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Southland Times, Issue 21835, 12 October 1932, Page 3

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Making Meals Appetising

As a rule one finds that the most opulent housekeepers use the least imagination. It is the person with the slender purse who has to conjure up enticing meals with the smallest possible outlay, who unwittingly supplies some original and entertaining meals. There is nothing really to criticise in those other meals of perfect correctness and decorum, the legs of lamb and sirloins of beef, flanked by potatoes and Brussels sprouts, and the fruit tarts and puddings, that appear so regularly. But there is nothing unexpected or exciting, and sometimes when the dullness of meals palls a pleasant surprise makes all the difference to flagging appetites. A Bachelor Girl’s Menu.

A bachelor girl recently provided a most delicious meal cooked on a single gas ring. It had none of the soundness of the meals you get in most houses, but it was appetising, quite sufficient, and different enough to be very welcome.

The first course was. made up of very lightly scrambled eggs with which a little pimento was mixed. Everybody doesn’t like pimento (which can be bought raw or in a tin) but a little onion or a tomato could be used instead. With it were served some tinned green peas, with plenty of butter and some potato crisps (bought in a bag I fancy and reheated). The potatoes were very salty, and the eggs had been cooked with a lot of butter, and the result was delicious. After this course came a salad of fresh grapefruit on young lettuce leaves. It sounds quite ordinary, but with two pennyworth of cream a delicious dressing had been made, and the dish—served daintily on individual plates—was finished with a sprinkling of paprika. This I thought is the end, but some fingers of hot buttered toast, liberally spread with anchovy paste, made just the right finish. Salads as a Course.

In spite of all that is written on the subject, colonial housewives still only serve salads with cold meat, or as an adjunct to another course, and very seldom as a course by themselves. And they nearly always drench them in a salad dressing composed mostly of vinegar, and seldom use fruit as a variation. ,■ Japanese salad, made with different kinds of fruit and a dressing of creairi, lemon juice and seasonings

is perfectly melting, and after it there can be a cheese dish, either omelette, souffle—if you are ambitious —or even Welsh rarebit.

Instead of Soup. It doesn’t need very much planning to transform a very ordinary meal into an unusual one. All sorts of nice little dishes made in cocottes to start ’be meal are more interesting than soup. Eggs can be cooked in this way with every kind of foundation —cheese tomato, sardine, pimento or a little chutney mixed with curry. Beautifully cooked vegetables are worthy of individual attention, and a dish of buttered carrots or beans, cauliflower au beurre noir or cabbage cooked with ham, makes an excellent course. Poached eggs on hot com is unusual and appetising, and eggs can also be served on spinach or beans. If you serve a joint all you can do is to see that it is perfectly cooked, with plenty of basting, and there can be a pleasing adjunct with it. Horseradish sauce makes all the difference to beef, and onion sauce is too little served with mutton. Mint jelly makes a change from mint sauce, and forcemeat, to which a little grated lemon rind has been added, is pleasant with veal. Roast pork is more flavoursome if the skin is well scored and the interslices filled with a sage ' and onion stuffing, instead of inside.

Alternatives to Joints. And there are other things besides joints, chops and steak to make the main course. Brains are capable of many delicious renderings, stuffed hearts now and again are good with red currant jelly, and sweet breads go a very long way. Pigs’ fry is too seldom seen, and when you have finished with all these things there are all kinds of fish to be baked, broiled and made into pies. Sweets should be daintily served, even if they are composed of the most ordinary things, and such things as junkets and custards are charming if set in individual bowls and served with fruit on top of them.