A Course of Lectures on the Principles of Domestic Economy and Cookery

liquid. It does not need to be frothy, but simply to have the substance of the egg well broken; then dip the little pieces of boiled lamb, first in the cracker dust, then in the beaten egg, then again in the cracker dust. That is called breading. To fry properly, so that you have no grease, you want the frying kettle half full of fat. You don't want a little fat in a frying pan, but a frying kettle like that which you use in frying doughnuts. Put the kettle over the fire and let the fat get hot, that is, let it get so hot that it begins to smoke. When the fat begins to smoke you plunge whatever article you wish to fry into it. If you take the precaution to do that, have plenty of fat and let it get smoking hot and then fry in it, you will never have anything greasy. The action of the hot fat at once so carbonizes the surface of what you wish to fry, and prevents the soaking of the fat. Fry whatever article you are treating until it is a light brown, then take it out of the fat with a skimmer, and lay it on brown paper for a moment--coarse brown paper--and that will absorb the very little fat on the surface. It will be perfectly free from grease. You can season before you bread an article, or you can season the bread crumbs or cracker dust which you use in breading, just as you like. Or, after the article is fried you can season it with salt and pepper. Some things are seasoned after the frying--for instance, Saratoga potatoes--they are always salted after frying. You can make bread crumbs very fine by using a fine sieve and sifting. If you have cracker meal already prepared you will see that it is as fine as Indian meal; it is sold in the grocery stores and at the cracker factories, and it is cheaper to buy cracker dust or cracker meal than it is to make it at home,