THE HOME OFFICE

Southland Times, Issue 20661, 17 April 1929, Page 13

THE HOME OFFICE

TOMATO AMD ONION PIE. “J.D.,” Invercargill, sends this recipe:— Take two Spanish onions, 21b. of firm tomatoes, breadcrumbs, butter and seasoning. Peel the onions, cover them with boiling water, let them remain for at least two hours, then drain and dry thoroughly, and cut them into slices. Heat loz. of butter in the frying pan, and fry the onions until lightly browned. Slice the tomatoes, and place them in alternate layers with the onion in a buttered pie dish, sprinkling each layer lightly with salt and pepper, and liberally with breadcrumbs. Cover the whole with a good layer of breadcrumbs, add a few small pieces of butter, and bake in a moderately hot oven for about one hour. BAKED CURRIED TOMATOES. Sent in by “J.D.,” Invercargill:— Six or eight tomatoes, half pint tomato .sauce, two heaping teaspoons curry powder, one tablespoon red currant jelly, grated cheese, bread crumbs, a few slices of bacon. Scald the tomatoes and remove the skin. Place them in a buttered deep dish. Mix the tomato sauce, curry powder and jelly and cook slowly for five minutes, season, and pour over the tomatoes. Sprinkle the tomatoes with cheese, bread crumbs and a little melted butter. Bake in a hot oven 15 minutes, remove and garnish with stripe of boiled bacon. Serve at once with plain boiled rice. VALUE OF FRESH VEGETABLES. j Fresh vegetables should be eaten every day; they are what arc known as protective foods, valued as a rich source of vitamins and salts, especially potash and phosphorus. Green vegetables and carrots arc particularly rich in vitamin A, which is not . very widely distributed elsewhere; and till I raw green and root vegetables are a source of vitamin C. Vegetables contain practically no protein or fat, and from 5 to 10 per cent, of starch and sugar, the roots, such as carrots, being richer in these nutriments than the leaves, | such as cabbage or spinach. This small pro- j portion of carbohydrate i.s not only very | poorly absorbed in the body,' but is reduced by boiling and straining to 2 or 3 per cent. It is worth bearing in mind that cooked j vegetables contain from 90 to 95 per cent. ■ of water. As, therefore, vegetables are valued chief- ■ ly for their vitamins anil salts, it is essential to conserve as much of these as pos- ; sible during preparation for the table. Least , waste occurs when vegetables are eaten raw | in salads, either whole, as with celery and lettuce, or grated. ! As boiling in water dissolves out 50 per i cent, and upwards of the salts in vegetables, I these should either be steamed or else 1 cooked in a stew, where the dissolved salts are eaten in the gravy, and not poured down the sink with the cooking water. In the case of root vegetables still further loss is sometimes occasioned by soaking peeled vegetables in salt water, an ideal i medium for bleaching out the salts and j soluble nutriments. It is interesting to note > that cauliflower head and spinach are the j two most easily digested cooked vegetables. | When buying green vegetables select those : with a fresh colour and crisp leaves. Roots should be well-shaped and firm to the touch. Young vegetables are not only more digestible than old, but, are markedly richer in vitamins and salts.

