Broken Hill CheeseSlaw

G’Day Food Lovers! People say that necessity is the mother of invention.  In my case, it was the mother of trying out a bizarre little recipe called Broken Hill CheeseSlaw.  Let me show you the finished dish before we get to the hows and whys!

Let’s start at the very beginning.  One of my favourite sandwiches is chicken schnitzel and coleslaw.  Or, as we in Australia call it, a chicken schnitty.  Now, we don’t eat schnitty’s all that often because the fussiest eater in the world does not like crumbed food.  🙄

However, we did have schnitzel…well to be utterly honest it was Donna Hay’s Chicken Katsu the other night ( and lo and behold he actually enjoyed it).  And there was a little bit of chicken leftover…actually no.  I specifically katsu’ed an extra bit of chicken so I could have a schnitty and slaw sanger the next day!

Now, you may notice a distinct lack of sandwich in the above photo.

Here’s why

Frankie

This is Frankie. We were dogsitting Frankie on Katsu night and Frankie was not happy about being dogsat. She howled the whole of the first night she was with us.  And most of the second (which was katsu night).  The only way I could get Frankie to stop howling was to pet her and cuddle her.

So, on day three which was the day I wanted my schnitty sandwich, I realised I had no bread in the house.  And I wasn’t going out to buy any.  My neighbours were already sleep deprived, as was I. from the nighttime howling.  I felt that if there was also daytime howling interrupting people’s work we would become public enemies #1.  It was already lunchtime and I was hungry!  There was no time to wait for a delivery.

“I’ll make a bowl.”  I thought.  “Then I won’t need bread”.  About then I realised I also had no cabbage for the slaw.  Enter Broken Hill Cheeseslaw!

Broken Hill CheeseSlaw

Broken Hill CheeseSlaw (more than a food, it’s a way of life) is a mix of grated carrots, mayo and cheese which has been on the menu in Broken Hill (aka The Silver City) since the 1930’s. How or why the good people of Broken Hill decided to ditch the cabbage and embrace the cheese in their slaw is lost to time.  Although there is a viable theory here.  However, it is still very much still a thing and even got its own dictionary entry in 2019!

Broken hill CheeseSlaw3

Broken Hill CheeseSlaw – Tasting Notes

The cheeseslaw was somewhat surprisingly not terrible.  Many times if you buy a schnitty and coleslaw sandwich you get the option of some cheese to be melted on top.  And you know, one of my mottoes in life is if you ever get the option of cheese melted on top of anything, take it!  I did feel like the cheeseslaw missed a little bit of bang – some spring onion, some pickled jalapeno etc would have cut through some of the fattiness of the cheese and mayo combo which the carrot did not do.  I added some pickled onions I had in the fridge and some edamame from the freezer to my bowl to bring in that bite and also some greenery.

As a whole, my schnitty / katsu cheeseslaw bowl was totally delish!  And something I will intentionally make again!!!

Broken hill CheeseSlaw2

Broken Hill CheeseSlaw – The Golden Grater

So friends, there is an annual contest in Broken Hill for the best cheeseslaw – both traditional and contemporary.  I’m already thinking – a Philly Cheesesteak / Cheeseslaw combo might be awesome!

If you have an idea for cheeseslaw, (and here are some things that others have tried), let me know and I will make the 820 km drive to represent you and me (and Frankie) in the competition for this year’s Golden Grater!

The Recipe – Broken Hill CheeseSlaw

Australia - Broken Hill Slaw (3)

Have a great week!

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Summer Berry One Two Buckle My Shoe

Summer Berry Buckle2

Hello food lovers and crime readers! Today on Dining with The Dame, we are taking a look into the Hercule Poirot novel One Two Buckle My Shoe. And to snack on while we read, we have a lovely fruit filled cake called a Summer Berry Buckle. Yes, not much food in this one so again, I had to use some creative thinking for the food component. And the Summer Berry Buckle is a delight!  I loved that you got a different berry in each bite!

Summer Berry Buckle2

 

One Two Buckle My Shoe -The Plot

Leaving his dentist’s office, Hercule Poirot bumps into the delightfully named, Mabelle Sainsbury Seale, a former actress.  He picks up a buckle that has fallen off her shiny new shoe and gives it to her. 

Before you can even start to get any creepy dentist vibes aka Norman Gale in Death In The Clouds, we find out via Inspector Japp that sometime after Poirot’s visit, the dentist Hector Morley apparently killed himself.  Morley’s clients between Poirot and his death included Ms Sainsbury Seale, a banker called Alistair Blunt and a rather shady Greek gentleman called Mr Amberiotis.  Another man, an American activist called Raikes leaves the office without a visit to Morley’s Partner (who is a bit of a drunk).  

