Category: Custard


Mar
2024

March 2004 – No O’s

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Custard, Delicious, Desserts, Magazines, Potato, Prawns, Salad, Steak

Hello, retro food lovers! Today we are stepping back in time for a fun theme.  Remember the childhood book “Ghosts and Crows and Things With O’s?  Well, today is the opposite. My aim today was to create a menu where none of the recipes contain the letter O in its name.  Weird?  Yes but so is Omicronphobia which is a fear of the letter O.  Just in case you ever happen to be entertaining someone suffering from this affliction, here is a menu for you.  Also, please don’t tell them I called them weird!  Our guide today is the March 2004 issue of Delicious Magazine.

Blue Cheese with Walnuts and Honey2

So, what else was happening in March 2004?  Well, a fire crew in a hurry to get to a fire in Melbourne Florida left a fryer on in the firehouse.  A little later they got a call to come and put out another fire…at their firehouse!  In popular culture, the Da Vinci code was still top of the best seller lists and The Passion of  The Christ was number 1 at the box office.  Yeah by Usher was the number one song.

Now, that we have set the scene, let’s get to the menu

The Menu – March 2004

No O Menu

Prawn Caesar Salad

This was not strictly a Caesar Salad as the dressing was more of a Marie Rose-type thing but it had a Caesar-ish vibe about it.  It was also delicious! You can find a more classic Caesar Salad here. 

Prawn Caesar Salad

Prawn Caesar Salad Recipe

Prawn Caesar

Teriyaki Steak with Wasabi Mash

I loved this, it was my favourite dish on the menu and so easy to make as well.  I often found bought teriyake sauces much too sweet for my palate but this was perfect. And the wasabi mash was a perfect accompaniment.  I also served some edamame and pickled veg alongside. 

Teriyaki Steak with Wasabi Mash

Teriyaki Steak with Wasabi Mash Recipes

Steak Teriyaki (1)

Crème Brulée

March has been a very custard and caramel month around these parts.  Last week I made caramel custard and this week, its more sophisticated cousin, Crème Brulée.  I will say though that I cannot recommend this recipe.  For a start, the cooking time was completely out.  I had to cook my custards for about double the time they suggested! I was also intrigued by their suggestion of grinding the sugar to make it easier to torch.  It did not. All it did was add to the time taken to cook the recipe, and burn the sugar when I torched it.  After the first two, I went back to my usual way of using normal caster sugar and it was fine.  Just listen to this.  This is the sound of a good Crème Brulée. 

Crème Brulée Recipe

It was a bit of a dud but I am including it for compleness sake.  And having said that, the custard was delicious.  And once I reverted back to my usual non-powdered white sugar, the bruleed top became perfect!  

creme brulee recipe

My Nigella Moment  – Blue Cheese, Honey and Walnuts

For first-time readers, this refers to the moment at the end of Nigella Lawson’s cooking shows when she sneaks back to the fridge to have another bite of something delicious.  In these Twenty Years Ago posts, it is something contained in the magazine that does not fit with the overall menu theme but I’m sneaking it in because it is too good not to share.  

I have long said that cheese is my love language so this recipe immediately called to me.  So simple and so delcious.  And if you wanted to bring this recipe up to date?  Sub out ordinary honey for some hot honey.  This is a perfect after-dinner cheeseboard for one, or many.  I served mine with  a green salad and a croissant for a delicious lunch.  This recipe is proof that the simple things in life are often the best!

Blue Cheese with Walnuts and Honey

 

Blue Cheese with Walnuts and Honey Recipe

Blue Cheese with Walnuts and Honey recipe

 

Apart from a few hiccups with the Brulee, I loved this month.  Delicious Magazine has allowed the Omicronphobes (and me) have some beautiful vibrant and tasty meals!  

Have a great week! 

 

 


Mar
2024

Caramel Custard – The Hollow

categories: Custard, Desserts, Dining With The Dame, Poirot

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  Today’s Dining With The Dame novel, The Hollow, contains many references to food so I did not have to resort to any terrible puns.  The novel was published in 1946 which makes me wonder if, despite rationing continuing well into the 1950s, there was a sense of post-war abundance that fuelled so many food references!  I chose Caramel Custard as my menu item for The Hollow as not only it is referred to in the novel but it is also one of my favourite desserts! 

Like me (and Poirot) many of you will be more familiar with the French name for this dish, Crème Caramel.  My recipe for this classic French dish came from the amazing cookbook by thriller author Len Deighton, The Action Cookbook.

