Vegetables - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: Vegetables

24
Nov
2012

The Australian Vegetable Cookbook (1972) – The Redemption

categories: 1970's food, Celery, Cream Cheese, Finger Food, Potato, Radish, Salad, Salami, Sour Cream, Walnuts

After harping on about the awful recipes contained in this book last time, it was only fair to showcase some of the better recipes. Three of them will be included here (I actually made 4 however this week is all about being positive so we won’t mention the Asparagus Italienne. Ever.)

I chose the Stuffed Celery Curls as my first course. This was jam-packed with flavours I love – celery, walnuts, chives, cream cheese and Tabasco so there was everything to like. I chose not to add the red food colouring. I’m hyperactive enough without it and I could see no earthly reason why it should be there. I think the “au naturel” version looks much prettier anyway!

Ingredients

Sadly, my celery did not curl as per the picture in the book. I read the recipe as saying you needed 15 pieces of celery 5 cm long. Which is what I did. In retrospect, I think it may mean an unnamed number of pieces of celery 15 cm long by 5 cm wide. Although that doesn’t seem quite right either – 5cm seems too wide. If you really want your celery to curl, here’s how.

It didn’t really matter though because whilst mine did not look as fun, they tasted amazing! We had these as our starter however they could just as easily be a lunch box snack or as finger food. Blue cheese would be an amazing variation.

Original

Mine – with obligatory knife but no curls

Next up, for our main dish I made a Farmhouse Potato Bake. This dish contains potatoes, Hungarian sausage (I used salami), sour cream and paprika so I guess is Eastern European in tone. It was damn good wherever it came from. If you weren’t fond of salami you could make this with ham, bacon, or left over roast beef or chicken or for a spot of luxury some smoked salmon. As you will see from the picture, I subbed in basil for the oregano. I think it is one of those recipes that you could pretty much use whatever proteins and herbs as you wanted. You could layer in other vegetables as well. Asparagus, green beans, spinach would all be great!

Ingredients

Salami and Onion Sauteing, Potatoes Par-Boiling in the background

Layering

Crumb Mixture

I made a Panama Radish Salad from the book to go with this. Well, I sort of did. There is no intended slur to the recipe for my changes, I think you could follow it absolutely and the result would be delicious. I just happened to have no red onions and a bucketload of chives and rocket that I needed to use. So I swapped these in. I also used my favourite Black Russian tomatoes so my salad is probably “greener” than it should be….it still looks pretty good though.

Ingredients

Panama Radish Salad

These worked really well together, the pepperiness of the rocket and the radish in the salad, the freshness of the mint and the lemon in the dressing cut through some of the creamy, potato, salami induced richness of the Farmhouse bake. Two big ticks here, will definitely be making both of these again.

The Meal – Delicious!

Bon Appétit.

18
Nov
2012

The Australian Vegetable Cookbook (1972) – When Good Vegetables Turn Evil

categories: 1970's food, Asparagus, Books, Pizza

The Australian Vegetable Cookbook, sponsored by the food companies Edgell and Birdseye, has its fair share of vegetables turned evil – specifically vegetables turned scary, lazy, nasty and just plain bonkers. First, for a vegetable cookbook there is a distinct lack of fresh vegetables. Nearly all of the recipes suggest using either canned or frozen vegetables of the type produced by…oh…I see….let’s move on. I’ve already annoyed the Australian Women’s Weekly. Multinational food companies also have test kitchens. I need a job. We’ll leave it there.

I will not be silenced on some of the truly terrible recipes contained in here though. Maybe if these companies chose their recipe collators more carefully, snafu’s like the ones to be discussed wouldn’t happen. Recipe collator is a job right? If not, it should be. I am available.

Lets start with scary. In one of the many million Saw films, there is a scene where a girl has to throw herself into a deep vat of syringes. I have an almost irrational fear of needles, and up until recently, that image from the film was my own private version of hell. It is still top o’ the list however, the use of the…liquid….accompanying canned vegetables as a food ingredient creates a very similar reaction of visceral disgust in me.

