Vinegar
Said the prophet Mahomet, "If there is no vinegar in a house it is a sin: there is no blessing neither." To the cook vinegar is far more than wine, though wine also is much. Nearly all fresh fish will take a dash of vinegar with advantage, either in the sauce which accompanies it, or in the liquor in which it is boiled. Most vegetables are improved with acid, not only when they are eaten raw, as in salads, but when-like asparagus, cauliflowers, artichokes-they are prepared with a butter sauce for entremets. It is to be remembered, however, that there is a great difference in vinegars, so that it is difficult to be precise in naming quantities. White-wine vinegar is often very sharp; red-wine less so; malt vinegar is often mild enough; and there is sometimes in like manner a difference between lemons, according to the tree or according to the ripeness, which is nearly as well marked as the difference between oranges. "Malt vinegar," says Pereira, "consists of water, acetic acid, acetic ether, colouring matter, a peculiar organic Vinegar matter commonly denominated mucilage, a small portion of alcohol, and sulphuric acid. Vinegar makers are allowed to add one-thousandth part by weight of sulphuric acid." But good vinegar does not require this addition. Perhaps the Prophet did not know that there was alcohol in vinegar when he gave it his blessing. Perhaps Sir Wilfrid Lawson and his friends of the Band of Hope will give up vinegar, and consume nothing but lemons, crabs, rhubarb, sorrel, and docks, when they know of the poison which flourishes in their cruets.
Wine vinegar has much the same chemical constitution as malt. The white-wine sort is to be had everywhere; but as it is difficult to procure the mild red-wine vinegar in London, it may be well to state that it will be found good at Perelli-Rocco's, Greek Street, Soho.
The flavoured vinegars ought to be well known. Tarragon vinegar plays a grand part in the kitchen, and at table it becomes important for a salad in the season when the tarragon leaf is not to be had. It is best to buy chili vinegar with the chilies in it-that is, to buy a bottle of West India chilies, to use the vinegar in which they are immersed, and to renew at need. Still better, any one who has a garden can make these and other flavoured vinegars for himself. Put a few fresh tarragon leaves, or a few dozen fresh-gathered chilies, into a bottle of white-wine vinegar. In ten days the vinegar will be sufficiently charged with the flavour. And so for shalot, and for composite flavours. Vinegar is easily made for private use; and many English families in the shires delight in home-made Primrose Vinegar-for which take the following receipt. Boil six pounds of moist sugar in sixteen quarts of water for ten minutes, and carefully take off the scum. Then shake into it a peck of primroses, and before it is quite cold a little yeast. Let it ferment in a warm place all night; then put it in a barrel, and keep it in a warm part of the kitchen Vol-au-vent till it has done working. There should be an air-hole in the top of the barrel. It will take several weeks before the fermentation is at an end and the vinegar is quite fit for bottling.
VOL-AU-VENT is often made with great elaboration, and in that case had better be ordered from a professed pastrycook. For a very simple vol-au-vent the following receipt may suffice. The explanation will be clearest if we take the small vol-au-vents, commonly called Petites Bouchées (Little mouthfuls). Roll out some of the finest puff paste (No. 3) to about a quarter of an inch in thickness. Cut out of it two circles, each the size of a crown piece. The one is to be put on the top of the other; but before doing so two things are required: first, to cut a half-crown piece out of the topmost one, which will then be a half-crown with a ring round it; next, to wet the lower piece all round its edge, so that the ring of the upper piece may adhere to it. When the two sheets thus joined are baked, they will together rise to the height of two inches. The half-crown piece will be loose in the middle; it can be lifted out, leaving a hollow; and it will form a lid for the small vol-au-vent. Fill the hollow with any of the ragouts-the Financial one and the Toulouse are most in favour. A large vol-au-vent is done in the same way-only that according to its size the paste is rolled out thicker-say half an inch. The ornamentation of the paste in the way of printing or cutting must be left to fancy. the