For your perusal...

Just found this completely brilliant site called 5 books. They've a 'history of food' books post. I gotta get me copies of these bad boys. Nice to see Elizabeth Raffald is on the list. She appears quite alot in English Food and I have done an entry on her before I think

#258 Boiled Ox Tongue: To Serve Cold

Hello there Grigsoners! No, I’ve not died, I have simply been a lazy bastard. I am going to stop apologising for my blog-tardiness and try my very best to pull my finger out. All that said, I have been preparing this recipe on the sly for the last few days. I went to Central Market with Gerda from the lab a while ago and found that quite alot of the ingredients that are tricky to get hold of in the UK are actually much easier to get hold of here in Texas. In the meat section, I happened upon an ox tongue and I knew that there are quite a few recipes using ox tongue specifically so I thought I’d grab it and do something with it later.

I decided upon this one – Boiled Ox Tongue: to Serve Cold, because I could take it into work and force my new labmates to eat it and (hopefully) put some comments on here! The recipe calls for a 2 ½ to 5 pound pickled (i.e. brined) ox tongue – these you can order form your butcher (in the UK at least). I thought I would pickle it myself using this now tried-and-tested brine method from English Food. The tongue needs 5 to 7 days in the brine tub, but there is no maximum time really - you can’t oversalt anything, because you can soak it in water for 6 or so hours beforehand. It’s recommended you do this with a pickled tongue from the butcher’s shop.



The tongue before brining

 Anyways, after you have soaked your tongue place in a stock pot and cover with cold water or a light stock. Bring it to the boil and skim any scum that appears at the water’s surface. Turn the heat down to the merest simmer. After half an hour, taste the water – if it is horribly salty, thrown the water away and start again. Add some stock vegetables: an onion studded with a couple of cloves and a chopped carrot and celery stick. Add also a bouquet garni and 12 crushed black peppercorns. Allow the whole thing to simmer for a total of 3 or 4 hours (don’t forget to include that first half hour!). The tongue is cooked when you can insert a skewer with ease.

The pressed but unsliced tongue

Remove the tongue from the water and allow it to cool slightly. Peel away the skin and remove any gristly bits from the thick end. The tongue is now ready to be pressed. Coil the tongue and place it in a 5 or 6 inch loose-bottomed cake tin with base removed. If you can’t get hold of one (I couldn’t) you could invest in a proper tongue press. I actually used a straight sided mixing bowl that I happened to have and it worked very well. Place the tin base on top (or something similar) along with a couple of tins of food and allow to cool and press for several hours or overnight. When cool, transfer to the fridge.

When you are ready to eat it, slice it thinly and serve with a salad and some horseradish sauce so says Lady Jane Griggers. If you want to be all Victorian about it ‘press the tongue into a slipper shape, and then decorate it with aspic jelly and bits and pieces’. However, The Grigson goes on to say: ‘I think we have lost sympathy with over-presented food of this kind: it always arouses my suspicious – I wonder what the caterer is trying to conceal.’

FYI: the tongue is the only muscle in the body not attached at both ends.

#258 Boiled Ox Tongue: To Serve Cold. I’ve not had much experience of eating tongue, except the kind you get already sliced for sandwiches and always found it a little bit on the tasteless side and have never really cared for it. This was much better, though didn’t pack much of a flavour-punch; which was a shame because when I pulled it hot out of the stock, it smelt absolutely delicious. Perhaps I over-cooked it. Anyways, this tongue was wonderfully tender and moist due to its high fat content and gelatinous qualities. Nice, but I’m not doing back-flips: 5/10.

#257 Cinnamon Toast

Sorry for the lax attitude towards the blog everyone, but I have an excuse! I have now moved into my apartment in Midtown Houston, and I have been getting it filled with furniture. Unfortunately I have no table and chairs yet, so I can’t really get people round for dinner parties just yet. Plus I have pretty basic kitchen equipment at the minute – though everyone at work has been brilliant giving me kitchen stuff, so hopefully all will be up and running as normal pretty soon.



There are still several easy recipes to do in the meantime and this one couldn’t be simpler and is another recipe from Robert May (see this post). Cinnamon toast has been a staple sweet snack in England for a good few hundred years and the recipe hasn’t really changed much, and makes a very good substitute for cinnamon Danish pastry, should you get a midnight craving, as they are actually very similar – especially if May’s method is used because it uses a paste of sugar, cinnamon and claret.

