Eggs Archives - Page 2 of 11 - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Eggs

21
Oct
2023

Oeufs Caroline – Five Little Pigs

categories: 1960's recipes, Dining With The Dame, Eggs, Poirot

Hello crime readers and food lovers. In what is starting to become a bit of a trend, today’s post is dedicated to one of the main characters in Five Little Pigs, Caroline Crale. To many fans, Five Little Pigs is the nec plus ultra of the Christie novels. And it is an absolute cracker! We never actually meet Caroline as she is sixteen years dead when the story begins. But…what a character. I absolutely loved her. Her dignity, grace, loyalty, and fiery temperament made her a wonderful compelling and intriguing character.

I also feel that all egg recipes are a little wink to Poirot and his egg-shaped head!

I found the recipe for Oeufs Caroline in the French children’s cookbook called La Cuisine Est Un Jeu D’Enfants by Michel Oliver (1963). It is a very cute book and I will definitely cook more from it but the timing on this recipe was completely wrong. You have no idea how many times I ate Oeufs Caroline for lunch this week trying to get it right!

Five Little Pigs – The Plot

The accepted version of certain facts is not necessarily the true one.”

Agatha Christie – Five Little Pigs

A young woman called Carla Lemarchant approaches Hercule Poirot with a very unusual case. Sixteen years ago, her mother, Caroline Crale was found guilty of poisoning her father Amyas Crale. However, before she died in prison, Caroline sent a letter to her daughter professing her innocence. Carla wants Poirot to find out the truth. Did her mother kill her father? Poirot focuses his investigation on the five people, apart from Carla and Caroline who were present on the day Amyas died. For if Caroline is not guilty, then one of them is…

We have:

Philip Blake

A stockbroker (went to market, geddit?) was one of Amyas’ closest friends. On the day of Amyas’ death, he overhears an argument between Caroline and Amyas where Caroline threatens to kill him. Philip is apparently no fan of Caroline and puts the murder down to “crude female jealousy. However, does he have a secret desire to see Amyas dead?

Meredith Blake

Philip’s brother. Unlike his brother who is a successful broker, Meredith stayed home and dabbled in herbalism and other country pursuits. It is some coniine from his laboratory that killed Amyas. Unlike his brother, Meredith admits a fondness for and a loyalty to Caroline. He argues with Amyas saying that the situation with Elsa was an “”unendurable insult” and not fair to either woman. Might seeing the woman he cares for being mistreated have given him a motive for murder?

Elsa Greer (now Lady Dittisham)

The little piggy who had roast beef. She was a rich, spoiled beautiful, young woman in love with Amyas. It is her deliberate provocation of Caroline on the day of the murder that many people see as being the catalyst for later, lethal events. Poirot…”saw her beautiful and rich, seductive to men, seeking with greedy predatory hands to fill up a life that was empty”. She is still vitriolic about Caroline and says she would have preferred to see her hanged.

Cecilia Williams

Angela Warren’s former governess. She is a shrewd, fiercely loyal woman, living “close to the bone”. She epitomises the one who has none. She believes that Amyas got what was coming to him, her sympathies are entirely with Caroline. But she also has proof, never previously disclosed that Caroline murdered Amyas

Angela Warren

Caroline’s half-sister. Caroline is overly protective of Angela after disfiguring her face in a fit of pique as a much younger woman. Angela is spoiled and enjoys playing tricks on Amyas. He wants to send her away to school. She doesn’t want to go and this is causing some additional friction between Amyas and Caroline (as if there wasn’t enough already -the two are already, to quote Bonnie Tyler, “Living in a powderkeg and giving off sparks!).

Amyas Crale

And finally, let’s talk about Amyas. In my first few drafts of this, I didn’t include a description of him because I felt we all know this character. That is not to say that he is badly drawn but because many of us have met this person in real life. He is an Artist and everything and everyone around him comes second to his art…back in my uni days, I would have found him irresistible. Now, the sheer arrogance and gall of this man would make me want to stab him in the neck.

Amyas was…a ruthless egoist. He loved Caroline but he never once considered her in any way. He did as he pleased…he was as fond of her as he could be of anybody – but she came a long way behind his art

Agatha Christie – Five Little Pigs

🤮

Well, just like Shaggy, it wasn’t me but it was someone. And it will take all of Poirot’s little grey cells to figure this one out!

