1970's recipes - Retro Food For Modern Times

23
May
2016

Devilled Burgers. Taste Heavenly!

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Burger, Margaret Fulton Cookbook

Like rock and roll and dancing in that town in Footloose, burgers must be the work of the devil. There is no other explanation for something so simple tasting so good! And that’s just normal burgers. Once you have tried Margaret Fulton’s Devilled Burgers you will be ready to sell your soul for the recipe!

Not that you have to of course. The recipe is at the end of the post. No soul selling involved!

So what makes the Devilled Burger so special?

Oh and warning ahead…I am going to drop the dreaded M word. You know, the one that rhymes with foist. Haters beware!

One thing I have noticed about a couple of old hamburger recipes is that they use bread soaked in evaporated milk. This may both look and sound pretty gross but I think this combo really helps to keep the burgers moist. There. I’ve said it.

This mixture turns into something that resembles either wallpaper paste or the gruel from Oliver but I think it does the job. I had these two nights running and I was expecting that reheating them on the second night would make them dry but no, they were as juicy as ever! Possibly even better than the first night.

Other ingredients are finely chopped mushrooms (sorry Jenny), mustard, tomato ketchup, green Habanero sauce, horseradish and Worcestershire Sauce! No wonder these are tasty little demons!

These are so good. Who could believe ground beef could be so tasty? These have rocked straight in at number two on my best burgers ever (right behind my spicy feta burgers)! Hmmm..,.now what would happen if you added some feta and cumin to this recipe? The burger to end all burgers? Burgergeddon? I now so want to try it out!

Top these burgers with your favourite toppings, mine are in the recipe below and enjoy!!!!

If serving at your own devil theme party, why not lay out your salad ingredients and condiments and any other trimmings you like and let your guests create their own version of the Devilled Burger?

Print

Devilled Burgers

Print Recipe

Author: Taryn Fryer
Yield: 12 1x

Ingredients

Scale

4 slices bread
3/4 cup evaporated milk
1 kilo minced (ground) beef
2 tsp salt
pepper to taste
1 chopped onion
2 eggs
250g chopped mushrooms (optional)
1.5 tsp Dijon Mustard
1/4 cup tomato ketchup or mild chilli sauce (I used a combination of ketchup and green habanero sauce)
2 tsp prepared horseradish
2 tsp Worchestershire sauce
1/4 cup mayonnaise
2 tsp green Habenero sauce
Lettuce leaves
Tomato Slices
Vintage Cheddar, thinly sliced
Red Onions, thinly sliced
Pickles

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Remove the crusts from the read, cut into squares and soak in evaporated milk for 10 minutes, then beat with a fork.
Mix meat, bread, salt, pepper, onion, mushrooms, mustard, tomato ketchup and/or chilli sauce, horseradish and Worchestershire Sauce in large bowl. Mix in the eggs with a fork.
Shape into 10 even sized patties.
Heat some oil in a frying pan and gently fry the red onions .
Preheat the grill and grill the hamburgers on one side for 7-8 minutes on one side and ^ minutes on the other. Add a slice of cheese using and grill for a further minute or so until the cheese has melted.
Whilst the hamburger is cooking, toast your buns.
Mix the mayonnaise and the green habanero sauce together and spread over the buns.
Top with a lettuce leaf and a slice of tomato.
Place the burger on top of the tomato and top with the fried onions and the burger bun.
Pickles can be served on the side or in the burger or not at all!

Oh and look! Is that a bottle of Lychee Beer in the background? Yes indeed. Just doing a little taste testing for the margarita to come. Or should that be a lagerita?

Have a fab week! Next time, we’ll be wrapping up our devil themed party with an appropriately titled cake from the Domestic Goddess herself!

09
May
2016

REPOST from 2016 -Four Kumquat Canapés For Four Food Heroes

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Canapes, Food Heroes, Vegan

I was celebrating this week and these kumquat canapés helped to get the party started! How pretty are they?

These lovelies were inspired by a recipe by Gretta Anna Teplitzsky. Gretta Anna has been called the Julia Child of Australian Cooking. Through her books and her cooking school she brought French cooking to the Australian masses . She is one of my food heroes and an absolute glamour puss to boot! I have spoken about her before but as a refresher, her she is in all her glory!

