Retro Food For Modern Times

28
Nov
2018

Beetle Pie

categories: Pie

Beetle Pie? WTF is going on at RFFMT? Is this the month of disgusting sounding food? Well, maybe…but I also just got sent a copy of The Nightmare Before Dinner: Recipes to Die For: The Beetle House Cookbook by Zach Neil and couldn’t wait a year for Hallowe’en to share a recipe with you.

And as with last week’s Stuffed Monkey, the yumminess of the Beetle Pie is directly proportional to the yechhhh factor of its name. That is to say….it’s totally delicious. Let me convince you by unpacking it into its component parts:

Chocolate wafer crust
Pistachio custard filling
Blackberry jam topping
Whipped cream and fresh blackberries to garnish

Yeah, baby!

There are so many things to talk about this week. I really want to tell you about the book that contained the Beetle Pie recipe but that will have to wait. Because while researching this post I came across an absolutely bonkers tale from history involving a very different type of beetle pie.

So buckle in….because we are taking a trip in the way back machine all the way to 1863.

1863 was a huge year in history. In America, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address. The Red Cross was founded in Switzerland. And, in London, the first tube train ran between Paddington and Farringdon. And some five miles away from Paddington, in Brixton, Mrs Elizabeth Wilton baked a pie for her neighbour’s coachman, Edward Gardiner.

The relationship between these neighbours was…..strained. Mrs Wilton liked to have German bands (and Negro singers) playing loud music in her house a few times a week. This was not appreciated by the neighbourhood in general and her sickly, elderly neighbour specifically. Words were exchanged. And sometimes more than words. On one occasion, Mrs Wilton was seen throwing bricks at the neighbour’s windows! She was feisty!

She was also batshit crazy! One day, she baked the German band a pie. They took it to the local pub to eat. However, the pie was not filled with apples or rhubarb or cherries. Or anything normal. Because this was a pie baked by Elizabeth Wilton who was as mad as a box of frogs.

The pie filling was a pair of ladies knickers!

Not to be outdone, one of the band members then donned the knickers, returned to Mrs Wilton’s house and danced in front of her door for a while.

I imagine that dance looking a little like this:

Loud music? Brick throwing? Underwear pies? Revenge door dancing? It’s 1863 people! Calm the hell down and go catch one of those newfangled tube trains. We won’t be needing your kind of mad arse white trashery until we invent reality tv in about 120 years!

But all this is merely to set the context under which the hapless Edward Gardiner received his pie.

Now, I don’t pretend to know anything about the life of coachmen in 1863 but from what happened next, I’m guessing it was hungry work. Or maybe, they didn’t get paid a lot so hunger was par for the course. Or maybe Edward Gardiner was just not too quick on the uptake. Because despite the lingerie pie precedent, it took him a good “six or seven mouthfuls” of Mr’s Wilton’s pie before he realised that

It tasted revolting
It was filled with black beetles and,
“A nasty stuff resembling mustard, but it was not mustard.”

The “nasty stuff” was later discovered to be gamboge, a yellow tree sap used as a laxative.

Not So Fast Eddie eventually took what was left of the pie to the local police station. Where the sergeant claimed to have never seen “anything more filthy or disgusting” and that he had to open all the police station windows to get rid of the “intolerable stench”.

Let me just repeat. The sergeant took one whiff. Eddie G? Six (or seven) mouthfuls…

The next day, Mrs Wilton turned up at the police station bearing…..yep…you guessed it. A freshly baked pie!

Which upon examination was found to contain a painted toy pear.

Which was found to be full of black beetles!

Later, in court, Mrs Wilton admitted having made the original beetle pie “as a lark”.

The judge agreed that it was a practical joke and not meant to cause injury and she was released from custody.

A few months later the irrepressible Mrs Wilton was back in the police station. This time she was charged with knocking off a policeman’s hat whilst being drunk in public.

I love this woman!!!!!😍😍😍

There is no record of whether she baked the charging officer one of her very special pies!

I hope you loved the story of the utterly eccentric Elizabeth Wilton and her black beetle pies as much as I did!

I found the entire story on The Skittish Library. It’s a fabulous site, why not pop over and see what other delights Estelle has to offer!

And make a beetle pie in celebration of Elizabeth Wilton and her pie making badassery from 1863!

Have a great week!