Summer Berry Buckle4

We have

  • Mr Amberiotis dying not too shortly after Dr Morley from an overdose of adrenaline and novocaine – both commonly used by dentists. Are the death’s connected?
  • A secretary called away from work on false pretenses.  Was it so she did not recognise the killer?
  • A fiance annoyed with Morley’s interference in his love life – did he kill Morley?
  • Mabelle going missing
  • A body in a trunk with her face bashed in.  
  • Two murder attempts on Alistair Blunt, one supposedly by the aggrieved fiancé.  Has he moved from killing dentists to bankers?
  • And what of the left-wing activist?  The one who left before seeing the drunk dentist?He has no love of bankers or members of the bourgeoisie.  Might he be the murderer?
  • And what of that drunk dentist?  Did he bear a grudge against his more successful partner?
  • We also have Poirot revealing himself to be a leg man!  How else would he know that a ten-inch stocking equates to a size six shoe?

Good thing we have Poirot around to sort out who did the deed!  We also have Inspector Japp in his last appearance in a novel.  😔

Summer Berry Buckle3

There is a lot going on in this book and the plot seems quite convoluted at times.  The nursery rhyme felt far more wedged in than in “And Then There Were None” too.  While this was not my favourite novel it did give an insightful look into power and privilege and the importance of one life versus another.  
 

One, Two, Buckle My Shoe – The Covers

I was able to find a lot of covers for this one, primarily I think because it has three names. It was originally called The Patriotic Murders in the US but they changed this to An Overdose of Death in 1953.

One Two Collage2

So many great covers here.  I think my favourite is the shoes second row second from the right which also is our very first Finnish cover!  

The Recipe – Summer Berry Buckle

I used the recipe from the New York Tmes as my recipe and I can highly recommend it. 

I served my Buckle with some labne that I had made for something else and wanted to use up and some fresh raspberries.   

Whipped cream or yoghurt could easily sub in for the labne. 

Poirot shrugged his shoulders.  He said:

I t would seem that death selected, most inartistically, the wrong man.  The Mysterious Greek, the Rich Banker, the Famous Detective – how natural that one of them should be shot!  For mysterious foreigners may be mixed up with espionage and rich bankers have connections who will benefit by their deaths and famous detectives may be dangerous to criminals”.

Whereas poor old Morley wasn’t dangerous to anybody, ” observed Japp gloomily.

“I wonder.” 

Agatha Christie – One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Summer Berry Buckle5

Links to The Christieverse

Poirot speaks of Countess Vera Rosakoff who we last saw in The Big Four and is the closest thing we come to Poirot having a love interest

The Case of The Augean Stables is mentioned.  We haven’t got there yet but it is one of the stories in The Labours of Hercules

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in One, Two, Buckle My Shoe

Summer Berry Buckle

Also, apologies for this post being nearly a week late!  I dropped my laptop, and thankfully whilst nothing major was damaged, the pin on the charger bent making it impossible to charge so I had to wait for the replacement charger to arrive.  I’m going to try really hard to get the post that is due tomorrow out on time or just a little late to get back on posting track!

July’s read is Evil Under The Sun which is a great read and I have something very special planned for it. 

Have a great week!

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Food For Lovers Redux

Zakusi

Hello friends, and welcome to a special series I will be running over the next 12 months. A while ago, I realised I had totally missed the 10th birthday of this blog. In fact, I was thinking about how to celebrate this and wanted to check the exact date of the first post which I thought was in 2013.  Nope.  It was 17 May 2012!  There didn’t seem much point in celebrating eleven years but twelve sounds impressive.  So in the 12 months leading up to my 12th birthday I will be featuring one of the old books I blogged about in the early years.  Those old posts are mostly dire but the books are quirky and fun or just plain good. Sometimes all three.  To get this party started I am revisiting one of the most bonkers books I own – Kelly Brodsky’s Food for Lovers from 1971.

Zakusi2

 

Food For Lovers – The Book

Food for Lovers is broken into 15 chapters, each of which is devoted to a particular type of man and the food that their beloved should cook to keep them interested.  As the old adage goes, the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach!   This may make it sound like this is a very conservative, conventional cookbook – the type of book you might have seen in the 1950’s on how to please your husband.   But this my friends was not the conservative 50s, this was the 1970s and the birth of women’s liberation so the tone is definitely tongue in cheek.  At least I hope it is because each of the men mentioned sounds awful (although also somewhat recognisable).  To introduce you to the book and its characters I thought it might be fun to do a little speed dating with the gents of Food for Lovers!