Five Little Pigs – The Covers

There’s nothing too crazy in the covers, lots of references to Amyas being an artist, and a few to the poisoned beer. My favourites are the second row, second left for its pulp fiction feel and amazing font. And I also really like third row first on the left with the artist and his brushes.

The Recipe – Ouefs Caroline

I have included here both the OG recipe from Cuisine Est Un Jeu D’Enfants and my updated version.

Oeufs Caroline

Print Recipe

A lovely breakfast or lunch dish, inspired by Agatha Christie’s Three Little Pigs

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

1 tomato
1 egg
1 slice of bread (I used a potato and rosemary bread)
1 tbsp Creme Fraiche
Chives or other herbs to garnish
Butter, Salt Pepper

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Cut the top off the tomato and scoop out the insides with a spoon.
Sprinkle the inside of the tomato with salt and turn upside down. This will help to drain a lot of the tomato juice. Otherwise, your eggs will be very watery. Leave for 1/2 -1 hour.
Heat your oven to 180C.
Crack the egg and separate. I found it easier to put the yolk into the tomato first and then top up with the white. Don’t overfill. You need some room to add the creme fraiche.
Butter your bread and place the tomato on top of it.
Place your egg-filled tomato and bread into the oven and cook for approximately 15 minutes for a soft egg and 25 minutes for a harder egg. Check this as cooking time will depend on the size of your tomato.
After 15-25 minutes add the creme fraiche to the egg, turn off the oven and turn on the grill. Grill for an additional 5 minutes.
Remove from the oven and garnish with herbs, salt and pepper.

Notes

I wanted to keep mine vegetarian but you could add a rasher or two of bacon when you place the tomatoes under the grill.

And Caroline Crale? Each person had seen her differently. Montague Depleach had despised her as a defeatist-a quitter. To young Fogg she had represented Romance. Edmunds saw her simply as a ‘lady’. Mr Jonathan had called her a stormy, turbulent creature. How would he, Hercule Poirot, have seen her? On the answer to that question depended, he felt, the success of his quest. So far, not one of the people he had seen had doubted that whatever else she was, Caroline Crale was also a murderess.”

Agatha Christie – Five Little Pigs

Links To The Christieverse

Poirot brings a letter of introduction from Lady Mary Lytton-Gore with him when he meets Meredith Blake.

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Five Little Pigs

Butter
Beer
Coffee
Sandwiches
Plums, sour apples, hard pears
Dandelion Tea
Roast Beef
Gin, Vermouth, Lemonade, Gingerbeer
Fruit
Fish

November’s read is The Moving Finger

13
Aug
2023

Mock Crab

categories: Eggs

Hello, retro food lovers and…war buffs? Today I am sharing a recipe for Mock Crab which was inspired by my reading of N or M by Agatha Christie. The real Dining with the Dame post will come next week but during my reading of this book, I became mildly obsessed with the food of wartime Britain. I found a fabulous blog called The 1940’s Experiment and decided to give one of the wartime recipes a whirl! I am also mildly obsessed with “mock” foods so I chose mock crab.

Umm…what? I hear you say. Mock crab looks like this! However, it looks to all the world that you have posted a photo of some scrambled eggs on toast. Did you mix your photos up? Might we finally be getting a post on the bacon and eggs that is mentioned in EVERY Agatha Christie novel but has yet to make an appearance in Dining with the Dame?

Well…no and no. This my friends is mock crab.

But also yes. Because this is scrambled eggs on toast. Albeit some mildly vinegary scrambled eggs on toast. This recipe perplexed me and I’ll tell you why as soon as I share the link. Here it is: Wartime Mock Crab.

Mock Me Not

So here is what I don’t understand about the mock crab. Cheesy scrambled eggs are delicious. And not just for breakfast. I would eat them at any time of day! Cheesy scrambled eggs with salad dressing and additional vinegar? Not so much. This, for me, was, unfortunately, something that was less than the sum of its parts. I’m also not quite sure why, particularly when you are on rations, you would add anything to cheesy scrambled eggs. My preference would have been to save the dressing and vinegar for something else (maybe a salad?) and to eat the eggs as scrambled eggs.

I can only surmise that the addition of the salad dressing and vinegar was to make it taste more crabby. If so, it didn’t work. No one in their right mind would mistake the taste of this for crab. And yet….there was something. Maybe the texture? Or possibly the power of suggestion…that made this somewhat reminiscent of crab.

Whilst I didn’t love the mock crab, it was nice to take a peek into war time cooking and imagine the gang at the Sans Souci (from N and M) tucking into a plate of of it for lunch.

