butter, 4 flour ; short, 2 butter, 4 flour, 1 sugar ; suet, 5 suet, 8 flour. Ordinary, 16 units meat or fish (solid) to 44 liquid. Add 8 meat for best consommi. Soups, J to 1 unit flour to 44 liquid ; ordinary sauces, 1 unit flour, 1 butter to 15 liquid ; thick do., to 12 ; thin do., to 20. CHAPTER XXI ADVICE TO THE COORi Most likely you belong to a family of khansdmahs, cooks, and khitmutgdrs; so, of course, it is likely you know a good deal about your business, but it is also certain that you do not know everything. Now it is no disgrace not to know what you have not been taught, but it is a disgrace not to try to learn. There are always new dishes being invented, and every year clever men are finding out the cause of this disease and that disease. Now, as half the illness in the world comes from the stomach, for which it is your business to provide, it stands to reason that a cook ought to do his best to do everything in the best possible way. And it lends to the comfort of the whole house ; for if the dinner is badly cooked, your mistress will be angry, the master will have an indigestion, and be cross ; everything will go wrong, and whose fault will it be ? Yours. All Indian people have a great respect for custom, and like to do as their fathers and grandfathers did. This is right enough, but it does not do to carry it to extremes. For instance, you all use matches. Did your fathers use them } No, because they had never seen them. Did they use kerosene oil ? No, because even in England it had not been discovered. Therefore, the first thing a cook should learn is not to be distrustful of new ways. Many of them save an immense deal of trouble. Supposing, therefore, you are really willing to be cleverer than your fathers were, the first thing you have to learn is to be a great deal cleaner than they thought it necessary to be.