The next page

After the success of the first recipe yesterday I have decided to storm ahead onto recipe two.
Which as you can see above is Rajah Mutton Curry. Here is the introduction;

I have chosen a curry as today's special dish, but it is a curry with a refreshing flavour of apple and fruit chutney.
One of curry's great attractions, quite apart from its flavour, is the way in which it can be dressed up for serving. Sprinkle with desiccated coconut, or surround it with thin orange and lemon rings. Top is with banana slices, tangerine segments, lychee or pineapple cubes. Serve it with tiny dishes of chutney, pickle, yogurt and chopped onion.
However you choose to serve it, remember that the sweet which follows will have to break through the barrier of a curried palate, so do not serve anything to subtle or delicate.

Ingredients;
2lbs Diced Lean Mutton
1 Large cooking apple
1 Large onion
4oz Butter
2 Tablespoons Curry powder
Chutney
Salt, Pepper


Method;
Heat the butter in a pan. Add the peeled and sliced onion and fry gently until tender and lightly browned. Add the diced mutton, seasoned with salt and pepper. Toss for a few moments then add the peeled and chopped apple, curry powder and a dessertspoonful of mango or tomato chutney. Blend well. Cover the pan with a close fitting lid and allow to simmer gently for an hour, stirring from time to time to prevent sticking. Serve with plainly boiled rice, banana slices, quartered hard boiled eggs and lemon quarters.



I am planning to buy my ingredients tomorrow. I need to get the meat, another apple and the curry powder. The rest I have in the cupboards. They seem to be very fond of adding fruit to dinners in the 60's. Hopefully things get a little less fruity as the recipes go on.
And here is our second page of delicious tips :) Just because its Sunday you can have three today. Aren't you all lucky devils?


Tip 1;
Austrian Orange Cake

Cream together 4oz butter and 8oz caster sugar. Blend in 4 beaten egg yolks alternately with 4oz of sifted self-raising flour. Flavour with the juice and finely grated rind of one orange. Beat 4 egg whites stiffly. Fold them into the cake mixture. Butter and lightly flour a cake tin, shaking out any excess. Pour in the cake mixture and bake in a moderate oven for 50-60 minutes. Test the cake for doneness by inserting a warm skewer. If this is withdrawn dry, the cake is quite cooked. Allow the cake to cool before filling or icing it.


Tip 2;
Beans in the nose.

You will have heard of course, of the child who pushed a haricot bean up his nose. The thought of doing such a thing had not occurred to him until his mother warned him rashly against it. Children certainly do have a dangerous tendency to put found objects in their ears, nose and mouth. What should you do if this happens?
Perhaps the most vital thing is to realise that you may do more harm than good by trying to remove it inexpertly. This quite often happens if the object is a hard, shiny one like a bead, marble or dried pea. The child may squirm suddenly and you might accidentally push the object still further. But if the foreign body is soft, like a piece of cotton wool or felt, get someone to hold the child still, and try to pick out the offending item with a pair of small tweezers. Objects in the nose can sometimes be dislodged by sneezing or blowing the nose. So, try these possibilities first, and if they fail, take the child to the doctor, the out patients department at a local hospital, or an ear nose and throat specialist.


Tip 3;
One for the pot.

Put a blackcurrant leaf in your teapot the next time you make a pot of tea. It gives it the fragrance and perfume of an expensive green tea. Incidentally, we may complain about the price of groceries today, but did you know that tea cost as much as £10 per 1lb in London in the early 17th century? It was, as you can imagine, the beverage of the rich and was used very sparingly.



That's all from me for now folks. But if you decide to use any of these tips and recipes please pop me a comment, I would love to hear how they worked out for you. Or see them if you have the time to blog :)
x xx

Lightning post

Just a quick post tonight as I'm to my eyeballs in things to do.

Today's tip is;

Economical potato soup.

This is a filling, economical dish. Just peel and halve 6-8 medium sized potatoes. Peel and slice three large onions. Heat some butter or oil in a thick pan. Toss the onions in the fat under tender and brown. Add the halved potatoes. Stir them well until coated with the fat, and then sprinkle in 1 1/2 oz of flour. Turn the potatoes and onions in this flour and fat for 2-3 minutes, the gradually add sufficient boiling stock or water to cover level. Cover the pan and allow to simmer gently for 30 minutes. Season with salt, freshly ground pepper, 1 tablespoonful of paprika and a pinch of caraway seeds. Serve very hot. This potato stew could easily form the base of a more elaborate dish. Just add cubes of bacon or pork, sliced sausages or pieces of liver.

Gather your ingredients

Here they are! All of my precious ingredients for Saturdays dinner. All together it has set me back about £8, so I'm hoping it will be really tasty.



Today's tip;
Pineapple Liqueur.
Make your own pineapple liqueur. For this you need a fairly large pineapple, sugar and brandy. Peel the pineapple, removing all the coarse hairs. Grate the pineapple quite finely and sprinkle it thinly with sugar. Allow it to stand for 24 hours - preferably where greedy young fingers can get to it, because its smell does have an effect rather like a candle to a moth. Press out all the juice, using a wooden spoon and a conical sieve. To this liquid add an equal volume of brandy and sugar - 2oz of sugar per 1/2 pint of brandy*. Pour this liquid into a jar. Add one or two slices of fresh pineapple. Cover the jar and allow to stand, unsampled, for 3 weeks. Strain and bottle the liqueur.
* Don't use your best brandy for this job. Use the cheapest you can lay hands on.




