#202 Pressed Beef

A quickie this one.

I wanted to do a recipe from the cured meats section of the book as I haven’t done many of them and I didn’t want to start getting behind. This one appealed to me because it was similar to the salt beef recipe I had already done and I knew that the cold, pressed beef would keep me in sandwiches and snacks for the week, plus the cooking process would produce a nice stock which could be turned into a lovely soup. I also thought that you don’t really see salt beef these days in supermarkets etc, and then by total coincidence my workmates and I went to the very good café in the Whitworth Art Gallery (which makes up part of Manchester University’s campus) and what was on the menu? Salt beef sarnies! I may be some kind of soothsayer.

To make your own pressed beef you need a joint of silverside – go for somewhere between 2 and 3 ½ pounds in weight, I reckon. You can use either fresh or salted for this. If you want to do pressed salted beef, you can buy it from your butchers, but it is much better if you make your own. I did – follow the instructions on brining on this earlier post if you want to have a go. Next, you need to boil the beef joint – follow the instructions on this post here for how to do that (I love how the blog is becoming self-referential!) you can follow the same recipe if you’re using fresh beef too. Leave the beef to cool in the broth for a couple of hours before removing and wrapping well in cling-film or foil. It now needs to be pressed overnight; either use a tongue press or place it under some very heavy weights. I used an upturned loose-bottomed cake tin so I could precariously balance a cast-iron griddle pan, an earthenware jug and some tins of food on it with at least some attention to health and safety.


Next day, you can slice the beef as you need it. Make sandwiches using rye bread, pickled gherkins and horseradish sauce (I also added some mayonnaise). Alternatively serve with an avocado salad.

#202 Pressed Beef. This is absolutely delicious. So much more tasty and such better quality than any supermarket pre-sliced nonsense. I would really recommend trying the curing, cooking and pressing yourself, it’s doesn’t take much effort at all and the pay-off is great. The beef is firm and deliciously sweet and salty. The spices – particularly the mace – come through beautifully and compliment the beef so well without drowning out its flavour. 8.5/10.

#201 Tea Cream

A good dessert to make if people are round because you can make it a couple of days in advance.

The tea in question for this tea cream recipe is green gunpowder tea. Green tea is a strange thing – I don’t ever drink it because it tastes of a combination of washing-up water and seaweed. Bleurgh. However, having it with cream and sugar did appeal slightly more; cream and sugar never taste bad, now do they!?

FYI: green tea comes from the same plant as our more familiar ‘black’ tea (e.g. PG Tips, Tetley, etc), but is unfermented thus retains its natural green colour, as opposed to black tea which turns its dark colour due to oxidisation during fermentation. Green tea is popular in China and Japan as we all know – but also in Muslim counties where it is forbidden to drink fermented tea. How bizarre. Anyone know why this is?

To make this tea cream mix together half a pint each of double and single cream in a jug. Pour around three-quarters of it into a small saucepan along with two tablespoons of sugar and an ounce of green gunpowder tea. Slowly bring to a boil, though keep on tasting it as you don’t want the tea to be ‘over-stewed’. Pour the hot cream into a bowl through a sieve. Taste again; if too strong add more cream. Use either a packet of powdered or five leaves of leaf gelatine to make the cream set. It’s best to follow the instructions on the packet at this point but generally you dissolve the powdered stuff in a little hot water and stir it into the cream, or soak leaf gelatine in cold water until soft and stir into the still-hot cream. Pour the whole lot into a mould – buy a fancy one if you can, I did. Cover with cling-film, allow to cool and then place in the fridge until needed. Turn it out onto a plate – you will need to dip the mould in hot water briefly to help loosen the jelly, I left it in too long and it went a little liquid around the edges. Serves five or six.


#201 Tea Cream. A funny one this one. I really liked the creaminess of the ‘jelly’, but the tea taste – though strong when hot, diminished greatly when chilled so I couldn’t really tell it was there. I certainly liked it enough to give it a second go at some point though. It did look very good in its fancy shape. 6/10.

#200 Steak, Kidney and Oyster Pudding

As promised, a dish that is more English that roast beef and Yorkshire puddings, at least I think so anyway. It may be because I’m a Northerner, but I also think (and I could be wrong here) that although it is very English, it hasn’t travelled to other countries as well as, say, roast beef. In other words, it’s a sort of hidden gem. I have been saving this one for number 200 for a while, though I did change my mind a fair few times.

The seemingly unusual ingredient here is, of course, the oysters. The recipe is surprisingly recent: it appears as a steak pudding in a book by Eliza Acton in 1845 and the kidney turns up in Mrs Beeton’s Household Management nearly fifteen years later. In those days folks living near the coasts were falling over oysters – they diminished however due to a combination of an increased population eating them and the increased pollution created by all those extra people. No one wants a shitty oyster. However, before this, they were cheap and the preferred alternative to the very pricey mushrooms that the posh gentry would have enjoyed. It was only since around the Second World War that mushrooms have been cultivated on a large scale, before that they acquired by foraging: limited and very seasonal. Of course, these days it is the mushrooms that are ten-a-penny, and the oysters that break the bank. That said, native oysters are in season at the moment and the ones I bought from Out of the Blue in Chorlton were just sixty pence each.

This pudding is a pretty posh all-out one; giant, full of rump steak, red wine and extra beef stock plus both mushrooms and oysters:

To begin, make the filling: cut two pounds of trimmed rump steak into one inch cubes and then slice a pound of ox kidney (or veal, if you’re being really posh), removing any fat or gristly bits on the way. Toss these in two tablespoons of seasoned flour. Chop a large onion and fry it gently in two ounces of butter until nicely softened, remove with a slotted spoon, turn up the heat and then hard fry the beef and kidney. When brown transfer to a casserole dish (or, if you have a cast-iron one that goes on the hob you can keep it all in there. Deglaze the pan (or casserole dish) with either a pint of beef stock, or half-and-half stock and red wine. Now slice 8 ounces of mushrooms and fry them in an ounce of butter. Add these along with the cooked onions and a bouquet garni to the meat. Cover with a lid and cook in the oven for 1 ½ hours at 140-150⁰C. You can do all this the day before if need be.

Next, open the oysters: Griggers suggests 18-24 oysters, though makes them an optional ingredient for the pudding. I went for a dozen as I didn’t want to go bonkers with the spending. Add them, plus their liquor to the meat. I’ve written about opening oysters before.

To make the suet pastry, use a knife to mix together 10 ounces of self-raising flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, ¼ teaspoon of salt, ground white pepper, ¼ teaspoon of thyme and 5 ounces of chopped fresh suet (use the packet stuff if you can’t get hold of it). Now add cold water little by little to the mix, stirring with the knife. Use the minimum amount of water that will bring the pastry together, using your hands towards the end. If it seems too wet, add more flour. There’s enough pastry to line a three pint pudding basin, so roll it out in a circle large enough and remove a quarter of it (you’ll use this later). This’ll make it easy to line the basin – use water as glue to stick down the ‘hem’. Spoon in the mixture and then roll out the reserved quarter into a circle to make the lid. Place this on top and fold any surplus edging over it and glue it with more water. Secure the lid if using a plastic basin, or cover with buttered, pleated foil secured with string. Place in a steamer and cook for one and a half hours; don’t let it boil dry. Turn it out onto a plate and serve immediately.


#200 Steak, Kidney and Oyster Pudding. The poshest pudding in the world! It was very, very good though. The beef and kidneys were very tender and the gravy was good and rich. The real revelation was the oysters – at first I wasn’t very sure about them, but it was a taste that was acquired very quickly. They provided a mysterious iodine tang to the whole thing. The original surf ‘n’ turf! The only thing I would change is the amount of pastry - there was barely enough to line the basin, making it split open when it was turned out! 9/10.

Warm Lamb's Fry Salad

Well #200 was now upon me, so I got a few folks round to join me in scoffing it. The trouble was I couldn’t do starter from the book – otherwise that would be the big 200, and I didn’t want some little starter to be it. However, I decided that the food would have a theme: offal. All three courses would have some offal as part of it. You see, I knew that I had some lamb’s fries in the freezer that I bought a while ago from the Cheshire Smokehouse and this seemed like the perfect time to cook them. After a little internet research, I found that they weren’t that difficult to cook, it seemed that you could treat them the same as scallops. I decided on a warm salad. I just hoped they weren’t awful, and that people weren’t going to be squeamish.

It has been a while since I put one of my own recipes on here...

For six:

Heat some cooking oil in a frying pan until nice and hot. Throw in two cloves of garlic and a good pinch of chilli flakes. As soon as the garlic starts to brown, throw in seven sliced and previously seasoned lamb’s fries. Quickly stir fry them for around two or three minutes only, and then season with more salt and pepper if required plus a little sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice. Stir through some dressed spinach leaves and serve immediately. I forgot to take a picture. Oopsey!

The lamb’s fries were okay – very tender and rather bland. It was quite difficult to get excited by them. I think I’d would rather have had something bizarre and shocking, than something that was just okay. At least everyone that came can say they’ve tried them. And I can say that when I do testicles, they melt in your mouth! (F’nar!)

