The new Albatross recipe book

Make a syrup by boiling ½ cup sugar and ¾ cup water together for ½ minute. Stone sweet red or black cherries and poach them in the syrup for a few minutes. Lift out the fruit, drain and arrange in the flan. Mix a teaspoon arrowroot with 2 tablespoons water. Stir into the boiling syrup, boil up and it will at once clear. If you like, add a little culinary colouring to suit the cherries, cover and leave to cool. Pour over the cherries. If you like, you can also add a few drops almond essence to the arrowroot sauce. Apricots, peaches and plums can be done in the same way. Slice the peaches. STRAWBERRY FLAN Make a flan ring as for Cherry Flan (see page 6). Strawberries (also raspberries and loganberries) should not be cooked. But a few of the very ripe ones can be mashed and simmered in the syrup. Pass through a sieve before adding the arrowroot (as in Cherry Flan). Or, if you like the flavour of red currants, use red currant jelly thinned down with water to your own taste. Then thicken with arrowroot. PUDDINGS Perhaps the easiest mistake to make when steaming or boiling a pudding is to let the water go ‘off the boil.’ Thatis one way of producing a heavy pudding. When you have three-quarters filled the greased pudding bowl and twisted and secured greased greaseproof paper on top, place the bowl on a trivet in boiling water reaching halfway up the bowl. Immediately, place a close-fitting lid on the pan and give it as much heat as will keep the water boiling furiously for the first 30-45 minutes, for it will require at least that time for the heat to penetrate to the centre of the pudding. Unless you do this, you will find that the water is almost certain to go off the boil for the simple reason that the basin will cool it to below boiling point. After three-quarters of an hour, you can safely lower the heat and still keep the pot boiling. ‘Keep it boiling ’ should be your slogan. The rules for baking cakes apply to baked batter puddings. If you are baking a fruit pudding, where the fruit is on the bottom of the dish, you will find that firm fruits are less likely than soft fruits to cause a soggy pudding where fruit and batter meet. When making a fruit pudding or pie, always put the sugar in the centre of the fruit—that is, with some fruit between it and the batter or pastry—because sugar, coming in contact with either, causes sogginess. Incidentally, when making a fruit pie, well ‘ round ' the fruit—heap it well up in the dish—so that, when it sinks, as it will do when heated, your pie will still remain ' rounded ’ instead of sunk. STEAK AND KIDNEY PUDDING Suet pastry (see page 7) 1 lb. stewing steak 2 oz. kidney 1 tablespoon plain flour 1 teaspoon salt Pinch of pepper Cold water Cut up the meat and kidney and roll the pieces in the sifted flour, salt and pepper. Line a greased pudding basin with three-quarters of the pastry. Putin the meat and pour in cold water almost to come through. Cover with the remaining pastry and pinch the edges together. Steam or boil for 3hours. Add boiling gravy or stock to the pudding as you cut it. (Variation |.) BEEF AND BEAN PUDDING Use 4-2 lb. steak for the filling, together with 3 oz. haricot beans (soaked 24 hours before using). (Variation Il.) BEEF AND VEGETABLE PUDDING Use only 4-3? lb. meat and fill up the basin with diced carrots, turnips and parsnips. (Variation Ill.) RABBIT (or CHICKEN) PUDDING Cut up and wash the rabbit (or chicken) and 1 rasher streaky bacon. Roll the pieces in 1 tablespoon flour mixed with } teaspoon grated nutmeg and pepper and salt to taste. Continue as for Steak and Kidney Pudding. CAP PUDDING (4-5 Servings.) 6 oz. Albatross Self-Raising Flour Few drops of vanilla essence Pinch of salt 1 egg 2 oz. margarine Milk or water 2 oz. sugar 2-4 tablespoons jam or marmalade