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26
Nov
2018

Spinach and Gorgonzola Stuffed Jacket Potatoes

categories: Blue Cheese, Potato, Spinach

Doh! thought I posted this a couple of weeks ago!!!! I found it in drafts today so I guess not!

I had an idea about how to do these World Food posts. I’ll do a recipe from Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery from 1972, then I’ll do a modern recipe from the same country or somewhat related to the first post. It’s going to be a kind of retro/modern vibe. So, given that last time I featured Potato Maraska, a potato recipe from 1970’s Israel, today, I am showcasing a potato recipe from an Israeli chef, Yotam Ottolenghi. This is actually my second Ottolenghi recipe on here, the first being his Crespeou from way back in 2015. No “70’s style retro picnic bling” today but after the blandness of the Potato Maraska, these Spinach and Gorgonzola stuffed jacket potatoes bring all the flavour to the yard!

If you are one of those people who hate blue cheese, you could use cheddar or whatever cheese you like instead…but the gorgonzola, spinach and walnut combo is particularly nice.

The hardest part of this is scooping out the cooked potato flesh evenly and not putting a hole in the skin. Maximum taste for minimum effort. Vegetarian. And gluten-free for those who care about such things.

Potato skins or stuffed jacket potatoes or whatever you want to call them are fun food! And these have spinach so they’re also kind of healthy!

There’s not much more to say about these! They were simple to make and delicious! And they look just like the picture from the book!

This recipe comes from Yotam Ottolenghi’s latest book, Simple. This was our latest Tasty Reads book club selection and was, with one exception, liked by all. I love it and can see it becoming a favourite that I turn to regularly for simple, delicious food:

Highlights for me, apart from the potatoes above, have been so far:

Chicken Marbella
Bridget Jones Pan Fried Salmon with Pine Nut Salsa
Blueberry, Almond and Lemon Cake

Here’s the Spinach and Gorgonzola Stuffed Jacket Potatoes Recipe:

And here’s the book:

I love that cover. It’s so bright and cheerful and well…Simple!

Have a wonderful week!

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21
Nov
2018

Sour Cherry Stuffed Monkey

categories: 1970's recipes, Desserts, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Israel, World Cooking

Disclaimer: No monkeys, stuffed or otherwise, were hurt, or even involved in the making of this week’s recipe. Stuffed Monkey is actually a Jewish pastry. With a totally kooky, and kind of revolting, name. Which is, of course, why I had to make it!

And I’m so glad I did because Stuffed Monkey is delicious! The pastry is like a cinnamony shortbread and the filling is slightly fudgy, a bit like a brownie. It’s so good!

Now, the original recipe for Stuffed Monkey, direct from the pages of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery, had candied orange peel as the fruit in the filling. I’m not a big fan of candied peel at the best of times and, certainly not in the quantities required to make this. So I subbed in some dried sour cherries and some dried apricots for my version. I did add some orange zest as well so there was a hint of orange in my recipe as a small nod and a wink to the original.

So, why the odd and not appetising at all name? I found a couple of theories on the old interwebs…the first is that “monkey” is a corruption of the Arabic word “makhshi” which means stuffed. So this would then become a Stuffed Stuffed? The other theory I found is that these were first popularised by a family called the Monnickendams.

I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced by either of these but what do I know?

Here’s the recipe direct from Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery:

And here is my version with the cherries and apricots.

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Stuffed Monkey

Print Recipe

A delicious baked dessert

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

For The Pastry

170g butter
227g plain flour
170g caster sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
Pinch of salt
1 egg, beaten

For The Filling

80g dried sour cherries, chopped
80g dried apricots, chopped
60g slivered almonds
zest of an orange
227g ground almonds
85g butter
2 egg yolks
1 tsp vanilla essence
Pinch of salt
1 egg white

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Instructions

For The Pastry

Rub the butter into the flour.
Add the sugar, cinnamon and salt.
Add the egg. Combine until the mixture becomes a smooth dough.
Divide in two equal pieces.
Roll the first piece out and use it to line a pie dish.

For The Filling

Beat the butter, ground almonds and egg yolks together.
Add the dried fruit, nuts and vanilla and salt.
Stir to combine.
Spread the filling over the dough in the pie dish.
Roll out the second piece of pastry and cover the filling with it.
Press the edges to seal them.
Brush with the egg white to glaze.
Heat the oven to 180C.
Place the pie pan in the oven and bake for around 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Notes

This is great on its own but is fabulous with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

There is a downside to making a dessert called a Stuffed Monkey.