I managed to get a bottle of Texan claret from the most amazing off-license (liquor store) called Spec’s, which is apparently the largest one in the whole of the United States and I actually got lost in the red wine section! It deserves an entry to itself. It is just a good job I don’t have alcoholic tendencies. Anyways, for those of you who know nothing about wine (this includes me, by the way), claret is usually red wine made in the Bordeaux region of France, so technically there’s no such thing as Texan Claret. Funnily enough, the Frenchies don’t recognise claret as a term itself; it’s a very British term used generally from May’s time to describe deep red wines such as Bordeaux and before that in medieval times for spiced wines, such as hippocras. As an aside, there is no recipe for hippocras or even mulled wine in English Food, so I shall try and hunt one out for the blog closer to Christmas.

Anyway, enough of my blabbering, here’s the old recipe that is not simply buttered toast sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar like these days:


Begin by making the topping by simply making a paste from sugar and cinnamon in the proportions of one tablespoon of sugar to one teaspoon of ground cinnamon. Use the claret to make a nice spreadable paste. Butter some slices of toast, lay them on a baking sheet and spread the paste over them. Warm through briefly in a hot oven for about 5 minutes and serve it forth!

#257 Cinnamon Toast. Forever an English Classic that is much improved by going back to the original way of doing things, although I can’t imagine people going out and buying claret just for the recipe (myself excluded, natch). However, I’m sure if you ever have any red wine knocking around you can use it to make this very simple and delectable sweetmeat. The important thing is to make a paste – it melds together and forms a slight crust, so if you have no wine, use anything else, even water or milk would do, I reckon. I ate four slices, what a pig. 7/10.

#256 Buttered Squashes

An old-fashioned recipe this one and it comes from a book called The Accomplisht Cook, or the Art and Mystery of Cooking by Robert May. It was published in 1660. To put this in context, King Charles II was on the throne after the country had briefly been de-royalled by the big old puritan misery-guts Oliver Cromwell.


Robert May himself was from a family of chefs, but obviously wanted to tell the common man how to cook; at least via rich home owners. In those days, you see, the lady of the house would have presented the head cook/chef with such a book to use. Assuming they could read. Read more about him and his book here.

Anyways, this is a very good recipe to do in the autumn because a large variety of squashes are available. This recipe can be used with ‘gourds, pompions, cucumbers and musk melons’, i.e. any soft or hard squash. The squashes are first baked in the oven at 190⁰C until tender; the length of time will depend upon the size of the squash. If the skin is very thick, it would be better to simmer it, says Griggers. I used some quite small squashes and decided to bake them.

Meanwhile prepare the stuffing for the squashes. You need to chop some onion and apples in the ratio of 1:2. The original recipe suggests using Cox’s Orange Pippins. These are not available so I used Granny Smith apples as they are quite tart. Place them in a casserole dish along with a decent knob (or knobs) of butter. Cover and bake in the oven alongside the squashes.

When the squashes are done, cut in half and scoop out the seeds and keep warm while you deal with the filling. Mash the apples and onions together and season with sugar, salt and black pepper. Fill the squash halves generously and return the whole thing to the oven for a short time to give it time to dry out a little. Serve with hot buttered toast.

#256 Buttered Squashes. I must admit I have been putting off many of the recipes in the Vegetables chapter because they seem too much of a faff to make and don’t necessarily look that tasty. This was one of them, but how wrong I was. The squashes were tender and slightly earthy in flavour which stood up very well against the sweet-sharp onion and apple filling. A big surprise that was a great supper dish, but would make a very nice first course or a good addition to some roast pork I reckon. 7/10

#255 Lemon Curd

God, I love lemon curd. I once tried to make it a while ago and it was a complete disaster. Then, I was a mere amateur and these days I am a wee bit better at these more tricky recipes. The process for making lemon curd (or indeed any fruit curd) is to thicken lemon juice, sugar and butter with eggs. Any sauce that involves this process, like ice cream and custard can potentially end up in disaster, because over-heating scrambles the eggs and you end up with a horrible mess.