I said it before and I will say it again. That fireplace! The colour co-ordination of caftan, candlesticks and couch! Love, love, love. Gretta Anna is the big sister I never had, the cool older girl at school I always aspired to be but never quite pulled it off.

I was looking for Gretta Anna recipes this week because, as a little present to myself I popped online and bought a copy of her second book, More Gretta Anna Recipes. And I was buying myself a little present because May is the month of the blogiversary! Retro Food for Modern Times will turn four later this month. Can you believe it? And we will celebrate in style but first, we need to talk about Kumquat Canapés because they are super delicious and a snap to make!

Kumquats are a small citrus fruit (about the size of a large olive) and incredibly sour which I love! A funny thing about them, is that if you eat them peel and all they actually become sweeter. It is the season for them here and as I was making my Gretta Anna inspired canapes I started thinking about my other food heroes and got totally carried away. I ended up making four different kumquat canapés because of the blogiversary and I named them after my food heroes. So without further ado, here they are.

Kumquat Canapé 1 – The Gretta Anna

Gretta Anna’s original recipe called for kumquats, rare roast beef and mint. She also wanted you to roast the beef. I just bought some rare roast beef slices from my local deli. I also had another idea for my mint leaves so I subbed in some rocket (arugula for my American friends).

Why this works

The rare roast beef has a slightly metallic taste with some saltiness and umami. The acidity of the kumquat worked really well against this and the rocket gave a note of pepperiness. A little dob of horseradish would also not go astray here either!

Kumquat Canapé 2 – The Nigella

For the Nigella Kumquat Canapé we are heading to Italy where we are pairing our tangy little friend the kumquat with some spicy chilli salami and a basil leaf. And to steal a quote from one of my favorite movies ever, Gregory’s Girl (if you have not seen this, stop everything and see it now!) the Nigella is bella, bella (with those last two words being spoken in the broadest Scottish accept you can muster!

Why The Nigella Works

The sharpness of the kumquat cuts against the fatty unctuousness of the salami, the chilli adds a kick of heat and the basil brings in some herby spiciness.This is a Mambo Italiano in your mouth! Plus even writing the words fatty unctuousness made me feel like I was channelling the real Nigella.

Kumquat Canapé 3 – The Sabrina

As if I was ever going to make a food hero kumquat canapé and not include Sabrina Ghayour! I still have 22 recipes to make from Persiana but Sirocco is wending it’s way to me as we speak! I know I said I wasn’t going to buy it until I was totally done with the Persiana Project but I read on Twitter that if you ordered it pre-release on Amazon UK, you could get it for a ridiculously low price. And I’m all about the savings!

I promise I won’t read it, will not even open the package until the Persiana Project is done!

Well, I might open the package just to make sure they have sent me the right book and it is not damaged. But then I will pack it back up again and put it out of sight until the end of the Persiana Project.

However, if during that purely quality control inspection it happens to fall open at a page….or ten….and my eyes just happen to fleetingly glance over them….then that is just what I like to call serendipity and no, it’s totally not cheating! Let’s quickly move on to the objêt itself.

The Sabrina Canapé takes us to the delicious flavours of the Middle East – hummus, dukkah, coriander and of course our little golden friend subbing in for what would traditionally be a preserved lemon.

Why the Sabrina Works

Is is a little bite of the Middle East. The creamy earthiness of the hummus is complemented by the zing of the kumquat, the dukkah adds crunch and more spice and the coriander some greeny freshness. And for them that care about such things the Sabrina is also vegan.

The final kumquat canape was the hardest to name. It had some Mexican overtones, avocado, tequila, chilli but I was damned if I was going to name it after the writer of Cantina after the terrible problems I had with that book. So, who else would I count as a food hero who would suitably represent my canapé? Jamie Oliver? Margaret Fulton? Charmaine Solomon? No, no and no came the answers. And then, taking inspiration from the tequila – which is possibly not always a good rule to live by I hit upon the name for my fourth and final kumquat canapé.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Taryn Fryer (@tarynnicole198)

Kumquat Canapé 4 – The Floyd

So obvious! I’m not sure if Keith Floyd ever made it to Mexico but I’m sure he would have, at the very least liked the idea of my tequila soaked avocados. A bon vivant, raconteur and also a bit of a boozer, Floyd was one of the first celebrity chefs. Many of his shows are on you Tube and I can thoroughly recommend them for the sheer force of his personality if not always for the recipes made. Zebu Penis and Marijuana Stew anyone?

