budget – Deja Food

Turkey Salmi

19th century, 21st Century, Main Meal, Savoury Pastry

This week I’d like to talk turkey and making champagne tastes on a beer budget.

Just look at that crisp, golden pastry and glossy, rich sauce covering the tender pieces of turkey!

Turkey is a staple on the festive dinner table, but the preference for the pale breast meat has seen the rise of the turkey crown. Since science has yet, one fervently hopes, to develop a limbless turkey, those extra bits don’t just disappear, but are still around to purchase and enjoy.

Actually, I have no idea what happens to the trimmed turkey wings – one of life’s great mysteries – but turkey legs are available in both drum and thigh formats, and should be snapped up whenever you see them because they are fantastic value for money, robustly flavoured and, treated properly, can make for delicious and relatively fuss-free meals.

A quick gallop around the aisles this week tells me that turkey thigh and turkey drumsticks are available in Sainsbury’s, Asda (drumstick only) and Tesco (thigh only). The Tesco thigh is the best value, at only £2.80/kg, but the Sainsbury’s drumstick (£3.30/kg) and thigh (£4.67/kg) and Asda’s drumstick (£3.71/kg) are also very budget friendly, especially when compared to other proteins.

I also took a look at what people out there on the t’Internet are doing with turkey drumsticks and thighs and long story short, not a lot. Both are almost exclusively roasted, and whilst knawing on a joint the size of your arm is certainly a look, here we’re going to be more concerned about taste, tenderness and the use of cutlery.

Rather than the harsh heat of the oven or the barbecue, the method I’m proposing is to use our old friend the slow cooker. A long, low, braise will render even the sturdiest of turkey legs tender and melt-in-the-mouth. And it is so EASY! Literally plonk in the turkey, slosh over some braising liquid, switch it on and you’re set for several hours. You can choose whatever stock you like for the braising, but the simplest and best, in my opinion, is beef stock. Using the jelly-like beef stock pots made up to double strength (so using only half the water), gives the turkey both flavouring and seasoning in one. Being strongly flavoured, the leg meat also flavours the stock in return, to give a fantastic base for gravy or, as we have here, a sauce.

This recipe is an adaptation of the numerous game bird salmis so favoured by the Victorians. You can serve the meat in the sauce over rice, noodles or potato snow¹, but my recommendation is for a puff pastry vol-au-vent case, to add a fantastic contrast in colour and texture.

In another tip gleaned from the history books, for the vol au vents you can use just a single roll to make six, large vol-au-vent cases. I used to buy two rolls of puff pastry, and cut the bases from one and the borders from another, but this way you can get both from a single roll. Simply cut out the centre of each base and re-roll it until it is as big as the border, then slide it under the pastry border and trim neatly.

Turkey Salmi

You can start this the day before and cook the turkey overnight, else cook on High for about 5 hours to eat the same day. You can also cook the pastry cases the day before and just warm them in the oven before serving.

For the Turkey
Bone-in turkey thigh and/or drumstick – however many will fit in your slow cooker
Rich beef stock pots x 6

1 sheet ready-rolled puff pastry
1 egg for glazing

For the Sauce
30g butter
1 small onion finely chopped
1 bay leaf
3 cloves
1 blade of mace
100g streaky bacon – chopped
200ml red wine (or red grape juice/pomegranate juice/more stock)
300ml beef turkey stock
1 heaped tbs cornflour mixed with a little cold water

