#120 Mr Frost's Chocolate Cake

This one is a piece of piss to make and comes from a chap who owns (or, I presume owned now, as this book is quite old) a restaurant in Cirencester. Griggers likes it as it’s a nice classy version of chocolate cornflake or Rice Krispie cakes (though try my Mum’s recipe).

For this you need chocolate (plain or dark or a mixture), butter, nuts (any type – I used almonds and hazelnuts which are essential, you could use walnuts but peanuts are “right out”) and digestive biscuits. Weight out equal amounts of chocolate, butter and digestives and half the total weight of nuts. Roast the nuts for about 25 minutes in a low oven and remove any skins by rubbing them with a cloth, then chop roughly. Melt the butter and chocolate over a low heat. Keep an eye on them whilst you chop up the biscuits into small squares – don’t worry if there’s loads of crumbs, this is a good thing. Once the chocolate and butter have melted, mix in the nuts and biscuits. Pour into a lined tin so that it’s about a finger thick and cool in the fridge. Cut the cake into squares or fingers and keep cool.

#120 Mr Frost’s Chocolate Cake – 6/10. Good old Mr Frost. The Grigson was right in that this is much better than crappy old cornflake cakes. It could’ve been improved with a few sultanas, but the good thing about this is that you can add whatever you fancy – crystallised ginger would be good, or marshmallows maybe.

#119 Gloucester Pancakes

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday and so to not repeat myself with common or garden crepe style pancakes, I thought I’d be controversial and try a different one. Gloucester pancakes don’t really resemble normal pancakes- they’re more like muffins. A point of note here – we know that Pancake Day exists to use up the fat ready for the onset of Lent, but bloody hell, these contain a LOT of fat – chopped beef and suet AND fried in lard. Oh well, you only live once…

This recipe makes around 8 pancakes:

In a bowl, mix together 6 ounces of flour, a pinch of salt and a teaspoon of baking powder. Then stir in 3 ounces of chopped suet and bind everything together with a beaten egg and some milk to produce a firm dough. Roll out the mixture so that it’s ½ an inch thick and use scone cutters (around 3 ½ inches wide) to cut them out. Fry the pancakes in a little lard on a lowish heat until golden brown – they should rise a little due to the baking powder. Serve hot with plenty of golden syrup.

#119 Gloucester Pancakes – 5/10. Nice, but I probably wouldn’t make them again. In order to turn this around, Charlotte made the Welsh light cakes that we did a few months ago (which I’m thinking about upping to a 10). Yep, I'd definitely rather be in Wales than Gloucester on Pancake Day...

#118 Banana Tea Loaf

It was my turn to make a cake for the Evolutionary Biology department’s Wednesday Cake Day, and as there are many a non-Briton in the department I thought I’d do something very English – a tea loaf. Tea loaves are great for several reasons; they taste nice and are lovely and moist, you can make them in advance (in fact they taste nicer if you do leave them); you put butter on the sliced loaf, and they are very easy to make. This one is particularly easy as there is no creaming of butter or anything like that to do.

First, sieve 8 ounces of self-raising flour, ¾ level teaspoon of mixed spice, ½ a teaspoon of salt and 4 ounces of caster sugar into a mixing bowl. Chop 4 ounces of butter into small pieces and add it to the flour along with one tablespoon of honey, 4 ounces of sultanas, 3 ounces of glace cherries, 3 ounces of blanched almonds or walnuts (or a mixture). Now the wet ingredients: 1 pound of mashed ripe bananas, 2 eggs and the juice of a lemon. Once mixed together nicely, turn the mixture out into a buttered 9 inch loaf tin and bake of an hour at 180ºC and then half an hour at 160ºC. Allow to cool on a wire rack and store in an air-tight container.


#118 Banana Tea Loaf – 8.5/10. Marvellous! This is quite a hefty tea loaf and I didn’t think our wee group would get through it, but we made light work of it. The addition of the cherries and nuts made it a little Seventies-looking and I thought would make it overly rich, but it wasn’t the case. Very, very good – thinking about when I’ll make the next one!

#117 Mrs Borthwick's Yorkshire Teacakes

Been very busy with work and decorating folks, sorry for being a little slack of late. I have had the chance to do a couple of recipes – trying to do at least ten a month, but not sure if I’ll make it this February…

Being a Yorkshireman I thought I’d make these Yorkshire teacakes. The currant teacake reminds me of my Mum; she’s rather partial, though I didn’t really know that they were particularly Yorkshire, I glad they are. They’re a large sweetened teacake with mixed fruit in them and traditional way to eat them is to slice them crosswise and eat with butter and cheese, though I like them toasted with butter. Each to their own.

