Month: April 2023


Apr
2023

Lunch in Provence – April 2003

categories: 20 Years Ago Today, Delicious, Magazines
Braised Green Olives

Bonjour les amis et bienvenue dans mon déjeuner inspiré de la Provence et d’avril 2003. My inspiration for this menu came from the April 2003 issue of Delicious Magazine. Initially, the topic was “So Frenchy So Chic” but as the menu evolved, so did my interpretation of it. Not for us the hustle and bustle of a Parisian bistro. Today we are taking it slow and enjoying the fresh air and rustic pleasures of lunch in the countryside.  With a tiny bit of Asian influence thrown in.  It is not totally unfounded either, after all, back in the day, the French has colonies in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and parts of Thailand.  

Let’s set the scene, shall we? Lunch is being served outside on a long table sheltered from the sun by the branches of the same olive trees that are providing your entree. The air is scented with lavender from a nearby farm and somewhere nearby a little brook is babbling away…

Maybe something a little like this!

Our April 2003 Menu

Eagle-Eyed readers will notice that for the first time ever in these 20 years ago today posts that we are not opening with some sort of beverage. Instead, we are closing out with one.  This is because the starter I chose, the Braised Olives and Almonds was the most purely “French” course whilst the only cocktail in the book was very Asian in its ingredients.  The two didn’t really work together so I thought moving the cocktail to the end of the meal would work better!

April 2003 Menu

 

Braised Green Olives With Roasted Almonds

These were so more-ish!  And so easy to do!  I could happily munch on a bowl of these any day of the week!  And I know we are holding out for the Sakitni at the end of the meal…but a glass of lovely French cider (Maybe a pear cider to match with the dessert) or some Provence Rosé would make this perfect drinking food!

Braised Green Olives

 

Braised Green Olives and Roasted Almonds Recipe:

Braised Olives Recipe

 

Glazed Salmon with Lime Beurre Blanc and Tomato, Ginger and Basil Salsa

This was really delicious and I liked the method of cooking the salmon in foil.  I had not tried this before as normally I pan fry or grill my salmon.  This was a more delicate way of cooking it.  I also used salmon fillets which made this so much easier to cook as a weeknight meal.  I simply placed the lime leaves under the salmon, the lemongrass by its side, and the lime on top.  Whilst we’re at it…I used regular red sweet chilli sauce instead of the yellow one suggested in the recipe.  I don’t think I have ever even seen yellow sweet chilli sauce!  

Salmon with Beurre Blanc2

 

Glazed Salmon with Lime Beurre Blanc and Tomato, Ginger and Basil Salsa Recipe:

Salmon with Beurre Blanc recipe

Pear Tart with Ginger Custard

I did not make this one – the purpose of these Twenty Years Ago Today recipes is not for me to cook the whole menu, even though sometimes I wish I could!  It is about seeing if a particular magazine from the past can fulfill a brief.  I don’t love pears so this is not something I would make BUT, I felt the Pear Tart fit in nicely with the French Country theme and the ginger custard echoed the ginger in the salsa that went with the salmon

Pear Tart with Ginger Custard Recipe:

Pear Tarts recipe

Sakitini

To close out our French country meal we have a very Asian-inspired martini – sake, a lychee instead of an olive, and ginger which has been present in the main and the dessert.  This is a sweeter style of martini rather than the dry style most people would drink so it ,is a nice if somewhat unusual, way to round out a meal.  

Sakitini recipe:

Sakitini recipe

 

My Nigella Moment  – Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake

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!

Again this month, this was a really tricky one.  There were two recipes that I wanted to cook.  In the end didn’t do either, possibly because I spent so long vacillating between the two that I ran out of time to do either!  

The first was a Brownie, Raspberry and Drambuie Trifle.  I mean…OMG…how good does that sound?  BUT the second was a Chocolate Raspberry Pudding cake from the lady herself!  And how could I resist not Nigella-ing Nigella?  Plus, I have made this recipe from How To Eat several times and it has never failed me.  It is my go-to recipe if I ever need to bake something that I know will turn out well!  

Chocolate Raspberry Pudding Cake Recipe

 

This was certainly the most challenging menu to pull together as there was nothing in the magazine that seemed specifically French.  I felt it came together pretty well even though I had to tweak the theme a little bit!  We’ll save So Frenchy So Chic for another day and leave this one as So Frenchy So Rustique!   Whatever we call it, April 2003 provided some delicious food which is what it’s all about!

