Retro Food For Modern Times

05
Mar
2023

Thai Cucumber Boats

categories: 1980's Food, Cucumber, ThaiLand

Hello friends! Today we are eating Thai Cucumber Boats from Vogue Entertaining Oct / Nov 1989. This recipe comes from an article about Thai Cook Joe Bangkok. Apparently back in 1989 people couldn’t be arsed learning how to pronounce Asian people’s names properly. I mean why bother when you can just give them some rubbish Anglicised nickname? Welcome to 1989, the year the Berlin Wall came down, the Velvet Revolution happened in Czechoslovakia, tanks ran over protesters in Tiananmen Square and casual racism was alive and well in Sydney! But enough sniping, there is a whole lot to be happy about with these Thai Cucumber boats!

These are pretty much my perfect idea of hot-weather food. A couple of these with an ice-cold beer on a hot summer night is pretty much my idea of heaven!

Thai Cucumber Boats – The Recipe

To make it even easier, I used rare roast beef from the deli and did not sauté the onions as per the recipe. My version means there is no cooking involved in this recipe! Perfect for summer! I also sprinkled some chopped-up peanuts over the top of my boats for some extra crunch!

Of course, you could just slice up the cucumbers and place the rest of the ingredients on top. TBH, cutting the cucumbers into boats was fiddly and took quite a bit of time. However, then you would lose the delightful retro kitsch of the boat!

Also, keep the scooped-out bits of cuke for another day!

The Perfect Soundtrack For Your Thai Cucumber Boats

I am currently reading The Shards, the new novel by Bret Easton Ellis which is set around the same time as this recipe was originally published. Now, whether you love or hate BEE is not a topic for discussion here. What I do want to mention is that the book is absolutely crammed with musical references. So much so that I was inspired to make a playlist so I could have the soundtrack playing while I was reading I went to Spotify only to find that many people had already done just that.

My favourite is this one (pictured below) which lists every song in the order it is mentioned in the book. If you like 80s pop / punk / new wave you will love this playlist. Mind you, there is also a lot of garbage on there too! But I can heartily recommend, on your next hot summer night, make these Thai Cucumber Boats, put some beer on ice and crank up this playlist. It will take you right back to the 80s!

As for the book, I am about 5 hours into what is a 23-hour-long audiobook so I’ve got a long way to go yet!

Hopefully, the good weather holds and I can have another evening with the Thai Cukes and The Shards playlist soon!

Have a great week!

26
Feb
2023

Estofado

categories: 1970's recipes, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Meat, North and South America

Hola Amigos! Today I am presenting an Argentinian dish from Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery (1972). Estofado is a stew made with beef, Spanish sausage, wine, and vegetables. And it is soo good! Absolutely delicious. We loved it!

The only drawback with the Estofado was that it takes over 3 hours to cook so it would not usually be an after-work dish. I was prepared though and left the office an hour early the night I planned to make it. The good point about the Estofado is that once you have browned the meat, the sausages, and the onions, you add all the other ingredients and then leave it alone for a couple of hours so you can get on with your work (or your life)! Just don’t stay too close to the kitchen because the aroma of the slow-cooked meat and the wine and herbs is quite distracting!

I quite like to hum a tune while I cook. And during the cooking of the Estofado, I found I was singing “Estofado…” to the tune of “Desperado”. I don’t really know the words to Desperado though so my version went:

“Estofado, why don’t you come to my tummy,

You’re smelling so good I know you’re going to be yummy”

I always remember my blogger pal Jenny’s advice on photographing brown food so I served my Estofado with some butter-roasted cabbage and a Parmesan crisp to try to relieve the browness of it all. I’ll be the first to say that my Estofado was not a pretty dish, this is hearty, warming tasty comfort food! And delicious. I will be making this all through winter!

Also, as with most slow-cooked, braised-type dishes, the Estofado tasted even better the following day.

Estofado Recipe

My short trip to Adelaide was amazing. As well as getting through a lot of work stuff I was also able to fit in a quick visit here, I had a delicious lunch here and had an amazing dinner at Two Pot Screamer! On my second and final day we popped across to the Adelaide market for lunch and a Portuguese tart that was to die for! Whenever I go to Adelaide I am always very impressed by what a great food and wine city it is. I can’t wait to get back there!

Have a great week everyone!

20
Feb
2023

Admiral Highball – Appointment with Death

categories: Bourbon, Cocktail, Dining With The Dame, Pineapple, Poirot

Hello food lovers and crime readers! Today we have not only an Appointment with Death but also a meeting with an Admiral! An Admiral Highball that is! As mentioned in my previous post on Manakish, there is no food mentioned in Agatha’s Appointment with Death. There is however a mention of the cocktail called a Highball. I searched through my cocktail recipes and decided that an Admiral Highball would be my drink of choice for this book.