Put your turkey meat into your slow cooker.
Make up the beef stock with just 1.5 litres hot water. Make sure they have melted fully before adding to your slow cooker. If you need more liquid, just add water.
Turn the heat to LOW and cook for 8 hours-10 hours. Overnight is perfect. You can also cook on HIGH for about 5 hours if that suits your timings better.
When the meat is tender, lift the joints from the slow cooker (a large strainer spoon is helpful here, if you have it), and remove and discard the bones, skin, tendons and cartilage. Try and keep the meat in large pieces. Strain the stock through a sieve and set aside 300ml. Save/freeze the rest for other uses.
For the sauce:
- Melt the butter in a pan and add the onion, bacon and flavourings.
- Fry for 10 minutes over medium heat until the onions have begun to caramelise.
- Add the red wine, if using, and simmer for five minutes.
- Add the stock and let all simmer together for a further 10 minutes, allowing all the flavours to mingle.
- Optional: Strain through a fine-meshed sieve and return the liquid to the pan. The sauce in the photograph has been strained, and as such gives a really shiny and glossy finish. (I had the bacon and onion in some of the sauce later, on a baked potato. It was delicious.) But there’s nothing wrong with leaving the bacon and onion in the sauce (waste not, want not and all that) – the choice is yours.
- Taste the sauce and add salt and pepper as required.
- Add any flavouring sauces to your own taste. These include, but are not limited to, oyster sauce, Worcester sauce, Henderson’s Relish, Soy Sauce, Mirin, Shaoxing wine, anchovy essence, Hoisin sauce, Teryaki sauce, etc.
- When seasoned to your satisfaction, whisk in the cornflour mixture and slowly bring to the boil, stirring, until the sauce clears, thickens and becomes glossy.
- Reduce the heat to low and add the cooked turkey pieces.
- Serve over rice/noodles/riced potatoes, or keep warm while you bake the pastry cases.
For the pastry:
- Heat the oven to 220°C, 200°C Fan.
- Unroll the pastry and cut into 6 squares (lengthwise in half, then vertically in thirds to give 2 rows of 3)
- Cut out the centre of each square, leaving a 2cm-ish border.
- Roll out the middle pieces until they match the size of the borders.
- Dampen the edges of the now very thin, centre pieces and slide the borders on top. Trim the edges neatly. Prick over the bases with a fork to help keep them from rising during baking.
- Whisk the egg and paint it over the borders using a pastry brush. Try and keep the egg from dripping down the sides, as this will glue the layers together as it bakes and keep the pastry from rising to its fullest extent.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes until crisped, risen and golden, turning the baking sheet around halfway through.
- Cool on a wire rack. Once cold, store in an airtight container (if making ahead).
Spoon the warmed turkey and sauce into the baked pastry shell and serve.

¹ Baked or boiled potatoes put through a ricer into a bowl. The riced potato should be allowed to fall into the serving dish in a mound and then served immediately untouched by anything else, spoon or seasoning, to maintain the lightness. Great for dishes with a rich sauce or gravy such as this.

Toad In The Hole

18th century, 19th century, 20th century, 21st Century, Main Meal

Toad In The Hole was a favourite dish of my childhood, and also one of the first dishes I made when I began cookery lessons at school, aged 11. Toad in the Hole is a traditional lunch or supper dish combining sausages and a standard Yorkshire Pudding batter.

The earliest mention attributed by the Oxford English Dictionary is 1787¹, but as the digitisation of old books increases, earlier mentions will no-doubt come to light. I’ve managed to find a few.

From 1762 we have a mention in the publication The Beauties of all the magazines selected, a kind of Readers Digest of its day, in an article describing an engraving by William Hogarth. The Hogarth print, published in 1761, is entitled The Five Orders of Perriwigs, and the magazine’s description of the first image (below) is as follows:

The first Capital discovers only a forehead, nose, lips, and one eye, the rest of the face is eclipsed by the Wig’s protuberance, and appears like a small piece of beef baked in a large pudding, vulgarly called, a Toad in a hole.

The other mention is from several years earlier, 1749 to be exact, and is in the form of a footnote to some verse in a play².