Now I’ve started to crack the art of yeast cookery, I’m enjoying bread-making and these are easy – the fruit and sugar hide a multitude of sins – and taste much better than bought stuff. Part of the reason behind this is the use of fresh yeast, which gives a much better flavour than the dried stuff, plus the bread rises much more rapidly I’ve noticed.

Oh, and Mrs Borthwick is some reader of one of Griggers’ columns and sent her this recipe. In case you were wondering.


Anyways, this makes eight large ones:

Sieve together 1 ¼ pounds of strong plain flour, 2 ounces of sugar and a pinch of salt into a big mixing bowl. Rub in an ounce of lard and stir in 3 ½ ounces total of currants and mixed peel (have the ratio according to your taste). Make a deep well in the centre of the flour and crumble in an ounce of fresh yeast and then grate plenty of nutmeg over the whole thing. Next, measure half a pint of room-temperature whole milk and add a quarter pint of boiling water to it. Pour the lot into the well. Do not worry that it looks a horrible mess, it is supposed to. Flick a little flour over the top, cover and leave to bubble in a warm place for 15-20 minutes, or whatever. Mix to form a dough, adding more flour if required, and knead for a few minutes. Divide the dough into eight pieces and knead each again, fold them inwards so they form little plump breadcakes. Put onto greased baking trays and allow to rise again for another 15 minutes. Bake at 220ºC for 30 minutes, turning them over in the final 5 minutes. When ready place on a wire rack and brush with milk to give them a shine.

#117 Mrs Borthwick’s Yorkshire Teacakes. 6.5/10. Really nice teacakes that require minimum effort for pretty good results, though I would add more currants than this recipe I think. I really loving the bread cookery – Hot Cross Buns are a-calling, me-thinks!

#116 Apple and Raisin Pie

A good honest hotpot deserved a good honest pudding. I wanted a desert-version of a hotpot and went for this apple and raisin pie. This, people, is no ordinary apple pie – it is a buttered apple pie, very popular in the Seventeenth Century. It’s very easy to do, especially if you use bought puff pastry.

Peel, core and quarter 3 ½ pounds of Cox’s Orange Pippin apples and quarters the quarters into six and place in a bowl. Sprinkle over 4 ounces of caster sugar and the grated zest of half a lemon and mix. Melt 4 ounces of unsalted butter in a pan and pour over the apples and lastly 4 ounces of raisins. Mix again and place the apples and buttery juices into a large pie dish. Roll out some puff pastry and cut out a shape large enough to cover the dish. With the trimmings, roll out a thin length of pastry and glue it to the rim with egg white. Then using more egg white glue on the pastry lid and glaze with more egg white. Sprinkle the top with a little sugar and make a slit in the pastry so the steam can escape. Bake in a hot oven – around 220ºC – for 15-20 minutes, and then turn down to 160-180ºC and bake for a further 30-45 minutes until the apples are tender. Serve with lightly whipped cream.


#116 Apple and Raisin Pie – 9.5/10. This is the best apple pie I’ve ever made. The apples were still tart but swimming in a lovely sweet, rich buttery liquor that was the perfect balance. The raisins were very juicy and plump and the pastry crisp. Total genius. Go and make this pie right now, people!

#115 Lancashire Hotpot

Last week I took the afternoon off work to go shopping with Butters to Cheshire Oaks to spend money I don’t have. One of the main reasons I wanted to go was Butters had been told that there was a Le Crueset shop there. I love Le Crueset stuff but it is tres expensive, so I had a total geek boner about going to the factory outlet shop.

After about an hour of decision-making, I went for a large round casserole and a big mixing jug. With the casserole I knew exactly how I was going to christen it – with a Lancashire Hotpot. I’ve had hotpots before, but in the form of ready meals, which, if I remember, had tomato in it. Real Lancashire hotpot is very simple – one of those dishes involving lots of sliced potatoes and onions that seem to come in an amazing variety. It’s also rather like an Irish stew.

It looked nicer in real...

FYI: Lancashire Hotpots were traditionally made in large, deep dark glazed brown pots that were given to the baker to put in his oven whilst people went to work so they collect on their way back.

FYI2: Although hotpot usually contains potato, onion, lamb and kidneys, people have put in black pudding, sweetbreads, mushrooms and oysters. So if you have any of those to hand pop them in.

