Sick room recipes

Some basic facts

When we are preparing food or drink for the sick, everything used are to be scrupulously clean. Iron and tin sauce pans are to be avoided. Those lined with enamel are preferable. A double sauce pan can be used, which avoids the risk of burning the milk or other food that is being cooked. Sick people generally like less flavouring, whether salt or sugar, than is put in the ordinary cookery.

Sick-room recipes

Albumin water

Take the white of an egg, remove the specks and beat it thoroughly. Add it to half a pint of water and again beat. Strain before use. You can also sweeten this.

Arrowroot

Take a dessertspoon full of arrowroot, make into a smooth paste with a little milk, boil half a pint of milk with a lump of sugar, and pour it, while boiling, on the arrowroot, stirring quickly all the time.
It may be flavoured with lemon essence, but it is generally preferred plain.
Water arrowroot can be made in the same way, using water instead of milk. According to taste it can be flavoured with lemon and sugar or with salt.

Bael drink

This drink is used in dysentery.
One or two tablespoonfuls liquid extract of unripe bael fruit to a pint of water can give this bael drink.

Barley water

Take two ounces of pearl barley, wash it well in cold water, put it into a saucepan with a pint and a half of cold water, bring it to the boil and let it simmer gently for half an hour. Strain before use.
If wanted as a drink and not as an addition to milk, it may be flavoured with lemon and sugar.

Beef tea

>Take a pound of fresh lean beef. Cut it small and put it with a pint of cold water into a covered jar in a warm oven until it is cooked. Skim it now and then and stir. Pour off the beef-tea when cooked; through a strainer with large holes in which through sediments can pass, and let it stand in a shallow dish till quite cold, when the fat can be removed in a solid cake. If it is boiled down to a small quantity it will be a jelly when cold.
When it is warmed for use, flavour it with salt and pepper. Celery seed, or a very little onion may be used occasionally to vary the flavour. Beef tea is served when solid food is allowed, with very thin crisp dry toast cut into squares.

Blanc-mange

Dissolve one ounce of fine isinglass in a pint of milk. Strain it through fine muslin, put it into a saucepan with an ounce of pounded sugar and the thin peel of a lemon. Let it warm nearly boiling, then take out the lemon peel and pour it into a wetted mould

Bread jelly

Soak bread crumb in water or milk for an hour. Boil it in water, sufficient to cover it well, for another hour adding a little sugar and flavouring.Strain it and let it stand cold. Bread jell is ready to serve.

Broth

It can be made in the same way as beef-tea using chicken or beef. The broth must be well skimmed.The bones are not removed from the meat .

Cocoa

Cocoa can be made with boiling milk.Boil cocoa in milk for a minute or two before served.

Corn flour blanc-mange

Take two ounces of corn flour, one ounce of sugar and one pint of milk. Mix the corn flour with little milk into a smooth paste, and boil the rest of the milk with the sugar and a few drops of almond, vanilla or other flavouring. Pour the mixed corn flour into the boiling milk, stirring it quickly till it is thickened. Then serve it after cooling some time.

Curds and whey

>Put a pint of new milk in a glass dish.Add rennet while stirring.Let it stand in a warm place until set.
If it is intended for use as pudding, the milk should be sweetened before rennet is added, and when it is set and cooled a little nutmeg and a few spoonfuls of whipped cream can be placed on the top.

Baked custard pudding

Beat two eggs in a basin, stir into it about half a pint of cold milk. Sweeten it. Grate a nut meg on the top, and bake it in a rather slow oven until it is set. Do not move the dish while baking. Oven should not be so hot.

Egg flip

>Take the yolk of an egg, beat it well with an ounce of milk and add to it two ounces of port or half an ounce of brandy, sweeten it and grate a little nut meg over it according to taste. It must not be boiled.

Imperial drink

Take cream of tartar, lemon juice, and some loaf sugar. Mix in a jug and pour upon a pint of boiling water. It is a refreshing drink for feverish patients.

Oatmeal drink

Boil a good tablespoonful of scotch oatmeal in a quart of water for about twenty minutes, stirring it now and then. Add ginger, lemon and sugar, according to taste.This is also a refreshing drink.

Water gruel

Mix two tablespoonfuls of groats or fine oatmeal in a little cold water till it is a smooth paste. Add some boiling water and boil it for a quarter of an hour. Milk gruel can be made by substituting water with milk

White wine whey

Boil half a pint of milk, pour into it wineglassful of sherry, and stir it till it curdles. Strain before serving.

So, have healthy and light foods when you are sick.