Category: Smoked Salmon

Salmon Rillettes: Sad Cypress

Salmon Rillettes4

Hello crime readers and food lovers! Welcome to Dining with the Dame for May and my take on Sad Cypress.  I loved this one!  And I also loved the Salmon Rillettes so this was a win-win for me! Now it may be a bit risky to base my recipe on the supposed murder weapon (poisoned salmon paste sandwiches) but the rillettes were absolutely delicious!  

Sad Cypress -The Plot

First up, the name comes from a quote from Shake’speare’s Twelfth Night:

Come away, come away, death,
    And in sad cypress let me be laid.
Fly away, fly away, breath;
    I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

The beautiful Mary Gerrard is dead.  Prior to her death, Mary had been the gardener’s daughter in an estate owned by the Welman family.  Elinor Carlisle, niece to the recently deceased Laura Welman stands accused of her murder.  

Her motive?  Elinor had recently been jilted by her fiance (and kind of cousin) Roddy for Mary.  

Her means?  Salmon paste sandwiches laced with morphine.  

Her opportunity?  Tea time whilst clearing out the Welman estate.  

All fingers are pointing to Elinor being the murderer.  But did she do it?  Luckily the local doctor who has a bit of a crush on Elinor brings in Hercule Poirot to determine who is guilty.  

Salmon Rillettes

We have:

  • A poison pen letter
  • Some missing morphine
  • An elderly aunt possibly bumped off before her time
  • A very large fortune left to Elinor.  
  • A mysterious figure lurking in the bushes
  • A possibly perfidious cousin
  • A strange mark on a nurse’s wrist
  • Secrets from the past impacting the present
  • Poirot hilariously calling himself a “pukkah sahib”

Such a good story!!  

Salmon Rillettes3

Sad Cypress – The Covers

 

Sad Cypress Collage 2

There are some great covers here – many of which contain aspects of things we have mentioned, the roses, the morphine, the poison pen letter.  We also have our first Japanese cover, some French covers, a Spanish cover and a German which may actually be my favorite.  Here it is in full:

Sad Cypress

 

I also want to call out this one because…what?  

 

I understand the rose and the tea set.  The weird green guy?  Not a clue!  It reminded me of Dumb Witness when Emily Arundell, who had been poisoned with phosphorus was said to have a luminous haze around her head.  

The Recipe – Salmon Rillettes

I based my recipe for Salmon Rillettes on the recipe for Rainbow Trout Rillettes, Rye, Cucumber and Watercress Sandwiches from Food for Friends by Hardie Grant Publishing.  That recipe is by Philippa Sibley and her book New Classics.  I swapped out the trout for Salmon and used white bread for my sandwiches.  

Salmon Rillettes Recipe

Elinor went across the hall and brought back from the pantry a big plate of sandwiches.  She handed it to Mary saying:

“Have one?”

Mary took one.  Elinor stood watching her for a moment as the girl’s white, even teeth bit into the sandwich”

Agatha Christie – Sad Cypress

Links to The Christieverse

Peter Lord, the doctor who is crushing on Elinor tells Poirot that he was recommended by Dr Stillingfleet.  He is a character in a short story called The Dream which appears in The Adventure of the Christmas Pudding.  

 

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in Sad Cypress

  • Raspberries
  • Fish Paste Sandwiches (multiple references)
  • Cocktails
  • Tea (multiple references)
  • Doughnuts
  • Pink Sugar Cakes
  • Milk
  • Salmon and Shrimp Paste
  • Salmon and Anchovy Paste
  • Beer
  • Fresh Fish for lunch

June’s read will be One Two Buckle My Shoe

Have a great week!

 

Smoked Salmon Tarts

Hello and welcome to my best of January post!  It was not the start to the year I was looking for – the month was fraught with illness (human and canine) and a nasty car accident for the Fussiest Eater in the World from which he is still recovering.  In the midst of all the misery though, there was still time for some good food starting with these smoked salmon tarts from Alimentari by Linda Jones.

Smoked Salmon Tartlets

These are little morsels of deliciousness.  I shared this recipe with a friend of mine and, like me, they have become one of her go to entertaining snacks.  So tasty, so pretty, they transport really well for picnics and other out of home occasions and if you happen to have any left (unlikely) they are delicious the following day – I ate mine at ambient temperature but you could heat them if you wanted or have them cold from the fridge.