Why you ask? Well…Admiral Highball sounds like he might be a character in a Golden Age murder mystery. Or one of the potential murderers in a game of Cluedo. “It was Admiral Highball in the boatshed with a fishing rod” sounds almost too good to be made up! More importantly, though, the Admiral Highball contains bourbon and I thought that was a nice nod to the American Boynton family who feature in this story!

Also, welcome to the RFFMT family, the gorgeous Carmen Vaseranda! She’ll be popping in now and again to give her verdict on fruity concoctions. She is an absolute beauty isn’t she?

Appointment with Death – The Plot

You know how sometimes you may feel your mother is a little overbearing and/or demanding? I hear you. But believe me. None of our collective issues prepares us for Mrs. Boynton. She’s Flowers in the Attic level mad in her control over her family! Formerly a prison warden, Mrs. B treats her adult children like her former prisoners! Their touring party consists of her adopted adult children Raymond, Carol, Lennox, her own daughter Ginevra, and Raymond’s wife Nadine.

They are all somewhat psychologically scarred by their years under their mother’s control – some more than others. Then Mrs Boyton is found dead. She was taking medication for a heart condition so was her passing from natural causes? Or something more sinister?

We have

Poirot overhearing the following words through an open window on his first night in Jerusalem. “You do see, don’t you, that’s she’s got to be killed?”
Raymond Boynton catching feelings for Dr. Sarah King, a member of their travelling party.
Nadine on the verge of leaving Lennox due to his mother’s control over them
Ginevra Boyton increasingly losing hold of reality
A number of missing hypodermic needles
Some missing digitoxin
A tiny mark on Mrs Boynton’s wrist. Could it be from the prick of a needle?
Pretty much everyone lying because they think someone they love did the evil deed

It’s a tangled tale. Good thing we have Poirot on hand to bring the wrongdoer to justice!

Appointment With Death – The Covers

This, even if I do say so my self is an amazing collection! Three Italian and one Vietnamese for a start! I know I always gush over the colours but each and every one of these is amazing!

Just as quck aside, you may be wondering why both my photo above and one of these pics has a Buddha when the story is set entirely in the Middle East? Well it’s because at least once Mrs B is described as a Buddha:

“here, like an arch priestess of some forgotten cult, like a monstrous swollen female Buddha, sat Mrs Bonyton”

But none of above covers prepares us for the mec plus ultra of covers for Appointment for Death which is, of course, the Tom Adams cover. Just imagine you have heard the above plot points and seen the covers that came before you. And instead of using motifs like an older, fat woman, scenes of Jordan, or a threatening Arab (not even remotely featured in the story but back in the day apparently no one cared about casual racism) you come up with this!

Bravo and a standing ovation for Tom Adams. I have no idea what your cover means, it bears no relevance to the script.

But I love you for creating it!!!

And hate you for giving me nightmares because of it! I mean what the hell is that coming out of that woman’s head?

The Recipe – Admiral Highball

Admiral Highball 3 My recipe for the Admiral Highball came from The Mammoth Book of Cocktails by Paul Martin

Mr Jefferson Cope took another sip of highball and went on:

“I’d like to tell you, Dr Gerard, just a little of the Boynton family history”

Appointment with Death – Agatha Christie

Links to The Christieverse

I was able to find three references to other books in Appointment with Death:

Colonel Race and the Shaitana murder are mentioned by Colonel Carbury (Cards on The Table)
Nadine speaks of Poirot’s accepting the official version of the truth in the case of the Orient Express
Miss Pierce says she read all about the ABC Case

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Appointment with Death

Coffee (twice)
Whisky Soda (twice)
Tea (Twice)
Soda Water

As I said at the top – not a huge amount to choose from!

Last time I posted I was heading to Darwin, later this week I am doing a two-day work trip to Adelaide. My reading material on the flights will be next month’s selection, Murder is Easy. Adelaide is considered the weird murder capital of Australia so goodness only knows what I’ll find there! Actually, maybe I won’t take Murder is Easy – I don’t want to give some nutter any ideas!

Have a great week!

11
Feb
2023

Girl’s Night – February 2003

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Cocktail, Duck, Fish, Magazines, Tuna, Vodka, Watermelon

Hello Friends! This week we are stepping back in time to February 2003 via Delicious magazine. It just so happened that the topic that came up in my random generator was Girl’s Night. So it seemed like a perfect opportunity to tie this into Galantine’s Day.

Before we get into that, let’s set the scene for February 2003. The month started with “Beautiful” by Christina Aguilera topping the charts. This was replaced by Avril Lavigne with “Im with you” for the remainder of the month. Number one in the box office was “How to Lose A Guy in Ten Days” and the best-selling book this week was The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold.

My menu has somewhat of a pink theme which seems fitting for a Girl’s night but the content is definitely adult, starting with a watermelon vodka cocktail!

