The Magic of Madeira & Beef

Like an alchemist revealing the secret of making gold… I’m going to share a cooking secret with you. Let’s talk about Madeira.

Eric Asimov got the ball rolling a few weeks ago in the New York Times with a piece declaring his newly found love of Madeira. He had just discovered it wasn’t just a dessert wine and that it was brilliant with savory dishes. This was preaching to the choir for me… I love Madeira and have been cooking with it for many years. Without knowing, I had discovered it as a child, poking around my grandfather’s cellar. I found a set of bottles with unreadable labels particularly tempting. I pulled a cork and took a whiff and then a swallow of sweet wine. It wasn’t until this year that I found out what I had liked was Madeira…very, very old Madeira. This is the stuff that dreams are made on.

Photo from Finest & Rarest Vintage Spirits and Liqueurs

I found that out via another New York Times article about Mannie Berk and his remarkable Rare Wine Company. Thanks to him I got a taste of a 1912 gave me a Eureka, “this is it” moment. The beautiful scent of age was there with a flavor that is deep and complicated and full of grace This is the wine of the old Ashley Wilkes’ South.

I had made a note of him and his company thanks to that article in 2007, and waited for the right moment to put it to use. This blog seemed a good place to start sharing my fascination with Madeira and using fine quality wines for cooking. You may say that a bottle of supermarket variety will do you just fine… but please believe me, you are wrong! Great older Madeira will make your dish remarkable. Would you use a drugstore chocolate bar in your favorite mousse? Would you use a gray tomato for your famous BLT? No!!!!

In the NYT article, Asimov said: “… in so many ways Madeira turns conventional notions of wine upside down. It wasn’t precisely brown. At the center it was a sort of honeyed amber. Extending to the edges it brightened into a reddish-orange, like a fantasy sunset. Maybe I just imagined these shades, just as after I took a sip I thought I heard music, and saw skyrockets and rainbows as the flavors rose through my mouth.”

Mannie Berk is a Madeira fanatic. He began Rare Wine Co. in 1989 with an incredible haul of 400 cases of great old Madeira from Hedges & Butler’s London cellar in 1986. By 1998 he was blending his own Madeiras using 15% of 50-60 year old wine as part of the blend and issuing 3 styles: Charleston Sercial is the driest, New York Malmsey the sweetest and Boston Bual somewhere in between. I have tried them all and they are superb. At around $50 a bottle they are great for drinking and cooking (before you roll your eyes at the expense, just remember you use so little in a recipe!). For the extraordinary, go to the website and take a gander at the ancient Madeiras . I can tell you wow wow wow!!! Of course the wine is brilliant to drink.

However, with these magnificent specimens you can take your cuisine up into the stratosphere. I used some of the 1912 D'Oliveira Verdelho in my sauce for this Beef Wellington and my guests all agreed The fortified wine Madeira was popular with the American colonies thanks to a 1665 British policy that banned importation of European products unless they were shipped on British vessels from British ports. Fortunately, Madeira is not part of Europe. Although a Portuguese colony, the island of Madeira is off the coast of Morocco so it escaped the onerous shipping regulations and it’s product went straight to America. Its flavor owes a lot to shipping practices as well… it was discovered that the casks did best when shipped through the tropics. The heating (called estufagem) created the velvety texture that Madeira is known for and heating is part of the aging techniques employed today.

Madeira is so much a part of American history, it was used for the toast at the signing of the Declaration of Independence, probably using glasses like these:

photo courtesy Mannie Berk

Whether for drinking or using to add amazing depth to your food, Madeira is a new delight waiting to be discovered and once opened, it lasts forever! I used it to make my Beef Wellington. You should too!

1814 Portrait by Sir Thomas Lawrence

The dish was named after Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington who won the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. He was quite indifferent to food, so much so that his cooks often gave notice, despairing of using their culinary talents in his household. It is probably apocryphal then that he had anything to do with naming this fillet of beef, wrapped in puff pasty. Perhaps it was so called because in its larger version the finished product looks like a highly polished riding or Wellington boot.

For my version I have combined elements of many recipes from Martha, Cooks Illustrated and others to come up with one I liked. Everything was from scratch save the puff pastry( I used Dufour brand and it worked out splendidly) and pâté (I used Les Trois Petite Cochon’s Mousse du Perigord). If you would like to make the puff pastry from scratch, make a pound of puff pastry).

