Part 7

_To make Cold Gin Punch._—Rub a few lumps of sugar over the outer peel of a lemon, and place this, with the juice of the lemon, in a jug or bowl, together with enough sugar to make up to three ounces. Add half a pint of gin, a wine-glassful of maraschino, a pint of water, and two bottles of iced soda-water.

_To make Purl._—Beat three eggs to a froth, and well mix them with two ounces of castor sugar and a gill of ale. Heat a quart of ale with a tea-spoonful of powdered nutmeg and a table-spoonful of crushed ginger. Slowly add the hot ale to the ale-and-eggs mixture. Lastly, add a wine-glassful of gin or brandy.

“_For the rest, both the tap and the parlour of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters gave upon the river, and had red curtains matching the noses of the regular customers, and were provided with comfortable fireside utensils, like models of sugar-loaf hats, made in that shape that they might, with their pointed ends, seek out for themselves glowing nooks in the depths, where they mulled your ale, or heated for you those delectable drinks—purls, flip, and dog’s nose. The first of these humming compounds was a specialty of The Porters, which, through an inscription on its door-posts, gently appealed to your feelings as ‘The Early Purl House.’_”

_To make Raspberry Vinegar._—Pour two quarts of best vinegar over one quart of raspberries picked from their stalks but not mashed. Leave them for twenty-four hours. Next day put the vinegar and fruit on the fire till it just boils, and then squeeze it through a cloth. Add two pounds of sugar, and let all simmer for ten minutes. This quantity makes six bottles. A gill of raspberry vinegar mixed into a tumbler of seltzer water makes a most refreshing drink.—_J. R._

_To make Raspberry Vinegar (another recipe)._—Take a quart of raspberries and place them in a jar. Cover them with a pint of vinegar. In three days pour off the vinegar, and replace the raspberries by a fresh lot, again pouring the vinegar over them. In three days pour off the vinegar again, strain it, add a pound of sugar, boil for five minutes, skim it, and bottle it.

_To make Saratoga Cobbler._—Half fill a tumbler with shaved ice, and place therewith a liqueur-glassful each of brandy, whisky, and vermouth, and four drops of angostura bitters. Mix thoroughly, strain, and add a slice of lemon.

_To make Shandy Gaff._—Pour into a tumbler coincidently equal quantities of beer and ginger beer.

_To make Sherbet._—Dry separately a pound of fine castor sugar, half a pound of carbonate of soda, and half a pound of tartaric acid. Add to the sugar a large tea-spoonful of essence of lemon, then add the acid and soda, and well mix. The sherbet should at once be securely bottled, as the least damp destroys its virtue.

_To make Sherry Cobbler._—Half fill a tumbler with shaved ice. Add two wine-glassfuls of sherry and a table-spoonful of castor sugar. Stir. This should be served with straws.

_To make a Syllabub._—Place in a large basin half a pint of sherry and three ounces of castor sugar. Dissolve the sugar, and then add to the mixture a pint of warm milk slowly poured from a height so as to make a froth.

_To make Tewahdiddle._—“This is a right gossip’s cup, that far exceeds all the ale that ever Mother Bunch made in her lifetime.” To half a pint of beer add a dessert-spoonful of brandy, half a tea-spoonful of brown sugar, a slice of lemon and some nutmeg grated. It may be drunk cold, or the beer may be heated before mixing.

_To make a bowl of Wassail._—“_At night to sup, and then to cards, and last of all, to have a flaggon of ale and apples, drunk out of a wood cup, as a Christmas draught, which made all merry._” Boil a quarter of an ounce each of bruised ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and a couple each of cloves, corianders, and cardamoms in three-quarters of a tumblerful of water for ten minutes. Add a quart of ale, a bottle of sherry, and from half a pound to a pound of sugar. Heat, but do not get too near the boiling-point. Then beat the yolks of six eggs and the whites of three eggs, and throw them into the bowl. Slowly add half the heated ale and wine, stirring all the while. Bring the remainder to the boil and pour it also in the bowl. Lastly, throw into the bowl six roasted apples which had been cored and stuffed with sugar and think of Puck’s confession—

“Sometimes lurk I in a gossip’s bowl, In very likeness of a roasted crab, And, when she drinks, against her lips I bob, And in her wither’d dewlaps pour the ale!”