Next weeks post will be on N or M, an Agatha Christie wartime thriller featuring Tommy and Tuppence. At least I hope it will be. I will be on holiday, soaking up some sun in the north of Australia so I will schedule it to run on Sunday. Fingers crossed it works!

Have a great week!

31
May
2023

Food For Lovers Redux

categories: Devilled Eggs, Food For Lovers, Prunes, Rice, Salad, Soup

Hello friends, and welcome to a special series I will be running over the next 12 months. A while ago, I realised I had totally missed the 10th birthday of this blog. In fact, I was thinking about how to celebrate this and wanted to check the exact date of the first post which I thought was in 2013. Nope. It was 17 May 2012! There didn’t seem much point in celebrating eleven years but twelve sounds impressive. So in the 12 months leading up to my 12th birthday I will be featuring one of the old books I blogged about in the early years. Those old posts are mostly dire but the books are quirky and fun or just plain good. Sometimes all three. To get this party started I am revisiting one of the most bonkers books I own – Kelly Brodsky’s Food for Lovers from 1971.

Food For Lovers – The Book

Food for Lovers is broken into 15 chapters, each of which is devoted to a particular type of man and the food that their beloved should cook to keep them interested. As the old adage goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach! This may make it sound like this is a very conservative, conventional cookbook – the type of book you might have seen in the 1950’s on how to please your husband. But this my friends was not the conservative 50s, this was the 1970s and the birth of women’s liberation so the tone is definitely tongue in cheek. At least I hope it is because each of the men mentioned sounds awful (although also somewhat recognisable). To introduce you to the book and its characters I thought it might be fun to do a little speed dating with the gents of Food for Lovers!

Bachelor #1 Come on down!

Freddy Finikin

“Freddys who dislike food are an asexual lot who seem to get a perverse kick from driving the women in their lives to a frenzy in search of something to tempt their appetite…the woman who falls for such a man is either unaware of his finickiness, or trapped, or mad, or maybe she prefers to read in bed”

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Should you find either the picture of Freddy or his blurb attractive, or you are mad, trapped, or prefer to read in bed here is a recipe to keep your Freddy happy!

Zakusi

You’ll notice I have changed the recipe so that rather than filling the egg whites “liberally” with caviar, I have made a more traditional and certainly more economically viable devilled egg. These were AMAZING. So tasty!!!!

Let’s move on to Bachelor #2

If fussy eaters aren’t your style, maybe this likely lad is more your speed!

Joe De Go

A man with the Midas touch, Joe usually has his fingers in many pies. Often in the guise of pop star, P.R, ad-man, disc jockey, TV star or such, he wizzes from one assignment, luncheon or deal to another with a slick show of competence that belies his lingering adolescence. Bright and on the ball he mostly shoes away from anything that smacks of more than superficial know-how, for he hates to be caught out of his depth

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Intrigued by the sound of Joe? Why not tempt his palate with some

Creamed Leek and Potato Soup

This soup was delicious!

Still not found your ideal man? Let’s take a look at Bachelor #3

Champers Chas

With the carefully cultivated air of an educated debauchee and a fascinating, if largely fabricated family history to back it, Champers provides an inexhaustible supply of gossip. Whether on or off the boards, he delights in titillating his ever present audience with spicy, often malicious anecdotes and ribaldry

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Fancy chatting with Chas? Tempt his tastebuds with some

Pistachio Nut Pilau

This was really nice, the rice was light and fluffy and went perfectly with last week’s Chilli Crab!

Still not found the love of your life? Maybe you like your men a little more sleazy and possibly criminal? Bachelor #4 may be more your style!

Professor Repressor

If the name doesn’t say it all, here’s Kelly’s description

Repressor exudes the coldness of a tree frog, his sang-froid masking some Lucifer-like leanings. One kinky chink in his armour is his obsession with the Lolita-type nubiles on his campus – who usually run for their sweet lives when they see the kind of red-hot light they inspire in his eyes. Inevitably, he is forced to turn his attentions to any neglected wives of his colleagues

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Ok. We might need a palate cleanser after that so how about some

Watercress and Orange Salad

This was great and just the refreshing hit I needed after writing about the pervy professor! Let’s swiftly move to Bachelor #5!

