Leeks Archives - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Leeks

25
Aug
2024

Spice It Up – August 2004

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Apples, Baking, Blue Cheese, Delicious, Indonesia, Lamb, Leeks, Magazines, Pie, Salad, Savoury Pies and Tarts

Hello friends! Welcome to Twenty Years Ago Today! For a spicy twist this month, I turned to the August 2004 issue of Delicious magazine for recipe ideas. While the month wasn’t perfect, one dish stood out as a clear highlight and is easily one of my top ten of the year. But, before we get there, let’s take a little look at what was making the charts pop culture-wise back in August 2004!

Pop Culture – August 2004

So, for the first week of August 2004 and, also for the first time in what seems like eleventy billion years, The Da Vinci Code was NOT the number one selling book. That honour went to R for Ricochet by Sue Grafton. Now, I have never read any of this series. Is anyone out there a fan? I love a good mystery / thriller. Please let me know if you think this series might be good for me! However, before we get too excited about the demise of The Da Vinci Code, it went back to number one for the rest of August.

Collateral was the best-selling film of August 2004 but Garden State, which was a film we covered in my film club was #10. Leave, (Get Out) by JoJo was the number 1 song. I do not remember this song or the singer at all!!! Does anyone?

In the absence of any memory of JoJo, let’s pop the soundtrack for Garden State onto Spotify and get cooking!

The Spice It Up Menu – August 2004

Gado Gado

Spices used – garlic, ginger etc in the Satay sauce, chilli

I adore Gado Gado. It’s the perfect balance of health and indulgence, combining the virtue of steamed vegetables with the decadence of a spicy satay sauce. Unfortunately, despite searching through multiple supermarkets, I couldn’t find the tofu puffs I typically include. To compensate for the protein, I added some eggs. I ate this as a main dish so wanted to make it a substantial meal.

I also took some liberties with the vegetables, using ingredients I preferred or had readily available instead of strictly adhering to the recipe.”

Gado-Gado Recipe

Lamb Chops with Bay, Paprika and Chickpeas

Spice used: Paprika

The Jamie Oliver recipe was…alright. While it wasn’t a favorite, it was certainly edible. I’m not likely to make it again, but it was passable.

The biggest issue was the excessive amount of chili. As someone who enjoys spicy food, that’s a rare complaint for me. The chili completely overwhelmed the other flavors.

Another minor annoyance was the recipe’s use of the term “chops” while actually calling for “cutlets.” For those unfamiliar with lamb, cutlets are significantly more expensive than traditional chops. I used loin chops for my version because I had some in my freezer.

Lamb Chops with Bay, Paprika and Chickpeas Recipe

Apple and Blackberry Pie

Spices used: Cinnamon and Cloves

This. Was .Divine.

Unfortunately, my photos were not. Please don’t judge this on the photo or my really bad lattice work because the pie really truly was AMAZING!!!! This is a top ten dish if ever there was one! There is a version with Rhubarb mentioned which I will also be trying ASAP!

Apple and Blackberry Pie Recipe

Cinnamon Tea and Recipe

Spice Used: Cinnamon

Delicious Magazine also contained a recipe for Cinnamon Tea. I only ever really drink herbal tea, so this was not for me. Howeever, as the name suggests, it does contain a spice so if you are a tea drinker and maybe wanted something to sip on while eating your pie, here is the recipe.

My Nigella Moment – Leek and Gorgonzola Tarts

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.

I love leek and gorgonzola anything as it reminds me of a pizzeria I used to go to with my work mates a few years ago that did an amazing leek and gorgonzola pizza! I didn’t think these were as good as the pizza but that could also be nostalgia talking. They were quite nice in their own right!

Leek and Gorgonzola Tarts Recipe

I hope you have enjoyed this trip back to August 2004. Have a great week!

13
Jan
2024

Death Comes As The End – Spelt Salad with Duck

categories: Dining With The Dame, Duck, Leeks, Salad

Hello crime readers and food lovers! I will admit that I was not looking forward to reading Death Comes As The End. Whilst I have read a few historical mysteries, it is not my preferred genre of mystery reading. The 150 years from the late 19th century (Sherlock Holmes) to now a pretty much my reading wheelhouse, mysteries included. So, the prospect of a story set in Ancient Egypt didn’t fill me with joy. And, who on earth knows what people in ancient Egypt ate? And would I be able to replicate something even remotely similar?

