Category: World Cooking

Fish and Chips – The Seven Dials Mystery

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

Fish and Chips1

The Seven Dials Mystery – The Plot

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

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

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

The Covers

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

Seven Dials Collage

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

The Recipe – Fish and Chips

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

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

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

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

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“Where did everyone go?”

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

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

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

Agatha Christie, The Seven Dials Mystery

Fish and Chips Recipe (2

Other Food Mentioned in The Seven Dials Mystery

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

 

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REPOST – General Satisfaction

Pop quiz hotshots…

General Satisfaction is:

a) A minor character in the Stanley Kubrik classic Doctor Strangelove,

b) A new character in the game Clue / Cluedo. ” It was General Satisfaction in the billiard room.  With the Candlestick” or,

c) A Victorian nursery pudding with the most awesome name ever?

General Satisfaction
General Satisfaction

I made this to take to my family on Christmas day and let me tell you…general satisfaction became major happiness as people tucked in.  And who would not be happy with this mix of lemony berries, topped with sponge finger biscuits liberally soaked in limoncello, topped with a lovely lemony custard and then baked with a meringue topping?

Yep.  It’s like you’ve died and gone to heaven….

One of the side effects of the Paleo diet is that I seem to have become hyper-sensitive to sugar.  The first version I made of this was so sweet I actually couldn’t eat it,  Someone else in the house had no such qualms.  He’s lying in a diabetic coma as we speak.

My first introduction to General Satisfaction came from recipe came from Tamasin Day-Lewis’ Supper for A Song .  There is also this version online:

General Satisfaction

I “unsweetened” this by swapping out the jam for a slightly more tart lemon curd and adding some fresh (frozen) berries into the base mix.  I also added some limoncello to the custard mix. Just because…name me one thing that isn’t made better by a liberal splash o’ booze.  And you know, it is the season….

General Satisfaction

It was still pretty sweet though.

This is at it’s best straight out of the oven with the custard runny and the meringue all crispy. However the last few pieces were also pretty good at room temperature a few days later as part  of an afternoon tea.

General Satisfaction
General Satisfaction

And if you make this, true to it’s name, I promise you will not be disappointed!!!

I am also interested to know what are most kookiest food names you have come across? General  Satisfaction must be right up there but I would love to know yours!!!

General Satisfaction 3Wishing you and yours not only general satisfaction but super happy fun times for 2015.  May it also be the year you learn to stop worrying…

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Print

General Satisfaction

A lovely tangy take on a Victorian nursery pudding.

Ingredients

Scale
  • 1 level tbsp cornflour
  • 425g full cream milk
  • 1 vanilla pod, split, seeds scraped (or 1 tbsp vanilla essence)
  • 3 large eggs, separated
  • 5 tbsp caster sugar
  • 170g lemon curd
  • 1 cup mixed berries, thawed if using frozen
  • 1 tbsp warm water
  • 1/4 cup limoncello, maybe a bit more….
  • 1012 savoiardi or sponge finger biscuits

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 180c.

For The Custard

  1. Mix the cornflour with 1 tbsp milk.
  2. Pour the milk into a small, heavy saucepan. Add the vanilla seeds, empty pod and cornflour mix.
  3. Bring to the boil, stirring then drop the heat and simmer, still stirring for a coupe of minutes. Remove from the heat.
  4. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl then whisk in a tablespoonful of the milk mixture. Repeat three times then pout the combined egg and milk mixture into the warmed milk.
  5. Set the pan back over low heat, and whisk until the custard thickens and is perfectly smooth. Don’t let it boil. Remove from the heat, and whisk in 2 tablespoon of the sugar and half of the limoncello. Set aside to cool.

For The Lemon Berry Sauce

  1. Mix the lemon curd with 1 tbsp of just boiled water until runny and pour into the base of a medium baking dish.
  2. Scatter the berries over the curd then press them down with a potato masher to flatten them down a bit and get their juices running.
  3. Lay the savoiardi on top of the curd and berry mix and sprinkle with the remaining limoncello.
  4. Poor the cooled custard over the biscuits, straining if it is lumpy.

For The Meringue

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then whisk in the remaining sugar, little by little until you have a firm shiny meringue.
  2. Spoon the meringue over the custard.
  3. Bake on the middle shelf of the oven for about 20 minutes until the meringue is pale golden and crisp when you tap it.

Notes

  • Adding a little bit of the milk to the egg, prevents the egg from cooking.

Pink Dawn Salad

Hello friends!  Today we are talking Thai.  I love Thai food in general but I absolutely love Thai salads – my favourite is green papaya or green mango salad but a Thai beef salad or a banana blossom salad are also fine by me. I love their freshness and zing!  So I had high hopes for a Thai inspired salad with a lovely name –  Pink Dawn Salad. This comes from Good Housekeepings World Cookery (1972). Imagine this as a salad –  the perfect mix of colours becoming the perfect Thai mix of sweet, salt, hot and sour!

