Seafood - Retro Food For Modern Times

19
Jun
2022

Hummer Strudels

categories: 1980's recipes, Lobster, Magazines, Seafood, Spinach, Vogue Entertaining & Travel

Welcome friends. Today we are channelling our inner Gordon Gekko’s and subscribing to the credo of Greed is Good” to make some luxurious Hummer Strudels. These are coming to us via Vogue Entertaining and Travel from Autumn 1986. Now, greed and huge shoulder pads may have been good in the 1980s but this name is not. To me, hummers are giant gas-guzzling cars nearly always filled with semi-drunk teenagers off to a school formal (aka prom for my American friends). It makes no sense why this is called a Hummer strudel. It also possibly made no sense to the magazine editor who added a subtitle to the recipe so everyone knew they were going to be eating Crayfish and Spinach Strudels.

Or were they? Let’s address the Hummer-sized elephant in the room. These also aren’t really strudels. I guess it depends on a definition of a strudel but to my mind, a strudel has layers of pastry wrapped around a filling. I would call this thing a pasty or an empanada or, if these are considered cultural appropriation, then maybe a hand-pie. Maybe these terms were all too common for the la-di-dah folks of 1986?

Hummer Strudels – The Recipe

The pastry was really short and rich and the spinach, lobster tail and cream filling was delicious! But just because we are adopting the 80’s creed of “greed is good” for today’s meal, it doesn’t mean our 2020’s sensibilities need to suffer. I waited to make this until I could find some highly discounted lobster tails in my local supermarket. These were on sale for $1.50 each! If you are unable to find cheap lobster tails most other seafood would work in this – prawns, scallops, or even any firm white fish. Or a mix of any of them. If you are not a seafood lover, chicken would also work and for a vegetarian version, mushrooms would be great!

A quick note on the pastry too. The OG recipe calls for both lard and butter. I used coconut oil instead of lard and as mentioned above, the pastry turned out beautifully!

For the two lobster tails, I used half quantities of all the other ingredients which made 8 hand pies. So enough to share…or not!

The Hummer Strudels were delicious! So why not channel your inner 80’s icon, stream Wall Street and make these this soon!

Have a great week everyone!

06
Apr
2022

La Mediatrice

categories: 1970's food, Bread, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Oysters, United States of America

The recipe for La Mediatrice comes from the creole section of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery. Quite simply, it is a fried oyster roll somewhat akin to an oyster po’boy.

La Mediatrice is French for the peacemaker and the story behind the name is delightful. Apparently back in the day in New Orleans, drunken husbands stumbling home in the wee small hours would stop by a bakery on their way home and buy a freshly baked loaf filled with deep-fried oysters to take home to their wives to stop them from being angry about the husband’s shenanigans.

Now, I suspect that this may be apocryphal. Because personally? The idea of being woken up at 3am by a drunk brandishing an oyster roll is not something that would inspire me to sweetness. It is far more likely to send me into a vitriolic (but highly creative) rant on all the places he could shove said oyster roll!

La Mediatrice – Version 1

You will see from the pictures above that I made two versions of La Mediatrice. The first one, which confusingly is the second photo – the one with the pickles is pretty much the recipe from Good Housekeeping. I did fancy it up a bit by using some garlic and parsley infused butter instead of plain butter for the roll: And I added some smoked paprika to the flour mix for a bit of extra flavour.

The OG version was tasty but it was a little dry, which is why I decided to give it another go.

La Mediatrice – Version 2

For my second stab at this, I wanted sauce and more crunch.

To bring the crunch with the oysters instead of plain flour, I used rice flour to dredge the oysters.

I also added some cos/romaine lettuce into the rolls

And I made a Sriracha Honey Mayo for drizzling over the top:

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La Mediatrice – Sriracha Honey Mayo

Print Recipe

This is a spicy-sweet mayonnaise that perfectly accompanies a La Mediatrice

Author: Taryn Nicole

Ingredients

Scale

2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tbsp Sriracha chilli sauce
1 tsp honey
1 tsp lemon juice

Cook Mode Prevent your screen from going dark

Instructions

Mix all ingredients together.

Notes

Quantities are a guide only. If you like it hotter use more Sriracha, sweeter use more honey, etc

I loved my sriracha mayo and the lettuce made this feel not completely unhealthy! Unfortunately, I totally forgot to put the pickles into this one but they would have been super!!!! I would strongly recommend keeping them in the dish!

Question for the week. If your partner came stumbling home dead drunk in the middle of the night, would an oyster roll calm your annoyance? If not what would be your preferred peacemaker?

21
Mar
2021

Oysters Kilpatrick

categories: Bacon, Classic Recipes, Oysters

I made Oysters Kilpatrick recently because I thought they might make a nice Irish-themed edition of Name Plates for St Patrick’s Day. I should have probably done some research before cooking them because, despite their Irish-sounding name, Oysters Kikpatrick are not Irish! And they may actually not even be called Oysters Kilpatrick!

So, if they are not Irish, where are they from? These yummy bites of seafood heaven were created by the chef of the Palm Court Restaurant in San Francisco’s Place Hotel, Ernest Arbogast. He named the dish after Colonel John C. Kirkpatrick, who managed the hotel from 1894 to 1914. Kirkpatrick was also not Irish coming from American and Scottish stock.

