Rice Archives - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Rice

27
Dec
2023

Dec 03 – Make Mine A Double

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Champagne, Delicious, Desserts, Drinks, Icecream, Potato, Rice, Salad, Salmon, Sorbet

Hello, retro food lovers and Season’s Greetings from 2003! This month I am using Delicious Magazine from December 2003 to prepare a menu where…well let’s see if you can guess…Hint..there’s a big clue in the title.

The whole time I was cooking this month I also kept thinking back to my early twenties when we used to play a drinking game called “I’m going to the moon”. The person who starts says “I’m going to the moon and I’m taking (for example) an apple”. Then the next person says “I’m going to the moon and I’m taking a pear”. The first person who is the game controller tells them if they can come to the moon or not. If they can’t go, they need to stay on earth and have a drink. There are many variations on this game but my personal favourite was based on the same theme as this month. Let’s move away from my sozzled past to see what was happening in December 2003. Although come to think about it, that was probably the same time as I was playing the game!

The Lord of The Rings: Return of the King was the big movie of December 2003. The Last Samurai was the next biggest. And, quelle surprise, The Da Vinci Code was still the best-selling book. Which all kind of explains why I was playing drinking games instead of partaking in pop culture. Although the soundtrack to those drinking games would have been good with Here Without You and Hey Ya! being the number one songs that month!

The Menu – December 2003

Moorish Champagne Cocktail

I am always very happy to be able to start these menus with a cocktail. The Moorish Champagne Cocktail was both easy to make and also very more-ish!

Moorish Champagne Tart Recipe

Salad of Dried Pears, Proscuitto, Blue Cheese and Walnuts

AKA a salad of a few of my favourite things! If this hadn’t fit the theme, it would have surely been my Nigella item for this month! And it was divine!

Salad of Dried Pears, Proscuitto, Blue Cheese and Walnuts Recipe

Grilled Salmon with Thai Green Risotto

I apologise for the photo of this which is not great. Having said this, the photo from the mag (which follows the recipe) is also not great. Neither photo does this dish, which was amazing any justice! But, trust me, it is worth taking a punt on as it was delicious!

Grilled Salmon with Thai Green Risotto Recipe

Mulled Wine Sorbet With Clove Biscuits

This was so nice and refreshing. It is summer in Australia so this is a nice nod to wintry flavours but adapted for summer. The sorbet mixture was very soft, for me it was more like a slushie than a sorbet so my recommendation is either not to serve it on a very hot day or to eat it quickly as it melts in moments. Speaking of melting, the clove biscuits just melt in your mouth! I am usually a bit wary of cloves – I’ve bit into them accidentally when eating things like curries and find the flavour a bit too much! So, for the first few biscuits, I ate, I picked the cloves off. Since then, I have eaten them with the clove in and the flavour of them seems to be less powerful in the biscuits than in say a curry. So, even if you don’t love cloves, give these a try with them!

Mulled Wine Sorbet with Clove Biscuits Recipe

My Nigella Moment – Crispy Herbed Potatoes

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.

You had me at crispy potatoes! And then when I saw how pretty these were, I knew they would be my Nigella item for this month. If I hadn’t already bought what I needed to make Katrina Meynink’s Roasted Taters with Horseradish and Tapenade for Christmas Day, the Crispy Herbed Potatoes would have been on the menu. (As an aside, I have just bought the aforementioned book From Salt to Jam and am absolutely loving it).

Crispy Seared Potatoes Recipe

Overall a great month from Delicious December 2003. If you have not yet guessed the theme, no going to the moon for you! But in the interest of your liver, it was to find recipes with double letters. Until I did this, I had never really thought about how many food items had these. I was absolutely spoiled for choice with options:

(Update 6/1/24 – I had originally included links to items below that are still on the Delicious.com.au website. Those links have been blocked but anything I have asterisked is available should you want to check them out.)

Starters

Baked eggs
Bruschetta with grilled artichokes and roasted garlic
B’stilla*
Cheese Crock
Chilled pea soup with lobster and risoni salad*
Goat’s curd in grappa*
Prawn and fattoush salad
Schiacciata*
Spanner crab chowder
Peppered Beef Salad
Smoked Salmon with clementines and cress
Terrine with microwave cranberry chutney

Mains and Sides

Beef fillet with spicy potatoes and horseradish
Butternut pumpkin with tasty stuffing
Cheeky Christmas turkey with braised leeks and the best wine gravy
Chicken noodle salad
Chicken with pepperoncini
Cinnamon and sultana couscous
Cold turkey salad with mango and honey dressing
Country chicken and mushroom pies
Chicken coconut curry pie
Crispy skin coral trout with roasted pineapple, coconut salad and rosti potato
Fillets of John Dory with olives, capers and rosemary
Flame grilled tuna with wasbi cake, bok choy and lime ponzu
Fricassee of chicken with mustard and grapes
Grilled coral trout with asparagus, red capsicum and sugar snap peas
Rice paper rolls with turkey
Seared barramundi with garlic skordalia, asparagus and creole salsa
Traditional Barossa ham in verjuice jelly
Turkey with saffron butter and preserved lemon and olive stuffing
Baked zucchini tarts with stuffed vegetables
Frisee, watercress and witlof salad
Goat’s cheese tarts with roast peaches and vincotto
Moroccan carrot salad
Open lasagne of asparagus with rocket tortellini
Roasted eggplant and tomato salad
Savoury Summer puddings
Sweet potato briks
Truffled potato mash

