The new practical housekeeping

Pear Compote. — Make as apple compote, or cook six or eight canned pears in their syrup until it becomes like honey ; then remove from the fire, halve and lay in a dish. Beat whites of two eggs to a stiff frothy mass, sweeten, and spread over the pears. ^ Brown with salamander or in oven, if desired. Or, for a Compote with Eggs, peel good, sound pears, cut into quarters, and take out seeds, flour them lightly and fry in butter. Add enough water and sugar to make a syrup and stew the pears until tender. Take up the pears, thicken the syrup with well-beaten yolks of eggs ; pour over the pears and serve. Alligator Pear Salad. — The alligator pear is a tropical fruit but little known, that tastes something like the American chestnut, and is finding its way to some tables. Select green-colored fruit, as the black over-ripe fruit is not good. Cut the pear in two, remove the large seeds, pare away the outer rind, then cut the fruit into strips, and season with a saltspoon salt, two tablespoons olive oil, and a teaspoon tarragon vinegar. Baked Pie-Plant — Wash, peel and cut into inch pieces, and place in covered baking-dish, sprinkling sugar on each layer, using about a teacup to a quart. The nicest thing to cook it in is a covered bean-pot, allowing one hour from time it is put in oven. This makes a delicious sauce, far superior to stewing it. If baked without a cover it will be done in half an hour, but is nicer to cover and confine the aroma. Stewed Pie-plant — Make a rich syrup by adding sugar to water in which long strips of orange peel have been boiled until tender, put a single layer of pie-plant three inches long, and stew gently until clear. When done remove and cook another layer. This makes a handsome dessert dish, ornamented with puff-paste cut in fanciful shapes. Use one orange to two and a half pounds pie-plant. Some prefer to stew pie-plant in clear water, turning off all the water possible when done and letting it get almost cold before sweetening. Less sugar is required, and it is also thought to be much nicer. To remove the strong acid taste, and also effect a saving in sugar, many turn boiling hot water over it before cooking and let stand until cold, then turning it off; some let stand in the hot water only five minutes or so. Fried Pie-plant is also nice. Fry in butter like apples, and sweeten well. • Pine-apple. — The Strawberry is the best variety, though the Sugarloaf is good, of smoother exterior, fine-grained and tender, but not so juicy and high-flavored as the former. This fruit is so perishable that to keep even a few days it must be cooked. To prepare, peel and cut the fruit into dice. Throw away the core or hearty as it is bitter. Sprinkle thickly with sugar and place on ice some time before serving ; many let it stand overnight, but as pine* apples darken by exposure to air, if wanted to look nicely, serve at once. Just before wanted pile high in center of fruit-dish, with border of sponge cake slices, lady fingers or jelly sandwiches (see Jellies and Jams), and the tuft of the pine-apple topping the whole. Very nice if sliced on a slaw-cutter, and some after paring pick the fruit from the core with a knife! A dish of alternate layers of shredded pine-apple and cocoanut, sprinkled with sugar and served with a sauce of orange juice, is a nice dessert.