I haven’t found any lemon curd here in Houston and no one seems to know what I’m talking about at work, which surprises me for some reason. I don’t know why. So for those of you not in the know, lemon curd is essentially used like jam – use in sandwiches, to make tarts or as a cake filling. It has been popular since the mid-eighteenth century and is a kind of preserve, but doesn’t keep any where near as long as jam due to the butter and eggs. Therefore it is best made in small quantities, this is not a problem is it is much less of a rigmarole to make than jam. This recipe makes around two jars of lemon curd.

Grate the zest of two lemons into a glass bowl along with their juice, 3 ounces of butter and 7 ounces of sugar lumps (you could use granulated here too, I don’t know why sugar lumps are used here). Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and stir until the butter has melted and the sugar dissolved. Whilst that is happening, crack 3 large eggs into another bowl and beat well. Sieve the eggs into the mixture (this prevents any lumps of white going in) and stir until the mixture thickens. This takes a while, and if you’re not used to thickening sauces with eggs it is best to be tentative and not have the heat to high. It will thicken quite alot, as long as the water is simmering beneath. Spoon the mixture into sterilised jars and allow to cool. Keep them in a cool place, but once open it’s probably best to keep the curd in the fridge, especially in this bloody Houston heat!

#255 Lemon Curd. This is a brilliant recipe for lemon curd. It isn’t too sweet and has a lot of zing; the inclusion of the zest really gives it some punch. It took me right back to England eating this! Delish. 8.5/10

#254 Gloucestershire Cheese and Ale

After a slow few months, it is time to get Neil Cooks Grigson up and running again. I’m settling in here in Texas now, which means I’m getting more than a little homesick. What better way is there to get over it than making some nice English foods?

I was a bit hungover this morning so this recipe I hoped would be the perfect cure: carbs, fat and salt plus the hair of the dog, the perfect combination. The cheese required for this is single or double Gloucester. Good cheeses are hard to find in Houston – typical American cheeses are not the best and anything I considered proper (i.e. European) are pretty expensive and/or difficult to find. However I did find an excellent shop which is set out like a big market called the Epicurean Market. There’s a few of them in Houston and they sell a lot of European foods. So finding places like this is great for my blog.

This recipe is quick and easy and full of delicious calories:

Start by slicing some double or single Gloucester cheese thinly and arrange them in a small ovenproof dish. Spread some good mustard over the top – Griggers suggests Tewksbury wholegrain, but any piquant wholegrain will be good – and then pour over enough ale to just cover the cheese. Bake in a moderate oven until the whole things melts and becomes a sauce. Meanwhile, toast some wholemeal or granary bread, arrange on a plate and then moisten with a little warmed ale. Lastly spoon over the melted cheese and serve with a glass of ale.

#254 Gloucestershire Cheese and Ale. A good traditional cheesy dish very similar to those served in Gentlemen’s Clubs in Edwardian times. Very rich but the mustard and bitter ale helped to cut through the cheese. I was right in that it really helped to sort out my hangover too! 7.5/10

#253 Payn Pur-Dew (1420)

I haven’t done a historical recipe for a while, so I thought that my first recipe in this new country should be an old English one. It comes from the French pain perdu, which means lost bread, in other words smothered bread. It’s a French recipe but it obviously goes very far back in English history as this recipe proves. It’s from 1420 and is transcribed straight from the source, although Griggers doesn’t say what the source is! To put this into historical context, Henry V is the King of England and so he will have indulged himself on these in banquets; indeed, the inclusion of sugar in the recipe made it very regal. In the fifteenth century, honey would have been used as a sweetener. Eventually this dessert morphed into Poor Knight’s of Windsor – of which there are two recipes in English Food and I will try and do them soon so we can compare and contrast. Anyways, here is the recipe:

‘Take fair yolks of eggs, and separate them from the white, and drawn them through a strainer, and take salt [a pinch] and cast thereto; then take fair bread, and cut in round slices; then take fair butter that is clarified, or else fresh grease, and put in a pot, and make hot; then take and wet well the slices in the yolks, and put them in a pan, and so fry them up; but be ware of them cleaving to the pan; and when it is fried, lay them on a dish, and lay plenty of sugar thereon, and then serve forth.’

I used clarified butter – not sure what is meant by grease, I suppose the author meant lard or dripping. It is important to clarify the butter, otherwise it and the bread will burn. The word fair in the recipe means fresh; so the quality of ingredients was important in medieval times just as nowadays. Griggers suggests using brioche should you have it. I didn’t.