This is enough for 6 people:

Start off by thinly slicing a pound of onions and 2 pounds of peeled potatoes. Next trim any large bits of fat from best end of neck lamb chops; you’ll need between 8 and 12 depending upon thickness. When at the butches try to get about 6 lamb’s kidneys. Depending on your butcher, they may or may not be prepared – make sure the tough outer membrane has been peeled away, and slice in half lengthways and cut out their central tough, white centres. Layer up the potatoes, then onions, then meat and offal, seasoning as you go. Make sure you leave enough spuds so you can arrange them nicely on the top. Pour enough water to reach halfway up the pot and then brush the potatoes with some melted butter. Place the lid on the casserole and bake at 200-240ºC for 30 minutes, and then turn the oven down to 140ºC for about 2-2 ½ hours. Take the lid of for the final 30-45 minutes so that the top can crisp up. Serve with boiled or pickled red cabbage.

#115 Lancashire Hotpot – 6.5/10. Very nice and hearty grub that is simple yet effective. Not used to cooking with lamb, but am loving how simple this is. Also I’d forgotten how nice kidneys are – I’ve not had them in years. It’s definitely something I’d make again, but it would have to contain something more than just lamb. Plus it’s very cheap – the meat came to £6 at the butchers in the Arndale Centre. Bargain!

#114 Quince, Medlar, Sorb or Crab Apple Jelly

The quinces I bought the other day were beginning to look a bit sad and I needed to use them up with something. I really like quince, so quince jelly was the obvious choice – making a few jars of this would mean I would still be eating them way beyond their season had ended.

By the way, this recipe can be followed as is but with medlars, sorbs or crab apples, so if you are lucky enough to know where their might be some growing near you try this jelly.

Begin by scrubbing clean your quinces and chop them roughly along with the same weight in Bramley apples. Do not peel or core them – that is where the pectin resides that will set the jelly. Place the fruit in a pan and barely cover them with water. Simmer the fruit until they have become a pulp (I used a potato masher to help the quinces along).

Place the pulp in a jelly bag suspended over a bowl – if you don’t have one, use a muslin-lined sieve instead. Leave the pulp to drip dry – this takes a while, a few hours at least, overnight if you’ve done loads. Measure the volume of liquid and pour into a heavy-based pan and add a pound of sugar for every pint of liquid. Boil this mixture until this has reached setting point (read the recipe for marmalade for more info on this) and pour into sterilised jars.

Quince jelly can be used like any fruit jelly, but is typically an accompaniment to cheeses, game and turkey.

#114 Quince Jelly - 6.5/10. A nice conserve, but I perhaps more apple than I should have, as the quince flavour is not super strong and is sweeter than I’m used to. That said, I used as jam and I think it’ll be a lot better with some game or cheese. Also, the recipe’s very good as I got four jars of jelly from just two quince!

#113 Muffins

After the reasonable success of the crumpets, I thought I should carry on the bread theme and use up some more of the yeast. I didn’t even have to look through; I knew straight away that I wanted muffins – the second best breakfast carb after the crumpet… Don’t be confused between these muffins and American muffins – they are two very different beasts. I suppose in America our muffins are called English muffins, non?

Muffins are halfway between crumpets and bread – they are made with soft dough using strong flour and are cooked gently on the hob, rather than in the oven. They’re easy to do, but do require a bit of time and energy to knead them properly… It is worth putting in a bit of effort as it make the dough nice and elastic and therefore fluffier when cooked.

This recipe makes 12 muffins:

Start off by creaming ½ an ounce of yeast in 4 tablespoons of warm water, then warm ½ pint of whole milk and an ounce of butter in a pan until they reach blood heat. Meanwhile crack an egg into a bowl and give it a brief whisk, and pour in the warm milk into it, whisking thoroughly.

Weigh out a pound of strong plain white flour and empty it into a warm bowl (or better, warm the flour and bowl together on a low heat in the oven). Make a well in the centre and pour in the yeast and the milk-egg mixture, along with a teaspoon of salt. Mix together thoroughly, adding more flour or water if required. You want a soft dough, but not one that is sticky. Knead the dough for 5 to 10 minutes, place it, cover it and allow the dough to rise to at least double it’s volume.

Roll out the dough to ½ inch thickness and cut out rounds with large pastry cutters or whatever (I used crumpet rings). Knead the trimmings together and roll them out too, so you get as many muffins as possible from the mixture. Let them rise a little.

