LA BONNE CUISINE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 140, 15 June 1935, Page 3 (Supplement)

LA BONNE CUISINE.

THE PROBLEM SOLVED.

SOME MORE HORS-D'OEUVRES,

(By A FRENCH CHEF.)

The housewife or the bachelor girl who dines alone can solve the eating problem once in a way by making a variety of hors-d'oeuvres. For an informal Sunday night's supper, or when unexpected visitors turn up, such a meal would be sufficient for the occasion.

Every good housewife keeps on her pantry shelves the main ingredients for a good hors-d'oeuvre—a tin of sardines, bottled anchovies, a tin of shrimps or prawns, capers, pickles of various kinds —bottled peas and diced vegetables— and the contents of the everyday vegetable basket will supply the rest — tomatoes, celery, beetroot, potatoes, carrots, radishes, spring onions (in season), and so on. Then there are the things one can buy ready cooked from the "delicatessen" snops—liver, salami, or other sausage. Hard boiled eggs, too, make a satisfying addition to the < hord d'ocuvres. If you have any left-over vegetables, they can all be used up in the hors d'ocuvres tossed in mayonnaise. Haricot or butter beans should be given a sprinkling of tomato sauce added. In fact, if you have no cold cooked beans, it is a good idea to use a tin of baked beans in tomato, as they are so appretising, and most people like them. Serve the sardines and anchovies separately. If you do not possess a hors-d'oeuvres dish, you can improvise one with an ordinary large plate or meat dish, using crusts of bread to make the divisions. Diced Vegetables. Cut your tomato In slices, and sprinkle w . it .' l . an<l vinegar. In another division cut up cold potatoes in mayonnaise, in others a few olives, shrimps or prawns in mayonnaise, sliced cucumber —pickled or sprinkled with French dressing—sliced gherkins and French capers, diced beetroot, pickled red cabbage, diced celery root or boiled cleriac and radishes.

In the centre of the dish could be arranged sliced hard-boiled eggs, or a little sliced liver or salami sausage. Nice crisp rolls or thin dry toast and lots of butter should be handed round with the hors-d'oeuvres, and quarters of lemon and Tarragon vinegar should be available for those who wish to make the piquant still more piquant.

The hostess who wishes to add a smart note to her dinner table will take particular pains with the hors-d'oeuvre, and will not pass over this course as being "too much trouble."

Far from being too much trouble, she will find it the biggest helper-out of her meal, especially when she has to study economy. For most of the varieties of hors-d'oeuvre are remarkably cheap, and a littlo goes a long way. SOME SWEET SALAD RECIPES. Here .are some original suggestions, with excellent ideas concerning sweet 6alacl:— Apple Salad. Pare, core, and slice thinly three or four juicy apples, or as many as will half fill a salad bowl. Sprinkle over them some finely cut candied ginger. Melt in a warm plate a small jar of red currant jelly, add it to the juice of half a lemon, pour over the apples, and leave for a time. Just before serving, add a small jar of cream. Creamed Fruit Salad. Take four oranges, eight bananas.; half a preserved pineapple, sugar, and half a pint of cream. Remove skin and pips from oranges, and slice them across, removing the pips. Peel the bananas and slice them across, and cut pineapple into small dice. Put a layer of each fruit into a glass bowl, sprinkle wi*h sugar and repeat until all fruit is used up. Whip the cream until it is just stiff, then put it all over the top, completely covering the fruit. Deauville Salad. Take half a pound of dates, one dozen almonds, one tablespoon of grated coconut, half a lemon, French dressing. Stone the dates and cut them in small pieces. Blanch and brown the almonds, chop them fine, and add to the dates. Mix with the French dressing a little whipped cream, and sprinkle with coconut, and garnish with the lemon. Poinsettia Salad. Cut into cubes four large tart apples, sprinkle with lemon juice, and add equal quantities of celery, two oranges and a cupful of nuts, all finely cut. Moisten the salad well with mayonnaise and press lightly into moulds on fresh lettuce leaves, then cut Ions; points of beetroot and arrange these like poinsettias, with a dot of hard-boiled egg in the centre of each. Melon Salad. One ripe melon, loz of chopped walnuts, the whites of two uncooked eggs. Scoop out the pulp from the melon, mash through a sieve, and then stir in the nuts. Just before serving, stir in the whites of eggs well beaten. Serve cold. Lamb Cutlets. When no cold meat is required for the next day, lamb cutlets served with spinach, which is excellent at present, should be tried. Allow two cutlets for each person. Dip them all over in seasoned flour, then place them in a flat fireproof oven dish, or a frying-pan. Pour in a little water, just enough to prevent the meat from burning, and cover the dish closely. Simmer slowly for an hour, either in the oven or on the hot-plate. Provided the cooking has been slow enough, the dish has been tightly covered, and its size is just right to hold the cutlets without a lot of air space above, they will be very tender, of good flavour, and the gravy will be thick and tasty. The spinach should be cooked without any water but that that which adheres to it after washing. It should be finely chopped or rubbed through a sieve when tender, and then heated up with a little butter, cream, salt, and pepper.