Peas Pudding

Take a quart of split peas. Soak them over-night in some cold water. Those that float are bad, and should be thrown away. Tie the peas up in a cloth, leaving room for them to swell. Boil till tender - about two hours or more. Take them out; rub them through a colander; or, better still, a wire sieve (see No. 21); mix in a couple of ounces of butter or dripping, and add some pepper and salt. Stir it well up. Flour the cloth, and tie it up again, and boil it for half an hour or an hour longer; then turn it out, shape it as liked, and serve it with boiled pork, boiled bacon, boiled beef, etc. To make the peas pudding richer, one or two eggs can be added to it after it has been sent through the colander or sieve. The remains of cold potatoes can also be mashed up with it.

Hot Pickle Sauce

Take a teaspoonful of ordinary hot pickle, generally known as piccalilli. Cut up the pickle small, and mix it with a couple of tablespoonfuls of rather thick brown gravy (some of the yellow sauce of the piccalilli should be added as well), make hot, and serve with grilled salmon, mutton cutlets, and pork chops, etc.

If the gravy is not thick, add a little brown thickening. If liked very hot, a little cayenne can be added, or one or two chilies may be cut up and mixed with the sauce.

Pigeon Or Game Pie

Proceed exactly as in making an ordinary meat pie. Cut the pigeons into halves, and allow one pigeon to every pound of steak. Pack the steak round the pigeon, and also allow one hard-boiled egg to each pigeon. A few slices of raw ham or bacon, cut thin, are an improvement. This should be placed on the top next the crust.

In making a game pie from the remains of pheasant, grouse, ptarmigan, partridge, hare, etc., mixed with steak, proceed exactly as in making ordinary pigeon pie, mixing the game with the steak.

In addition, however, to the teaspoonful of black pepper, add a saltspoonful of spices, obtained as for liver forcemeat. (See Liver Forcemeat).

Pilchards

These are not very commonly met with fresh, but are largely sold in tins. When fresh, cook them in every respect similar to herrings. When preserved in oil in tins, they can be eaten cold, like sardines, in which case a little lemon-juice and cayenne pepper should be served with them.

They also make a quick and not expensive curry, as follows: - Take a tin of pilchards; pour all the oil into a frying-pan. Add a dessertspoonful of curry-powder, and mix about a teaspoonful of cornflour with a tablespoonful of water, and add that, and stir up the oil in the frying-pan, when it becomes a little thick; then warm up the pilchards in the frying-pan. Turn them on to a dish without breaking. Pour the thick curry sauce over them. This is a very good breakfast dish, and can be prepared in five minutes. A few bay-leaves, warmed up in the sauce, are an improvement.

Tinned Pine-Apple

Tinned pine-apples make excellent fritters (see Fritters); also, they make a very delicious sweet, by simply thickening the syrup with a little gelatine and making them into a jelly, letting the slices set in the jelly.

A tin, or part of one, can also be turned into the centre of a plain border of cold boiled rice, in which case ornament the border with a few preserved cherries and slices of green angelica. (See Rice Borders and No. 29).

Pine-Apple Water Ice

(See Ice Water Fruit.) Pippins, Normandy. (See Normandy).