November

Well here we are in November, would you believe. When did this happen? I still keep thinking that 2009 happened recently, and now it is nearly over. November, though not full of vibrant fruit and vegetables, is still chock-packed with many of my favourites: the apples and pears are in abundance, and there are many, many varieties. Game is now probably at its very best now. I have bought some hare and mallard already for recipes this month, but at the game stall at the Farmers market at Hoghton there was grey squirrel. I didn’t buy any, but maybe next time.

FYI: The game man, who does allsorts of fantastic stuff, and has been very good to me by getting pheasant giblets for me. His company is called Shaw Meats and they are doing five-bird roasts for Christmas as well as other exciting things. He’s based in Cumbria, but does deliver. Check out the website.

Vegetables: Jerusalem artichokes, beetroot, brussels tops, cabbages, cardoons, carrots, celeriac, celery, chard, chicory, endive, spring and winter greens, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, lettuce, onions, parsnips, potatoes, pumpkins and squashes, salsify, swede, turnips.

Fruit: apples, medlars, pears, quince, raspberries.

Wild greens and herbs: nettles, watercress.

Wild flowers and fruits: rosehips, sloes

Fungi and nuts: chestnuts, hedgehog fungus, horse mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, walnuts, blewits.

Fish and shellfish: cod, crab, lobster, mackerel, mussels, oysters, prawns, scallops, sea bass, sprats, squid, whiting.

Game: goose, grey squirrel, grouse, hare, mallard, partridge, pheasant rabbit, woodpigeon.

#199 Apple Sauce III

Eagle-eyed followers of the blog will notice that there has been no Apple Sauce I or II. In English Food there four recipes for apple sauce, so I thought it best to get the ball rolling. I’ve made this one first because it is not a sauce for pork, but for chicken. I had a very nice-looking free range chicken that I bought from the poulterer Peter D Willacy at Houghton Farmers Market, you see. He has no website, but you can call him in 01253 883470. The best thing about their chickens is that they come with giblets; not something you see these days, not even in good butchers. I’m hoping to buy a capon from them soon. This sauce can also be served with veal.

Anyways, if you are roasting a chicken this weekend, try this very easy creamy and usual hot apple sauce:

Core, dice and peel a pound of Cox’s pippin apples (or a good equivalent) and fry them in some clarified butter. (If you don’t clarify your butter first, it may burn. Melt it slowly in a pan, blot away any solids on the surface with some kitchen paper, then decant the liquid butter away, leaving behind any other solids that sank to the bottom.) When they have softened and turned a little golden, remove the apple pieces with a slotted spoon, leaving behind the buttery juices. Add six tablespoons of white wine (or cider) to the juices to deglaze and reduce it all well. Lastly, stir through six tablespoons of double cream and sharpen with a squeeze of lemon juice. Serve hot.


#199 Apple Sauce III. A strange one this one because the sauce is essentially stewed apples and cream, which in my book is a pudding. That said, it did go surprisingly well with the chicken as there are no strong flavours to drown out the subtle chicken. 5.5/10.

Number 200 fast approaches...

Well who would’ve ever have thunk that I would still be doing this frankly stupid endeavour and be quickly approaching number 200. I have been pondering what to cook for it – I want to do something very English and/or grand and I think I have chosen something; it may not fit the latter criterior, but it is possibly more English than roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. Can you guess what it is? Answers on a postcard….

I’d also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who has read and commented on the blog – I am still flabbergasted than people read it and cook from it. My biggest thanks go to all my poor friends and family that have had t put up with some of these meals, which have been pretty far out of their comfort zone. Everyone has been great sports.

Thanks again, folks!

#198 Compote of Bonchretien Pears

I’ve been rather busy of late and not had much time for cooking or blogging. Oh well, we all have fallow periods. It seems like ages ago that I did the dinner party that was just a couple of weeks ago and I’ve only just gotten round to telling you about the dessert.

I wanted to do something that I could make ahead and was seasonal too. This pear compote was the obvious choice. A nice clean tart fruit after all that cream and fried bread from the previous courses. I was concerned that I wasn’t going to find any Bonchrétien pears though – I’d never heard of them. I turns out the Bon Chrétien (which translate as ‘good Christian’) pears are a type of Williams pear, the most common of the pears.

This recipe is another from Hannah Glasse, a book called The Complete Confectioner, published in 1790 – there are no specific weights and cooking times really, which is a good thing as there is a huge variation in sweetness and folks’ tastes too. Do buy good pears for this though; don’t worry if they are under-ripe.

Peel, core and slice your pears. Plunge them into a pan half-full with boiling water that has been acidulated with lemon juice. Bring to the boil and simmer for two minutes before draining and returning to the pan. If your pears are particularly hard, they may need a little more time; if they are soft, I probably wouldn’t simmer them at all. Gently stew the fruit with some sugar to taste for a few minutes, either over the hob or in the oven. Make sure the pan is covered well. To add extra flavour and interest add some pared lemon peel or a split vanilla pod (I went with the latter). Once tender, remove from the heat, squeeze some orange juice over the pears and leave to cool, covered. Griggers or Glasse make no suggestions for accompaniments, so I went with vanilla ice cream.

#198 Compote of Bonchrétien Pears. I don’t cook with pears very often and this is first time I’ve made a compote from them. They were are very good end to a rich meal, and the vanilla made them extra-delicious. I think that we should all swap our apples for pears whenever we think about making a crumble or pie this autumn or winter. 8/10

#197 Sedgemoor Eel Stew

The first of four eel-based recipes from the book (five if you include the elvers recipe) and hopefully the star turn for my dinner party. I chose this one first because I knew them some people would be squeamish about them and this one seemed the least scary. It’s called a stew, but really it’s poached fish in a parsley sauce; a dish that everyone’s had in some way or form before. It’s a classic Somerset recipe this, where there are eels in abundance (according to Griggers); this is not the case so much these days, certainly for Manchester. However, I did get them. Try your fishmonger and you never know; I got mine from Out of the Blue in Chorlton. Be warned – you do get them live, so be prepared to kill them and prepare them yourself. Read how I went about it here.

This serves six easily.

You need three to four pounds of clean and skinned freshwater eel for this recipe. Begin by cutting the eel(s) into even-sized portions of around two inches in length. Season them lightly. Make a stock from the eel heads and skin as well as the flat part of the tails: Place the trimmings in a pan and cover them with half-water, half-cider (use good dry cider). Bring to a boil and then cover and summer for twenty minutes.

Arrange the eel pieces in a shallow pan and pour over enough hot stock to barely cover the eels. Poach the eels for around fifteen minutes, until the eel meat starts to come away from the bones. Don’t let the stock come to a proper boil though – steady poaching is the key, and it may take longer with thicker eels. When cooked, remove the eel pieces and arrange them on a serving dish, cover them with cling film and keep them warm.

Now make the sauce by boiling down the cooking liquor until it tastes strongly and then add ¼ pint (i.e. a 150 ml pot) of clotted, Jersey or double cream and four tablespoons of chopped parsley. Season again if required. Pour the sauce over the eel and serve. She suggests serving this stew with toast or fried bread. As fried bread had already featured in the last two courses, I went for toast. I also served some broccoli too.

#197 Sedgemoor Eel Stew. This was really good; the sauce was both sharp and creamy due to the cider and fresh with grassy parsley. The flavours were robust, but not too strong to mask the eel itself. It was very delicate in flavour; you could tell that they had come from a very good river as it tasted of fresh springwater. It stayed beautifully moist due to the gelatinous nature of it too. Much superior to salmon or trout, I think. Now that people don’t eat eel, I feel I have found a real hidden gem. I just have to go through the rigmarole of killing and cleaning them! At least I can say that this was the freshest fish I've ever had! 8.5/10

FYI: delicious as eel maybe, beware if someone offers you raw eel, say as sashimi. Eel blood is toxic before it is cooked, so if you get given a bloody bit, it could be a bad man trying to do away with you.

#196 Mange Tout Salad with Chicken Liver and Bacon

The starter to the dinner party. The problem with dinner parties is that unless you’re careful, you end up stressed out in the kitchen cooking away and not seeing or speaking to anyone. This warm salad seemed just the job, as long as everything was prepped beforehand; it takes only minutes to make. This recipe looked simple and very tasty indeed – anything with chicken livers and fried bread always gets my vote. I also like that in this recipe appears in the Vegetables chapter of the book!

FYI: although liver is both delicious and cheap – be warned of potential poisoning through an overdose of vitamin A. However, this only really applies to polar bear, seal and husky liver. But you have been warned, so don’t come crying to me when you’ve got serious hypervitaminosis.


This recipe serves four to six people:

Briefly boil 12 ounces of mange tout in salted water; just two minutes will do it. Don’t put a lid on (the same goes for any green vegetable) as it keeps them crisp and gives them a vibrant green colour. Drain them and keep them warm in a bowl in a low oven. Now cut six rashers of streaky bacon into strips and fry them in a little sunflower oil until crisp, remove, drain, add more oil, then fry 24 (ish; let’s no get too pernickety) bread cubes in the oil. When golden brown, drain and keep them and the bacon warm. Make a simple vinaigrette from some sunflower or hazelnut oil and some white wine vinegar. Use a ratio you prefer, though Griggers suggests 3:2 oil to vinegar. Stir this into the mange tout. Now fry the chicken livers: you need six – cube them and remove any gristly bits and gall bladders should there be any. Fry them quickly and briefly – they should be a little bit pink inside. Remove them from the heat. Carefully stir in the bacon and liver and serve straight away.

