Category: Chicken & Poultry

Death Comes As The End – Spelt Salad with Duck

Hello crime readers and food lovers! I will admit that I was not looking forward to reading Death Comes As The End.  Whilst I have read a few historical mysteries, it is not my preferred genre of mystery reading.  The 150 years from the late 19th century (Sherlock Holmes) to now a pretty much my reading wheelhouse, mysteries included.  So, the prospect of a story set in Ancient Egypt didn’t fill me with joy.   And, who on earth knows what people in ancient Egypt ate?  And would I be able to replicate something even remotely similar?  

Luckily for me, Death Comes as The End is littered with references to items of food and so I was able to form an idea of what ingredients may have been available to someone in that time.  Esa, references her favourite dish of reedbirds with leek and celery a few times so that formed the basis of the meal I wanted to make.  Cooked celery makes me gag so that was out.  But leek and duck…that sounded like something good!

I’m going to shake things up this time and list the foods mentioned first instead of last because I think that will help explain how “I” came to devise this dish.  

spelt salad1

Food & Drink Mentioned in Death Comes As The End

  • Roast Duck
  • Spelt
  • Barley
  • Dates
  • Syrian Wine
  • Honey
  • Triangular loaves of bread
  • Grapes
  • Quail
  • Cakes with Honey
  • Reed birds with leeks and celery
  • Olives
  • Pomegranate juice
  • Wine

From that  list of ingredients, I chose duck, spelt or barley and leeks as the things I wanted in my recipe.  I then searched through my cookbooks.  I couldn’t find exactly what I wanted so I turned to technology to help.  “Find me a recipe with duck, leek and spelt”  I typed into an AI Chatbot.  It delivered two recipes, one a barley risotto type thing and one a Spelt Salad with Duck, Leeks and Pomegranates.  Bingo!  A bonus is that the recipe also contains honey which is in the above list!  

I also love the combination of using modern tech helping me to solve a problem of food from 4000 years ago! 

I wasn’t sure if cheese was a thing in Ancient Egypt.   Turns out, that Egyptians were making cheese 5000 years ago!  How cool is that?  I mean, they were also making the pyramids and the Sphinx which for most people probably trumps the fact that they were also making a bit of feta on the side.  But for me, that is the funnest fact I have learned all year (13th January at the time of writing).  

And, after all that,  I forgot to add the cheese to my salad anyway!  🤦🏽‍♀️

spelt salad2

Some Fun Facts About Death Comes As The End

  • This was the FIRST EVER historical whodunnit novel.  Even if you dislike the book (I really liked it but I may be in the minority here) that is something!  
  • It is the only Agatha Christie novel not set in the 20th Century
  • The novel is based on real letters written in Ancient Egypt from a man complaining about how badly his family treated his concubine
  • The book came about when Christie’s and Egyptologist Stephen Glanville suggested Agatha write a book set in ancient Egypt
  • It  is one of the few Christie novels not (yet) adapted for the screen

Death Comes As The End – The Plot

Because you are truly Egyptian – because you love life, because, sometimes – you feel the shadow of death very near…

Agatha Christie – Death Comes as The End

Renisenb has returned to her father’s home with her young daughter after the death of her husband.  Also living in Imhotep’s house are other members of his family including:

  • His eldest son Yamose, his wife Satipy and their family. Yahmose is diligent but also diffident.  His wife constantly henpecks and belittles him.  
  • Middle son Sobek and his wife Kait.  Sobek is as hot-headed and rash as Yahmose is careful.  Kait is the typical tiger mother, absorbed by and protective of her children
  • The youngest son, Ipy is arrogant and boastful.  He is eager to be seen as an intelligent adult and no longer a child.
  • Semi blind, Imhotep’s mother Esa rounds out the members of the family however there are two others also living with the family. 
  • Henet is a poor relative of Imhotep’s deceased wife who remains in the family to take care of them.  She is obsequious gossip and a thoroughly nasty piece of work. 
  • Finally there is Hori who is Imhotep’s scribe. Later, Kameni, another scribe joins the household.  

There is some tension between the brothers and the wives bicker with each other but these troubles are nothing compared to what happens when, after a trip to the North, Imhotep brings Nofret, his new concubine, to live with them.  The family is not happy about this. and are even less happy when Nofret begins to drive wedges between Imhotep and family members.

Nofret then falls to her death from a cliff.  Accident?  Or did someone in the family take matters into their own hands?

And then, there were nearly none!

