A year's cookery

Dinner. — Fried Plaice (April 21st); Calf’s Liver and Bacon (January 17th). Mutton Chops, Stewed in their own Gravy. — Trim away the fat entirely, dip each chop quickly in and out of cold water, sprinkle pepper lightly upon it, and dredge it well on both sides with flour. For each chop that is to be cooked put a table¬ spoonful of water or broth into a thick iron saucepan, lay the chops side by side in a single layer, put on the lid, and simmer as gently as possible, but without ceasing, for an hour and a half. Turn them over when half cooked. Just before serving throw a tea-spoonful of chopped parsley into the gravy. If the gravy should be dried up, another spoonful or two of water may be added, but there will not be much fear of this if the chops are gently stewed. Chops prepared in this way are tender and easily digested, and suitable for invalids. New Potatoes (April 12th); Spring Cabbages (June 4th); Hydro¬ pathic Pudding (June 16th); Custard (August 10th); Cheese (June 8th). _ Things that must not be Forgotten. 1. Make a veal cake of the remains of the dressed veal (Note 1, May 28th). 2. Turn and rub the beef in the brine. 3. Pastry is to be made to-day : gooseberry pie of bottled goose¬ berries, or of fresh gooseberries if the season is an early one (August 7th) ; lemon cheesecakes (August 18th) ; treacle tart (August 7tli) ; also Vienna bread (August 26th) ; Annie’s cake (September 25th). Rough Puff Paste. — Many housekeepers would consider puff paste (April 24tli) too troublesome to make, as well as too expensive, and, it might be added, too indigestible to be used excepting on very special occasions. When this is the case the directions given in the following recipe may be followed, and the pastry will be found excellent, being suited for superior pies, tarts, and tartlets. Put half a pound of fine flour (Vienna flour if it is allowed) upon a board, with six ounces of butter, and chop the butter in the flour with a knife. A dexterous cook may break, not rub, the butter in the flour. Make a well in the centre of the flour, and drop into it half a tea-spoonful of lemon-juice, a pinch of salt, and the yolk of an egg. The latter may be omitted. Mix the pastry lightly with water ; the water should be added gradually and mixed in with the fingers. Keep the board and the hand floured, to prevent the pastry sticking to it. The pastry should not be too stiff, or it will not be light. Flour the rollingpin and give the pastry three good rolls, and after each roll fold the pastry over in half and turn the rough edges to the front. If the pastry bladders or cracks as it is rolled, it is a sign that it is good. To make a pie, moisten the edge of the dish, and lay on it a strip of paste three-quarters of an inch thick. Moisten the edge again, and roll the paste for the top, but much thinner than for the strip. Brush the top, but not the sides, of the pastry over with yolk of egg, and bake it in a well-heated but not fierce oven. The oven must not be fierce because the pastry is to rise ; if too hot it would stiffen the surface at once without giving it a chance of rising. When the pastry is done enough the pie should be put in the top or cooler part of the oven to cook the inside. An easy way of making Puff Paste is to brush white of egg over the paste between the turns.