Tag: 1970’s recipes

Chinese Pancake Rolls

Today I am sharing another recipe from the China chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery.  Pancake Rolls (aka Chun Guin) are a version of a Spring roll.  Originally a pancake filled with fresh spring vegetables, Spring Rolls were a welcome change from the preserved foods that people had to eat during the long Chinese winter.  Well, it is spring in Australia now so I thought why not celebrate the change of season with some traditional fare? 

In retrospect, I should have celebrated by ordering some proper Spring rolls from The Imperial Garden because, to be honest, these weren’t great!  

 

Pancake Rolls1

These were a lot of work – make the pancakes, make the filling, wrap and roll and then deep fry.  It all took a good few hours and for not much payoff.  I considered using spring roll wrappers for these but the recipe said pancakes, so I made pancakes.  The problem was, the pancakes did not really crisp up enough during the frying process.  And surely one of the delights of the spring / egg roll is that great crunch you get when you bite into that crispy pastry – just before the boiling hot contents ooze out into your mouth!  

Pancake Rolls2

The filling was also disappointing.  Something containing chicken*, crabmeat, mushrooms and leeks should be bursting with flavour.  These really didn’t taste of much at all.  *You will note the recipe calls for pork.  I do not like the taste of pork so I subbed in some chicken.  Maybe this accounts for the blandness?  

Pancake Rolls – The Recipe

It’s here if you want it… but seriously there are better ways to spend your time!  And that’s coming from someone living under one of the strictest coronavirus lockdowns in the world.  All I have is time and I wouldn’t spend it making these again.

All was not entirely lost though.  Some members of the household really enjoyed the leftover Pancake Rolls!

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One great recipe from this chapter and one meh….do I call it a draw or make one more as a decider? 

Decisions, decisions!!!  

Have a great week!

Name Plates: Pizza a la Garibaldi

What do an Italian revolutionary, a biscuit, a beard and this post have in common?  They are all named Garibaldi!  This Pizza a la Garibaldi comes from The Italian Cuisine I Love (1977) by Jules J Bond.  I have a particular fondess for Jules J so I was eager to pick this book back up again.  And who doesn’t love pizza?

Pizza a la Garibaldi1

What is Pizza a la Garibaldi?

Ok.  So, I’m not going to explain pizza.  Because it’s pizza!

Pizza a La Garibaldi though? Has cheese, green and black olives, oregano / marjoram, and anchovies.  I also added some strips of roasted red pepper for reasons which will become clear right about now!  This is the picture of the Pizza a la Garibaldi from The Italian Cusine I Love.

The OG Pizza Garibaldi

 

And this is me trying to recreate it.  I think Jules J piped lines of tomato sauce on his pizza.  There was no way in hell I was going to do that so strips of piquillo pepper it was!  I wish I’d had some of those cute rolled anchovies with capers to get the same look as Jules.  Mine looked like blobs.  

Pizza a la Garibaldi2

The Recipe And Variations

Pizza a la Garibaldi recipe1

I was interested to see that Jules uses bread dough as a base for his pizza.  I have not been able to find yeast for love or money since the start of the first lockdown when everyone went sourdough mad so I was unable to test that part of the recipe out.  Also, my preference is for a thin and crispy base rather than a thicker base so I used one of those souvlaki pitas for my pizza. 

The Pizza a la Garibaldi was very tasty but for me the big disappointment was the cheese.  Part of the joy of pizza, for me anyway is that beautiful streeeetch of the mozzarella. 

Parmesan may be tastier but does not give the same joy!  I will definitely use mozzarella next time I make this.  

Who Was Garibaldi?

Well, we don’t have all day so here are a collection of fun facts about Giussepe Garibaldi

Unifier of Italy

Garibaldi was almost single-handedly responsible for helping Italy move from a collection of city-states to the country we know today.  He and his volunteer army of guerilla fighters, the Redshirts,  conquered Lombardy and later Sicily and Naples. 

