PUMPKINS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 12, Issue 311, 8 June 1945, Page 22

PUMPKINS

HE homely pumpkin is a very great standby, and useful in many ways. Baked dry in the oven, in its skin, like jacket potatoes, then scraped out and mashed with a little butter (or dripping), pepper, and salt, is one easy and delicious method; another is to cut it from the hard skin, and bake it in the fat with the joint. Boiling is apt to make some kinds of pumpkin watery; but if steamed it is always nice. To keep a big pumpkin from getting mildewed before it is all used up (for you may cut pieces off from -day to day as needed), take out all the seeds and keép the cut parts well dusted with baking soda or flour. An. old Maori method was to remove the seeds and then put the pumpkin to dry in the sun, * Eggless Pumpkin Pie Line q pie plate with good crust, and flute the edges. Have ready 2.cups of cooked pumpkin, sieved and mashed and as dry as possible. Stir into this a dessertspoon of cornflour, 4% teaspoon baking powder, 1% teaspoon each of salt, cinnamon and nutmeg, or Ib teaspoon mixed spice, and about a cupful of rich top milk. Add brown sugar to taste. Pour into the pie plate, sprinkle with a little more spic&§and bake till firm in moderate oven (350 deg.) approx. 45 minutes. Put pie about halfway down in the oven. Very nice if sprinkled with finely chopped walnuts. Pumpkin Fritters Half a cup of cold mashed pumpkin. 1 cup flour, 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder, milk. Mix pumpkin with milk until sloppy (about 4% cup milk, but pumpkins vary); then add flour and baking Pipes | and mix to a very thick batter, ft dough. These are fried in hot fat, and puff up and are very light, and much nicer than the recipe may sound.

Real Pumpkin Pie This is "the real thing," given me by an expert. It is really a custard tart with pumpkin and spices added. Be sure to have the underneath pastry very thin. and cook the pie on an oven slide, as you do scones, so that the crust cooks properly. Seven ounces sugar, or half sugar and half golden syrup, 2 eggs, 1b. boiled (prepared) pumpkin; 1 pint milk, Y20z. cinnamon and ground ginger, good pinch of salt. Mix spice with sugar and beat with eggs. Then beat in the pumpkit’ Add milk, salt and golden syrup. Bake in sharp oven at first to set custard, then put lower down. Pumpkin and Apple Pie . (No eggs. no spice) Have ready a cupful of cooked mashed pumpkin. Slice up 3 large apples and half a lemon, very thinly, and cook slowly without more than a spoonful of water to start steam. When very soft, add the pumpkin. beat all to a smooth

pulp, aad fill a pastry-lined pie-plate, Cook till brown and set. Prick the pastry to prevent rising. Pumpkin Soup Boil sufficient pumpkin to give one good cupful when mashed, in a little salted water, with a good-sized cut-up onion. Strain. Mash the pumpkin and onion together, add pepper to taste, and 144 pints of milk. Mix all well, add a" little butter (or good dripping) and thicken with cornflour. Serve with chopped parsley sprinkled over, and with sippets of toast. Luncheon Dish of Pumpkin and Cheese Steam about 2Ib. pumpkin in water till tender. Drain, add 2 large tablespoons of cooked macaroni: and mash together,’ adding 2 tablespoons butter, Pepper and salt to taste, and 1 gill top milk. Beat up 2 egg yolks and stir these in with 2oz. grated cheese.*Turn mixture into a baking dish, sprinkle with a good layer of grated cheese, a layer of breadcrumbs over this, with a few bits of butter scattered on top. Bake in a good oven till nicely browned on top. Very tasty. = Pumpkin Sultana Cake Two, cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup cold mashed pumpkin, lb. butter, 1% cup milk, 1 cup sultanas, 2 teaspoons baking powder, chopped peel if liked, essence of lemon. Beat butter and sugar to a cream; add well mashed pumpkin and beat again. Add sultanas, ‘then sift in flour and baking powder. Then milk and essence. Mix thoroughly, and bake about 1% to 1% hours in moderate oven. Pumpkin Lemon Cheese (no eggs) Two pounds pumpkin, %4lb. butter, 2lb. sugar, 5 or 6 lemons. Cook pumpkin, strain well, add juice and rind from the lemons, taking care that no white pith of the lemon rind is added. Then add butter and sugar. Mix in pan and boil in double saucepan for 1% hour.