Thankfully, The Floyd contains none of the above but consists of avocado marinated in tequila and sprinkled with salt with a side of radish, topped with a strip of pickled chilli and a slice of kumquat and garnished with a mint leaf. And again, it’s vegan!

Why The Floyd Works

It’s a bit like a deconstructed guacamole, all the flavours are their with the kumquat subbing in for the lemon or lime and the radish adding some crunch!

These were each delicious and I’m glad I expanded my thinking beyond the original!

Coming up we are celebrating the blogiversary and not only are we having a party with the letter D but it’s also themed! I can hardly wait!

Print

Kumquat Canapes

Print Recipe

Some cute and quirky canapes using cute and quirky kumquats

Author: Taryn Fryer
Yield: 16 1x

Ingredients

Scale

16 small cracker biscuits
6–8 kumquats, cut into thin slices (I found you could only get 2-3 slices from each kumquat

For the Gretta Anna

2 slices of rare roast beef, either home made or from your local deli,cut into two pieces
4 rocket leaves
4 little dobs of horseradish (optional)

For The Nigella

2 slices chilli salami, cut into 2 pieces
4 basil leaves
For the Sabrina
4 tsp hummus
2 tsp dukkah
4 coriander leaves

For The Floyd

4 chunks of avocado
1 tbsp tequila
sea salt
4 strips of pickled chilli
4 mint leaves

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

For the Floyd

Sprinkle the avocado chunks with the tequila and allow to sit for a couple of hours.
Just before serving remove from the tequila and sprinkle with the salt.

For All

Arrange the ingredients on the crackers in a manner that looks appetising.
Top with the kumquat slices.
Enjoy!

Nutrition

Serving Size: 2

Coming up we are celebrating the blogiversary and not only are we having a party with the letter D but it’s also themed! I can hardly wait!

Meantime, if you were to make a canape for one of your food heroes, who and what would it be?

Have a great week!

Signature 1

24
Feb
2016

Breakfast Banana Cream

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Bananas, Breakfast, Coconut Yogurt, Vegan, Yogurt

I know I said that we were going to skip the G is for Good Health section in the A-Z of Cooking because I had already made the Cheese and Date Bread. Then I remembered that the banana cream I have been eating for breakfast for weeks came from this same section. And for those of you who care about such things my favourite version is also vegan because guess what? The Banana Cream contains no cream. That’s 1970’s health food for you.

So pretty. And it’s delicious too. And so easy to do. It takes all of about 30 seconds to make .

But first a little digression. They…whomsoever they may be…say that you are what you eat. It might be why health food often gets such a bad rap. I mean who wants to look like the burghul salad which is the first recipe featured in the G is for Good Health section of the A-Z of Cooking.

So back to breakfast and the no-cream banana cream. This tastes and feels rich and luscious so you can almost feel a bit decadent when eating it. The basic recipe for the banana cream is bananas, yogurt, honey, lemon and crushed nuts. I have played with this for a number of weeks now and my favourite combination is to use coconut yogurt and maple syrup. The one highlight of that time I did Paleo was discovering coconut yogurt. OMG that stuff is the BEST. Shame it is so hideously expensive. At the time I looked into making it and it can be done relatively easily. I’ll add that to the to do list! And maple syrup is one of my favourite flavours. Its so good. But you can use plain yogurt or honey – whatever your favourites are.

I have also eaten the banana cream as a topping for granola and swirled into warm oatmeal //porridge and it is good with both!

I have used walnuts as the nuts in these pictures but almonds are also good. Sub in whatever you like. Or, if you hate nuts, use a sprinkle of granola for a lovely crunch!

I’m not overly fond of bananas but I have eaten the banana cream a couple of times a week for a few weeks now and there is no sign of it going off high rotation. I make the serving size below and put half in a container in the fridge for the following day – it keeps quite well overnight. Quick, versatile, delicious so simple and healthy to boot! So much nicer than that burghul salad!

Print

Breakfast Banana Cream

Print Recipe

A quick, easy and healthy breakfast dish. Vegan optional.