I also used whole tom berries and not halved cherry tomatoes.

Smoked Salmon Tarts – The Recipe

 

Other Favourites of The Month

Reading

One More Croissant for the Road by Felicity Cloake

I cannot tell you how much I loved this book!!!  Felicity Cloake is a British food writer who is also a keen cyclist.  In this book, she cycles around France, eating and drinking the signature dishes in each town (Quiche in Lorraine, Provencal Fish Soup in Marseille etc).  I love all things French so reading this was an absolute delight!  I loved her voice and really want Felicity to be my new best friend!   (There are also recipes)  💖

 

I also read the most recent Lianne Moriarty, Apples Never Fall.  This was an audiobook and, just like last month, the narrator’s voice irritated me.  Apart from that, I enjoyed the story and what an ending!!!!!  😲

Cookbook

Someone’s voice who definitely doesn’t irritate me is Diana Henry, the British cookbook writer.  I bought her cookbook, A Change Of Appetite in January and I am looking forward to cooking from it very soon!

The cover is so pretty too!

Watching

We watched the The Puppet Master on Netflix the other night which was excellent.  It is about a conman who has been operating since the 1990’s posing as an MI5 Agent.  It is compelling viewing!

Listening

And, if you are intrigued by that story of a conman pretending to be an MI5 agent, you will be as fascinated as I was by Sweet Bobby.  This is a catfishing podcast about another sociopath pretending to be an MI5 agent.

Note to self and to everyone else. Like they say in The Puppet Master… If someone tells you they are an MI5 agent, they are generally NOT an MI5 agent!

The issue of pathological lying also crops up in Apples Never Fall, so on the whole, I have spent a month immersed in liars, cheats, conmen and sociopaths!

I am on the lookout for new things to watch and new listen to, let me know your recommendations!

Playing

Like everyone else I am obsessed with WORDLE.

It is the first thing I do when I wake up in the morning.  My favourite opening words have changed from CABIN to TRAIN to IRATE.

What’s your favourite opener?

Cooking

We have our Foodies meeting this week where the theme is tv shows.  I am cooking from The Cook Up with Adam Liaw.  I haven’t finalised what I am making but these are most likely going to be on the menu!

 

Shopping

My Mum and I went antiquing and I bought these gorgeous Scotch Whiskey ceramic decanters which are now taking pride of place on my bar cart.

Decanter 1

Decanter 2

So, you’re all caught up on my life!  Here’s hoping February is a better month!

Have a wonderful week!


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Nova Scotia Eggs, A Confession, Pompeii & Doctor Who

Breakfasts and Brunches start the “B” section of the A-Z of Cooking.  I chose a smoked salmon and egg combo called Nova Scotia Eggs which was, not surprisingly, delicious.  You’d have to go a long way to go wrong with those ingredients. 

Nova Scotia Eggs 1
Nova Scotia Eggs 1

Having said that, the recipe did it’s best to bamboozle me.  Coat the eggs in mayonnaise it says.  It actually had me questioning the word “coat”. Because to cover the eggs completely, which would be the normal translation, seems like a LOT of mayo. Then again it also calls for 8 tablespoon of mayonnaise to cover 4 eggs.  I’ll say it again.  That’s a shit ton of mayo. 

Nova Scotia Eggs - Recipe
Nova Scotia Eggs – Recipe

Who knows, maybe Canadians really, really  like mayo.  Although having said that, I have no idea if the Nova Scotia eggs have any actual connection to Canada. 

I also feel that unless I get something off my chest, I will probably never get to find out.  You see, I am carrying a deep dark secret in relation to Canada.  Well, in relation to two Canadians specifically but I get the feeling they are very community spirited.  Do ill by two of them and the whole country takes against you. Anyhow, I feel that until I publicly right this wrong, I may never be welcome in the land where pines and maples grow, great prairies spread and Lordly rivers flow!

It happened like this.