I don't know about you but I think I will be trying this recipe very soon. Doesn't it sound yummy?
x x x

The Butcher's Better food Book

This file of carefully stashed recipe sheets belonged to my late grandma. Since her recent passing I keep finding myself sitting down and flicking through the pages, in some way it just makes me feel close to her.
Each week your friendly local butcher would give you a page with your meat order. My nana faithfully kept every sheet in a little blue file and collected from 1961 to 1964 with barely an issue missed (I assume these are due to her being on holiday)
Always up for a challenge I am planning to work my way through file page by page testing tips where I can, and attempting the recipe.
I am planning to buy the ingredients, and added accompaniments for the below recipe while I'm in town tomorrow. I will also be whipping up some candlelight for our meal following tip 2.
So get yourselves a nice cup of tea and lets read and learn together.

The Butcher's better food cook book.
The complete guide to meat cooking,
and good housekeeping, sparkling
with valuable hints and suggestions.

Recipe 1; Pork with Orange

Introduction; A few weeks ago I gave you a recipe for pork with Pineapple. Today I am suggesting another fruit to cook and eat with this rather splendid rich meat. Orange. I think you will find that it makes a refreshing change.
Serve new potatoes with the pork, and spriglets of cooked cauliflower, tossed in butter and breadcrumbs.
Creme Caramel would follow the pork very happily, or cheese and biscuits. Try to avoid serving a fruit sweet though, since the main course contains both apples and oranges.

Ingredients;

2 - 3lb boned loin of pork
2 Oranges
3 Large cooking apples
3 Onions
salt, pepper
1oz Flour
2oz Butter
sage
stock or water

Method;

Peel and chop the apples and onions. Heat butter in a frying pan and fry the chopped apple and onion in this for a few minutes. Transfer the mixture to the bottom of an ovenware casserole. Season the pork with salt, pepper and dried sage. Dust it liberally with flour and brown it all over in the frying pan. Place it on top of the fried onion and apple. Peel the oranges. Finely chop the peel of one orange and sprinkle this over the pork. Devide the oranges into segments, discarding any pith or pips. Add these orange segments to the pork. Cover level with boiling stock or water. Cover the casserole with a lid and allow to cook in a low oven for around 3 hours.

I will pop a tip or two from the back of this recipe each day until I am ready to attempt the next recipe.

Tip One; Wined Onions
Select some small onions. Take of the thin outer skins, but try not to damage the under layers. Parboil the onions for 10 minutes. Drain them well. Heat some oil in a frying pan. Add the onions. Toss them in the hot oil until almost cooked, then sprinkle in a little sugar and a little red wine. Stir well, reheat and serve with grilled meat, gammon or fish.

Tip Two; Candlelight
Nothing is more romantic, flattering or appetite-tickling than candlelight. If you do not have elegant candlesticks for your dining table, yet still want to provide the magic of candlelight, improvise with glass tumblers. Cut cardboard rings the same size as the base of the tumbler. Place one inside each tumbler. Stick a candle onto each cardboard base, using molten wax as an adhesive. Decorate the outside of each tumbler with streamers of ribbon or cut crepe paper, and gold foil stars or circles.

Disasters into delights

There has been a huge disaster in our home!!! Yesterday we treated ourselves to a bar of chocolate from the pound shop thinking it would be a treat. But when we got home we found out it was actual a bar of that horrible chocolate candy stuff that has no right to class itself as chocolate. You know that horrible brown stuff they put in advent calenders? One huge bar of it was now living in my kitchen!

However all is not lost! For after a little research and a some clever thinking I have skillfully created a nummy treat from this disaster. Enter a recipe for Chocolate Triffin. Even better is a non cook recipe perfect to entertain the kiddies on a horrible wet day.

Ingredients;
1 bar of chocolate
Several broken up biscuits
Handful of marshmallows
Handful of dried fruit/raisins
4 tea spoons of cocoa powder
4oz of Margarine/Butter/Spread
2 Desert spoons of Honey/Golden syrup
2 Desert spoons of Sugar

Method;

Melt the sugar, cocoa, butter and honey together using a few short blasts in the microwave. Once your mixture is smooth and delicious smelling, resist dipping in your fingers and instead add the broken biscuits, marshmallows, raisins and anything else you have to hand into the mix. (I recommend chopped glace cherrys and coconut)
Once everything is nicely covered pop the mixture into a buttered dish and push down firmly to fill as many of those tiny gaps as you can. Leave to one side far away from inquisitive toddlers.
Melt the chocolate using the microwave again and stir until smooth and tempting to drink.
Pour the chocolate over the first mix and spread evenly. Leave to cool a little and then pop into the fridge to finish hardening.

Once is nicely set, hack it into pieces and eat as fast as humanly possibly.





Crisis averted
x x x x