Month: November 2018


Nov
2018

Beetle Pie

categories: Pie

Beetle Pie?  WTF is going on at RFFMT?  Is this the month of disgusting sounding food? Well, maybe…but I also just got sent a copy of The Nightmare Before Dinner: Recipes to Die For: The Beetle House Cookbook by Zach Neil and couldn’t wait a year for Hallowe’en to share a recipe with you.

And as with last week’s Stuffed Monkey, the yumminess of the Beetle Pie is directly proportional to the yechhhh factor of its name.  That is to say….it’s totally delicious.  Let me convince you by unpacking it into its component parts:

  • Chocolate wafer crust
  • Pistachio custard filling
  • Blackberry jam topping
  • Whipped cream and fresh blackberries to garnish

Yeah, baby!

There are so many things to talk about this week.  I really want to tell you about the book that contained the Beetle Pie recipe but that will have to wait.   Because while researching this post  I came across an absolutely bonkers tale from history involving a very different type of beetle pie.

So buckle in….because we are taking a trip in the way back machine all the way to 1863.

Beetle Pie

1863 was a huge year in history.  In America, Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address.  The Red Cross was founded in Switzerland.  And, in London, the first tube train ran between Paddington and Farringdon.  And some five miles away from Paddington,  in Brixton, Mrs Elizabeth Wilton baked a pie for her neighbour’s coachman, Edward Gardiner.

The relationship between these neighbours was…..strained.  Mrs Wilton liked to have German bands (and Negro singers) playing loud music in her house a few times a week.  This was not appreciated by the neighbourhood in general and her sickly, elderly neighbour specifically.  Words were exchanged.  And sometimes more than words.  On one occasion,  Mrs Wilton was seen throwing bricks at the neighbour’s windows!  She was feisty!

Beetle Pie2

She was also batshit crazy!  One day, she baked the German band a pie. They took it to the local pub to eat.  However, the pie was not filled with apples or rhubarb or cherries.  Or anything normal.  Because this was a pie baked by  Elizabeth Wilton who was as mad as a box of frogs.

The pie filling was a pair of ladies knickers!

Not to be outdone, one of the band members then donned the knickers, returned to Mrs Wilton’s house and danced in front of her door for a while.

I imagine that dance looking a little like this:

 

Loud music? Brick throwing? Underwear pies? Revenge door dancing? It’s 1863 people!  Calm the hell down and go catch one of those newfangled tube trains.  We won’t be needing your kind of mad arse white trashery until we invent reality tv in about 120 years!

But all this is merely to set the context under which the hapless Edward Gardiner received his pie.

BeetlePie3

Now, I don’t pretend to know anything about the life of coachmen in 1863 but from what happened next, I’m guessing it was hungry work.  Or maybe, they didn’t get paid a lot so hunger was par for the course.  Or maybe Edward Gardiner was just not too quick on the uptake.  Because despite the lingerie pie precedent, it took him a  good “six or seven mouthfuls” of Mr’s Wilton’s pie before he realised that

  • It tasted revolting
  • It was filled with black beetles and,
  • “A nasty stuff resembling mustard, but it was not mustard.”

The “nasty stuff” was later discovered to be gamboge, a yellow tree sap used as a laxative.

 

Not So Fast Eddie eventually took what was left of the pie to the local police station.  Where the sergeant claimed to have never seen “anything more filthy or disgusting” and that he had to open all the police station windows to get rid of the “intolerable stench”.

Let me just repeat.  The sergeant took one whiff.  Eddie G? Six (or seven) mouthfuls…

The next day, Mrs Wilton turned up at the police station bearing…..yep…you guessed it.  A freshly baked pie!

Which upon examination was found to contain a painted toy pear.

Which was found to be full of black beetles!

Later, in court, Mrs Wilton admitted having made the original beetle pie “as a lark”.

The judge agreed that it was a practical joke and not meant to cause injury and she was released from custody.

BeetlePie4

A few months later the irrepressible Mrs Wilton was back in the police station.  This time she was charged with knocking off a policeman’s hat whilst being drunk in public.

I love this woman!!!!!😍😍😍

There is no record of whether she baked the charging officer one of her very special pies!

BeetlePie5

I hope you loved the story of the utterly eccentric Elizabeth Wilton and her black beetle pies as much as I did!

I found the entire story on  The Skittish Library.  It’s a fabulous site, why not pop over and see what other delights Estelle has to offer!

And make a beetle pie in celebration of  Elizabeth Wilton and her pie making badassery from 1863!

Have a great week!

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Nov
2018

Spinach and Gorgonzola Stuffed Jacket Potatoes

categories: Blue Cheese, Potato, Spinach

Doh! thought I posted this a couple of weeks ago!!!! I found it in drafts today so I guess not!  

I had an idea about how to do these World Food posts.  I’ll do a recipe from Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery from 1972, then I’ll do a modern recipe from the same country or somewhat related to the first post.  It’s going to be a kind of retro/modern vibe.  So, given that last time I featured Potato Maraska, a potato recipe from 1970’s Israel, today, I am showcasing a potato recipe from an Israeli chef, Yotam Ottolenghi.  This is actually my second Ottolenghi recipe on here, the first being his Crespeou from way back in 2015.  No “70’s style retro picnic bling” today but after the blandness of the Potato Maraska, these Spinach and Gorgonzola stuffed jacket potatoes bring all the flavour to the yard!

