COOK with Elizabeth

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28530, 8 March 1958, Page 2

COOK with Elizabeth

Stuffed Butternuts

Have you discovered butternuts yet? They are not, as you might think, some kind of sweets, but a particularly delicious vegetable. They are, when cooked, very like pumpkin both to look at and to eat, but they have a more delicate, smoother texture something like well cooked young carrot. To look at uncooked, they are more like small marrows shaped like Chianti bottles, and when vou split one down, the narrow enji, or neck of the bottle, is solid, with all the seeds contained in a round ball in the curving end. Scoop out the seeds, and you have the most attractive looking pearshaped pieces, the hollows of which will take about three-quar-ters of a cup of stuffing. Bake them and you have a meal that is as unusual and interesting to look at as it is delicious. Staffed Butternuts. 3 medium small butternuts. 11b minced steak, 2 cups fine white breadcrumbs, 1 rasher bacon, 1 minced onion, 1 minced green pepper, 1 teaspoon celery salt, 1 tablespoon tomato sauce, 2 beaten eggs. Split butternuts down , into halves, peel and scoop out the seeds. Mince bacon, steak, onion and green pepper. Combine with breadcrumbs, celery salt, tomato sauce, a dash of salt and pepper, and two beaten eggs. Add a drop or two of milk to moisten and mix to a paste. Mould into raised mounds in the hollows of the butternuts. Place in a baking dish with a very little dripping. Cover with butterpapers and bake about one hour, removing the papers for the last part of the cooking time.