In the eighteenth century, ‘Cant’ was secret language or jargon used by certain groups of people, such as gypseys, thieves and professional beggars, for the purposes of secrecy. In this context, it more likely to have been (slightly derogatory) slang. Together with the wig reference, the overall image is of a rather mean piece of meat being padded out to the point of almost being swallowed by a large, voluminous and above all, filling pudding.³

Nearly three hundred years later it is still a very budget friendly dish, as it can make a meal for 4 out of a pack of sausages and a few cupboard staples.

There are a couple of tips when making a Toad which can add both flavour and interest. I was taught to put the sausages in your baking/serving dish and put the dish into the heated oven for 10-15 minutes before adding in the batter. This allows the sausages to start cooking and (hopefully) develop a little bit of colour. Most importantly, however, it will allow the fat in the sausages to start to render, thereby greasing your dish, and thus you don’t need to add any additional fat.

The second is flavouring. Many people like to serve Toad In The Hole with gravy – onion gravy is popular. But not all people are gravy enthusiasts, and so another approach is to flavour the batter. Obviously salt and pepper are a given, but the addition of some fresh herbs can add some big punch flavours, especially if the sausages are also herbed. I think you can’t go wrong with the old “Scarborough Fair” mix of parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. As far as quantity, go by your own personal taste: a nice rounded teaspoon of fresh chopped, or half that if using dried is a reasonable amount to start with. Onion in some form is also another option. Pick your preferred strength from what I like to think of as an allium continuum: chives, spring onions, white/French, pink, shallots, red, brown, – and whether to add them raw, softened, browned or caramelised.

This version is time as well as budget friendly, as it cooks in the slow cooker. With only about five minutes work, you can then forget about it and be tucking into a crispy Toad in just two hours.

There are couple of important tips to using a slow cooker for your Toad In The Hole

To avoid a soggy Toad, you need to prevent the condensation that will form on your slow cooker lid from dripping back onto your Toad, so you need to trap – for want of a better word – some kitchen paper or a clean teatowel under the lid to absorb the moisture.
No peeking! Lifting the lid to check on progress will cause the heat to escape, which will adversely affect the cooking of your batter. I peeked several times when first trying this method, and the resulting Toad was decidedly ‘firm’. By not peeking throughout the whole two hours, the Toad had a much lighter crust. Admittedly not quite as puffed as an oven-baked Toad, but perfectly acceptable for such a hands-off approach. As a bonus, the bottom and sides get deliciously crisp and brown.
(Optional) Pre-cooking the sausages. You don’t have to do this, you can just plonk everything in at once, but I find a little colour on the sausages does wonders for the visual appeal of the finished dish. The cooking doesn’t have to be that long either. In a pan on a fairly high heat, they will take a little colour in about a minute (you only need to have colour on one side). Then you can arrange them coloured-side up in your slow cooker before pouring over the batter.

Toad In The Hole – Slow-cooker method

Caveat: I have a large slow cooker, for easy batch cooking, and I appreciate not everyone will have a slow cooker of a similar size. Smaller cookers will require some adjustment in either the quantity made and/or the length of cooking time. Do let me know how you go if you are making this in a small slow cooker.

Batter (based on a 17thC recipe)
2 large eggs
120g plain flour
220ml milk
salt and pepper
herbs (optional)
onions (optional)

12 chipolata sausages.

kitchen paper or clean teatowel

Turn on your slow cooker to High to heat up.
Colour one side of your sausages in a pan. Set aside.
Put the eggs, flour and milk into an appropriate container and whisk into a batter (I use a stick blender).
Season with salt and pepper.
Stir in your herbs and/or onion if using.
Brush the inside of your slow cooker with some of the sausage fat. Remember to include the sides for when the batter puffs up.
Arrange your sausages coloured side upwards. I like to use chipolata sausages because they cover the bottom of the slow cooker more densely than regular-sized sausages.
Gently pour the batter between the sausages, trying to keep them from rolling over, although it’s easy to turn them back if this does happen.
Lay a double-thickness of kitchen roll over the top of your slow cooker and clamp it in place with the lid.
Set a timer for 2 hours and NO PEEKING!
When the time is up, remove the Toad from the slow cooker to a dish or board, and cut into serving pieces.
Serve with salad and/or vegetables and/or gravy.
DejaFood: If you have any leftover Toad, it reheats well. Wrap in foil and put into a 200°C, 180°C Fan oven for 10 minutes.