#196 Mange Tout Salad with Chicken Liver and Bacon. This was delicious. The salty and fatty bacon and rich metallic liver were perfectly balanced with the bland and sweet mange tout. The crispy croutons add extra textures too. I really love these simple recipes in the book (you’re not always sure which ones they are going to be). Minimum effort, maximum reward. Brilliant stuff 8.5/10

#195 Canapes a la Creme

The entrée for the dinner party. It’s one of those recipes that I’ve never got round to because – frankly – it’s never really seemed that interesting and a bit of a rigmarole to produce (there quite a few of these!). Grigson says that they are “[a] fine mixture of hot, rich, piquant and cold.” I don’t really know why this recipe is in English Food, I’m sure that there are other canapés in book Savouries à la Mode by Mrs de Salis she could’ve nabbed. Perhaps she chose this one because the ingredients are quite English. Anyways, here is the method, if you want to try and make some for yourself:

Cut some white bread in centimetre thick slices. Cut out circles and fry them in butter. Grigson doesn’t say how large they should be – I used a highball glass. Next put anchovy fillets on each slice – she says three, but that seemed excessive to me for the size of fried bread I'd cut out, so just added one. Finally add a spoonful of cold clotted cream to each canapé and serve straight away.

The canapes in production

#195 Canapés à la Crème. 3/10. They weren’t vile – all of the ingredients that go to produce this are among my favourite foods – they were just odd and uninspiring. There was not too much fattiness from the fried bread and cream, and the anchovies were too much (it’s a good job I didn’t add three!). I think they could’ve been improved if a cream cheese or crème fraiche mixed with chives as suggested on the night had been used rather than clotted cream. Still, they were easier to make than I thought – particularly when I had my army of sous chefs with me! Cheers guys.

...Next, Simply Prepare Your Eels

So how do you kill and prepare an eel? Well, if you look in English Food, Griggers just says to ask your fishmonger to do the dirty work. The was not to be the case for me, for two main reasons: my fishmonger (and pretty much any fishmonger in the country, I hasten to add) had never dealt with them at all. Remember: fishmongers do not receive live fish, apart from the odd lobster or crab perhaps, so this was just as out of his comfort zone as mine. The second reason was that I felt it part of my duty as a meat-eater to do this. Every animal we have eaten has had to be killed. These days, however, the consumer hardly ever does this themselves. We are too far removed from our food these days and therefore disrespectful of it so some degree. This is a way of addressing this issue for me. I did not expect to find it easy. In fact I was very nervous; I had never killed anything in my life and I was not looking forward to it. I didn’t want it to be easy; I wanted it to be distressing (for me, not the eels). We take all this animal killing in our stride.

The eels await their fate in their little polystyrene prison

I have gone off on a tangent. Larousse Gastronomique gives you these instructions on how to prepare an eel. It sounded all so easy:

“To kill an eel, simply seize it with a cloth and simply bang its head violently against a hard surface. To skin it, simply put a noose around the base and hang it up. Simply slit the skin in a circle just beneath the noose. Simply pull away a small portion of the skin, turn it back, take hold of it with a cloth and simply pull it down hard.”

I added the “simply”s. Well it didn’t quite go like the description in Larousse. So here’s what we ended up doing:

First up, you need to have a couple of rums to help prepare you. That’s what Paul and I did and I think it helped. We fannied around a bit before Charlotte walked in from work, grabbed one in a cloth and gave it several massive thwacks again the wall. Job a good one? No. It was still alive! She gave it another couple and it went limp. This was not like killing a trout with a short, sharp crack on a stone. We felt quite distressed about the several hits that we had to give it to kill it – we didn’t want to cause any unnecessary suffering. So the new plan was to hit it once to knock the others out or slow them down, and then chop the heads off with a meat-cleaver. I know this might sound extreme but, it seemed like the best thing – plus I remember it being the method I remember seeing some chef doing on telly once. We did it, and guess what? They were still moving about! I took the two now headless eels to the, plus Charlotte’s to the skin to rinse, and revived Charlotte’s. Off with its head.

Before you get angry about any mistreatment here – it turns out that they were all dead quite early on. We worked this out because all three eel bodies were still seemingly happily snaking around in the sink a good 45 minutes post-beheading. It seems that much of their behaviour is down to instinct and their autonomic nervous system. Though I've no idea how this happens and why it's so different to other fishes. Below is the rather gruesome video of the headless eels I took when they were in the sink. I mentioned the whole episode to Matthew Cobb (who I work with at Manchester University) who said he'll put a link to this post on his z-letter. (FYI: The z-letter is weekly newsletter about all things zoological.) Hopefully I shall find out why they just don't conk out. Be warned before clicking on the video if you are squeamish, remember too though that they are dead. Also, I apologise for my rather camp commentary. Let me know if you can tell me anything about eels and their habit of moving and swimming long after death.

The next stage of preparation is to skin them. In our panic, thinking we hadn’t killed eels when we had, we cut off the heads so couldn’t do the noose trick outlined in Larousse. Instead, we tried to make slit down the base and peel the skin away some other way. Anthea had arrived by this point, to find us sweating, giggling and holding bloody carving knives, and she suggested using some salt as it would give grip against their very slimy skins. At first all this seemed to do was kick-start the wriggle reflex again, but eventually – with Anthea restraining the wriggling eel with yet more cloths – I managed to get a purchase on the eel and pull the skin off in one piece. Just two more to go.

The hard work was done, just the gutting to do. At last I was on familiar territory. I’ve gutted fish several times before. To do this, make a cut from its anus – you’ll see it, about halfway down – to the neck end and pull away any innards away from the rib cage. Give it a rinse and you are done.

Well I have to say it was a pretty distressing episode, it wasn’t as bad as we thought at the time. I now know that eels carry on a-moving quite a while after death. So, to sum up:

1. Holding a cloth, hit your eel several times very hard against a wall.
2. Whilst the eel is limp, quickly cut off its head with a cleaver or very sharp knife.
3. Using salt as an abrasive, pull the skin back – persevere here – until you have a good inch of skin eked away, then pull off like a big macabre witch stocking.
4. Gut and wash the eel.

It sounds so easy put into four sentences.

First, Catch Your Eels...

There are four eel recipes in English Food: fried eel, jellied eel, eel stew and eel pie. If I’ve any chance of cooking all the recipes in English Food, I realised that I really need to start sourcing the more unusual ingredients. I also needed to source people prepared to eat them. Eels were once very popular, particularly in South-Western England and London. They aren’t so much these days for two reasons – people are scared of eels, and the baby eel (elver) population has crashed, causing some concerns of the future of the European eel. I‘ve discussed the elver issue in an earlier post. The adult population has gone down as a knock-on effect, but not to dangerous levels. It is a shame that people don't want to eat them as they are tasty, but it is probably a good thing for their population. There's is nothing wrong with fishing for then in small numbers however.

Before preparing and cooking your eel, you have to get hold of some from somewhere, no mean feat, not for you, but for the poor fishmonger you talk into getting them for you.

The European Eel

Whilst shopping in Manchester, I popped into the Arndale Market to see if there was anything interesting on the off chance. There wasn’t, but I thought I’d enquire about eels. He said there’d be no problems, he just needed a bit of notice, so off I went and organised a dinner party and invited people round. When I rang up, the guy who answered said “sorry mate, but I’ve not seen eels for years, there’s no chance”. Oh dear. It seems that eel would be off the menu completely.

I didn’t give in, and as soon as I got to work, I rang the one place that I knew would find out for sure if eels are still available: Out of the Blue in Chorlton. Out of the Blue is a great fishmonger, and has won many an award. I used to use them all the time when I lived there. After a bit of detective work from their end, I got a phone call back a few days later and as if by magic, Dave Yarwood, the owner said he’s managed to get hold of some for me and they’d be ready by the Friday. Also – something I didn’t realise, you get them live. I knew the fishmonger would probably get them live, but I didn't know I'd have to do away with them myself.

Feeling rather nervous throughout the week, it was finally Friday and off I went to Chorlton full of trepidation. In the shop, Dave asked me to come behind the counter where there they were – three freshwater eels swimming around in a big water-filled box. I remained as calm outside; inside, I was bricking it. What the hell!? I’m going to have to do away with three eels. I’ve never killed anything in my life, houseflies aside. I’d like to point out that Dave Yarwood is a total star for this – the amount of effort he put into getting hold of these eels for outweighed the effort I put in prepping or cooking them. He had to drive all the way to Sandbach at some god-awful time in the morning only to get there to find no one around. He did find a note on the door saying the eels were in a bag in the stream round the back!

