Culinary jottings

in, see that the flour is good and dry, the butter firm and free from moisture, and fill two shallow baking-tins with broken ice. Put the flour on a cool slab, mixing into it a heaped up tea-spoonful of the baking powder ; when mixed, form the flour in a ring, as it were, and in the centre throw the yolk of an egg and a tea-spoonful of salt ; add a little iced water, and gradually work the flour into it from the inside of the ring, sprinkling additional water as you require it — about one breakfast- cupful altogether — until you have a smooth, fine dough, free from all stickiness. Pat this into a lump, and put it in the ice-box for a quarter of an hour, then roll it out about the size of a dinner plate : put the butter upon it, and wrap the edges of the dough over it, carefiilly covering it : now turn it upside down, and roll it out very thin ; reverse it again, and fold it in three. Place it after this on a baking-sheet over one of the pans of broken ice, and put the other pan of ice upon it. Repeat this cooling process between each double turn, and use as soon as possible when five turns have been completed. Although composed for English and American kitchens, observe the use of ice advocated in this receipt. Instead of the butter I would try the clarified beef suet, that is to say, if I were unable to procure butter of undeniable quality, firm, cold, and quite free from water. The next description of pastry that demands our attention is that which should be used for savoury pies, to wit: — PIE -CRUST. In this, I think, Ramasamy needs careful instruction. He makes no difference between his savoury pie " suet-crust," and that which he sends up under the name of a vol-au-vent. His chief aim being a piecovering, raised an inch and a half or two inches high, composed of the harsh, talc-like layers to which I have already alluded. I need hardly point out that this is an entirely erroneous impression. Think of the cold pigeon- pie at home, and you will remember no 'puff pastry : your mind's eye will rather picture a close crust about half, or three-quarters of an inch thick, glazed externally, with egg and with the feet of the birds peeping' invitingly from the centre : a firm plain paste that you cut out in a whole piece without its breaking into fragments ; pale brown and crusty externally, and soft and white internally, with bits of jelly adhering to it. Well, that is the kind of crust that I am so anxious to impart to Ramasamy, for which the following recipe is, I think, reliable : — Put one pound of well-dried and sifted flour on the slab, or in an enamelled basin ; make a hollow in the centre, and work into it a quarter of a pound of cold clarified suet cut into pieces, adding a tea-spoonful of salt. When mixed, sprinkle over it as much iced water as will bind it thoroughly : dredge some flour over the slab, and roll the paste out half an inch thick. Cut up another quarter of a pound of clarified suet, and dot it over the surface of the paste, fold the paste over it, and roll it out again very thin ; fold it in three, set it in the ice-box for ten minutes, give it three more turns, and then roll it out half an inch thick when it may be cut to cover the pie.