FYI: Payn per-dew is also called French toast sometimes, but in the north of England I know it as ‘eggy bread’ and it is not just the yolks but the whole egg plus some milk is used. Slices are fried in a little oil and eaten with a scraping of tomato sauce or brown sauce and is certainly not a pudding!

#253 Payn Pur-Dew (1420). A simple and historical recipe that is a wee bit bland by our modern tastes. I think that in the 1420s it would have been an exciting dish, but I prefer it made with the whole egg and some milk to make it less rich and serve as a savoury rather than a sweet. It might have been better with syrup or honey on it instead; something with a bit of heady flavour. So, all-in-all it was okay, but not amazing. 4/10.

Grigson goes Stateside!

Well here I am in Houston, Texas. Now how the bloody hell did that happen? This was not part of the plan. I’ve been here three weeks and am starting to settle in, though I’ve not had much of a chance to eat a load of the Texan cuisine yet, except for the odd burger and a delicious Mexican meal. My terrible memory means I have forgotten the name of the dishes I ate. I will take more notice in future.

Just because I’m in the USA and that it is so very, very hot will not stop me from carrying on the blog of course and serving up wintery food, I just may need to some help from my American buddies on here. I couldn’t bring over any of my cooking equipment, so I am going to have to be very basic in the recipes that I do, at least for the time being. That said, I am staying at my bosses’ house at the minute which has the best stocked kitchen I’ve seen for a good while, so I might try and do a few things before I move into my new apartment in the Midtown area of the city.

I don’t know how successful this will be, but I will try and feed some poor unsuspecting Yanks some delicious (and not so delicious) English grub.

Also, I haven’t seen a single cowboy yet. What’s that about?

#252 Bloater and Potato Salad

‘This dish gets right away from the high-tea image and shows how delicious bloaters can be at the beginning of a dinner party’ says Griggers. I wasn’t aware they had that image. These days, I suppose, they have no image at all seeing as they are rarely eaten. Indeed, these had to be ordered, like many of the fish in this book, online at The Fish Society. This is a simple dish and actually probably more suitable as a buffet item… With this recipe, I managed to use up all the fish in my freezer before the move to Houston. Indeed, any recipe after this one will have been done in America. I wonder how successful I will be!?

First prepare three bloaters by removing the skin and removing the fillets. Bloaters are already cooked, but if removing them from the bone is a problem, immerse them in boiling water and leave for a few minutes. Flake the fish or cut it up and put in the centre of a serving dish. Cut up a pound of boiled, waxy potatoes and mix in a vinaigrette. Griggers suggests this one: 5 tablespoons olive oil to one of lemon juice, plus salt, pepper, sugar and a heaped tablespoon of chopped chives. Reserve a tablespoon of it to pour over the fish. Now arrange the potatoes around the fish in an artistic manner and serve.

#252 Bloater and Potato Salad. Not the most exciting meal. The bloaters were very nice, as were the lemony potatoes, but it didn’t feel like a complete course. It would have been much nicer with additional dishes too I think. Could do better, Lady Jane: 5/10

#251 Fried Eel with Fried Parsley

I was very impressed when I discovered that The Fish Society sold freshwater eels that they had caught and killed themselves, before freezing them for my convenience. Regular readers will know the stress trauma faced the last time I cooked eels (in both delivery and preparation). The eel population in the UK and Ireland has dropped in recent years, but nowhere near as much as the elver population. I have blogged about this before, but it is becoming increasing clear, especially for Britain that it’s not a good idea to eat adult freshwater eel either now. However, it is not illegal to fish for them, so if taken in small numbers (and who eats eels these days!?) they should be okay. I don’t know what the situation is in the USA though. Are both eels and elvers available here..?

Anyway, enough of my rantings here is the recipe:

This recipe serves four people.

First, you need to prepare your eel; a two-pounder is required here. It needs to be skinned and then cut into three inch pieces. If it has been portioned already, but not skinned, you can either leave it on or fry the pieces skin-side-down in very hot oil for a few seconds. This makes the skin easy to peel off without cooking the eel itself. Next, coat the eel in seasoned flour and fry gently in 4 ounces of clarified butter until browned and the meat comes away from the bones easily. This took me about 7 minutes, but this will depend upon thickness. Next, prepare a lemon-butter sauce by melting 6 ounces of slightly salted butter in a saucepan and adding lemon juice to taste (I used a whole one). Put the eel onto a serving dish and keep warm. Now fry the parsley stalks. Start by heating up oil in a saucepan and fry around 12 parsley sprigs for a few seconds until crisp. Be careful here: the oil will splatter so just fry 3 or 4 at a time. Serve with some lemon-butter sauce poured over the eel, with extra in a jug, and the parsley sprinkled over it.