¹ “Pudding-Pye-Doll, the dish called toad-in-a-hole, meat boiled in a crust. Norf.” Francis Grose · A provincial glossary, with a collection of local proverbs, and popular superstitions · 1st edition, 1787.

² A general history of the stage; (more particularly the Irish theatre) from its origin in Greece down to the present time. (1749), by William Rufus Chetwood, printed by E. Rider, for the author, and sold by Messrs. Ewing, Wilson, Esdall, and James, in Dublin, and Mr. Sullivan in Cork, Dublin, p183.

³ Sidebar: Hannah Glasse’s 1747 book The Art of Cookery contains a recipe for Pigeons In A Hole³, which is definitely a related dish:

The art of cookery, made plain and easy; which far exceeds any thing of the kind ever yet published. (1747), Hannah Glasse, printed for the author; and sold at Mrs. Ashburn’s, a China-Shop, London, p46.

Cream Toasts

21st Century

This is going to be the newest recipe on here, because I just made it up!

Well, not to claim all the credit – it is a Lego™ recipe in that I’ve cherry-picked a bit from here and a bit from there and brought it together into something absolutely delicious. As a bonus, it can be made with just a few storecupboard ingredients.

It struck me recently that there are no 21st century recipes here – indeed, there wasn’t even a 21st century category until I added one just now. I don’t want this blog to become a museum to British food, rather for it to be an ongoing celebration of British food that ranges across centuries, including this one.

This recipe pays homage to recipes that date back to Days of Yore (a very technical term in food history circles, which means quite a number of years ago!). Poor Knights of Windsor, Fried Cream, Fried Toasts and Pain Perdu are all similar dishes and all have long pedigrees in British food. Eggs, bread, sugar and cream, together with some spices and flavourings, sometimes even a splash of alcohol, have been tweaked and teased into subtly different, but equally enjoyable, dishes for centuries.

This recipe is also similar to several dishes ‘out there’ because, as we know, there’s nothing new under the sun. I’ve done some fairly rigorous searching and there isn’t anything out there exactly like this, but if I have missed something, be sure to let me know.

It was inspired by a dish I saw recently on television, specifically a caramelised French Toast, served in a restaurant in the Basque region in Spain: the smooth shiny, crisp outside a stark contrast with the soft, creamy insides. The local name for these fried milk toasts is Torrijas. Rather that slices, I decided to make toast fingers and roll them in panko breadcrumbs for contrasting crunch, because everything tastes better with crunch!

You can make simplified versions of this, according to your cupboard contents, but I’m just going to run through the method I used and the reasons behind it, so you can make your own decisions.

The Bread: Unsliced white bread. For a start, in these modern, health-conscious times, white bread is so NORTY, which makes it taste doubly delicious when used for a treat such as this. You can make your own, which has its advantages in that it holds up better during the soaking in the milk. However, a BOUGHTEN white loaf from the bakery retains its feather lightness incredibly, if you’re willing to be patient in the handling/preparation. It helps if you stale the bread a little before the soaking, as that will help keep it from falling apart. More on this below.

The Milk: A mixture of condensed milk and fresh milk gives both sweetness and richness. Also, keeping a tin on hand in the cupboard makes these an anytime snack. You could also mix your own combination of sugars and fresh cream/milk. Just ensure your mixture is fluid enough to soak into the bread.

The Flavourings. Whatever takes your fancy, really. I infused the milk with some citrus zest and then added a generous splash of vanilla and orange-flower water. It makes for a very creamy aroma, if that makes any sense.