Put a heavy-based pan on a low heat and brush it lightly with lard or oil and fry them gently. Griggers says they should expand into something like a “puffball fungus”, and if you leave them to rise slightly they will. Turn them over after around 7 minutes and cook the other side.

Apparently, you should toast muffins whole – they should never be cut, but torn, adding butters as you go. Either way, eat them with lots of salted butter.

#113 Muffins – 7/10. I really liked these – it was easy to make them nice and light as the low heat made them almost impossible to overcook. The result is light and fluffy muffins that eat very well, very hard to get wrong, I think, and you should give them a go. They freeze well too…

#112 Queen of Puddings

I had people coming over for a nice Thai meal and initially thought I’d make some light fresh Thai-style dessert to go with it. Then I though, ‘Bugger that’ and went for the stodge option. I’d heard of Queen of Puddings and seen folk on telly making it, but had never eaten it before. Obviously something called Queen of Puddings must be a delicious taste sensation, mustn’t it? For those that don’t know, QoP is a dessert made of a sweet lemony custard base thickened with breadcrumbs and egg yolks, a layer of jelly, and then topped with meringue. According to Wikipedia, it goes back to the Seventeenth Century.

Begin by making the custard base:

Place 5 ounces of fresh brown or white breadcrumbs in a bowl and stir through a tablespoon of vanilla sugar and the grated zest of one large lemon. In a pan heat a pint of milk and 2 ounces of butter until almost boiling. Pour it over the breadcrumbs, stir it, and leave to stand for 10 minutes and beat in 4 large egg yolks (reserve the whites for the meringue). Grease a shallow dish with a 2 ½-ish pint capacity with butter and pour in the custard mixture. Bake at 180ºC for up to 30 minutes, though it could be much less; dependent upon the dimensions of your dish. Take out the dish when the custard is still slightly wobbly.

Warm up 2 tablespoons of fruit jelly: raspberry, blackcurrant or bramble and spread it evenly over the custard. You could use jam here too, but sieve out any seedy bits. Whisk the egg whites until stiff and then slowly fold in 4 ounces of caster sugar. Spread the meringue over the top and sprinkle a teaspoon or two of sugar over the top. Return to the oven until browned. Serve warm with cream or custard if you like (I served it au naturale).

#112 Queen of Puddings – 6/10. A nice desert; I think I had thirds by the end of the night – was a little tipsy by the end (sorry about the quality of the pic!). It was the crispy meringue that definitely saved it from being blow average. Though good, slightly disappointed that it wasn’t some kind of phenomenal pud.

#111 Jerusalem Artichoke and Shellfish Salad

With the Jerusalem artichokes I bought in Unicorn, I thought I’d do Butters and I a nice swish, yet healthy, salad. For some reason this salad is in the Vegetables chapter; I didn’t realise that prawns and scallops were in the vegetable kingdom. But there you go. Facetiousness aside, I love shellfish and certainly don’t cook enough of it. I particularly like scallops – they’re so pricey though; a fiver for three line-caught ones! (I’d feel too guilty buying the dredged-up ones.)


These amounts make enough for two as a main course, or 4 for a starter or side dish:

Start off by boiling 4 large Jerusalem artichokes in their skins in boiling salted water along with a2 tablespoons of lemon juice. When tender, peel the skin off with your fingers and cut them in neat slices and put in a dish. Mix together 4 tablespoons of vegetable or hazelnut oil with 1 to 2 tablespoons of white wine vinegar. Season it well and pour over the still warm artichokes. Give them a gentle stir and allow to cool. Gently grill three scallops that have been brushed with a little oil – just a couple of minutes per side until they have firmed up. Stab them with a skewer if you’re worried they’re not hot all the way through. Allow them to cool and cut in half, then slice down to make thin semi-circles. Next, peel four large cooked prawns, leaving the heads on for presentation purposes. Finally, arrange some watercress in bowls and artistically place the Jerusalem artichokes and scallops on top of the leaves and scatter with chopped coriander and a tablespoon of chopped roasted hazelnuts; and then place the expertly peeled prawns on top of those.

#111 Jerusalem Artichoke and Shellfish Salad – 6/10. A tasty salad, that really brought out the earthy flavour of Jerusalem artichokes. However, the subtle sweet flavour of the scallops was lost, which was a bit of a shame. I reckon you could make it without them and still have a good dish.