HINTS FOR REFRESHMENTS AT A GARDEN-PARTY OR PICNIC

IT may be useful to give a general idea of the quantities required in providing for a party of, say, eighty guests.

Five gallons of tea, allowing five ounces of good tea to each gallon. Six gallons of coffee, half to be served hot with milk, and half to be served iced, allowing eight ounces of coffee to each gallon. Three gallons of claret-cup, allowing for each gallon four bottles of claret and four bottles of soda-water. Twelve quarts of water-ice; six quarts to be of lemon ice and six of strawberry ice. Twelve dishes of sandwiches, of different kinds; these are sure to be popular, and a tolerable supply should be kept in reserve. Four dishes of rolled brown bread and butter, and the same quantity of white. Eight pounds of plum-cake cut up into small thick pieces. Six pounds of freshly made sponge finger biscuits. Two or more bowls of _macédoine_ of fruit. Oatcake cut into long fingers and spread with Devonshire cream is popular, and so are small scones split open and filled with Devonshire cream. A few kinds of sandwiches suitable for garden-parties may be mentioned here.

_Salad Sandwiches._—Use watercress picked from the hard stems, mustard and cress, or shred lettuce leaves. Spread the bread with _maître d’hôtel_ butter. For this, add to two ounces of butter the juice of one lemon, a dessert-spoonful of chopped parsley leaf freed from all moisture, a pinch of white pepper, and a pinch of salt.

_Cucumber Sandwiches._—Pare the cucumber, and just before the sandwiches are wanted cut it into very thin slices. Place the cucumber between thin pieces of white bread and butter stamped out with a round cutter.

_Rolled Sandwiches._—Pound in a mortar two ounces of cooked tongue or ham freed from skin and fat, a quarter of a pound of cooked chicken or turkey, two table-spoonfuls of _maître d’hôtel_ butter, one ounce of plain butter, and six table-spoonfuls of fine white of bread-crumbs. When the mixture is smooth, add a dust of pepper and a small pinch of salt, and pass it through a sieve. Sprinkle a few bread-crumbs lightly on a pastry-board, take a little of the mixture, and pat it out with a knife dipped in hot water. Make it two inches and a half long, and one inch and a half wide. Trim the edges, and raise it carefully from the board with the knife, rolling it over as you raise it. If the mixture is too moist add a few more bread-crumbs, but if it is too dry it will break and not roll. Dish the rolls on a bed or cress.

_Green Sandwich Rolls._—Pound the yolk of a hard-boiled egg with a quarter of a pound of butter, six sprigs of watercress, and six sprigs of parsley. Blanch the watercress and parsley by throwing them for five minutes into boiling water. Press them dry in a cloth, but do not squeeze them. Then add a dust of pepper and salt, and six table-spoonfuls of brown bread-crumbs; and when the mixture is smooth roll it as in the former recipe.

_Sweet Sandwiches_ can be made of any jam or marmalade. They are better without butter, and the preserve should be very lightly spread. They should be about four inches long and one inch wide. Chocolate, melted in a little hot milk, and spread between slices of stale sponge cake, makes a popular sandwich.

_Macédoine of Fruit._—Put three lumps of sugar and the thinly pared rind of half a lemon into a quarter or a pint of water, and boil it for ten minutes. Then add, if possible, twelve raspberries. If raspberries cannot be had, add the juice of the half lemon. Let it boil up, skim it, and set it on ice till quite cold. Then add a dessert-spoonful of good brandy. Put into a china bowl currants freed from their stalks, raspberries and strawberries picked from their stems, peaches and apricots stoned and cut into quarters, black and white grapes, and a few mulberries. Crack the stones of the peaches and apricots, peel the kernels, and add them to the fruit in the bowl. Set the bowl on ice. Ten minutes before the _macédoine_ is wanted, pour the cold syrup gently over the fruit, and keep the bowl on a dish filled with crushed ice. Help the _macédoine_ with a soup-ladle instead of a spoon.

_Travellers’ Sandwiches._—These are so often coarsely and carelessly made that the traveller on whom the sandwiches are bestowed flies in disgust to the dainties of the railway refreshment-room. Sandwiches should be packed in the paper known as “butter paper,” and if they have to be cut some time before they are wanted, they should be kept under a damp cloth, as they soon become dry if covered with a dish. A small leaf of young lettuce, or a little cress, improves most sandwiches.

