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).
Vegeree via Jamie Oliver
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!
Hello friends, welcome to a special edition of Dining With The Dame. In this, which is a companion piece to last week’s post I will be doing a selective deep-dive into the good, the bad and the ugly of Death in The Clouds. And, to fortify ourselves on this journey, I am sharing a DITC inspired cocktail – The Bee Sting. Why not make yourself one and settle in for the ride. Fasten your seatbelts, this plane will hit some turbulence! BTW, this post does contain spoilers so if you have are planning on reading DITC, you may want to save this one for later!
The Boomslang
At the inquest of Madame Giselle, we find out that the poison on the tip of the blowpipe is from an African snake called a Boomslang. Whilst the word boomslang sounds like something unsavoury that I would need urban dictionary to define for me, it is actually the name of a highly venomous African Snake. I could find no verification to Christie’s assertion that if you inject the venom into a hyena, the hyena would die before the needle was withdrawn. However, according to McGill University
Because boomslang venom is a hemotoxin it’s not surprising that it can lead to major brain and muscle hemorrhage. But the venom also causes other symptoms like nausea, headaches and sleepiness. Perhaps what is most surprising is that this venom has the ability to make the victim bleed from every possible orifice
Good lord!!! Poor Madame Giselle!
DITC and Pop Culture
Boomslangs on a Plane?
I’m sure I’m not the only modern reader who on hearing about the boomslang wondered if just maybe DITC was, in part, an inspiration for this cinematic masterpiece!
Norman Gale
And whilst taking of pop culture references could Norman Gale be an inspiration for Norman Bates? I can find no verification of this however, it is entirely possible that Robert Bloch read DITC prior to writing Psycho in 1959. The similarity of the names made me suspicious of Norman Gale long before he was revealed as the murderer!
That he is a dentist also reminded me of Little Shop of Horrors:
Doctor Who
In the utterly amazing Doctor Who episode The Unicorn and The Wasp, The Doctor and Donna meet Agatha Christie. They investigate murders in a country house, they make references to Murder on The Orient Express, Crooked House, Sparkling Cyanide and Cards on The Table, Agatha Christie suggests that they use “ze little grey cells” to solve the murder, and the villain turns out to be a giant alien wasp!
DITC And The Poirotverse
More than any of the other books I have read so far, DITC refers to some of Poirot’s previous cases:
On page 149 of my edition, the following exchange between Poirot and Japp occurs.
“I’ve questioned the passengers, too. Everyone can’t be lying.”
Ok, this is where things take a turn. Take a big gulp of your Bee Sting to fortify yourself and let’s get into it.
There is a lot to like in DITC but there is also much that is repugnant. Take, for instance, this passage regarding the budding romance between Jane Grey and Norman Gale.
The promised dinner and theatre with Norman Gale had duly come off. It was one of those enchanting evenings when every word and confidence exchanged seemed to reveal a bond of sympathy and shared tastes.
They liked dogs and disliked cats. They both hated oysters and loved smoked salmon. They liked Greta Garbo and disliked Katherine Hepburn. They didn’t like fat women and admired really jet black hair. They disliked very red nails. They disliked loud voices, noisy restaurants and Negroes. They preferred buses to tubes”
Yes, you read that correctly!
I was like “loud voices, noisy restaurants and WTAF??????”
The fact that it is also mentioned in the same breath as an “enchanting evening” only makes it more revolting.
And BTW, this is why I really wanted Norman to be the murderer. I was only disappointed that he didn’t bump off the equally awful Jane Grey along the way!
This is not the only racist slur that occurs in DITC:
The jury finds Poirot guilty possibly because he is “a little foreigner”
Mrs Mitchell, the wife of one of the stewards is utterly indignant about the murder. “Who’s to know what reason foreigners have for murdering each other; and if you ask me, I think it’s a dirty trick to have done it on a British aeroplane”
There is also an anti-Semitic slur made by one of Jane Grey’s colleagues at the hair salon
Urrgghhh…I did warn you this was going to get rocky.
Should I stay or should I go?
Reading DITC posed a real dilemma for me. It was like finding a big old turd in what had been a formerly enjoyable soup. Not only does it put you off that particular bowl of soup, but it also puts you off soup altogether. I did wonder if I should continue with this project at all after reading it. In the end, I decided I would complete my Dining with The Dame project but, like here, I would call out the bad and the ugly side of Christie along with the good.
Let’s wash the nasty taste out of our mouths with our lovely sweet / sour spicy cocktail – The Bee Sting!
