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Category: Eggs

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!

09
Oct
2022

Ceviche & Eggs A La Mexicana

categories: 1970's recipes, Eggs, Fish, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Mexico

Hola amigas y amantes de la comida! Did I ever mention that during that very first lockdown of 2020, I tried learning Spanish on Duolingo? That first sentence pretty much reflects the highest level of proficiency I attained. Despite my very limited ability to speak the language, we are leaving the snowbound land of Canada to head south to the sun and sea of Mexico via Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery. And our first meal is going to be an absolute favourite of mine – Ceviche!

Ceviche contains so many things I love – raw fish, avocado, lemon, tomato, chill and coriander! And it is also so vibrant! I used tuna in my ceviche so there was the gorgeous pink of the tuna, some red tomatoes, the bright green of the coriander, the more more mellow yellow green of the avocado some bright yellow pear tomatoes so it really was very colourful.

I then also made Eggs A La Mexicana from the same chapter and the colour palette was quite similar!

Of course I am not the first person to realise that a lot of Mexican food is yellow, red and green…there are several colour palettes to this effect on Pinterest and elsewhere:

Having said that, the part of my brain that probably spends too much time at work, or thinking about work, thought the colour palette of both dishes was very similar to that of an Excel conditional formatting colour scale! So I may well be the first person to link Mexican food and a spreadsheeting tool!

The Recipes – Ceviche and Eggs a La Mexicana

Both of these were delicious and easy to cook! Which as long-time readers will know was definitely not the case the last time I ventured into the realm of Mexican cooking! Mind you, I’m not saying that these recipes are absolutely authentico but they had me doing a little dance like this all the same!I hope your week has you also doing a little dance and not staring at too many spreadsheets!

25
Sep
2022

Lemon Soufflé – The Incredible Theft

categories: Desserts, Dining With The Dame, Eggs, Soufflé

Hello crime readers and food lovers! Today we are reading (and eating) our way through another short story from the Murder in The Mews collection. On the menu is a lovely and light lemon soufflé. Also, an apology for the long break between posts – we had a lovely week away but pretty soon after we got home, I fell ill. I had an old-school non-covid flu that lasted nearly two weeks and left me with infections in both ears! A lingering cough from that same flu also lead me to putting my back out! All up, September has been a month of me either being ill or in pain, neither of which has left me with much energy for cooking or writing. However, I read this Poirot short story when away and in the small gap of time between my return home and getting ill, I cooked the soufflés.

The Incredible Theft- The Plot

.Air Marshal Sir George Carrington calls Poirot to come to the country house of Sir Charles Mayhew where some plans for a new bomber have been stolen. The bomber will give Britain unparalleled power in the air should war eventuate. The theft of the plans is a great blow to Britain’s military power. Attending a house party on the night of the theft was Mrs Vanderlyn, a much-married vamp who is described as being “a very useful person to….a European power – and perhaps to more than one European power”. Given her marriages have been to an Italian, a German and a Russian, we are not only given the start of a joke where three men walk into a bar but the possible European powers to which Mrs Vanderlyn might be useful!

Pefect Poolside Reading — Perfect Poolside Reading!

Apart from the seductive Mrs Vanderlyn we have

A mysterious figure in the shadows
A screaming maid
A woman with gambling debts
A spoiled son in need of some cash
Britain’s likely next Prime Minister with something to hide from the populace

Good thing we have Poirot to sort it all out. Only…do we? This story is somewhat of an anomaly because only after the denouement do we realise that Poirot actually does very little – all the work is done by….ah…that would be telling! 🙊

The Incredible Theft- The Covers

I could only find two covers for The Incredible Theft – neither of which are very exciting:

Instead, I thought we could all crush on the divine country manor that features in the Poirot version of The Incredible Theft

And, whilst we are in full drool mode, how about we take a look at Mrs Vanderlyn (and also some more house porn)

That same dress also does not disappoint from the back!

Here is another very glam outfit!

No wonder half of Europe seems to be gaga for Mrs V!

Lady Carrington also knows how to rock a sparkle and lace combo!

As much as I could dote on the fashions and locations of Poirot all day, we need to move on to another gorgeous little number, my lemon soufflé!

The Recipe – Lemon Soufflé

Lemon Soufflé – The Incredible Theft

Print Recipe

A lovely light dessert, given a retro twist by serving it in the lemons.

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

8 medium-sized lemons
3 eggs, separated
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 tbsp plain flour
Pinch of salt
2 Tbsp icing sugar for dusting

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Line an oven tray with baking paper.
Trim the base of the lemon so they sit flat. Cut off the top third of each lemon and, using a teaspoon, remove the pulp from the lemons (this takes a while) over a bowl lined with a sieve.
Squeeze the juice from the pulp and reserve. Discard the pulp.
Place the lemon shells on the prepared tray.
Preheat your oven to 180C
Combine the yolks, half the sugar, 1/4 cup of lemon juice and the flour in a heatproof bowl. Beat until thick and pale.
Place the bowl over a pan of simmering water and beat for another 8-10 minutes until the mixture is the thickness of a thick custard. Remove from the heat but continue to beat until the mixture is cool – about another 2-3 minutes.
Beat the egg whites to soft peaks, add the remaining salt and the remaining sugar and beat until the mixture is thick and glossy.
Whisk one-third of the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture. Fold the egg white mixture into the yolk mixture with a large metal spoon. Be as gentle as you can here. You want to preserve as much of the lightness and air from the whipped whites as possible.
Spoon the mixture into the lemon shells, filling to the rims.
Bake for 15-20 minutes until the soufflés have risen 2-3 centimetres above the rim of the lemons and are golden.
Transfer to serving plates, dust with icing sugar and serve immediately.