#110 Elizabeth David's Crumpets

Charlotte and I have been very excited about the prospect of making our own crumpets for a while – just how do you get all the hole in!? We were to find out. The recipe is actually one by Elizabeth David – a very influential food writer, who wrote a book on yeast cookery. It’s making recipes like this – really stoically English fayre that I would never have thought of cooking myself. They are very easy – you need to buy some rings to cook them in as the batter is reasonably runny. If you don’t have one / can’t be arsed buying one, don’t worry, as you can ladle mixture straight into the pan and let it spread out to produce a pikelet which you don’t seem to be able to buy anywhere other than Yorkshire.


This recipe made us a baker’s dozen of crumpets:

Start off by warming a pound of plain flour through in the oven. Whilst your waiting for that warm up a pint of whole milk, 2 tablespoons of flavourless oil and a teaspoon of sugar to blood heat. Take out 3 tablespoons of the warmed milk and fork it through half an ounce of fresh yeast and let it thicken and become creamy. Make a well in the centre of the flour and add the yeast mixture, a tablespoon of salt and the remaining milk and beat the mixture – 5 minutes by hand, or about 3 with an electric beater. Cover the mixture and allow to rise and double in bulk – this is quite rapid with fresh yeast. Knock the mixture back and add ¼ pint of warmed water that has had a very generous pinch of bicarbonate of soda dissolved in it. Beat the mixture well and let it sit a rise again for around half an hour.



Grease a griddle or heavy-based frying pan and the crumpet rings with lard. Place the rings in the pan and pour in mixture two-thirds of the way up. Allow to fry very gently until the top is covered with holes and the surface is no longer liquid. Turn the crumpets over so they cook and colour on the other side. Allow them to cool and toast them, serving them with plenty of melted butter.

#110 Elizabeth David’s Crumpets – 6.5/10. The score I’ve given these crumpets may be changed later. The reason for this is that their consistency was rather soft and doughy, however they were piping hot throughout with no raw flour taste, so I’m not whether they are mean to be like that or whether they are undercooked. Consistency aside, they did taste absolutely delicious, so when I get the chance, I’m going to try them again…

#109 Quince Comfits

I went into Unicorn in Chorlton, Manchester to stock up on my favourite seasonal fruit and vegetables – this time of year they are quince, Jerusalem artichokes and Seville oranges. Once I’d bought them, it was a quick trawl through the book to see what I could do with them. The one recipe that didn’t require me to buy anything extra, other than was in my store cupboard, was quince comfits; all they need is water and sugar.

FYI: A comfit is a sugary sweet, rather like a pastille, that go way back In fact, quince comfits were made as part as Henry IV’s coronation banquet in 1399. This is a fact that I’m still in awe of. Get some made if you find some quinces and have a rare medieval treat!

Scrub the fluffy stuff that coats the quince’s skins, wash them thoroughly, and chop roughly. Put them in a pan with around an inch of water and simmer them, covered, until they are very soft. This takes a while as they are so hard, so keep a check on them and add extra water if need be to prevent them boiling dry. Once they are very soft, pass them through a sieve and weigh the pulp. Return it to the pan and add an equal weight of sugar. Bring it to the boil and allow to simmer, pop and bubble for up to half an hour. Make sure you stir it often to prevent it catching. It is ready when the mixture comes away from the sides as you stir. Pour the mixture into Swiss roll tins or sandwich tins that have been lined with greaseproof paper. Now you have to be patient – the mixture has to be dried slowly in a very low oven (less than 50ºC) or in the airing cupboard for a few days. Cut it into squares and shake the sweets in a tub of caster sugar to coat them. Hey Presto: Medieval sweets!

Griggers reckons they’re really good melted on grilled pork chops.

#109 Quince Comfits – 7/10. I love quince. I think they’re my second favourite fruit after the raspberry. Their wonderfully perfumed toffee flavour really does come across in these little sweets. I don’t really go for sweets like this usually, but these are good and have the added interest of being eaten by a medieval king!

#108 Partridge with Chestnuts and Cabbage

When I made the chestnut soup the other day, I made sure that there was enough spare to make this dish. I had bought a brace of partridge from the Farmers’ Market a couple of months ago waiting for some chestnuts to turn up. I had never eaten partridge before, but I know it is a highly-prized game bird. This is a very easy dish to cook – a very good introduction to game, if you haven’t cooked it before.



