HOLIDAY FARE.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21216, 23 December 1930, Page 17

HOLIDAY FARE.

CHRISTMAS RECIPES. (Contributed by the Home Science Extension Service, University of Otago). There is a kind of magic in the air; wc cannot settle down to our ordinary routine tasks; children are home for the holidays; thoughts of Christinas fill the air; parcels pf all sorts and sizes are tied up and bidden in cupboards and drawers. Who has grown old enough to lose the thrill of Christmas and the holidays? We anticipate bo much, we plan and prepare as we never do at any other time of the year. We prepare! Happily most of us have long since ceased trying to keep up the °*d tradition of a winter Christmas in the middle of summer, and we no longer toil through hot turkey and plum duff with the thermometer at 80, and then wish we hadn’t. Quite apart from this an English Christmas dinner will keep most mothers working in a hot kitchen all the morning and washing up nearly all the afternoon, The net result of her “ holiday ” will be a dyspeptic and disagreeable family, and, sighing with exhaustion, she will gasp. Thank goodness that is over for another year.” How often are her efforts really appreciated ? Christmas is a thanksgiving "to commemorate that first Christmas morning, but, as we cannot bear gifts like the wise men of old, wo give to those nearest us something as a mark of “ good will towards men.” Christmas should bring to us peace and happiness and thankfulness, but how is the busy homemaker to achieve this_ and at the same time provide the festive faro that the holiday season demands? She must certainly plan and prepare. Perhaps the most important item is Christmas dinner. Shall we have the roast hot or cold? Is the hot roast worth the trouble of a hot morning’s basting in the kitchen and. a big greasy washing up on this.our holiest or holidays? If it is cold, be it poultry or lamb, it will be more digestible, go further, be infinitely nicer on Boxing Day for not having been carved hot, and can bo served with one of a great variety of salads that will certainly be more popular than the usual vegetables and will add a pleasing touch of gay colour to the Christmas table. Tf poultry is the order be sure it is carefully selected. As a rule, a good laying variety such as the white Leghorn ic a poor table bird and a heavier type like the Rhode Island Reds and Orpingtons will be much nicer. Pin feathers indicate a young fowl, while hairs tell the opposite story. The legs and feet of a young bird are soft and smooth to the touch, but on the legs of the older ones there are sharp pronounced scales and the spurs are strong and large. A sophisticated comb, too, is a good indicator. If the end of the breast bone is soft and bends easily, the fowl is not more than a year old. If it is older the cartilage will be hardened into bone. Here is a good recipe for s' "Ifing that is delicious for any kind of |,..ultry hot or cold—■Swedish Stuffing.—Two cups of stale bread crumbs, two thirds cup melted buG ter, half cup seeded raisins, one teaspoon salt, one-eighth teaspoon pepper, half teaspoon sage, half cup of English walnut meats. Mix ingredients in the order given; raisins should be cut and nuts broken in pieces. Here is a very special salad;— One cup cold cooked peas, one cup pineapple, half-inch cubes, half . cut grated raw carrot, two finely sliced spring onions, two tablespoons chopped raw spinach, two hard cooked eggs, half lb tomatoes, two lettuce, salad dressing. Arrange lettuce leaves in a large dish, mix the carrot, onion and spinach and arrange daintily with pineapple and peas in the centre. .Garnish with eggs and tomatoes. Serves six. The vegetables can be prepared the day before, the peas being allowed to stand in their own liquor over night and the leafy vegetables kept fresh in a damp cloth. . The dressing, fpo, may be prepared beforehand: — Boiled Salad Dressing.—l teaspoon salt, 1 teaspoon mustard, li teaspoo'n sugar, few grains cayenne, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 egg, or. 2 yokes, 1J tablespoons butter, 3 cup milk, J cup vinegar. All measures dead level. Mix dry ingredients, add egg slightly beaten, then milk and melted butter, and vinegar last, and very slowly. Cook over hot water until mixture thickens. If we do have plum pudding let it be a : small one, to give everyone a taste for the sake of tradition, and serve as well some cold dessert prepared the day before, such as:— Pineapple Bavarian Cream. —1 * tablespoon granulated gelatine, i cup cold water, 3 • cup pineapple juice, 4 cup crushed pineaple, third cu sugar, 1 tablespoon lemon juice, 1 cup cream. All measures are dead level. Soak gelatine in water for quarter of an hour, boil pineapple juice and sugar, add to the gelatine, and stir until it is dissolved. Cool mixture, add lemon juice, and as it begins to thicken fold in the pineapple pulp and whipped cream. Turn into a wet mould and set to cool. To turn out. if necessary, hold the mould in hot water for a moment, so that the cream will just, begin to melt and so be released easily This recipe can be varied to suit available materials, but care must be taken that the proportion of liquid and gelatine remains constant. This Christmas .dinner will give tht home-maker a , really happy Christmas, ' Vl .th leisure to enjoy her family, and she will nave the satisfaction of knowing that it should not offend anyone’s digestion, but, on the other hand, provide a really well-balanced and suitable meal. With these few suggestions the Home ocience Extension Service extends to ail home-makers its very best wishes for a Merry Christmas and a Happy Now Year.