Wartime Cookery Hints

From the Brecon County Times, 8th August 1918.

WAR-TIME COOKERY HINTS.

BY A PRACTICAL COOK.

BAKED COD.

The chief objection to fish for the busy housewife is that it is such a trouble to cook.  Frying fish not only takes a great deal of the now very precious fat, but it takes time, and unless all the members of the family are in to dinner together, it soon spoils.  Baked fish is quite as tasty as fried fish, and far less trouble, and it can be put on one of the top oven shelves while cakes or pastry are being cooked below.  Well grease a baking tin, or better still, a fireproof dish.  Cut the fish into slices about one and a half inch thick, wash, and dry them in a cloth, dust over with fine oatmeal, and place them in the tin or dish. Sprinkle on them a mixture of pepper and salt and dried herbs, and, if possible, a squeeze or two of lemon juice. A few mushrooms or tomatoes or cooked potatoes may be put in with them.  Bake till the fish is nicely browned and serve with a thick white sauce.

MUTTON CUTLETS.

This is an excellent way of using up cold mutton, a rather insipid dish at the best of times. Boil till well cooked two ounces of rice, mix into it, in a basin, half a pound of minced cold mutton, two small onions minced or finely chopped, a pinch of mixed herbs, a teaspoonful of celery salt, pepper and salt to taste, and enough milk or water in which the rice was boiled, to make it moist.  A chopped tomato or two or a few chopped mushrooms all add to the flavour. Shape into cutlets. Flour with oatmeal or rice flour, put into a well-greased pie or baking dish, and bake until a light brown colour.  If a gas stove is available the cutlets can be browned under the grill burner, or they may be fried in a frying-pan if the oven is not being used.  Cauliflower with white sauce and fried new potatoes are good accompaniments to this dish.

CAULIFLOWER MOULD.

The allotment or garden ought to be supplying plenty of cauliflowers just now, and as these can be used in so many different ways, delicious dishes can be made at little cost which will largely save the meat bill.  One of the many tasty dishes is cauliflower mould, made as follows:  Cook in a fairly large sauce-pan one cupful of breadcrumbs and one cupful of milk, and stir over the fire until they thicken.  Add two cupfuls of cooked cauliflower, broken up into small pieces, and a tiny piece of margarine.  When the margarine is melted, take off the fire, add pepper and salt and the yolk of a well-beaten egg.  Then whip the white of the egg to a stiff froth and stir it in lightly.  Rinse out a basin, piedish, or mould, then grease with a little fat and dust over with breadcrumbs or oatmeal, and pour the cauliflower mixture in. Bake in a moderate oven till it has swelled and feels firm.  Turn out on a hot dish with sprigs of parsley round it.  If preferred, fried mushrooms may be served with it, or a thick brown gravy.  Boiled mashed potatoes, rather highly seasoned, are very good.

SAGO JELLY.

During the hot days of summer a nice attractive pudding appeals much more to most people than hot joints, and several puddings of this kind on the dinner-table will often be enjoyed much more and do much more good than the usual meat and pudding course.  Many kinds of puddings can be made with pearl sago or crushed tapioca.  This is a way in which any little scrap of left-over stewed fruit be used to advantage.  If the ball tapioca is used, it should be soaked overnight, but with the pearl sago or the crushed tapioca, this need not be done.
If there is no fruit to use, stew gently one pound of gooseberries or currants with enough sugar to sweeten, till it is nicely soft and pulpy but not overcooked. Boil the sago till it is transparent, then mix in with the fruit. Stir them well together, and, if liked, add a few drops of vanilla flavouring. Boil all together gently for a quarter of an hour.  Rinse out a mould in cold water and pour in the mixture. Allow it to stand overnight, and when turned out it should be a firm, nice-looking jelly.  Custard may be served with it.

ECONOMICAL JAMS.

The jams that attract us most to-day are those which require the least sugar.  As so much of the usual fruit this year is absent, a good many housewives will have to make up with any kind that can be obtained. Rhubarb is grown in most gardens and allotments, or it can be bought fairly cheaply from the greengrocer's. Cut into two-inch lengths as much rhubarb as is required for the jam, and allow for every pound of fruit four ounces of sugar and a quarter teaspoonful of ground ginger.  A good plan is to cover the rhubarb with the sugar the night before. Put the fruit mixture either into a double saucepan or into a stone jar, and place this in a saucepan kept three-quarters full of boiling water.  The jam will need to be stirred very little, though the scum must be removed from the top as it rises.  It will take some time to cook thoroughly, though lengthy cooking will help to make the jam all the sweeter.
Another economical rhubarb jam can be made by allowing four and a half pounds of sugar to every six pounds of cut rhubarb and one ounce of whole bruised ginger, with the rind of a large lemon cut very thinly.  Place in a preserving-pan and bring to the boil.  Boil gently till it sets nicely.  Before putting into pots, the pieces of ginger and lemon-peel must be taken out, or there will be some rather unpleasant mouthfuls.  This jam is also excellent eaten with cold meat as a pickle.