#251 Fried Eel with Fried Parsley. I have to admit, eel is a tasty fish and cooked this way really shows off it mild, yet delicious flavour. The fried parsley too was very good; like a grassy version of crispy seaweed you get from the Chinese take away! The only problem was the lemon butter – it just made the eel taste greasy. I think tastes have changed somewhat these days, and I think that a lemon mayonnaise would suit it better. However, still a pretty good recipe. 7.5/10.

#250 Oeufs Mollets Christophe

Well I was hoping to do a really special 250th recipe, but due to my busy schedule I didn’t get round to it. Instead what I had to do was try and empty my freezer of as many things as possible before I left for Texas, which meant a lot of fish after my big order from The Fish Society (an excellent website, by the way). So it is quite bizarre that this little landmark recipe has to have the least English name! The ingredients are very English and despite the French name, the dish was created by an Englishman called Christopher Snow. The exciting thing about this recipe, is the inclusion of the smoked cod’s roe – quite a cheap ingredient, but tricky to find, and one I’ve never eaten before. It looked quite scary and alien-esque in its packet and I wasn’t sure about it, but it is part of the fun of this experiment. Plus none of the meat or fish has been bad thus far….

This is a very easy dish to prepare as there is hardly any cooking required at all. The recipe serves four, but it can be easily increased or decreased in ratios for any number:

Start off by boiling four large eggs; Griggers is very precise about this, so listen good. Place the eggs into already boiling water and leave for precisely six minutes (seven if they are extra large eggs). Remove and run under the cold water to cool them down. Meanwhile, cut four slices of wholemeal bread and cut them into circles, removing a smaller circle from the centre and butter them and then place them in the centre of a plate. Now prepare the roe: peel away the skin of a four ounce roe and beat the pink centre with four tablespoons of double cream until thick, this should only take thirty seconds and then season with black pepper. Peel the cool eggs and wrap a piece of smoked salmon around each one and place it in the little brown bread stand you have made. Lastly, spoon the roe sauce over the egg (this is quite tricky as it is quite thick, so I did a quenelle instead, pretty posh, eh?).



#250 Oeufs Mollets Christophe. “Occasionally when one goes out for a meal, some dish appears which is so delicious and simple that one is angry not have thought of it oneself” says the Grigson. Well I wouldn’t go that far, but it was pretty good. The eggs were cooked to perfection using her method – the yolks were still runny and creamy and complemented the smoked salmon very well (a classic combination, of course). The smoked cod’s roe was really delicious too, rich and heady with natural hot smoke, the only problem was that it was so very rich and it needed some lemon juice to cut through it, I think. That or just less of it. I think with a little alteration, this could be really excellent. 7/10.

#249 Isle of Wight Pudding

Oh it HAS been a while, hasn’t it? I have been so very busy with getting ready for my move to Houston, I haven’t had the time to tell you all about the food I’ve been cooking. I have arrived in Texas now, by the way but haven’t really had much of a chance to explore the place, in fact I still have a bit of jet-lag. I shall fill you in about Houston soon, I’m sure.

Back in England it is blackberry season and those brambles that are so annoying and prickly for the rest of the year finally earn their keep. This recipe uses them, and so it was a great chance to try something that isn’t blackberry and apple pie (nice though it is). I made this in Derby visiting Simon and Rachel and the farm they are trying to set up as a cooperative eventually. They also keep bees and I used some of their delicious honey for this recipe too. If it isn’t blackberry season any soft fruit will do.

First make a shortcrust pastry with 8 ounces of flour and 4 of fat (butter, lard, or a mixture) plus cold water and roll it out into an oblong shape. Spread 4 fluid ounces of runny honey over the pastry and then sprinkle 8 ounces of blackberries over it. Roll up the dough so that it makes a sort-of Swiss roll, tucking the pastry under at the edges. Place in a small ovenproof dish and pour over 4 fluid ounces of single cream. Bake at 200⁰C for 45 minutes. Serve with thick cream.