Several more deaths follow leaving the remaining members of the family terrified.  (A lot of people die in Death Comes As The End.  The death count in this novel is second only to And Then There Were None! )

Are they being cursed by Nofret’s vengeful spirit or is the murderer far more corporeal?

spelt salad3

Death Comes As The End- The Covers

Death Comes As The End Collage

I was able to find French, German, Czech and Portuguese covers along with some English ones for this novel.  They are all pretty much as you would expect for a novel set in Ancient Egypt.  

The Recipe – Spelt Salad with Duck

Print

Spelt Salad with Duck

A delicious spelt salad with duck leeks and pomegranate inspired by Agatha Christie’s Death Comes As the End. 

Ingredients

Scale
  • 100g spelt
  • 2 duck breasts
  • 1 tsp vegetable oil
  • 1/2 tbs duck seasoning (I didn’t know what this was so used 1/2  tbs ras el hanout for its Middle Eastern Flavours.  )
  • 2 leeks thinly sliced
  • 1 tbs olive oil
  • 1 orange, segmented
  • Handful of walnuts, toasted and chopped
  • 1/2 cup crumbled goat cheese (I forgot to add this and the salad was fine without it so consider it optional)
  • Pomegranate Molasses

For The Dressing

  • 2 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 tbsp lemon juice
  • 1 tsp honey
  • Salt and pepper

Instructions

The AI recipe had no method of cooking the leeks so I assume they had them raw.  I do not like the idea of raw leeks so I began by sauteeing the leeks in olive oil for around 20 minutes until they were soft and just starting to caramelise. 

Preheat the oven to 180C.  

Put the spelt in a large saucepan, cover with cold water and bring to the boil.  Reduce to a simmer for 20 minutes.  Drain and cool for 5 minutes.

Score the duck breasts in a crisscross pattern.  Season with salt and pepper.  Then brush with oil and sprinkle with duck seasoning  / ras el hanout.

Heat a frying pan over medium heat and fry the duck, skin side down for 5 minutes.  Then turn and cook on the flesh side for 2 minutes.  Transfer, skin side up to a small roasting tin and put in the oven for 15 minutes.  (I found this was too long, my duck was overcooked.  I would check for doneness after about 8 minutes in the over and then every 2 minutes from there.)

While the duck cooks, toss the cooked spelt with the leeks, orange segments, pomegranate seeds and walnuts.

For the dressing, whisk together the olive oil, lemon juice, honey, salt and pepper.

Slice the duck and arrange on top of the salad.  Drizzle with the dressing and crumble the goat cheese over the top. / Mix the dressing with the spelt mixture.  Slice the duck and arrange on top of the salad.  Drizzle some pomegranate molasses over the duck. 

Serve Immediately.

Enjoy!

Notes

Items in italics are those added by me, the rest is the recipe generated by AI

 

Fear is everywhere

Death Comes As The End – Agatha Christie

spelt salad4

 

Links To The Christieverse

None that I could find.

February’s read will be Towards Zero.

 

Huli Huli Chicken Wings

Aloha friends and welcome to 2024! Whilst most of us are looking ahead, I am reflecting on the last “20 Years Ago Today” post I wrote. In that post, I said, “couscous is the only food I can think of where the same letters are repeated”. The very next day, I was searching through my file of blog-worthy recipes.  And, found a recipe for Huli Huli Chicken Wings. So, we are taking a little trip back to 1950’s Hawaii for a taste test! Never let it be said that I am not happy to prove myself wrong in the search for delicious food.  

Huli-Huli-Chicken-Wings

If someone else hadn’t already come up with the catchphrase of “finger licking good” I’d be using it right now to describe these wings. The Huli Huli sauce is so good!  It’s sweet and sour and full of umami and sticky and just plain delicious.  I made these a little while ago and as I am writing this now my mouth is watering thinking about them!  Guess what’s going back on the menu for next week! 

Huli Huli Chicken Wings2

Huli Huli Huh?

Ernest Morgado, the founder of the Pacific Poultry Co served his mum’s teriyaki-style chicken to a group of farmers back in 1955.  They loved it and he decided to market it as Huli Huli Chicken.  Huli means “turn” in Hawaiian.  The original way of cooking this was to place the chicken between two racks and to grill it, preferably over charcoal.  It was turned during cooking hence, huli huli! 

Schools and other charities often sold Huli Huli chicken as a fundraising item.  In Australia, outside every Bunnings (large hardware store) we also have fundraising food stalls.  We get the cheapest sausages imaginable, slapped into usually dry and equally cheap white bread, some BBQ’ed onions if you want them, and some sauce.  It is usually revolting but there is something about that BBQ aroma that draws you in, even though you know it you will regret it as soon as you take that first bite.  

I think Australian fundraisers could learn a lot from the Hawaiian way of doing things.  I mean, why have this?

When you could have this?

