LITTLE MARGARET'S KITCHEN, AND WHAT SHE DID IN IT.—X.

By Phillis Browne, Author of "A Year's Cookery," "What Girls can Do," &c.

Apple fritters to-day," said Margaret.

"Yes, apple fritters to-day," replied Mary. "Won't it be delightful, miss?"

"Let me see," said Mrs. Herbert, coming into the room at the moment, "we are going to make something special to-day. Whatever is it?"

"Apple fritters!" said both the children in one breath.

"Oh yes, to be sure! It is apple fritters. You would not like to broil a mutton chop instead, would you, Margaret?"

"Certainly not, mother!"

"Then we must take broiling for our next lesson. It will be all the better, for I see cook has put the apples and the materials for the batter ready for us. So let us set to work."

"But, mother, what do you think?" said Margaret, as she came up to the table and looked round, "cook has made the batter for us; and we wanted to make it ourselves. Is it not a pity?"

"Cook has partly made it, dear, because I told her to do so. Batter is best when mixed some time before it is wanted. The whites of eggs, however, are not put in until a few minutes before the batter is used; so that part of making the batter has been left for you."

"It does not signify very much," said Mary; "we learnt how to make batter when we made pancakes."

"This batter is not made in the same way, though, as pancake-batter," said Mrs. Herbert. "This is frying-batter, and it is mixed differently. I will tell you how to mix it, and you must try to remember."

"We will write it down," said Margaret. "I have written down all the recipes you have given us, so far, in a copy-book, and I am going to keep them as long as I live."

"A very good plan. Listen then. Put a quarter of a pound of flour, with a pinch of salt, into a bowl, pour in two table-spoonfuls of salad-oil, stir a little of the flour with this, and add a gill (which is a quarter of a pint, you know) of tepid water. Beat the batter till it is quite smooth and no lumps remain. Thus much cook has done for us."

"Tepid water is water that is not hot enough to burn, is it not, ma'am?" said Mary, inquiringly.

"That is not at all a safe rule to lay down. I should say, tepid water is made by mixing two parts of cold with one part boiling water."

"Shall I strain off and beat the whites of the eggs, mother?" said Margaret; "I can do that, you know."

"Yes, dear. You will need the whites of two eggs, and they must be beaten till very stiff. When they are ready you mix them lightly into the batter. Meantime Mary can peel the apples. Peel the skin off very thinly, Mary, and stamp out the core with the little instrument called the apple-corer. You see, it does the business very quickly. If we had no apple-corer, we should either have to scoop out the core with the point of a knife, when we should be in danger of cutting our fingers, or we should have to take it from the slices separately. These apples must be cut in slices across the core, you understand, before we can make the fritters."

"How thick must the slices be, please, ma'am?" said Mary.

"Not thick at all. They must be as thin as you can cut them to keep them whole. You will do very well if you can cut them all evenly, thin as a shilling. Do you see that we wish to cook the apple inside, as well as the batter outside it, and the thinner it is the more quickly it will cook?"

Very busily Mary worked, but Margaret had beaten her egg-whites, and stirred them in, long before she had finished.

"May I help Mary, mother?" then said Margaret, who did not enjoy waiting.

"Yes, dear; you can prepare one apple, if you like. Before doing so, however, put the fat on the fire. It was strained into a fresh saucepan to be ready for us. It will take a little time to boil; but we must use it the moment it boils. Remember that every minute, I might say every second, that fat remains on the fire after it boils, and without being used, it is spoiling."

"You will have to be quick, mother, if you are going to use the fat as soon as it boils;" said Margaret after a minute or two. "It is boiling already; see, it is bubbling all over. What shall I do? Shall I take it off the fire?"

"It does not boil yet, dear; wait till it boils."

"But, mother, look. It is bubbling fast. Oh, no, it is not; it is quieting down. How very strange! and I had not lifted it from the fire."

"This is exactly what I wanted you to find out. Water, when it boils, bubbles and spirts; fat is still when it boils. If you watch this fat, it will become quite still."