Caramel Custard

The dedication for the The Hollow reads:

For LARRY and DANAE

With apologies for using ther swimming pool as the scene of a murder

And for my mind, the best scene in the Poirot episode features that pool.  It reminds me of a Slim Aarons pool shot…with a little murder thrown in!

the-hollow

SLim Aarons

 

The Hollow – The Plot

Of course, say what you like, a murder is an awkward thing—it upsets the servants and puts the general routine out

Agatha Christie – The Hollow

Who killed Doctor John Christow?  His wife Gerda stands by his dying body holding a revolver. But his last word was “Henrietta”, the name of his mistress.  He has also just recently spurned his former fiance, actress Veronica Cray.  

Could one of these three women be reponsible for his death?  Or could someone else have done it?

Creme Caramel 2

Poirot cannot rid the feeling that the murder scene is staged

For what he was looking at was a highly artifiical murder scene.  By the side of the pool was the body, artistically arranged with an outflung arm and even some red paint dripping gently over the edge of the concrete into the pool.  It was a spectacular body, that of a handsome fair haired man.  Standing over the body, revolver in hand, was a woman…

And there were three other actors.  On the far side of the pool  was a tall young woman…she had a basket in her hands full of dahlia heads. A little further off was a man, a tall inconspicuous man in a shooting coat, carrying a gun.  And immadiately on his left with a basket of eggs in her hand was his hostess, Lady Angkatell.  

It was clear to Poirot that several different paths converged here at the swimming pool and that these people has each arrived by a different path. 

It was all very mathematical and artificial

Agatha Christie – The Hollow

Luckily Poirot is around to cut through the artifice to find out whodunnit!

The Hollow – The Covers

The Hollow Collage (1)

I believe we have our first Japanese cover in the mix today! And possibly the first Polish cover too! Most of these stick to the elements of the swimming pool, the gun, the house. A few also nod to Henrietta being a sculpturer.  But bless the French for their brightly coloured pool float flamingo!

The Recipe: Caramel Custard

The Len Deighton Acion Cookbook was first published in 1965  It was a compilation of “cookstrips” also drawn by Deighton and originally published in The Observer.  It is a truly wonderful cookbook!

Creme Caramel Recipe

 

After the ducks there was a caramel custard which, Lady Angkatell said showed just the right feeling on the part of Mrs. Medway.  Cooking, she said, really gave great scope to delicacy of feeling.  

“We are only, as she knows, moderately fond of caramel custard.  There would be something very gross, just after the death of a friend, in eating one’s favourite pudding.  But caramel custard is so easy – slippery if you know what I mean”

Agatha Christie – The Hollow

Creme Caramel 3

Links To The Christieverse

Lucy Angkatell says that Poirot was in Baghdad “solving something” when her husband was the High Commissioner there but I could find no reference to speciifc cases.  

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in  The Hollow

Our March read is The Labours of Hercules

Have a great week!

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Nov
2022

The One with The Flan

categories: 1970's food, Custard, Desserts, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Mexico, North and South America

For most people of my age the word flan conjures up the episode of Friends where Monica makes a birthday flan.

Monica Geller : We’re not having cake. We’re having flan.

Chandler Bing : Excuse me?

Monica Geller : It’s a festive custard Mexican dessert.

Well, today we having Flan de Café which is a coffee flavoured Mexican custard dessert direct from the South American chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery.  Now, I know Mexico is not in South America, and I know you know that Mexico is not in South America.  Good Housekeeping?  Maybe not so much!  Flan De Cafe

To amp up the coffee-ness of my flan, I baked them some vintage tea cups.

Flan De Cafe 2

What did not need to amped up was the coffee flavour. I used the lower level of coffee suggested by the recipe which was 6 tablespoons and thought my heart was going to pop out of my chest for about an hour after eating it!  I was WIRED!  Talk about a major flan high!

I would probably halve the amount of coffee for future makes.  Outside of a power punch of caffeine, the flavour was lovely, the light touch of orange added a refreshing note and the custard was silky and smooth.  The Brazil nuts added a nice crunch as well as some garnish.  I   added some extra orange zest to the top of the flans to brighten them up.  I chose not to use the recipe’s serving suggestion because I have a bit of a yecchh factor with raw eggs and I could not find guava jelly anywhere.