Luckily for me, Death Comes as The End is littered with references to items of food and so I was able to form an idea of what ingredients may have been available to someone in that time. Esa, references her favourite dish of reedbirds with leek and celery a few times so that formed the basis of the meal I wanted to make. Cooked celery makes me gag so that was out. But leek and duck…that sounded like something good!

I’m going to shake things up this time and list the foods mentioned first instead of last because I think that will help explain how “I” came to devise this dish.

Food & Drink Mentioned in Death Comes As The End

Roast Duck
Spelt
Barley
Dates
Syrian Wine
Honey
Triangular loaves of bread
Grapes
Quail
Cakes with Honey
Reed birds with leeks and celery
Olives
Pomegranate juice
Wine

From that list of ingredients, I chose duck, spelt or barley and leeks as the things I wanted in my recipe. I then searched through my cookbooks. I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted so I turned to technology to help. “Find me a recipe with duck, leek and spelt” I typed into an AI Chatbot. It delivered two recipes, one a barley risotto type thing and one a Spelt Salad with Duck, Leeks and Pomegranates. Bingo! A bonus is that the recipe also contains honey which is in the above list!

I also love the combination of using modern tech helping me to solve a problem of food from 4000 years ago!

I wasn’t sure if cheese was a thing in Ancient Egypt. Turns out, that Egyptians were making cheese 5000 years ago! How cool is that? I mean, they were also making the pyramids and the Sphinx which for most people probably trumps the fact that they were also making a bit of feta on the side. But for me, that is the funnest fact I have learned all year (13th January at the time of writing).

And, after all that, I forgot to add the cheese to my salad anyway! 🤦🏽‍♀️

Some Fun Facts About Death Comes As The End

This was the FIRST EVER historical whodunnit novel. Even if you dislike the book (I really liked it but I may be in the minority here) that is something!
It is the only Agatha Christie novel not set in the 20th Century
The novel is based on real letters written in Ancient Egypt from a man complaining about how badly his family treated his concubine
The book came about when Christie’s and Egyptologist Stephen Glanville suggested Agatha write a book set in ancient Egypt
It is one of the few Christie novels not (yet) adapted for the screen

Death Comes As The End – The Plot

Because you are truly Egyptian – because you love life, because, sometimes – you feel the shadow of death very near…

Agatha Christie – Death Comes as The End

Renisenb has returned to her father’s home with her young daughter after the death of her husband. Also living in Imhotep’s house are other members of his family including:

His eldest son Yamose, his wife Satipy and their family. Yahmose is diligent but also diffident. His wife constantly henpecks and belittles him.
Middle son Sobek and his wife Kait. Sobek is as hot-headed and rash as Yahmose is careful. Kait is the typical tiger mother, absorbed by and protective of her children
The youngest son, Ipy is arrogant and boastful. He is eager to be seen as an intelligent adult and no longer a child.
Semi blind, Imhotep’s mother Esa rounds out the members of the family however there are two others also living with the family.
Henet is a poor relative of Imhotep’s deceased wife who remains in the family to take care of them. She is obsequious gossip and a thoroughly nasty piece of work.
Finally there is Hori who is Imhotep’s scribe. Later, Kameni, another scribe joins the household.

There is some tension between the brothers and the wives bicker with each other but these troubles are nothing compared to what happens when, after a trip to the North, Imhotep brings Nofret, his new concubine, to live with them. The family is not happy about this. and are even less happy when Nofret begins to drive wedges between Imhotep and family members.

Nofret then falls to her death from a cliff. Accident? Or did someone in the family take matters into their own hands?

And then, there were nearly none!

Several more deaths follow leaving the remaining members of the family terrified. (A lot of people die in Death Comes As The End. The death count in this novel is second only to And Then There Were None! )

Are they being cursed by Nofret’s vengeful spirit or is the murderer far more corporeal?

Death Comes As The End- The Covers

I was able to find French, German, Czech and Portuguese covers along with some English ones for this novel. They are all pretty much as you would expect for a novel set in Ancient Egypt.

The Recipe – Spelt Salad with Duck

Print

Spelt Salad with Duck

Print Recipe

A delicious spelt salad with duck leeks and pomegranate inspired by Agatha Christie’s Death Comes As the End.