Out of the Blue, Chorlton

I got a taxi back home and put the box of eels in the backyard. I started to prep all the other food for the dinner party, looking outside every two minutes at the box. Time was getting on and I knew I had to do the deed soon. Luckily for me Paul was coming round to give me a hand… Though what was about to happen next was pretty distressing for me and the eels both! See here

A Dinner Party

I had a dinner party at the weekend and invited some folks from work. It’s good to cook for people, though for this one, the guests really went above and beyond the call of duty when it comes to helping me out in the kitchen, as people often do. The reason for this is that the main course was freshwater eel, though why this meant that folks went above and beyond the call of duty is a story for a separate posting. I’ll just say for now that you get them live. People are very squeamish about eel, in fact the English are pretty squeamish about fish in general these days, but Alex, Paul, Anthea and Simone all said they were up for it. Here’s them menu I came up with:

Entrée: #195 Canapés à la Crème
Starter: #196 Mange Tout Salad with Chicken Liver and Bacon
Main: #197 Sedgemoor Eel Stew
Dessert: #198 Compote of Bonchrétien Pears

Everything on the menu is either quick to make, or could have been made ahead, so that I wasn’t stood in the kitchen throughout. The really difficult thing was finding four courses that didn’t all contain cream and bread. As always with this project, I’m always a little worried about the recipe just being plain shite. I didn’t have to worry. There’s nothing else to say here really, I just wanted to add this entry with all the courses so that the next few postings make some sense…

#194 Almond Soup (White Soup)

Yes, another soup...

This recipe is the very first one that appears in English Food. Although it may seem rather odd nowadays, it is one of the most historical recipes there is. Almond soup, or almond milk as it was originally called goes right back to the Middle Ages. It was made with almonds, onions, wine and spices. More recently, it diverged into two completely separate dishes: almond soup and blancmange.

Griggers reckons that one of the reasons (apart from it tasting good) that it’s remained popular is because the ingredients are easy to come by; most being found about the house. Well, it is popular no longer – I’d heard of it, but only vaguely. Not all the ingredients are easy to come by these days either – the main reason I’ve only got round to making this now is that I managed to finally get hold of the veal knuckle required for the stock.

I always really enjoy making these sorts of recipes in the book – I don’t even mind if they’re not that nice – it’s just interesting cooking and tasting these old, old recipes. I’ve said it before, but it is great that such books like English Food exist, it’s also great to see that many of these unfashionably historical recipes are tasty and interesting. Does this one fit into that category though..?

To make the soup, you need to start the day before and get on with the task of stock-making. Start off by placing a small gammon hock (I made one myself in the brine tub!) and a good meaty veal knuckle that has been cut into three pieces in a large pan or stockpot. Add four pints of cold water and slowly bring to the boil; the slower you do this, the clearer the stock will be. When it does come to the boil, skim away any scum and add a quartered onion, a quartered carrot, four chopped celery sticks, a teaspoon of lightly-crushed peppercorns, two blades of mace, a bay leaf and a tablespoon – no, I didn’t misread the book, tablespoon – of salt. Bring back to the boil and then turn the heat right down so that the stock simmers gently away for four hours. Strain and chill overnight and skim the fat off the top. Bring back to the boil and reduce the stock until there is around 2 ½ pints remaining. Alternatively, if you simply cannot be arsed with all of that, use a light beef stock!

For the soup, place 2 ounces of blanched almonds and an ounce of white bread (crusts removed) into a blender along with a couple of ladlefuls of stock and liquidise the lot. Push the gloop through a sieve into the reduced stock. Turn the heat off under the pan. Next, beat an egg yolk into ¼ each of double cream and soured cream and whisk it into the soup, reheat, making sure the stock is not boiling, to prevent the egg from cooking and curdling. Now season with white pepper, salt (!), Cayenne pepper and lemon juice. Serve with fried croutons or fried almonds.

#194 Almond Soup (White Soup). Certainly not one for those on a low salt or low fat diet. It was very salty and rich. I assume that the tablespoon of salt listed in the ingredients is a typo since a ham hock is also used for the stock. I’m not convinced that I actually liked this soup, it was certainly nicer the next day when the flavours had time to develop. It’s certainly a posh soup, but I think it could’ve been improved by using a less salty stock. Perhaps after all this time-biding, it would have been better if I’d simply used a light beef stock as suggested in the recipe. 4.5/10.

#193 Kidney Soup

Kidney Soup was apparently a kitchen standby in households of times past – particularly in Scotland. Indeed, this recipe is taken from Florence B. Jack’s book Cookery for Every Household. Ms Jack was the principal of the Edinburgh School of Domestic Arts, and very austere she was too.

Now I know it sounds weird, but this is a classic recipe that is also cheap – cheap because it’s main ingredient is kidney, of course. We are being told that offal and the cheaper cuts of meats are suddenly becoming popular due to the recession, but I have not seen any evidence of really from the people that I speak to (though I have in butcher's shop windows). When saying I’ve been doing this recipe, there has been nothing but pulled faces and dry retching (the only exception being Anthea – frequent blog commenter – she ate it often as a child). I must admit, however, that as much as I love kidneys, I wasn’t quite sure about eating them in soup. However, this book is full of surprises.

To start with you need a whole ox kidney; cut away any fat and gristly bits and cut up the kidney into small pieces. Brown it in an ounce and a half of butter or dripping in a large saucepan along with a sliced onion. Pour over four pints of beef stock and stir, adding some salt. Bring the stock to a boil and skim any scum that rises to the top. Add a bouquet garni and some spices: 20 peppercorns, a blade of mace and a quarter teaspoon of celery seeds. Tie the bouquet and spices in a piece of muslin first. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours, covered on the hob or in the oven.

When ready, skim any fat from the surface and strain the soup. As with most soups and stews its best let it cool down completely – overnight is best – so that you be sure of getting rid of all the fat. Pick out the bits of kidney and give them a rinse. Heat up the soup again and add an ounce of flour that has first been slaked in a tablespoon of mushroom ketchup. (The recipe doesn’t actually say what kind of ketchup, but with this being beef, mushroom or tomato are the best to use.) let the soup thicken slightly and add the kidney pieces. Finally season with more salt and pepper if required, plus some lemon or orange juice and a dash of sherry to add complexity of the flavour.

FYI: the kidneys were thought to be the part of the body concerned with conscience and reflection. Apparently, God would inspect the kidneys to see how good someone had been. In fact, one kidney was responsible for good thoughts, the other evil. The Latin word renes, is used to describe anything of the kidney (e.g. renal), but also is the root word for reins too. So there you go; a choice nugget of factoid for you there.


#193 Kidney Soup. This was a really delicious soup! I loved it the slightly spiced beef consommé was light and tasty and complimented the strong metallic gamey taste of the kidneys. It requires a bit for forethought to make it, but it is worth it I reckon. Cheap, tasty and good for you. 6.5/10.

#192 Elizabeth David's Prawn Paste

In days of yore, we English loved potted meats and fish. You don’t seem to see many potted foodstuffs around these days: though potted beef is still popular in Yorkshire. Pate does not count. This one at first sight seems a bit weird, and perhaps foul, but there are some interesting ingredients in there. One of the great things that Elizabeth David did in the sixties and seventies was introducing us to Mediterranean flavours, and she managed to sneak a few in here: olive oil instead of butter, basil instead of parsley, lime rather than lemon. She transformed our eating habits; along with Grigson, Floyd, et al. of course. It may seem odd these days – all those continental ingredients mashed up in a now-defunct method of preparing meat and fish – but there you go.

Place eight ounces of cooked, peeled prawns in a blender along with the juice of a lime and around six tablespoons of olive oil – use extra virgin if you have it since as it’s not going to be cooked. Blend until smooth and add half a teaspoon of dried basil and a heaped saltspoon (!) of crushed coriander seeds. Season with a little salt and some Cayenne pepper. Divide between some small ramekins, cover and refrigerate. Serve with hot, thin toast.

By the way, I don’t know the capacity of a saltspoon as I don’t own one, so don’t ask me. Actually, I’d not even heard of one. I guessed and added a quarter of a teaspoon. Also, don’t buy dried basil, as it has no flavour; dry your own in a cool oven for about 20 minutes until crumbly: much better.


#192 Elizabeth David’s Prawn Paste. It may have sounded like horrible soggy fish pap, but this was delicious. The prawns were sweet, the olive oil was fruity and the basil and coriander seeds combined with the lime juice provided a morish tang. Really good – go and make some. 7.5/10.

October Food

Here we are in Autumn proper, and although there’s still a decent ‘in season’ list, many of the really summery fruit and veg have started to dwindle. However, there is a plus – the fish and game is on the increase, and I really intend to get through a fair few recipes that involve them. I really wanted to cook eel last month and didn’t get a chance, so that is top of the list. I’m off to a farmers Market in a week or two as well – hopefully I’ll bag me a grouse!

Vegetables: beetroot, borlotti beans, broccoli, cabbages, cardoons, carrots, cauliflower, celeriac, celery, chard, courgettes, cucumber, fennel, kale, kohlrabi, leeks, onions, peppers and chillies, potatoes, pumpkins and squashes, rocket, salsify, spinach, tomatoes, turnips.

Fruit: apples, grapes, greengages, medlars, pears, quince, raspberries.

Wild greens and herbs: nettles, watercress.

Wild flowers and fruits: bullace, crab apples, damsons, juniper berries, rosehips, rowan berries, sloes

Fungi and nuts: chanterelles, chestnuts, hedgehog fungus, horse mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, parasol mushrooms, puffballs, shaggy inkcap, summer truffles, walnuts, blewits.

Fish and shellfish: cod, crab, eels, lobster, mussels, oyster, mackerel, mussels, oysters, prawns, salmon, scallops, sea bass, sprats, squid, trout.

Game: goose, grey squirrel, grouse, hare, mallard, partridge, rabbit, woodpigeon.