#249 Isle of Wight Pudding. A really good pud this one, and cheap too! The best thing about it was that the juices from the berries plus the honey and cream heat up to form a delicious toffee sauce. The top goes very dark and forms a good crust, though it doesn't make the dessert look very pretty. Give it a go – quick and simple. 7/10

#248 Mazarines

I had made a savoury snack for the party and so I thought I’d make something sweet. These are strange little biscuits, or perhaps cakes. I’m not sure which. They appear in the Cakes and Tarts section, but look like biscuits. For some reason, this is important. Anyways, the name of these sweetmeats are a mystery, probably invented in honour of either the Duchesse de Mazarin who lived in Chelsea for a bit, or Cardinal Mazarin of France.

First, the pastry: Cream together 2 ounces of butter with a tablespoon of caster sugar, then beat in an egg yolk, before mixing in 4 ounces of flour and an ounce of ground almonds (use your hands to bring it all together). Roll it out into strips about 2 inches wide, lay on greaseproof paper turning up the edges ready for the filling.

For the filling: Start by spreading some apricot jam down the lengths of the strips. Next, beat 2 egg whites until stiff and fold in 4 ounces of caster sugar, 2 ounces of flaked almonds and a tablespoon of grated plain chocolate. Pour into a saucepan and boil, stirring as you go so that it doesn’t catch. Spoon the mixture onto the strips – a tricky endeavour. Bake at 180⁰C for 45 minutes, allow to cool and then cut on the diagonal.

#247 Mazarines. These were also a disappointment. The pastry was very dry and crumbly and the filling was so unbelievably sweet. Annoyingly, they were nigh on impossible to cut without them breaking up. Not impressed. If were Cardinal Mazarin or the Duchesse de Mazarin, I’d be well pissed-off that these efforts were created in my honour! 2.5/10

#247 Anchovy Matchsticks

I had a few friends round for my 33rd birthday last week and thought it would be a good excuse to do some of the finger foods in the book. This is a slightly strange one and the anchovy-based recipes have been pretty hit-and-miss. I couldn’t really see anything that was hit about this recipe: anchovies, boiled eggs and cream. However, I’ve been surprised more times than disappointed doing this blog….

To make your very own anchovy matchsticks, start off by rolling out 8 ounces of puff pastry into two rectangles thinly. Place anchovy fillets in rows, spacing them around 1 ½ inches apart on one piece of pastry. Next, make the egg filling: mash together 2 hard-boiled eggs with a tablespoon of cream and a little salt and pepper. Carefully add a stripe of egg over the fillets, before painting egg wash over the gaps and placing the other piece of pastry over that. Press down and cut into ‘matchsticks’. Glaze with more egg and bake in the oven at 220⁰C for 15-20 minutes. Serve hot.

#247 Anchovy Matchsticks. These were absolutely vile. The combinations of the hot boiled egg and salty fish made my stomach turn. Horrible, horrible, horrible. 1/10

#246 Pike

The Freshwater Fish chapter of English Food has been the most difficult part of the book to source ingredients for. You can’t just walk into a fishmonger and ask for a fillet of pike or whatever. Fish are sold by the crate and no-one eats enough these days for it to be worth the fishmonger buying it, salmon and trout excepted. It’s probably not a bad idea – the fish in our rivers and lakes seem so finite compared to sea fish, so if folks got a taste for them they would be fished into extinction. That said, there are shit-loads of pike in our rivers, so why not pop down to one and fish one of the buggers out.

Who would have thought pike vs. cormorant would have turned out like this?

Jane Grigson was a fan of pike, as were the French who used to farm the scary fanged fish. Actually they’re quite beautiful with their green tiger stripes. I got two fine fillets from The Fish Society, and I suggest you have a look there if you fancy having a go at trying pike, or any other difficult-to-get-hold-of fish. This is what Griggers reckons you should do with it:

Fillet the fish and remove the pin bones (of which there are many) before marinating in some sherry and Madeira wine. After an hour or so, drain the fillets and coat them in seasoned flour and fry in oil and butter until golden and crisp. Serve with a lightly-curried velouté flavoured with the marinade juices. I used, half an ounces each of flour and butter for the roux and then half a pint of fish stock plus half a teaspoon of mild curry powder. Add some cream too if you like.