_Ham Sandwiches._—Work a little mustard into the butter you mean to use, and butter both the slices of bread on one side. Lay a thin slice of ham between the pieces of buttered bread, and press the sandwiches under a light weight.

_Beef Sandwiches._—Prepare these in the same way, but add a little grated horseradish to the butter as well as the mustard.

_Chicken Sandwiches._—Use slices of chicken and ham, or chicken and tongue, or pound the two together. Spread a little _maître d’hôtel_ butter on the bread.

_Gladstone Sandwiches._—Use crisp toast instead of bread, butter the toast with _maître d’hôtel_ butter, and cover it with finely shred celery. Cold game is best for these sandwiches.

_Travellers’ Rolls._—Make dinner rolls the size and shape of an egg, scoop out part of the crumb, and fill the space with pounded cooked meat moistened with _maître d’hôtel_ butter, and well mixed with shred lettuce, mustard and cress, or sliced cucumber.

_Egg Sandwiches._—Put some fresh eggs into water which is already boiling fast, and let them boil for fifteen minutes. Peel off the shells, cut the eggs into slices lengthwise (not across, or the yolk and white will not be equally divided), and place them between slices of bread and butter. Mix both salt and pepper into the butter before you spread it. Or pound the eggs when they are cold and shelled, pounding the white and the yolk together in a mortar. Add a little butter, salt, pepper, and a dust of cayenne, and spread the mixture on thin slices of bread.

_Cheese and Celery Sandwiches._—Mix freshly grated cheese with an ounce of butter till it becomes a thick paste. Spread this on thin slices of bread, and cover it with celery shred as finely as possible.

_Beef Roll._—This is excellent for a journey if cut into sandwiches.

Mince very finely one pound of raw beefsteak and a quarter of a pound of cooked ham. The meat should be passed twice through the mincing machine. Add to the meat one well-beaten egg and two ounces of dried and sifted bread-crumbs. Season with pepper and salt, but be careful not to put too much. Then mix all well together with a wooden spoon. Shape the meat into a roll, and tie it up in a cloth, fastening the ends tightly. Boil the roll for three hours, and glaze it. When cut up into sandwiches, the mustard spread on the meat should be mixed with water in which a little horseradish has been grated.

_Out-of-Door Meals._—A good way of packing a light summer luncheon is to take two strong biscuit-tins of the two-pound size, then to line them with lettuce leaves at the bottom and sides, and finally to arrange packets of sandwiches in one tin, with more lettuce to cover them. In the other tin set a loaf of bread and a plain luncheon cake, with a good clasp knife, and pack the space left with fruit and whole tomatoes. Bottles of cold tea should be taken in another basket, with a bottle or two of claret or light beer, and a few tumblers. For a boating-trip lasting a day or two the following suggestions may be found useful. When you encamp by the riverside, and your fire is burning, put on the saucepan with ten potatoes roughly peeled, three unpeeled onions, and a couple of carrots sliced. Pour in just enough water to cover the vegetables, and boil them for twenty minutes, keeping the lid of the saucepan tightly closed. After twenty minutes pour off the water, and put into the saucepan the contents of a one-pound tin of haricot-mutton, or beef, or Irish stew, and stir in two large spoonfuls of Bovril or Liebig’s Essence of Meat. If Worcester sauce is liked, add a tea-spoonful of that. Stir all well together, and continue to stir the stew over a hot fire for five or six minutes. This makes a good dinner for two hungry men. If you can buy from a neighbouring garden some young potatoes and carrots use twenty of each. Do not peel the potatoes, only wash them and rub them with a coarse cloth. In washing up after such a meal use absolutely boiling water, for merely _hot_ water is of no use. Fill your saucepan or cooking-pot with water, and when it boils scour it round a few times with a piece of house-flannel tied firmly to a stick. Do the same to the frying-pan. Put metal cups and plates into boiling water, also the blades of knives and the prongs of forks (keeping the handles out of the water). In this way they will soon be quite clean, and after a final dip in the river, and a rub with a dry cloth, they will shine like silver. If a bit of bacon can be procured do not fry it, but toast it on a toasting-fork before a clear part of the fire. The rashers of bacon should be cut thin, and they will be sufficiently toasted when the fat looks transparent. A gingerbread loaf, made according to the following family recipe, is useful for boating-trips, as the longer it lasts the better it is. Two pounds of brown flour, two pounds of treacle, a quarter of a pound of brown sugar, a breakfast-cupful of cream, two eggs, a tea-spoonful of carbonate of soda dissolved in a little hot water, two ounces and a half of ground ginger, and a little chopped citron. Mix all well together, and bake in a moderately hot oven.

