CONTINENTAL DISH

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 885, 31 January 1930, Page 5

CONTINENTAL DISH

MINCED MEAT AND RICE ! Ingredients: Half a pound of minced meat, one onion, one cupful rice, a little tomato sauce, salt and pepper i to taste, bay-leaves to taste. Cut up the onion, fry pale brown, j add the minced meat, and fry together. Turn into a saucepan, add the washed rice, the tomato sauce, plenty of salt and pepper, and sufficient warm water. Tie the bayleaves in a piece of muslin and put these in also. Let the whole simmer gently, adding more water as required, until meat and rice are well ! done and all liquid is absorbed, leaving the mince just sufficiently moist ! to be appetising. Turn on to a large, round plate, after taking out the bag of bay-leaves, and pat into the shape of a beehive. Stick in olives here and there, and serve at once. COOKERY LORE A good housewife will often produce an excellent meal from Inexpensive materials, because she knows how much may be done by ‘‘a good soaking.” For example, the ancient boiling fowl, considerably cheaper than the younger roasting bird, becomes a different proposition when it is soaked in cold water for a couple of hours before it is steamed—not boiled! The water in which it was soaked should be used for the steaming. Bacon should be given two soakings—one overnight and one in fresh water next day. Apples that are soaked in cold water for half an hour before they are baked, taste far more mellow, and do not drop into the sad, shrivelled condition peculiar to most cooked fruit. Dried fruit, soaked for 12 hours, often works out cheaper for jam making than fresh fruit, since it represents far greater weight when the liquid is absorbed and produces a most flavoursome preserve. Smoked meats require longer soaking than is usually mentioned on the printed directions. Twenty-four hours is not too long if real tenderness is to be secured. DUTCH MILK TART Take 2 cups milk, 4 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon butter and a few drops of vanilla or almond flavouring. Put milk on stove, and, while it is coming to boiling point, mix 4 tablespoons flour to a. smooth paste with a little cold milk; add to boiling milk and boil gently for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, add 2 well-beaten eggs to the mixture, return pan to stove and allow eggs to set but on no account to boil. Have ready a tin or plate lined with pastry, and when the mixture has cooled pour into pastry. Bake for 20 minutes. When cooked sprinkle top with cinnamon or finely chopped browned almonds.