Take large fine juicy apples. Pare them, and extract the cores without
dividing the apple. Fill each hole with brown sugar, and some chips
of lemon-peel. Also squeeze in some lemon juice. Or you may fill the
cavities with raspberry jam, or with any sort of marmalade. Have ready
a paste, made in the proportion of a pound of suet, chopped as fine
as possible, to two pounds and a half of sifted flour, well mixed,
and wetted with as little water as possible. Roll out the paste to
a moderate thickness, and cut it into circular pieces, allowing two
pieces to each dumpling. Lay your apple on one piece, and put another
piece on the top, closing the paste round the sides with your fingers,
so as to cover the apple entirely. This is a better way than gathering
up the paste at one end, as the dumpling is less liable to burst. Boil
each dumpling in a small coarse cloth, which has first been dipped in
hot water. There should always be a set of cloths kept for the purpose.
Tie them tightly, leaving a small space for the dumpling to swell.
Plaster a little flour on the inside of each tying place to prevent the
water from getting in. Have ready a pot of boiling water. Put in the
dumplings and boil them steadily for an hour. Send them to table hot
in a covered dish. Do not take them up till a moment before they are
wanted.
Eat them with cream and sugar, or with butter and sugar.
You may make the paste with butter instead of suet, allowing a pound of
butter to two pounds and a quarter of flour. But when paste is to be
boiled, suet will make it much lighter and finer than butter.
Apple dumplings may be made in a very plain manner with potato paste,
and boiled without cloths, dredging the outside of each dumpling with
flour. They should boil about three quarters of an hour when without
cloths.
The apples for dumplings should always be whole, (except the cores;)
for if quartered, the pieces will separate in boiling and break through
the crust. The apples should never be sweet ones.
RICE DUMPLINGS.--Pick and wash a pound of rice, and boil it gently in
two quarts of water till it becomes dry; keeping the pot well covered,
and not stirring it. Then take it off the fire, and spread it out to
cool on the bottom of an inverted sieve: loosening the grains lightly
with a fork, that all the moisture may evaporate. Pare a dozen pippins
or other large juicy apples, and scoop out the core. Then fill up the
cavity with marmalade, or with lemon and sugar. Cover every apple all
over with a thick coating of the boiled rice. Tie up each in a separate
cloth,[F] and put them into a pot of cold water. They will require
about an hour and a quarter after they begin to boil; perhaps longer.
Turn them out on a large dish, and be careful in doing so not to break
the dumplings. Eat them with cream sauce, or with wine sauce, or with
butter, sugar, and nutmeg beaten together.