A few years ago we holidayed on the Amalfi Coast.  Whilst we were there we did a half day tour of Pompeii.  The problem was that we booked ourselves onto a triple language tour.  This meant that for each point of interest the tour guide stopped and spoke about it in Italian, English and Russian.  Then there was time for questions. Of which the Italians and Russians had plenty.  And she would duly translate the answers into the other two languages.  Kudos to the tour guide for being fluent in three languages when sometimes I feel like I struggle with just one, but it meant the  going was SLOW.  So slow that, had there been glaciers in the vicinity, we could have watched them moving and marvelled at their speed compared to our progess through Pompeii.

 Nova Scotia Eggs2

An hour in, and we weren’t even inside the walls.  He was starting to get antsy.  “Come on, this is crap, we’re never going to see anything at this rate.  And don’t you know about it?”  

 I may have slightly bigged up my knowledge of Pompeii.  I had studied it in art class in high school for what seemed like an eternity however, high school was OMG, 20 years ago. 

Excuse me while I have a minor major flip out about that.

OK. I’m back.  I’m centred and TWENTY YEARS?  

Holy Crap. 

Nova Scotia Eggs3
Nova Scotia Eggs3

 Back to Pompeii…anything to blank out the horror….During the next few Russian and Italian sessions we started a muttered debate.  He wanted to leave the group and strike out on our own, armed with our purchased tour book and my…ahem…vast knowledge.  I was equally adamant that we had paid for a guided tour and dammit, a guided tour we would have. 

“Are you guys thinking about ditching this ?” Our conversation was interrupted by a whisper coming from a guy standing beside us.  (We were all being very quiet so as not to disrupt the relentless Italian / Russian chatter).

“Yes” Him.

“No” Me.

“Cos we are too”.   They were a Canadian couple on honeymoon and after a few more murmered exchanges we decided to very quietly leave the group and explore on our own. 

“And we don’t need a guide.  Taryn knows all about it.”

Why is there never a bottomless volcanic crater around when you need to push someone into one?

Nova Scotia Eggs4
Nova Scotia Eggs4

 In retrospect, it was the best thing to do.  The four of us covered an amazing amount of ground and had a great time doing it.  They had a different book to us so we were all sharing what we had and we all got on really well.  Then we reached a point where apparently, back in the day, you could look across and see the cave of the oracle of Cumae.  And something in my brain clicked.

“You know that in the days before Vesuvius erupted the Oracle of Cumae told them to get out of Pompeii.  Twice. But the people were so hedonistic and so consumed by their material possessions that they refused to go”.  All of a sudden, I was Simon Schama.  I knew all about the Oracle and the prophecies and I was not afraid to tell the world.  The lovely Canadian couple were quite impressed.  They even took notes.  And He was impressed.  Dammit, I  was impressing myself.  Who knew I paid that much attention in art history classes?

Nova Scotia Eggs5
Nova Scotia Eggs5

 Much later in the day, when we were on the bus back to where we were staying in Positano, he asked if he could see the guidebooks.  I handed them over and he started pouring over them with an intensity I have rarely seen.

“Whatcha looking for?”

“All that stuff about the Oracle…did you read that in here?”

“I dunno.Maybe…or maybe in the book at the hotel.  Or maybe from memory.  Why are you so interested?”

“I want to see if they say if that’s where they got the idea for the episode of Doctor Who”

Oh. OH. 

 “The w…w…what?”

“You know, the episode of Doctor Who where they go to Pompeii.  And the oracle tells the people to leave.  Twice”.

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

Nova Scotia Eggs5
Nova Scotia Eggs5

Except I kinda, sorta, maybe did.  So, lovely Canadian honeymoon couple from Pompeii, whose names I have completely forgotten specifically and people of Canada in general.  I’m really sorry.  I have a very, very bad feeling that instead of telling you some amazing actual factual history, that I may have just given you the summary of the plot line of an episode of Doctor Who.

In terms of accuracy, it might have been better if I’d just sung that Bastille song to you.

Feel free to update the Canadian Wikipedia entry on Pompeii any day now folks.

And enjoy the Nova Scotia eggs, they are delicious.  I made them for you!

And please let me in if I ever come visit, I really want to try some poutine. 

 

 Have a great week!  Signature 1 Vintage Valentine Quick as Wink2  

 

 

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