August, 2021 - Retro Food For Modern Times

Month: August 2021

29
Aug
2021

Devilled Egg Pie

I had a little moment recently of coincidence or prescience depending on what you believe. I was thinking “Better start looking for recipes for Pieathalon – that will be coming up soon”. I found a copy of Mollie Katzen’s recipe for Devilled Egg Pie from The Enchanted Broccoli Forest. Could there be a more perfect Pieathalon pie? Devilled eggs are such a stalwart of retro cooking and I’m pretty sure that no one has yet cooked from this classic of vegetarian cooking! Then I realised that the recipe calls for a mashed potato pie crust. Which I had not copied. Without a recipe for the crust, I could not send it to someone else to cook. But I could cook it myself and invent my own mashed potato crust!

And it’s only proper after all. Do you think any of those athletes you just watched in the Olympics came in cold? No way! They practiced! So, consider this one of my warm-up heats to get myself rmatch ready for Pieathalon!

The Mashed Potato Crust

Let’s start with that mashed potato pie crust I needed to invent. I had some leftover mashed potato. Which I pressed into the bottom and sides of some little pie dishes. Oh yes, I decided to make individual devilled egg pies.

I then brushed these with a little bit of melted butter and popped them into the oven at 180C until the edges started to go brown and crispy, around 15 minutes.

Crust done!

Next up was the sauce that drew me to this recipe in the first place. It is a white sauce with horseradish, mustard and dill. I know there is no Scandinavian blood in my veins but these flavours absolutely sing to me. I used the very last of the horseradish I had harvested from our garden. The mustard and dill came from the supermarket and greengrocer respectively. I spooned the sauce into the bottom of the pie dishes:

I added some halved hard-boiled eggs.

And I spooned some more of the sauce over the top and popped the pies into the oven until the sauce was golden brown on top!

Devilled Egg Pie – The Recipe

Mollie Katzen gives two versions of this dish. I made the hard-boiled egg version but I am also keen to try the fresh egg version. I also think she missed a bit of a trick here – why not make a devilled egg, devilled egg pie? I am going to make MY version very soon – stay tuned!

Devilled Egg Pie – The Verdict

These weren’t devilled eggs as we know them but the flavours were certainly devilled egg adjacent. The mix of the mashed potatoes, the sauce and the eggs was delicious and just about the most comforting thing I have eaten all year! The hardest thing about making them was actually having leftover mashed potatoes! I’ll certainly be making these again!

Oh, and the exact same night I made these, I got an email from Yinzerella about Pieathalon 2021. It’s coming…

23
Aug
2021

Dry Martini – Peril at End House

categories: Cocktail, Dining With The Dame, Gin, Poirot

Greetings crime readers and food, well drink lovers! Today we are celebrating the delights of the Agatha Christie novel Peril at End House with a fabulous dry martini. And there are many delights to this book. First, it is a Poirot, second, the adaptation is filmed in the most gorgeous location and third, we get to drink a martini!

Also, for those of you who may think that Christie novels are all knitting and cups of tea at the Vicarage, this book has a Scarface-esque amount of cocaine in it. Those bright young things of the 1930’s were not shy when it came to a bit of blow!

Peril at End House – The Plot

Poirot and Hastings are taking a little vacay to the Cornish town of St Loo. While sitting on the terrace of the Majestic Hotel, they make the acquaintance of Nick Buckley, a young female who is the owner of End House, a ramshackle mansion next door to the hotel.

Nick tells them that she has escaped death a number of times recently – a heavy painting fell of the wall cliff and onto her bed. Luckily she had been making tea at the time and missed having her head bashed in by it. The brakes on her car failed and she is nearly crushed by a boulder on the cliff path. Indeed, even as she is talking to Poirot and Hastings she is bothered by what she thinks is a bee flying too close to her face. Poirot later discovers that this was in fact a bullet, not a bee.

Someone is apparently trying to kill Nick Buckley!

Poirot convinces Nick to send for her cousin Magdalena to help keep her safe. Magdalena is then killed whilst wearing Nick’s shawl, presumably in a case of mistaken identity.

On top of a dead cousin, rafts of cocaine and multiple life attempts we have

The wonderfully named Commander Challenger
Some shonky Australian housekeepers
Chocolates poisoned with cocaine
Some wonderful repartee between Hastings and Miss Lemon in the adaptation
Missing pilots
Love letters and secret marriages
Lost wills
Fake deaths and mad ex-husbands

Peril At End House – The Covers

There are quite a few foreign covers in this lot – some French, an Italian and even an Arabic (?) one. Also two FABULOUS pulp fiction covers from the 1950’s or 60’s!

The Recipe – Dry Martini

‘What about a cocktail?’ I suggested. ‘It’s just about the time.’

‘Well—’ She hesitated. ‘Thanks very much.’

‘Martini?’

‘Yes, please—dry Martini.’

I went off. On my return, after having ordered the drinks, I found Poirot and the girl engaged in animated conversation.

‘Imagine, Hastings,’ he said, ‘that house there—the one on the point—that we have admired so much, it belongs to Mademoiselle here.’

‘Indeed?’ I said, though I was unable to recall having expressed any admiration. In fact I had hardly noticed the house. ‘It looks rather eerie and imposing standing there by itself far from anything.’

‘It’s called End House,’ said the girl. ‘I love it—but it’s a tumble-down old place. Going to rack and ruin.’

