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Preserved Fruits (See also Sweet Dishes)

(See also Sweet Dishes.) For "Mishmash," the Eastern name for apricots preserved whole, use the finest French apricots from Covent Garden; open them at the side with a pen-knife, and thrust out the stone; peel them, and, as each is peeled, throw powdered sugar over it. Have more powdered sugar in a pan, and boil it to candy height; then add the apricots and give them a boil, but take the greatest care that they do not break. Take off the pan, and take the apricots out. Let the syrup stand till it is almost cold. Then add the fruit; cover it with white paper, and put it on a slow fire to simmer a little longer; repeat this three or four times, letting the syrup be almost cold each time, before putting it again on the fire.

The apricots should simmer gently till they become quite transparent; blanch their kernels, put them in at the last, boiling, and pot them with the fruit. If in the course of a few weeks the syrup should become thin, give it a boil up. Bilberries. (Mrs. Wellington.) Bilberries do not keep many weeks, but are very liked for tarts. Pick them carefully, and put them on the fire in a preserving pan without any water as they are very juicy. For each 1 lb. of fruit give ½ lb. of sugar. Let them boil ½ hour, then tie them up in jars. When you make the tart add a tablespoonful of Black Currant Jelly, not jam (see Jams, Jellies, &c.), to improve the flavour. Mrs. Davidson says they keep well if you allow 1 lb. of sugar to 1 lb. of fruit, and boil 1½ hour - otherwise they turn sour.

Black Currants Preserved.

Take 1½ lbs. of sugar to 1 qt. of black currants, and to each qt. of black currants add 1½ pt. of red currant juice without any additional sugar. Boil ½ hour. To preserve strawberries this way boil them 6 minutes only. Cherries Preserved the American Way. (Mrs. Hunting, New York.) Take Morella cherries. Stone them and set them aside on a plate. Weigh them. Take the same weight of sugar, put it in a preserving pan with a little water. When it boils, put in the cherries, and boil slowly till you can pierce them with a small twig. Then take them out, and leave them on a plate while you finish the syrup, slowly boiling it till it is clear; then while hot, drop in the cherries carefully, one by one. Then put them in pots.

Cranberries, German Way. (Princess von Reuss.) Pick some cranberries, and wash them if necessary. Strain off all the water. When, after a baking, bread is taken out of oven, fill oven with stone bottles full of cranberries. Leave them there all night; no water, no sugar. Paper over the bottles next day.

When wanted in winter for a dish, take out as much as you require, and to every