Mushrooms Are in Season

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23020, 23 April 1938, Page 7 (Supplement)

Mushrooms Are in Season

KIDNEYS are so often wasted in the country because there are not enough of them to bother about. Hero is another way to try while mushrooms are to be had for the gathering. Scoop out the centre of four" solid onions, and In each place half a teaspoon of butter, jalt and pepper to taste, and half a kidney. Cover the top with an onion cap or with breadcrumbs, and bake in b sma'.l baking dish or casserole (with good dripping-) until tender. Rolls or Patties?

Bread and butter rolled around two or three cooked mushrooms, after the manner of tho popular asparagus roll, U novel party fare, and so are mushroom patties, made with the little puff pastry pattv cnscs that one associates \rith oysters" and a creamy white sauce. These "would be just the thing if there is an early dauco arranged within the next few "weeks. J To prepare the mushroom filling, collect the small tender button mushrooms, clean and skin them, and stew very gently indeed in milk to which is added salt, pepper and a pinch of sugar. Thicken smoothly with cornflour and add, last of all, if possible, a little rich unscalded cream. Fill the cooked patty cases, and heat through before serving. Use watercress again for a garnish if you can find any of it. Mushrooms With Spaghetti

Do you have- leanings at times toward macaroni and spaghetti and things of that kind, without knowing just how to introduce them into meals that are mainly mutton ? Here is a chance while mushrooms are in season. Prepare about s pound of mushrooms, toss them in a little butter in the pan for five minutes, and then add one cup of milk and stew pently until tender. Thicken with cornflour, and season well. In the meantime grate two or three ounces of dry cheese, and cook three ounces of spaghetti or macaroni in boiling salted water for 20 minutes. Drain this, and mix with the mushrooms, and half the grated cheese. Turn into a buttered piedisli, sprinkle the rest of the (jheese on top, together with a few nuts of butter, and bake in a hot oven until browned. Add a little extra milk if the mixture is too thick. It thickens n little during the browning, and should never be served as a solid mass. In a Pie With Celery Celery is finding a welcome on the culinary list this month with mushrooms. This pie is novel and appetising: lib. mushrooms, £lb. fat bacon, a largo tender stalk of celcrv, 2 tablespoons water, salt and pepper, a squeeze of Jemon juice, Jib. flaky pastry. Prepare the mushrooms and cut them if large; cut tjje bacon into small dice and cnop the celery finely. Then fill a piedish with alternate layers of these pood things, sprinkling each with lemon juice and salt and pepper, and in all, Half a saltspoon of sugar. Add the water for milk with a little Tream), cover Arith pastry, and bake in a quick oven fo£ 30 minutes. Move to a cooler part of the oven if the contents are not quite tender, and continue cooking slowly with,paper over the pastry.

Hot Mushroom Sandwiches F«|ple can. be, divided into two groups tioseg-ywho like mushrooms and those them in any shape or form. If[-jrou belong to the first group, you will be looking for all kinds of odd meals at which to serve the succulent mushroom that will be gone again so soon. Why not a toasted sandwich, for breakfast in a substantial way, for supper, when there are visitors, or even iof. the next afternoon party. Perhaps you ;; would prefer the conventional sandwich for the last. Then just spread cooked mushrooms on brown

SOME UNUSUAL RECIPES TO TRY

bread and butter, add a little chopped cooked bacon or ham, and serve (.if you havo a creek near by) with watercress.

Tho hot sandwich, however, is for the adventurous. First fry thin slices of bacon until crisp, and then evenly cut slices of tomato, with the usual salt, popper, and sugar. Keep these hot, and cook tho mushrooms until tender. In the meantime, toast slices of bread, very lightly on the inner side, and spread with butter. Arrange on one slice a crisp lettuce leaf or some watercress, and then tho slices of bacon, tomato and the mushrooms according to taste. Top with the other slice of toast, buttered side down, cut as required, and servo garnished with lettuce or watercress. It needs a knife and fork, of course, and is easier to make an electric or gas grillor; but it is a dish to try for your best friends, at once.