The Coating: Breadcrumbs, Japanese Panko-style for preference. It forms a crisp, golden shell around the soft pillowy bread and looks very appetising when cooked and golden brown. My local supermarket (the orange one) has recently started selling large bags of panko breadcrumbs in the Japanese Foods section of the International Foods aisle. Great value for money and perfect for this recipe. Also, I prefer to use eggwhites for coating, as I believe it helps give crispness.

The Frying: Again, whatever takes your fancy. I used Indian ghee (clarified butter), as I didn’t want the milk solids from regular butter to catch in the pan and spoil the breadcrumb coating with dark flecks. You could also use oil, or even deep-fry them if you have a fryer. Alas, mine is currently filled with beef dripping, which is flavoursome for savoury dishes, but not so suitable for this sweet treat.

Cream Toasts

These quantities will make several servings, so if you’re not going to use it up all at once, keep the extra milk in the fridge for later use.

white loaf of bread

280ml milk – whole, skimmed, whatever you have
zest of 1 lemon
1tsp orange flower water (optional)
1tsp vanilla flavouring (optional)
1 tin sweetened condensed milk (397ml)

eggwhites for coating
panko breadcrumbs for coating
ghee, butter or oil for frying

sharp, seedless jam (raspberry/redcurrant/cranberry) or coulis to serve

Remove the crusts from the loaf and set aside for crust sandwiches.
Cut the bread ino 3cm slices, then cut each slice into 3 x 3cm fingers. Arrange the bread fingers on a wire cooling rack to stale for about an hour. This can be done beforehand.
Put the milk into a small pan and add the lemon zest.
Bring to a gentle boil and turn off the heat.
Cover and allow to infuse for 30 minutes.
Strain out the lemon zest (if you prefer, I didn’t) and mix in the condensed milk and other flavourings until well combined. Set aside.
Pour a little of the milk mixture into a plastic box.
Arrange the slightly stale bread fingers in the box, then pour over the rest of the milk mixture. Leave to soak for 5 minutes.
Carefully turn the bread fingers over and allow to soak for another 5 minutes.
Drain off the excess milk and put the plastic box into the fridge – uncovered – for an hour or two. This will allow the outside of the bread fingers to dry a little. If you’re wanting to make these for breakfast you can do everything up to this point the night before, and then continue in the morning. If leaving overnight, cover the box lightly in cling film so that it doesn’t dry out too much.
When ready to cook, pour some eggwhite into a plastic box and the panko breadcrumbs onto a shallow tray.
Whisk the eggwhites briefly until frothy.
Carefully take each soaked bread finger and coat with eggwhite. Since they will be rather delicate, I usually drop them into the eggwhite one by one and then shake the box from side to side and get the eggwhite to wash over them that way.
Lift out and let the excess eggwhite drain off, then lay them in the panko breadcrumbs.
Pat the panko onto the bread fingers until thoroughly coated.
Set aside onto a plate until ready to be cooked.
Heat the fat you are using in a small pan on medium heat. I use 6 on a scale of 1-9. If you use a small pan and can make your fat/oil 2cm deep, you’ll only need to turn your cream toasts once. If it’s shallower, you may need to fry each side individually.
Fry 3 or 4 fingers in the pan at a time. Cook until the panko coating is crisp and golden.
While they are cooking, set out a wire cooling rack, with a sheet of kitchen roll underneath it.
When cooked, transfer the now golden brown toasts to the wire rack and allow to drain.
Serve warm with a pot of jam/coulis for dipping.

Bonus recipe – Crispy Eggy Bread

This same method can be used to jazz-up a personal favourite of mine – Eggy Bread. This is a savoury version of egg-soaked bread, and one which I enjoyed for breakfast as a child and still do to this day.

This recipe is more easily scaled than the one above, as it can be made in a per-person quantity.

The home-made loaf I made suited this recipe better than store bought.