#191 Lamb with Plums

It was Butters’ birthday the other week, so naturally I did a bit cooking. He requested lamb as that is his favourite meat. This one is an interesting one – a leg of lamb pot roasted with wine and plums. Butters was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t a roast, you just can’t please some people, can you? I wanted to do this one because it used plums and they are in season and are nice and cheap to boot. I’m quite a fan of the English habit of eating rich meat with fruit; we have gotten out of this habit recently though. Another important thing: it’s also nice and easy.

Start off by browning a leg of lamb all over in butter. If it is very fatty, it would be a good idea to trim any excess off – it’ll prevent the dish becoming too greasy. Place the joint in a large ovenproof casserole and add two glasses of red wine, ten plums (leave them whole), a medium chopped onion, a chopped clove of garlic and a quarter teaspoon each of ground cinnamon and allspice (or nutmeg). Cover with the lid and place in an oven preheat to 200⁰C for around two hours. Remove the lamb, and keep it warm. Skim any fat from the juices in the casserole and pass it through a sieve to make a smooth sauce. Reheat it and add sugar – one or two teaspoons should do, you don’t want it too sweet, plus some extra spices if you like. Pour some sauce over the lamb, and serve the remainder in a jug or gravy boat. Griggers is strict with the accompaniments: “Potatoes are the only vegetable to serve with lamb cooked in this way.” That’s us told.


#191 Lamb with Plums. This was a really delicious, simple recipe. The lamb turned out to be very succulent and the tart, spicy plum sauce was really delicious. I’m not about just having spuds with it though, I like a bit of green with my tea. 8/10.

#190 Finnan Haddock

A bit of a cop out this one as it it’s not really a recipe, though it is listed as one in the book. It’s actually more a bit of advice on good eating. There’s many like this in the book. Here, Griggers discusses the dos and don’ts of buying Finnan haddock, which is smoked haddock. We call it Finny haddock in Yorkshire. Findon, or Finnan is a small coastal village near Aberdeen in Scotland. It is there where the proper stuff is made. Griggers warns us of buying those ‘golden fillets’ that are that weird shiny orange colour like cheap sweaty spray-on tan, which I suppose it is but with added smoke flavour. Splarf. My mum used to buy them and they are vastly inferior to the proper stuff. There have been a few recipes so far in the book that has used Finnan haddock, and I think that I have mentioned all this before. However, if you want the really good shit, it is Arbroath that you need to travel to. There, Arbroath smokies are made. As I was in the fishmongers buying some prawns (see a later entry for what I wanted those for) there some were, just lying there. So I bought one, as you have to be opportunistic in this game.

So the recipe? “Heat briefly under the grill or in the oven, and eaten with plenty of butter and bread, or used for kedgeree.” So a brief grilling it was for my little smokie.


#190 Finnan Haddock. If you ever see those little Arbroath smokies in the fishmongers you have to buy some. The flesh was so succulent and sweet due to its protection by the now leathery skin, and the smoke flavour was nothing like anything I’ve tasted before: it was as though it had only just been taken out of the smokehouse and slipped onto my plate. The smoke flavour was sweet and acrid, not unlike a good cigar. Excellent. 8/10. If I catch any of you buying a golden fillet, I will come over personally and poke you in the eye with it.

#189 Mussel and Leek Rolypoly

“People sometimes shudder at the mention of roly-poly puddings” says the Grigson; er, no dear, just the idea of THIS one! Why on Earth is there no jam roly-poly pudding, please!? I’ve been putting off the more weird ones – like this – but they are building up now. I wasn’t looking forward to it, but Griggers really does big this one up. It is cheap though, at least when mussels are in season.

I have only recently been able to pluck up the courage to eat mussels; I’ve always been a bit squeamish with bivalves for some reason. However, I do love mussels now. The Romans loved them too, and they’ve been cultured in France since the late thirteenth century, ever since a shipwrecked Irishman called Patrick Walton was washed up on a French beach and noticed some mussels growing on the fishermen’s nets. I doubt he wrapped them in suet pasty though.

To begin you need to cook your mussels – 48 in all, says Grigson. Scrub them and remove their beards and any parasites. Place them in a hot, wide shallow pan and cover. As soon as the mussels open, take them off the heat. Don’t use any mussels that have not opened. Shell them, reserving any juices, and let them cool. Pass the juices through some muslin into a small pan.

Now make the rest of the stuffing: In a bowl, mix together 3 ounces of finely chopped onion, 2 trimmed and finely chopped leeks, 2 chopped rashers of streaky bacon, 3 tablespoons of chopped parsley and a little salt plus plenty of ground black pepper.

Suet pastry is the easiest pastry to make. Sieve 10 ounces of self-raising flour in a large bowl and mix in a pinch of salt and 5 ounces of shredded suet. Using a knife or your hands, mix in some cold water until a firm and light dough is formed.

You are now ready to construct the rolypoly pudding. Roll the dough into a rectangle and sprinkle over the leek mixture leaving a centimetre border around three sides, and then evenly sprinkle over the mussels. Brush the edges with water and roll up the pastry starting at the borderless end, lastly press down the sides to prevent any leakage from the sides. Wrap it in a tightly-sealed but baggy foil parcel and steam for two hours on a rack in a self-basting roaster. If you don’t have one – use a normal roaster and make a foil lid as I did. When ready, place in an ovenproof serving dish and crisp it up in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes - careful now, it might collapse (see pic!). Whilst that is happening, make the butter sauce. Boil down the reserved mussel liquor, take it off the heat, and whisk in 4 ounces of chilled, cubed butter, bit by bit. Season well, add some chopped parsley, and it is ready.


#189 Mussel and Leek Rolypoly 4.5/10. I though I liked this in the end, but then I wasn’t sure; it certainly wasn’t awful. I even had seconds. The mussels were soft and sweet, the leeks were cooked nicely and the pastry was crisp. The sauce was good too. I think it was too rich, and I ate too much. An unusual one, but I’m not sure I would recommend it.

#188 Ragout of Lamb

Another bargain from Orton Farmers’ market – a nice leg of lamb for a tenner. I love lamb, I do. Griggers actually half-inched this one from a chap called Michael Smith. I don’t know who he is. Anyway, I wanted to do this one because I got to use to use up a massive punnet of tomatoes that I also got from the market. This recipe is not worth making with those crappy old chlorosed supermarket thingies. Get some proper ones; if you grow them yourself, alls the better. It’s a nice recipe this one, a nice summery stew.

You need 2 pounds of leg of lamb that has been cubed for this recipe. If you get the butcher to bone it, don’t forget to ask for the bone – you’ve paid for it, make some stock out of it! Shake the cubed meat in a bag along with two tablespoons of well-seasoned flour. Brown them in a pan with a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil. Place the browned lamb in a casserole and then brown 2 diced carrots and half a head of celery that has also been diced in the pan. When done add those to the casserole. If you have a casserole that can go straight onto the hob, then you can do it all in one. Now add ½ teaspoon of Cayenne pepper, 2 crushed garlic cloves, a sprig of rosemary and the grated rind of a lemon to the meat and vegetables and pour over 1 ¼ pints of chicken stock. Bake in the oven for 1 ½ hours at 190⁰C.

At the mid-way point, you need to add around 18 caramelised spring or pickling onions. To make them prepare the onions: leave about 2 or 3 inches of green stalk on the spring onions. If it’s pickling onions, you are using, just peel them. Melt ½ an ounce of butter in a pan and add the onions, plus 1 ½ teaspoons of sugar. Cook until caramelised, making sure they all get coated and browned evenly.


The final stage of this recipe is to cook the tomatoes lightly – they are used as a topping: peel the tomatoes, halve them, scoop out the seeds and dice them up. Melt ½ an ounce of butter in a saucepan and cook the tomatoes lightly. Take the ragout out of the oven, skim it of fat, check for seasoning, place it in a bowl and place the tomatoes on top. Scatter with chopped basil. Serve with a baked potato.

#188 Ragout of Lamb. A really nice stew this one; the meat was beautifully tender and the chicken stock, tomatoes and basil really lifted and made it light and summery – it’s a shame we have no actual summer to speak of. The onions collapse into sweet, sweet mush too. Great stuff - 7.5/10.

#187 Soyer's Clear Vegetable Soup

I am still trying to count the pennies at the minute and this recipe was designed to be cheap to make as it is from Alexis Soyer’s book Shilling Cookery for the People (1845). I’ve mentioned Soyer before in the blog – he was a French chef who wanted to help the people and the book was one way. He was also a pioneer – he helped develop cooking on gas and ovens with adjustable temperatures. Anyway, I did baulk at this recipe: shilling cookery with veal in it!? However, I was wrong; I managed to get hold of a veal knuckle to make the soup for just 25 pence from the Orton Farmers' Market. Bargain. You may have some reservations about eating veal, but these days you really don’t need to – I’ll discuss that in a later entry though.



I love how the book has two vegetable soup recipes and neither even entertain being vegetarian! Brilliant. We love Griggers!

