Fish Archives - Page 4 of 7 - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Fish

05
Sep
2021

The Mystery of American Sardine Toasts

categories: 1960's recipes, Daily News, Fish, Sandwiches, Sardines

A recipe from The Daily News Cookbook called American Sardine Toasts caught my eye recently. Without wanting to labour the point too much, we Melbourrnians recently spent our 200th (non-consecutive) day in lockdown which means I have now been working from home for around 18 months. I have also recently been working all the hours so my need for quick and easy meals, be they work from home lunches or speedy suppers when I am too tired to cook has become paramount.

And this could well be the recipe that gets me through! Oh, and Uber Eats, but you’re not here to hear me talk about my local Thai!

In case you are wondering what an American Sardine Toast is? It’s kind of a tuna melt but with sardines.

As soon as I read the recipe, I constructed a narrative in my head which went a little like this. Someone in what was then Ceylon had travelled to America and had a tuna melt. They had then brought the concept back home – except maybe 1960’s Ceylon did not have access to canned tuna so they used what they had – sardines! And no doubt the local newspaper, The Daily News, was keen to publish a recipe from the country that epitomised all things new and bright and shiny and voila the recipe for American Sardine Toasts or as they call it, Sardine Toasts, American came into being

Except….DJ….cue the X Files Spooky Music.

The Mystery

According to writer Warren Bobrow, the tuna melt was invented in 1965 in Charleston, South Carolina. But the recipe for American Sardine Toasts appears in my mum’s 1964 edition of the Daily News Cookery Book! There’s definitely something fishy about that!

So if not based on the tuna melt, what is this recipe based on? What makes it an American Sardine Toast instead of just a regular sardine toast?

I even wondered if I was reading the name incorrectly. Instead of the Sardine Toasts being American was it that the sardines came from America? So not American (Sardine Toasts) but (American Sardine) Toasts? The actual name Sardine Toasts, American would indicate the former but who knows with this book! Sadly the American provenance of these toasts has been lost to history.

Luckily for us, the actual recipe has not and these hit the spot of being quick, easy and delicious and so will go on heavy

The Recipes

Yes, recipes! I took the OG recipe and modernised it to make it easier for WFH lunches. It also works well as a light supper too.

Here’s the original:

And here’s my version:

American Sardine Toasts

Print Recipe

A quick and easy alternative to a tuna melt!

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

2 slices of toast

Butter

1 can of sardines in tomato sauce

1/4 red onion, finely chopped

80g grated cheddar cheese

I tbsp finely chopped parsley

Salt and pepper

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Lightly butter the pieces of toast

Place 2 sardines on each piece of toast, making sure you get some of the tomato sauce from the can as well.

Sprinkle some chopped onion on top of the sardines.

Sprinkle the cheese over the top.

Place under a grill (180C) for 5 minutes or until the cheese has melted.

Season with salt and pepper.

Sprinkle the chopped parsley over the top.

Cut each piece of toast in two.

Eat immediately!

Have a great week!

07
Aug
2021

Fish Finger Bhorta

categories: Fish, Nigella Lawson

It will come as no surprise, says the person who recently made a cake from Pepsi Cola and Peanut Butter, that every now and then, I like to indulge in a little bit of what might be called trashy food. Such was the case this week when, due to an event being cancelled because of lockdown, I found myself with an evening free and all the ingredients for Fish Finger Bhorta in my fridge! I have been dying to try this recipe ever since I read about it in Nigella Lawson’s Cook, Eat Repeat but had never actually got around to shopping for the specific ingredients.

And when I say ingredients I mean spinach. I always have fish fingers in my freezer (for me they are one of life’s great comfort foods), onions and the requisite spices in the pantry. But I usually just buy those one-serve packets of baby spinach from the supermarket and use the whole pack in whatever I need spinach for.

However, again, thanks to lockdown and idiot people who had stripped the shelves of the local supermarket of all the pre-packed spinach, I had to buy loose spinach from the greengrocer. Apparently, I have no idea how much spinach is required for one meal and bought way too much. So I had leftover spinach. I had a night free. I was in lockdown, in the middle of winter. If ever there was a time for comfort food in the shape of a fish finger bhorta this was it!