Spinach and Gorgonzola Stuffed Jacket Potatoes

If you are one of those people who hate blue cheese, you could use cheddar or whatever cheese you like instead…but the gorgonzola, spinach and walnut combo is particularly nice.

The hardest part of this is scooping out the cooked potato flesh evenly and not putting a hole in the skin. Maximum taste for minimum effort.  Vegetarian.  And gluten-free for those who care about such things. 

Potato skins or stuffed jacket potatoes or whatever you want to call them are fun food! And these have spinach so they’re also kind of healthy!  

There’s not much more to say about these!  They were simple to make and delicious!  And they look just like the picture from the book!

Spinach and Gorgonzola Stuffed Jacket Potatoes3

This recipe comes from Yotam Ottolenghi’s latest book, Simple.  This was our latest Tasty Reads book club selection and was, with one exception,  liked by all.  I love it and can see it becoming a favourite that I turn to regularly for simple, delicious food:

Highlights for me, apart from the potatoes above,  have been so far:

  • Chicken Marbella
  • Bridget Jones Pan Fried Salmon with Pine Nut Salsa 
  • Blueberry, Almond and Lemon Cake

Here’s the Spinach and Gorgonzola Stuffed Jacket Potatoes Recipe:

Spinach and Gorgonzola Stuffed Jacket Potatoes2

And here’s the book:

I love that cover.  It’s so bright and cheerful and well…Simple! 

Have a wonderful week!

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Nov
2018

Sour Cherry Stuffed Monkey

categories: 1970's recipes, Desserts, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Israel, World Cooking

Disclaimer: No monkeys, stuffed or otherwise, were hurt, or even involved in the making of this week’s recipe.  Stuffed Monkey is actually a Jewish pastry.  With a totally kooky, and kind of revolting,  name.  Which is, of course,  why I had to make it!

Stuffed Monkey

And I’m so glad I did because Stuffed Monkey is delicious!  The pastry is like a cinnamony shortbread and the filling is slightly fudgy, a bit like a brownie. It’s so good!

Now, the original recipe for Stuffed Monkey, direct from the pages of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery, had candied orange peel as the fruit in the filling.  I’m not a big fan of candied peel at the best of times and, certainly not in the quantities required to make this.  So I subbed in some dried sour cherries and some dried apricots for my version.  I did add some orange zest as well so there was a hint of orange in my recipe as a small nod and a wink to the original.

Stuffed Monkey2

So, why the odd and not appetising at all name?  I found a couple of theories on the old interwebs…the first is that “monkey”  is a corruption of the Arabic word “makhshi” which means stuffed.  So this would then become a Stuffed Stuffed?  The other theory I found is that these were first popularised by a family called the Monnickendams.

I’m not sure I’m entirely convinced by either of these but what do I know?

Stuffed Monkey3

Here’s the recipe direct from Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery:

Stuffed Monkeyrecipe3

And here is my version with the cherries and apricots.

Print

Stuffed Monkey

Print Recipe

A delicious baked dessert

Ingredients

Scale

For The Pastry

  • 170g butter
  • 227g plain flour
  • 170g caster sugar
  • 1/2 tsp cinnamon
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 egg, beaten

For The Filling

  • 80g dried sour cherries, chopped
  • 80g dried apricots, chopped
  • 60g slivered almonds
  • zest of an orange
  • 227g ground almonds
  • 85g butter
  • 2 egg yolks
  • 1 tsp vanilla essence
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 egg white

Instructions

For The Pastry

  1. Rub the butter into the flour.
  2. Add the sugar, cinnamon and salt.
  3. Add the egg. Combine until the mixture becomes a smooth dough.
  4. Divide in two equal pieces.
  5. Roll the first piece out and use it to line a pie dish.

For The Filling

  1. Beat the butter, ground almonds and egg yolks together.
  2. Add the dried fruit, nuts and vanilla and salt.
  3. Stir to combine.
  4. Spread the filling over the dough in the pie dish.
  5. Roll out the second piece of pastry and cover the filling with it.
  6. Press the edges to seal them.
  7. Brush with the egg white to glaze.
  8. Heat the oven to 180C.
  9. Place the pie pan in the oven and bake for around 30 minutes or until golden brown.

Notes

  • This is great on its own but is fabulous with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

There is a downside to making a dessert called a Stuffed Monkey.

Which is that no one wants to eat it.  The minute you mention the name, they get a funny look on their faces.  Then they ask you to repeat what you said.  Then they say “It’s okay, I think I might just have coffee”.

So just tell your friends it’s called Sour Cherry Tart or something.   They’ll be shovelling it down like nobody’s business and asking for seconds in no time at all!

Or tell them the name and keep it all for yourself.  It’s that good!  

Stuffed Monkey Meme

Have a great week!

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