The Healthy Life Cook Book Part 9

10. BLANC MANGE, AGAR-AGAR.

1/4 oz. prepared agar-agar, 1-1/2 pints milk, sugar, flavouring.

Soak a vanilla pod, cinnamon stick, or strip of fresh lemon rind in the cold milk until flavoured to taste. Add sugar to taste. Put in a saucepan with the agar-agar, and simmer until dissolved (about 30 minutes). Pour through a hot strainer into wet mould. Turn out when cold.

11. CHOCOLATE JELLY.

1/4 oz. prepared agar-agar, 2 sticks chocolate, 1-1/2 pints milk, 1 tablespoon sugar, vanilla flavouring.

Soak a vanilla pod in the cold milk for 2 hours. Soak the agar-agar in cold water for half an hour. Squeeze water out and pull to pieces. Put it into saucepan with 1 gill milk and 1/2 gill water. Stand on one side of stove and let simmer very gently until quite dissolved. Meanwhile, dissolve chocolate in rest of milk, adding the sugar. Pour the agar-agar into the boiling chocolate through a hot strainer. This is necessary as there is generally a little tough sc.u.m on the liquid. (If put through a cold strainer, the agar-agar will set as it goes through.) When jelly is quite cold, turn out and serve.

12. CORNFLOUR SHAPE.

Stew some juicy plums or apples slowly to a pulp with sugar to taste. If apples are used, add cloves or a little grated lemon rind for flavouring.

To every pint of fruit pulp allow a level tablespoon of cornflour.

Dissolve the cornflour in a little cold water and stir into the boiling apple. Boil for 5 minutes, stirring all the time. Pour into a wet mould.

Turn out and serve when cold.

13. CUSTARD, BOILED.

1 pint milk, 2 eggs, 1 tablespoon castor sugar, flavouring.

Put some thin strips of the yellow part of a lemon rind, or a vanilla pod, in the cold milk. Allow to stand 1 hour or more. Then take out the peel, add the sugar, and put over the fire in a double saucepan, if possible.

Bring to the boil. Beat the eggs. Take the milk off the fire, let it stop boiling, and pour it slowly into the eggs, beating all the time. Put back into the saucepan over a slow fire and stir until the mixture thickens (about 20 minutes).

14. CUSTARD, HOGAN.

1 qt. milk, 8 eggs, 12 lumps sugar, 1 large tablespoon cornflour.

Flavour milk as in Boiled Custard. Put nearly all the milk and all the sugar into a 3-pint jug and stand in a saucepan of boiling water. While this is heating beat the eggs in one basin, and mix the cornflour with the remainder of the milk in another. Add the eggs to hot milk, stirring all the time, and finally add the cornflour. Stir until the mixture thickens (about 20 minutes).

15. DATE PUDDING.

This recipe is inserted especially for those who object to the use of manufactured sugar.

1/2 lb. "Ixion" plain wholemeal biscuits, 1/2 lb. dates, 2 ozs. nutter, 1 heaped tablespoon wholemeal flour, grated rind of 2 lemons, water.

Grind the biscuits to flour in the food-chopper. Wash, stone, and chop the dates. Grate off the yellow part of the lemon rinds. Rub the nutter into the biscuit-powder. Add dates, lemon peel, and flour. Mix with enough water to make a paste stiff enough for the spoon to just stand up in alone. Be very particular about this, as the tendency is to add rather too little than too much water, owing to the biscuit-powder absorbing it more slowly. Put into a greased pudding-basin or mould. Steam or boil for 5 hours. "Ixion Kornules" may be used instead of the biscuits, if preferred.

They save the labour of grinding, but they need soaking for an hour in cold water before using. Well squeeze, add the other ingredients, and moisten with the water squeezed from the kornules.

_Another method_.--Use the recipe for Plum Pudding, leaving out all the dried fruit, almonds and sugar, subst.i.tuting in their place 1 lb. dates or figs.

16. FIG PUDDING.

Use the recipe for Date Pudding, subst.i.tuting for the dates washed chopped figs.

17. JAM ROLL, BOILED.

Make a short crust, roll out, spread with home-made jam, roll up, carefully fastening ends, and tie loosely in a floured pudding-cloth. Put into fast-boiling water and boil for 1 hour.

18. JAM ROLL, BAKED.

Mix the paste for the crust just a little stiffer than for the boiled pudding. Spread with jam and roll up. Bake on a greased tin for half-an-hour.

19. MILK PUDDINGS.

Nearly every housewife makes milk puddings, but only one in a hundred can make them properly. When cooked, the grains should be quite soft and encased with a rich thick cream. Failure to produce this result simply indicates that the pudding has been cooked too quickly, or that the proportion of grain to milk is too large.

Allow 2 level tablespoons, not a grain more, of cereal (rice, sago, semolina, tapioca) and 1 level tablespoon sugar to every pint of milk. Put in a pie-dish with a vanilla pod or some strips of lemon rind, and stand for an hour in a warm place, on the hob for example. Then take out the pod or peel and put into a fairly hot oven. As soon as the pudding boils, stir it well, and move to a cooler part of the oven. It should now cook very slowly for 2 hours.

20. JELLY, ORANGE.

7 juicy oranges, 1 lemon, 6 ozs. lump sugar, water, 1/4 oz. prepared agar-agar.

Rub the skins of the oranges and lemons well with some of the lumps of sugar, and squeeze the juice from the oranges and lemon. Soak the agar-agar in cold water for half an hour and then thoroughly squeeze. Warm in 1 gill of water until dissolved. Put the fruit juice, agar-agar, and enough water to make the liquid up to 1-1/2 pints, into a saucepan. Bring to the boil.

Pour through a hot strainer into a wet mould. Turn out when cold. If difficult to turn out, stand the mould in a basin of warm water for 2 or 3 seconds.

21. JELLY, RASPBERRY & CURRANT.

1 lb. raspberries, 1/2 lb. currants, 6 ozs. sugar, 1/4 oz. prepared agar-agar, 3/4 pint water.

Soak agar-agar as for Orange Jelly. Cook fruit with 1/2 pint water until well done. Strain through muslin. Warm the agar-agar until dissolved in 1 gill of water. Put the fruit juice, sugar, and agar-agar into a saucepan.

If liquid measures less than 1-1/2 pints, add enough water to make up quant.i.ty. Bring to the boil, pour through a hot strainer into wet mould.

Turn out when cold and serve.

22. MINCEMEAT.

1/2 lb. raisins, 1/2 lb. sultanas, 1/2 lb. currants, 1/2 lb. castor sugar, 1/4 lb. nutter, 1/2 a nutmeg, grated rind of 2 lemons, 1-1/2 lb. apples.

Well wash all the dried fruit in warm water, and allow to dry thoroughly before using. Stone the raisins, pick the sultanas, and rub the currants in a cloth to remove stalks. Wash and core the apples, but do not peel them. Put all the fruit and apple through a fine food-chopper. Add the sugar, grated lemon rind, and nutmeg. Lastly, melt the nutter and add.

Stir the mixture well, put it into clean jars, and tie down with parchment covers until needed for mince pies.

23. NUT PASTRY.