So, you might be wondering, what on earth is a bhorta? (I am going to assume we all know what fish fingers are). Well…the best I can figure out from the interwebs is that bhorta (aka Bhurta) is a spicy Bangladeshi concoction of mashed-up stuff. Can be veg, can be chicken, in this instance via Nigella the substance to be mashed is the humble fish finger.

This was soooo good!!!! I was a bit worried when Nigella said to cook the fish fingers for around 25 minutes. That’s about double the amount of time I normally cook them for. However, who am I to question the Queen? The fish fingers were gloriously crunchy, the onions delightfully pickle-y, the rest was a spicy mustardy melange of yum! And just look at the colours!!! The bright orangy yellow of the crumbed fish against the vivid pink of the pickled onions, the bright green of the coriander and the darker green of the spinach! This is not only a delicious meal but also a bit like a work of modern art!

And all that spinach makes it healthy too!

Now, I am never going to question Nigella who is one of my food heroes…but…oh lord…dare I even say it? But..you know what may make this even better? A little bit of raita or other yoghurty something on the side. Just to add a bit of creaminess to the crunchy, spicy, herby, mix.

Actually, you know what though? I don’t think Nigella would mind. After all, she freely admits to adapting this recipe from a tweet by Ash Sarkar. And in her introduction to the recipe she says

This dish says something so fundamental about what cooking is, about how we adapt to ingredients that are new to us and make them part of lives…..Honest borrowing is the natural province of the cook and recipes are living evolving entities”

My yoghurty thing on the side is just another evolution!

Here are two traditional bhortas for those who might want them:

Aloo Bortha

Chicken Bartha

And here is Nigella’s recipe.

Have a great week!

28
Feb
2021

Fish and Chips – The Seven Dials Mystery

categories: Dining With The Dame, England, Fish

Hello crime readers and food lovers! Today we are eating some fish and chips with Dame Agatha. And discussing The Seven Dials Mystery. This book could best be described as a caper – I thought it was a really fun romp of a read. The book features Lady Eileen Brent (aka Bundle) and Inspector Battle who we first met in The Secret of Chimneys. I very much liked Bundle in the Secret of Chimneys and I like her even more in this one! She is mostly fearless, smart and funny – my kind of heroine!

The Seven Dials Mystery – The Plot

Chimneys is being rented to Sir Oswald and Lady Croote who are hosting a house party. One of the guests, Gerry Wade is a chronic oversleeper much to the dismay of Lady Croote. Gery’s habitual lateness is putting strain in the running of the house. His friends decide to sneak 8 alarm clocks into Gerry’s room all set to go off at different times of the morning in the hope that the resulting cacophony will get the sleepyhead up at a decent hour. The clocks go off but Gerry does not wake up. Then or ever. Gerry has been murdered! And weirdly enough, there are now only 7 alarm clocks in his room…

On top of a missing clock and a dead body we have

Mysterious references to The Seven Dials in hidden letters and on the lips of a dying man
Another murder – by gunshot this time
Seedy nightclubs in a London area called Seven Dials
Secret letters
Shady Russians,
Sinister secret societies of seven who wear masks of clock faces
Stolen chemical formulae
And a marriage proposal for Bundle!

The Covers

There is not much variety in the covers for this book. Nearly all of then feature clocks of some sort. I like the image of the burning gloves but my favourite is the very are deco looking version (bottom left and below. The back of this cover also contains an image of Bundle’s reckless driving which features in the story.

Note the above version of The Seven Dials Mystery will set you back a cool £819 GBP so maybe not one for most of us! At the other end of the spectrum, you can get the Tom Adams cover version on Ebay for $1 AUD at the moment.

The Recipe – Fish and Chips

Full disclosure here. I was getting myself into a bit of a tizzy about this meal. I have one deep fryer which meant that either the fish was going to get cold while I cooked the chips or vice versa. My solution was to make the fish as per the recipe below but to use frozen oven fries.

Second disclosure. I would normally never make fish and chips at home – to me, this is a meal best eaten as a take away ideally by the seaside.