Gad About Guy

Gad about Guys come in all shapes and sizes with ages and egos to match. They usually hover round fellow Gads with a few of the uninitiated thrown in as audience. “Remember that night in Singapore when we strolled along Bugis Street – and those fantastic little roadside stalls with the delicious Satay? ….”Lord, yes! And will you ever forget that Lamb Solanka in Moscow last winter.”…And on and on it goes, the name dropping, the reminiscences and regurgitations of past splendours”

Kelly Brodsky – Food For Lovers

If the well-travelled man is your bag, why not whip up a lovely breakfast for him with some

Wine and Song Prunes

I LOVED these. I feel so bad that prunes have such a bad rap! This was so delicious. And what a fabulous name! I served mine with a little bit of labneh, some orange zest and some pistachios left over from the pilaf and it made a heavenly breakfast!

And because all good things must come to an end, we come to our lucky last Bachelor…who out there fancies

Jack Snack

He’s strictly a non-event up to his neck in dreary day to day existence, blissfully unaware of anything outside his tight little domain…his every move as predictable as the plainness of his sitting-room with it’s enormous brick veneered fireplace above which some gypsy flamencoes wildy within a heavy gilt frame

Kelly Brodsky – Food For Lovers

I laughed out loud when I read this because growing up, we had possibly that very same flamenco dancer painting on our wall at home! I thought it was incredibly beautiful and have always wanted to learn to flamenco as a result of it!

Now, I have also not made Jack’s Snack, mostly because I quite like my life and don’t fancy being taken down by a premature heart attack any time soon. But should you wish to share your life with this homebody and are not afraid of death by overindulgence, here is the recipe for a Veal Scallopine Sandwich that will melt Jack’s heart whilst simultaneously clogging his arteries!

Okay, food lovers, I hope you have enjoyed my second journey into Food For Lovers…I LOVED revisiting this book!!! And there are so many more delicious-sounding recipes and terrible men in it that we may have to take a third look somewhere down the track!

I have searched online for other books by Kelly Brodsky and Kelly Brodsky herself and have drawn a big flat blank! At the moment there also appear to be no other copies of Food for Lovers for sale so, sadly you cannot share my delight in this book. Kelly, if you are out there, and I hope you are, I hope you read this and know that fifty-two years after the publishing of your book, you have a number one fan in me!

Have a wonderful week friends and please let me know if you make that Veal Scallopini Sandwich! Or any of the other recipes!

02
Apr
2023

Eggsclusive

categories: 1980's recipes, Eggs, Posh Food

Hello friends and welcome to a pre-Easter edition of “What Posh People Ate in the 80’s”. This time they are not even pretending to be slumming it as even the name of this dish “Eggsclusive” speaks to its ritziness! The recipe for this eggcelllent (hey, if they can make egg puns, so can i! 😜) comes from the Vogue Entertaining Guide from Autumn 1986.

The Eggsclusive recipe comes from an article about the Lamrock Cafe in Bondi Beach in Sydney. A quick Google search showed that The Lamrock is still going strong. And OMG…look at that view. I know EXACTLY where I am heading for brunch next time I go to Sydney! (The Eggsclusive is sadly no longer on the menu though).

The Eggsclusive Recipe and Variations

You will notice that I have altered the recipe a little bit. I did not cook the smoked salmon or the caviare in the eggs, just served them on top. I also only used one type of caviar and I sprinkled some parsley and chives over the top.

This was really easy to make and has a lovely luxe appeal to it It would make the perfect breakfast in bed for someone you love (or yourself) over the Easter break. Why not complete the feel with a glass of champagne? And maybe some of these vintage Easter Pinups could influence your choice of attire!

How cute is this?

Or if little cottontails aren’t your bag, you could try a tutu like Debbie Reynolds.

Maybe an Easter bonnet might be more your style?

I would, however, suggest you avoid bursting out of an egg. This looks uncomfortable!

Have a safe and happy Easter, however you decide to spend it!

Other Recipes from the Vogue Entertaining Guide Autumn 1986:

13
Dec
2022

Stilton and Leek Soufflé – Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

categories: Blue Cheese, Dining With The Dame, Leeks, Poirot, Soufflé

Hello food lover and crime readers! Welcome to a festive edition of Dining with The Dame. Today’s menu contains a Stilton and Leek Soufflé inspired by Agatha Christie’s 1938 novel Hercule Poirot’s Christmas. It makes me wonder – of all the people who received this book as a Christmas present that year, who would have guessed that within 12 months the world would be plunged into a second and terrible world war? Ok, sorry, that was not a very festive way to start this post. But really despite being set at Christmas, this is not an overly festive novel!

