Salmon Patties

I always feel a bit sorry for Modern Cookery Illustrated. At 65 years old, I’m not convinced by its claims to modernity, and the only thing its illustrations (actually black and white photographs) illustrate is how far cookbook design has come since 1947. It feels like a poor woman’s Beeton. However, the copy I have has been well-used and worn down until the binding is almost soft to the touch, and it has a lovely reassuring smell too.  It’s had a lot of use and been patched up a fair bit.

As Pie Month encompasses patties as well as more traditional pies, I chose these as a cheapish endeavour.

Siphnopitta or Siphnos Pie

This is from The Home Book of Greek Cookery by Joyce M Stubbs (1963). I chose an unseasonal Easter dessert to make.   To say this recipe went badly amiss would be an understatement. It almost all went in to the bin. Here’s the recipe:

Plum Jalousie and Plum Shuttle

Even though it’s summer, there’s always time for pie. Today I’m cooking something from a book which I bought ten years ago, to divert myself on a long-haul flight – Jane Grigson’s Fruit Book. I’ve owned it for far longer than The Vegetable Book, although it was written and published afterwards, in 1982.

The plums are some gorgeous organic ones which I bought when the lovely Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green held a small weekend market in late July.  I am cheating/being lazy/not-chaining-myself-to-the-kitchen-on-the-weekend-I-have-a-real-job-and-I-need-to-relax-don’t-you-know and using shop-bought pastry.

Peynirli Borek or Borek with Cheese

Another dish for Eurovision party, this time representing Turkey with the cunningly titled Turkish Cooking by Irfan Orga (Andre Deutsch, 1958).

Russian Fish Pie

Last October I made a fish pie, and then lost the recipe card so never blogged it. Yesterday I found the recipe card, handily tucked between the pages of The Pauper’s Cookbook. I can’t remember much about the preparation of this pie, but it was jolly good – here’s the recipe, finally:

Collier’s Pie

It’s a bit late for Pie Month, but I did make this during February, but it’s taken me this long to write it up because [insert flimsy excuse here]. It’s from Good Things in England and has no definite date, though, given when GTIE was published, it was before 1931.

Jam Puffs

Here’s another from Good Housekeeping’s Cookery Book from 1955. These are also for Pie Month – though less obviously a pie, they do fit the basic criteria for pie, or pieteria as I like to call it (oh dear God, sorry), i.e. something encased in something else. I can’t find anything on Freaky Trigger that properly sums up the Great Pie Debate but those familiar will know that, in a sense, there is nothing that is not a pie. And, yes, that includes submarines.

Chaussons aux Pommes (French Apple Turnovers)

Some eating apples have been lurking in the fruit bowl for too long and will now have to be cooked in order to be palatable. This recipe is from February chapter of the Reader’s Digest Cookery Year (1976), written by Katie Stewart who I always associate with delicious puddings because one of her books is a family favourite. I assume  this recipe is considered particularly suitable for February, as any stored cooking apples would need to be eaten up around this time.