Meat Archives - Page 12 of 13 - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Meat

07
May
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times – You’re Gonna Have To Face It, You’re Addicted To…

categories: Asparagus, Bacon, Breakfast, Cheese, Eggs, Lunch, Tomatoes

I go through phases where I become utterly obsessed with a dish or an ingredient and have to buy it, cook it, eat it, ad nauseam. Earlier this year it was tahini – I ate more hummus than some of the smaller Middle Eastern countries during that particular phase! Prior to that, it was the Mary’s Gone Crackers Black Pepper Crackers – who knew that something so good for you could also taste so delish! Before that it was chipotle chillies….I quite obviously have an addictive personality.

You can relax mum. This is not when I confess to the crack/smack/cocaine/gambling addiction. Sleep safe. My newest and only…(well, as long as you don’t count things that are French and bubbly) addiction is my version of Mary Meredith’s Television Egg.

Breakfast Television Eggs

Why Television Eggs? Who knows. Mary doesn’t explain her reasoning. In my version she is bereft of ideas and just shouting out random bits of household furniture and food to see what sticks. “Dishwasher Cheese. Coffee-table bacon. Couch potato…that one’s good. Let’s go with that. What the fuck do you mean it’s been done? Ok….Ermmm…..Television Eggs.”

(Oh, and in my mind Mary Meredith has a very strong Scottish Brogue. I’m not going to go all Irvine Welsh on you…just saying that should be the accent in which she is read).

Whatever you call it. It’s a baked egg with asparagus and tomato. I love a baked egg. What I don’t enjoy is scrubbing baking dishes to rid them of the residue of a baked egg, so I have added my twist. Instead of serving it in a ramekin with toast soldiers as per MM’s suggestion, I’ve been baking them in a hollowed out bread roll.

I have now made ~~three~~ four versions of this and plan to make many more over the next few days. But lets start with the original:

Television Eggs Recipe

I added some tarragon and a teeny drop of cream into mine, just because I had them in the fridge and neither was going to last much longer. Waste not want not right? But it points to one of the strengths of this recipe, you can pretty much do what you like with it!

Television Eggs - Ingredients — Television Eggs – Ingredients

Televison Eggs for Lunch 2 — Television Eggs for Lunch 2

You can, of course, cook your eggs longer for a harder yolk or less for a runnier one.

Whilst the original version was great, I then got the bug and started making television eggs out of everything we had on hand.

My variations thus far have been Rocket, Feta, Tomato and Smoked Paprika:

Televison Eggs With Rocket, Feta and Tomato — Television Eggs With Rocket, Feta and Tomato

Television Eggs With Rocket, Feta and Tomato

When I made the rocket and feta version, I also made a breakfast egg to have after my workout at the gym the next morning. This consisted of Ham, Swiss and Tomato:

Breakfast Televison Eggs — Breakfast Television Eggs

A handy hint I discovered was that, if you cook your television eggs on a rack, the bottom of the bread doesn’t burn.

More Variations to Try

Smoked salmon, dill and cream cheese, (maybe with a splash of hollandaise).
Mushrooms, chives and goats cheese
Spinach and feta, spring onions

Televison Eggs for Lunch 1

Leek and Gorgonzola (and yes, for those of you who know me, this is inspired by the best pizza ever!)
Baked Beans, cheddar cheese – another breakfast version
Chorizo, Potato and tomato – sauté this mixture first.
Creamed spinach
Sautéed potato cubes, green chilli, red onion and goats cheese
Hummus, Chipotle chillies and Mary’s Gone Crackers Black Pepper Cracker Crumbs Sprinkled on top

Ok, so that last one may be just for me but you get the drift. Cheap, cheerful, easy, healthy-ish and delicious! What more could you ask for?

r ides of march premiere 280911

Yes, ok, I want that too.

And I believe me, if I was in a position to give it to you, my dear and loyal readers….you’d have to step over my cold dead body to get it. That would be mine. All mine.

