North and South America - Retro Food For Modern Times

Category: North and South America

20
Feb
2022

Skillet Custard Cornbread

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

I wasn’t sure about the recipe for Skillet Custard Cornbread from the North American chapter of Good housekeeping’s World Cookery (1972). Truth be told, I have only eaten cornbread twice in my life and both times in London. Once was at friend of the blog Jenny’s (from Silver Screen Suppers) house and once for breakfast at a pub. Both times, I very much enjoyed the cornbread and both times I was keen to try my own. And until now, I had not done so. And I really wanted to make cornbread. But did I want to make this cornbread? It was the custard part of the skillet custard cornbread that was bamboozling me…

Would a layer of custard magically appear in my cornbread? And if so, did I want it there? Both times I have eaten cornbread it was savoury. Every time I have eaten custard it has been sweet. So the question in my head was – did I want a layer of something I would usually eat for dessert in bread that in my mind comes loaded with cheese and jalapenos? The solution, when it arrived was blindingly simple. If the custard worked I would eat it like sweet bread (not a sweetbread!) If there was no custard, I would go for a savoury option!

Well, in the right light, there was definitely a line of something that resembled custard so sweet it was! I served the cornbread with the same cherry jam I used for the chocolate mousse hearts and it was delicious!

If you like a sweet breakfast (I don’t) this is perfect. For me, this was lovely as a morning or afternoon tea treat at right about the time where you need a little sugar/caffeine boost!

Skillet Custard Cornbread – The Recipe

I’m not sure if this is traditional or If I am breaking some long-held rules of cornbread but I LOVED this toasted. I would pop a few slices in the toaster and the taste of the toasted corn was AMAZING! I can’t wait to try making a savoury cornbread – one without the custard centre now. But I guarantee I will be toasting that too!

Have a great week everyone!

12
Dec
2021

A Man’s Barbecued Chicken?

categories: 1970's recipes, Chicken, Chicken & Poultry, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, United States of America

When I first saw the recipe for A Man’s Barbecued Chicken, I assumed it was so called because it had a hefty slug of booze, most likely Bourbon, in the barbecue sauce. Because God forbid that the women of 1973 were getting sozzled on Maker’s Mark while cooking chicken. Then I read the recipe and there is no alcohol at all in it. So that theory went down the gurgler. I am actually baffled as to why this would specifically be a man’s barbecued chicken.

This was really delicious. I particularly liked the sauce. I find a lot of barbecue sauces far too sweet for my palate but this had a lovely balance of sweet and sour. The recipe does contain that mysterious ingredient “piquant table sauce” which a couple of readers have suggested will likely be A1 steak sauce. I still don’t have any of that so I used Worchestershire Sauce.

I used skin-on thigh cutlets instead of quarter chickens and tomato passata instead of the tomato juice in the recipe.

The sauce really did become finger-licking good! Hmmm…Is that why it’s A Man’s Barbecued Chicken? Maybe the women of the 1970’s didn’t lick their fingers?

The method of cooking the chicken was weird, you put it in the dish skin side down for the first half an hour then turned it over. The chicken stayed very moist – I am not sure if that was this method of cooking or the frequent basting with the sauce that did that but either way, it worked!!!

I served this with a very simple potato and watercress salad and some of the additional sauce on the side. Corn would also be a great accompaniment as would a green salad.

A Man’s Barbecued Chicken – The Recipe

We here at Retro Food for Modern Times believe that one of the joys of food is the sharing of it with our friends and fam. So, today we are changing the game on A Man’s Barbecue Chicken by changing the name.

Cook it, eat it with people you love, or share it with strangers. Either way, you and everyone else who eats it will be happier, even just for a few sticky-fingered moments.

Have a great week!

And if you have any insight into the original name, drop me a note in the comments!

05
Dec
2021

Cabin Casserole

categories: 1970's food, 1970's recipes, Good Housekeeping World Cookery, Meat, United States of America

The very name Cabin Casserole conjures up something hearty and comforting. Something the Ingalls family might have eaten on Little House on The Prairie. And the recipe for Cabin Casserole from the American Chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery did not disappoint. For my readers in the Northern Hemisphere who are heading into winter and who are looking for an easy tasty meal, this one needs to go onto your rotation list ASAP.

What is Cabin Casserole?

