RECOMMENDED RECIPES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 85, 20 October 1928, Page 14

RECOMMENDED RECIPES

SOME WARM WEATHER DISHES Now that the warm weather is coming again the family cookery book will 'require to bo reinforced with some new | summer puddings. It is often very difficult on the spur of the moment to think of an original cold sweet for a luncheon or supper menu, and the following suggestions may therefore prove helpful, and, as in nearly every case their basis is of fruit, even the most confirmed "diet-fiend" could hardly refuse them. Bananas and Cream.—lf you have never tried this.delicious dish include it in your very next menu. Peel and cut into rings the required number of bananas, and pile them in a.glass dish .(or in individual fruit salad dishes). Put several spoonfuls of black currant jain on top of the sliced bananas, and cover with well-whipped cream slightly sweetened. Serve with tiny spongecakes. Orange Caramel. —Take some large nnvl oranges and peel them. Cut into slices with a sharp knife and remove all pith. Pile in a pretty dish, and moisten with about two spoonfuls of thick syrup made by boiling orange juice and sugar until it will nearly jelly. Cover the fruit with whipped cream, and sprinkle the entire, surface very thickly with barley sugar crushed to crumbs. Passion Fruit Whip.—Dissolve a pint packet of jelly crystals (lemon, orange, or pineapple).in three-quarters of a pint of hot water, and leaveuntil just lightly set. Then take a whisk and beat, it to a froth, adding half a cupful. of strained passion fruit juice (with a very few seeds put back to give effect); and the stiffly whisked whites of two or three eggs. Continue to beat the mixture until thoroughly mixed, and turn into a damp mould. Put in. the ice chest to set, and then serve on a pretty dish with a custard made with the egg yolks. . • „' French Pears.—Choose' the hard, green pears, and peel them and cut into halves, carefully removing the cores and pips. Lay them in a. fireproof casserole with a few cloves, a pinch of cinnamon, a heaped tablespoonful of sugar to each pear, and just sufficient water to cover them. French cooks cover the prepared fruit with the peelings to keep it very tender and to prevent it from getting dry, but if the casserole lid fits well this is not really necessary. Cook in a moderate oven, stirring occassionally to be sure they are not sticking. Half-way through the cooking the French, add half a teacupful of claret, but if this is not available add an equal amount of boiling water. If the fruit is cooked slowly and thoroughly it should turn a lovely red. Placo in a pretty dish and pour any syrup1 over them. When cold decorate the dish with cream sprinkled with line strips of green angelica or a dust of grated pistachio-nut. If cream is unobtainable serve the pears with a rich boiled custard in glasses. Chocolate Custard.—This is a dish the children will love, and is merely a boiled custard in which the milk has. previously been transformed into chocolate by mixing it with sufficient good cocoa powder or by dissolving grated chocolate in it, until it is well flavoured and coloured. . Three eggs should be used to a pint of milk, and if there is the least fear of the mixture curdling a tcaspoonful of eornina can: bo mixed smoothly with a spoonful of milk, and stirred in.at the same time as the eggs. When the custard is cold pour it into custard glasses, and sprinkle a ■ little grated pitacliio nut over the surface (on special occasions), or put a spoonful oi' stiffly whipped, cream with a piece of candied cherry in the centre/ • ' - Prunes. —These can be both-delicious, and exceedingly nasty, according to the method of cooking. The French prunes

are the best for flavour and richness, but if special care is given to the Australian variety they will prove.satisfactory. Always soak all prunes .overnight jji sufficient water to cover them. Next day turn them into a saucepan with the same water —no more^-rand about half' a cupful of sugar to.a pound of prunes, and simmer very slowly until tender. The French cooks always add a gill of claret about half-way through the cooking period, as they find this takes away the slightly sickly taste often associated with prunes,, and they also lay stress on a vanilla pod broken in half and cooked and served with the fruit. A very little vanilla essence stirred in at the last will give 'something of the same effect, and '■£ the prunes are served with whipped cream and just a little juice they-will 'b'c' 'found delicious. The great mistake is to submerge them in a thin watery syrup. If the fruit' is at all small or dry the following hint is most excellent: "Soak one pound of-prunes in one pint of cold water, adding two; tablespoonfuls of golden syrup and the very finely shredded rind of half a lemon. "Leave'them to soak for. 24 hours, and then stew them gently in this liquid." Served with a ■ rich, ■boiled custard or cream of sago or rice, well stewed prunes are delicious, ' ,