#246 Pike. This was really delicious – a firm, meaty and mildly sweet fish. Also, it wasn’t in the least ‘muddy’ tasting as we keep getting told freshwater fish tastes like. I would definitely recommend this if you can get hold of it. The sauce was pretty good too. If you see it in a restaurant, order it. 7.5/10

#245 Coconut Cream with Strawberry Sauce

This is a dessert that I had been looking forward to making for a while – I was just waiting for strawberry season. What could possibly not be delicious about strawberries, coconuts and cream?? Griggers doesn’t say anything about where it comes from; whether it was modern at the time of writing or if it has a good stoic history in the annals of English cookery. Scroll down to the picture, though, and you have to assume it’s probably from the Fanny Craddock School rather than the Alexis Soyer School.

It’s a little bit of a faff this one and the coconut cream needs to be made well in advance because it contains gelatine and that needs to set. To make it, bring ¼ pint of single and soured cream slowly to a boil along with a split vanilla pod and 4 ounces of desiccated coconut and 7 fluid ounces of water. Let the mixture simmer for 10 minutes and let it cool down until ‘tepid’. Pass through a sieve and add either powdered or leaf gelatine dissolved in 6 tablespoons of water; follow the instructions in the packet and make enough for a pint of liquid in total. Also add a good tablespoon of grated creamed coconut and add sugar and lime juice to taste. Griggers says: “the citrus juice is an enhancer, it should not be identifiable”. Pop the cream in the fridge and allow to cool and reach an ‘egg white consistency’. At this point, fold in ½ pint of whipping cream that had been whipped stiffly. Pour the whole mixture into a lightly-oiled decorative jelly mould and allow to set. To turn it out, dip the mould in hot water briefly before upturning it.

The strawberry sauce is much easier. Hull a pound of strawberries, keeping the nicest ones behind for decoration, and liquidise the rest with the addition of some icing sugar to sweeten. Pour the sauce around the coconut cream and “dispose of the strawberry halves in a decorative manner”. Or else.

#245 Coconut Cream with Strawberry Sauce. Oh, I had looked forward to this one for so long; I should have learned by now that some of these desserts are just plain rubbish. And this one definitely fits into that category. The coconut cream was pretty tasteless bearing in mind the number of what should be delicious ingredients that made it up. Next time, strawberries and cream will be served. 3/10.

#244 Grasmere Gingerbread II

Ah, the Lake District. Hugh and I were not far from Grasmere only last weekend on a little break so I thought I’d make the second of the Grasmere Gingerbreads. You can just imagine William Wordsworth tucking into these after his daffodil sandwiches of an afternoon or whatever. It’s what we would have done if it HADN’T PISSED IT DOWN all weekend. Hey-ho.

This is a bit different to Grasmere Gingerbread I in that it is made with wholemeal flour. Usually wholemeal flour based biscuits and cakes are found in the vegan health food shop and taste awful, but don’t let that put you off; these are delicious and easy to make too:

Start by sieving 8 ounces of flour along with ½ teaspoon each of cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda and 3 decent teaspoons of dried ground ginger (don’t be scanty, it can take it). Rub in 6 ounces of butter and then mix in 5 ounces of soft dark brown sugar and a dessertspoon of golden syrup. You should end up with a dark rubble. Line a roasting tin or oblong pan with greaseproof paper and pour the mixture in, pressing it down firmly. Bake for 45 minutes at 160⁰C. Remove and cut into rectangles whilst still hot and cool on a rack.


#244 Grasmere Gingerbread II. Really good this one. The wholemeal flour and treacly taste combine well here to make a rich crumbly, though very slightly chewy bittersweet biscuit. I shall definitely be making these again. I reckon if crushed, they would make a very good crumble topping. Tres bon. 7/10

Oh, he's back is he?

Hello there Grigsoners! No, I hadn’t died and I certainly hadn’t forgotten about the blog. I have now completed my PhD thesis and have somehow made it through the other side alive. Phew! It was a close one.

Well it is back to the cookery blog now as though nothing happened – I’m going to try and concentrate on making good use of the summer fruits as well as trying my best to empty my fridge which is bulging at its seal with food goodies.