Agatha Christie, Peril at End House

Dry Martini

Print Recipe

A classic dry martini

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

2 1/2 ounces Gin, I used Four Pillars Cousin Vera Gin
1/2 ounce dry vermouth. I used Noilly Prat
Green olive or a lemon twist to garnish
Ice cubes
Ice

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Combine the gin and vermouth in a mixing glass full of ice cubes

Stir them to combine.

Strain into a chilled cocktail glass.

Garnish with an olive (or two) on a cocktail stick.

Notes

If you are not a fan of olives you can also garnish with a lemon twist

Other Food Mentioned in Peril at End House

Cup of Chocolate

Bacon and eggs (as per every other Poirot)

Marmalade, coffee and rolls.

Good champagne (of couse darling!)

Tisane

Chocolates

Brioches

Chocolate eclairs

I LOVED this book! It was probably my favourite so far and the adaptation is also mwah chef’s kiss perfect!

If you are reading along, next up is Lord Edgware Dies.

Have a great week and happy reading!

15
Aug
2021

Limoni di Amalfi Cotti Al Forno

categories: Italy, Lemon, Starters

To vaguely paraphrase The Arctic Monkeys we are going from the rubble to The Ritz. I’ve lately dabbled in some trashy food but the next two posts are going to be pure class. Hello Limoni di Amalfi Cotti Al Forno! You can tell this one is high-end because it has a name in a foreign language. Unless you are Italian. Then they are plain old Amalfi baked lemons.

I am going to confess straight up that my lemons are not Amalfi lemons. They are good old down home straight from the ‘burbs East Keilor lemons via the tree in my backyard! You can probably expect a lot of lemon recipes in the coming weeks!

We have just now entered LOCKDOWN SIX so it seemed like a good time to transport myself somewhere else! The Amalfi coast seemed like not a bad option! This is a Jamie Oliver recipe so you can expect fresh vibrant flavours and Limoni di Amalfi Cotti al Forno delivered! These little morsels were delightful and totally took me to a little open-air trattoria by the coast on a warm sunny day.

This is where I went when eating these!

Now, where’s my glass of prosecco?

Limoni Di Amalfi Cotti Al Forno – The Recipe

I think these would also be great placed on a bbq and as soon as it is warm enough to eat outside here, I will be putting that to the test!

You could play around with the flavours in the OG recipe too – add some olives or garlic, swap out the basil for dill or parsley, use sun-dried instead of fresh tomatoes., add some little marinated mushrooms…but speaking of the recipe, here it is!

You can use the leftover lemon flesh in anything where you would normally use lemons – I made a hot lemon and honey drink with mine.

These were so delicious and brought some much-needed summer sunshine and Italian sophistication into a dreary lockdown winter day!

Have a great week friends!

07
Aug
2021

Fish Finger Bhorta

categories: Fish, Nigella Lawson

It will come as no surprise, says the person who recently made a cake from Pepsi Cola and Peanut Butter, that every now and then, I like to indulge in a little bit of what might be called trashy food. Such was the case this week when, due to an event being cancelled because of lockdown, I found myself with an evening free and all the ingredients for Fish Finger Bhorta in my fridge! I have been dying to try this recipe ever since I read about it in Nigella Lawson’s Cook, Eat Repeat but had never actually got around to shopping for the specific ingredients.

And when I say ingredients I mean spinach. I always have fish fingers in my freezer (for me they are one of life’s great comfort foods), onions and the requisite spices in the pantry. But I usually just buy those one-serve packets of baby spinach from the supermarket and use the whole pack in whatever I need spinach for.

However, again, thanks to lockdown and idiot people who had stripped the shelves of the local supermarket of all the pre-packed spinach, I had to buy loose spinach from the greengrocer. Apparently, I have no idea how much spinach is required for one meal and bought way too much. So I had leftover spinach. I had a night free. I was in lockdown, in the middle of winter. If ever there was a time for comfort food in the shape of a fish finger bhorta this was it!

So, you might be wondering, what on earth is a bhorta? (I am going to assume we all know what fish fingers are). Well…the best I can figure out from the interwebs is that bhorta (aka Bhurta) is a spicy Bangladeshi concoction of mashed-up stuff. Can be veg, can be chicken, in this instance via Nigella the substance to be mashed is the humble fish finger.

This was soooo good!!!! I was a bit worried when Nigella said to cook the fish fingers for around 25 minutes. That’s about double the amount of time I normally cook them for. However, who am I to question the Queen? The fish fingers were gloriously crunchy, the onions delightfully pickle-y, the rest was a spicy mustardy melange of yum! And just look at the colours!!! The bright orangy yellow of the crumbed fish against the vivid pink of the pickled onions, the bright green of the coriander and the darker green of the spinach! This is not only a delicious meal but also a bit like a work of modern art!

And all that spinach makes it healthy too!

Now, I am never going to question Nigella who is one of my food heroes…but…oh lord…dare I even say it? But..you know what may make this even better? A little bit of raita or other yoghurty something on the side. Just to add a bit of creaminess to the crunchy, spicy, herby, mix.

Actually, you know what though? I don’t think Nigella would mind. After all, she freely admits to adapting this recipe from a tweet by Ash Sarkar. And in her introduction to the recipe she says

This dish says something so fundamental about what cooking is, about how we adapt to ingredients that are new to us and make them part of lives…..Honest borrowing is the natural province of the cook and recipes are living evolving entities”

My yoghurty thing on the side is just another evolution!

Here are two traditional bhortas for those who might want them:

Aloo Bortha

Chicken Bartha

And here is Nigella’s recipe.

Have a great week!