SALMON SALAD. “R.N.”, Invercargill, sends this recipe. One tin of salmon, 11 pint of celery, and 11 pint of mayonnaise dressing. Free the salmon from skin, bones, and oil; pick the I fish apart and add the celery (which has I been cut fine) and mayonnaise dressing, tossing lightly. Season to taste. Arrange in salad dish and garnish with curled lettuce, and drops of red jelly, or serve on fresh, crisp lettuce leaves. CREAM OR CUSTARD PUFFS. “Beth.” Gore, sends this recipe. Take 2oz butter, 4oz flour, J pint water and 3 eggs. Boil water and butter, stir in I Hour all at once. Beat well over fire until it is quite smooth, and leaves the sides of the saucepan. Turn on to plate to cool, and when quite cool stir in gradually the well-beaten eggs. Mix very well, then place I in smooth pieces about size of an egg on a I greased tin. ami bake in a moderate oven ; for about half an hour. Do not open oven door until they have been in about 15, minutes. Slow baking is necessary as the puffs must rise and become hollow. When cool slit open one side and fill with whipped sweetened cream or custard and sprinkle thickly with icing sugar. VANILLA CREAM PUFFS. Sent in by “Beth,” Gore. Puff pastry. 2oz. self-raising flour, 2oz. butter, 1 cup milk, 1 cup cream, 4 tablespoons sugar, 6 eggs, 1 teaspoon vanilla essence. Mix the Hour smooth with the milk and cream and boil for a few minutes, stirring idl the time. Stir in the .sugar and butter. Let it cool, and add the beaten yolks, the flavouring and then the whites whipped stiff. Line some moulds with puff paste, fill three-parts full with this mixture, and bake I an hour in a moderate oven. I CHICKEN LOAF. This recipe is a good one for using up j the remains of any cooked poultry—fowl, turkey, duck, or goose. Remove all the meat from the bones J and carcase of a fowl, and put it through a mincer with the cooked giblets. Weigh, mince 4oz. of bacon, and fry. Add a large minced onion, and cook, without browning, until tender. Stir in the minced chicken, and to .IMb. of chicken allow '.lb. of cooked rice, Mb. of breadcrumbs, !-pint of thick white sauce, and a good tablespoonful of mushroom ketchup or Worcester sauce. Season highly, add a beaten egg and a little more sauce if the mixture be too thick. Grease a loaf-shaped tin thickly and coat it. with breadcrumbs; pack in the chicken mixture, place the tin in a bakingfin filled with boiling water, and bake for 1 hour in a moderate oven. Remove the baking fin and cook the “loaf” 15 minutes longer. Serve hot, turned out of the tin, with parsley or tomato sauce, or cold with mayonnaise sauce and salad. Editor, Home Office. SAVOURY TOAST. Mince 4ozs. of cooked ham, or 2ozs. of ham and 2ozs of cooked chicken or veal, I finely. Put the mince into a pan, with 2 ozs. of bread crumbs, salt, pepper, a teaspoonful of chopped parsley, a grate of lemon rind and 2 tablespoonfuls of tomato sauce, make hot and pile on squares of hot buttered toast. Sprinkle with chopped parsley and serve hot. This can be prepared overnight and heated in the morning.—Editor Home Office. MUSHROOM AND EGG DISH. This is an excellent recipe now that mushrooms are plentiful:—Jib. of mushrooms, one gill of milk, two eggs. After washing the mushrooms, peel and stalk them carefully, and stew them in milk until tender, then chop them coarsely. Melt a little butter in a saucepan, and add to it the beaten eggs mixed with three tablespoonfuls of milk, in which the mushrooms are stewed. Add salt and pepper to taste, stir the mixture over a gentle heat, then add the mushrooms. Stir them in, and cook until the mixture is a creamy mass. Be. careful not to over-cook it. or the. dish will be ruined. Heap the mixture on the toast.—Editor Home Office.

GREEN TOMATO MARMALADE. “Ruth,” Invercargill, sends this recipe in answer to “Queen Mab.” Take 61b of green tomatoes; stalk, wash, quarter, and place in a large basin; add 441 b of sugar, the juice and grated rinds of 2 lemons, and leave for 24 hours. Next day place all in a preserving pan, add 1 Joz of root ginger, ioz of chillies tied up in muslin. Boil until quite tender—probably about an hour and a-half. Take out the ginger, etc., and put in 2ozs of candied peel, shredded very fine. Boil up, pour off, and cover. SHORTBREAD CREAMS. Sent in by “Beth,” Gore. Cream Mb of butter and Mb of sugar, and 3 beaten eggs and 11b of self-raising flour, roll out fairly thin and cut into fancy shapes, fingers or rounds. Bake in a moderate oven for about 10 minutes, or until a golden colour. For the icing mix till smooth Mb. fine icing sugar with a little lemon juice and a tablespoonful of melted butter, adding a little boiling water if necessary. Spread on biscuits and stick two together with the icing forming the filling. EGG AND CHEESE SALAD. Sent in by “R.N.,” Invercargill. Divide some shelled hard-boiled eggs into halves crosswise, and cut a slice from the bottom of each half, to enable it to stand. Remove the yolks and beat, them up with an equal quantity of fine-grated cheese, a little butter, a few drops of salad oil, and sprinkling of salt and cayenne. Garnish with sliced radishes and serve with a dressing made from four tablespoons of olive .oil, three tablespoons of thick cream, (wo tablespoons of lemon juice, half a teaspoon of salt, and a-quarter of a teaspoon of pepper. WASHING UP. In no other part of the house is it so easy to achieve utter confusion in a short time as in the kitchen. Especially when baking, numerous utensils have to be used,, and they accumulate quickly, take up space, and act as a constant reminder of washing up to be done.

A very good and practical plan i.s to wash up at each stage of the proceedings. Where there is a hot water service this is a simple business, but otherwise it is quite a useful scheme to keep a large-sized kettle full of hot waler for just this purpose. Apart from the ease and freedom with which the next job is undertaken, far less culinary utensils are necessary. Pots and pans can be dealt, with as they are used, and the meal dished up. Pour hot. water into greasy pans or those which have contained sweet things, and cold water into pots and utensils that have held custards, egg mixtures, milk and potatoes. By the time washing-up is tackled they will be absolutely' no trouble at all to clean.