Huli Huli Chicken Wings3

Huli Huli Chicken Recipe

My recipe comes directly from the Australian Women’s Weekly website.  You can find it here  but I have noticed that many websites are now blocking links from blogs.  So I have also copied it out below:

Huli Huli Chicken 1

 

Huli Huli Chicken 3

Huli Huli Chicken 4

I can also heartily recommend the pineapple salad that accompanies the Huli Huli chicken wings in the above recipe.  To me, it was the perfect fresh and zesty offset to the sweetness of the chicken.  And that hit of chilli in the salad somehow brought everything together!

Well, if this is the standard of cooking I get when I prove myself wrong, I am willing to be proved wrong again and again! Please let me know if you can think of any others! Otherwise, have a great week!

Signature2

 

Spaghetti Diable

Greetings Friends and welcome to October. I am celebrating the start of the spookiest month of the year with some Spaghetti Diable. The recipe for our Devil’s Spaghetti comes from The Australian Hostess Cookbook. This book, which is fast becoming one of my favourites, also gave us the Ginger Tingle a while back.

Spaghetti Diable1

The Life of The Grazier’s Wife

Both of these come from the menu of the same Australian Hostess in a chapter called A Grazier’s Wife Entertains. For those not familiar with the term grazier it refers to a person who has farms sheep or cattle.  But maybe I’ll let the grazier’s wife tell us a little bit more about her life.

When planning my menu I consider the conditions out here is in the Austalian Bush.  Our nearest town is 56 miles away and the mail lorry, with my ingredients aboard, has to spend a whole night on the dusty dirt road before it finally arrives at our door early the next morning.  Fruit and vegetables travel 300 miles in a goods train before they reach the mail lorry

It astounds me how anyone survived under those conditions let alone was able to be sufficiently organised to throw dinner parties!  And not just any dinner parties either. Here is the grazier’s wife describing the ambiance of her dinner party.

When dinner is ready I light the candles and limit the lights in the dining room to a corner lamp.  The stereo set continues playing soft mood music all evening.  My large dining table will be set with a plain lilac linen tablecloth and moss green linen table napkins.  The main decoration will be a small bowl of lilac sweet peas with deeper mauve candles inserted into the centre of the float bowl.  On each woman’s napkin there will be a freshly picked pink rosebud tied with a narrow lilac velvet bow”

How delightful does all of that sound!!!!  Who doesn’t now want to get an invitation to dinner at the grazier’s wife’s house?

My own table settings for the Spaghetti Diable were not nearly so fancy.

Spaghetti Diable2

 

Spaghetti and Chicken?

As I was making the Spaghetti Diable I realised that I had never eaten chicken and spaghetti together before.  Growing up, we had  Spaghetti Bolognese and Lasagne (both Beef), Carbonara (Bacon), Marinara (Various Seafood), and Canneloni which was spinach and ricotta.  There was some sort of Tuna Pasta Casserole which is best not spoken about but we NEVER had chicken with pasta.  And even as an adult, they are two things I would not even think of combining.  It even felt weird to be making it.  I realise this says more about me than about the combination of chicken and spaghetti which I’m sure is very normal.  

Spaghetti Diable 3

Is The Devil In The Details? Spaghetti Diable – The Recipe

Is hard to see why this is called Spaghetti Diable.  Diable or Devil in a dish usually indicates the presence of chilli.  And quite a lot of it.  Even allowing for the delicate palates of countrified Australians in 1969, a mere dash of cayenne powder seems a little tame!

Also, I used fresh mushrooms which I sliced and sauteed with the onion and garlic.  I however have the luxury of being able to pop into the local green grocer or supermarket for fresh mushrooms whenever I please without having to wait for them to come over 300 miles on a goods train and then overnight on a mail lorry!

I also added some parsley as a garnish.

Spaghetti Diable 4

 

Tell me, are there food combinations that you think are strange but other people think are normal?  Or combos that you think are normal but other people find weird? 

And have a great week!!!!

August 2003 – Summer

Summer Lovin’ had me a blast!  Hello, retro food lovers!  Today as you may have guessed from the header and my musical intro we are taking a tour back to August 2003 via Australian Table.  The aim is to see if that magazine can provide us with a super summer feast! 

Now I know that some of you might be thinking…what’s hard about that?  Surely all mags, twenty years ago would be showing seasonal recipes..  Well, don’t forget readers that in Australia is it winter!  Now it may surprise some of you but in the south of Australia, where I live it gets cold!  Not Canada cold or Northern European cold, but definitely cold enough for this season to be recognisably winter. The magazine cover promises Shepherd’s Pie, Bangers and Mash, Beef Stroganoff and Roast Chicken.  Will we be able to find some summery food in the midst of this hearty winter fare?