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1 large banana
125ml coconut or plain Greek Yogurt
2 tbsp maple syrup or honey
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tbsp toasted walnuts or almonds

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Place the banana, coconut yogurt, maple syrup, lemon juice and half the nuts into a food processor.
Blitz until just combined.
Spoon into serving dishes and sprinkle with the remaining nuts.

I feel that the A-Z of Cooking has given us two very simple recipes in a row. Next time we head there it should be for the Gourmet section. I have semi-chosen what I am going to cook and it involves a deep fryer so I am going to have to beg, borrow or steal one sometime soon. And if gourmet food and deep frying don’t quite go together in your mind, remember it was the ’70s – all sort of things happened that made totally no sense. Deep fried gourmet food was the least of their worries!

Have a great week!

Signature 1 ;

21
Feb
2016

REPOST – Strawberries in Grand Marnier with Mint Sugar

categories: 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Mint, Strawberries

The good news, is that with this post, we are done with the letter F in the A-Z of Cooking. The chapter heading promises that we will be “Finishing with Flair”. The bad news is that without seeming like Mary, Mary Quite Contrary right from the get go, another F word springs to mind when I consider the contents. Except for these Strawberries in Grand Marnier. They were good! Although how could a combination of fresh sweet strawberries combined with luscious orange liqueur with mint as it’s cheerleader not be delicious?

We’ll get to them later. However, back to Finishing with Flair – we have already mentioned this so called Mango Mousse. The picture of which contains bananas, oranges, passionfruit, eggs and nuts. The recipe below has none of these. The Mango mousse recipe actually sounds really nice. Maybe I am just being a brat for not making it. Then again, if they can’t be arsed putting the right picture with the recipe, what are the chances that recipe will turn out?

That fear of 1977 desserts not being all they were cracked up to be was born out when I made the Continental Chocolate Squares featured on p28. The picture from the A-Z of Cooking is on the left, with the Squares looking rather decadent. Mine are on the right looking a lot more Raggedy Anne. I think I tried to cut them when the chocolate topping was still too hard from being in the fridge and I could not get a nice clean line. Maybe I should have glammed them up by adding some candlelight!

What both of these pictures fail to convey is the overbearing sickly sweetness of the filling. It contained 4 cups of icing sugar which was far too much! I love sweet food but this was way too much for me and prompted the fussiest eater in the world to ask if I was trying to put him into a diabetic coma. It is a shame that the middle layer was awful because the base which was chocolate and walnuts and biscuits was quite nice. It is probably worth someone spending some time on trying to get that filling right because this could have been amazing. I just don’t think that person will be me! Although, now I kind of want to. So maybe it will rear its head in another incarnation down the track.

There was a lovely sounding recipe in this section for French Cherry Fritters. This is the one I would have loved to make but you had to deep fry the fritters and I do not have a deep-fryer. This however is one I am going to:

a) Play around with until I can perfect a baked version

b) borrow a deep-fryer. i think my mum has one.

Until then, it’s Strawberries with Grand Marnier. Adding the mint sugar was an idea I borrowed from Sabrina Ghayour in Persiana. She makes a number of herb sugars to sprinkle over fruit and now it is something I do all the time!

I served this with some white chocolate dipped almond bread which was every bit as delicious as it sounds!

Initially I thought this might be a bit too simple to blog about – soak some strawberries in booze. And done.

And it is very simple. But sometimes that is all you need to finish a meal with flair!

Print

Strawberries in Grand Marnier with Mint Sugar

Print Recipe

A simple way to finish your meal with flair!

Author: Taryn Fryer

Ingredients

Scale

1 punnet of strawberries
2 tbsp Grand Marnier
Handful of mint leaves
3 tbsp caster sugar
White Chocolate Dipped Almond Bread to serve (optional)

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Halve the strawberries and place in individual serving dishes.
Sprinkle each dish with 1/2 tbsp of Grand Marnier.
Leave to stand at room temperature for at least an hour.
Meantime, make your herb sugar.
Place your mint and your sugar in the bowl a mortar and grind with your pestle until them mint is finely ground and well combined with the sugar, which will be a lovely green.
Alternatively, place both in your food processor and whiz until you achieve the same effect

Notes

You could use basil instead of mint. Or a mix of basil and black pepper.
Any Orange flavoured liqueur could be used instead of Grand Marnier.
Any left over herb sugar can be used to rim a cocktail glass, or used in place of regular sugar in anything else you are making – I’m thinking lemonade would be amazing.