It may be the word liquid that does it. It’s so….unspecific. The stuff that other canned food comes in has a name. Tuna comes in spring water or olive oil. Don’t get me wrong, there is no way I’m using that as an ingredient either, but at least I know what it is. Similarly, tinned fruit comes in syrup or juice. So why does asparagus come in….liquid? Does the conversation in the lab go a little bit like:

“Well…we know it’s wet….as for the rest…we’re really not sure…to be on the safe side, how about we just go with liquid?”

Yeah, I don’t know why asparagus is being canned in a lab either. Anyway, the use of the “liquid” is why I found this recipe for Asparagus and Egg Mornay repulsive. And somehow, the idea of mixing the “liquid” with milk just makes it worse. Asparagus shake anyone? Gross.

The next scary item is the Asparagus Mousse. I made this as I wanted to understand the ’70’s obsession with moulded food. Despite making it I still do not understand the ’70’s obsession with moulded food. It was horrible. The best thing was that it moulded well. I thought this would taste like slightly gelatinous asparagus and cream. It tasted of tin and mint. I have no idea where the mintiness came from.

I accidentally dropped the cracker I spread with some of this mousse on the ground. The dogs loved it. Mind you, they also eat excrement. I didn’t bother making myself another cracker.

Moving on to lazy we find the recipe for Celery Soup and Cheese Croutons. The first ingredient listed is a can of celery soup. Let me make one thing perfectly clear. If you are making celery soup according to the directions on the can you cannot claim that this is a recipe for celery soup. It is, at best, a recipe for Cheese Croutons. Adding parsley or any other herb does not count as cooking. There is absolutely no reason for this recipe to be listed under celery.

Huh? What was that you were muttering cynical subconscious?

Given that celery is usually used fresh, using it its canned soup form may be a way for the book’s sponsor’s to recoup some of their outlay? I thought we weren’t going there. I thought we’d made a decision not to annoy the multinationals. They have test kitchens and possibly require the service of recipe collators. So button it. We’re going with lazy. Not with shameless display of self promotion.

Moving swiftly along in the list of crimes we come to the nasty food. Potato Gems aka Tater Tots in the U.S. are made from a blend of potato and….I don’t know what…I’m pretty sure the crusty outside does not contain diamonds but whatever it is, it probably comes a pretty close second in terms of hardness. Potato Gems / Tater Tots are one of the few foods that actually hate you. Their sole purpose is to tear the top three layers of skin off the roof of the mouth of anyone stupid enough to eat them.

The Potato Gem Pizza is a repulsive concoction created by pressing cooked potato gems into a cake pan and covering them with pizza ingredients. Sadly, if you Google image Tater Tot Pizza, you get a lot of hits. I’m not naming and shaming anyone here, but seriously WTF? Here I am thinking I have found a new culinary low and people are not only making it, they are so proud of their creation (and mostly not in an ironic hipster way) that they are posting pictures of it onto the internet. Admittedly most of these pictures use the Gems /Tots as a pizza topping, not as the pizza base per the suggestion here but really people? Stop it. Stop it now. You’re depressing me.

I would also like to point out that there is absolutely no way the Potato Gem Pizza takes 5 minutes to cook. It says right at the start you have to cook your Potato Gems for 5 minutes. You then have to:

Press your Gems into a flat cake
Season with salt and pepper
Add all your toppings including carefully laid out spoke-like anchovies and between spoke olives
Then grill until the cheese melts

Do these last actions happen in a time warp? Can Potato Gems tear through the fabric of space–time as easily as they tear through your gums?

And finally, the piece de la resistance, the mec plus ultra of food getting weird. Ladies and Gentlemen, allow me to present the Peach Cheese Fiesta. What? You’ve never heard of it? There’s a reason for that. In the words of Gwen Stefani:

“This s**t is bananas. B – A – N -A – N -A -S”

I like to think an editor hid this recipe deep within the section on Swedes and Turnips, thinking quite rightly that it would never be found. And up until now, it has remained in the obscurity it deserves. The Peach Cheese Fiesta even had Google stumped. Until now of course, because by the very act of writing that Google can’t find Peach Cheese Fiesta, I am creating the conditions that will allow Google to find Peach Cheese Fiesta…oh….that’s making my head hurt. So without further ado, here it is:

I know they took a lot of drugs back in the ’70’s but wow, someone must have stoned out of their mind for this to make sense. I like the way they suggest alternative receptacles for the cheesy vegetable mix. I like it even more that instead of these alternatives being fruits and vegetables that are routinely stuffed (tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, eggplants) that they continue the looniness by suggesting pears and pineapple. I just wish they’d suggested bananas, it would have made as much sense and made my Gwen Stefani reference all the more meaningful.