Beef Wellington

3-4 Lbs Beef tenderloin (I used grass-fed from Grazin Angus Acres). Place uncovered on a wire rack in the fridge for 24 hours before cooking to dry-age the beef, flip it once. Tie the beef with butcher’s string so it is a like a log if that hasn’t already been done.

2 Tb Olive oil

salt and pepper rubbed over the surface of the meat (around 2 t. of each)

8 oz pâté de foie gras ( smooth not coarse)

1 package Dufour puff pastry *or make your own puff pastry

1 egg

1 recipe for duxelle*

1 cup of beef glace de viande*

1/3 c Madeira (I used 1912 D'Oliveira Verdelho, But Charleston Sercial would be lovely)

4 T butter

Saute´ the beef in the oil in a searingly-hot cast iron skillet… letting it heat 4 minutes or so. Do 1 minute per side till the beef is thoroughly brown but not cooked.

Allow to cool completely, then remove the string and cover in pate´.

Roll out the pastry to a 12 X 15” piece (or do 2 of them and divide the pastry accordingly--2 will be easier to handle). Place on parchment paper. Cut off a little pastry to use as decoration. Place the duxelle over the pastry. Lay the meat on this and fold to cover. Brush with egg-wash on top and on the seam. Press to enclose. Dress the pastry with reserved dough cut in decorative shapes and adhere with the egg and brush the egg on the decorations as well.

Chill for 20 minutes or so before putting in the 400º oven for 20 minutes for rare. Turn in the oven every 10 minutes so the meat cooks properly. Let it rest 20 minutes before serving.

Warm the Glace de viande. Add the Madeira and the butter to melt and serve with the beef.

Duxelle

1 pound Portobello, shitake, mushroom mix

2 T unsalted butter

1/4 cup finely chopped shallot

1/4 cup heavy cream (Milk Thistle Farm)

3 T Madeira (I used Boston Bual)

2 T finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley

2 tsp. coarsely chopped fresh thyme

2 tsp. marjoram

Coarse salt and freshly ground pepper

Trim ends of mushrooms. Break stems and caps into small pieces. Finely chop the mushrooms in a food processor. Squeeze dry in a clean kitchen towel. Melt unsalted butter in a medium skillet over medium heat. Add shallot; cook, stirring occasionally, until translucent, 2 to 3 minutes. Add mushrooms, and cook, stirring often, until beginning to brown, 5 to 6 minutes.

Remove from heat. Stir in heavy cream, Madeira, parsley, and fresh thyme; season with coarse salt and freshly ground pepper. Let cool. Spread out to 8x10” on a piece of parchment paper, cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate (this can be done the day before).

Glace de Viande

2 lbs oxtails

2 lbs beef bones

1 carrot

1 onion

1 T tomato paste

1 bay leaf

1 garlic clove

handful of parsley

pepper

2 c homemade chicken stock

1 C red wine

Roast bones, meat and vegetables for 50 minutes @ 450º. Deglaze with chicken broth, wine and add 2 quarts of water. Simmer for 5-6 hours. Cool and strain, discarding the solids. Chill and remove the fat. Simmer till reduced to 1 cup. You could buy 2 quarts of beef stock and reduce it yourself… just make sure it is salt-free if you do.

*Duck Fat Puff Pastry

Butter layer

1 lb + 3 ½ T (510g) cold unsalted butter

2 t (10 ml) Lemon juice

1 c (130g) bread flour

pinch of salt

Dough

3 c (400 g) bread flour (freeze it)

3 ½ T (55g) duck fat, frozen)

2 t Salt

1 c cold water (start with 3/4 and add as needed, you may not need a whole cup)

Mix the butter and the flour and lemon and salt into a paste, make a 6” square and chill on wax paper till firm

Knead very sparingly and refrigerate.

Make the dough into a rectangle and put the butter in the center in a diamond... fold the dough around it like an old envelope, bringing the 4 outer points to the center of the butter.   If it’s warmed up, chill it. Otherwise roll it to a rectangle and fold it like a brochure and chill ½ an hour. Roll it out and do it again 6 times, resting for ½ an hour to an hour in the fridge each time (if you have a cold kitchen, less time is needed).

I left mine overnight after the 5th turn and made the last turn the next day. I rested it one more hour and rolled it out.  You will have enough for 3-4.  Freeze what you do not use.

