RECIPE / An apple muffin a day keeps hunger away

THE call for recipes for breakfast has elicited a record response. Or perhaps it is the prize: those whose recipes we print will receive a full English breakfast for two in the River Room of the Savoy.

This week, Radio 4's Woman's Hour discussed whether or not we still bake. Clearly Kate Pettem of west London does. Moreover, she may well start the day doing it. She submitted this muffin recipe from the 1984 book, Just Muffins, published in North Vancouver, British Columbia.

Ground cardamom made a refreshing change from cinnamon. Add a pinch of the latter spice when making the apple sauce. The muffins are good with the full four ounces of sugar, but two ounces would suit those who prefer just a hint of sweetness.

Apple Sauce Oatmeal Muffins

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients: 4oz/115g butter

2-4oz/60-115g sugar

1 egg

6oz/170g flour

1/2 tsp cinnamon or cardamom

1tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp bicarbonate of soda

1/4 tsp salt

6fl oz/175ml apple sauce

4oz/115g raisins

2oz/60g rolled oats

2oz/60g chopped nuts

Preparation: Preheat oven to 350F/180C/gas 4. Grease baking tin and dust with flour. Cream butter and sugar. Beat in egg. Sift together flour, spice, raising agents, salt, mixing well, then add to butter mixture, alternating with apple sauce, raisins, oats and nuts. Bake for 25-30 minutes.

Diana Howard of Mexborough, South Yorkshire, submits this recipe for kedgeree, which she learnt from her mother, Ann Roberts of Temple Sowerby, Cumbria.

Kedgeree

Serves 4

Ingredients: 8oz/225g yellow fish

2 eggs

1 medium onion, finely chopped

2oz/60g butter

4oz/115g long grain rice

1/2 tsp curry powder

salt and freshly ground

black pepper

parsley

Preparation: Boil rice and hard- boil the eggs. Steam fish. Finely chop onion and sweat gently in butter. Flake and bone fish. Chop eggs. Add curry to onions, then stir in rice, fish, eggs and a little finely chopped parsley. Serve garnished with parsley sprigs.

It was not all recipes in the postbag. Linda Moss from Chatham, Kent, wrote to say that the Brummagem Rissoles submitted last week by Alan Hilditch are not, as he suggested, obscure. She spotted Olympia Dukakis cooking them for Cher's breakfast in the film Moonstruck.

Ralph Rodney of the Isle of Mull, Argyll, writes: 'They featured in a film circa 1944 starring Betty Grable, an aircraft carrier and several thousand sailors . . . Miss Grable, in a fetching pair of knickers, prepared this dish at least once. Ever since it has been known in my family as a Grable Egg.' Finally, David Thornton of Sheffield reports that it is an American recipe, which featured in his children's My Learn-to-Cookbook by Ursula Sedgwick (Hamlyn, 1967).

Next week, more about breakfast. Meanwhile, new recipes are sought for pizzas; thin crust, thick crust, weird or conventional.

Send your recipes, stating the source, to Emily Green, Recipe, Weekend Features, The Independent, 40 City Road, London EC1Y 2DB.

The prize will be a bottle of the gutsy 1990 Chianti Classico Felsina Berardenga from the Italian specialists, Winecellars in south London.