1938-04-30 — Page 3

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THE CHINA MAIL, APRIL

1938

HOT BREADS

There seems to be some obscure a far more satisfactory effect. To emotional connection in the male simplify bread-making even fur- breast between having hot biscuits made for him and having his slip pers warmed

ther, my own trick (which I find highly successful) is to serve any of these hot breads instead of a starchy vegetable: Corn meal muf- When a young married man fins in place of potatoes with broil- tells you, and keeps on telling you,ed ham; rice bread instead of a that he has the finest little wife dish of boiled rice with lamb; in the world, you may be pretty sweet potato. buns, rather than can- certain that, nime times out of ten, died yams with a roast of pork-- he means she makes good biscuits. (and so on indefinitely and appetis- There never was an accomplish-fingly, as well as easily. ment that appealed so to the mas- culine imagination, although, for that matter, accomplishment in't are two rules you must bear in mind. First, you should stick to a just the right word, as our gentle-good, reliable recipe, since bread- men persist in regarding biscuit- making (or at least good biscuit making (or any other form of bak- making) as one of the sweet wing, for that matter) is no time to manly virtues something which is experiment with bright ideas of inherent in the character, not just your own, and secondly, you should use judgment and your own sense aquired, like playing the piano or

of taste in deciding what bread harp.

goes best with what meat or fish.

· It is as simple as that, but there

You have got to hand it to us

Good as it is, brown bread can ladies that ve have managed through all these years to keep up cated sauce, and hot rolls are not ·

lower the rating of a fine, compli the illusion that it takes extra spe-the bread to serve with a dish of cial skill to know how to make bread, and extra special devotion nation in deciding what bread will beans. Put in some time and imagi- to be willing to make it. Husbands may not even notice when we serve then leam how to make that bread best complement your entree, and them a roast that has got us all hot and red in the face în cooking, and superlatively well. There is really they probably won't even be parti. nothing to it. cularly impressed by a mousse that has taken untold time and untold patience, and which has left us limp with exhaustion, although pretty proud of ourselves. If, how ever, we produce hot muffins, or hot rolls, for supper, there isn't a man alive certainly not a husband- who won't be suffused by that warin glow, which comes from the knowledge (or the illusion) being cherished.

SYMBOL OF DOMESTIC BLISS

of

There seems to be some obscure emotional connection in the male breast between having hot biscuits made for him, and having his slip- pers warmed and waiting before the hearth against his return from a day of toil Undoubtedly, he has only read about the slippers in an old-fashioned novel, as, indeed, he may only have read about the bis cuits, but both remain a symbol of wifely devotion.

BOSTON BROWN BREAD

1 cup rye flour 1 cup graham

flour

1 cup yellow

corn meal

1 cup molasses 11⁄2 cups

buttermilk

Page S

Stick to a recipe, or you'll have trouble. Here you see what may happen if you begin experimenting.

round cakes) slightly greased grid- Mix dry ingredients and sift dle, turning to brown on each side. twice. Work in the butter with Serve the cakes as they are cooked, fingertips, ar pas mixer. Add with country sausage.

raisins and enough milk gradually to form a soft dough.

SCONES

1 tspn. soda 1 tsp. salt Mix all the ingredients thorough- ly. Put rounds of greased paper in the bottom of baking powder tins, or similar molds, and fill with the mixture. Cover with greased tops, 2 cups flour and set in covered soup kettle with 2 tspns, baking enough water to half

cover the

powder cans. Steam for 5 hours, and re- move immediately from the cans.

SWEET POTATO BUNS

1 medium-sized

sweet potato

1 cup scalded

milk

cake yeast

34 tsp. salt

tblspns, sugar four 2 tblspus, butter

Peel sweet potato and boil until tender. Drain, saving 2 tablespoon- The truth is that nothing in the fuls of the water in which boiled. cooking line, and even in the devo Mash the potato at once, and melt tion line, is half as easy to produce the butter in it as you mash. Add as hot bread. That secret, though, sugar, salt and scalder milk. Dis- you must let go no further, as it solve the yeast in 2 tablespoonfuls of the potato' water, which has been would certainly tarnish many · a wifely halo if it got to be generally cooled to blood heat.

Add 2 cupfuls sifted flour to po-" known that time and effort and skill, as well as affection, do not tato mixture, then add the dissolved necessarily go into the making of yeast, and finally, enough four to a pan of biscuits. Of course, there make a fairly stiff dough. Tarn are biscuits and biscuits, and the onto a foured board, and knead mere gesture of making them, if until smooth and elastic Beturn to they turn out hard and sodden, mixing bowl, brush the top with isn't going to be counted as a vir- melted butter, cover with a clean tue by any man. But, then, that's cloth, and set to rise in a Warm- the way life is, and the loving girl place for 6 hours. Turn onto board, who makes bad mutins might as roll out to about 1⁄4-inch thickness, well learn that it is the calculating and cut out with biscit cutte little minx, who turns them out place in greased pans to rise unte light and fluffy, who is almost cer-more than double in bulk. Bake in tain to get all the good marks.

BREAD-MAKING EASY

á hot oven (400 deg. F.) för:15 min- utes, or until done. Serve at once on hot bread platter.

CORNMEAL GRIDDLE CAKES

The one bright spot in all this is the fact that bread making is about the easiest number in the whole 1 cup cornmeal

(white) kitchen repertory. There are a few

2 cups butter-

2 eggs

2 tspns. light

molasses

difficult exceptions, of course, such 1⁄2 cup four as making croissants, or those elab 4 tspú, salt orate Swedish coffee breads, some 1 tblspn. melted

butter

1 tspn soda of-which are the very devil to do, but ordinary hot breads-muffins, Sift together commeal, four and rice bread, rolls, Sally Lunns, salt, add buttermilk, melted butter, popovers a actually take less time well-beaten eggs, and soda - dis- and effort than cooking a dish of solved in molasses. potatoes, and they certainly create

Cook the mixture

on (in small

2 tblspas.

Seedless raising

Turn the mixture onto foured board, pat bghtly, and roll out to 1-inch thickness. Cook on Kestone griddle until done and well-risen, turning frequently to avoid burn- 11⁄2 tspn. sugar 4 thispas. buttering. Split open, toast and butter, 1⁄2 tsp. salt

milk

and serve at once for tea

GAS-HEATED WATER

Get

never runs cold

saves mess and work

makes washing up quicker is always on tap

up-to-day th

GAS

HONG KONG & CHINA GÁS CO., LTD.

SHOWROOMS:

Gloucester Building (Phone 24704) 246. Nathan Road Phone 57341)