Persimmon Pudding with Sour Lemon Sauce

I’ve been making persimmon pudding since I found it in the Martha Stewart Christmas book 20 years ago, but the history of persimmon cooking in America goes way back. The American persimmon, ‘Diospyros virginiana,' was found growing in Virginia by the early American Captain John Smith in 1609, who described the tree and the persimmon fruit in great detail and as tasting like an apricot. 

William Bartram, the famous early American botanist encountered the native American persimmon trees, ‘Diospyros virginiana,' as documented in his book, Travels, of 1773. The native American persimmon was also brought to the attention of early American Presidents and plant collectors, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. 
Native Americans mixed the pulp with corn meal to bake bread. They dried the fruit like we do with grapes and plums. Colonists used the pulp to make bread, puddings, pies, and preserves. Persimmon beer and brandy were served at gatherings.

This pudding is made the old fashioned way as one would an English pudding. It is steamed and served in this case with an addictive sour lemon sauce but it can be served with a hard sauce or applesauce or crème anglaise. I’ve made a few changes from Martha’s recipe, a little less sugar and more lemon. Please be advised… use ripe persimmons… buy them a week in advance if they are hard. Unripe persimmons are loaded with tannin and have a puckerish nature. When ripe, the flesh is luscious and sexy. The skin crinkles a little when you press it. Although you can make the pudding with less than ripe fruit… the result will not be as good.

Persimmon Pudding

3 large very ripe persimmons

1/3 c sugar

4 ½ T vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 ¾ c flour

¼ c whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

2 tsp ground cinnamon

Oil a 3-quart pudding mold. Peel the persimmons and puree the flesh, removing any seeds. You should have 2 cups of puree.

Beat together the sugar, oil, eggs and vanilla until fluffy, then add the persimmon. Sift the flour baking soda salt and cinnamon. Blend with persimmon mixture and pour into mold. Cover with parchment paper tightly with rubber band or string then cover with foil

Put on a rack in a large pot with boiling water ½ way up the mold. Bring water to a boil and then simmer for 2 ½ hours. Pudding should spring back when touched. Let cool one hour and then unmold. Serve with sour lemon sauce.

Sour Lemon Sauce

½ c sugar

1 ¼ T cornstarch

pinch of salt

1 ¼ c hot water

3 ½ T unsalted butter

8 T lemon juice

3 tsp lemon rind

Combine sugar and cornstarch and salt. Add hot water and cook over low flame 3-5 minutes until thick. Add the rest and cool Do not refrigerate or it will become like aspic.

WARNING: This sauce is so good you could drink it… leave some for the pudding!

17th Century Wassail

Illustrated London News 1850

Although Wassailing today is synonymous with Christmas and 12^th Night, its origin is in Anglo-Saxon pagan ritual that has seen many variations in its history. From the Middle Ages onward, peasants have solicited charitable spirit from their feudal lords with the Wassail. It was not begging. This distinction explains the lyric in the song "Here We Come A-Wassailing". The Wassailers inform the lord of the house that:

"We are not daily beggars that beg from door to door but we are friendly neighbors whom you have seen before."

Wassailing ceremonies took place at a number of different times throughout the year including Christmas, January 6th (Twelfth Night) and Shrove Tuesday.

In cider-producing areas of England (in another pagan-inspired tradition), wassailing refers to drinking (and singing) to the health of trees in the hopes that they might thrive in the coming year.

An old rhyme goes: “Wassaile the trees, that they may beare / You many a Plum and many a Peare: / For more or lesse fruits they will bring, / As you do give them Wassailing.”

The purpose of wassailing is to awake the cider apple trees and to scare away evil spirits to ensure a good harvest of fruit. The wassail was poured at the roots of a tree or soaked pieces of toast that were hung in the branches for the robins that represented good spirits. A gun was sometimes fired to scare away the bad spirits (after a few too many turns at the Wassail Bowl?).

Wassail was traditionally served in bowls that were generally made in the shape of goblets. The Worshipful Company of Grocers made a very elaborate one in the seventeenth century, decorated with silver.

Traditional Wassail bowls were made of lignum vitae in the 17^th c, a wood that was virtually indestructible and extremely tolerant of alcohol. Fortunately, many beautiful examples remain.