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

100g spelt

2 duck breasts

1 tsp vegetable oil

1/2 tbs duck seasoning (I didn’t know what this was so used 1/2 tbs ras el hanout for its Middle Eastern Flavours. )

2 leeks thinly sliced

1 tbs olive oil

1 orange, segmented

Handful of walnuts, toasted and chopped

1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese (I forgot to add this and the salad was fine without it so consider it optional)

Pomegranate Molasses

For The Dressing

2 tbsp olive oil

1 tbsp lemon juice

1 tsp honey

Salt and pepper

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

The AI recipe had no method of cooking the leeks so I assume they had them raw. I do not like the idea of raw leeks so I began by sauteeing the leeks in olive oil for around 20 minutes until they were soft and just starting to caramelise.

Preheat the oven to 180C.

Put the spelt in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil. Reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes. Drain and cool for 5 minutes.

Score the duck breasts in a crisscross pattern. Season with salt and pepper. Then brush with oil and sprinkle with duck seasoning / ras el hanout.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat and fry the duck, skin side down for 5 minutes. Then turn and cook on the flesh side for 2 minutes. Transfer, skin side up to a small roasting tin and put in the oven for 15 minutes. (I found this was too long, my duck was overcooked. I would check for doneness after about 8 minutes in the over and then every 2 minutes from there.)

While the duck cooks, toss the cooked spelt with the leeks, orange segments, pomegranate seeds and walnuts.

For the dressing, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper.

Slice the duck and arrange on top of the salad. Drizzle with the dressing and crumble the goat cheese over the top. / Mix the dressing with the spelt mixture. Slice the duck and arrange on top of the salad. Drizzle some pomegranate molasses over the duck.

Serve Immediately.

Enjoy!

Notes

Items in italics are those added by me, the rest is the recipe generated by AI

Did you make this recipe?

Tag @tarynnicole198 on Instagram and hashtag it ##retrofoodformoderntimes

Fear is everywhere

Death Comes As The End – Agatha Christie

Links To The Christieverse

None that I could find.

February’s read will be Towards Zero.

24
Jul
2023

The Return of the Australian Vegetable Cookbook

categories: 1970's recipes, Australian Vegetable Cookbook, Blue Cheese, Cornwall, Leeks, Lettuce

Hello friends, today I am revisiting a book I first wrote about in 2012 – The Australian Vegetable Cookbook. I am taste-testing two recipes from that book – a Cornish Leek Pie and a Roquefort Wedge Salad. The book contains a lovely line drawing and a brief history of each vegetable. So, without further preamble let’s get to the recipes!

Cornish Leek Pie

I was dubious as to how authentic the Cornish Leek Pie would be. However, I found a few references to a Leeky / Likky Pie which dates from 1865 and is remarkably similar!

I layered boiled leeks and bacon into a pie dish and covered with pastry. Now, I made a mistake here as the recipe quite clearly says to season the layers with salt and pepper. I thought the bacon would be salty enough which turned out to be true so I didn’t add salt. But I totally forgot about the pepper. But by the time I remembered the pepper, the pie was already in the oven.

Then, the recipe itself got weird. After cooking for a while, I needed to make a hole in the pastry top and pour in a mixture of cream and parsley. I have never added ingredients to a pie in this way before! But it did allow me to add the missing pepper in with the cream and parsley. I thought it would be really hard to cut a hole in the pastry once it was baked so I did this before it went into the oven.

The recipe which I have linked above adds eggs and cream to the bacon and leek mix which I think would be a lot more sensible. This would have thickened up on cooking to form a quiche-like filling. As it was the cream did nothing except make everything a bit wet! It also kept bubbling up out of the hole in the pastry and made a bit of a mess.

There was nothing wrong with the cornish leek pie. It was just not something I would make, in the format given in the Australian Vegetable Cookbook. Full marks for the illustrations though! They are beautiful!

Cornish Leek Pie – The Recipe

Roquefort Lettuce Wedges

The night after I made the Cornish Leek Pie I made the Roquefort Lettuce Wedge from the same book.

The roquefort dressing was sooo good! But overall this dish lacked something. I served it on a gorgeous plate I bought when I was in Darwin earlier this year to try to fancy it up a bit. Plate 10/10. Dish…kind of meh…I would defintely make this again, However, I would add some bacon or croutons or some chives to the salad (or all three) just to make it a bit more interesting!