Watermelon Vodka Cocktail

This was so simple! I added a little squeeze of lime into the watermelon and vodka mix as I felt it was a bit too sweet / one note without it. It was super refreshing and made the most of our lovely summer produce! Be careful though…too many of these and you’ll be slurring

I am beautiful no matter what they sayWords can’t bring me downI am beautiful in every single wayYes, words can’t bring me down, oh noSo don’t you bring me down today

into a pretend mic and telling all your gal pals how much you love them before dessert!

Watermelon Vodka Recipe:

Beetroot Confit and Marinated Goat’s FetaTarts

I didn’t make these because I pretty much hate beetroot. To me, except for one Beetroot Tzatziki which I love, it tastes like dirt. The funny thing is though, it is something I really want to like. So I keep trying to make things with it in the hope that I will find the magic recipe that turns that switch in me from off to on. In this instance, I love the look of the pastry dotted with poppy seeds, the shape of the tiny little black dots echoed in the round of the goat’s cheese, and the gorgeous crimson of the beetroot in between.

Confit Beetroot and Goat’s Cheese Tarts Recipe:

Tuna Carpaccio

I loved this!!! It was so good! (one thing, I completely forgot to add the cucumber to this!). Also, I had no mixed baby cress so I subbed in watercress. When I was in Darwin recently, we went to a restaurant called Pee Wee’s at the Point for the Fussiest Eater in the World’s birthday. There, I had a buffalo carpaccio which was one of the best things I have ever eaten in my life! That dish came with a Hot English Mustard Mayo which inspired me to add my own mayo to this carpaccio. I made a Wasabi Mayonnaise (you can see a little dab of it front and centre in the above photo).

Here is a pic of that buffalo carpaccio. Just looking at it makes we want to go all the way back to Darwin so I can eat it again!

Tuna Carpaccio Recipe:

Baby Tiramisu

These look adorable! And despite not being pink, they are the perfect way to end the evening…or to snack on as you are settling on the couch to watch a dvd or two! And because they are tiny, you can eat one and still fit into a dress just like Kate Hudson’s in “How To Lose A Guy in Ten Days”!

Baby Tiramisu Recipe:

My Nigella Moment – Duck with Berries

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 the context of 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 either because I made it and it was really good, or I just didn’t have time to make it!

This month, my Nigella dish is Duck with Berries which came from an article on romantic food to cook for Valentine’s day. It was so good! Timing is so important when cooking duck and this recipe nailed it!

Duck with Berries Recipe:

Delicious Magazine certainly delivered on the Girl’s Night Menu!

Please let me know if you make the Beetroot Tarts. I am so intrigued by them! And also, if you are old enough to have had a girl’s night in 2003, would this have been the menu you would have chosen?

If you would like to contribute a theme, please let me know, I’m up for any challenge you can throw at me!

And happy Valentines, Galentines or however you want to spend the coming Tuesday!

05
Feb
2023

Manakish – ish

categories: Cheese, Middle Eastern, Pizza

Hello Friends! I was inspired to make Manakish by Appointment with Death, the latest book in the Dining with The Dame series. The book is largely set in Jordan and although no Jordani food is mentioned (quelle surprise). I thought Manakish would be a good representative dish for that post. I made my version of manakish, took the photos, and then decided to do something else for the Appointment with Death post. But the manakish was really tasty. Too good not to share! So here it is…actually before that. Let’s talk about what it is. Manakish or Manouche is a traditional Jordani flatbread usually with a topping of zaátar or cheese. Mine is a not traditional. It is at best manakish adjacent or as I like to say, manakish-ish. Now, we’ve got through that…here it is:

The Recipe – Manakish

I used this recipe from Hungry Paprikas for the base recipe for my manakish. Per the recipe, I used feta, mozzarella and nigella seeds. And then I added a little sprinkle of Zaátar, some red onion slices and a few chilli flakes. I really had to restrain myself from adding olives, mushrooms, etc as if this was a regular pizza! This was very tasty despite so few ingredients! Sometimes, less really is more!

The salad you can see in the first photo and below is my version of a tomato, pomegranate and caramelised walnut salad from Gourmet Traveller which felt Middle Eastern enough to work well with the Manakish. Also, the cherry tomatoes and the parsley are from my garden! I used olive oil and lemon juice in my dressing to keep it simple. I had also decided to forgo the candied walnuts in the recipe for plain walnuts. Do not do this. They were divine. I wish I had made far more of them than I needed because they were decidedly more-ish!

I would love to see Petra, it looks stunning and is definitely on my bucket list of places to go!

In the short term though, I will have to content myself with eating Manakish and reading Appointment with Death. The post for which will be up in two weeks’ time!

I am literally at this moment watching The Deer Hunter for my film club. I can see why it’s seen as a classic but so far (about 1.5 hours in) it has been unremittingly grim and I am not expecting a change of tone any time soon. Far less harrowing, this week I am hosting our Tasty Reads Cookbook Club where we are cooking from Recipetin Eats. If you are not a fan, I can recommend it!

Have a great week!