Oh, and yes, you read that correctly. Oysters Kilpatrick is named after John Kirkpatrick. How and why the change to Kilpatrick came about seems to be lost in history. Also, there are plenty of places that call the dish Oysters Kirkpatrick. Initially, I thought there might be variations due to geography but I found two restaurants in the same city serving them but one was Kirk and one was Kil…

Just to further confuse the issue there are several sites on the interwebs that call this an Australian recipe!!!

Seriously, is this the most confounding recipe ever? First, they’re not Irish, second, it has two names! What is going on? Choose a lane, Oysters Kilpatrick!

Oysters Kilpatrick – The Recipe

If the name is confusing then the ingredients also seem to change at will – oysters, bacon and Worchestershire sauce are the mainstays but to these can be added:

- Balsamic Vinegar
- Barbecue sauce
- Chorizo instead of bacon, shallots and Brandy (Ooh, la la..so.fancy!)
- Tomato Ketchup (I do NOT endorse this!)
- Cheese (Errgghhh…as much as I usually love cheese that one can go get shucked!)

I used Matt Preston’s recipe which contains Soy Sauce which is also not a conventional addition to Oysters Kilpatrick. However, seeing as everything else is confusing about this recipe…why the shell not? It was an absolute pearl of a recipe!

Have a great week my friends! And if you make these Oysters Kilpatrick, make sure you share them around. You don’t want anyone to think you are shellfish!

And tell me – what’s your preferred name? Kilpatrick or Kirkpatrick?

24
Jan
2021

Pink Dawn Salad

categories: Prawns, Salad, ThaiLand, World Cooking

Hello friends! Today we are talking Thai. I love Thai food in general but I absolutely love Thai salads – my favourite is green papaya or green mango salad but a Thai beef salad or a banana blossom salad are also fine by me. I love their freshness and zing! So I had high hopes for a Thai inspired salad with a lovely name – Pink Dawn Salad. This comes from Good Housekeepings World Cookery (1972). Imagine this as a salad – the perfect mix of colours becoming the perfect Thai mix of sweet, salt, hot and sour!

Gorgeous huh? And now that I’ve set your expectations….let’s take a look at the salad. I mean, I knew from the ingredients that it was not going to be a typical Thai salad but it was definitely touted as such by the press back in the 1970’s. I found an article from back in 1978 in the Vancouver Sun that contains this same recipe which certainly implies if not downright states that this is an authentic Thai Salad. Anyway, here it is…

Hmm…not great is it?

There was nothing wrong with the Pink Dawn Salad. I like eggs, tomatoes and prawns. I’m not that keen on bananas but Holy likes them…

Between the two of us, we ate it all. It was just…meh. Boring…bland…not really cohesive. Not a bit Thai. And only marginally pink.

I’m calling a fail on the Pink Dawn Salad – the great name did not equate to great flavour. And I had to skin tomatoes which is something I find weirdly repulsive.

Pink Dawn Salad – The Recipe

Here it is…although I can’t recommend that you give it a try.

If you are looking for a good Thai salad, I made a Crisp Chilli Whitebait and Green Mango Salad from Australian Gourmet Traveller a few days ago and it was heaven!!!! It was actually this on a plate! Recipe here: https://www.gourmettraveller.com.au/recipe/mains/crisp-chilli-whitebait-and-green-mango-salad-10838/

Have a great week!

01
Mar
2020

Smoked Mussel, Bacon and Brie Tarts

categories: Finger Food, Mussels, Seafood, Starters, Tarts

Do you remember that song from Sesame Street, “One of these things is not like the other things; one of these things does not belong?” I think that many people may feel that song was made for these Smoked Mussel, Bacon and Brie tarts. Smoked Mussels and Bacon sounds like a delicious version of Devils on Horseback. Bacon and Brie? You betcha! Smoked Mussels and Bacon and Brie? Hmmm…But, trust me on this one. They are amazing! Such yummy tasty little bites!

Mmmmm…melty cheese….bacon…how could these not be good? And the smoky mussels combined with the smoked bacon is a perfect combo!

The recipe I used called for a can of smoked mussels. You could use these but I used some gorgeous chilli smoked mussels from my fishmonger which, IMHO, took these tarts to next level! The smoked mussels were actually the inspiration for me making these tarts. As soon as I saw them I knew I had to make something with them! And thankfully, the tarts did not disappoint. The chilli on the mussels added a lovely kick to the tarts. If you can’t find fresh smoked mussels, by all means, use tinned. And feel to add a few chilli flakes if the mood takes you!

I was thinking as I write it what a funny word monger is. There are not that many mongers about. Fish, cheese, gossip, iron and war were the only ones I could think of. Which is almost as odd a combination as mussels, bacon and brie!

Google also says there are scaremongers, fleshmongers, pearmongers and whoremongers among others. Who knew there was a specialised name for a pear seller?

Anyway, I digress. The other major thing I changed from the original recipe is the pastry. The OG recipe called for filo pastry. I’m not a fan of filo pastry for something like this. I think this sort of quiche type pastry needs a more solid shortcrust which is what I used.

You can find a link to the original recipe here. They really are delicious and a breeze to make. Even the fussiest eater in the world thought they were more-ish and believe me, those endorsements don’t come too often!

So why not flex your mussels and start bacon these tarts!!!! They’ll brie amazing!

Have a wonderful week!

Category: Seafood