Before we move into that, let’s briefly talk about the wonderful combination that is leek and blue cheese. I first came across this many years ago at a pizza restaurant not far from my work. They had a lunch deal which was two slices of pizza and a drink for a very small amount. My favourite slice of pizza was a leek and gorgonzola. I ordered it every week for years!

I realised the minute I took the soufflés out of the oven that I had left my copy of Hercule Poirot’s Christmas upstairs. There was no going to get it, the soufflés were falling by the second!

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas – The Plot

Simeon Lee is a very rich old man. And, like many rich old men, he is what they might have called back in Agatha Christie’s day, an old curmudgeon. I can think of a few more modern descriptions but, it’s Christmas so we’re keeping it clean! He’s angry at his family primarily as none of his sons have given him a grandson to carry on the family name. He is also somewhat of a braggart and likes to talk about all his sexual conquests and how he likely has many sons “on the other side of the blanket”. Which is gross, partly because he speaks at length about this to his granddaughter and no one, not even a formally estranged adult granddaughter needs to hear that grandpa was a f*ckboy! Also, because cheating on your wife and knocking up numerous women is not cool. He also has some uncut diamonds in his safe which he likes to fondle whilst he reminisces about his younger days in South Africa, Think Monty Burns crossed with Gollum and maybe a Bond villain and you have my interpretation of Simeon Lee.

He gets his though, as on Christmas Eve, not long after calling his family together to announce that he is changing his will, Simeon Lee has his throat cut. However the murder takes place in a locked room. And the diamonds are gone!

Who is the guilty culprit?

Harry, the prodigal son. Did he return just to do his father in?
David, the son who has always resented the way Simeon ill treated his mother.
George, the pompous son scared his father was going to reduce his allowance.
Alfred, the son who has remained steadfastly by Simeon’s side, jealous because his father favours Harry
Pilar Estravados, Simeon’s granddaughter, recently arrived from Spain.
Stephen Farr, the son of Simeon’s former business partner, come to England from South Africa
Horbury, Simeon’s possibly shifty valet.
All in all, we have many people who potentially Simeon Lee dead.
And a second murder attempt
And way too much blood!

Good thing we also have Poirot on hand to discover who did it and to explain the significance of a bit of rubber and a small wooden item found on the floor near Simeon’s body!

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas – The Covers

We have some absolutely cracking covers here, and a fair number of them from non-English speaking countries, which is something I love! My favorite is the pulp fiction cover from I’m going to say the 1950’s which I have shown below in full. Just take a closer look at the lady in red. Yes, I know all our eyes are drawn to her cleavage but the expression on her face is not even remotely congruent with the sight before her! “Pffftttt…another dead body just in time to ruin the holidays” she seems to be saying. “And by the way, have you seen my breasts? They’re real and they’re spectaular”

The Recipe – Stilton and Leek Soufflé

You might be wondering why I chose a stilton and leek and soufflé for this post. I was thinking I could make some sort of pun on Simeon Lee and Stilton Leek. The more I tried, the more laboured it became until I trashed it. Sometimes, as per Kenny Rogers, “you gotta know when to fold ’em”.

Good lord, who knew wen starting this we were going to get a Seinfeld quote and a Kenny lyric?

Here’s the recipe. It is from a 1992 book by the Australian Women’s Weekly called Brunches and Lunches.

As mentioned, I love the combo of leek and blue cheese. However, if you are not a lover of blue, you could sub in a cheese of your choice!

Tresilian went round with the soufflé. It struck him, now that hi interest in the ladies’ toiletries and his misgivings over Walter’s deficiencies were a thing of the past, that everyone was very silent tonight. At least, not exactly silent: Mr Harry was talking enough for twenty – no not Mr Harry, the South African gentleman. And the others were talking too, but only, as it were, in spasms. There was something a little – queer about them.

Agatha Christie – Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

Links to The Christieverse

Colonel Johnson refers to “that Cartwright case” when conversing with Poirot. This is reference to Three Act Tragedy.

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Hercule Poirot’s Christmas

Coffee
Hock I was not familiar with this name for Riesling but I feel this would work very well with the souffle!
Claret
Pear

January’s read will be the final novella in the Murder in the Mews Collection – Dead Man’s Mirror. And if anyone can get the pun on Simeon Lee and Stilton and Leek to work, please let me know!