I’m sharing the eggs though…and they are pretty damn good.

I’m going to be spending my week working through versions of Television Eggs for my lunches. Oh, and look at the totally awesome retro lunch box I’m going to buy to put them in:

However you have your lunches, have a great week…and try these eggs!

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PS – Late breaking news – newest post gym version – ham, cheese, avocado, chilli sauce. Put on very low heat before leaving home. By the time you get back (an hour?) this will be cooked to perfection!

Ham, Egg, Avocado, Cheese and Chilli Television Egg

15
Apr
2013

Retro food For Modern Times – Yes, We Have No Bananas

categories: Bacon, Bananas, Books, Chicken & Poultry, Desserts, Orange Flower Water, Pie, Rhubarb

Bananas are not my favourite fruit. I put it down to an ill-advised visit to a…(please don’t let my mum be reading this)… “show” in Amsterdam when I was, younger and more prone to ~~drunkenness~~ peer pressure than I am now. It took many a year before I could even look at a banana (or anyone dressed in a Batman costume) without an inward cringe and a slight sense of shame.

But, even a banana-phobe like me could not resist trying out the recipe for Rhubarb and Banana Pie in Good Cooking For Everyone. Here is a sneak peek at how that turned out before we turn to some less appetising uses.

OMG that pie was good!!!

I’m conquering my fears in more ways than one this week – bananas and homemade pastry! If only Christian Bale would drop by we could go for the hat trick. Anyway, I had a little flick through Good Cooking for Everyone whilst I was waiting for my pastry to chill and there seemed to be a lot fewer recipes containing bananas than I remembered.

Here is what was listed:

However, my eagle eye soon discovered out the recipes Mary Meredith tried to hide. So, today, allow me to present the Banana File of Shame (and a really, really, good pie recipe)!

Mary Meredith seems to have had quite the predilection for bananas and bacon as they feature in three recipes. I had no idea this was a thing but Niki Sengit gives the combination a stamp of approval in her Flavour Thesaurus (one of my favourite food books) so I guess it must be. Like Mary, Niki also gives a recipe for Bacon Wrapped Bananas. However it is the cheese sauce in Mary Meredith’s recipe that moves it from what Niki calls “fun” to what I call “Ewww”!

Bacon and Banana Corkscrews

Then there are Bacon, Kidney and Banana Kebabs. I have never cooked with, or even knowingly eaten, kidneys. And after reading the second sentence in this recipe which made me gag, it will probably stay that way! The faint of stomach may want to skip recipe.

Bacon, Banana and Kidney Kebabs 001

There is also a sneaky use of bananas in the Sunrise Breakfast. I initially thought the things on the serving platter with the tomatoes were sausages. But who ever heard of people eating sausages for breakfast? Crumbed bananas make far more sense. If you’re insane.

Mind you, I’m obviously a bit slow because I made the same mistake with the Sunday Chicken which also features bananas cunningly disguised as sausages.

Another combination I would never have thought of but Niki assures me that breaded chicken with banana was served on the Titanic and features in F. Scott Fitzgerald‘s novel Tender is the Night! Mary Meredith also features chicken and bananas in her recipe for Stuffed Boned Chicken.

I would have included the pages on how to bone a chicken. Unfortunately, the 13-year-old boy whose sense of humour I stole was snickering so hard at the phrase “boning a chicken” that I had to let it go.

Mary is also not afraid to take food from other climes and destroy them with the inappropriate inclusion of the banana.

A recipe called Flamenco Rice should invoke Spain. It should bring up images of a glamorous Spanish woman, holding the edge of her brightly coloured ruffled dress and twirling, or clicking her castanets to the tune of a classical guitar. Or, at the very least, Paella.

Fried eggs and fried bananas on a bed of rice served with tomato sauce is not flamenco. It’s not even the Macarena.

flamenco 001

France also does not fair well. Bananas as an accompaniment to Fondue? No thanks.

Fabulous copper fondue pot though!

