Cassell's dictionary of cookery

Take some biscuits a la cuillere {see the preceding recipe). Line a form with them, placing them as close as possible, so that they may form a complete case. Peel and slice a dozen apples, and stew them in a little butter. Fill the form with the apples, leaving a space in the centre. Fill this space with a marmalade of apricots, cherries, or quinces. Turn out the charlotte on a dish, and serve cold. Russian Jelly. — Take the remains of jelly of any kind, put it in a bowl, and set it in a pan of hot water until dissolved. Put the basin upon ice, and whisk the jelly briskly till it begins to stiffen and form a creamy froth, then pour it at once into a mould set in ice. - When it is firm turn it out. When convenient, two or three kinds of jelly appropriately flavoured can be mixed together. Russian mode of Preserving Fruit. — A method of preserving fruit, in extensive use in Russia, consists in moistening quicklime with water containing a little creosote, so as to cause it to fall into powder. The fruit is packed in a wooden box, the bottom of which is filled in to the depth of an inch with the lime. The stratum is covered with a sheet of paper, and the fruit laid upon this, each piece by itself, so that no one touches another. A sheet of paper is placed on the top of this layer of fruit and then a second layer of lime is sifted in. In this way lime, paper, and fruit alternately till the box is filled. The corners are then filled with finely-powdered charcoal. By covering the box with a tightly-fitting top, the fruit can, it is said, be kept fresh for at least a year. Russian Polony.— Russian polony should be made of hard old Belfast hams, which are easily procured, and from beef, which is to be prepared in the following manner : — Take a smaU round, or part of a large one, of ox beef (for the udder of the cow cannot be used here) ; rub it all over with conunon salt, and scatter more under and over it ; so let it lie four days. Then wipe it, and put it into the following pickle, in a deep pan : — Water that has boiled . 1 gallon Common salt . . . 2 lbs. Saltpetre . . . . 2 ounces Bay-salt .... 2 lbs. Let it lie fourteen days more covered with pickle. Take it out and wipe it well; tie string round it, and hang it to smoke for twenty days in a powerful smoke, turning it often ; and when taken from the chimney hang it in a warm dry room a three weeks longer to harden. Take then an equal weight of ham and beef, and cut off all the hard fat, which put aside. Cut up the meat in small pieces, and leave no skinny or fibrous parts in it. Beat, each separately in a mortar until very fine, and work it into a consistence; being completely mixed, add finely-ground black pepper, and then cut your hard fat up into small squares the size of a pea, and mix these generally and equally throughout the mass. Dissolve gum-dragon so that it is very thick, and work it amongst the meat until the paste has become just soft enough to stuff the skins, which must be the largest you can get, and, taken from largo oxen. Great care must be taken in filling them, so that the meat may soon be united into a solid mass, which can only be effected by force ; the skins must then be well tied up, and himg to dry ; they must be smoked for a fortnight, and kept three months in a dry closet.