_Cold Tea._—Cold tea, properly made, is much appreciated on journeys, and is generally liked by shooting-parties on hot days. But good cold tea cannot be made by filling bottles with the remains of the tea at breakfast. Cold tea should be drunk unsweetened, and if carelessly made it is flat and unpalatable. Wide-mouthed glass bottles with screw-tops, such as are sold for jam, are the best to use. Cold tea should be made from the best tea and freshly boiling water; it should stand four minutes only, and should then be poured into the bottles through a tin strainer. A couple of lemons and a sharp clasp-knife should be packed in the basket with the bottles of tea, and a little metal box of sugar can be added for those who like it.

_Iced Coffee._—Make strong coffee from freshly ground berries, add cold milk and a little sifted sugar. Put the coffee into glass jugs, and set these on ice for at least two hours before use. If pieces of ice are put into the coffee the flavour is spoilt.

_Water Biscuits. Family Recipes._—(1) One pound of fine flour and two ounces of butter well rubbed together. Add a pinch of salt. Mix with cold water to a very stiff paste, and beat it well with a rolling-pin. Break the paste into pieces the size of a walnut, and roll each into a round. Prick each biscuit with a biscuit-pricker. Put them on a very hot baking-sheet, and bake in a very quick oven.

(2) Rub an ounce of butter into a handful of fine flour. Make it into a stiff, smooth paste with warm milk and the white of an egg beaten to a froth. Beat the paste with a rolling-pin for half an hour or longer, for the delicacy of the biscuits depends upon the length of time they are beaten. Then take small pieces of the paste and roll them out to the size of a saucer. They must be so thin as to be almost transparent. Bake the biscuits very lightly.

Water biscuits are often liked at dinner instead of bread or toast.

ICE CREAMS

VERY good small refrigerators may now be bought, and are very useful both for the manufacture of ice and of ice creams, as well as for freezing puddings or cooling drinks. The following recipes are for a few of the more popular ice creams.

_To make Strawberry Ice Cream._—To three-quarters of a pound of strawberries add half a pound of sugar (or a pound of strawberry jam may be used instead of fruit and sugar), and rub through a hair sieve. Add a pint of rich cream, and very little cochineal. Well mix, and freeze. Raspberry ice cream may be made in the same way.

_To make Vanilla Ice Cream._—Make a custard with the yolks of five eggs and a pint of milk, and add two ounces of castor sugar and a little vanilla. Cool, and partly freeze. Then add and well mix half a pint of cream, and freeze.

_To make Maraschino Ice Cream._—Mix a pint of cream, a quarter of a pound of castor sugar, the juice of half a lemon, and two wine-glassfuls of maraschino, and freeze.

_To make Coffee Ice Cream._—Mix half a pint of very strong, good coffee with the yolks of six eggs, six ounces of castor sugar, and a pint of cream, and freeze.

_To make Lemon Ice Cream._—Rub castor sugar over the rind of two lemons, making the sugar up to six ounces. Mix this sugar with the juice of the lemons and a pint of cream, and freeze.

FOOD FOR INVALIDS

IT may not be out of place to give a few well-tried recipes for the benefit of invalids.

_Beef-tea._—Procure beef which has been freshly killed. Take one pound of beef free from the least particle of fat, gristle, sinew, or skin. Mince it with a knife, not with a machine. Put the beef into one pint of cold water, and stir for ten minutes. Bring it to the boil, and boil it for half an hour, never ceasing to stir it. Strain, and add a dust of salt only. Serve with strips of dry toast, and salt in a salt-cellar.

_Cold Beef-tea._—This can be digested by persons who cannot take the usual beef-tea. Mince one pound of raw beef as finely as possible. Pour upon it one quart of boiling water. Plunge the jar in a deep saucepan ready filled with boiling water. Set it near the fire, but not so close as to make it simmer. Draw the saucepan gradually away from the fire, and let the beef-tea get nearly cold. Then strain it through muslin, and after that filter it through clean white blotting-paper. Serve cold.