I used John Dory as my fish because that is the fish used by our favourite pub fish and chips. In Seven Dials, they would traditionally use cod.

I added some dill and a little homegrown horseradish into my tartare as well as all the ingredients listed in the recipe.

“Where did everyone go?”

“To the Seven Dials Club of course, ” said Bill, staring. “Wasn’t that what you were asking about”

“I didn ‘t know it by that name,” said Bundle.

“Used to be a slummy sort of district round about Tottenham Court Road way. It’s all pulled down and cleaned up now. But the Seven Dials Club keeps to the old atmosphere. Fried fish and chips. General squalor.”

Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery

Other Food Mentioned in The Seven Dials Mystery

Quails
Omelette (I feel every Christie book so far has mentioned an omelette)
The lightest thing in souffles
Grapes for dessert
Oysters
Lobster
Dry biscuits

The next book, if you are reading along, is Murder at the Vicarage. Yes, March will bring our very first Miss Marple murder mystery!

06
Feb
2021

Satanic Sardines

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Bread, Fish, Sardines, The Party Cookbook

Hello my friends! They say there are defining moments in our lives, days which we will never forget. For some, it was the death of John F Kennedy, Princess Diana or 9 -11. Today, 6th February, way back in 1989 was such a day for Harold and Deborah Degan. Who? I hear you ask. We’ll get to that in a minute. For the moment, just know that we are celebrating the event with a dish of satanic sardines!

Something Fishy This Way Comes

Imagine you are Harold Degan, resident of the small inland Queensland country town of Rosewood. If nowhere had a middle, this might not be it exactly it but it’s certainly within shouting distance. It is about 11:30 in the morning on the 6 of February 1989 and you are pottering around your garden shed. You are starting to feel a bit peckish and are hoping that your wife, Deborah, will shortly call out that lunch is ready.

Suddenly you hear a tap-tap, tap-tap-tap on the tin roof of the shed. This sound signals the rains have come and judging from the noise of the drops on the roof it is a heavy downpour. You wonder if you should try to make a dash for the house. Or, would it be better to sit the shower out in the comfort of the shed and have another sneaky ciggie while you wait?

You open the shed door to better assess your options and…

Jesus H Christ on a cracker!!!!!

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Between the shed and the house, a distance of some 80 feet, there are hundreds and hundreds of small fish flapping on the ground. The sound of the “rain” has also alerted Deborah. As you stand at the shed door staring at the fish wondering where on earth they’ve come from, you register the sound of the back door opening.

Deborah’s startled exclamation of “Where the f*** have all these fish come from Harold?”* shows that even she, ever the prankster, is in no way responsible for the fishy situation in your backyard.

Where indeed have all the fish come from? They have either sprouted from the ground like feisty flapping fishy seedlings sent from the Devil himself or they have dropped from the sky like a Piscine offering from God. Harold looks up. He looks down. He looks across the 80-foot expanse of dirt and fish to his wife and shrugs “F***ed if I know Deb.”

The Rosewood Sardine Shower

It did indeed rain fish in Rosewood on 6 February 1989.

The official explanation for the shower was that:

In a matter of extremely peculiar circumstances, a violent storm updraught drew fish from shallow waters into the atmosphere; only to be dumped on, of all places, an inland town.

– Sunshine Coast Daily

Yup, Rosewood had a Sardine-ado!

Whilst the event is commonly known as a sardine shower due to the small size of the fish, they were actually found to be bream.

Breamnado and Sardineado were considered as the names for a movie franchise many years later. These were discounted for the more scary sounding shark*

The dialogue between Harold and Deborah Degan above is totally contrived for creative purposes. Having said that, I know a number of people from country Queensland and they all swear like howsyourfather. It is probably closer to the mark than either one of them describing the sardine shower as “A bit of a phenomenon”.

I also cannot 100% verify that Harold Degan used to sneak cigarettes in his shed. However, popular culture has lead me to believe that sheds are almost entirely used for sneaking cigarettes, porn or dead bodies. I’m giving Harold the benefit of the doubt on this one.