Nutrition

Serving Size: 4

Ok so that’s F done.

Coming up we have G is for Good Health. I have actually already made the Cheese & Date Bread from this section so we may skip it altogether as there is not much else to get excited about. So, possibly our next venture into the A-Z will be The Gourmet’s Touch. Ooh la la. Exciting times ahead! Possibly.

Have a wonderful week lovely people and this week, what ever you do, I hope you finish it with flair!

Signature 1 ;

27
Oct
2015

Braving Brioche

categories: 1970's recipes, A-Zof Cooking, Bread, Brioche, France

They say you should do one thing every day that scares you. Well, this week we are jumping ahead to the letter H in the A-Z of cooking and I am doing something that terrifies me. The reason for the leap from E to H and the sudden boldness on my part will become apparent in the next post….Huh…instead of a cliff hanger ending I think I just gave you a cliff hanger starting! Anyway, want to know what scares me? That third episode of Limetown still makes me shiver but cooking wise, one of the things that frightens me is bread.

And not only did I made bread this week but ooh la la, I made French Bread! Brioches to be exact. And they were very good! They looked kinda like brioches, they smelled like brioches, and they tasted like brioches! I cannot tell you how pleasantly surprised I was because the manner of making seemed odd.

I have never made brioche before but maybe, possibly this is how it is done. It seemed to work!

You made your bread dough then divided it into 12 pieces which you rolled into balls. Then you pinched off a small ball of dough from each of those so you then had 24 balls, 12 small and 12 larger. The recipe then called to make a hole in the large ball and stick the small ball inside. I found it easier to flatten the large ball and wrap it around the small ball.

Then into the baking pan for a rest and rise:

Add a glaze, pop in the oven and a short while later:

BRIOCHE!!!!

If I’d known brioche was going to be this easy I would have been making it for years! I love that high shine glaze! And to copy a phrase I learned from the Great British Bake Off, the bread also has “good crumb”.

Even though I had specifically made these for another purpose, I couldn’t resist having a little taste. Brioche and apricot jam for afternoon tea? Yes please!

As for the rest of them? Stay tuned. You’ll see in a couple of days! And it’s worth the wait! Meantime, get your brioches ready!

Print

Brioche

Print Recipe

Ingredients

Scale

1 tbsp plus 1tsp sugar
3 tbsp hand hot water
2 tsp dried yeast
200g plain flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs, beaten
50g butter, melted and cooled

Egg Glaze

1 egg
1 tbsp water
pinch of sugar

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Dissolve 1/2 tsp of sugar in the water. Sprinkle over the yeast and whisk it in with a fork. Leave in a warm place for 10-15 minutes or until the mixture is frothy.
Sift the flour and salt into a bowl. Mix in the rest of the sugar, the yeast mixture, the eggs and butter.
Mix by hand until the mixture leaves the side of the bowl.
Knead on a lightly floured board for 5 minutes.
Put the dough in a warm place and leave to rise for about 1.5 hours or until it has doubled in size and springs back when lightly pressed.
Preheat your oven to 230C.
Divide the dough into 12 portions. Break off a small bit of each portion and roll into 12 small balls.
Roll the remainder of the portions into 12 larger balls.
Poke a hole in each of the larger balls with your finger and place the small ball inside. Close the hole by pressing the dough together.
Place the balls in your baking tin and leave to rise for about an hour or until light and puffy.
Mix the ingredients for the egg glaze together and brush over the brioches.
Place in your preheated oven for 10 minutes.

Have a great week!

Signature 1

Category: 1970’s recipes

Devilled Burgers

Ingredients

Instructions

Kumquat Canapé 1 – The Gretta Anna

Why this works

Kumquat Canapé 2 – The Nigella

Kumquat Canapé 3 – The Sabrina

Why the Sabrina Works

Kumquat Canapé 4 – The Floyd

Why The Floyd Works

Kumquat Canapes

Ingredients

For the Gretta Anna

For The Nigella

For The Floyd

Instructions

For the Floyd

For All

Nutrition

Breakfast Banana Cream

Ingredients

Instructions

Strawberries in Grand Marnier with Mint Sugar

Ingredients

Instructions

Notes

Nutrition

Brioche

Ingredients

Egg Glaze

Instructions