Current Cooking Questions

New Zealand Listener, Volume 35, Issue 893, 14 September 1956, Page 32

Current Cooking Questions

Y daily mailbag has lately been filled .to bursting-point with so many questions of so varied a nature that-I’must use our page this week to answer at least some of them, instead of keeping to one subject as usual. Avocado Pears This fruit, always so popular in America, is being grown in increasing quantities in the north, especially Gisborne. They will probably get cheaper as supply and demand increase. Avocados are used in salads, as desserts and as appetisers. Avocado Orange Cup Halve, seed, pare, and dice avocados Add equal amount of orange sections. then orange juice to half cover. Chill. Dessert Avocados Cut unprepared avocados in half, Remove seeds, sprinkle with lemon juice. Fill with grapefruit or orange sections, er seeded grapes. Top with French -dressing and mint. Avocado and Crab Cocktail We can use canned crab, or perhaps fresh crayfish. Use half and half flaked crab (or crayfish) and cubed avocado, --

Serve in cocktail glasses, or in avocado shells, with about 2 tablespoons of French dressing on each.

Avocado, Pineapple and Grapefruit Salad Bowl Segments from 3 grapefruit, 1 large avocado, 1 tin pineapple chunks drained, 1 head lettuce, 42 cup French dressing, 1% oz. blue cheese crumbled. Prepare grapefruit, removing all membrane. Cut avocado,in half, pare, seed, cut in crosswise slices. Break up lettuce, arrange in alternate layers with grapefruit, avocado, pineapple, and cheese in salad bowl. Add French dressing; toss. Makes 6 servings. California Salad Plate Two avocados, tomato catsup, lettuce, French dressing, sliced lemon, crisp crackers, cheese. Cut the avocados in halves lengthwise. Remove the seeds and peel the avocados. Fill the centres with tomato catsup and chill. Shred the lettuce and toss with the French dressing. Make a nest of this on each salad plate. In these place the avocado +halves. Decorate each with a half slice of lemon. Arrange several crisp wafers and one or two kinds of assorted cheese, The cheese ae

might consist of a cottage cheese ball and a cube of processed cheese topped with a pickled onion. Pawpaw Uses As a table fruit, the pawpaw is delicious and wholesome. Some palates may not appreciate the flavour at first, but the pawpaw habit is well worth acquiring. The addition of a little orange or lemon juice, or a passion fruit, greatly improves the flavour, The size of the fruit varies on each tree, but most fruit marketed will provide from one to five pounds of succulent flesh which, by the addition of sliced oranges and pineapple, quickly makes a delightful salad. It is used in various forms: (a) In its ripe state, as a breakfast fruit, for which purpose it is cut lengthwise into individual portions and the seeds removed. It is flavoured to suit the taste by the addition of lemon or orange juice and sugar-or with sugar only, (b) As a dessert fruit, when it is sliced and eaten with sugar and crushed ice, or diced and incorporated with other fruits as a fruit salad. (c) As a salad combined with lettuce or in mayonnaise; or served with celery and onions. : (d) The green fruit may be boiled or baked and served as a vegetable. Frozen Pawpaw Jelly Peel a firm, fully-ripe two-pound pawpaw, and cut the end sufficiently to allow the removal of the seeds. Dissolve jelly crystals; when cool pour into pawpaw

cavity, place in frigidaire and when set cut into rings and serve with whipped cream, Cooked Pawpaw Dessert As a sweet, cut a ripe pawpaw into small pieces. Stew it im the juice of 3 oranges and sweeten to taste, Or a medium-sized pineapple and a_ small pawpaw cut into small dice, and stewed in water and sugar makes another nice sweet. Pawpaw Boats This makes quite a pretty as well as enjoyable dessert. Cut a small pawpaw in halves lengthwise. Leave in a few seeds. Dice a slice of pineapple and cut two bananas in slices. Mix these two with a plentiful sprinkling of Jemon juice and pile in the boat-shape of pawpaw with cold custard. Serve with icing sugar. Chocolate Fudge Pudding and Sauce A Lower Hutt recipe is very popular: Put into a deep basin 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, pinch salt, 34 cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cocoa. Mix with 2 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon vanilla essence, % cup milk. Sprinkle over top % cup sugar, 1 tablespoon cocoa. Very last pour over 134 cups (fairly large) boiling water. (This forms a delicious chocolate sauce.) Put in a moderate oven 400 degrees, top off, bottom low for %4 hour. Cream Puffs French Fried This comes from New South Wales, and is hailed as a new pudding. Two

tablespoons butter, 12 cup water, small cup flour, 2 eggs. Put butter and water into a saucepan and bring to boil, stirring. ‘Take off stove, and at once stir in the flour, stirring rapidly-the mixture should come away clean from saucepan. It may be necessary to add a little more flour, perhaps, but you must stir tapidly. Add the beaten eggs, and stir well. Drop dessertspoonfuls into boiling fat or oil; fry golden brown. Drain on paper. Sprinkle with castor sugar. Serve with cream, hot jam, sauce or honey. The Milford Cake This is very popular and is mixed in the saucepan, thus using no basin except the one in which the 2 eggs are beaten. Bring to the boil in a large saucepan, 2 cups water, 1% lb. peel, 1 teaspoon mixed spice and mace, 2 cups

brown sugar, 2 teaspoons baking soda, 2 lb. mixed fruit, 14 Ib. butter. Let cool. Add 4 cups flour, 1 tablespoon glycerine, 1 teaspoon baking powder, essences as desired, and then 2 well-beaten eggs. Bake approximately 3 hours in large tin, Ideal Standby Cake and Filling This was sent in by an Auckland listener, and is much in demand. This can be made in three 8-inch layer tins and turned into a pleasing layer cake, or into a family-sized meat tin, when it comes out a large flat cake. For the cake itself: 1% cup butter, 1 cup sugar, 2 eggs, 1 cup milk, 212 cups flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, essence to taste, Mix the cake by creaming butter and sugar until light and fluffy, add eggs and stir well, then add milk. Then add sifted dry ingredients. Lastly add flavouring. For the filling: 1 cup brown sugar, 1 cup broken walnuts, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 2 tablespoons flour, 1 tablespoon butter. Rub butter into flour, add sugar and other ingredients. Mix thoroughly, Butter a baking tin 10 inches square and pour half the cake batter into it. Scatter half the filling on top, cover with the remainder of the cake batter. Scatter the rest of the filling’ over the top of the cake. Bake *4 hour in a moderate oven 350 degrees.

NEXT WEEK: Bake Your Own Bice