Notes

Leftover lemon juice can be frozen into ice cube trays to use as you need.
Or seeing as life has given you lemons, make lemonade!
If you accidentally poke your spoon through the bottom of the lemon as you are removing the pulp, never mind. Wrap the base of the lemon tightly in aluminium foil for cooking and remove it for serving. This will prevent any souffle mixture oozing out the bottom!

As the butler handed round the souffle, Lord Mayfield leaned confidentially towards his neighbour on the right, Lady Julia Carrington. Known as the perfect host, Lord Mayfield took trouble to live up to his reputation. Although unmarried, he was always charming to women.”

– Agatha Christie, The Incredible Theft

Links to The Christieverse

Nothing that I could find.

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in The Incredible Theft

Dessert
Port
Breakfast

October’s read will be another short story from Murder in the Mews. Get out your sunblock and get ready for some fun and murder in the sun with Triangle at Rhodes.

Happy reading and cooking!

18
Apr
2022

Shakshuka – Murder in Mesopotamia

categories: Dining With The Dame, Eggs, Middle Eastern, Poirot

Easter greetings crime readers and food lovers! In a seasonally appropriate menu today I am cooking eggs. Shakshuka is a Middle Eastern dish described somewhat inelegantly by Nurse Amy Leatheran in Murder in Mesopotamia as “eggs in sauce”.

Murder in Mesopotamia – The Plot

“Bismillahi ar raham ar rahim. That is the Arab phrase used before starting out on a journey. Eh bien, we too are starting on a journey. A journey into the past. A journey into the strange places of the human soul.”

– Hercule Poirot in Murder in Mesopotamia by Agatha Christie

Our journey into the strange places of the human soul begins when our narrator. hospital nurse Amy Leatheran, is hired by Swedish-American archaeologist Dr Eric Leidner to look after his wife Louise who is suffering from “nervous terrors”. The couple is living at an archaeological dig site very closely based on the Royal Cemetery at Ur where Christie met her second husband Sir Max Mallowan.

Friends tell Amy that a strange tense atmosphere prevails at Tell Yarrimjah, an atmosphere that most people blame on Louise Leidner. Louise is disliked by everyone but her husband who adores her.

Louise shows Amy a series of threatening letters which she believes may have been sent to her by either her dead / not dead first husband or his deranged younger brother. It is these along with some other scary events that are terrifying Louise.

Louise Leidner is murdered the next day. Hit over the head by a heavy blunt object.

However, no one entered the compound during the time of the murder. So someone in the dig party is a murderer.

But who? And why?

Plot Points

Poirot solo. No Hastings or Japp in this one although Amy steps in to be Watson to his Sherlock. The Poirot episode of Murder in Mesopotamia does have Hastings though.
“Dead” faces in windows and other things that go bump in the night
Poirot jabbing people with pins
Another member of the dig party killed horribly but not before she can gasp out a key clue to Louise’s deah
A priest who might not be a priest
Some side shenanigans of stolen artefacts and drug abuse

There is a truckload of casual racism in Murder in Mesopotamia, most of which is espoused by Amy. I feel though that we are meant to see this as a by-product of Amy’s parochial ways and not as an espousal of Christie’s worldview. Does this make it more palatable? It’s definitely a case of hate the player not the game which is not always distinguishable in Christie.

Beware Spoilers

Ok, if you intend on reading Murder in Mesopotamia, skip down to the covers. For the rest of us, let’s talk about that ending. When I was in high school, in either year 8 or 9 we had to read a book called The Wife of Martin Guerre. The premise of this novel (land also the movie Sommersby which was a film adaptation of it) is that Martin Guerre returns home after being at war or somesuch for an extended period of time. Only he’s a very different man to the one who left. Not just emotionally. He’s actually a different man.

Even as a young teenager I found this plot ridiculous. Because why does no one else recognise that this is not Martin Guerre numero uno? The wife has a vested interest because MG2 is a whole lot nicer. But did no other person realise that this man was not Martin Guerre?

Similarly, in Murder in Mesopotamia, we find out that murderer of Louise Leidner is her devoted husband Eric who is also her dead / now definitely not dead first husband Fredrick Bosner.

I mean really? I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed but if one of my exes was to turn up on the doorstep tomorrow with a new name and haircut I am pretty damn sure I would recognise him long before I decided to rekindle any old flames.

It’s certainnly a plot twist but just not a very credible one!

Murder in Mesopotamia – The Covers

There are some AMAZING covers here including a French and a Bangla version of Murder in Mesopotamia. My fave is the pulpy middle row second from left which shows a terrified Louise Leidner in the foreground with a threatening man – (dead / not dead first husband? Deranged younger brother? ) in the background.

The Recipe – Shakshuka

I used the chickpea shakshuka recipe from Women’s Weekly Vegetarian for my recipe. Chickpeas are not a standard inclusion in a shakshuka however, I like them as they bulk out a meal that I usually eat for dinner rather than the traditional breakfast. I also like to sprinkle a little feta over my shakshuka which is not in this recipe.

Lunch was just ready and we went in, the doctor apologising for his daughter who he saiid was always late. We;d just has a very good dish of eggs in sauce when she came in an Dr Reilly said , “Nurse, this is my daughter Sheila.”.

-Agatha Christie – Murder in Mesopotamia

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Murder in Mesopotamia

Tea and coffee (lots of both)
Toast and jam, rock buns, cutting cake
Curry
Scones
Sandwiches

May’s book will be Cards on the Table, another Poirot but this time with Ariadne Oliver who I love!

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!