There are surviving examples of "puzzle wassail bowls", with many spouts. As you attempt to drink from one of the spouts, you are drenched from another spout. The drink was either punch, mulled wine or spicy ale and the custom shows the playfulness of the celebration.

As for the drink itself, Robert Herrick, (1591-1674) said:

“Next crowne the bowle full

Adde sugar, nutmeg and ginger

With a store of ale too

And this ye must doe

To make a Wassaile a swinger.”

I’ve combined the best of 2 centuries and come up with this traditional wassail drink that you can serve however you wish… a punch bowl or footed wine bucket/wassail bowl or pitcher would work splendidly

Wassail of the 17^th-18^th Century

1 lb of apples, cored and cooked at 375º for 1 hour in a foil covered baking dish. Remove peel when cool and mash... they should look fluffy like “lambs wool” when you are finished.

1-2 c light brown sugar (this should be to your taste and that of your ale)

6 bottles of ale (a double bock is a good choice)

1 c sherry

1nutmeg, grated

2 tsps ginger

1/8 t cloves

6 beaten eggs, optional

Toasted Bread slices, optional

Dissolve sugar in 1 bottle of the ale over low flame. Add spices and stir. Add rest of ale and sherry and remove from heat and let sit for several hours, covered. Warm and add the apple “wool”. You can add the eggs at this point if you would care to and beat it into a froth. Garnish with thin baked apple slices and the toasted bread if you wish.

Royal Lamb's Wool "Boil three pints of ale; - beat six eggs, the whites and yolks together; set both to the fire in a pewter pot; 
 add roasted apples, sugar, beaten nutmegs, cloves and ginger; 
 and, being well brewed, 
drink it while hot."-Royal Household of 1633

Lamb's Wool

Place a pound of sugar in a large bowl and pour on a bottle of hot ale (A good hand crafted brown ale). Stir well. Grate about 
1/2 of a nutmeg into this. Add 1 cup of sherry and five more bottles of ale. Let stand for several hours, then top off with several lemon slices 
(roasted apple slices are perhaps more traditional) and two slices of toasted bread (the bread is traditionally white- better to absorb than the heavier breads?. -served by Sir Watkin Wynne to the faculty of Jesus College, Oxford University, in 1732:

If you want to change it over from an ale drink to a wine, there is also this alternative:

A recipe from The Book of Days, an 1863 history

Wassail

2,4,or 6 bottles of port, sherry or Madeira

12 egg yolks, 1 teacupful of water

6 egg whites 1/12 lbs sugar for 4 bottles of wine

12 roasted apples

For each bottle of wine used, take the following whole spices 10 grains mace (1), 46(3) grains cloves, 37(2.5) grains cardamon seeds 28(2) grains cinnamon 12(1) grains nutmeg 48(3) grains ginger 49(3) grains coriander. (I include the numbers in parenthesis to give a sense of proportion… figure a pinch is the closest to a grain… which is .00208 oz.)

Simmer the spices with the water and add to the wines with the sugar, warm and wish yolks and whites of eggs and pour some of the warm wine into the container… when you have a froth, add the roasted apples and serve it.

Wassail Set

A very elaborate wassail set. This example includes not only the bowl and five of the six original cups, but a stand for them. The bowl has a cover with an integral container for spices on top in the form of a smaller bowl. Exhibition of Drinking Vessels Held at Vintner's Hall, London, 1933.

The Rare Wine Company has generously given me some spectacular Madeira to work with. During the next few weeks I'll be sharing some amazing Madeira-enhanced recipes... this is going to be fun! Stay tuned!

Lemon Buttermilk Rum Punch

There is a wonderful Biodynamic farm in Ghent, NY called Hawthorne Valley Farm

Photo from Hawthorne Valley Farm Website

They make the most heavenly yogurt and, from time to time, buttermilk. I visited their farm this summer and was entranced when I saw calves gamboling in the fields with their mothers, their dark chocolate coats shining with health and a bit of the devil in them as was evident when a small band made a break and did the Limbo under the fence to go a-munching on raspberry bushes in the parking lot. Naughty, but what happy animals do!! No tethering to plastic coffins for the little guys on this farm. As for their product… it’s amazing. My St. Bernard ate the yogurt from infancy and lived 15 years (without a bang by a car and a spine problem he would have made it to 20). His vet said his insides belonged to an 8 year old. I really felt the yogurt helped considerably and he almost never had “tummy troubles”(and you don't know from trouble when a giant dog has G.I. issues!).

