THE BANANA

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 April 1938, Page 5

THE BANANA

BASE FOR MANY DISHES. Bananas are adaptable in the hands of an imaginative cook. They can, for example, form the base of a delicious curry, mix themselves admirably with cheese, and they are at home in jelly. Banana and Cheese Savoury. Take 3 bananas, 1 tablespoonful capers, :}lb cheese, 6 fingers brown bread and butter, anchovy paste. Spread the fingers of bread with anchovy paste. Cut the cheese into thin fingers and place one on each finger of bread. Skin the bananas and cut them in half lengthways. Put a banana flat side down on each piece of cheese, and decorate it down the centre with a row of capers. Arrange star shape on a plate. Garnish with parsley. Banana Cheese Salad. Take 4 bananas, 1 egg, 1 or 2 apples, 2 tomatoes, 2oz cheese, lemon juice. Boil the egg for fifteen minutes until hard, then cut into slices. Peel and quarter the apple, remove the core, and cut into slices. Grate the cheese finely, slice the tomatoes, peel and slice the bananas. Arrange all these prepared slices tastefully in a dish, sprinkle with lemon juice and a little grated cheese, pile the remainder of the cheese in the centre, and serve with salad cream. Banana Toast. Take gill banana pulp, soz cheese, 3oz butter, 1 egg-yolk, 6 or 7 rounds bread, chopped parsley, seasoning to taste. Toast the bread, then spread with butter and keep hot. Grate the cheese finely. Peel and mash up sufficient bananas to make the pulp. Melt one ounce of butter in a saucepan, add the grated cheese and banana pulp, and stir over a low heat until creamy. Draw aside, stir in the egg-yolk, and cook gently for a few minutes, then season with pepper, salt, and mixed mustard .Spread on the prepared toast and garnish with finely-chopped parsley.

Banana Savoury. Take 3 bananas, 6 finger- slices of bread, 1 small cream cheese, 1 hardboiled egg-yolk, lemon juice, seasoning, fat for frying. Split the bananas into half, and cut a small piece off the end of each half. Cut slices of bread the same length as the prepared bananas and fry .in deep fat until' golden brown. Then drain on paper. Spread a thick layer of cream cheese on the fried bread and season with pepper. Place a piece of banana on each, sprinkle with lemon juice and pepper, and garnish with powdered egg-yolk. To powder the egg-yolk, just rub it through a wire sieve or strainer. Curried Bananas. Take 4 bananas, 3oz rice, loz butter, loz flour, J apple, -1 onion, 1 teaspoonful salt, 1 dessertspoonful cur-ry-powder, 11 gills water, juice J lemon, 2 hard-boiled eggs. Wash the rice and boil it for fifteen minutes with the salt in plenty of fast-boiling water. Boil the eggs for ten minutes, put them in cold water, and remove the shells. To make, the curry sauce, peel and chop the apple* and onion, and fry them in the butter for five minutes. Stir in the flour, curry-powder, lemon juice, and a pinch of salt, and add the water gradually. Stir the sauce till it boils, lay the . skinned bananas in the sauce, and beat them for about five minutes. Add a little more water if necessary. Strain the rice into a colander arid grate a little onion on to it. Do not mash the rice. If it is boiled for exactly the right time each grain will be separate. Heap the rice on a hot dish with the bananas and sauce round and garnish with quarters of hardboiled egg.