Sherryburgers

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…

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!

Texas Hash

Another recipe from the publications dug from the family collection and delivered to my grubby hands. (I wash them before cooking – promise!) Words are superfluous regarding the design and tone of this leaflet, from February 1966, suffice to say it was issued by the Rice Council for Market Development, then based in Notting Hill, which appears to have been an arm of the US rice industry.

Meat and Potato Latkes

I’ve ransacked Potluck Cookery (Faber & Faber, 1955) again for a fridge clear-out dish.

Meat and Potato Latkes

Leftover: Cooked meat, ground, 2 cups

AND

Grated raw potato, 2 cups
Minced onion, 1 tablespoon
Salt ½ teaspoon
Pepper, to taste
Worcester sauce, 1 teaspoon
Eggs, 1 whole and 1 yolk
Fat, shortening, lard or salad oil, ¼ cup
Sour cream (optional)
Tomato or cheese sauce

Kofta Curry

In these straitening times, I decided to increase my repertoire of dishes based around mince, using Beverley Pepper’s Potluck Cookery: Original Cooking with what you have on hand in the Cupboard or Refrigerator (Faber and Faber, 1955). The recipes are grouped around specific leftovers e.g. roast pork or boiled potatoes. There is even a section called ‘Nothing in the house but…’  for when the retail value of the contents of your fridge and cupboards is about 60p. The book belonged to my great-aunt who travelled widely and loved to cook and eat out. The recipes are notable for their generous amounts of seasoning compared to others from this era – Potluck Cookery was first published in 1955.

The recipe which caught my attention was Kofta Curry (because WTF?!**).