Sweets

Baked lime cheesecake
Boozy puddings with cheat’s custard*
Cherry clafoutis*
Choc-mint raspberry sundae
Chocolate and strawberry tartines*
Chocolate and brandied prune terrine*
Christmas morning muffins*
Christmas pudding ice cream with sweet cranberry sauce
Cinnamon ice cream with red wine poached figs*
Chocolate cake with plum pudding vodka*
Coconut and passionfruit slice
Eggnog custards*
Flourless Hazelnut roulade
Free-form berry trifles
Middle Eastern fruit cake*
Pannettone with berries and brandy sauce
Passionfruit panna cotta*
Raspberry ice cream sundae
Snowballs*
Starry night tarts*
Star-topped mince pies
Strawberry sundae*
Tutti Frutti ice cream*
Vanilla sponge with raspberries
White Chocolate and chilli ice cream with tropical fruit

Other

Hettie Potter’s suet-free mince meat
Easy cranberry sauce
Peanut Butter sauce
Raspberry sauce
Strawberry sauce
Irish coffee with orange rind and vanilla

Sorry for the massive laundry list but I really wanted to show how many items had double letters! I was honestly astounded!

So, my question to you lovely readers is – if you were making your own double-letter dinner, what would you choose? Either from the extensive list above or things that have not been mentioned – baguettes, beetroot, jelly, waffles, green beans, toffee, frittata, dill, mayonnaise, cabbage, spaghetti, mozzarella…the list goes on!

Couscous which is in the list above is the only thing I could think of with the same series of letters twice. Can you think of any others?

And one last thing. Thank you all for reading and commenting through the year! Best wishes for an amazing 2024!

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
May
2023

Moors and Christians

categories: 1970's recipes, Cuba, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Great Name, Rice, The Caribbean, World Cooking

I love food that has an evocative/unusual name so as soon as I saw a recipe for something called Moors and Christians in the Caribbean chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery (1972), I knew it was something I wanted to cook.

This dish which is a mix of black beans and rice comes from Cuba and looks back to the time of conflict between the Moors and Christians in Spain. It represents the end of this conflict and how two different cultures can live side by side in harmony. Which is a heartwarming story for a lovely spot of comfort food!

Moors and Christians was a great side dish to a very non-Cuban lamb and potato curry we were having that night for dinner. I could also see myself just eating it with a little pico de gallo-style salad. Or mixed some pulled beef or chicken as a burrito filling!

Moors and Christians – The Recipe

This looks to be a very simple version of Moors and Christians. There are some more elaborate versions on the internet if you want something more fancy!0

I was also fascinated to see that my dish which I cooked without a picture reference was a lot paler than most of the other dishes. I think this might be because I cheated a little bit and used canned black beans.

Travel Aspirations

I am fairly sure that Moors and Christians is the first Cuban-inspired food I have eaten. And reflecting on it reawakened a long-held desire of mine to travel there. I first got the urge after watching The Beuna Vista Social Club many years ago. The music, the dancing, the culture really spoke to me! Now that we can travel again, I guess I better start saving!

Havana here I come!

Have a great week!

14
Mar
2022

Vegeree

categories: Books, Film, Modern Times, Podcasts, Rice, Vegetarian

Hello friends and welcome to the best of February! The nicest thing I made this month was a vegetarian kedgeree (vegeree geddit) from Jamie Oliver. This recipe is from his Everyday Superfoods book and it is a belter! Kedgeree is a dish of spiced rice, usually made with smoked fish which grew to prominence in Colonial India. Traditionally, Kedgeree is a breakfast dish but I had mine for dinner. And as much as I love a bit of smoked fish, this was so delicious I am not sure if I will even bother to try the classic version after eating this one!

This is a dish to eat with your eyes before shovelling it down. It is so pretty and bright. I can see why it became popular for breakfast – those bright reds and greens and yellows would put a smile even on my totally-not-a-morning-person face. I used normal basmati rice, not brown and beans not peas for my vegeree.

Vegeree – The Recipe

I apologise for the state of this page. It is more than somewhat food splattered!!! (but the sign of a good recipe I always think).

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

The Best book I read this month was Fuzz: When Nature Breaks The Law by Mary Roach. I loved learning about the different interactions between humans and animals. Not as fun but also fascinating is the book I am partway through – Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists. As someone who mostly reads fiction, it was good to have two non-fiction recommendations this week!

Cookbook

Our theme for our Tasty Reads Cookbook Club this month is Charity Shop book and we spent a lovely Saturday morning having brunch and then shopping for our books. I bought three books during our shopping which was quite the haul. The one I am cooking from is a massive tome called Australia’s Favourite Recipes. From the photography in the book, I initially thought it was from the 1970s or 80s but I later found out it was published in 2010! Unfortunately, I am somewhat regretting my choice – not because of the dated photos but the book is so tall that it does not fit into any of my bookshelves!

I was intrigued to find within its pages a recipe for a chicken dish called Shakuti. This is possibly a recipe for the Chicken Xacuti mentioned in the Tim Key episode of the Off-Menu Podcast. I had never heard of this curry before. And now I have a recipe! The Baader-Meinhof effect at work!

Watching

We saw Death on The Nile which I LOVED. The scenery was spectacular and made me want to go to Egypt to see the sights myself. The Dining with the Dame for this will be later this year.

Listening

I’ve started listening to the Twin Flames podcast and am very much enjoying the current series of Rabbits. The Rabbits novel is also great! I’m devastated that the shipping for Path Cards outside the US is so expensive. I would buy a pack for sure if it was anywhere near reasonable!

Moving

Along with my beloved Zumba classes, I am now doing Sh’bam classes at the local gym and LOVING them! I love an exercise class where it feels more like fun than hard work and this certainly fits the bill! Looking forward to shifting some of those covid kilos through dance!

Tomorrow is a public holiday here to celebrate Labour Day. I will be celebrating the introduction of the 8-hour workday with a sleep in, a trip to the gym and some baking which hopefully will feature here shortly!

Have a wonderful week!

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.