Which is that no one wants to eat it. The minute you mention the name, they get a funny look on their faces. Then they ask you to repeat what you said. Then they say “It’s okay, I think I might just have coffee”.

So just tell your friends it’s called Sour Cherry Tart or something. They’ll be shovelling it down like nobody’s business and asking for seconds in no time at all!

Or tell them the name and keep it all for yourself. It’s that good!

Have a great week!

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31
Oct
2018

Potato Maraska

categories: 1970's recipes, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Israel, Middle Eastern

Today, as we continue our globetrotting trek through 1972 we are saying goodbye to the Balkans and heading to…well, here’s the clue given on page 273 of Good Housekeeping World Cookery….

If the baking dishes of non-descript food didn’t immediately alert you to our destination, then maybe the shisha, the toy camels and the fact that the dishes are placed on SAND may indicate that

a) We are off to the Middle East, and

b)Subtlety was not strong back in the day!

That picture is the worst!

Specifically, our first stop on the trip is Israel.

I really wonder, why, when the line drawings in this book are so pretty, they even bothered with the cliched photography. It was hardly to make the food look attractive!

The Potato Maraska was not my first choice of recipe for this post. I originally wanted to make a Butter Kuchen. I even bought all the ingredients for it. Well, I bought sour cream. I had everything else.

Then I read the recipe…

Hmm….and after you let the dough rise overnight? Then what?

Well, if you’re Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery you move swiftly on to a recipe for Chremzlach and the Butter Kuchen is never mentioned again.

Never mind, I thought, there is a recipe right above the recipe for Butter Kuchen for Kuchen Dough. I’ll just get the rest of the recipe from that…

Or…..not….

I would love to know what Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery has against finishing a recipe for Kuchen. But given the absence of how to cook the risen dough, I decided that mine was going to be a kuchen free kitchen!

I had been going to make a fish pie that night and, in the absence of kuchen I decided that I would use the recipe for Potato Maraska as the topping instead of regular mashed potato.

The Potato Maraska was…..okay. Not as nice as normal mashed potato but if you and didn’t have milk and butter or you wanted to cut down on some calories, the egg adds a richness to the plain potato.

And at least it was a full recipe!

That’s it for me!

Have a great week!

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PS – If anyone knows how to make a butter kuchen, please send me a full recipe!

24
Oct
2018

Bittersweet Symphony – The Aperol Gin and Tonic

categories: Aperol, Cocktail, Cointreau, Gin

People of the world, meet my new favourite drink! Forget the Aperol Spritz, the Aperol Gin and Tonic is a great drink for summer drinking, or really for any time of the year.

I love G&T’s and Negroni’s and the Aperol Gin and Tonic is kind of a cross between them. Or, as I like to call it, win-win.

The Aperol Gin and Tonic is slightly sweet, slightly bitter, has great citrus flavour and a lovely complexity from the botanicals in the gin. All of which is a fancy way of saying “It’s delicious…drink up!”

It’s also a very pretty drink!

Even though this is called the Aperol Gin and Tonic, there is a surprise ingredient in here which I think rounds out the flavours, ramps up the orange and adds the sweetness….

Yep! Cointreau. Which I am also partial too! If you wanted to take the Negroni-ness of this up to 11, you could, of course, sub out the Cointreau for some vermouth!

I found the recipe for the Aperol Gin and Tonic in a Waitrose magazine when I was in England earlier this year. Made it and then promptly lost the recipe. Luckily it was not hard to remember!

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Aperol Gin and Tonic

Print Recipe

A delicious take on a G&T

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

15ml Gin
15ml Aperol
15 ml Cointreau
Tonic Water
Ice Cubes

To Garnish

Rosemary Sprigs
Orange Slices

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Instructions

Add ice to a cocktail shaker.
Add the gin, Aperol and Cointreau
Shake, baby, shake.
Add fresh ice cubes and orange slices to a long glass
Add the gin mixture.
Top with tonic water.
Garnish with a rosemary sprig

So good! The only downside is that it’s going to be very hard to stop myself from making them waaaaaay too often for both my liver and my waistline!

Have a great week!