30ml freshly squeezed lemon juice or a combination of lemon and lime juice
2 slices of jalapeno chilli
To Garnish
A slice of Jalapeno
A lemon twist
Instructions
To Make The Jalapeno Honey Syrup:
Place the honey and the chillies in a saucepan. Bring to a boil then reduce heat and let simmer for 2-3 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Allow to cool, then strain.
Mix 1 tbsp of the jalapeno honey with 30ml warm water and allow to cool to make the syrup.
To Make the Cocktail:
Muddle the jalapeno slices in your cocktail shaker.
Add the tequila, lemon juice and jalapeno honey syrup.
Fill with ice and shake for 15 seconds.
Strain and garnish with a slice of jalapeno and a twist of lemon
Enjoy!
Notes
This recipe was inspired by the recipe for the Bee Sting cocktail on Serious Eats and Action Bronson’s recipe for pickled jalapeno honey.
There will be a lot of the honey left over – use this to make more Bee Stings, as a drizzle over fish or chicken, in salad dressings or as per Action Bronson, serve it over flatbreads spread with ricotta and hazelnuts.
Have you read Death in The Clouds? What did you think of it?
Welcome aboard crime readers and food lovers! Today on Dining with the Dame we are reading 1935’s Death in The Clouds. Our menu option includes a rather fancy-sounding French dish called Chicken Chaud-Froid. James Beard describes it as follows:
“Chaid-froid is a thickened sauce of butter, flour, broth and cream which may be mixed with geliatin and is used to cover poultry…use this sauce to dip the bird…Decorate with truffles, tarragon, blanched almonds, mushroom caps, sliced olives or vegetables”
Well, my budget doesn’t run to truffles but I have made you a Chicken Chaud-Froid inspired by Death in The Clouds!
Death in The Clouds – The Plot
The stewards on a plane from London to Calais are shocked to find one of the passengers, Madame Giselle, dead in her seat. Some marks on her neck indicate that she may have had a reaction to a wasp sting. A dead wasp is also found on the plane. However. Hercule Poirot who is also a passenger on the plane discovers an African blow dart on the floor and deduces that Madame Giselle, a moneylender to the rich and famous, has been murdered. But who on the plane wanted her dead?
We have:
Lady Horbury, formerly an actress, who is addicted to both gambling and cocaine
Venetia Kerr, a member of the aristocracy and childhood friend of Lord Horbury
Jane Grey, a hairdresser’s assistant coming home from a holiday funded by a large win on a horse
Norman Gale, dentist and admirer of Jane Grey
Armand Dupont and his son Jean, French archaeologists
Doctor Bryant of Harley Street
James Ryder, a businessman who has failed to make a deal that could keep his company afloat
Mystery writer Daniel Clancy
Eleven passengers in the cabin including Poirot plus two stewards (no spoilers here but none of them did it). The twelfth passenger was murdered by a blowdart. And no one saw a thing.
This is a classic closed circle mystery. We know one of the passengers did Madame Giselle in. But who? Poirot figures out who by page 70 in my edition. He just doesn’t understand why! I also figured out who on my first read BUT it was more about me disliking the character and WANTING them to the murderer rather than any true detecting. However, I read this book again last week to refresh my memory of it and the clues are there in plain sight so a careful reading could get you there!
Death in The Clouds – The Covers
I would like to call out the pulpy looking cover on the bottom row second from the right. Madame Giselle’s ugliness is mentioned several times in Death in The Clouds. If that lovely blonde lady is someone’s idea of hideously ugly (Christie’s words, not mine) then that person’s standards are ridiculously high!!!
The Recipe – Chicken Chaud Froid
I’ll be very honest here. The chicken Chaud froid was not to my taste at all. I ended up scraping all the cold jellied velouté off the chicken and making a sandwich with the chicken breast. If cold creamy gelatine chicken is your thing…go for it! For the rest of us….let’s all have a little giggle at my ridiculous attempts to make a wasp out of olives and tomatoes and a plane out of carrot and olives and forget this recipe ever exists.
The recipe I used which is from the 60th Anniversary edition of the James Beard Fireside Cookbook doesn’t actually tell you how to cook the chicken. So, let’s start you off with a basic recipe for poached chicken. And take it from there.
Here’s Jame’s Beard’s take:
And here is his veloute recipe:
From Mr Clancy’s house they took a taxi to The Monseigneur, where they found Norman Gale waiting for them. Poirot ordered some consommé and a chaud-froid of chicken.
-Agatha Christie – Death in the Clouds
The Monseigneur was actually a restaurant in Jermyn Street London in the 1930’s. Here is a picture of the interior.
Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Death In The Clouds
The meal served on the plane included soup, meat and vegetables, salad, dessert, tea and coffee. (All on a journey from Calais to London which is all of 151 km. These days on a trip from Melbourne to Sydney which is 713 km you’d be lucky to get a pack of peanuts!)