To make this soup you need to begin by making a veal stock: You need to get hold of 2 pounds of veal knuckle – it seems that they are quite easy to get hold of as long as your butcher sells veal in the first place. Ask the butcher to chop it into small pieces – I couldn’t as I was at the market and had to do it myself which was a nightmare to do. Place the knuckle pieces in a large pan along with 2 ounces of butter; 2 ounces of chopped, lean unsmoked bacon; 3 teaspoons of salt; ½ teaspoon of ground black pepper; 6 ounces of sliced onion; and ¼ pint of water. Bring the water to a boil and stir the ingredients for around 10 minutes. An opaque whitish stock is created. Now add a further 4 ½ pints of water and bring to a boil, then skim, then simmer for 45 minutes. Strain the stock when cooked. You can do all this in advance, of course.

For the soup itself you need to dice some vegetables: around 8 ounces of turnip, Jerusalem artichokes or carrot, or a mixture; plus 3 ounces of mixed onion, leek and celery. Melt 2 ounces of butter or dripping in a pan and add the diced vegetables along with 2 teaspoons of sugar. Stir them until they caramelise and, when ready, add 3 pints of the stock. Simmer until the vegetables are tender. Lastly, stir through 2 tablespoons of chopped parsley or chives, or both. Serve with brown bread and butter.


#187 Soyer’s Clear Vegetable Soup. This was an unusual soup; I can’t decide if I liked it or not. I was a very thin soup that wasn’t hearty at all, so it didn’t fill any gap in my stomach! It was saved by the sweet vegetables and their caramelised coating that darkened the soup and made look quite attractive. Not sure if I’d make it again though - 5/10.

#186 Cheese and Oat Biscuits

To go with the vegetable soup I made yesterday, Old Griggers recommends these cheese and oat biscuits to help pad it out into a main meal. Indeed, they go well with most soups, she says. She also says that they are good piled high with cream cheese, finely chopped onion and Cayenne pepper. I’ve never made my own savoury biscuits, so I was interested in seeing how these turned out. They are also cheap to make; a prerequisite these days.


Mix together 3 ounces of rolled oats with 5 ounces of plain flour and rub in 3 ½ ounces of salted butter. Next stir in 4 ounces of grated cheese – a mixture of grated strong Cheddar and Parmesan (I did a ratio of about 3:1) and form it into a dough with two egg yolks. Use a little cold water to bring it together if need be. Season the dough well with salt and pepper. Now roll out thinly and cut our rounds with a scone cutter, place them on a greased baking tray and bake at 200⁰C for around 10 minutes until golden. Cool on a wire rack.

#186 Cheese and Oat Biscuits. I was really impressed by these. So impressed, in fact, that I managed to scoff them all over the course of the evening. Both the use of strong cheeses and a good seasoning is very important, and that is what makes them so much better than any cheese biscuit you could buy. The fact that they’re a piece of piss to make is an added bonus! 8/10.

#185 Vegetable Soup

In case you didn’t know, ‘Thrifty’ is my middle name. Well ‘Skint’ is, at any rate and I’m ploughing through the cheaper of the recipes. This is not necessarily a difficult, but they also have to be healthy too as I’ve developed a bit of a man gut and my moobs are beginning to bud. This is not good.

Obviously the soups are a good target and this vegetable soup seems perfect. I have my own recipe for vegetable soup that I’ve put on the blog before and I think it’s pretty good, she has some interesting additions such as dill and allspice berries. Let’s see if Griggers does a better one…

An important point that Griggers makes is that you don’ have to stick to any particular strict rules with this kind of soup – any vegetables will do I think. Also, this recipe for vegetable soup is not vegetarian, but it could easily be adapted by omitting the meat and using vegetable stock.

Begin by simmering a pound of sliced cabbage in 2 ½ pints of water or light stock along with 12 lightly crushed peppercorns, 6 crushed allspice berries and ½ pound of salt pork, smoked bacon joint or ham hock for 30 minutes. I would use just water if your using a hock with bone, stock otherwise. Now add 2 coarsely chopped carrots, 4 potatoes that have been peeled and cubed, 2 sliced leeks (or one leek and one onion) and a few lovage leaves (these are optional). Simmer for a further 30 minutes. Remove the meat and use it for another meal, or, as I did, chop it up and return it to the soup at the end. The soup needs to be blended now – don’t go mad with it, either pulse and partially liquidise it, or use a mouli-legumes. Found that one of those hand blenders is the best thing for this job. Finally, add one to two tablespoons of grated Parmesan, some dill (optional), cream (also optional) and season with salt, pepper and sugar. Griggers suggests eating the soup with fingers of cheese on toast or cheese and oat biscuits. I went with the latter (cheap and easy to make!).

#185 Vegetable Soup. I can’t believe I’ve not made this recipe yet! Well I have to say it beats my vegetable soup hands down. The soup is very hearty and the addition of the salty piquant cheese and the lemon-fresh dillweed really transform it into a pretty macho vegetable soup. 8/10.

#184 Kedgeree

The thrifty cooking is going well – Charlotte and I having been very shrewd. However, when it comes to Sunday dinnertime, I did want a nice big hearty (and pricey) roast. Instead I went for kedgeree. I don’t recall ever having eaten it before, even though I knew exactly what is required to make it. I had high hopes for it: curry, eggs and Finnan (smoked) haddock. What can’t be good about that!? It used to be a breakfast dish, but these days it’s eaten for dinner or tea.

I have been researching the origins of kedgeree, and there seems to be two differing stories: the Scots reckon that it hails from there, and when the lovely British Empire decided to pop over to Asia and add India to its collection, the Scots brought it over too and the curry element was added. The alternative story is that the dish started in India, but then when colonialists came over, they added the smoked fish. I’m going with the latter story – the best evidence is the etymology of the word: kedgeri is the name of a similar Indian dish containing rice, lentils and eggs.

To make kedgeree, start off by poaching a pound of Finnan haddock in barely simmering water for ten minutes. You can use any good-flavoured cured fish, of course, for example kippers, smoked salmon or bloaters. Meanwhile chop a large onion and fry it in olive oil until it browns. Add a teaspoon of curry paste (I used Madras) and fry for a minute. Remove the fish from the water, remove its skin and flake the flesh, removing any bones. To the pan, stir in six ounces of long grain rice and when translucent add a pint of the poaching water. Cover the pan and let it simmer gently until all the water has been absorbed. Gently stir in the flaked fish along with a large knob of butter. Plate out the kedgeree and decorate with quartered hard-boiled eggs, prawns and chopped parsley. Serve with a lemon wedge and mango chutney.


#184 Kedgeree. This did not disappoint – the food was substantial and well-flavoured, but light. The combination of curry and eggs, and of smoked fish and eggs is great. Plus the extra addition of the lemon, prawns and mango chutney; not something I would normally associate with this dish really makes it special. This is a high-scorer – the only gripe (and it is a minor one) is the use of long grain rice, I am a Basmati man myself; it has a nutty flavour and doesn’t go as stodgy. 8/10.

#183 Scotch Rabbit/Rarebit (1749)

The second of the three rabbits/rarebits that appear in English Food (the third being English of course). After the appearance of Welsh rabbit in the early eighteenth century, and its subsequent popularity, meant that it diversified. Griggers finds this recipe in Hannah Glasse’s 1747 book Art of Cookery. Scotch rabbit seems much easier (and cheaper, natch) as the only ingredients are cheese, toast and butter. The recipe is in fact just lifted directly out of her book, so that is what I’ll do:

‘Toast a piece of bread nicely on both sides, butter it, cut a slice of cheese about as big as the bread, toast it on both sides, and lay it on the bread.’

Easy? Let’s go through it again:
Toast a piece of bread nicely on both sides, butter it. Check.
…cut a slice of cheese about as big as the bread… Yep, good, done that.
…toast it on both sides… Say what now? How the hell are you meant to toast a piece of cheese on both sides!?

This is what I did: I cut the cut and laid it on a piece of buttered grease-proof paper in the hope it could grill it and turn it over. This was not the case as you can see by the photo!


#183 Scotch Rabbit (Rarebit) – 2/10. What a pathetic sight it was. The cheese just stuck to the paper and ended up a big mess. What I don’t understand is that normal good-old cheese on toast is better, tastier and above all easy to make. There is no wonder at all why the Scotch rabbit never took off.

#182 Apple Soup

I wanted to hit the ground running with the Griggers project this September after being away in Turin (work, not play) for the latter part of August, but alas, I have been hindered. There are two main problems here: I am skint and I have become a right old fat knacker all of a sudden. These factors combined can be a hindrance with the recipes in English Food. However, Charmolian and I are being rather more mindful of budgets by planning stuff out properly and sharing cooking duties. To begin with, I tried this soup – cheap and easy, but an unusual one. It is apparently, a very old recipe going right back to the fifteenth century. It is very cheap to make and therefore I assume it was a peasant dish: (windfall) apples and beef broth, basically.

So thrifty folks, here’s how to make your own taste of Medieval England:

Start off by simmering some pearl barley and/or rice in some beef stock until cooked. Next bring 2 ½ pints of beef stock in a saucepan. Meanwhile, roughly chop roughly around 12 ounces of either cooking apples or Cox’s apples ; no need to peel or core. Add the apples to the beef stock and simmer until soft. Strain and push the apples through the sieve, and then add half a teaspoon of ground ginger and a quarter teaspoon of ground black pepper before stirring in the rice or barley. Serve very hot.


