Mulligatawny Soup

The best meat to serve up in Mulligatawny soup is either rabbit or chicken, but sometimes a little veal is used; in this case take care that the veal has not been boiled till it is uneatable. If fowl or rabbit is used, be sure to extract as much goodness as you can out of the bones by boiling them in the stock. Put the meat of the rabbit or fowl by on a plate till wanted. Proceed in every respect to make the soup as if you were making curry sauce, only add three times the quantity of stock. Thicken with brown thickening. (See No. 12.) Add the meat to the soup the last thing, and hand boiled rice with the soup. (See Rice boiled for Curry).

Red Mullet

The best way to cook red mullet is to carefully wrap it up in well-oiled paper, with plenty of butter, pepper and salt, and bake it in the oven. Never clean the fish; the liver is the best part. Time to bake, about twenty to twenty-five minutes for small fish. Send to table in the paper. Not more than two can be cooked in one paper. Mullets are best cooked one in each paper. They are very pretty served without the paper, but the fish is too delicious to sacrifice flavour to appearances.

Mussels

Mussels are an exceedingly cheap and nice form of food, being generally sold at one penny a quart. Take two quarts of mussels; wash them thoroughly and scrub them with a brush. Place them in salt and water for two or three hours to clean themselves from sand. Make the water as salt as sea-water. Take them out an hour before you want them. Take a saucepan; put into it a pint of water, two slices of onion and two slices of lemon, a few sprigs of parsley and a pinch of thyme. Bring the water to a boil. Then put in the mussels; and as soon as they are open they are done. Serve them in a soup tureen, with bread and butter. Vinegar and pepper can be eaten with them like oysters. Their season is the same as oysters. Send the liquor in which they were heated up in the tureen with them.

How To Boil Spring Nettles

In many country places nettles are eaten freely as a vegetable in the early part of the year, as they are considered excellent for purifying the blood. The young light green leaves only should be taken. They must be washed carefully and boiled in two waters, a little salt and a very small piece of soda being put in the last water. When tender, turn them into a colander, press the water from them; put them into a hot vegetable dish, score them across three or four times, and serve. Send melted butter to table in a tureen. Time, about a quarter of an hour to boil.

Norfolk Dumplings

The simplest way of making Norfolk dumplings is to order a few muffins from the bakers, boil them for about twenty minutes in some water, and serve with some sweet sauce. The muffins will swell considerably.

Normandy Pippins

Soak the pippins in water overnight, stew them gently for two or three hours in a little water, with sufficient sugar to make the juice a syrup, and also a few strips of lemon-peel, a few cloves, and a small stick of cinnamon. When quite tender, take them out without breaking them, and place them in a glass dish. Bring the syrup to a boil, and colour it pink with cochineal, pour over the stewed pippins, and let them get cold. A small glass of port wine added to the syrup is a great improvement.