Anti Slavery Advocate

Abraham Lincoln offered Garibaldi a job as a Commander in the American Civil War.  Garibaldi refused the post partly because Lincoln did not condemn slavery strongly enough for his liking.

Pacifist

Even though he was a soldier for most of his life, in his later years Garibaldi became something of a pacifist beliving that war was generally neither righteous or an effective means of getting what one wants.

Champion of the Underdog

Garibaldi believed in worker’s rights, women’s emancipation, racial equality, and the abolition of capital punishment.

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Garibaldi spent some time in South American and for the rest of his life work the clothing of the gauchos.  He is also the originator of the Garibaldi beard.

Garibaldi collage2

Keen Entolmologist*

A little known fact about Garibaldi is that he was an avid collector of flying insects, a love he developed in South America.  In order to keep his collection with him on his travels, he had specimens of his collection baked into little clay tablets.  He could then pop these into his pocket to look at between skirmishes. 

These small clay tablets are believed to be the origin of the Garibaldi biscuit.

(Photo via Delicious Magazine UK)

Modern Day Garibladi

I wasn’t sure if I would be able to find one of these but come on down Navarone Garibaldi.  In case you haven’t heard of him, he is the son of Priscilla Presley and Marco Garibaldi, stepbrother to Lisa-Marie Presley and a member of the band Them Guns.  Hmmm…maybe he could have gone with The Guns of Navarone…or would that be too obvs?  Anyway, here he is!

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Have a great week.  And eat some pizza! It’s scientifically proven to make you happy!

 

*This “fact” is little known because I wanted to have an interesting story for the origin of the Garibaldi biscuit.  The actual truth is that the reason why they are named after Garibaldi is totally unknown.  

Ye Olde Crusty Cellar Cheesecake

At the best of times, a cheesecake (or really any item of food) hailing from “Ye Olde Crusty cellar”  would not sound tempting.  However, these are not the best of times, (these may well be the worse of times) and desperate times call for cheesecake!  Have I ever mentioned how much I love cheesecake?  Next to ice cream, it is probably my favourite dessert.  Also, Fridge, Freezer, Pantry week has come around again and I had half a tub of cream cheese icing I wanted to use up. I did not want to make another cake with cream cheese icing so I thought I could hide it in plain sight as it were by mixing it with more cream cheese, sugar and lemon.

Ye Olde Crusty Cellar Cheesecake1

(Don’t ask me what look I was going for with the fruit decoration!)

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The recipe for Ye Old Crusty Cellar’s Cheesecake came from the book 100 Fabulous Cheesecakes by Ellen Sinclair of The Australian Woman’s Weekly (1971). It is a real shame about the name because the Ye Olde Crusty Cellar cheesecake itself is delicious!!!

100 Fabulous Cheesecakes

Ye Olde Crusty Cheesecake – The Recipe

I did not copy the recipe for Ye Olde Crusty Cellar Cheesecake exactly though.  I changed a few things to suit my personal taste.  You can decide if you make this whether to follow the OG version or mine.  Here is the original with my notes on the crumb crust.

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Here are the instructions on what to do with those ingredients to turn them into a crumb crust:

Crumb Crust 1

Crumb Crust 2

The two changes I made to this were:

  • I did not add any additional sugar as I thought an entire can of condensed milk would be sweet enough
  • I did not add the egg yolks.  Largely because I could not understand what they were doing there.  I totally understand eggs in a baked cheesecake but not in an unbaked.  The only thing I could think that they provided was maybe an additional richness to the mix.  Again, for my taste, cream cheese and sour cream are rich enough.

I was a bit worried that leaving them out would somehow mean that the cheesecake would not set.  But the mixture firmed up beautifully in the fridge overnight to cream a filling that was both light, luscious and not too sweet!

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Ye Olde Crusty Cellar – History

The Ye Olde Crusty Cellar was a wine bar opened at 255 George Street brSydney in 1931 by winemaker Leo Buring.

It was described as having:

“the head of Bacchus…to guide guests in and out’ with ‘shaded lights’ and a feeling of ‘cloistered gloom’.