#182 Apple Soup. A strange one, this one. It’s not the most exciting – it is what it is, apples and beef, and I’m hardly about to do cartwheels over it, but I did grow to enjoy it after a few spoonfuls. The texture was quite appealing, the high pectin content of the apples makes it slightly viscous and gloopy, and combined with the thickening barley and rice made it seem more substantial than it was, which is good as it’s almost totally calorie-free. Would I make it again? Only when I’m very poor. It’s interesting to eat some food that has some history though. 5/10.

September Food

September, the month that bridges summer with autumn, things are in plenty and are relatively cheap. Game is coming back into season, as is eel, apparently, so I’ll be keeping an eye out for that as I’ve never tried it, other than on sushi. Now is the time to cook my more favorite foods – suet puddings, warming pies and stews, of course I should be saving them for further into winter, but I just can’t wait!

Look out for…

Vegetables: globe artichokes, aubergines, beetroot, borlotti beans, broccoli, cabbages, carrots, cauliflower, chard, courgettes, cucumber, fennel, garlic, kale, kohlrabi, lamb’s lettuce, onions, pak choi, peas, peppers and chillies, pumpkins, rocket, runner beans, salsify, sorrel, spinach, sweetcorn, tomatoes, watercress.

Fruit: apples, blackberries, blueberries, greengages, loganberries, melons, peaches and nectarines, plums, pears

Wild greens and herbs: horseradish

Wild flowers and fruits: bilberries, blackberries, bullace, damsons, elderberries, juniper berries

Fungi and nuts: ceps, chanterelles, chicken of the woods, field mushrooms, hazelnuts, horse mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, parasol mushrooms, puffballs, giant shaggy inkcap, summer truffles

Fish and shellfish: black bream, crab, signal crayfish, eels, lobster, mussels, oyster, mackerel, prawns, salmon, scallops, sea bass, sprats, squid, trout

Game: goose, grey squirrel, grouse, mallard, rabbit, woodpigeon

#181 Yorkshire Pudding

If one is having roast beef (or roast anything, for that matter) one simple has to have Yorkshire pudding. I have been using my own Yorkshire pudding recipe for years (it can be found on a previous entry) and I was not sure about someone else’s, even Griggers’.

In English Food, Griggers says to pour the batter, once made, into a roasting tray below the meat (see last entry). However, you can pour the batter into small trays. In Yorkshire, we make giant ones in sandwich tins and put our meat, veg and gravy inside. Other alternatives are to have them as a starter with a little gravy or with some sugar, or for afters with golden syrup or sweetened condensed milk pour over. The idea of the former being that you can fill your guests up with Yorkshire pudding, so they eat less meat later! That’s Yorkshire folk. It is, of course, also the batter required to make toad-in-the-hole (also on the blog!).

The first Yorkshire pudding recipe appears in 1737 in a book called The Whole Duty of Women and is pretty much unchanged, though it does state that it should be eaten with roast mutton. Now there’s a bombshell!

Before I give the recipe, I have two important instructions that Griggers doesn’t explicitly give: first, make your batter as early as possible, the night before if you can remember to; second, make sure your oven is very hot and that the fat used in the tray is very hot too. These two simple rules will help your Yorkshires to rise and rise.

Start by making pouring half a pint each of milk and water into a jug. To make the batter, mix 8 ounces of flour and a pinch of salt in bowl. Make a well in the centre and crack three eggs inside plus some half-milk half-water mix. Mix everything together to make a thick paste. Add most of the water-milk until you have a creamy and pourable mixture (I used the whole lot). Leave the batter to settle. Preheat the oven to 200°C and place some fat (oil or dripping) in your tin and let it get good and hot. Pour the batter into the tin and give it 40 minutes to rise.


#181 Yorkshire Pudding. If you are doing it the traditional way in a single roasting tin, Griggers doesn’t say what size you should use – it turns out you should use a big one! Mine was too small so the batter was rather deep and so it didn’t crisp up properly. Some people like it like that, but I don’t. That said it did taste good from the beef fat dripping on top of it throughout cooking. Hmmmm. Tricky to mark. 3/10 I think, but that’s because they weren’t in the correct sized tray. I’m pretty sure they would score higher (though not as high as my own ones!).

#180 Roast Beef

It was Charlotte’s birthday last Sunday, so she got to choose a birthday meal. She chose well – in fact she chose the most British meal you could possibly imagine – Roast Beef and Yorkshire pudding. We British love our roast beef, and were very good at cooking it; the French called us rosbif, not to be rude, but out of respect, as we had the roasting of meat down to a fine art. In fact French chefs would come to Britain to learn the art of roasting on the spit. These days of course, we used our conventional oven to roast our meat, so technically we are making baked beef, not roast beef.

Roasting beef (or any other meat, in fact) is not hard as long as three simple rules are followed: buy good quality beef that has been hung for at least 21 days, season it well (especially if you are crispy fat fan), and roast it from room temperature – don’t go straight from fridge to oven. I bought a rib of beef from my new favourite butcher – Axon’s of Didsbury. A six pound monster that came to £30 – you may think this is expensive, but you get what you pay for and is enough to provide for six or seven people. Also, I have been making good meals from the leftovers: beef and oyster mushrooms in oyster sauce (I picked the mushrooms myself whilst walking in the woods!) and an oriental beef and noodle soup. So in the end, it actually pays to spend a bit more, as you get more out of it. Lecture over.

For roast beef, Griggers suggests either rib or sirloin on the bone with undercut. You need at least 5 pounds in weight. The first thing to do is to season you meat well with salt and pepper the night before. Keep in the fridge overnight by all means, but make sure you remove it from the fridge in plenty of time for it to get to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 200°C. Weight the meat and calculate the cooking time: 15 minutes per pound for rare, add an extra 20 minutes at the end for medium-well done. The joint needs to be able to sit on a rack inside the roasting tray in the oven, but first place the tray on its own with enough beef dripping to cover the bottom for five minutes before adding the joint and rack. If you are making Yorkshire puddings, you could make them in the traditional way of pouring the mixture into the roasting tin, or pour batter into trays if you prefer. Either way put them in 40 minutes before the end of cooking. When the time is up, remove the beef (keep the Yorkshires in, if need be) and allow it to rest for at least 20 minutes before serving and slicing. Place on a serving dish surrounded by cut-up pieces of Yorkshire pudding.


Whilst the beef is cooking, make the gravy by frying a sliced onion in some beef dripping with a teaspoon of sugar until it turns a deep brown. Add half a pint of beef stock and simmer for at least 20 minutes. Season and serve, or if you like a smooth sauce, strain it. Serve with roast parsnips, roast potatoes and horseradish sauce, plus some seasonal green veg.

#180 Roast Beef. I cooked my beef rare because it shows off the quality and taste of good meat, and very good it was too. The outside fat was crispy, and the inside was pink, juicy and tender – proper melt-in-the-mouth stuff. I give it 8.5/10 – as far as beef goes it’s just excellent, but roast lamb in the winner when it comes to red meat.

#179 Fruit Salad with Tea

I made this dessert to go after the duck with mint and sauce paloise as it was all very rich, the idea being that it would cleanse the palate and all that. Plus it’s a chance to use lots of the dark summer fruits now that they’re on the wane a bit. (That said, they are just coming through in the wild – when Butter and I went to Chatsworth House for a walk in the woods, we found wild raspberries, blackberries and strawberries.) I had mentioned making this fruit salad a few times, but people always opted for something else. This time, I just made it and didn’t tell anyone what they were having; a strategy I may use again. What seems to put folk off is the addition of the tea, of course, and think it’s just some weird post-war thing (I must admit, I thought that too), but Griggers says that it is delicious and that you would never guess the delicious sweet liquid is mainly Earl Grey.

You can any fruit you like and in any quantity, though it is best to stick to dark and red soft fruits. I stuck to what Jane suggests: 1 lb purple plums, stoned and chopped; 1 lb black cherries, stoned; ½ lb black grapes, halved; ½ lb strawberries, halved (or sliced if they are large) and 4 ounces of raspberries. Arrange the fruit in a glass bowl in layers, using sliced strawberries to line the bowl, and sprinkling sugar as you go. Cover and leave overnight. Next day, make a double strength brew of Earl Grey or orange pekoe tea and leave to cool. Pour it onto the bowl so that it almost comes to the top. Taste the tea and add more sugar if necessary. Decorate with mint leaves. There is no need to serve it with anything at all.

#179 Fruit Salad with Tea. Really, really good! A complete surprise and a taste sensation. The tea was light, sweet and delicious, and Jonty and Butters didn’t guess that there was tea in there. The fruit had gone soft and juicy, looking like little jewels. I didn’t think a fruit salad could be so good! I shall never make a fruit salad any other way again. 8/10

FYI: The Earl Grey referred to in Earl Grey tea is the second Earl Grey, who was a Prime Minister in the 1830s. He was sent some tea flavoured with bergamot oil as a gift from China, and so it was forever named after him

#178 Duck with Mint

Attempting the poultry section in English Food has been a paltry effort by me, but I intend to address this, people. I thought I’d start with one of the two duck recipes. This one, where the duck is stewed with a shed-load of mint seemed right up my summery alley. It also has the added bonus of a sauce paloise, which is very similar to a sauce béarnaise (except tarragon is substituted for mint) and uses a hollandaise sauce as its base. Now proficient in hollandaise sauce making, I was eager.

