Good Housekeeping World Cookery - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Good Housekeeping World Cookery

05
Dec
2021

Cabin Casserole

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Meat, United States of America

The very name Cabin Casserole conjures up something hearty and comforting. Something the Ingalls family might have eaten on Little House on The Prairie. And the recipe for Cabin Casserole from the American Chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery did not disappoint. For my readers in the Northern Hemisphere who are heading into winter and who are looking for an easy tasty meal, this one needs to go onto your rotation list ASAP.

What is Cabin Casserole?

Cabin Casserole is layered tomato and onions with bacon and chops that have been sprinkled with curry powder and salt. I used lamb chops for my casserole but pork chops would also work. Also, don’t stint on the salt. I only used a little salt because I thought the bacon would bring enough but I had to add salt at the end. Having said that, for a recipe with so few ingredients, this is really tasty!

I also did not use dripping to fry my chops, I fried the bacon first then used the bacon fat to fry the chops.

I served my cabin casserole with little potatoes wrapped in Proscuitto and a sage leaf and some grilled zucchini with feta cheese. The Cabin Casserole would be super with mashed potatoes!

Little House on The Prairie – The Lost Cabin Casserole Episode

Further to my mention of Little House on the Prairie, I can almost imagine the episode which would be called “Give them curry, Laura”. The Olesen’s start selling the very exotic ingredient of curry powder in the Mercantile. Nellie teases Laura that her family is too poor to ever even taste it. A fight ensues a little like this one. Just substitute “Your pa’s too poor to buy curry powder” instead of smelling like a horse.

Laura is required to go to the Mercantile and apologise to Nellie. She also has to help out in the store for a week. We see in a store work montage that she works very hard and is so polite to the customers that through the week she makes a little tip here and there.

At the end of the week, she has enough money to buy herself some candy or maybe a toy. Instead, she asks for some curry powder which she takes home and gives to Ma.

That night the Ingalls family feast on Cabin Casserole.

The moral of the story is that hard work and not giving someone curry is the key to getting curry.

Here’s the recipe

Have a wonderful week!

08
Nov
2021

Cheesy Egg Dunk

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Cheese, Cottage Cheese, Dip, Eggs, Good Housekeeping World Cookery

Howdy friends, today we are starting a new Chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery. We are leaving the shores of Africa and heading to the good ol’ U.S. of A! I’ll be choosing a few classics and a few lesser-known dishes from the land of the free and the home of the brave starting with this Cheesy Egg Dunk!

I find it hard to believe that there was a time when a dip was strange to anyone. However, Good Housekeeping felt the need to introduce the concept with this:

“Dunking” is an established American custom. For any informal buffet type party, savoury “dips” are very popular. Guests help themselves to the bite-sized pieces of toast, etc., and dip them into one of several soft piquant mixtures”

I’m not sure why, if it is such an established custom, why they felt the need to put quotation marks around the words dunking and dips. Maybe we just need to be glad that “dunks” did not become the preferred nomenclature!

The Cheesy Egg Dunk tastes like a smooth egg salad. Full disclosure I only had 60g of cream cheese and, as I am about to go away for a few days I did not want to buy any more so I subbed in some cottage cheese to make up the difference. My version might be a bit less creamy but it will also be lower in calories!. More importantly, it was delicious!

Cheesy Egg Dunk – The Recipe

One thing that did bamboozle me – the recipe calls for piquant table sauce. I had no idea what that is so I hoped for the best and added a 1/4 teaspoon of Worchestershire sauce combined with a few drops of Tabasco sauce. I was pretty pleased with the result but if any of my American readers can let me know what piquant table sauce is, I would love to know.

If like me you are trying to lose a few covid kilos you could have some Cheesy Egg Dunk on lettuce as a low carb substitute for an egg salad sandwich. Or, you could take it high-end and sprinkle some fancy salmon roe over the top. Ooh la la!!!!

Maybe because I used 2/3 cottage cheese instead of all cream cheese my mixture was quite soft so I did not add the milk.

Just remember, if you make it…no double dipping!!!

A Little Vacay

As mentioned I am heading off on a little holiday! I am so looking forward to getting out of Melbourne, having a break from work and relaxing for a new days! One of the delights of the Air BNB we have chosen is that it has very sketchy reception. On the upside, that means no work calls or emails! On the downside, I might not be able to post from there next week. I have however planned to cook another recipe from this chapter when I am there. Even if I can’t post I will be thinking of you all as I make it.

I have already packed my books – I am taking the next Agatha Christie on my list, Why Didn’t They Ask Evans, The Devil’s Picnic by Taras Grescoe and The Lost Man by Jane Harper which will satisfy my need to have a holiday read that is set somewhat in the place where I am going. We will be on the coast and not in the outback but It is the closest I have! For the 4 hour drive there I have Stanley Tucci’s Taste all set to go on Audible!

Have a wonderful week!

25
Sep
2021

Melktert

categories: 1970's recipes, Africa, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Pastry, World Cooking

My recipe for Melktert comes from the South African chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery and it is a baked custard tart. It is called Melktert because the day before the recipe for the OG Milk Tart went to print, someone broke into the printing press and stole all bar one of the vowels.

Some people would tell you that it is a dish that originated in Holland and it kept the Dutch spelling when it came to South Africa. However, we at RFFMT prefer not to allow truth to get in the way of a good story. Besides the visual image of a never say die printer triumphantly adding e’s to where the i and a had been, humming a prototypical version of The Shamen’s 1992 hit Ebeneezer Goode as he did so was too good not to share.

