HOW TO COOK THE POTATO.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1037, 28 January 1911, Page 11

HOW TO COOK THE POTATO.

AN EXPERT ON ENGLISH'METHODS. English methods' of cooking vegetables were contrasted with Continental methods by Mr. 'Hermann Senn' in an address, to the Royal Horticultural Society at Westminster recently.-.

Mr.. Senn--declared that Micro is room for improvement in English cookery. Too often vegetables are badly cooked, indigestible,- tasteless, and 'unsightly, and their nutriment wasted. To be in perfect health-a man should'havo at least one course of vegetables each day. Dealing as a practical cook with the Jvumble potato and cabbage, "so often badly and disgracefully cooked," Mr. Senn remarked that, in England cabbage was always boiled, whereas the French, German, 'Swiss,'and Italian's would not look, at plain boiled cabbago more than once a year., To be well cooked the cabbage required tho addition of fat, real animal fat, and not the coco-nut fat or other substitute of tho vegetarian.

N'o one can persuade me," said tho lecturer, "that these things can replaco a few slips of bacon nicely broiled and put in the cabbage." "There .are'at'least twenty ways of cooking cabbage,"-said Mr. Senn. "Tomorrow . I am .cooking a dinner in which I shall £ive it the first'place among tho hors-d'oeuvres. I shall cook a cabbage leaf- and wrap' it round •a • neat roll of savoury meat. I have not seen that yet, but I know it will look nico and, taste well. I know also that there is nothing better- than the humblo cabbago when it is cut in two and braised with partridgo or pheasant.

"An undercooked potato," fnid ' Mr. Senn, "is the most indigestiblo thing you can get. Potatoes in England are boiled, steamed, or fried. Sometimes yon get them mashed. On the Continent there are 240 ways of preparing potatoes. Contrast the English mashed potato, crushed with a fork, with the French puree, which you can get as soon as you reach Boulogne railway station. In France milk is added and stock, and a little butter. Boil these together anil then put in your mashed potatoes, with salt, nepper, and just a prating of nutmeg. Then compare this delicious creamy vegetable with its English substitute."