Thursday 16 June 2011

Boiled Celery


An excitingly titled recipe from Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families (Classic Voices in Food) (1845) (just republished in facsimile).

This vegetable is extremely good dressed like sea-kale, and served on a toast with rich melted butter. Let it be freshly dug, wash it with great nicety, trim the ends, take off the coarse outer leaves, cut the roots of equal length, tie them in bunches, and boil them in plenty of water, from 20 to 30 minutes.

Boiled celery on toast with melted butter... hmmmmm.

Chatney Sauce (Bengal Receipt)


From Eliza Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families (Classic Voices in Food) (1845). It has just be reprinted in a facsimile edition. Here's a recipe for chutney, but handle with care:

Stone four ounces of good raisins, and chop them small, with half a pound of [hard, sour apples or pears]. Take four ounces of coarse brown sugar, two of powered ginger, and the same quantity of salt and cayenne pepper. [Mix everything together] and add gradually as much vinegar as will make the sauce of the consistence of thick cream. [Bottle it.]

You need to peel, core, chop and cook the fruit in a little water (Miss Acton forgets to tell you). Instead of "pounding" it, you can liquidise it, mix it with the raisins, spice and sugar and cook it a little longer before you add the vinegar.

She adds that she doesn't like to recommend hard acid fruit, and suggests using gooseberries or tomatoes instead (green tomatoes would be good). Two ounces sounds like a lot of salt! Perhaps a teaspoon would be better. And I'd add cloves and peppercorns.

Friday 3 June 2011

Anchovy Salad

From The Encyclopedia of World Cookery (1958)

8 anchovy fillets
1/4 lb ham sausage
1/4 lb smoked salmon
1/4 pint prawns
pickled cucumber
capers
1/2 lemon
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp wine vinegar

Mix the oil and vinegar. Arrange the anchovy fillets in the middle of a dish, surround them with slices of ham sausage and smoked salmon and prepared prawns. Pour the oil and vinegar over them. Garnish with pickled cucumber, capers and slices of lemon.

This is a recipe from Germany. Vegetarians could leave out the sausage.