OUT=OF=DOOR MEALS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 December 1939, Page 10

OUT=OF=DOOR MEALS

MENUS FOR THE OPEN AIR. Now that the warm days are descending on us. sun-porches and balconies will soon be called into commission as open-air dinings-rooms by those who are not fortunate enough to have a shady garden. But meals away from the usual din-ing-room create problems of their own. as too much trouble in the preparation and the eating rather spoils the pleasure of the essential informality of what is really a kind of picnic meal.

Yet there are really plenty of dishes which are easily prepared and served, and cold dishes naturally have first place on the menu. Hot meals can be prepared if desired, but they are likely to lose much of their flavour when they become chilled out of doors. Iced appetisers, salads in endless variety, iced desserts, and drinks, these are the best to serve at such informal meals. Here is a suggested menu: — Jellied Tomato. ■ Sirloin Salad. Peach Surprise. Stuffed Celery Sticks. Jellied Tomato. Take 2 cupfuls tomato juice, 1 cupful cold water, 2 tablespoonfuls gelatine, j teaspoonful celery seed, salt to taste, 3 cupfuls white stock. 1 tablespoonful chopped onion, 2 cloves. ?, teaspoonful peppercorns, 1 egg-white, 2 hard-boiled eggs for garnish. Soften the gelatine in the cold water, pour the tomato juice into a saucepan. Add the white stock, onion, celery seed, cloves, and peppercorns, and salt to flavour. Bring to the boil. Simmer for twenty minutes. Strain into another saucepan. Add the soaked gelatine, the egg-white, slightly beaten, and its eggshell roughly crushed. Whisk till nearly boiling, then simmer for about five minutes. Draw pan to the side of stove. Stand until almost cold, then strain through a thick, clean kitchen towel. Pour into bouillon cups. To garnish make a daisy in the centre of each with hard-boil egg-white, and fill the centre with sieved egg-yolk.

Sirloin Salad. Take 11b cubed cold sirloin of beef. 2 teaspoonfuls lemon juice, salt to taste, boiled asparagus tips as required, J cupful Chilli sauce, 1 cupful thick cream, 2 teaspoonfuls grated horseradish, 1 lettuce, French dressing as required. Wash, crisp, and shred the lettuce and arrange in the bottom of a round, flat dish. Mix the sauce with the lemon juice, horse-radish, and salt. Whip and fold in the cream. Moisten- the beef with the French dressing, then drain and pile in the centre of the lettuce leaves. Cover with the cream dressing. Garnish with the asparagus tips arranged like the spokes of a whael round-the mayonnaise of meat. Peach Surprise. Take 2 cupfuls diced, tinned peaches, 1 cupful powdered sugar. 3 egg-whites stiffly beaten, J cupful cream (whipped). Drain the peaches well and add sugar. Fold in the stiffly-beaten eggwhites and cream. Turn into an ice mould and freeze in the ice and salt for about three hours, or turn into the trays of the refrigerator and freeze for two to four hours or until firm. Stuffed Celery Sticks. This savoury dish is easily prepared, and should be served with dry biscuits. Select crips sticks, cut into convenient lengths, wash and dry. Fill with a mixture made of cream cheese and chopped walnuts, or cream cheese and chopped gherkin.