THE INDISPENSABLE ONION.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 252, 27 November 1914, Page 4

THE INDISPENSABLE ONION.

The most interesting cookery book at the present moment is "The Manual of Military Cooking," prepared at the Army School of Cookery, says a writer in the Melbourne "Age." Housewives will be interested to find the importance that the army authorities attach to onions. "This well-known vegetable,'' says the manual, "may be regarded either-as a condiment or as an article of real nourishment. As a slight flavouring it is considered an improvement to nearly all made dishes."

The application of this principle is illustrated with military thoroughness in the recipes which follow. Altogether there are 39 recipes for cooking meat, and in 29 of these the fragrant onion is included among the ingredients. At the end of the manual there are recipes for field cookery. There are 34 and all but two of them include onions. Many things can be'done with bully beef. Every soldier, as many housekeepers have learnt at Broadmeadows, carries a mess tin, a wellmade, water-tight utensil, which will stand fire and can be used for cooking. The soldier is told in this manual to put his bully beef into the tin, to add some water and an onion (commandeered, no doubt, from the nearest garden), and to boil it over a little fire. Whether he calls the result Irish - stew or saa-pie, he will find it warm and comforting on active service.