Table 0803

 

First, to put us in the mood let’s see what was on the pop culture in August 2003!  The Da Vinci Code was still topping the book charts, S.W.A.T was killing it at the box office and Breathe by Sean Paul featuring Blu Cantrell was the number 1 song.  

The Menu – August 2003

Summer Menu 1

Chargrilled Prawns with Coriander and Lime

For me, the best summer food is eaten outdoors so these prawns, which would be amazing cooked on the BBQ were my choice of a starter.

Chargrilled Prawns

The marinated prawns were super delicious!  I did not like the dressing and, come summer when I make these on the barbie I will leave the dressing out completely.  Whilst I don’t mind sherry as a drink I felt it gave the dressing on what was a very fresh and lively dish a kind of fusty taste which I found unpleasant.  If you want to try it with the dressing, I would suggest serving it on the side!

Chargrilled Prawns Recipe

Chargrilled Prawns Collage2

Satay Chicken Skewers

Another dish which would be ideal cooked on the BBQ.  I love a chicken satay and this one is super easy because it uses a bought satay sauce!  

Chicken Satay 1

I served this with a cucumber and red onion salad, which is, my Malaysian friends tell me, a traditional accompaniment to Chicken satay.  You could also, of course serve rice or noodles with the chicken satay skewers as well. 

Chicken Satay 2

Perfectly grilled chicken, dipped in a satay sauce with some salad!  Heaven on a stick!

Satay Chicken Recipe

Chicken Satay 1 (1)

Ice Cream with Rocky Road Sauce

I didn’t have time to make this due to holidays, Pieathalon, work, cooking for our Foodies Cookbook club, a date with my mum to see A Haunting In Venice all of which amounts to life in general.  However, it’s a really simple recipe which I am sure tastes absolutely delicious!  Please let me know if you give it a try!

Ice Cream with Rocky Road Sauce Recipe

Watermelon and Vodka Cocktail

This cocktail was pretty much identical to this one that I made back in February.

Watermelon Vodka

My Nigella Moment  – Thai Beef Noodles

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 but it was one of the most appetising things in the mag!

This time round it was some Thai beef noodles. I’m hoping that sherry will redeem itself in this recipe as it sure didn’t work in the prawns!  These look delicious and fun!

Thai Beef Noodles

 

Australian Table was able to dish up a lovely summery meal despite being an issue from the middle of winter!  The prawns and satay were also nice in winter and were lovely reminders that summer is on it’s way!

 

 

 

Busy Bird Chicken

Memories, Iike the corners of my mind…misty water-coloured memories…Greetings Friends and welcome to a very nostalgic instance of Retro Food for Modern Times. Many of the vintage dishes I make here are not from my own childhood but from old cookbooks I own. This one is different. Apricot or Busy Bird Chicken was something we would eat on the reg when I was growing up.

Busy Bird Chicken

Why Busy Bird Chicken? That’s what the recipe my mum used was called. However, it is almost exactly the same as the recipe I found in The Busy Woman’s Cookbook by The Australian Women’s Weekly (1972). The only difference is that our version had almonds sprinkled over the top. The busy woman of the 1970s had no time for such frivolities. Her Apricot Chicken is unadorned.  I really liked then in this thought, so I would urge you to also include them. 

Busy Bird Chicken 2

The Busy Woman’s Cookbook

We last met the busy woman way back in 2016. Then, as now, we lusted after her floral serving dishes and her perfectly coiffed hair, admired her skill in floristry / fruit wrangling and worried about her proximity to a naked flame whilst wearing a gorgeous but most likely highly flammable 1970s caftan.

The Busy Woman's Cookbook

They say you can’t step in the same river twice and so revisiting this beloved dish from my childhood came with a fair amount of anxiety. What if it wasn’t the charming dish of my memories? It’s very simple – four ingredients (with the almonds). Would the sweet / salty / oniony flavour be as I remembered it? Or would it be sickly sweet and awful?

I served my chicken with Sabrina Ghayour’s Coriander, Garlic and Lime Rice.  I thought the savouriness of this would act as a counter if the Busy Bird Chicken was overly sweet.  Back in the day, we would have had plain boiled rice with it. And to be honest, that would have been fine! 

Busy Bird Chicken 4

I’m happy to say that the Busy Bird Chicken was EXACTLY as I remembered it. It was a delicious blast from the retro past and I will certainly not be waiting such a long time to make it again!  

If you would like to have your own blast from the past here’s the recipe!

Busy Bird Chicken Recipe

Have a great week!  I will be popping into your inboxes mid-week this week too as it is PIEATHALON time.  I made my pie today (Sunday) and I am so looking forward to sharing it with you!  

 

Signature2