The Australian Vegetable Cookbook is not all bad though. I am about to make what will hopefully be a lovely 3 course dinner from recipes contained within the book. I’ll talk about that next time. Until then, blot the thought of Peach Cream Fiesta from your minds and enjoy your week!

04
Oct
2012

Retro Food for Modern Times: The Busy Woman’s Curried Chicken Salad Revamp

categories: 1970's food, Asparagus, Chicken, Mushrooms, Salad

Who doesn’t love a chicken salad? Shut up vegans and vegetarians. I heard you. Ok…what normal person doesn’t love a chicken salad?

Busy women of the 1970’s loved a chicken salad. They also loved curly parsley. I have never seen so much curly parsley in my life as in these old cookbooks. They also loved scales. Scales feature heavily in vintage cookbooks. I have no idea why. Some sneaky physics lesson maybe. Which weighs more – parsley or a lead weight? Garlic or clams? Maybe these pictures were the precursor to the BrainTraining games of today where you are shown a kitten and an elephant sitting on some scales and you have to say which one weighs the most (it’s usually the kitten).

The Busy Woman’s Curried Chicken Salad is a a pretty good recipe, all it needs is a few little tweaks to adapt it to modern taste. I suggest the following:

Toast your curry powder before adding to the dressing. It smooths the flavour out.

Use fresh mushrooms – I kept mine raw

Use fresh asparagus – I steamed mine.

I didn’t put red pepper in my version because I don’t like it. I added some tomato for colour and celery for crunch. Other things you could add into ths would be carrots, avocado, steamed green beans, nuts….pretty much whatever you have or you like!

Enjoy!

30
Sep
2012

Retro Food For Modern Times: The Busy Woman’s Fish and Spinach Challenge

categories: Fish, Macadamias, Salmon, Spinach

Most of the time, I can make a snap judgement as to how awful something will be just by reading the recipe. Take, for instance, the Oyster Soup mentioned in the previous post. I don’t actually have to taste it to know it will be repulsive. I can mock a lot of things without having to hand over cash for the privilege. Sometimes though, the line between good and evil is not so easily drawn. So it was with the Busy Woman’s Cookbook recipe for Fish Fingers in Sauce Verte.

I have a soft spot for fish fingers. They were a staple of my childhood and even now, particularly if I come home a bit boozy, fish fingers are a guilty pleasure of mine. So, I wasn’t entirely averse to giving this recipe a try.

The result:

I had a dilemma with how exactly to eat this though. The recipe is not particularly helpful. Serve sauce with fish fingers it says. How? I’d made two fish fingers so I tried it two ways.

Of the two, the dip was preferable as the slather made the crispy crumb coating on the fish fingers go soggy. In all honesty though, selecting one of these as being better than the other was a little bit like choosing between being punched or kicked in the face. Given the choice, you may prefer one over the other but neither would always be a better option.

As mentioned, I was unsure about how the Fish Finger dish might turn out. And the idea of the challenge was born – put a borderline recipe up against one with similar ingredients that sounds ok. Compare the two.

A search of my cookbooks lead me to a different fish with spinach sauce recipe – Fish with Spinach Hollandaise – from another AWW cookbook – The Best Seafood Recipes.

Incidentally, the Fish Finger with Sauce Verte recipe did not make it into The Best Seafood Recipes. Quelle surprise. Also, I used salmon in my version of the Fish with Spinach Hollandaise sauce recipe, because I had some in my freezer.

The result:

I compared the two recipes on 5 parameters: Taste, Ease of Cooking, Overall Look, Cost and Nutrition.

Taste

The retro food did not compare well. The fault was in the Sauce Verte. The next sentence is something I have never actually uttered before. Here goes.

It would have been better without the wine.