I’m a Coal Train, Fast Lane, Caught up in the Dirty Rain

(Jamie T – Zombie)

Little fish have also supposedly rained from the sky in Mexico, England, Thailand and Honduras.

Other weird things reported to have fallen from the sky are frogs, alligators hermit crabs, blood, fungal spores, corn kernels and cows!

Satanic Sardines – The Recipe

I am aware that some people find any form of sardine to be Satanic. And I get that. They are very fishy fish. Personally, I love them. They were also part of one of my favourite meals ever which happened in a tiny little restaurant in Zagreb. The recipe for the Satanic Sardines comes from The Party Cookbook from 1976 which I have cooked from previously.

My changes to the Satanic Sardines recipe

I added some chopped tomatoes in homage to the dish I had at Heritage in Zagreb.
I did not chop the crusts off the bread because I am no longer five. And neither are you. Eat your crusts like a grown-up. It will make your hair grow curly**
I used a multigrain sourdough not brown bread

Have a great week! As Harold and Deborah would say, so long and thanks for all the fish!

*This is not true

**This is also very likely not true. But I’m not calling my mum a liar. And neither should you.

22
Dec
2020

Salami on a Sushi Platter?

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Fish, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Japan, Rice, Salami, World Cooking

Kon’nichiwa friends! Today we are making Sushi but not any old sushi. Today, I am using the recipe for O’Sushi contained in the Japanese chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery (1972). It’s mostly sushi as we know it with one notable exception. Yes, that is salami in the middle of the plate!

For this recipe, I wanted to put myself into the shoes of a housewife from 1972 who had never tasted or seen sushi before. So, for the purposes of this post, this is me, using my new-fangled microwave to zip up some delightful treats for the kids.

And later tonight when they are in bed I am going to make some fancy pants Japanese food for date night with the hubby because we like walking on the wild side. Just look at the massive pocket on my denim overalls dress. If that doesn’t scream living on the edge, I don’t know what does. Except for maybe my cork platform sandals.

O-Sushi The Recipe.

Boil some rice in the usual fashion. Prepare a sauce of vinegar, sugar and salt whilst it is cooking, using 2 tsps sugar to 1 tbsp vinegar.

How much salt Good Housekeeping? And what do you mean boil rice in the usual fashion? I’ve never boiled rice in my life. Good lord, step one and already I need to phone a friend?

Sheila? I’m making the sushi…su….shi…It’s Japanese. Only I don’t know how to boil rice or how much salt to add to the sauce? What do you mean my hair, face, clothes and kitchen seem different? I’m not interested in continuity I’m interested in salt and getting laid tonight! This is date night sushi Sheila so quit with the comments and help me with the rice…oh…ok…thanks.

The rice should be dried and cooled quickly and the juice is shaken over it whilst it cools.

WTF? Where am I supposed to get juice from? Oh…the vinegar sauce is the juice? Why did they suddenly decide to call it juice? And how quickly does this rice need to be dried and cooled? Maybe I’ll just pop it in the fridge and shake the juice / sauce over it from there? Will that work?

Ok, next step.

Form the rice into small flat rolls or cakes and garnish with any of the following: Boiled prawns

Smoked Salmon

Raw Fish

Tinned fish; Anchovy fillets; ham or any other cold meat thinly sliced;

A thin omelette seasoned with salt and sugar, edible seaweed, or any salad vegetable

Place the garnish on top of or around the rice cakes. Alternatively, cylindrical cakes can be made with a filling in the centre and and thin layer of egg, seaweed, etc around the outside.

Well, mercy sakes alive, it looks like I’ve just made proper some Japanese O’Sushi….I really hope hubby likes it!

The Following Day – The Sushi Wrap Up

Hello Sheila? I”m just calling to fill you in on date night last night. Yes, it went very well. The food was all very tasty but we both agree. Raw fish will never really catch on here…it’s just too out there for most people! The salami sushi though? That was the bomb! I can see people lining up in the streets for some of that! …. The sex? No, nothing, I caught a cold from standing in front of the open fridge for and hours and shaking juice on the rice and had to go to bed early.

Have a great week!

PS – For a real insight into the art of making sushi, watch Jiro Dreams of Sushi.