Finally, the hidden gem in the shape of a Rhubarb and Banana Pie. This was awesome!

I made a few small changes to the recipe as given. I wanted a really short, almost a shortbread, crust so I used the Almond Sweetcrust Pastry in Alan Campion and Michelle Curtis’ In The Kitchen instead of that suggested by Mary. If you are scared of large quantities of butter look away now.

I mastered the pastry only to discover my pie dish had disappeared into the Bermuda Triangle that hovers over my house. But, in the spirit of keep calm and carry on, I crossed my fingers and rolled the pastry into a soufflé dish.

I added 1 teaspoon of Orange Flower Water into the mix before I loaded it into the Pie Crust. I love the mix of rhubarb and orange!

Banana and Rhubarb Pie ingredients loaded into crust

The pie was fabulous, the flavours worked beautifully together and the pastry was light and crisp. I kept my rhubarb and my banana relatively chunky which made for an interesting mix – one mouthful would be heavily rhubarb in flavour, the next would be almost entirely banana. If you wanted less sharply defined flavours, you could cook the rhubarb to soften it, then mash be bananas in.

I may be biased but I think mine looks pretty good, despite the use of a soufflé dish!!!

Mary's Rhubarb and Banana Pie — Mary’s Rhubarb and Banana Pie

Rhubarb and Banana Pie Recipe

Almond Sweetcrust Pastry

They say the best way to get rid of your phobias it to face them. So, this week I’m going to be spending a lot of time looking at pictures of Christian Bale on the internet.

And no, it’s not pervy. It’s therapy!

Enjoy whatever catches your eye this week.

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08
Apr
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times: Good Cooking for (Almost) Everyone (1981)

categories: 1970's food, Bacon, Books, Cake, Prunes, Sandwiches, Vintage Cookbooks

Hello there, time to take a look into a new book.

Welcome to Mary Meredith’s Good Cooking for Everyone.

Good Cooking For Everyone by Mary Meredith 002

Let me just start with a little quibble. When i think of 1981, I think of this:

And not so much this:

Mary Meredith 001

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not having a go at Mary here. This book was first published in 1970 and this was a probably a perfectly acceptable photo back then. Eleven years later, you’d think that maybe the publishers could have forked out for a new publicity photo. Maybe one using that new technology of colour.

The 500 “specially selected recipes” in this book do address a wide audience, if not exactly everyone.

In keeping with the Livvie theme above, there are sandwiches that would suit people watching their weight:

Lettuce and Lemon Sandwiches 001

And recipes for those who are most definitely not.

Mary calls this “California Stuffed Forehock.” I prefer to think of it as “The Reason Elvis (Permanently) Left the Building”. The prunes in the recipe could explain why he was found on the toilet.

Californian Stuffed Forehock 001

Enough for 4 people or one bacon lovin’ popstar!

From The King, to proper royalty, Mary Meredith also provides us with a dainty dish to set before a king. Four and twenty blackbirds anyone?

Cutlet Pie

In fairness to Mary, it’s not actually blackbirds but a mix of lamb kidneys and cutlets. In fairness to modern sensibility, I was staring at this picture wondering how to describe the sheer awfulness of a pie with bones in little bootees sticking out of it. Mark looked at it over my shoulder. “You’re not making that are you?” he asked, sounding a little shaky. I assured him I was not. “Good” he said. “Because it looks fucking horrible.” Description problem solved.

Then, there are recipes for people who want their cakes to look like footwear. (Why? WHY???)

Shoe cake - who doesn't want to eat an old boot on their birthday! — Shoe cake – who doesn’t want to eat an old boot on their birthday!

And recipes for people who want to traumatise their children. Never mind the chocolate-roll cats at the front, what are those weird shiny pink things with faces ? Apart from the stuff of nightmares?