Here’s what to do with a brace of the little birdies:

Brown the partridge and 6 ounces of chopped streaky bacon in 1 ½ ounces of butter. When done, transfer the to a casserole dish and brown18 pickling onions, or 9 shallots, and add them to the dish too. Next, take a glass of dry white wine and deglaze the pan with it, making sure all the nice stuck-down bits come away from the pan’s base and pour over the birds. Add a little beef stock so that the liquids comes around half-way up the partridges. Cover and cook in a moderate oven – around 150ºC. Grigson now says to take out the birds when ‘almost done’. I had no idea when this would be and thought it would be slightly less than the pigeon I once did, but I was wrong. Take them out after around 45 minutes (I cooked them for 2 ½ hours!) and remove the birds. Add some Savoy cabbage that has been blanched for 10 minutes and lay it out in the dish. Return the birds. Now add 6 ounces of chestnuts that have been pricked, boiled for 15 minutes and then peeled. Cook for a further 45 minutes, or less if the meat comes easily away from the bones. I realised that they were already done at this point and didn’t leave the chestnuts in long enough. According to Larousse Gastromonique partridge shouldn’t take any more than 1 ½ hours to cook.

Finally, arrange the chestnuts, cabbage and onions or shallots on a dish with the birds on top and allow them to rest. Meanwhile, reduce the liquor from the dish by boiling it down hard to concentrate the flavours. This final step is very important. Serve with boiled potatoes.


#108 Partridge with Chestnuts and Cabbage – 7.5/10. A very delicious meal – everything went so very well together and the partridge was pale with a nice gamy flavour that was not overpowering at all. The dish should be a 9 really I think, as the birds were overdone and a little dry and the chestnuts not cooked enough, but hey-ho that’s my fault, not Grigson’s.

#107 Chestnut and Apple Soup

I’m a chestnut fan, but I’ve not ever cooked with them, except for roasting. In fact I’ve only ever eaten them roasted or in a pork stuffing. I spotted some in the greengrocers and thought I’d have a go at this soup. The soups in English Food have been great (with the exception of the Mulligatawny Soup); and what I really like about them all so far is the simplicity – absolutely no faffing about. This one is no different. Give it a go if you see some chestnuts.

This makes enough for 6:

This soup requires a pound of chestnuts, and the first job is to pierce either end of each and every one with a sharp knife. Plunge them into boiling water for 10 minutes. Use a tea towel to grasp onto them with one hand and a sharp knife to remove their softened shells with the other and discard any bad ones; don’t worry if they are not whole. Keep them in the hot water as you peel them to keep the shells soft. Simmer the chestnuts along with one stick of celery in 3 ½ pints of light beef stock for 20 minutes. In the mean time, peel, core and slice two Cox’s Pippin apples. Simmer the apples in 2 ounces of butter until they soften, seasoning well with black pepper. Add the apple and juices to the stock and liquidise the whole thing until smooth. Return it to the pan, check for seasoning, and stir through 4 fluid ounces of single cream. Don’t let the soup boil if you are retuning it to the heat. Serve the soup with croutons fried in butter.

FYI: if you are lucky enough to know where there is a sweet chestnut tree, you can make shampoo from cooking up the leaves and peel.

#107 Chestnut and Apple Soup – 6.5/10. A very nice creamy-pale soup. Rich, yet light at the same time. I would certainly recommend this one; it would make a very good first course. Two apples didn’t really make it taste that much of apples, so it loses some marks for that – I would do three.

#106 Mulligatawny Soup

Whilst perusing the little fishmongers in Stockport, me and Charlotte spotted boiling chickens for sale. This is quite weird as I always keep my eye out for them and never see them, but the day before Charlotte requested Mulligatawny soup, but I said that we couldn’t do that, as we need a boiling fowl for it. Perhaps Charlotte is a lucky charm for the English Food project and me. Like some sort of leprechaun or troll.* I’m glad I now have a supply of boiling fowls as quite a few recipes require them. Good oh.

FYI: the word Mulligatawny comes from the Tamil, an Indian language, and means pepper water, and it came here in the Eighteenth Century.

This makes a big old load of soup, enough for 5 or 6 people:

Begin by chopping the boiling chicken into pieces and brown it in 2 ounces of butter, along with a sliced onion. Now add 1 ½ tablespoons of curry powder – either mild, medium or hot (I went for medium, but added a pinch of chilli powder) – and 8 ounces of yoghurt, plus some salt. Fry all this until the yoghurt reduces and becomes a thick crust on the bottom the pan. Be careful not to let it burn though. Add 3 pints of water and let it all come to a simmer. Cook for around an hour and a half until the meat is falling off the bone. Pick the meat off the carcass and chop it up, if need be, retuning it to the pan and chucking out the bones. This is a good point to leave the soup overnight, so any chicken fat can be skimmed off easily. Melt another of butter in a separate small saucepan and add 4 cloves; apparently, the cloves soften after a few minutes if cooked gently and can be crushed with a spoon. This didn’t happen for me. Hey-ho. Add the juice of lemon and pour the butter mixture into the soup. Season with more salt if appropriate. Serve with some boiled rice and some chopped apple sprinkled on top.


