New Vegetables For Old

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 113, 6 February 1937, Page 20

New Vegetables For Old

New vegetables for old—if you try this way. Or if you only change your method of cooking; especially if it happens to be boiling. A casserole in the oven with lots of butter can almost transform old tubers into young primeurs. But this requires a lot of time, fuel and butter, and few of us ever have enough of all three simultaneously. Steaming and braising are fine methods in themselves, but when even those begin to” pall there are several other fairly quick ways of making vegetables quite different. Things are so stuffable now, but choose the stuffing with care. Marrows can stand any amount of condiments and well-flavoured meat. One of the best stuffed marrows ever tasted held a paste of its own self

mixed with chopped onion, parsley, aud the trimmings from pork chops. Another delicious idea is to turn it into a cheese dish, beating up the inner flesh with melted gruyere, breadcrumbs and yolk of egg. The remains of game, hare, or the end of a ham all make good fillings. Turnips, on the other hand, tasting as they do, need gentle stuffing. People may say: Why stuff at alt when mashed aud buttered they are one of the best dishes already? But variety has its effect on the appetite as much as anything else, and a “gurt tunnut" sitting upright on a big dish and full of surprisingly good things will make a pleasant change at the midday meal. To stuff, cut the top off and cut out the middle carefully. A cheese scoop is a good instrument. Grate or shred according to the size of the pieces obtained. Mix these raw with rice cooked in milk. Salt can be added and melted butter, but no pepper. Or the turnip bit can be mixed with brown breadcrumbs, aud a good thick cream sauce, or, better still, bound with yolk of egg. The turnip stuffed can have its top put on again. Some really ambitious people sew it on with a trussing needle. If you do this, remember to remove the string before serving. Steam till the

outside is absolutely tender, or bake in the oven with dripping or gravy. Green and red peppers and aubergines are more exotic, but quite easily obtained. To bring the best out of them, put in what you will, but it must have a touch of garlic. Stuffed tomatoes are well known—as a vegetable dish, accompaniment to a grill, entree, on their own, as a savoury. Put fish inside for a change. Pounded dried haddock, or best of all, some chopped shrimps with plenty of breadcrumbs all mixed up with tomato juice. - .