Children's Party Food — Children’s Party Food

I did however manage to find one group of people for who Mary was not catering for. I was searching the index of this book when, in the B’s, I came across:

Baked Lemon Potatoes
Batch of scones

It’s an odd way of listing these items but there were corresponding entries under L, P and S so whilst kooky, they weren’t entirely random. (But again, maybe something that should have been corrected in the 1981 edition.)

I also noticed under M:

Making a jug of cocoa

Using this logic surely every recipe should be listed under M?

Making Lettuce and lemon sandwiches
Making Elvis Has Left The Building, etc.

And just to be really irritating there is no corresponding entry under C listing:

Cocoa, Making a jug of

I’m sorry cocoa drinkers of the world, I guess if you were of a logical mind in 1981 and wanted to find out how to make a jug of your favourite drink (without having to scan through 499 other recipes), you were S.O.L.

I’m spending the weekend with a jug of margaritas… it was going to be cocoa but the recipe was too damn hard to find!

So much for an alcohol free April!

Whatever your tipple, have a great week.

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25
Mar
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times: Angels, Devils and Cheesy Devils on Horseback

categories: 1970's food, Bacon, Goat's Cheese, Hors D'oeuvres, Oysters, Prunes

No, it’s not my review of the new Dan Brown blockbuster, it’s bacon! Lovely, crispy, salty bacon wrapped around…stuff that isn’t bacon.

Angels, Devils and Cheesy Devils on Horseback

I love bacon even though it was my undoing. I was a very happy vegetarian for two years in high school. If my mother is reading this, right about now, she will be having a little snicker to herself and muttering “Huh…The only vegetarian in the world who didn’t eat vegetables.” And there is a grain of truth in that. I did spend two years eating not much more than tomato and cheese sandwiches and the occasional omelette.

Until I was brought down by bacon.

(Cue dramatic music…wow, this could be turning into a Dan Brown novel).

Angels on Horseback (picture from The Party Cookbook).

I used to have tennis lessons, very early, every Sunday morning. The family that lived next door to the tennis courts would, without fail, have a fry up for breakfast every week. The smell of bacon would drift out over the tennis court in a haze of mouth-watering deliciousness. “Eat me, eat me, ” it taunted.

Over weeks of this, bacon came to represent so much more than a tasty breakfast dish, it became a symbol of a better life. The kind of life where, on Sunday mornings, people had leisurely cooked breakfasts and listened to Mozart and spoke French whilst doing the Sunday crossword in less than twenty minutes. It represented a glamour and sophistication utterly removed from my reality of huffing and puffing around a glorified field, still half asleep, wearing a polyester track suit that did not so much keep the cold out as keep the sweat in and having someone repeatedly yelling at me to hit a damn ball over a stupid net. I began to yearn for bacon in the same way I yearned for Paris and champagne and pink Sobranie cigarettes in one of those long cigarette holders like Audrey Hepburn’s in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

I was a weird child.

Angels on Horseback - Ingredients — Angels on Horseback – Ingredients

I have no idea whether the neighbours were the glamorous types I imagined them to be or a bunch of suburban lard-arses who are now appearing on The Biggest Loser so that their fat-clogged arteries can be given a second lease of life. I suspect the latter. If so, can I suggest that the producers of the show make them play tennis. At seven. On a Sunday morning. In winter. I’ll be lurking somewhere near by with a portable grill and a couple of rashers. Let’s see how they like it.

Anyway, I lasted about three months before I caved. One cold wintry morning I came home from said lesson. Mum asked if I would like my tomato and cheese sandwich plain or toasted.

“I want bacon” I snapped in the snotty way only a 16-year-old can. Then I stomped upstairs to my room and listened to The Smiths until mum called me back downstairs for a plate of lovely, lovely life-affirming B & E.

History lesson over. And that’s about all the history I can give you because the reasons oysters are linked with angels, prunes with devils and either wrapped in bacon is termed “on horseback” are lost in time. Maybe that could be the subject of the next Dan Brown… an obscure culinary term could lead Robert Langdon on a search that reveals the long hidden conspiracy behind whether Elvis really did die on his toilet. (If you’re reading this Brown, back off now. I know what you’re like. The Fried-Peanut-Butter and Bacon-Sandwich Code is mine.)

