Cauldron Goulash and Galuskas

This comes from the rather alarmingly covered Hungarian Culinary Art by József Venesz (Corvina Press, 1958):

(Shiny pig. Would eat).

Ahem.

Pie Crusts Explained

While I get my act together to write up the blueberry pie (my final pie, mini pecan tarts, won’t be posted as I went way off-recipe), why not enjoy the wise, graphic counsel of Barbara Hammond, from Cooking Explained (1963)?

Posted by Elly, with thanks to Salada for sending it to us.

Chicken and Leek Pie

This is the first in a series of 4 –  February is Pie Month! I am going to cook a pie a week and have invited friends over each week to help me eat them. This week, a classic chicken and leek, called for some reason, leek and chicken. (From Reader’s Digest Cookery Year (1976), from the March chapter by Katie Stewart.)

Stir-Fried Minced Meat with Soya Sauce, Mushrooms & Green Peas with Onion Cakes

Here’s two from Kenneth Lo’s 1978 book on Chinese cooking – Cheap Chow. I’ve been meaning to cook more from this book, and now my budget is somewhat tight I hope to get on with some of the more adventurous recipes. There’s one for Broad Bean, Potato and Belly of Pork Soup, which sounds amazing, but would require me to tackle pig’s trotters and I’m just not sure I’m ready for that kind of commitment. Today’s recipe features the much more familar mince, because, as Kenneth points out ‘In facing up to the problems of budget cookery, sooner or later one has to resort to the use of minced meat‘. So here goes!

Shredded pork stir-fried with bean-sprouts and spring onions

Although I enjoy Chinese food I’ve very little experience making it – there’s an assumption on my part, rightly or wrongly, that it’s somehow difficult. I bought the following book partly to make me give it a go (and also it only cost 50p). The book is ‘Cheap Chow – Chinese Cooking on next to nothing‘ by Kenneth Lo, published by Pan in 1978. I have no idea how popular Chinese food was in the seventies, but I assume that it wasn’t a very frequently cooked cuisine in the average home (nb, I wasn’t around in the seventies, so please set me to rights if I’m assuming wrongly). This recipe book suffers no fools though, and gives a very decent run through of Chinese cooking techniques, including recipes for the standards Red Sauce and Master Sauce, which Lo explains are the basis of many a dish. I’ve certainly made a mental note to set an afternoon aside to slow cook some meat in the red sauce.  I decided to start with something easy though:

Brandy Snaps

Another Alison Burt I’m afraid. I really must diversify my resources a little,  but Alison does seem to offer a range of initially ace sounding recipes, which yes, usually turn out terribly, but there’s a point during the recipe choosing process where doing a Burt seems to make sense. I don’t know whether at some point I’ll start remembering how badly Alison Burt recipes turn out before I start cooking, but right now, that lesson is not yet learned,  so here’s how things went with the brandy snaps recipe…

Pommes de Terre Menagere (Fried mashed potatoes with chives)

This is a terrible thing to admit but I swiped my mother’s copy of ‘Ma Cuisine’ by Auguste Escoffier at least 6 years ago and have never cooked anything from it. I have protected it from 4 house moves and a flood. I have kept it proudly in several very small kitchens (just look at that cover!) however the gelees, pates moules and rognures went  untested.

Today this will change, just about. I have chosen a dish from the vegetable section which is barely a recipe at all, more a slightly more complex way of doing something I already do. The copy I have is Vyvyan Holland’s original 1934 translation, (published byPaul Hamlyn) –  I love the blunt style as well as the assumption of some culinary knowledge.