"How shall we know, then, when it boils?"

"By watching it carefully. When you see a thin blue fume rising from it, it is hot enough. That is the sign. If you do not look closely it may escape your notice, for it is only a thin fume you want, not a thick smoke. If we were to let the fat remain till it smoked it would be spoilt."

"Oh dear, how careful we have to be!" said Margaret.

"The slices of apple are quite ready, ma'am," said Mary.

"And the batter is quite ready," said Margaret.

"I see too, that cook has put a dish with kitchen paper on it for us to put the fritters on as they are fried. And there is the fume. Do you see it, children?"

"No, I see nothing," said Margaret.

"And I see nothing," said Mary.

"Look closely. Hold this piece of black paper behind, that will help you. Be quick, we must not let the fat burn."

"Oh yes, I think I see something," said Margaret, who seemed rather bewildered. "But I thought——"

"Think and work together, dear; we have no time to lose. Take a slice of apple on a skewer, dip it in the batter, and when it is completely covered, lift it up and drop it in the fat. Now do the same to another, and another. You can fry two or three at once if only you are careful that the fritters do not touch. As the batter blows out and forms fritters, turn them over that they may be equally coloured on both sides. They must be very pale brown, or rather fawn-coloured; on no account let them get very brown."

"How shall we get them out?" said Margaret.

"Lift them by the skewer, and put them straight away on the paper to drain. You should put everything on kitchen paper after frying before you dish it; do not let things lie one on top of another, or they will be spoilt."

"There, all the first ones are out," said Mary. "Shall we put some more slices of apple in?"

"Wait a moment. You see there are two or three little specks of batter which have got away all by themselves in the fat. We must take them out at once with the skimmer, or they will burn and spoil the colour of our fat. Also we must let the fat get hot again, watching for the fume between each relay, because the cold batter and the cold apple will make our fat a little cool. It will heat in a moment or two, but we must have it properly hot, or the fritters will be greasy."

"I should have thought they would have been greasy with being put into such a quantity of fat," said Margaret.

"No fear of that, if only the fat is hot enough. If the fat is not hot, they will be most unpleasant; but if the fat is hot the heat will cook the outside so quickly that the grease cannot get in, while that which is on the surface will dry instantly."

"How quickly the fritters are cooked!" said Mary. "I never saw anything like it."

"I thing frying fritters is even more interesting than frying pancakes," said Margaret.

"How pretty the fritters look, and how crisp they feel when we take them out!" said Mary.

"They will not remain crisp very long, though, not more than five minutes," said Mrs. Herbert. "We must send them in to grandmamma as quickly as possible, if we wish her to have them in perfection. That is why we make so much haste in frying, for fritters have lost their excellence when they have lost their crispness."

"I suppose when we have dried them on the kitchen paper we had better dish them and put them in the oven to keep hot, ma'am."

"No, put them in the screen; they will keep crisper than in the oven. We shall not need to put them anywhere for more than a minute, however, for they are just done. Dish them in a circle, sift a little white sugar on, and they are ready."

"I have enjoyed making apple fritters very much," said Margaret.

"That is well. The best of it is that when you have learnt to make apple fritters you can make fritters of any kind of fruit, for all the fruit fritters are made in the same way. Some fruits are dipped in sugar before being put in the batter, and it needs practice to keep the batter over them. Sometimes fruit is soaked in syrup. Then it must be dried before being dipped in the batter."

"I suppose it would not do to fry meat in batter, would it?" said Mary.

"Certainly it would. You can try it, if you like, one day."

"I should like, very much."

"Very well. Never do anything of this sort unless I am with you though, dear, for fear you should burn yourself. Hot water is very hot, and a little spilt on your hand would pain you very much, but hot fat would pain you much more, and when it is used, a little carelessness might end in a serious accident. Therefore I think small cooks like you ought not to practise frying unless an older person is present to see that everything is safe."

Cook passed through the kitchen as this was said, and the remark evidently met with her approval.

(To be continued.)