Cabin Casserole is layered tomato and onions with bacon and chops that have been sprinkled with curry powder and salt. I used lamb chops for my casserole but pork chops would also work. Also, don’t stint on the salt. I only used a little salt because I thought the bacon would bring enough but I had to add salt at the end. Having said that, for a recipe with so few ingredients, this is really tasty!

I also did not use dripping to fry my chops, I fried the bacon first then used the bacon fat to fry the chops.

I served my cabin casserole with little potatoes wrapped in Proscuitto and a sage leaf and some grilled zucchini with feta cheese. The Cabin Casserole would be super with mashed potatoes!

Little House on The Prairie – The Lost Cabin Casserole Episode

Further to my mention of Little House on the Prairie, I can almost imagine the episode which would be called “Give them curry, Laura”. The Olesen’s start selling the very exotic ingredient of curry powder in the Mercantile. Nellie teases Laura that her family is too poor to ever even taste it. A fight ensues a little like this one. Just substitute “Your pa’s too poor to buy curry powder” instead of smelling like a horse.

Laura is required to go to the Mercantile and apologise to Nellie. She also has to help out in the store for a week. We see in a store work montage that she works very hard and is so polite to the customers that through the week she makes a little tip here and there.

At the end of the week, she has enough money to buy herself some candy or maybe a toy. Instead, she asks for some curry powder which she takes home and gives to Ma.

That night the Ingalls family feast on Cabin Casserole.

The moral of the story is that hard work and not giving someone curry is the key to getting curry.

Here’s the recipe

Have a wonderful week!

28
Nov
2021

The BLT – An American Classic?

categories: Bacon, Classic Recipes, Sandwiches, United States of America

I was very surprised recently to learn that what I thought was a quintessentially American sandwich was actually British in origin!!! Taste Atlas says that the BLT first appeared in British cookbooks in the 1920’s but that it only gained popularity in the U.S.A in the post-war period. It further surprised me to learn that the BLT was, in 2019 ranked as the UK’s favourite sandwich but only came in 6th in the United States!

I guess though, for anyone who is new to Earth…first, hi, welcome, glad you found me! Second, BLT stands for bacon, lettuce, tomato being the three key ingredients of this sandwich.

I LOVE a BLT and it’s avocado-ey cousin the BLAT.

I was hoping to find a classic BLT in the American chapter of Good Housekeeping’s World Cookery. Not that I need an excuse to make one. However, I was simultaneously delighted and horrified to see their idea of a BLT. Here’s their recipe:

The GHWC BLT – The Pros

You will notice that Good Housekeeping calls it a Bacon, Tomato and Lettuce Sandwich. Which if you look at my picture above is actually my preferred way of layering. I don’t understand why you would go to the bother of getting nice bread and toasting it, only to have the tomato making it all soggy and gross half way through eating it.

My preferred version – from the top-down: toasted bread, bacon, tomato, lettuce mayo, toasted bread. So, thank you Good Housekeeping for getting the order correct!

An potato chips and pickles on the side are always a good idea!

I am ambivalent about whether or not you have a double or single decker BLT. I do think though that the second piece of bread requires either another condiment or another dab of mayonnaise. My preferred option is some Dijon Mustard.

I made my BLT on holiday and we only had some very hefty olive sourdough which normally would not be my choice for a BLT. This was a very heavy bread so double decking my sandwich was not an option – the bread would have overpowered everything. (The olives did make a tasty, if not traditional, alternative!).

The GHWC BLT – The Con

In the words of Amy Winehouse, what kind of fuckery is this?

Who puts processed cheese on their BLT?

You may as well just take a dump on it.

A little bit of Brie, some vintage cheddar? I”m here for it.

Processed cheese?

A Few BLT Questions For You

Do you love a BLT? Or do you prefer a BTL?

Double or Single Decker?

What’s your preferred bread?

Iceberg or fancy lettuce?

What degree of crisp of the bacon? I like my bacon so crisp it is snappable!

Mustard?

Avocado?

Other additions? (If you say processed cheese, you’re dead to me)

Is the BLT the best sandwich ever? Or only the 6th best?

If not your number one, what is better?

Leave your answers in the comments!!!

Have a great week!

24
Sep
2020

Hasta Luego Cantina!

categories: Birthday Cake, Cake, Cantina, Mexico, Tasty Reads

Hola amigos!!!! It’s done!!! It’s taken me SIX years but have finally finished cooking my way through Cantina by Paul Wilson. Not every recipe mind you, just the ones I wanted to cook. Sixty-one recipes. Which is more than enough I feel to pass judgement on this as a book. But first, let’s celebrate with some cake!

