MRS. PEPYS’S DIARY

Sun (Auckland), Volume I, Issue 303, 14 March 1928, Page 4

MRS. PEPYS’S DIARY

MONDAY.— For our supper this night, having need to render some cold meat less of a dull meal, as God knows it is if there be naught beside, do make a very line green-pea soup, and the advantage of this soup that you may use for it peas that are a little over-grown for your taste otherwise The way of it to cook 1 pint of peas in 1 pint of water with 1 tablespoonful of chopped onion, one bay leaf and of salt half a teaspoonful. When the peas are tender to pass them with care through a sieve. Now to scald one quart of milk in a double saucepan, to blend one tablespoonful of butter with two tablespoonsfuls of flour and add to your milk, also the pea puree, and to cook all until it begins to thicken. Lastly, to season with one teaspoonful of salt and of cayenne pepper a little and to serve as quickly as may be that it cool not at ali. TUESDAY. Expecting Mistress Town© to take a dish of tea with me on this afternoon do make with my own hand a supply of ratifia cakes, these, if eaten fresh, very pleasing as I consider. The manner of making them to take the weight of one goodsized egg in sugar and butter, to beat the butter to a cream and to add the sugar, also the egg well beaten, of ratifia essence a few drops and lastly 51b of flour mixed ready with a small teaspoonful of baking powder. Beat all together and have ready a sheet of white buttered paper, or a flat baking tin, and so to drop your mixture on, a spoonful at a time as is the method in making rock cakes. Bake your cakes in a oven that is not too hot for 15 minutes or 20. (This recipe also to make you a very good cake if you will add a few currants and double your flour.

WEDNESDAY.— To my kitchen, there to make a goodly supply of salad dressing, this same from recipe promising to keep for months if kept in a cool place, and I pray God it will be so. For it do mix one teaspoonful each of mustard, castor sugar, salt and white pepper, of condensed milk half a tin and of a very good vinegar according to the thickness required. The manner of mixing being to stir together the dry ingredients with thoroughness, then add the condensed milk and lastly the vinegar, and not to abate your stirring till all be smooth. Now to put into a bottle and when you shall have need of your dressing, add of salad oil to your taste. THURSDAY. —Hearing from my good gossip, Mistress Bassett, how her family have sickened of rhubarb at the table, and she hath much of it waisting in her garden. Do write in haste for cheering of her, bidding her to make her a supply of rhubarb eider The need to cut into 2in lengths, 281 b of rhubarb, to put into a tub and to pound it well with a large wooden spon or mallet. Now add of cold water three gallons and stir well, then cover up the tub and to let it stand until such time as your liquor begins to ferment. When the surface shall be covered with a crust, skim it off with care, and this you shall continue to do for a clay or two till no more rises, when, you must strain very carefully and add of loaf sugar 31b to each gallon, also the thin rind of a lemon to each gallon. Now your labours ceasing you may leave your cider for about a fortnight, by which time another crust to be found on it. Take this off also with care and add of iciingglass loz to each gallon. Stop down for a fortnight more. In two months you may draw your cider from the cask, or bottle it as you wish, but the longer you keep it the better it will be and this a very pleasant thought indeed. FRIDAY. —At my visiting Mr. Pepys’s cousin Gladys on this day, she doth confide to me how she can never be sure when she serves a baked custard that it will not appear at the table so curdled as to put her to shame. Do bid her, therefore, to put the pie dish, with her custard in it, into a pie dish of a much larger size, and this outer dish to have a little water in it. Baked thus she will find her custard to do her credit as the fear of its curdling not to worry her. But do warn her that a little more time must be allowed for the baking. And so to leave her much enlivened.

SATURDAY. —For making of a change at our breakfast table next week, and to beginning on the Lord’s Day, do busy me in my kitchen with the making of a meat roll, and for it do need of steak and bacon, minced, ilb each, of breadcrumbs the same, also two eggs well beaten, and of inace, nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste. The way of it to knead all into a very neat roll, and to tie in a cloth well floured. And so, if 3'our meat and your bacon te raw, to boil for two hours, but if you would use up remains of cold meat in this fashion one hour to serve for boiling. And so to press your roll under a weight until it be cold, and to roll it in crumbs or to glaze it according to your fancy.