Another one from beloved Peg. From a section entitled Last Minute Suppers: OR THIS IS THE STORY OF YOUR LIFE. According to dearest Peg, the recipes in this section are for those times when … there you are again at quarter to six, with your hat still on, staring at a pound of minced steak or a tin of tuna fish. Lady, if I were EVER home at 5.45, I would thank my lucky stars and be able to cook a flipping roast dinner! This is not the time I would classify as needing Last Minute Suppers! Anyway, I get her point – you can frequently find me getting home at 7.10pm and staring miserably into a fridge containing one bendy carrot and my cupboard containing a huge tub of custard and a tin of BRISLING…

And who can resist cooking with sherry? Not I! (An exception to the rule being the noble sherry egg)…

SHERRYBURGERS

“Make patties from 1lb of seasoned minced beef. Brown them in a little butter in a strong pan, then put them in a baking dish. Mix and heat in the same pan:
1 tin condensed mushroom soup
1/4 cup of sherry
And pour it over the patties. Then bake them at 375 for 15 minutes”

NOTES

whilst cooking it goes through a phase where it looks exactly like TRIPE! Fear not, it does shortly thicken into a nice creamy sauce within about three minutes and stopped my squeals of fear…

Appetising so far isn’t it?

Let’s have a linguistic aside from wikipedia. Linguistically, the UK is notable (as with Japan) in that the term “burger” can refer simply to the patty, be it meat or vegetarian. So, if you are cooking a burger without the bun in, let’s say, one of our O.N.A.Nite territories, you would not call that a burger? I suspect it would just be a patty. I am afraid I will simply have to continue calling them burgers because patty sounds a bit too much like “panty”… (a term which seems far more acceptable to non-UK ears). Anyway, here’s a terrible picture of the finished dish… (LAST MINUTE, guys!)

Let’s see. What else to say. Well, as I was cooking for myself before dashing out for an afternoon appointment, I lessened the amounts: well, I used 2 ready formed burgers (patties!), half a tin of condensed mushroom soup, but the full 1/4 cup of sherry, because really, who can be bothered with 1/8th of a cup of sherry?

I think I would make the sherry/mushroom sauce again but it was WIERD eating it with a burger, so I’d pour it over CHOPS (thus cutting out the slightly annoying baking bit as you could do a chop through in the pan and save on WASHING UP. Seriously, one day I’m going to write a cookbook called ONE PAN: maximise taste and minimise the sodding washing up). The baking element in here could probably have been done without, providing your burgers weren’t too thick. The soup and sherry is just being heated, rather than requiring much ‘cooking’…

CONCLUSION
Peg says: now take your hat off. But given I was making this before dashing out, feel free to put your hat on, grab your keys, down the 1/4 cup of sherry you poured out for yourself in your Moomin mug and feel comfortably full. Whilst the use of condensed soup feels like such a cheat, it really IS quite satisfying that you didn’t have to faff about making e.g bechemel or whatever. Good old Peg.

Brown bears, brown bears, sitting in the rockery, why do you look so sad? Is it because you’re made of faux ice-cream and have licorice shoe laces for mouths? Or is it something more? Do tell us, brown bears. Perhaps we can help?

TOFFEE CRISP CHICKS (from ‘Novelty Cakes’, one of those Sainsburys related books they put out in the early 80s I think – photo will come).

125g creamy toffees
2 tbsps freshly squeezed orange juice
50g “rice pops”
1 tsp grated orange rind
50 g ready made yellow marzipan

1. place toffees and orange juice into a pan and heat gently, stirring occasionally, until toffee has melted. remove from heat, stir in rice pops and orange rind. leave to cool for 2 minutes.
2. using slightly wetted hands and working quickly, shape 15 tablespoonfuls full of the mixture into chick shape bodies with pointed tails, and fifteen teaspoonfuls into round heads with pointed beaks. press the heads onto the bodies as you work. set aside.
3. shape small pieces of marzipan into 15 pairs of wings and attach to the chicks. mould 15 small beaks and 30 eyes from the remaining marzipan and press into position. This is easier said than done…

Quaaaack.

(photo by Alix)

Notes:
- I suppose most would make these for a party. We made these because THEY WERE DUCKLINGS. I think ducklings, not chicks. Oh whatever. Small poultry-esque things. They would be absolutely AWESOME at a party though!! Why not have a party? Make the chicks and let us know!
- creamy toffees had to mean werthers originals, the best we could do in Dalston babytesco
- slightly wetted hands is just right! this structuring is faffy business – too wet is too wet, not wet all the mix sticks to your hands. this is GOOD because you can EAT IT from your hands (the toffee/orange/rice “pops” mix is DELICIOUS).
- we did buy an orange, but getting rind is such a FAFF so didn’t bother.
- by which you can gather than we used orange juice from a carton rather than freshly squeezing.
- No yellow marzipan (oh no not like YELLOW SNOW i hope) was available, we dyed some white stuff with yellow food colouring, well, I mostly dyed my hands if I am quite honest with you…
- No actual ‘Toffee Crisps’ were used/harmed/eaten as part of this experiment.