Bachelor #1 Come on down!

Freddy Finikin

Freddy

“Freddys who dislike food are an asexual lot who seem to get a perverse kick from driving the women in their lives to a frenzy in search of something to tempt their appetite…the woman who falls for such a man is either unaware of his finickiness, or trapped, or mad, or maybe she prefers to read in bed”

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Should you find either the picture of Freddy or his blurb attractive, or you are mad, trapped, or prefer to read in bed here is a recipe to keep your Freddy happy!

Zakusi

Zakusi

Zakusi

You’ll notice I have changed the recipe so that rather than filling the egg whites “liberally” with caviar, I have made a more traditional and certainly more economically viable devilled egg. These were AMAZING.  So tasty!!!!  

Let’s move on to Bachelor #2

If fussy eaters aren’t your style, maybe this likely lad is more your speed!

Joe De Go

Joe De Go

A man with the Midas touch, Joe usually has his fingers in many pies.  Often in the guise of pop star, P.R, ad-man, disc jockey, TV star or such, he wizzes from one assignment, luncheon or deal to another with a slick show of competence that belies his lingering adolescence.  Bright and on the ball he mostly shoes away from anything that smacks of more than superficial know-how, for he hates to be caught out of his depth

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Intrigued by the sound of Joe?  Why not tempt his palate with some

Creamed Leek and Potato Soup

 

Leek and Potato Soup

Creamed Leek and Potato Soup

This soup was delicious!

Still not found your ideal man?  Let’s take a look at Bachelor #3

Champers Chas

Champers Chas

With the carefully cultivated air of an educated debauchee and a fascinating, if largely fabricated family history to back it, Champers provides an inexhaustible supply of gossip.  Whether on or off the boards, he delights in titillating his ever present audience with spicy, often malicious anecdotes and ribaldry

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Fancy chatting with Chas?  Tempt his tastebuds with some 

Pistachio Nut Pilau

This was really nice, the rice was light and fluffy and went perfectly with last week’s Chilli Crab!

Pistachio Nut Pilaf

Pistachio Nut Pilaf

Still not found the love of your life? Maybe you like your men a little more sleazy and possibly criminal? Bachelor #4 may be more your style!

Professor Repressor

Professor Repressor

If the name doesn’t say it all, here’s Kelly’s description

Repressor exudes the coldness of a tree frog, his sang-froid masking some Lucifer-like leanings.  One kinky chink in his armour is his obsession with the Lolita-type nubiles on his campus – who usually run for their sweet lives when they see the kind of red-hot light they inspire in his eyes.  Inevitably, he is forced to turn his attentions to any neglected wives of his colleagues

Kelly Brodsky – Food for Lovers

Ok.  We might need a palate cleanser after that so how about some

Watercress and Orange Salad

Watercress and Orange Salad

Watercress and Orange Salad

This was great and just the refreshing hit I  needed after writing about the pervy professor!  Let’s swiftly move to Bachelor #5!

Gad About Guy

Gad About Guy

Gad about Guys come in all shapes and sizes with ages and egos to match.  They usually hover round fellow Gads with a few of the uninitiated thrown in as audience.  “Remember that night in Singapore when we strolled along Bugis Street – and those fantastic little roadside stalls with the delicious Satay? ….”Lord, yes! And will you ever forget that Lamb Solanka in Moscow last winter.”…And on and on it goes, the name dropping, the reminiscences and regurgitations of past splendours”

Kelly Brodsky – Food For Lovers

If the well-travelled man is your bag, why not whip up a lovely breakfast for him with some

Wine and Song Prunes

I LOVED these.  I feel so bad that prunes have such a bad rap!  This was so delicious. And what a fabulous name!  I served mine with a little bit of labneh, some orange zest and some pistachios left over from the pilaf and it made a heavenly breakfast!

Wine and Song Prunes

Wine and Song Prunes

And because all good things must come to an end, we come to our lucky last Bachelor…who out there fancies

Jack Snack

Jack Snack

He’s strictly a non-event up to his neck in dreary day to day existence, blissfully unaware of anything outside his tight little domain…his every move as predictable as the plainness of his sitting-room with it’s enormous brick veneered fireplace above which some gypsy flamencoes wildy within a heavy gilt frame

Kelly Brodsky – Food For Lovers

I laughed out loud when I read this because growing up, we had possibly that very same flamenco dancer painting on our wall at home! I thought it was incredibly beautiful and have always wanted to learn to flamenco as a result of it!