#106 Mulligatawny Soup – 4.5/10. Not a bad soup, but decidedly average. When I first tried I thought it was surprisingly light and refreshing, but then as I tried it again, I decided I wasn’t sure. It sat in the fridge for a bit and I realised I wasn’t going to eat it, so it went off the bin. I think I was disappointed because it wasn’t what I expected. I’ve had Mulligatawny from a tin and was sure it contained some kind of red meat. Flicking through the book, I spotted another soup called Indian Soup, which looks a lot like what I thought Mulligatawny was.

*Joke

#105 Kippers

Charlotte and myself when to the bustling metropolis that is Stockport at the weekend to buy boots (Charlotte) and to take back a plane to B&Q (me). This is the exciting life we lead. Be jealous. One great thing about Stockport is its market. It’s very old and very good; the market hall has been restored and refurbished and it looks very nice. I wanted to go for one particular reason: sweets. There’s brilliant stall that sells all the sweets from your childhood: cough cops, pineapple cubes, midget gems, and pear drops. You name it; they got it. We bought enough to induce a diabetic coma. On the way back Charlotte pointed out the fishmongers, where we saw some lovely kippers. We’d not had kippers for breakfast for ages so we thought we’d get a couple.

There are three ways to cook your breakfast kippers according to Grigson:
1. Poach in shallow water for a couple of minutes, serve with knob of butter
2. Fry in butter, a couple of minutes each side
3. Grill a couple of minutes each side. Skin side first, then turn over and add a knob of butter.

I went for number three, as it’s my favourite way. Whichever way you do them, make sure there’s freshly ground pepper on them and brown bread and butter on the side.

FYI: kippers are the most recent of the cured fishes – the kipper cure was created for salmon, but was then later applied to herring, where it was obviously much nicer.

#105 Kippers – 8/10. It’s not very often I have a savoury breakfast, but kippers really are best thing, salty and rich they give you a boost you really need of a morning. I’m surprised to see how few people like them, bring them back, I say. They do repeat on you for the rest of the day, so don’t go on a romantic date that may later lead on to heavy petting. You have been warned.

#104 Wiltshire Lardy Cake

I’ve heard of the lardy cake and once saw someone making one on telly. I remember thinking that it looked pretty marvellous. For those of you that have never heard of lardy cakes, they’re basically a sweet sticky bun, but instead of enriching it with butter, lard is used; it’s layered along with sugar and mixed fruit through white bread dough. These ingredients meld together to make a moist, sticky and very rich teatime treat. It is quite possibly the least healthy thing I’ve ever cooked, and Jane Grigson reckons it’s on the “skinny side”!

Start off by making some bread dough using a pound of flour (follow this method if you don’t have your own recipe, but adjust amounts accordingly). Whilst you’re waiting for it to rise, measure out 6 ounces of lard and chop it up, 6 ounces of mixed dried fruit, 2 ounces of mixed peel and 6 ounces of granulated sugar. Once the dough had risen, and you’ve knocked it back, roll it out into a long oblong and spread the first two thirds of it with a third of the lard, fruit, peel and sugar. Fold this into thirds and press or tuck the ends under, give it quarter turn and roll out the dough again. Repeat this process two more times so that all the fruit and sugar are used up. Place the rolled up dough in a large tin that is oblong or square in shape and let the dough prove. Bake for 35-45 minutes at 220ºC. Turn it out onto a plate so that the sticky side is facing up and so that the lard can soak through the bread. Serve warm or cold.

#104 Wiltshire Lardy Cake – difficult to score this one; we tried it warm and it’s either 9/10 or 2/10. It’s tastes really sweet and is beautifully sticky with lovely plump juicy raisins, but has the bizarre savoury meatiness of the lard. I think if I were to cook it again, it would have to be even more skinny than Griggers’ measurements. However, once it was cool, it did taste less, er, meaty. Give it a go – easy and cheap to make, so I think I’ll go with a final score of 7/10.