Inspired by the Angels on Horseback recipe in The Party Cookbook I recently went on a bacon rampage and made three versions of this classic hors d’œuvre.

Angels on horseback recipe 001

If you like it spicy, adding a dash of tabasco sauce to the Angels only makes them more delicious!

For Devils on Horseback, substitute Prunes for the Oysters above and leave out the paprika.

Devils on Horseback and Cheesy Devils on Horseback - Ingredients — Devils on Horseback and Cheesy Devils on Horseback – Ingredients

For Cheesy Devils, stuff the prunes with Goat’s Cheese before wrapping in the bacon.

Some people like to serve their Devils on Horseback with Mango Chutney. I’m not a big fan but I did have some Kashmiri Date Chutney in the fridge and this was quite nice as a dip for the Cheesy Devils.

These were all delicious and I would make them all again. In order my preference was Angels on Horseback, Cheesy Devils, then Devils on Horseback but I would not discount any of them.

I no longer desire the Sobranies, but Angels on Horseback with a Glass of champagne and the Sunday Cryptic crossword? C’est parfait!

Have a great week!
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22
Jan
2013

Retro Food For Modern Times: Singers and Swingers In The Kitchen – Roberta Ashley (1967) – Franks, Mince and A Saucer of Milk!

categories: Books, Celebrity Cookbooks, Frankfurters, Minced Beef

Whilst I love all old cookbooks, there is a special place in my heart for the celebrity cookbook and finding Roberta Ashley’s “Singers and Swingers In The Kitchen” was like finding the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

Subtitled

“The Scene Makers Cookbook Dozens of Nutty Turned On Easy-To-Prepare Recipes From The Grooviest Gourmets Happening”

Singers and Swingers is a collection of recipes from The Rolling Stones, The Byrds, Leonard Nimoy, Barbra Streisand, Liza Minelli and other icons of the ’60’s “that will keep you grooving with the greatest.”

Life really does not get much better than this!

Front Cover - Singers and Swingers in the Kitchen — Front Cover – Singers and Swingers in the Kitchen

Back Cover - Singers and Swingers In The Kitchen — Back Cover – Singers and Swingers In The Kitchen

As teenage columnist for This Week Magazine, Ms Ashley often asked bright young things of the day what their favourite foods were. She advises that many of these dishes were:

“Worked out while they were quietly starving or working in a “pass-the-basket” coffee-house. That means that most of these dishes can be cooked on allowance type money…or very little bread as they say”

Which just makes me love it more…star studded AND thrifty is one of my favourite combinations!

And for those readers who may be new to the kitchen, or hesitant cooks, Ms Ashley offers the following words of encouragement.

“Give it a try, the recipes are mostly easy ones and remember a year ago, Barbra Streisand couldn’t cook at all”

Adorable!

The recipes in the book are mostly solid, with only the occasional piece of WTFery thrown in. If there is a real problem with the book it is that there is a certain degree of repetition in the recipes. Of the 68 main recipes in the book, minced meat features in 11. These include:

3 recipes for Chilli:

Chili by Paul Revere
Chili Esperanza by The Mamas and The Papas. They liked to eat this with scrambled eggs…the thought of that makes me gag a little. (Then again, maybe they should have stuck to softer types of foods like chili and scrambled eggs and avoided the types of food that can get stuck in your throat like sandwiches.)
Chili for Chums. This is not name checked but to my mind is actually the best of the lot.

Paul Revere was the lead singer of a band called Paul Revere and the Raiders who liked to dress up in period costume and presumably precede all of their gigs by repeatedly shouting “The British are coming, the British are coming”.

Ah, those crazy days of the ’60’s. I bet he feels a little silly about wearing that costume now….

Then again, maybe not.