Now, I have also not made Jack’s Snack, mostly because I quite like my life and don’t fancy being taken down by a premature heart attack any time soon.  But should you wish to share your life with this homebody and are not afraid of death by overindulgence, here is the recipe for a Veal Scallopine Sandwich that will melt Jack’s heart whilst simultaneously clogging his arteries!

Veal Scallopine Sandwich

 

Okay, food lovers, I hope you have enjoyed my second journey into Food For Lovers…I LOVED revisiting this book!!! And there are so many more delicious-sounding recipes and terrible men in it that we may have to take a third look somewhere down the track!

I have searched online for other books by Kelly Brodsky and Kelly Brodsky herself and have drawn a big flat blank!  At the moment there also appear to be no other copies of Food for Lovers for sale so, sadly you cannot share my delight in this book. Kelly, if you are out there, and I hope you are, I hope you read this and know that fifty-two years after the publishing of your book, you have a number one fan in me! 

Have a wonderful week friends and please let me know if you make that Veal Scallopini Sandwich! Or any of the other recipes!  

 

 

May 2003 – The Letter P

Welcome friends to Twenty Years Ago today, where we find out what the good people of 2003 were eating via a magazine of the time and a self-imposed challenge by which to deliver a menu. Today’s magazine was Super Food Ideas from May 2003 and the challenge was to build a menu that featured the letter P.

But first, let’s set the scene by having a quick peek at what was hot in May 2003. The Matrix Reloaded was number one at the office followed by X2: X Men United and Bruce Almighty. Topping the Australian music charts through that same month were “In Da Club” by 50 Cent, “Rock Your Body” by Justin Timberlake and “Bring Me To Life” by Evanescence. Also, sneaking up on those charts was another favourite of mine, “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes so for my mind, May 2003 had some pretty good music and some fairy average films. In book sales for the month, The Da Vinci Code was #2 and The Devil Wears Prada was #8.

So, pop some JT on your speakers and open that bottle full of bub, because we are going to party like it’s your birthday with a menu featuring the letter P.

The Menu – May 2003

May Menu

Chicken Liver Paté – To Wake You Up Inside

There were actually a few options for the starter – the paté which I chose, a prawn cocktail and some mini potato cakes with smoked salmon and creme fraiche.  I literally eeny meeny miny mo’ed these three recipes to choose one.  The pate was easy to make and was quite delicious.  It was a little grainier than bought patés but that probably says more about my food processor than any real flaw in the recipe.  

Chicken Liver Pate1

Chicken Liver Pate Recipé:

Chicken Liver Pate

 

Pepper Steak – To Rock Your Body

The pepper steak main was delicious!  And another classic to go with the very traditional starter!  And although I am trying to limit my consumption of red meat, this is likely to go on high rotation!  

Pepper Steak

Pepper Steak Recipe:

Pepper Steak

 

Pecan and Date Syrup Pudding

I was soooo disappointed that I didn’t have time to make this.  I even bought all the ingredients but, the weekend I had planned to make it, I also realised we had most of a bag of apples that were getting a bit old…so apple pie it was.  However, as I said I have all the ingredients so this pudding may make an appearance in the coming weeks.

Pecan and Date Syrup Pudding Recipe:

 

Pecan and Date Syrup Puddings

 

 

My Nigella Moment  – Chilli Crab

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 the most appetising thing in the mag!

I mean…who does not love a Chilli Crab.  I mean…who does not love Chilli Crab.  We had the most memorable chilli crab in Malaysia.  We went on a tour to see the fireflies where part of the tour was dinner.  The restaurant looked pretty basic – plastic plates and cups, definitely catering to the tourists going to see the fireflies so we were not expecting much.  Then they brought out the chilli crab!!!  It was amazing.  So fresh and tasty.  It was divine.  So expectations were high on this one.  Could I do our memories of chilli crab justice?  

Chilli Crab

I am not going to blow my own trumpet to say this was as good as our Malaysian meal.  For a start, it was not followed by cruising down the river watching fireflies, it was followed by a night on the couch watching Forgetting Sarah Marshall which was this week’s film club choice!  BUT…this was AMAZING!!!!  A seven-nation army couldn’t hold me back from this one!  

Chilli Crab Recipe:

Chilli Crab

Oh my gosh, Super Food Ideas delivered on the P recipes!  This was a great month of eating for me culminating in that chilli crab…possibly the best month yet!  And the pudding still to come!

So tell me, if you were making a menu featuring the letter P, what would you make?

And have a great week!

 

 

 

 

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!