European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - August 17, 1988, Darmstadt, Hesse                                By Pierre Franey new York times c Ertain Kitchen techniques seem so obvious that Many Home Cooks fail to pay them much attention and thus wind up performing them incorrectly. One such technique is transferring pastry dough to a pie plate. Many dessert cookbooks advise rolling out the dough evenly and then wrapping it around the rolling pin to Transfer it to the baking dish. Those same cookbooks however generally omit the most critical step which is How to unroll the dough and crimp it neatly and evenly into the dish leaving no air pockets underneath. Over the years i be developed a simple to follow foolproof method which i Delight in sharing with fellow pie makers. Step 1 Roll out the pie dough always starting from the Center and exerting increasing pressure As you approach the Edge. The dough should be rolled into a Circle about 2 inches wider than the lip of the baking dish. Most pie plates Are 9 inches across so Roll out the dough until it is about 11 inches in diameter. Then gently Roll the dough onto the rolling pin As illustrated leaving 2 inches hanging Loose at the end. Step 2 Center the pin Over one Edge of the pie plate with the lip of dough facing away from the Middle of the plate. Unroll the dough moving the pin across the pie plate. The 2-Inch lip of dough should be distributed so that it hangs evenly All around the plate. Do not Force the dough into the plate with your fingers. It should slowly sink in under its own weight. Step 3 trim some of the overhanging dough with scissors leaving about 3/4 of an Inch hanging Over. Roll the excess dough into a Ball. Fold the overhanging % Inch of dough Back under itself to make a neat double thick Edge flush with the rim of the plate. Press gently onto the rim. Step 4 use the Ball of excess dough to press the pie crust firmly against the plate All Over. This is much easier than doing it with your fingers and chances of breaking the dough Are minimized. Make decorative indentations around the lip of the plate with your fingers. The curious shopper by son a Heinze How much More fat is there in dark Chicken meat than in the Light meat j. Williams Laureldale a. There is about 25 percent More fat in dark meat than in Light meat. Jane Brody informs us in her nutrition Book that Small chickens broilers and fryers Turkey and Cornish game hens Are the leanest poultry. Small Young Birds Are leaner than Large older ones. Chicken broilers have less than 10 percent fat roasters have 12 to 18 percent and Large hens 20 to 30 percent. In All poultry the White meat has less fat and less cholesterol than the dark meat and if you remove and discard the skin after you Cook the poultry you Cut the fat calories in half. Although All the flesh of wild game Birds such As pheasant and Quail is dark their meat is considered lean because they Are More Active. / would like to know How one is supposed to Peel and seed an eggplant. Several recipes which i like Call for eggplant which is peeled seeded and diced. But when i Cut the vegetable open the seeds Are distributed throughout. If i take them out and discard the Beautiful skin there s nothing left. I love the color of the eggplant and wonder Why recipes have you remove the skin at All. Mary Mallory Fresno Calif. I looked at the recipes for about 40 eggplant dishes and although about half of them called for peeling the eggplant none of the recipes directed the Cook to seed the vegetable which i can t imagine doing because As you Point out the seeds Are distributed throughout. So Don t seed it. There Are Many eggplant recipes which retain the Peel if you will look for them. Elizabeth Schneider in uncommon fruits and vegetables says in most cases the color texture and flavor of the skin will enhance the  Here is my favorite recipe for eggplant a tasty casserole Side dish with origins in Trinidad. It Calls for paring the eggplant but of course not seeding it. Bellazen Peel and Dice two medium to Large eggplants. Cook in boiling water until tender. Let sit in colander to Drain. Cut up a Large onion and saute it in one Tablespoon of Olive Oil until the onion is transparent. Add one 8-ounce can of Tomato sauce and two crushed garlic cloves or More if you like to the onions. Saute this mixture on Low to medium heat stirring frequently until Tomato sauce is slightly darkened about 10 minutes. Remove from heat. Now Combine the eggplant and Tomato sauce mixture in a pot add two slices of stale bread broken up and Cook Over Low heat for about 15 minutes. Watch that it does t Burn. You May need to add a Little water. Turn into casserole dish top with bread crumbs and a drizzle of Olive Oil. Bake for 15 minutes or longer if casserole cools or is refrigerated. Salt and Pepper if desired. Excellent with leg of Lamb and Rice. Serves 6. What is the difference Between yams and Sweet potatoes i be heard that yams