Returning to the prevalence of ground mince, there are also 3 recipes for Sloppy Joe Type Creations:

Sloppy Joe A La Sam The Sham
A Jones Delight by Jack Jones
Snick Snack Hamburgers by Lesly Gore. Lesly Gore was famous for her song “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To”. She must have self catered because these sound repulsive.

Lesly Gore's Snick Snack Hamburgers — Lesly Gore’s Snick Snack Hamburgers

There is an equally revolting concoction called Robb Stew made by one of the three Robb brothers from the band called….you guessed it…The Robbs…They appeared to operate on the principle that if you can’t be original, be consistently unoriginal. Surprisingly, all members of this band were not wiped out by food poisoning in 1968 but 3 of them went on to have illustrious careers in the music industry by founding Robb…I mean…Cherokee Studios in Los Angeles. This studio has produced artists such as The Gogo’s, Aerosmith, Lenny Kravitz, Devo, Public Enemy and Jane’s Addiction to name but a few! Quite possibly this is truly a case of what doesn’t kill you making you stronger.

There are also 4 instances of minced meat with pasta:

Carol Lawrence’s Lasagne
Noel Harrison’s Bolognese Sauce
Paul Anka’s Party Spaghetti
The Buckinghams‘ Spaghetti and Meatballs

Whilst their recipe does sound delicious, some of those Buckinghams look a little druggy around the eyes if you ask me!

Not like these clean living young men from groovy London town!

Wow! Look at the young Keith Richards in 1967 (middle row on the right). And look at him now:

If you ever needed a reason not to take a bucket load of drugs look no further!

The Stone’s recipe is one of the six that contain frankfurters as one of the key ingredients.

Chili Dog Chili by the aforementioned Paul Revere. That man sure did love his chilli!
Golden Joys
Hurry up Casserole
Frankfurter Casserole
Hot Dogs on The Rocks by the Rolling Stones
Frank Pops by The Cyrkle. I have no idea who The Cyrkle were. And if this recipe is anything to go by, I’m not surprised that they have faded into obscurity. Placing battered franks on a stick doesn’t make them more fun, it only adds insult to injury!

The Cyrkle's Frank Pops — The Cyrkle’s Frank Pops

Mind you, the recipe from The Rolling Stones is not up to much either…although…with the right sausage, a proper gourmet one, and proper mash, this could be a perfectly acceptable meal! It can, can’t it? Or have I just been married to an Englishman for too many years?

I love a recipe that comes with its own warning! In case you were wondering

“Mick Jagger invented the potatoes and franks; Charlie Watts added the beans”

There is a tone to some of the entries that suggests there may not have been much love lost between Ms Ashley and some of the celebrities. Here is Ashley’s introduction to Liza Minelli’s recipe for Crepes Suzette:

“Liza Minelli is a little girl who’s come a long way despite a terrible handicap”

The part of me that craves gossip and scandal read on with an overly avid “Wow, really? What’s she got?”

The so-called terrible handicap?

Famous parents.

Unless they had different meanings for both the word “terrible” and the word “handicap” back in the late ‘60’s that is a nasty thing to say about someone! Poor old Liza doesn’t even get a proper photo, just a teeny thing on the cover!

Carol Lawrence also gets short shrift (even if she does get a very glamorous photo).

We are told that Carol is:

“Making a rather nice name for herself in Hollywood; not as a star but as a lasagne-maker”

Ouch!

Not really how a Tony Award Winning Actor would want to be known! Mind you, she did go on to write a best-selling cookbook about Italian Cooking so maybe Ashley’s comment is more prescient than catty.

You may have noticed whilst reading this that there have been no pictures of food. That’s because the book doesn’t contain any. This, as with most celebrity cookbooks, is long on celebrity, short on food. That some of the recipes sound super is a bonus. That some of them sound absolutely vile will be the subject of the next post.

In the meantime, put some flowers in your hair, light some incense and groove out to some fabulous sounds of the sixties. It’s what I’ll be doing!