Flan De Café – The Recipe

Flan De Cafe

 

Festive Flan Fun

As I was making the flans, I remembered something I heard wayback one of those science shows for kids.  They said that there was enough oil in a brazil nut to act as a candle.  For some weird reason, that  piece of trivia has stuck in my head!  Well, I had Brazil nuts and I had a flan which, after all is a festive dessert!

I really didn’t expect this to work particularly as the nuts kept breaking when I tried to chop them into anything resembling a taper.  However….

Flan de Cafe3

Success!!!!  Now that’s a really festive custard dessert!

Have a great week!

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Jan
2021

REPOST – General Satisfaction

categories: Baking, Berries, Custard, Desserts, England, Lemon, Limoncello, Meringue, Pudding

Pop quiz hotshots…

General Satisfaction is:

a) A minor character in the Stanley Kubrik classic Doctor Strangelove,

b) A new character in the game Clue / Cluedo. ” It was General Satisfaction in the billiard room.  With the Candlestick” or,

c) A Victorian nursery pudding with the most awesome name ever?

General Satisfaction
General Satisfaction

I made this to take to my family on Christmas day and let me tell you…general satisfaction became major happiness as people tucked in.  And who would not be happy with this mix of lemony berries, topped with sponge finger biscuits liberally soaked in limoncello, topped with a lovely lemony custard and then baked with a meringue topping?

Yep.  It’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven….

One of the side effects of the Paleo diet is that I seem to have become hyper-sensitive to sugar.  The first version I made of this was so sweet I actually couldn’t eat it,  Someone else in the house had no such qualms.  He’s lying in a diabetic coma as we speak.

My first introduction to General Satisfaction came from recipe came from Tamasin Day-Lewis’ Supper for A Song .  There is also this version online:

General Satisfaction

I “unsweetened” this by swapping out the jam for a slightly more tart lemon curd and adding some fresh (frozen) berries into the base mix.  I also added some limoncello to the custard mix. Just because…name me one thing that isn’t made better by a liberal splash o’ booze.  And you know, it is the season….

General Satisfaction

It was still pretty sweet though.

This is at it’s best straight out of the oven with the custard runny and the meringue all crispy. However the last few pieces were also pretty good at room temperature a few days later as part  of an afternoon tea.

General Satisfaction
General Satisfaction

And if you make this, true to it’s name, I promise you will not be disappointed!!!

I am also interested to know what are most kookiest food names you have come across? General  Satisfaction must be right up there but I would love to know yours!!!

General Satisfaction 3Wishing you and yours not only general satisfaction but super happy fun times for 2015.  May it also be the year you learn to stop worrying…

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Print

General Satisfaction

Print Recipe

A lovely tangy take on a Victorian nursery pudding.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 level tbsp cornflour
  • 425g full cream milk
  • 1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped (or 1 tbsp vanilla essence)
  • 3 large eggs, separated
  • 5 tbsp caster sugar
  • 170g lemon curd
  • 1 cup mixed berries, thawed if using frozen
  • 1 tbsp warm water
  • 1/4 cup limoncello, maybe a bit more….
  • 10–12 savoiardi or sponge finger biscuits

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180c.

For The Custard

  1. Mix the cornflour with 1 tbsp milk.
  2. Pour the milk into a small, heavy saucepan. Add the vanilla seeds, empty pod and cornflour mix.
  3. Bring to the boil, stirring then drop the heat and simmer, still stirring for a coupe of minutes. Remove from the heat.
  4. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl then whisk in a tablespoonful of the milk mixture. Repeat three times then pout the combined egg and milk mixture into the warmed milk.
  5. Set the pan back over low heat, and whisk until the custard thickens and is perfectly smooth. Don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat, and whisk in 2 tablespoon of the sugar and half of the limoncello. Set aside to cool.

For The Lemon Berry Sauce

  1. Mix the lemon curd with 1 tbsp of just boiled water until runny and pour into the base of a medium baking dish.
  2. Scatter the berries over the curd then press them down with a potato masher to flatten them down a bit and get their juices running.
  3. Lay the savoiardi on top of the curd and berry mix and sprinkle with the remaining limoncello.
  4. Poor the cooled custard over the biscuits, straining if it is lumpy.

For The Meringue

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then whisk in the remaining sugar, little by little until you have a firm shiny meringue.
  2. Spoon the meringue over the custard.
  3. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 20 minutes until the meringue is pale golden and crisp when you tap it.

Notes

  • Adding a little bit of the milk to the egg, prevents the egg from cooking.

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