Conclusion:

A PLUS WOULD QUACK AGAIN. Very fiddly though. It could be a Krypton Factor trial. Well perhaps not that hardcore. Maybe the Crystal Maze. Recommend getting your friend who used to decorate cakes to do it whilst you lick the toffees from your hand and ponder that whilst you don’t usually like toffees, this orange mix is pretty good.

How the flip do I classify these in tags? Who knows. It has taken me a month from writing this to actually pressing post because WordPress confuses my addled brain… it’s in ‘Novelty Cakes’ but I am hard pressed to define “rice pop cereal” with melted toffee as a ‘cake’….

Is it cold outside? Are you feeling cross from the cumulative effect of at least seven small things and it’s making your brain itch? Do you have a few edible bits in your kitchen but are too hungry to bake them all for an hour and a half as per most winter comfort dishes? Your problems are my problems, friend.

This recipe is from the Good Housekeeping Cookery Compendium, volume 1 (Waverly, 1955). I felt I should attempt a savoury dish from this book as so far I have only used it to make biscuits.

Notes

• I made half the quantity state here, which started with 2 potatoes – 1 v large, 1 medium sized. I can’t remember what kind of potato I used, a kind with a thin red skin. Obviously, if you only have watery, flavourless potatoes at home, adjust seasoning accordingly.
• A quart is 2 pints.
• I used half a chicken stock cube, a shake of Worcestershire sauce, a bay leaf and lots of black pepper for the ’stock’. Don’t, please, use water – that would lead to unspeakable blandness.
• I have no idea if your supposed to leave the skin on the potatoes, I did because a) couldn’t be bothered to peel them b) I really like the flavour of potato skin and leave them on for lots of dishes.

Results

While this could be fancied up with whatever else you have around (paprika, bacon,  rosemary or a little caramelised onion all spring to mind) if you really love mashed potato, you’ll enjoy it just as it is. (I had it with a nice scone.)

Souped by Elly

Not much to say about this one, but I do love the stern expression on the doll’s face as it stares the cakes down.

I have eaten this delicious dish in Porto, in its native country, and fancied creating it at home. The recipe is from Portuguese Cookery by Ursula Bourne (Penguin, 1973) and features a very simple ingredient list, which as I’m on a rather tight budget at the moment appealed.

• I made the full amount. It’s so cheap I figured it would do no harm. Plus the odds of it going wrong seemed slim.
• Shredding cabbage finely is tedious, but happily I have a sharp machete and enjoy the stress-relieving properties of reducing vegetables into tiny bits.
• I don’t think I mashed the potatoes enough – if you’re making this yourself it might be an idea to whiz the cooked potato in a blender so it’s of a consistency more like puree.

Results

So, slightly anaemic looking and lumpier than the one I had in Portugal. The taste was nice but a little more salt would have pushed it over into properly tasty. I plan to put it all through the blender and add salt, and then I reckon it’ll be amazing. Perhaps put some chorizo in there too…chorizo only every makes things better, after all!

Cozinhado por Alix

Aka Jansson’s Temptation. This dish was mentioned on the comments to this post and although I was not overly enthusiastic about it then, when I found a recipe for it in the Time Life Scandanavian cookbook (1969)  I felt obliged to give it a go.

• I halved the amounts.
• I think I chopped the potatoes a little thicker than a quarter inch
• Anchovies. I’ve never cooked with these before, or even bought them. I used a leading supermarket’s own brand.
• Generally straighforward assembly, painless etc etc

The result

Doesn’t it look nice? Yeah well, it tasted vile. Absolutely vile. No redeeming qualities. A waste of  good potato and onion. A straight to the bin and do not pass go FAIL of a dish. I ate one spoonful and left the rest of the FOUR portions I’d made. I couldn’t even think how to make it into another dish that I could countenance eating. It was the anchovies that was the problem, bony, salty, much too intense a flavour, I wondered if I had got the amounts right, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t go over what the recipe specified.  Jansson must have been a queer bird indeeed to have been tempted by this monstrosity.

Untempted by Alix

Are those dolls drunk?

Third and final vintage sandwich. Yes, more grated apple (I like apples!). I used an own brand of pb which I shall avoid in future as it was insufficiently crunchy.

Sweet Fillings

Peanut butter mixed with an equal amount of jam, honey, syrup or grated apple.

Results

This is as a hearty a sandwich as it looks, although the moisture of the apple means the peanut butter is lighter and less sticky. Would make a decent lunch for refueling during an outdoor pursuit.

Sandwiched by Elly

Notes

• How very quick and easy to prepare.
• No, I don’t know what’s so ‘different’ about them. (There is another scalloped potato recipe in the book, which involves cream and onion soup.)
• This recipe lied. There’s no other way of putting it – the whole thing did not take 50 minutes, try 2.5 hours.  I used old potatoes though! Bah!

Results

When it finally soft enough to eat, it was fine. I would add some herbs and perhaps some onion, to the dish next time.