So, what do you do when you have some of Hawthorne Valley’s sublime buttermilk left (after making that addictive Old Bay buttermilk marinade from Culinary Travels of a Kitchen Goddess) pasture-raised hen eggs and Milk Thistle (also Biodynamic) cream and you’re inspired by Becky’s heavenly lemony cookies... you make Buttermilk Punch!

It’s an old idea that I just mixed up a little. John T Edge said, “ From the 16th century, when the Spanish introduced cattle to the Americas, until the middle of the 20th century, when electrical refrigeration became truly affordable for the working class, the milky residue known as buttermilk was what Southerners drank when they reached for dairy.” In this punch it’s wicked good and rich and full of rum, (part of a formidable class of old-world preservatives) you could call it a Butter&Eggnog!

Lemon Buttermilk Rum Punch

2 cups cream

1cup sugar

¼ c mild honey

8 egg yolks

Healthy pinch fleur de sel

2 c. buttermilk

Zest and juice of 2 lemons

½ - 1 C dark rum (or Bourbon)

Make a custard base by heating the cream and sugar and slowly adding that to the eggs and honey. Pour the mixture back into the saucepan and add salt and stir till it coats the back of the spoon, being careful to keep the heat low enough so as not to clot the eggs. Strain and add buttermilk, lemon zest and juice and rum and chill

When you are ready, take a hand mixer, whip it into a froth and pour into a punch bowl or pitcher and serve.

Blown & Cut Flint glass punch cup, 1860-80

Hot Chocolate with Real Marshmallow Root Marshmallows

Hot chocolate with true marshmallow root  Spode 3886- English 1830's

If you humor me for a moment, gentle readers, your patience will be rewarded with a Hot Cognac Chocolate rocket to Nirvana, promise. You see, I have long had a mad notion to make marshmallows with marshmallow root, a process abandoned in the 19^th century because it was too much of a pain (there are sometimes reasons things are no longer done… duh!) Call me crazy, but I really wanted to know what they tasted like and nobody knew! I finally found a recipe on E-how. Not knowing the chemistry of marshmallow root sap or how much heat it could take… or what the heck gum tragacanth would do… I did just what my little E-How recipe told me to do. Silly me. Honestly, I Googled for pages and pages and couldn’t find another example.

Back in the 21^st century, Ezra Pound Cake gave a perfect recipe with step-by-step photos for modern homemade marshmallows that made it look so easy and gave me pause, since my recipe seemed to have some bits missing…still I pressed on. I mean these saps have a long history, who knows what alchemy they can produce?

None, zero, zip on the alchemy front. I got fluff for my efforts, marshmallow fluff. Gum tragecanth, like gelatin, did not behave when you dropped it into the mallow water… it became… lumps. Whip it how I might, my marshmallow had small, tapioca-like blobs in it. I am sure that was a big factor in it remaining fluff and not solidifying properly. It is very tasty and will be great on my hot-cognac-chocolate-of-the-gods but marshmallows it ain’t. Back to Google I went.

Marshmallows these days are made from a whipped mixture of corn syrup or sugar, gelatine, gum arabic and flavorings. In my old version marshmallows are made with the mucilaginous sap (think okra) from the roots of the Marsh Mallow plant (Althea officinalis), a plant which typically grows in salt marshes and on banks of large bodies of water.

According to Harold McGee in On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen "the first marshmallow-like confection, called pâte de Guimauve, was made in France" from the juice of the marsh mallow.” Owners of small candy stores put the whipped sap from the mallow root into a candy mold. This time-consuming process was typically done by hand. Indeed, candy stores had a very hard time keeping up with the demand. Now, marshmallows are made by piping the fluffy mixture through long tubes and cutting its tubular shape into equal pieces.
Thank you Mr. McGee!!! Knowing about pâte de Guimauve was the key to the kingdom. From there I found old recipes. All of them had Gum Arabic instead of my very pricey gum tragacanth. One old recipe talked about river water and rennet apples… no use to me although Eleanor Parkinson’s 1844 Complete Confectioner did talk about adding the gum and mallow mixture to sugar “which has been previously clarified and boiled to the feather” and drying of the mixture till it thickens, none of them talked about soaking the gum before adding it or whipping air into the mixture as Ezra Pound Cake encouraged.

