Melon Copenhagen

This is a Marguerite Patten recipe card. I chose it for the Danish aspect of the Eurovision party and was attracted to how entirely disgusting it looked. It turned out to be the most labour intensive of all the dishes made that night, and early arrivals to the party were treated to the sight of me swearing at an assortment of fruit, muttering ‘I hate it already, this is the worse thing ever’.

Arroz Blanco

Following on from the Camarones al Mojo de Ajo from Cooking the Mexican Way from a couple of weeks back, here’s the rice dish that the book suggests serving with the prawns. I did just this, for dinner the other night, once more the prawns were delicious, and a lovely dinner was had (that’s a bit of a spoiler as to how this recipe turned out). Here’s the recipe:

Basic Fried Rice

Here’s another dish from Kenneth Lo’s Cheap Chow. I went for the Chinese classic of fried rice, which I’ve attempted before without reference to a recipe, with limited success. I figured starting at the very beginning when it came to fried rice might be a good idea, so Basic Fried Rice it is.

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.

Tian de Courgettes a la Provencale

It’s not quite courgette season yet – they still need plenty of seasoning so this recipe by Escoffier (Paul Hamlyn, 1934) is perfect.

Tian de Courgettes a la Provencale
The name tian is given to a round dish, which is popular in Provence; it is about 2 inches in height and of various sizes.

Spicy Lamb Hot Pot

Recipe three is from 500 Recipes for Casserole Dishes by Catherine Kirkpartick (this impression is from 1969). Published by Paul Hamlyn the book is from a series of ‘500 Dishes for..’ books, I also have 500 Recipes for Mixers and Blenders in my collection, and amongst the others published were 500 Recipes for Slimmers,and 500 Recipes for Home-made Wines and Drinks. Both the books I have are somewhat battle-weary, yellowing glue and musty dry pages – these books look like they’ve been well used, and indeed the contents are mainly decent standard recipes – good on their own but also with a lot of potential for improvisation and ingredient substitution – a quality that usually means a book will be referred to often.