_Chicken Broth._—Roast a chicken for fifteen minutes, not longer. Cut it into slices, and put it into a saucepan with three pints of cold water. Season very lightly with pepper and salt. Bring it gradually to the boil, and let it simmer very gently. An old fowl will take from four to six hours, a young one will need three hours. Strain, and take off every particle of fat. The previous roasting of the chicken is a great improvement. If the broth is liked thick, simmer in it two ounces of crushed tapioca or sago.

_Nourishing Broth._—Make the chicken broth as in the foregoing recipe, but when the chicken is put into the saucepan to simmer, add to it two pounds of fresh shin of beef, without fat, and cook the chicken and beef together. Or, if the chicken cannot be had, use a knuckle of veal. Put the beef and veal into five quarts of cold water. Add a little salt, bring the broth to the boil, and simmer slowly. The beef and veal must be simmered in five quarts of water till this is gradually reduced to three pints of broth. Strain, and remove any fat.

_Chicken Food for an Invalid._—Take a good chicken and remove all the white meat. Cut up the remainder into small pieces, and stew it in a quart of water till it is reduced one-third. Let it cool. Then remove every particle of fat or grease. Put in the white meat of the chicken, and simmer gently for fifteen minutes. Then pound it to a paste in a mortar. Return the pounded meat to the broth, and again simmer as gently as possible for fifteen minutes more. Season with just a dust of pepper and salt, and serve cold in a small mould.

_Mutton Cutlet for an Invalid._—Take three of the nicest cutlets from the best part of a neck of mutton. Trim one cutlet very neatly, and trim the other two so that when placed together the outer cutlets will project beyond the middle one. Tie the three together, the cutlet intended for the invalid being in the centre. Turn all three with cutlet-tongs over and over till they are done. All the gravy will be concentrated in the middle cutlet. Send this to the invalid on a hot-water plate, and use the other cutlets in the dining-room.

_Savoury Custard for an Invalid._—Take two eggs, using both whites and both yolks, and the yolks only of two more eggs. Beat them well with one gill of clear beef-tea, but do not add any salt. Put the custard into a well-buttered basin, cover the top with a buttered paper, set the basin in a pan of boiling water, and let it steam slowly. It will take about fifteen minutes. Let the custard get quite cold, then turn it out and cut it into diamonds with a cutter. Serve salt and pepper with the custard.

_The Invalid’s Yorkshire Pudding._—Mix the yolks of two eggs into two good table-spoonfuls of flour. Beat the whites of the eggs lightly, and stir all together. Bake for ten minutes in rather a quick oven.

_Restorative Jelly._—Take two ounces of isinglass [in these days gelatine must be used], two ounces of white sugar candy, and half an ounce of gum arabic, grated. Steep these ingredients in a pint of port wine poured over them in an earthenware jar. Let it stand twelve hours. Put the jar in a saucepan of cold water, and let the water get gradually warm. Then simmer as slowly as possible, and continue simmering till the isinglass or gelatine is quite melted. The jelly will be thick. Do not strain it, but break up a table-spoonful at a time for use.

_Rice Jelly._—Well wash half a pound of Carolina rice and boil it with a strip of lemon-peel for one hour in two quarts of water. Pass it through a sieve, and let it cool. When cold it will be a firm jelly. Add one pint of milk to the rice jelly, and boil all together till the rice resembles thickened milk. Stir constantly with a wooden spoon. Strain it, sweeten it a little, and serve warm.

_Calves’-foot Jelly._—This is much better when the “set” of feet is prepared at home and not sent in ready for use by the butcher. First wash each foot separately and very thoroughly, then scald each in boiling water, and scrape off all the hair. Remove any fat from the clefts of the hoof. Put the feet into a stone jar, cover them with one gallon of cold water, bring it to the boil, and then either let it simmer for six hours or tie stout brown paper over the jar, and put it into the oven for three hours. Then strain the jelly through a sieve into an earthenware bowl. Let it get cold, then take off the fat at the top. Break up the jelly, being careful not to touch the sediment at the bottom of the bowl. The four feet ought to yield about two quarts of jelly. Do not clear the jelly, but add a little lemon juice as flavouring. Some invalids like a little of this jelly warmed as broth; in this case omit the lemon-peel, and use as flavouring a tea-spoonful of thyme leaves finely minced and sewn up in a bit of muslin, removing the muslin before the jelly is strained.