I have some news too that may please some of you. I have just got a new job in a research laboratory at Rice University in Houston, Texas!! I start at the beginning of September so will be there by August! After a year, I then go on to Washington University in St Louis, Missouri! This means that Neil Cooks Grigson is going Stateside! I’m not sure how much of it will be possible to do over there, but I will try my best. I’ll need help from all you Yankees that read my blog!

#243 Spiced Welsh Mutton 'Ham'

Well hello there! No I haven’t died on you or anything. I’ve just been uber-busy with my thesis writing and hardly had time to do any Grigson-related cookery. Here’s is one that I actually did a couple of weeks ago but haven’t been able to tell you about.

The cured meats from the book have all been pretty successful and this one sounded nice and easy, plus would keep me in butties for the foreseeable future. I wasn’t sure how it was going to turn out because we don’t really cure lamb to make ‘ham’ do we? Unless I’ve been missing something all these years.

Anyway, here’s how to make to your spiced lamb ‘ham’:

First of all select your leg of lamb or mutton – you need one that weights about 6 pounds. Place it in a large pot or tub that has a well-fitting lid and rub it all over in a spiced salt mixture for curing. To make the spiced salt, mix together 4 ounces of dark brown sugar, 8 ounces of sea salt, ½ ounces of saltpetre, an ounce each of crushed black peppercorns and allspice berries, plus a heaped teaspoon of coriander seeds. Make sure you rub it in well, ensuring you get down between meat and bone. Keep it in the tub in a cool place and turn it over every day, rubbing in the juices and spices for 14 days.

Then, rinse any excess spices away from the surface of the leg and place in a large pot and cover with water. Bing slowly to a simmer and cook as gently as possible with the lid on for 3 ½ hours. Let the lamb cool in the water for a couple of hours, remove it and, wrap it in clingfilm or greaseproof paper and let it finish cooling under a weight. It keeps in the fridge for ages as long it is wrapped up or kept in Tupperware. Griggers says that if you have a smokehouse nearby that will let you put the cured but uncooked leg in, then do so! I haven’t, so I didn’t!


#243 Spiced Welsh Mutton ‘Ham’. This was a revelation! I do not know why we don’t cure mutton and lamb anymore. Absolutely delicious. The lamb meat was succulent and flaky just like corned beef and the spices cut through the richness of the fat. Best cured meat so far. 8.5/10

#242 Cacen Gri (Griddle Cakes)

It’s been a while Grigsoners. I am very busy at the moment – and will be for the next couple of months – writing my PhD thesis, so forgive me if the blog entries become a wee bit thin on the ground. The recipes that I can do are those that don’t require difficult-to-get items or dinner parties so I’m a little limited seeing as I spend most of my time in a library these days.

Anyway, enough of that.

These Welsh griddle (or girdle) cakes seemed by the recipe that they would be absolutely delicious. Indeed girdle cakes must be delicious because there’s a few recipes in the book. However, the last time I cooked some (Singin’ Hinnies) they were pretty awful. Grigson doesn’t give any background on Cacen Gri, though I have noticed that there are lots of Welsh recipes – perhaps more than English ones – in the part of the book devoted to griddle cakes and pancakes. Funny that, because when I think of Welsh specialities, I think of leek pie and rarebits not pancakes. They must be terribly fat as the amount of butter and lard in this is huge!

Start off by sieving a pound of flour and a teaspoon each of baking powder and salt into a bowl. Rub in four ounces each of cubed butter and lard. Mix in three ounces of mixed dried fruit and peel and an egg plus a little milk to form a dough. Leave to rest in the fridge for a little while and then roll out thinly and cut into plate-sized rounds. Grease a large pan with a little lard fry the griddle cakes for just two minutes a side on quite a high heat. Don’t overcook them as they go very dry very quickly. They should puff up a little and gain brown spots. Stack them on a warmed plate, add a good knob of butter between each one, keeping them nice and cosy in a warm oven. I served them with some very un-Welsh maple syrup too.

#242 Cacen Gri (Griddle Cakes). I wasn’t sure if I liked these or not. The first batch was over-cooked and all powdery. I soldiered on a tried again though and I think that they were okay. No more than that though. They were still pretty claggy and need lots of butter and syrup. Perhaps that is the secret to these girdle cakes – any amount of flour and fat will taste fine if smothered in enough melted butter and syrup. 5/10.