Hmm, not sure cloistered gloom would be the ambiance I would be seeking were I to open a wine bar. But it worked for Leo!  The “Crusty” was a destination venue, attracting crowds of visitors, many of whom would have sampled the cheesecake!

Sadly the “Crusty” closed in 1974 but luckily the recipe for us, it’s signature cheesecake lives on!

Ye Olde Crusty Cellar Cheesecake4

Have a great week everyone!

 

Prawn and Potato Curry

Greetings people of the internet.  This week we are returning to our sojourn around the world via Good Housekeepings World Cookery. Last time we visited this book we were in Pakistan for a subcontinental take on Scotch Eggs.  Today we are moving south and east into India for a super easy, super delicious Prawn and Potato Curry.

Potato & Prawn Curry1

I threw some baby corn in as well because this is my year of not wasting food and we happened to have some in the fridge that was not going to last the week.  To be honest, the baby corn should never have been bought.  It was on sale and the fussiest eater in the world said he wanted it.

“For what?” I asked.

“I’ll think of something”

Something was not thought of.  Hence the fact that the baby corn went into the curry.

There seems to be something in the air this year around reducing waste/saving money.  I set a goal for 2020 to be my year of reducing kitchen waste.  Halfway across the world, the lovely Jenny from Silver Screen Suppers is also cutting down on waste this year.  My boss  is radically cutting down on her kitchen waste this year by living off pantry supplies every fourth week and donating the money she would have spent on food to charity.  I LOVE this idea!!!! Such a bold and generous move!

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But back to the curry.  This curry is very easy to make and for a curry, few ingredients.  It is also very tasty! Here’s the recipe, direct from the pages of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery.  But please feel free to add in any veggies you may have that would otherwise go to waste!

 

Potato & Prawn Curry8

 

Have a great week!  And please tell me any tips you have for reducing kitchen waste!

 

 

Potato Maraska

Today, as we continue our globetrotting trek through 1972  we are saying goodbye to the Balkans and heading to…well, here’s the clue given on page 273 of Good Housekeeping World Cookery….

Good Housekeeping World Cookery Middle East

If the baking dishes of non-descript food didn’t immediately alert you to our destination, then maybe the shisha, the toy camels and the fact that the dishes are placed on SAND may indicate that

a) We are off to the Middle East, and

b)Subtlety was not strong back in the day!

That picture is the worst!

Specifically, our first stop on the trip is Israel.

I really wonder, why, when the line drawings in this book are so pretty, they even bothered with the cliched photography. It was hardly to make the food look attractive!

Good Housekeeping World Cookery Israel

The Potato Maraska was not my first choice of recipe for this post.  I originally wanted to make a Butter Kuchen.  I even bought all the ingredients for it.  Well, I bought sour cream.  I had everything else.

Then I read the recipe…

Butter Kuchen

 

Hmm….and after you let the dough rise overnight?  Then what?

Well, if you’re Good Housekeeping’s  World Cookery you move swiftly on to a recipe for Chremzlach and the Butter Kuchen is never mentioned again.

Never mind, I thought, there is a recipe right above the recipe for Butter Kuchen for Kuchen Dough.  I’ll just get the rest of the recipe from that…

Kuchen Dough

Or…..not….

I would love to know what Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery has against finishing a recipe for Kuchen.  But given the absence of how to cook the risen dough, I decided that mine was going to be a kuchen free kitchen!

Potato Maraska

I had been going to make a fish pie that night and, in the absence of kuchen I decided that I would use the recipe for Potato Maraska as the topping instead of regular mashed potato.

Potato Maraska recipe

Potato Maraska2

The Potato Maraska was…..okay.  Not as nice as normal mashed potato but if you and didn’t have milk and butter or you wanted to cut down on some calories, the egg adds a richness to the plain potato.

And at least it was a full recipe!

Potato Maraska3

That’s it for me!

Have a great week!

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PS – If anyone knows how to make a butter kuchen, please send me a full recipe!