Sprinkle a little salt into the flour and mix it up rather stiff with water, make it into dumplings, and boil them with beef or pork. They may be made in cakes as broad as a small plate, about an inch thick; place a skimmer in the pot, lay the cake on it, boil it half an hour; score it deeply, and slip slices of butter in, sprinkle a little salt over, and serve it quite hot. A very little _lard_ may be rubbed into the flour.
The batter requires long beating, but the great art consists in frying them. The lard, butter, or dripping must be fresh and hot, as for fish. Beat 2 eggs and stir them, with a little salt, into 3 table-spoonsful of flour, or allow an egg to each spoonful of flour, add pounded cinnamon, and, by degrees, a pint of new milk, and beat it to a smooth batter. Make a small round frying-pan quite hot, put a piece of butter or lard into it, and, when melted, pour it out and wipe the pan; put a piece more in, and when it has melted and begins to froth, pour in a ladle or tea-cupful of the batter, toss the pan round, run a knife round the edges, and turn the pancake when the top is of a light brown; brown the other side; roll it up, and serve very hot. Currant jelly, or marmalade, may be spread thinly on the pancake before it is rolled up. Cream and more eggs will make it richer; also brandy or lemon juice.
Boil ½ lb. rice in water till quite tender, strain, and let it cool; then break it very fine, and add ½ lb. clarified butter, ½ pint of scalded cream, or new milk, a little salt, nutmeg, and 5 eggs, well beaten. Mix well, and fry them. Garnish with slices of lemon, or Seville orange.
Stir, by degrees, into a quart of new milk, 4 table-spoonsful of ground rice, and a little salt; stir it over the fire till it is as thick as pap; stir in ½ lb. butter and grated nutmeg, and let it cool; add 4 table-spoonsful of flour, a little sugar, and 9 eggs; beat well, and fry them.
Make batter the same as pancakes, but stiffer; pour a large spoonful into boiling lard; fry as many at a time as the pan will hold. Sift powdered sugar over, and serve on a hot dish. Fritters are usually made with minced apple or currants, stirred into the batter, or any sweetmeat stiff enough to be cut into little bits, or candied lemon or orange { 267}peel.--_Or_: grate the crumb of a stale roll, beat it smooth in a pint of milk over the fire, then let it get cold, and mix it with the yolks of 5 eggs, 3 oz. sifted sugar, and ½ a nutmeg. Fry in boiling lard, and serve hot. Sweet sauce in a tureen. _Curd Fritters_--Rub a quart basin full of dried curd with the yolks of 8 and whites of 4 eggs; 3 oz. sugar, ½ a nutmeg grated, and a dessert-spoonful of flour; beat well, and drop the batter into boiling lard. _Apple Fritters_--Make a stiff common pancake batter. Boil ½ a stick of cinnamon in a breakfast-cupful of water, and let it cool. Peel and core some large apples, cut them in round slices, and steep them half an hour, or more, in the cinnamon water; then dip each piece in the batter, and fry them in lard, or clarified dripping. Drain, dust sugar over each one, and serve hot.--_Or_: to make a pretty dish, drop enough batter into the pan to form a fritter the size of the slices of apple, lay a slice of apple upon that, and drop batter on the top.--_Or_: the apples may be pared, cored, half baked (whole), then dipped in the batter, and fried.