Crispy Eggy Bread for One

1 x 3cm thick slice of white bread
1 large egg
salt and pepper to taste

eggwhites for coating
panko breadcrumbs for coating
ghee, butter or oil for frying

tomato ketchup to serve

Remove the crusts from the loaf and cut into 3 x 3cm fingers. Arrange the bread fingers on a wire cooling rack to stale for about an hour. This can be done beforehand.
Whisk the egg vigorously, then pass through a sieve to make sure the white and the yolk are fully mixed.
Season egg with salt and pepper to taste.
Pour a little of the egg mixture into a plastic box.
Arrange the slightly stale bread fingers in the box, then pour over the rest of the egg mixture. Leave to soak for 5 minutes.
Carefully turn the bread fingers over and allow to soak for another 5 minutes.
Put the plastic box into the fridge – uncovered – for an hour or two.. This will allow the outside of the bread fingers to dry a little. If you’re wanting to make these for breakfast you can do everything up to this point the night before, and then continue in the morning. If leaving overnight, cover the box lightly in cling film so that it doesn’t dry out too much.
When ready to cook, pour some eggwhite into a plastic box and the panko breadcrumbs onto a shallow tray.
Whisk the eggwhites briefly until frothy.
Carefully take each soaked bread finger and coat with eggwhite. Since they will be rather delicate, I usually drop them into the eggwhite one by one and then shake the box from side to side and get the eggwhite to wash over them that way.
Lift out and let the excess eggwhite drain off, then lay them in the panko breadcrumbs.
Set aside onto a plate until ready to be cooked.
Heat the fat you are using in a small pan on medium heat. I use 6 on a scale of 1-9. If you use a small pan and can make your fat/oil 2cm deep, you’ll only need to turn your eggy bread fingers once. If it’s shallower, you may need to fry each side individually.
Fry the fingers in the pan until the panko coating is crisp and golden.
While they are cooking, set out a wire cooling rack, with a sheet of kitchen roll underneath it.
When cooked, transfer the now golden brown toasts to the wire rack and allow to drain.
Serve warm with a pot of tomato ketchup for dipping.

Querkles

19th century, Biscuits

These biscuits are great to have to hand in the cupboard for enjoying with cheese or jam, with butter, or serve them completely unadorned with drinks for toothsome and low-fat snacking – they may look plain, but they’re very moreish.

When I was writing last week’s post about Almacks, I thought to myself: I can add a link to those nice cracker biscuits – and then I couldn’t find them on the blog at all. The pictures eventually turned up in a folder on my laptop almost two years old, because it appears that I’d taken the photos but forgotten to actually write the post ! And so here we are.

These unusually-named biscuits come from the classic Victorian “Biscuits for Bakers” (1896) by Frederick T. Vine. Mr Vine has no idea where the name came from but assures us that “As the above seems rather catchy and the biscuits are something of a novelty, we will let it stand.”

Making your own savoury biscuits might seem a bit of a chore, especially when opening a packet is so much easier, but it’s always good to have a recipe to hand for short notice situations.

OK, now I think on it, I must confess I’m at a bit of a loss as to what kind of situation might warrant being deemed a biscuit emergency, so ANYHOO….

Another reason for making your own, of course, is because you have complete control over size, shape, texture and flavour of your biscuits. For crackers this is extremely simple, for it takes no more than the addition of a spoonful of dried herbs or a sprinkling of sea salt flakes to make a batch individual. The size is only limited by what biscuit cutters you possess. I’ve used a set of mini cutters to make the crackers in the picture above, each roughly the same size, but with differing shapes, which, in my opinion adds to the appeal. I’ll admit the biscuits shown in the picture are very small, about 3cm in diameter, but this means they can be popped into your mouth whole, thereby avoiding the danger lurking in larger biscuits, of shattering into pieces and dropping crumbs all down your front; I’m looking at you, Carr’s Water Biscuits and Bath Olivers.