#103 Mutton and Leek Broth

After the success of the Welsh Cawl last month and since it’s been fookin’ freezing of late I thought I’d try something similar - Mutton and Leek Broth. All very much in the same vein. I’ve never cooked mutton before and only eaten once or twice. Plus Grigson says it is “magnificent”. The recipe calls for scrag end of neck, which I managed to get hold of from Frost’s in Chorlton (what would I do without them?); as it’s a cheap cut this soup is really good for those on a budget: 1 ½ pounds for four quid. If you can’t get mutton, you can use lamb. Ask your butcher to chop it up for you as it’s a bit of a hack-saw job.

FYI 1: the neck of a lamb/sheep/veal calf is split into three sections: scrag end nearest the head, which is mainly bone. This is a good thing for broths as it imparts flavour to make a delicious stock. Apparently scrag end is an old fashioned term, and we say ‘round end of neck, presumably because scrag end doesn’t sound too appetising. There’s mid-neck or middle neck and best end of neck too – I’m sure I will get to them in some other recipe.

FYI 2: mutton applies to sheep that have more than two permanent incisors in wear, usually over ayear old.

For 6-8:

Like many soups and stews that involve cooking joints and bones up, it’s best to cook it the day before, also the pearl barley requires soaking time so keep this all in mind.

Start by rinsing and soaking 4 ounces of pearl barley in water for four hours. Do some light housework in the meantime, or maybe just watch a film in between. Drain the barley and put it in a large saucepan or stockpot. Trim off any excess fat from the meat (keep any big chunks and freeze them and use for Singin’ Hinnies, which I’ll be cooking very soon) and add the chunks to the pot along with 4 pints of water. Bring it to the boil and simmer it gently for an hour before adding the vegetables: 5 ounces of diced carrot, 4 of diced turnip, a stalk of chopped celery, a chopped leek and 5 ounces of chopped onion. Season with salt and pepper at this point too. Let the broth simmer for at least another hour until the meat is falling off the bones. Cut the meat up and return it to the pot and discard the bones. Skim any fat from the soup – this is the point to leave it over night; solidified fat is much easier to remove. Bring back to the boil and correct the seasoning with salt, pepper, sugar and cayenne pepper. Be quite liberal with the sugar and salt. Slice a second leek thinly and add to the broth along with some chopped parsley and turn off the heat; the residual heat will cook the leek. Serve with granary bread and butter.

#103 Mutton and Leek Broth – 6.5/10. A nice soup that needed a lot of seasoning to make it delicious. I really liked the mild mutton flavour and the pearl barley, but expected it to be much more flavourful. That said, because the batch I made was so big I was still eating it three days later and it did get better as time went by.

Happy New Year...

..one and all! It’s been quite a bumped year for the Grigson experiment; thanks to everyone for reading the blog and huge kisses to all those that have tried the recipes. I’m both shocked and stunned at the feedback I’m getting from people. And to think I almost stopped the blog at one point. So thanks, thanks and thanks again Grigsoners.

I was chatting to someone the other day and they asked how it was all going. I told them it was going well and that I’d done my hundredth recipe. “You must be nearly done now?” was the reply. I’ve just had a quick look through the book and there are 456 recipes! Shit man: this is gonna take bloody ages. I’m hitting the ground running this New Year though and need to catch up with you all. I’m trying to really crack on with stuff as really I’ve only cooked the tip of the iceberg (you know what I mean)…

#88 Christmas Pudding: Part 2, #102 Brandy Butter

The next most most exciting thing about Christmas dinner after the turkey, is probably the flaming Christmas Pudding. I had already made the puddings back in November, so now it was time to steam them for the big day. The pudding needs steaming for three hours, so you need to put it on in good time. However, that is the only thing you need to do, other than checking to see if the pan has boiled dry, so all is good. Turn the pudding out onto a serving dish and warm up some brandy either in a metal ladle or a small saucepan and light it (it won't light unless you warm it first). Turn off the lights and pour it over the pudding. If this fails to impress the family, throw them out into the cold, cold winter street and tell them to come back when they've got some Christmas cheer. Serve with brandy butter, cream or custard.


To make brandy butter (or hard sauce, as it used to be called), cream 4 ounces of butter, when you've done that, beat in 4 ounces of icing sugar, 1 1/2 tablespoons of brandy, some freshly grated nutmeg and a squeeze of lemon juice, if you like. Allow to set in the fridge. Make this in advance - I made it a few days before the big day.

#88 Richard Boston's Guinness Christmas Pudding - 3.5/10. Pretty disappointing this pudding was. It tasted really good, but was extremely stodgy and soft. I think I'll use half breadcrumbs, half flour next time.

#102 Brandy Butter - 6.5/10. Nice, but very rich indeed. Think I prefer good old custard.