FYI you can get marshmallow root from Frontier or Starwest Botanicals and Gum Tragacanth from Kerekes.

After my first fluff-asco… I tried to correct what I felt had gone wrong the first time… and I got marshmallows…very soft marshmallows but marshmallows. Was it worth it???? There is a faint flavor you can’t quite put your finger on that’s a little musky/woodsy. The rosewater comes through brilliantly and the tiny bit of caramelization gives it a warm glow that corn syrup can’t really do properly. There is a delicacy to the confection that is missing in the new version entirely. If you can’t go to all that trouble… use EPC’s fabulous recipe and add rosewater for the chocolate… it’s that Rosewater Marshmallow that takes the Hot Chocolate from the extraordinary to the sublime.

Marshmallows with Marshmallow Root

¼ c dried marshmallow root

1/ ¾ c sugar (*I used whole foods organic cane which is light brown to begin with)

1 ¼ T gum tragacanth (or gum Arabic, although I read it is ½ as potent so use at your own risk…the original recipe didn’t offer different measurement for Arabic)

2 c water

2 egg whites, whipped

2 t rosewater or orange flower water to taste

Simmer the root in 1 ½ c water for about 20 minutes. Soak the gum in ½ cup water. Stir the gum vigorously and plop it in the blender then cover it and wait till the cooking root has made a slightly mucilaginous tea. Strain out the root liquid into the blender and blend the root liquid and the gum paste very thoroughly. Put this into a saucepan over a very low heat and stir. It will be rubbery and will soften a little. Add the sugar and whisk for a few minutes… I quit when the thermometer read 215. It may be able to take more heat but it was already going brownish *. I then whipped it for 2 minutes to get some air into it that lightened it considerably from light caramel to café au lait and finally added the egg whites, beating it a bit more to blend. I poured it out… well out may not be the right term…it gives you a fight and is unbelievable sticky. I tried to put it in a powder-sugared pan but piped it out instead on a powder-sugared plate ... they take a while to dry and are crunchy on the outside and melting on the inside when they are finished. Refrigerate... they are sticky until they dry.

*** in retrospect, I would whip the egg whites till a meringue is formed and add the hot liquid as you would making Italian meringue... I think the product would be be better!!!

Hot Chocolate with Cognac for One (Lucky Soul)

2 T sugar

½ C cream (warmed)

1 oz. chocolate

1 T cocoa powder

2 T Milk (or more if you want this less thick)

1 T strong espresso

2 T Cognac

Melt sugar to caramel. Slowly, add the warm cream and stir till blended. Add the chopped chocolate and stir till melted. Add the cocoa, blend, then the espresso, milk and cognac. This is a luxuriantly thick and rich hot chocolate for grown-ups. Pour it into a cup and top with the Home-made Marshmallow with Rosewater and enter chocolate Nirvana

For anyone who is as mad as I am… I enclose the recipe from Sanderson should you want to 

try a fully original recipe.

This section is from page 54 of  The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-cook and Baker,  by Eleanor Parkinson, 1844

Pastes Formed With Gum - Pate De Guimauve - Marsh-Mallow Paste

Gum Arabic three pounds, roots of fresh marsh-mallows eight ounces, one dozen of rennet apples, loaf sugar three pounds. Peel, core, and cut the apples in pieces. Cleanse the roots, and slice them lengthways in an oblique direction; add this to seven pints of water; soft or river water is the best when filtered; put it on the fire and boil for a quarter of an hour, or until reduced to six pints; pound and sift the gum through a hair sieve; strain the decoction into a pan with the gum; put it on a moderate fire, or into a bain-marie, stirring it until the gum is perfectly dissolved; then strain it through a coarse towel or tamis cloth, the ends being twisted by two persons; add it to the sugar, which has been previously clarified and boiled to the feather; dry it well over the fire, keeping it constantly stirred from the bottom. When it has acquired a thick consistence, take the whites of eighteen eggs, and whip them to a strong froth; add them to the paste, and dry until it does not stick to the hand when it is applied to it; add a little essence of neroli, or a large glassful of double orange-flower water, and evaporate again to the same consistence. Pour it on a marble slab well dusted with starch-powder, flatten it with the hand; the next day cut it into strips, powder each strip, and put them in boxes. Powder the bottom that they may not stick.