Apparently the French think it is hilarious that we have mint with our lamb, when blinking Johnny Foreigner goes around eating sauce paloise here there and everywhere with their duck! Only joking Frenchies, I loves ya really!

To make this, season a large duck inside and out with salt and pepper before stuffing its cavity with a whole bunch of mint. Next, wrap the duck in a large napkin or double-wrapped muslin. Half fill a large pot with water and add a large quartered carrot, a large onion studded with three cloves and a stick of celery. Bring it to the boil and then place the duck in and leave it to simmer, covered, for 2 ½ hours. When cooked, remove the napkin and place on a serving plate surrouded by mint leaves.

Start making the sauce around half an hour before the cooking time is up: Into a small saucepan add a tablespoon of chopped shallot, two tablespoons of chopped mint, a tablespoon of chopped chervil, a sprig of thyme, a quarter of a bay leaf and four tablespoons each of dry white wine and white wine vinegar, plus a good seasoning of salt and pepper. Boil down this mixture, until it has reduced by two-thirds. Allow to cool. Now place the mixture in a bowl and beat in three large egg yolks. Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and beat in six ounces of unsalted butter bit by little bit. Season with lemon juice and more salt and pepper if required. Finally, stir through some freshly chopped mint leaves. Pour into a salad boat.

FYI: Chervil is tricky herb to get hold of, so instead of using it you can use the small yellow leaves from the inside of a bunch of celery, they provide a very similar flavour.

#178 Duck with Mint. If you don’t like mint, this is not the recipe for you. However, I love mint and it was just the thing for a summertime Sunday dinner. The duck was tasty, though a little dry, but the rich and tart sauce married with it perfectly well. In fact, the sauce paloise was the star of the show. I think it would go very well with lamb or even fish. The Medieval look of the birs with all the mint leave in and around it, was quite impressive too. Overall, I think this deserves 7.5/10 (though the sauce would be 9/10+ if I was marking it separately).

#177 Hollandaise Sauce

The fishmonger in the Arndale Centre in Manchester was selling sea bass for £1.50 each! What a bargain. I know that they’ve probably been dredged up by one of those massive trawler nets and by buying them I’ve surely helped seal the fate of several marine species, but ignorance is bliss so I won’t try to find out.

To go with the sea bass, I had samphire (see previous entry) and also made some hollandaise sauce. Not technically English, of course, but we’ve used it for so long in our cuisine it seems English – more English than, say mayonnaise anyway – and it is one of my favourite sauces. The trouble is, me and hollandaise has a chequered past; it’s a tricky sauce that is either amazing and delicious, or splits and is awful and goes in the bin. My success rate is around 50%. Griggers’ recipe is slightly different to the classic way of making it as it doesn’t use melted butter, but uses cubes of butter added gradually instead? Is this a foolproof recipe? We shall see…

FYI: hollandaise sauce first appeared as simply melted butter in eighteenth century France, but soon became the complex emulsion of butter and egg yolks we know and love and was added to the list of mother sauces of French cuisine by Escoffier in the early twentieth century (the others being béchamel, veloute, espangole and allemande).

This is the Griggers method (you can multiply up or down depending upon how much you need to make):

Begin by boiling down 3 tablespoons each of water and white wine vinegar and 10 crushed white peppercorns until just a tablespoon remains. Strain it into a bowl and allow to cool. Bring a pan of water to a simmer and place the bowl over it. Beat in three large egg yolks and beat in 6 ounces of unsalted butter bit by bit using a wire whisk. Do not over heat, or the eggs cook and the sauce splits. Season with salt and lemon juice.

#177 Hollandaise Sauce – 9/10. Well that was easy! This may be the fool-proof method I have been after (either that or it was a fluke). The sauce is beautifully rich, with a piquant tang of lemon and vinegar that cut through it so well that you easily drink a pit of the stuff. My only gripe is that this method doesn’t seem to make a very thick sauce, but that is being very nit-picky.

#176 Samphire

I came across some marsh samphire in the fishmongers the other week – I had been looking for it previously and thought I would have to go to extreme lengths to get hold of it – I bought it, just in case I never came across it again. Luckily, Griggers mentions in English Food that samphire can be successfully frozen by blanching briefly and then popping into the freezer.

Samphire grows on the salty soil near the sea, and marsh samphire grows in salt marshes. The word samphire is a corruption of the French Saint Pierre, the patron saint of fishermen. He was obviously looking after them by providing the coastal veg. Samphire comes/came under several names: sea asparagus, glasswort (it was used in glass production), crab grass and frog grass. Keep a look out for it when you are near the sea – rock samphire grows well on Dover cliffs, but collecting it is a precarious activity – ‘a dreadful trade’, according to Shakespeare in King Lear. Best stick to the marshes, if you want to try and collect your own.

Samphire is dealt with in two ways: pickling or boiling. Boiled samphire is generally served as a vegetable with fish or lamb or with a hollandaise sauce (which I did, along with some pan-fried sea bass). To do this, boil rapidly in unsalted water until tender, this should be just five minutes. Drain and serve.


#176 Samphire. 5/10. It seems that the blanching and freezing technique is not as successful as indicated by Griggers; they were unfortunately left all soggy and not at all crisp and tender. The flavour however, was good; salty and sweet with a mild taste of ocean ozone. I think that I shall try it again but without freezing it this time.

#175 Shoulder of Lamb with Rice and Apricot Stuffing

A dish with a Middle Eastern or North African influence, it seems like a very tame version of a lamb tagine with its spices, nuts and dried fruit, that has been very Anglicised. These days, we don’t need our food tempered down to suit our bland tastes; we like our foreign foods to taste traditional. However, as always new foods get invented, reinvented or modified dependent upon the country you are in and it is certainly no bad thing (think, chicken tikka masala and spaghetti Bolognese). This is a simple recipe that is excellent for a Sunday roast in the summertime – it required very little attention as you can make the stuffing, stuff the lamb and bung it in the oven whilst you go out for a nice walk or sit in the sun.

Also: I bought the lamb from Axon’s of Didsbury, South Manchester – it was of very good quality indeed, as was the pork ribs and sausages we bought too. If you are ever in the area, make sure you visit. They make their own sausages and also butcher veal – very rare these days. The man was very friendly and even gave us some extra pork ribs free. I think they may be my new favourite butcher.

To begin with, you need to make the stuffing. Boil 8 ounces of long grain rice in salted water until cooked. Drain it and put it in a bowl. Mix in 4 ounces of dried apricots ( you may need to soak them first), 2 tablespoons of seedless raisins, 2 tablespoons of slivered almonds, half a teaspoon each of ground coriander, cinnamon and ground ginger, plus plenty of salt and black pepper.

Now get the lamb ready – you will need a boned unrolled shoulder of lamb. Lay it out, season it, and then stuff it with some of the rice mixture. The best way to do this is to put the stuffing where the bones used to be. Grigson says to sew up the pocket where the bones were, but I found that I didn’t need to. Roll up the shoulder and secure it well with two or three pieces of twine. Weigh the lamb and place it in a roasting tin and brush it with melted butter. Season it well. Roast at 190°C for 30 minutes per pound plus an extra twenty minutes. When cooked, remove from the roasting tin and let it rest on a serving dish. Put the tin over the hob and add the remainder of the rice stuffing. Turn it around in the juices and let it reheat. Spoon it around the lamb and serve. We had it with a green salad dressed with a simple vinaigrette.

#175 Shoulder of Lamb with Rice and Apricot Stuffing – 9/10. Although I slightly mocked the dumbing down of flavour for the English palette, I found this recipe brilliant – it was simple, yet there were massive returns. The lamb fat was crispy on the outside and the meat beautifully tender within and the rice gave a sweet-sour flavour that cut through the rich lamb very well. It’s very difficult to knock this – especially when you have bought it from such a reputable butcher as Axon’s.

August Food

My usual monthly list of seasonal food that I steal from a free copy of The River Cottage Seasonal Food Guide that Butters gave me. Everything is in abundance and cheap now, whether it be familiar or usual, so now’s the time to start buying or harvesting and preserving, whether it be freezing, making jam or pickling.

Look out for…

Vegetables: globe artichokes, aubergines, beetroot, brtoad beans, broccoli, cabbages, carrots, cauliflower, chard, courgettes, cucumber, fennel, French beans, garlic, kohlrabi, lamb’s lettuce, onions, pak choi, peas, potatoes, puslane, radishes, rocket, runner beans, salsify, samphire, sorrel, spinach, sweetcorn, tomatoes, watercress.

Fruit: apples, apricots, blackberries, blackcurrants, blueberries, loganberries, melons, peaches and nectarines, plums, raspberries, red and white currants, worcesterberries

Wild greens and herbs: horseradish, marsh samphire, wild fennel

Wild flowers and fruits: bilberries, blackberries, bullace, damsons, wild strawberries

Fungi and nuts: ceps, chanterelles, chicken of the woods, field mushrooms, hazelnuts, horse mushrooms, oyster mushrooms, parasol mushrooms, puffballs, giant shaggy inkcap, summer truffles

Fish and shellfish: black bream, crab, signal crayfish, lobster, mackerel, Pollack, prawns, scallops, sea bass squid, trout

Game: rabbit, woodpigeon