Gorgeous huh?  And now that I’ve set your expectations….let’s take a look at the salad.  I mean, I knew from the ingredients that it was not going to be a typical Thai salad but it was definitely touted as such by the press back in the 1970’s.  I found an article from back in 1978 in the Vancouver Sun that contains this same recipe which certainly implies if not downright states that this is an authentic Thai Salad.  Anyway, here it is…Pink Dawn Salad

Hmm…not great is it?

There was nothing wrong with the Pink Dawn Salad.  I like eggs, tomatoes and prawns.  I’m not that keen on bananas but Holy likes them…

Pink Dawn Salad 2

Between the two of us, we ate it all. It was just…meh.  Boring…bland…not really cohesive. Not a bit Thai. And only marginally pink.

Pink Dawn Salad 3

I’m calling a fail on the Pink Dawn Salad – the great name did not equate to great flavour.  And I had to skin tomatoes which is something I find weirdly repulsive.

Pink Dawn Salad – The Recipe

Here it is…although I  can’t recommend that you give it a try.

Pink Dawn Salad (2)

If you are looking for a good Thai salad, I made a Crisp Chilli Whitebait and Green Mango Salad from Australian Gourmet Traveller a few days ago and it was heaven!!!!  It was actually this on a plate! Recipe here:  https://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/recipe/mains/crisp-chilli-whitebait-and-green-mango-salad-10838/

Have a great week!

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Barbecued Chicken with Spiced Ketchup

Hello friends!  Today I am sharing a recipe for Barbecued Chicken with Spiced Ketchup which comes from the  Malaya, Siam and Indonesia chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery (1972).  From the name,  I thought this recipe was going to be for chicken in a spicy tomato sauce.  Which would have been fine.  This, however, was so much better!  This. is ketchup, Jim but not as we know it!Chicken with Spiced Ketchup1

This “ketchup” is made out of  garlic, onions, sambal oelek (a chilli paste) soy sauce and lemon.  Not a tomato in sight! Which lead me down a rabbit hole into the origins of ketchup.  Turns out this may be closer to the original than what we commonly recognise today as ketchup or as we in Australia call it, tomato sauce.  The tomato version has been around for a long time – just look at this ad from 1933!

And just to show that Heinz can patronise men as well as women, how about this ad for He-Ketchup.

He-Ketchup

 

 

The History of Ketchup

Fascinating as these ads are, let’s head even further back into the past to look at the history of ketchup.  There are a few theories but ketchup most likely originated in  Asia.  The word either derives from the Hokkien word ke-tsiap or from the Malay word kecap.  Kecap Manis is a Malysian sweet soy sauce which could be a distant relation to the original which was a fermented fish sauce.  Possibly like the one still used in Vietnamese cooking.

And don’t let those ads from the 1930’s fool you.  According to no less than history.com

The 18th century was a golden age for ketchup

Who knew?  Anyway, the short version is the fermented fish sauce made its way to England.  And the Brits went mad for all sorts of ketchups.  Lemons, oysters, mushrooms, walnuts, fruit – you name it there was probably ketchup made out of it! And then in 1812 (somebody cue up that overture), James Mease from Philadelphia developed a recipe for tomato ketchup.  And apart from a few artisan brands, all those other kinds of ketchup have gone the way of the dinosaur.

Chicken with Spiced Ketchup

Barbecued Chicken with Spiced Ketchup – The Recipe

The Barbecued Chicken with Spiced Ketchup or to give it its non-English name Ajam Panggang Boemboe Ketjap was delicious and very easy to make! As you can see from the picture, I served it with plain boiled rice as the recipe suggested.  If I was to add anything, I would have added a little tomato, red onion and coriander salad maybe with some fresh green chilli to add a fresh element but it was fine without.  It would be very nice comfort food on a cold winter evening!

Also, I used chicken thighs for my recipe, not a whole chicken as suggested.

Chicken with Spiced Ketchup5

Have a wonderful week, friends, stay safe and look after yourselves and others!

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Salami on a Sushi Platter?

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!

O-Sushi 1972 1

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.

1970's house wife

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?

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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?

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Ok, next step.

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

O-Sushi 1972 2

Smoked Salmon

Smoked Salmon Sushi

Raw Fish

Raw Fish Sushi

 

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

Salami sushi

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

Omelette Sushi

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!

Sushi Plate 1972

 

The Following Day – The Sushi Wrap Up

1970's house wife 2

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.

1970's sushi plate

Have a great week!

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