Soup
Tea
A “frenchified” meal at Poirot’s apartment. I would LOVE to know what this was!
There is a lot more to say about Death in The Clouds but they would be out of place in a regular Dining With The Dame post like this. This is why next week, we are going to have a Death in The Clouds recap. With a cocktail of course.
Our March Read will be The ABC Mystery which is another Poirot mystery but a lot darker than Death in The Clouds.
I wasn’t sure about the recipe for Skillet Custard Cornbread from the North American chapter of Good housekeeping’s World Cookery (1972). Truth be told, I have only eaten cornbread twice in my life and both times in London. Once was at friend of the blog Jenny’s (from Silver Screen Suppers) house and once for breakfast at a pub. Both times, I very much enjoyed the cornbread and both times I was keen to try my own. And until now, I had not done so. And I really wanted to make cornbread. But did I want to make this cornbread? It was the custard part of the skillet custard cornbread that was bamboozling me…
Would a layer of custard magically appear in my cornbread? And if so, did I want it there? Both times I have eaten cornbread it was savoury. Every time I have eaten custard it has been sweet. So the question in my head was – did I want a layer of something I would usually eat for dessert in bread that in my mind comes loaded with cheese and jalapenos? The solution, when it arrived was blindingly simple. If the custard worked I would eat it like sweet bread (not a sweetbread!) If there was no custard, I would go for a savoury option!
Well, in the right light, there was definitely a line of something that resembled custard so sweet it was! I served the cornbread with the same cherry jam I used for the chocolate mousse hearts and it was delicious!
If you like a sweet breakfast (I don’t) this is perfect. For me, this was lovely as a morning or afternoon tea treat at right about the time where you need a little sugar/caffeine boost!
Skillet Custard Cornbread – The Recipe
I’m not sure if this is traditional or If I am breaking some long-held rules of cornbread but I LOVED this toasted. I would pop a few slices in the toaster and the taste of the toasted corn was AMAZING! I can’t wait to try making a savoury cornbread – one without the custard centre now. But I guarantee I will be toasting that too!
Happy Valentine’s Day friends! Love is in the air are we are celebrating with some Chocolate Mousse Hearts largely inspired by a recipe in the Autumn 1986 issue of the Vogue Entertaining Guide. Before we continue though, I need to be totally honest with you. The recipe requires several instances of piping using an icing bag and this is not one of my strong suits. Hopefully, you will find my less than perfect hearts endearingly wonky rather than downright comical. And as we all know…love means never having to say you’re sorry so let’s get to it!
Okay, deep breath, here we go…
Now, these babies might not look perfect but, I gave one to The Fussiest Eater in the World earlier.
He took his first bite. “Wow”.
Second bite “Oh my God!”
The overall vote was “Delicious”.
So, they might not be the prettiest things in the world. But they are definitely a sweet treat!
Just a little shout out before I continue though, that beautiful plate my heart is on comes from Yael Gronner Ceramics on Etsy.I bought some of her wares late last year and have been dying to feature them!
Chocolate Mousse Hearts – The Breakdown
We start off with a meringue base – the first lot of piping. And it really sets the tone for the rest of the dish. If you can do this bit perfectly, the rest of the dish will be a doddle. When you are doing the piping try to build up the outside of the hearts as much as possible.
Then those little depressions in the middle of the hearts are filled with jam. The recipe said berry jam but I used cherry. I LOVE the combination of cherry and chocolate plus I don’t like how the seeds in strawberry and raspberry jam can get stuck in your teeth.
Those little hearts? I had some of the meringue mixture left over and I thought they might be cute as garnishes or as taste testers.
So, right about now, you might be thinking where’s that chocolate mousse I was promised? Well, it’s coming right up. Along with our second bit of piping:
I topped my mousse with some crumbled up Flake and a little gold lustre powder.
And a cherry on the top!
Chocolate Mousse Hearts – The Recipe
So, I was halfway through making this when I came to the sentence that said the chocolate mousse needed to set overnight. I needed to get them made and take my pictures on Sunday 13th to have any hope of being able to ost this today. Normally I am a bit more organised but life has got in the way this month!
It’s also the reason I garnished with a flake and not chocolate leaves and curls.
So, I found this mousse recipe online that did not have to chill overnight and used that instead. I chilled it for 2 hours then piped it onto my hearts.
Whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day, Galentine’s Day or nothing at all, these decadent chocolate hearts are a good addition to your dessert repertoire. They are very sweet though so for future making I would make them a little smaller (The widest part of my hearts was probably about 10cm across). Or keep them big and share with someone you love!
