Apple Pie. Prepare the apples, by peeling and removing the cores, and cutting them into eight pieces, moisten the edge of the dish with a little butter and lay a slip of puff paste round it. Ar range a layer of apples at the bottom, then sugar, and flavor with cinnamon, cloves, lemon-peel, orange-peel, candied citron, or whatever flavor ing you prefer; a little quince is a great improve ment. Keep adding the apples till the dish is full and well heaped up in the center. Cover with puff paste and decorate the top. Cream is a good addition to apple pie. In baking pies and tarts a light crust is essential.
Plain Cake. Take half a quartern of common paste, four eggs, a quarter of a pound of sugar, a quarter of a pound of butter, or dripping, a quarter of a pound of currants, carefully washed and dried, and a little salt. Break the paste lightly in a basin, put in the sugar, the butter, and two eggs, thoroughly mix the whole together, then add the other two eggs, one at a time, work the mixture well, and, lastly, work in the cur rants. Fill a plain mould, previously buttered, with the mixture, and set it in a warm place to rise. As soon as it has risen put it into a mod erate oven to bake to a brown color. The chief thing is to carefully mix the ingredients.
Seed Cake. Mix a half pound of pounded loaf sugar with two pounds of flour in a large bowl or pan. Make a hole in the center, and pour into it a half pint of lukewarm milk and two spoonfuls of yeast. Draw a little of the sur rounding flour into this, and throwing a cloth over the vessel, set it in a warm place for an hour or two. Then add half a pound of butter just liquefied, an ounce of caraway seeds, a little allspice, ginger, and very little nutmeg, and milk sufficient to make the whole of a proper stiffness. Mix it thoroughly; butter a plain mould, and pour in the mixture; let it stand half an hour at the mouth of the oven to rise, and then bake it. Be careful to prove your yeast before using it. Ginger Cakes. Take one pound of flour, twelve ounces of fresh butter, twelve ounces of pounded loaf-sugar, two ounces of best ground ginger, add the yolks of eight eggs. Work the whole of these together on a paste board or slab, and after having gathered the paste up into a compact mass, separate it by cutting with a round patty cutter, and then place them on a slightly buttered baking sheet. Bake them to a light brown color in a moderate oven. The ingredients must be thoroughly well mixed.
Boasting, Baking, Broiling, and Boiling.' Beef constitutes by far the larger portion of animal food consumed by man; and in selecting a piece of beef or mutton, see that the grain is not too coarse, that the meat is of a bright red color, soft to the touch, and that the fat is nicely intermixed with the lean. Mutton and beef will be more tender if the weather will admit of their being hung, knuckle downwards, some days before cooking; but two days in summer are often equal to a week in winter. The flavor and the quality of meat will depend on the breed, age, and food. The lean is the muscular part of the animal, and consists of fibrin, gelatine, and albumen. Ex periments, which have been carefully made, show that a sirloin of beef, weighing twelve pounds, lost in roasting forty-four ounces, of which twenty-seven were water and seventeen fat or dripping. A flank of beef, weighing twelve pounds, made into pot-au-feu, or bouilli, lost twenty-five ounces. It is therefore quite clear that boiling, especially when the liquor is turned to an account, as it should be, is the most eco nomic kind of cooking. When meat is boiled, much of the albumen remains in the water, and when flavored with vegetables and herbs, and thickened with meal, you have a highly nutri tious soup, much used in every country except our own. Glue is an impure gelatine. The white of egg is nearly a pure albumen ; this albu men surrounds the fibers of the meat; and the stringy threads of stewed meat afford an exam ple of fibrin. The osmazome is that extract or essence which gives meat its peculiar odor and taste by long stewing. The osmazome is dis solved in the water, and this is the secret of all meat flavors in soup. Roasting appears to exalt
the flavor of meat more than any other method of cooking. The best joints for roasting are the ribs and fillet, the rump and sirloin; for mak ing soup, the neck, tail, and tops of ribs; and for stewing all the inferior pieces. To roast properly a good fire is most important: it should be evenly lighted, bright and radiant, and never allowed to get low. No reliable time can be given for roasting, because the nature and the qualities of meat vary. About two hours for seven pounds of beef, and one hour and three quarters for a leg of mutton of the same weight, or roughly, about a quarter of an hour to the pound, will generally be found sufficient. To tell whether the meat is done, press the fleshy part with the thumb; if the meat yield to the pressure it is done. In the case of poultry or game, the flesh of the leg may be tried in the same manner. Cooks attach importance to the steams drawing to the fire. When the meat is nearly done, remove the buttered paper, if any has been used, and sprinkle over the meat a little salt, and put the ends of the joint to the fire; well baste the meat, and endeavor to obtain a clear brown color before the fire. If you wish the meat to be frothed, dredge very lightly a little well-dried flour over the surface, and give it time to crisp; do not baste after the flour. Practice is the only way to learn to roast prop erly. In the United States but little roasting is done before an open fire. Meats are baked. The general principles, however, are the same. Broiling is a very acceptable kind of cooking when well done, but anything broiled requires constant watching. It is an easy method of making•a small portion of fish or meat savory, and may be recommended to bachelors. It is not the cooking for families. Things broiled should be turned with steak tongs; a fork should on no account be used; and without a clear, bright fire broiling is impossible. The principle is the same as roasting; the albumen of the meat or fish is coagulated, which forms a crust, and so retains all the juices. Delicate appetites are often en couraged with a nice broiled fish. The bars of gridirons are often too large a!d obstruct much of the heat. The gridiron should be very clean, and if bright when purchased it should be kept so, and always be washed before putting away. Before putting anything on the grid iron let it get thoroughly hot; the reason for this is obvious; much of the heat of the fire is conducted away by the iron, and if a piece of meat be placed on at once the albumen coagu lates but slowly, and allows the juices to drop into the fire instead of being preserved in the meat. When your gridiron is thoroughly clean and warm, rub the bars with a piece of suet, this prevents the meat sticking and coming to table with black stripes. If you like the flavor, just rub the gridiron with a clove of garlic, or escha lot. Perpendicular gridirons are objectionable, because there is always a current of cold air on one side of the thing broiled. For fish, the grid iron should be rubbed with chalk; as the things broiled are usually small they should be served on a very hot dish. When the fat smokes and blazes too much remove the gridiron 'or an in stant, and just sprinkle the fire with a little salt. Arrange your gridiron, if possible, so that it may be from two to five inches above the fire and slightly inclined toward the cook. In rela tion to boiling, some cooks think; after a piece of meat has been placed in the saucepan, it requires no more attention, but boiling re quires as much care as almost auy kind of cook ing. If you wish to retain all the flavors and juices of the meat plunge it into soft boiling water, and after three minutes stand it aside to simmer, at about 170° or 180°. Always remem ber that a boiling temperature coagulates the albumen on the surface. If you want to make stock or broth, on no account allow the water to boil; the scum must always be removed, and a little cold water facilitates its rising. Some cooks boil mutton and fowls in a floured cloth, to make them look whiter, but its utility is very doubtful.