Have a great week!

 

 

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Apr
2023

Savoury Upside Down Pie

categories: 1980's recipes, Baking, Chicken & Poultry, Savoury Pies and Tarts

Hello friends! On the menu today is a savoury upside down pie (say what?) which comes from a new book to the blog, 250 Quick and Easy Recipes by Woman’s Day from 1986.  It’s actually from Let me tell you , if the savoury upside pie was anything to go by, I am looking forward seeing what the rest of this book has to offer.  This was delicious! I made this back in February and looking back at the photos now is really making me want to make it again!

Savoury Upside Down Pie 2
I chose this recipe because of its unusual cooking method.  You line your pie dish with bacon (yum) then spoon a mix of minced chicken, creamed corn, and some herbs on top of the bacon.  Finally, almost like a tarte tatin, you top the lot with pastry.  The end result is great, the bacon and the pastry turn crispy and the chicken mix stays succulent!  You will see below that the recipe below calls for green capsicum. I can’t bear them.  They also tend to repeat on me for hours afterward so instead of the capsicum, I added some additional herbs from the garden being sage and oregano along with the parsley and mint the recipe called for. 

Herbs

I have been featuring a lot of “posh” food recently.  This is definitely not that.  This is mid-week budget-style cooking.  I think it would be a great family meal.  I served my pie with shop-bought sweet chilli sauce, some zucchini pickles made from homegrown zucchini and a watercress and orange salad which will feature in an upcoming post. 

Savoury Upside Down Pie 1

 

Savoury Upside Down Pie – The Recipe

Savoury Upside Down Pie recipe

The sweet chilli was the perfect accompaniment to the pie – they really worked well together.  The pickles also bought a nice tang.  And it all looked lovely and colourful.  

The pie was also good cold the following day when I had some for my lunch!  I was going to reheat it but couldn’t wait!

Savoury Upside Down Pie 5

250 Quick and Easy recipes really delivered on its title with the Savoury Upside Down Pie!  Add in that it was also really tasty and you have a winner, winner chicken dinner!  There are a few more recipes which sound like they might be worth a try so I’m sure this will not be the last time we see this book!

Have a great week!

Signature2

 


Apr
2023

Devonshire Splits: And Then There Were Buns

categories: Baking, Dining With The Dame, England, Stand Alone
Devonshire Splits 3

Hello crime readers and food lovers!  When I first thought about writing about the food featured in Agatha Christie novels I spent quite a bit of time thinking about what to call my new venture. “And Then There Were Buns” was my first idea.  It seemed equally Christiesque, food-related and appealed to my love of puns. In the end, I settled on Dining with the Dame as being a more simple title. However, the inital idea never really left my mind, and has, resurfaced, here as we begin to talk about the Christie classic And Then There Were None.  In what has become a bit of a theme around here And Then There Were None features very little actual food. Plenty of tinned tongue (🤮) but little real food.  Given it is Easter,  I decided to make Devonshire splits over a more traditional hot cross bun for two reasons. First, the novel is set on a small island off the Devon Coast and second, I don’t really like a hot cross bun.  

Devonshire Splits1

Oh, and I know I previously said that April’s read would be Sad Cypress but you can blame a work trip to Sydney for the mix-up.  I accidentally popped the wrong book into my bag and didn’t realise until I was on the plane. I blame the 4:00am wake up for that error!   Sad Cypress will be May’s read.  

And Then There Were None -The Plot

This one is such as classic  that I feel that it needs little explanation by me.  It is Christie’s best-selling title with over 100 million sales!  But here goes nothing – Eight people are invited to spend time on Soldier Island, off the Devon Coast.  When they arrive, they are greeted by a butler and his wife, the cook but their hosts are absent.  Each person finds a framed copy of a nursery rhyme called Ten Little Soldiers in their room and the dining table contains a tableau of ten soldiers.

As our guests are having dinner a terrifying voice booms out of nowhere that they have been gathered together as each of them has previously gotten away with murder and lists their crimes.  Panic and pandemonium ensues.  

 

Devonshire Splits 2

And then they start dying in ways paralleling the Indians from the rhyme.

