RECOMMENDED RECIPES

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 7, 8 July 1922, Page 16

RECOMMENDED RECIPES

The pumpkin is quite the most fashionable vegetable at present, and is to be seen in gold, crimson, green, and white-striped, and cream-coloured varieties in all directions. It is capable of use in many ways, as soup, tart, curry, etc., and an exchange gives an interesting number of recipes for this nourishing vegetable as follow:— Pumpkin Soup: Cut up, peel, and seed a small pumpkin or half a large pumpkin. Boil the pulp in slightly salted water until tender. Drain and put through a puree sieve. Cream together 2 tablespoons each of butter and flour; melt, and lightly brown in a frying-pan. Turn in the pumpkin pulp, adding 1 quart of stock; season to taste, beat well, and cook slowly for 1 hour. Beat 2 eggs thoroughly and add to them a cup of cream. Stop the soup boiling, turn', in the egg and cream, stir well, and the soup is ready to 6erve. About 2 cups of pumpkin should be the result, after putting the pulp through the puree sieve.

Scalloped Pumpkin: Peel and dice enough pumpkin pulp to m_ke 2£ cups. Boil ft slightly salted water until it is just beginning to be tender, then drain dry. Melt a little butter in a frying-pan and lightly brown the dice/ a few at a time; place them in a buttered pudding dish wi.'h a cup of dry crumbs, dust with pepper and salt, add a tablespoon of sugar and £-cup of grated cheese! Pour over all 2 cups of thin tomato sauce, dot the top with tii.y lumps of butter and bake. Italian Pumpkin: Peel and slice a quarter of a medium-sized pumpkin and boil the slices in salted water until they are tender. Drain the sfices and saute them in butter, seasoning them with salt, pepper, and a little sugar. Lay the slices on a flat buttered baking dish and dust with grated cheese, then stand in the oven long enough to melt and lightly brown the cheese.

Pumpkin Sticks: Peel and cut, the pumpkin in sticks, as for French fried potatoes, using a quarter of a mediumsised pumpkin. Boil the sticks ten minutes in salted water, drain dry, and roll in mixed cinnamon and sugar, then lay them on a baking sheet and dry in a cooling oven. A isalt spoon of powdered ginger is often added, with a grating of orange peel, to the sugar and spice.

Pumpkin Shortcake: Take 2 cups of hot boiled and mashed pumpkin pulp and add to it a generous lump of butter, |--cup of honey, a teaspoon each of cinnamon and ginger, 2 beaten eggs, 1 cup of -sugar, and 1 cup of cream. Put the mixture in a double bpiler and cook gently until creamy and thick. % Have ready the shortcake made of biscuit dough, split and butter it and lay up with pumpkin spread thickly between and on top. Over all put a layer of whipped cream. The shortcake is best hot, but.is also eaten cold. Colonial Pumpkin Tart: Boil in salted water pumpkin to equal 3 cups, when mashed thoroughly through a sieve. Add to it 1 cup of molasses, a cup of brown sugar, a teaspoon of cinnamon, £-teaspoon of cloves, 2 teaspoons of ginger, a generous lump of butter, yolkß of 3 eggs, a cup of cream, and, last of all, fold in the stiffly-beaten whites of the eggs." Line deep plates with a good rich

crust and fill three-quarters full of the pumpkin mixture. Bake slowly until brown blistered on top. This tart (pie the Americans call it) was occasionally frosted, when baked, with a soft boiled frosting, and the old fashion is worthy of repetition. A '--.■■-■' Sweet Pickled Pumpkin: Peel and cut a small pumpkin into medium slices, then cut each slice in two or three^ pieces. Boil in salted water for ten minutes, drain and put into the syrup. The syrup is made of a quart of vinegar, 21b of sugar, 2 cups of brown sugar, a thinly-sliced lemon with seeds removed, a good-sized piece of green ginger cut small, 6 sticks of cinnamon, a tablespoon of cloves, a teaspoon of ginger, a salt spoon of curry powder, and a blade of mace. Boil the syrup .five minutes, then add the pumpkin. Cook evenly until the pumpkin looks glassy at the edges, then pour into a crock and let stand one week. At the end of that time, drain off the. syrup, if it seems thin, and boil down a little; then add the pumpkin and cook until all is cooked through, turn back into the crock, and, when cold, cover the crock with a linen cloth. Stpre in a cool, dry place.

Curried Pumpkin and Oysters.—Peel, dice, and boil enough pumpkins.to equal 3 cups. Drain and put a layer of oysters in the bottom of a deep buttered pudding dish, cover with pumpkin and 2 tablespoons of crumbs, dot with lumps of butter, dust with pepper. and salt, and repeat until the dish is full. Have ready the sauce, made in this way: Take one tin of tomatoes, a sliced onion, a bay leaf, a half bud of garlic, a teaspoon of flour, salt, pepper, two stalks of celery, a tablespoon, of sugar, and a few sprays' "of parsley. Boil gently until the onions are cooked, then strain into a small saucepan and thicken slightly; let cool until it stops smoking, and add to the prepared dish.- Bake for forty minutes.