Wow. I’m still here. I thought for sure a bolt from the blue would have struck me down for so flagrantly defying my prevailing ethos. The combination of wine and lemon made the sauce too sour, a little bit bitter and combined with the spinach made my teeth go a little furry. It was not pleasant. The wine would have been much better just being drunk, preferably in copious amounts prior to eating the Fish Fingers in Sauce Verte.

The other surprise was that the sugar in the Fish with Spinach Hollandaise really worked! It somehow brightened the sauce up and I think also worked well with the toasted macadamias. The nuts were great and added some crunchy texture into the modern dish.

Fish with Spinach Hollandaise won this round easily!

Ease of Cooking

One of the problems with cooking fish is that it can be hard to get it just right – ie not overcooked. For that reason alone, the Fish Finger dish won this challenge.

They were both very quick, with the sauce being able to made whilst the fish was cooking. One note though – the Fish Finger with Sauce Verte recipe states to cook the fish fingers for 20 minutes. I cooked mine for under ten and they were fine.

Look

Let’s start with the sauce. Only one of these can really be called a sauce Verte. The other is more of a Sauce Not So Verte.

Aesthetically, the Fish with Spinach Hollandaise was far more pleasing to my eye. I loved the combination of the bright green sauce and the pink salmon. I thought this was a really pretty looking dish and it won this round hands down.

Cost

Fish Fingers and frozen spinach are cheap. Salmon and macadamias are not. Lets move on.

Nutritional Value

I’m not a nutritionist but I’m probably not wrong in suggesting that fresh salmon and spinach are better for you than frozen spinach and fish fingers. I’d also hazard a guess that macadamias are more healthy than whatever the hell they crumb fish fingers with. Even with the butter and sugar I think the modern version wins out.

The Busy Woman’s Fish Finger recipe did not fare as badly as I thought it would. Personally if I had to rank the parameters, I would probably place taste and nutritional value towards the top of the list but I also recognise that sometimes cheap and cheerful is exactly what you need. Even under these circumstances I would not make the Sauce Verte again. It was not good. The remainder of the box of fish fingers is in my freezer and when the time is right will be eaten with this busy woman’s preferred combination of mayonnaise and tabasco!

13
Jul
2012

The Italian Cuisine I Love – Cavolo Nero with Chickpeas and Bacon

categories: Bacon, Cavolo Nero, Chickpeas, Italy

The original recipe for this used escarole. I’ll admit I wasn’t entirely sure what that is. Cook’s Thesaurus said that spinach or rocket could be substituted, so of course I used something completely different. Cavolo Nero, or Tuscan Black Cabbage is an ingredient I love. It is at the peak of its season at the moment so I substituted it for the green in this. As the leaves are a lot tougher than spinach or rocket (or possibly escarole) I adjusted the cooking times accordingly.

The other change I made to the original recipe, with full apologies to Jules J, was that it originally was a soup. I wanted it as a side dish so I decreased the amount of stock I added back in my version. If you want it as a soup, you will need to add 2-4 cups of stock where I have placed the asterisk in the recipe below.

This was, awesome. I have a very fussy easter for a husband, and it is not often he asks for second helpings of sides, particularly ones that are vegetable heavy. Maybe it was the bacon in this but he not only had seconds, he took the last little bit into work for his lunch the next day!

500 grams eacarole / cavolo nero / greens of your choice

2 cups chicken stock

1 medium onion, sliced

1 clove garlic, chopped

2 spring onions, chopped

1/3 cup lean bacon, diced

1 can chickpeas

1 tbsp parsley, chopped

1/2 tsp basil

2 tbsp grated parmesan

Trim cavolo nero. Discard tough ends. Chop into slices about 1 cm thick.

Put chicken stock in a saucepan. Heat to boiling. Add cavolo nero. If there is not enough stock, top up with water until leaves are just covered.

Cover and cook until crisp/tender.

Drain and reserve cooking liquid.

Saute bacon in a heavy saucepan, add onion, garlic, spring onions, and saute until soft but not browned. Add the chickpeas and cavolo nero and a few spoonfuls* of the cooking liquid.

Warm through.

Sprinkle with grated cheese and serve.

Delicious!