And with each death, one of the little figurines on the tables disappears.  

We have:

  • No way off the island
  • A dawning realisation that one of them is a killer
  • A baffling puzzle for the police when they finally arrive on the Island.  The last death was Vera Stanhope who hanged herself.  So, given no one could get on or off the island, who moved the chair she stepped on to reach the noose away from her body and put it against the wall? 
  • A confession in a bottle.  If Smashmouth was the theme for Murder is Easy, then The Police’s Message in a Bottle might be this month’s song!

And Then There Were None is so creepy and the growing fear and paranoia of the guests as the death toll rises is so well done!  It is no wonder that this is the best-selling mystery novel of all time!  Speaking of which, let’s look at the covers of some of the 100 million!

And Then There Were None – The Covers

ATTWN Collage

There are some wonderful covers here!  Not sure about the significance of the fish (top right) but I really like all of the rest of them – the remoteness of the island, the way the noose forms the O in bottom left, the broken Indian, the skull shadow cast by the house are all greatly evocative of the book.  You will also notice there are also a few covers with the title Ten Little Indians which is one of the former titles of this novel.  

And I guess about now would be the right time to talk about the original title of this novel which was Ten Little N-words.  I made the decision not to include any of the covers with that particular title.  I don’t even know what to say about the original title.  Except to say I’m very glad it was changed and I think Änd Then There Were None”is a much better title than either of the others!

The Recipe – Devonshire Splits

I used the recipe for Devonshire splits from the Waitrose website.  These are also called Cornish splits in other places on the internet so don’t come at me, people of Cornwall if you feel slighted, head straight to the source.  The Devonshire Splits were delicious.  BUT I found them quite big.  Personally, I would use the amount of mixture suggested in the recipe to make 18 buns instead of the 12 suggested.  If you do this make sure that you reduce the cooking time accordingly.  

Devonshire Splits 3

Links to The Christieverse

I could not find any links in this one.  

Devonshire Splits 4

Other Food & Drinks Mentioned in And Then There Were None

  • Gin and Ginger Beer
  • Coffee (multiple times)
  • Port
  • Brandy (multiple times)
  • Bread
  • Milk
  • Bacon and eggs  (Bacon mentioned twice)
  • Tea (multiple times)
  • Cold Ham (twice)
  • Cold Tongue (tinned) (mentioned multiple times)
  • Boiled Potatoes
  • Cheese
  • Biscuits (twice)
  • Tinned Fruit (mentioned twice)
  • Honey
  • Whiskey

 

May’s read will absolutely positively definitely be Sad Cypress!

Have a great week!

 


Apr
2023

Eggsclusive

categories: 1980's recipes, Eggs, Posh Food

Hello friends and welcome to a pre-Easter edition of “What Posh People Ate in the 80’s”. This time they are not even pretending to be slumming it as even the name of this dish “Eggsclusive” speaks to its ritziness! The recipe for this eggcelllent (hey, if they can make egg puns, so can i! 😜) comes from the Vogue Entertaining Guide from Autumn 1986. 

Eggsclusive

The Eggsclusive recipe comes from an article about the Lamrock Cafe in Bondi Beach in Sydney.  A quick Google search showed that The Lamrock is still going strong.  And OMG…look at that view.  I know EXACTLY where I am heading for brunch next time I go to Sydney!  (The Eggsclusive is sadly no longer on the menu though). 

The Eggsclusive Recipe and Variations

You will notice that I have altered the recipe a little bit. I did not cook the smoked salmon or the caviare in the eggs, just served them on top. I also only used one type of caviar and I sprinkled some parsley and chives over the top. 

Eggsclusive Recipe

Eggsclusive 3

This was really easy to make and has a lovely luxe appeal to it  It would make the perfect breakfast in bed for someone you love (or yourself) over the Easter break.  Why not complete the feel with a glass of champagne? And maybe some of these vintage Easter Pinups could influence your choice of attire!

How cute is this?

Or if little cottontails aren’t your bag, you could try a tutu like Debbie Reynolds. 

Maybe an Easter bonnet might be more your style? 

I would, however, suggest you avoid bursting out of an egg.  This looks uncomfortable!

Have a safe and happy Easter, however you decide to spend it!  

Eggsclusive 2

Other Recipes from the Vogue Entertaining Guide Autumn 1986: