LENTEN RECIPES

New Zealand Listener, Volume 2, Issue 34, 16 February 1940, Page 44

LENTEN RECIPES

"To-Morrow Will Be Friday" ASTER comes early this year, so we mustn’t overlook EB our Lenten recipes. As a matter of fact, such tasty dishes are made under the auspices of Lent, so to speak, that the original idea of self-denial is often lost sight of. Here are some new and old recipes.

Special Fish Casserole Cut up about 112 cups of any cooked fish, and put in the bottom of the casserole with several small pieces of butter. Over this, sprinkle some finely chopped onion which you have fried golden brown in butter (not dripping). Sprinkle this with a little Worcester Sauce. Now pour about a pint of good Egg Sauce over this. Make the sauce by melting 4 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan, over a low heat, and stirring in 4 tablespoons of flour until well blended; pour in very gradually 2 breakfast cups of milk stirring constantly until the sauce thickens. Add pepper and salt to taste, and cook about 5 minutes. See that it is very smooth and creamy. Cut up 2.or 3 hard boiled eggs into. small pieces, and add them to the sauce. A substantial layer of mashed potatoes is now put over the sauce, forming a good thick crust to the casserole dish. Add a fair sprinkling of grated cheese, and bake in a hot oven (450°) without a lid. Bake until nicely browned. Tinned fish can be used, but cold cooked ; fish is better. Hash of Pickled Herrings This is a dish much used in Central Europe, and is a real Lenten: recipe, in that it uses salt herrings, but in such a tasty sauce that they are really very nice. Soak the herrings in water for some time; skin them, take out the backbone carefully, and chop them up finely. Then make a sauce of butter, onion and fiour in the usual way, and mix in as much water as will make a smooth gravy. Season with a little vinegar after the herrings have been added, and simmer for about a-quarter of an hour. Fish Rissoles This is a tasty old recipe from Cape Colony. Mince finely a pound of fish, either fresh or smoked, cooked or raw. Soak a thick slice of bread in water, squeeze it dry, and add it to the fish; add also a chopped onion fried in butter, a little chopped parsley, a grating of nutmeg, a pinch of cayenne, and salt to taste. Then add two beaten eggs and

mix well. Shape into rissoles, roll in fine breadcrumbs, or pounded dry biscuits; then dip in egg afd roll in crumbs again. Fry in lard and serve hot with tomato sauce. Pickled Herring Salad This. is a Scandinavian dish, and is called Slid Salat there. If it is not wanted for Lent, a little cold chicken or rabbit may be added. Steep two or three pickled herrings in water overnight; separate them from skin and -bone and cut into small dice. Also cut into small dice about six medium-sized cold boiled potatoes, two cooked beetroot soaked in vinegar, and two or three hard boiled eggs. Mix all together in a bowl with vinegar, salt and pepper to taste; until smooth. Turn out the mixture on to a dish and sprinkle with some chopped egg.

Fish Pudding This is Scandinavian, too, and is made with " barracouta," but I think a firm white schnapper will do just as well. Run a knife along the backbone of the fish, dividing it in halves, and scrape all the fish from the bones and skin. Place this raw fish pulp in a bowl, add two ‘eggs and work them into the pulp with a wooden spoon. Then add a pint of milk in small quantities, stirring vigorously and incessantly. When all the milk has been absorbed, add a tablespoon of -arrowroot .smoothed out in a little milk, and followed by a little grated nutmeg, pepper and salt to taste. Butter a basin, fill it threequarters full with the. mixture, cover with buttered paper and steam for one and a-half hours. This mixture can also be fried in butter by dropping it in spoonfuls into a pan. Crayfish Cutlets — ‘2 Cut a crayfish into small dice, adding some of the soft parts of the head. Melt an ounce. of butter, add an ounce of flour, and stir till smooth. Add a teacup of milk, stir till boiling and cook for two minutes. It should now be smooth and in a thick mass. Add one or two tablespoons of, cream,.the cut-up crayfish, and a teaspoon of lemon juice, and

flavour with salt and cayenne, Put out on a plate to cool. Then divide into pieces and make into cutlet shapes. Dip in flour, then egg, then breadcrumbsif necessary, cover twice with breadcrumbs. Press well into shape, fry a golden brown, drain on paper and stick ‘ta piece of claw into the narrow end of each cutlet, to make the stem. Serve on a paper doily on a hot dish, and garnish with lemon and fried parsley, Lobster Newburg This is American, and may be also made with tinned lobster; or crayfish is excellent cooked in this way, as are also oysters, which would however require to be simmered in the sauce, and not merely heated like the lobster or crayfish. Make a rich sauce by melting two tablespoons of butter, stirring in one tablespoon of flour, and when

cooked, adding a good cup of milk stirring till the whole is creamy and quite smooth. Pour in the well-beaten yolks of two eggs, a little more milk if necessary, one teaspoon of lemon juice and a glass of sherry, and blend thoroughly before adding the lobster, cut up. Heat thoroughly, but do not boil. The "coral" may be rubbed into the sauce before adding the lobster. Meatless Sausages One cup of mashed potato; 1 cup of breadcrumbs; % cup of grated cheese; Y% a large onion; % a teaspoon of Marmite; and salt and pepper to taste. Mix all these ingredients together, and bind with an egg. Make into small sausages with your hands, roll in flour or in flakes and fry like ordinary sausages.