They say you can’t step in the same river twice and, to be honest I was disappointed with my revisiting of The Australian Vegetable Cookbook. There was nothing wrong with either recipe but they were also not amazing. One or two more ingredients to each one might have brought a bit more flavour or texture or just some va va voom to the dish.

Whether this was due to bad recipe choices on my behalf or a comment on the state of vegetable dishes in the 1970s remains to be determined. There are still a number of recipes I have flagged as “to be cooked”. so I may well have another crack at it in the future. Just not for a little while!

Roquefort Lettuce Wedge – The Recipe

I hope your cooking adventures this week fare a little better! Have a great week!

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!

02
Jan
2022

Leek and Hazelnut Salad

categories: Leeks, Salad

Hello food lovers, welcome to 2022!!!! Recently I reposted an old recipe and it got me thinking that I had not posted a Dishiest Dish post in a very long time. One of my intentions for 2022 is to resume that practice, primarily because over the last few months I have misplaced a few recipes that were really good! So, for every month this year, I will be posting the recipe for the best thing I made in the preceding month. And for December, it was a delicious Leek and Hazelnut Salad.

I have recently become obsessed with leeks. They are in last week’s Detox Soup and I also made Rachel Khoo’s Leeks in Vinaigrette with Bayonne Ham.

For full disclosure, I do not like hazelnuts. I’ll eat them if mixed with other things like chocolate in Nutella but if it is possible to pick them out of something, I’ll do it. So, for my salad, I use macadamias which are, to my taste, a far superior nut! Almonds would also work here. As you can also see from the photo above, in this particular iteration, I have also swapped out the spring onions for red onions.

The combination of the sweet tangle of leeks, the tanginess of the pickled onions, the creamy goat’s cheese, the crunchy nuts and the cooked to perfection (even if I do say so myself ) soft boiled egg is a delight! And if you want to take the newspaper’s suggestion of accompanying your leek and hazelnut salad with a glass of sparkling wine, well I will not try to stop you. In fact, I am now questioning why I have not done that in the many times I have made it. Oh well, another reason to make it again! (As if I needed one).

Leek and Hazelnut Salad – The Recipe

I snipped this recipe from the newspaper (Possibly The Age), years ago. I do not know whose recipe it is in order to credit them. Whoever you are, thank you. And if by chance you happen to be reading this, please let me know so I can update the post!

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

The Appeal by Janice Halllett

This is a darkly comic mystery story told through emails, text messages and other forms of media. The Appeal is possibly the best book I have read all year.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the second in the Thursday Murder Club Series, The Man who Died Twice by Richard Osman.

My audible book of the month was The Broken Teaglass by Emily Arsenault. This was a great story but I did not love the male narrator’s voice. I think I would have preferred this in normal book format.

Cookbook

Through December, I also became obsessed with the Australian chef Karen Martini and bought three of her books – Cooking At Home, Feasting and Where the Heart Is. Given I have bought so many of her books, I hope to feature one of her recipes very soon!

Our cookbook club book of the month is not a book at all but we are cooking from tv shows. I am torn between the Jamie Oliver series for his new cookbook Together and Adam’s Liaw’s tv show The Cook Up.

Watching

My current fave thing to watch the British tv show Bargain Hunt. I love thrift shopping so watching other people do it has great appeal!

Cooking

This month I am keen to finish the remaining recipes in the Hugh Fearnley Wittingstall book which was a Tasty Reads pick back in 2015. I have only 4 recipes left to cook from this book!

I will also be making this recipe from the aforementioned The Cook Up. Using homegrown zucchini!

These are the books I will be cooking from this week

Shopping

Queenies

My boss introduced me to these which come in a gorgeous array of designs and give your hair a very cute and somewhat vintage-looking wave. I bought the Mojo design. Below is the first time I used it and I was pretty happy with the result. Apologies for the gormless look on my face, I am incapable of taking a good selfie!

Saint Belford Curation Diary

I am constantly on the search for the perfect planner. I bought one in champagne pink to help keep me on track this year! It really does seem to have everything in the one place – Habits, meal planner, gratitude, goals, bucketlist and of course, space for your to-do’s, appointments etc.

And just because, here is a pic of Oscar and Holly. Holly has not been well through Christmas and still needs some further testing done once the specialist vets return to work. But for the moment, she is doing well and happy cuddling up to her big bro:

That’s it for me, I hope you enjoyed this little peek into my life!

Have a wonderful week!