Are nutritionally empty and Sweet potatoes Are healthful. No one in my area seems to know including the greengrocers. Patricia Beyer Largo Fla. You have probably never eaten a True Yam unless you re from the tropics or subtropics or shop in latin markets. Although yams Are one of the most important food crops in the world they Aren t part of the american diet. What you see in the supermarkets labelled As yams Are really Sweet potatoes. There Are two types of Sweet potatoes commonly sold in the United states. One has a Yellowish skin which is labelled Sweet potato in the Market the other has a Brownish skin which is labelled Yam in the Market. Years ago in the South slaves started calling the dark Sweet potatoes yams by mistake and we re still doing it. Joe Carcione in his Book the greengrocer writes Sweet potatoes the Light and the dark Are very valuable nutritionally but the exact amounts of calories vitamins and minerals can vary widely and not Only according to different varieties. From season to season the same variety grown in the same Field will test out differently. So this information should be taken generally not specifically one Large baked Sweet potato will provide almost three times the Vitamin a an adult needs daily and two thirds the Vitamin  As far As the True yams Are concerned the vegetable you be probably never eaten they Are an excellent source of potassium folic acid and Zinc and they have a fair amount of b vitamins. They have no Vitamin a however. Reader feedback Melvin Androus California wild Rice program Yuba City Calif in reply to the question in a previous column is Rice supposed to be washed before cooking you stated the Only kinds of Rice one should Wash Are wild Rice imported Rice or unpack aged Rice purchased in bulk. Some imported rices have a Cereal or Corn syrup coating and wild Rice and bulk rices May contain insects or debris California now raises More wild Rice than any state in the Union. The Way that wild Rice is harvested and processed leaves a product As clean and pure As packaged regular Rice. Perhaps in Days Long ago when the Only source of wild Rice was from the lakes of Minnesota there May have been some problems. Today however most of the wild Rice is raised in paddies similar to the Way regular Rice is  have a consumer related question please write to son a Heinze care of stars and stripes Apo 09211, . Forces. Erma Bombeck is on vacation. In her absence the Best of Bombeck will run. This column originally appeared in August 1985. My mom has a plaque just inside her front door that reads if we get to drinking sunday afternoon and Start insisting that you stay Over until tuesday please remember we Don t mean  my Mother likes House guests As Well As the next person but let s be realistic. House guests should be regarded As perishables leave them out too Long and they go bad. It is rare when you can unite in holy Wedlock two families in one House any longer than 48 hours without the hostess attacking her Welcome mat with a Steak knife. Some families eat at 4 30 in the afternoon. Others fall right out of Happy hour into bed. Some guests consider a picnic in the Park As a forced death March while others if allowed to sit around and watch to for More than an hour whine we can do this at Home. We want to see something it s a game. Take Len and Bernadine. Take their children puberty and Sissy. Take their dog Carl. Please. We could hardly wait until they came for a visit. Had t seen them in six years. You forget a lot in six years. We forgot that Bernadine was a vegetarian but was allergic to 18 vegetables and nine fruits. We forgot that when Len snored cattle became restless 40 Miles away. Somehow we had forgotten that puberty was Light fingered so you had to hide your purse in the crisper in the refrigerator. There were a lot of Little things. One was the fact that Sissy could Bounce a Ball against your bedroom window at 6 in the morning 5,786 times without missing. We had forgotten that Len and Bernadine each smoked three packs of cigarettes a Day and kept assuring us we would get hit by a Beer truck driven by the surgeon general before the smoke got us. It had slipped my mind that Bernadine never touched a dish because i Don t know where they belong or a Washer because i Don t want to break it or came into the Kitchen because i Don t want to get in your  it s a sandlot game. If you Are hospitable you can t seem to get a hit. You get walked a lot. You strike out a lot. You sit on the Bench helplessly and let it All happen. And then on the last Day of their visit Len and Bernadine said you know you should get a Booster for your hot water. We be been taking cold showers since we got  they had forgotten something too. They had forgotten that my husband in his infinite Wisdom had installed the hot water spigot on the cold water and the cold water spigot on the hot water. Visitors 138. Home 1. C 1988 Erma Bombeck Page 16 the stars and stripes wednesday August 17,1988