I pondered whether in homage to the melktert, I should also write this post using the letter e as my only vowel.

That idea lasted all of about 5 seconds – I got as far as “Here. Melktert. Sweet” and gave up.

The Melktert was delicious! Just the right amount of sweetness and the almonds on top gave a nice crunch. There was a lot of the filling mix leftover so I think next time I make it I will try a deeper dish which would also mean there would be more of the slightly cinnamon-y custard which could only be s a good thing! The recipe does state a deep pie dish!

Melktert :The Recipe

That’s all folks, nothing much else to say except:

Melktert – Excellent? Yes!

Enjoy your weekend!

04
Apr
2021

Eggs Hamine

categories: 1970's recipes, Africa, Easter, Eggs, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, World Cooking

Happy Easter to those who celebrate it! At Maison de la retro foods, we are supplementing our chocolate eggs with some North African Hamine Eggs. These came to us via Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery. The book offers two versions of this recipe. There is the traditional way:

In Egypt there are special shops selling them; there, after the eggs have been cooked for 3 or 4 hours, they are put under the ashes of a fire and left for as long as 8 hours – this makes them as creamy as butter”

– Good Housekeeping World Cookery

Never mind the pyramids and the Sphinx. Get me over to Egypt pronto for some of those buttery eggs!!!

Eggs Hamine – The Recipe

The non-traditional version of these eggs is so easy!

Put the brown outside skins of some onions into a saucepan of ocld water with the eggs and boil for 2 hours or as long as possible. The onion skins turn the shells of the eggs and the whites brown. Shell and halve the eggs and serve hot or cold with lemon wedges, salt, pepper and mixed spices”

I cooked my eggs in the slow cooker for a full 8 hours.

Pre – Water

4 hours – One of the eggs cracked during the cooking but did not ooze out like they do when they crack during normal boiling.

Eight hours!

Note, if you decide to make these in your slow cooker, the onion skins will stain your slow cooker brown along with the eggs. Get ready to soak and scrub to remove it!

Eight hours and fifteen minutes!

I sprinkled my egg with some salt and some dukkah and dug in! It was delicious. There was a faint taste of something – not exactly onion but slightly savoury to the egg which was different to a normal boiled egg. I would not say that it was buttery but the white seemed more delicate than a normal boiled egg.

I was also very surprised to see that the onion skin dye had penetrated not only into the white which became a gorgeous soft caramel colour but also the yolk! This was startling because it is so strange to have a monochrome egg!

These were nice and an interesting experiment but for me, it was a long time to wait for a fancy boiled egg so I will probably not make them again. If I ever do get to Egypt though, I will be making a breakfast beeline for the Hamine Eggs shops!

Making these eggs might be a fun thing to do with kids for Easter or for a science project on osmosis.

Happy Easter everyone!

14
Mar
2021

Raiff of Cheese

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Africa, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, World Cooking

Hello Globetrotters and food lovers! Given we can no longer travel in actuality I guess the next best is to travel virtually via our tastebuds. And today, we are turning the page in Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery to a whole new continent! And what better way to celebrate anything but with some cheesy pastries otherwise known as Raiff of Cheese!

So, where are we off to? Here’s a clue:

I hear the drums echoing tonight
But she hears only whispers of some quiet conversation
She’s coming in, 12:30 flight
The moonlit wings reflect the stars that guide me towards salvation

Yes, my friends, we are going to be blessing the rains down in Africa for the next little while. And I, for one, am here for it! Africa is a real knowledge gap for me in terms of food. I have cooked tagines and couscous, I have eaten Doro Wat and Injera in an Ethiopian restaurant and I have read about Bunny Chow and Sosaties. But that’s pretty much it for what is a massive continent! So, this will be a journey of exploration for me. Not that I am expecting Good Housekeeping from 1972 to provide any 100% authentic recipes but I”m hoping it will be enough to give me a taste of African food!

These cheese pastries or Raiff of Cheese come from the North African section of World Cookery. I chose to cook these because they reminded me very much of the Cheese Pastries we love at our local Syrian restaurant. Believe me, I could sit and eat plate after plate of their Bourak B’jebneh! I was also inspired by the menu at Shaam to use haloumi as the cheese in my pastries.

Raiff of Cheese – Recipe and My Variations

I used bought filo pastry because life’s too short to make homemade filo. If you do want to do that, here’s a recipe and good luck to you! I do want to try to make my own haloumi one day though. I think it would have been nice (but maybe not very North African) to sub in some mozzarella for the haloumi to give the pastries some lovely melty cheesy stretchiness. Next time maybe!

Another little change I made to the recipe as given in GHWC was to add in a little sauteed leek and the very last of the chervil from my garden. This combination features in many of the other North African recipes and it just so happened that I had half a leek in the fridge. I had no idea that either of these were used so extensively in North African cooking. Like I said, journey of exploration!

Finally, to serve my cheese pastries, I added a little drizzle of pomegranate molasses – the sweet-sour of this being a perfect counterpoint to the salty haloumi and some toasted sesame seeds to add some nutty crunchiness. Any chutney or relish would be good with these.

I’m not sure how authentically North African these cheese pastries are but they were really tasty. And as sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti I’ll be making these again!

Have a great week!