This was my birthday cake this year, a cake spent in the middle of lockdown when we were allowed no visitors. So a very solitary birthday. But we’re not here to talk about that. We’re here to talk about Cantina as exemplified by this recipe. Because everything that is wrong with this book is in this recipe. As is everything that is right. So let’s get to it.

A Rose is A Rose is A Rose

A rose may be a rose. And a rose by any other name may smell as sweet. (Ooh la la – look at me, with the Gertrude Stein and the Shakespeare refs in the one post!!!) But, apart from me showing off my fancy book learning, seriously, Cantina bandies about terms that have one meaning to mean something different.

(I have already waxed lyrical about how annoying this book on this point ere. So if you want to see my earlier rant click here.)

This is quite clearly a cake.

Except in Cantina where it is called a Lemon Aspen and lime Slice with Mescal Roasted Pineapple. Maybe I’m being really pedantic here but I’ve been cooking out of this book for 6 years. Believe me, I need to vent!

But everybody’s like Cristal, Maybach, diamonds on your timepiece…

You may have noticed my slice..erm cake is missing the Mescal Roasted Pineapple. The cheapest mezcal I could find was $55 a bottle. Most were in the range of $90-100. Of which I would use 80ml of a 750 ml bottle. I’m sure that over time I would be able to find other uses for the remaining 89% of that bottle.

This seems likely given the general state of the world

Seriously dropping that much money to use less than a tenth of the bottle for is frivolous at the best of times. Let alone during a global pandemic / economic crisis etc. Fair enough the book was published in 2014 so way before covid but the cost equation still stands. It’s a lot of money to drop on one recipe. And you know it’s not like you can use the remainder on the recipe for Chorizo with Apricot and Mezcal Aioli (again, not an aioli). Because when you read that recipe it contains no goddamn mezcal at all. None. Nyet. Cero.

I was so incensed at this the first time round I tweeted the publisher.

They responded that it was a typo.

Eerrrrrrmmmmmm … no.

Speaking from embarrassing experience, a typo is when you work for an accounting firm and you hand your boss a report that leaves the o out of the word accounting.

Twice.

Why’d you have to make things so complicated?

This slice is made up of a lemon cake, a lemon syrup, a mousse, a lime curd glaze and the mezcal roasted pineapple. Five components. Thirty-two ingredients if you make your own lime curd (I did not) and the pineapple (which as per above, I also did not make).

Included in these thirty two ingredients is 100g of lemon aspen. Do you know what lemon aspen is? Nope, me either. According to Cantina’s glossary, it is

“A small, pale yellow fruit, with a lemon flavour and aroma and spongy flesh…it is available from bush food specialists and gourmet greengrocers”.

Let’s just put aside the fact that it was neither available from gourmet greengrocers or bush food specialists when I was looking for it.

Because you know what else is a small pale yellow fruit with a lemon flavour and aroma?

A lemon.

Readily available all over the damn place.

I also made the soft shell crab tacos with guacamole, shaved fennel and sweetcorn salad for my birthday dinner. Softshell crabs weren’t available for love or money so I made these with lobster tails. Because you know, it was my birthday and dammit if I wasn’t going to get fancy!!!

It’s delightful, it’s delicious, it’s de-lovely

You know the absolute worst thing about Cantina? It’s cheffy, it’s pretentious, it’s fiddly, pretty much everything was a pain in the arse to cook. But when they worked, which was most of the time? They were so damn tasty that they almost made all the effort worthwhile. So, whilst I part of me really wants to consign this book to the second-hand shop pronto, I am going to hang onto it for a little while longer!

Both the cake/slice and the tacos were mouthwateringly delicious, even if they were also a lot of work to prepare!

The standout recipe for me from Cantina was the Heirloom tomato escabeche. It was so good!!!!!

I have a challenge with myself that I will reduce either through binning or donating 1000 things in the next 12 months. Twenty days in I am up to 190 so it is going well. But there’s a long way to go I may need to put Cantina on the donation pile later in the year!

Next up on my Tasty Reads book cook though Silvia Colloca’s Made in Italy. I only have about ten recipes left to cook from it so I should easily be done by the end of the year. And based on everything I have already cooked it is pretty down to earth which is exactly what I needed after the high-end madness that was Cantina!

So tell me, do you have a cookbook you find infuriating? What was frustrating about it? Did you keep it or give it away?

And have a great week!