The method for these biscuits is unusual in that, once baked, they are split open and returned to the oven so that the insides may dry and bcome toasted. Again, it is up to you how long you leave them and at what temperature, so the texture and colour can be suited to your needs.

SHOPS CLOSED ON EASTER SUNDAY! Finally thought of a biscuit memergency.

Querkles

225g wholemeal brown flour
7g butter
15g sugar
1tsp cream of tartar*
½tsp bicarbonate of soda*
½tsp salt

milk to mix

Heat the oven to 170°C, 150°C Fan.
Put all of the dry ingredients into a food processor and blitz until well mixed.
Slowly add milk to mix until the mixture comes together in a paste.
Tip out onto a floured surface and knead smooth.
Roll out as for pastry, to a thickness of 5mm.
Cut your biscuits with whatever cutters you prefer. The top of a small glass can also serve.
Lay the biscuits on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment and bake for 10-12 minutes if small, 15-18 minutes if larger, until the surface is cooked, but not brown. NB If making small biscuits, work in small batches to help reduce breakage when splitting – see below.
Remove from the oven and with the point of a sharp knife, cut around the edges of the biscuits and split them in two. NB You should work quickly, because if the biscuits cool, then they will break rather than split apart.
Lay the biscuit halves insides-upwards and return to the oven for 15-20 minutes until crisp and browned to your taste.
Allow to cool completely, then store in an airtight container.

TOP TIP If, when cooled, your biscuits aren’t crisp, just put them back into the oven until they are. I suggest a much lower heat (100°C, 80°C Fan) for longer (20-30 minutes) in order to really dry them out. Fun Fact: Victorian bakers used drying ovens or provers to get that crispness to their biscuits without having to brown them further in the heat of the main ovens.

* Or instead of these two, 2 tsp baking powder.

Incomprehensible Pudding

18th century, Pudding

When browsing handwritten manuscripts, my eye is always drawn to recipes with unusual titles. Whether it’s someone’s name, or a location, or as in this case, an odd title.

Incomprehensible Recipe — Incomprehensible Pudding Recipe, circa 1785, MS2242, Wellcome Collection.

To be honest, after reading it, I wasn’t sure why this pudding is incomprehensible. There are only a few ingredients – none of them unusual, and a straightforward method.

Then I made it and it turned out so light and delicate, it was a real surprise. At first glance, it seems like a custard, but the addition of the apple pulp, especially if you can get Bramley cooking apples, makes it almost frothy. With the use of clarified butter (where only the fat is used, and not the dairy solids), you could arguably denote this dairy-free.

It makes the perfect dessert in that it appears decadent, but can be enjoyed without the heaviness associated with a lot of puddings.

The original recipe called for puff pastry round the edge of the dish, which is something that has puzzled me for years, as it appears in many pudding recipes of this time. I can’t work out if it is for decoration only, or for consumption. I decided not to include pastry, because the high temperature required to cook it properly is at odds with the gentle heat needed to just set the custard.

I also opted for individual servings, so aimed for a shorter cooking time, because in typical 18th century style, the original cooking instructions are short and vague: “an hour will bake it”. Sometimes custard-style puddings are baked in a water bath, and in testing I did try baking it both ways, and for this serving size the difference was so slight I’m going to suggest no water bath. If you wanted to make a large serving, then yes, use a water bath to ensure the mixture cooks without curdling.

I’ve scaled the recipe down to a single serving size. You can scale it up as required.

The puddings in the photo are served plain, but you could also opt to sprinkle them with sugar and blowtorch/grill them to caramelise the top.

Incomprehensible Pudding for One

120g unsweetened apple pulp

1 large egg

20g liquid clarified butter

20g caster sugar

extra caster sugar or brulée sugar

Heat the oven to 150°C, 130°C Fan.
Whisk the egg and sugar until pale and frothy.
Add the apple and butter and mix until smooth.
Pour mixture into a shallow dish and bake for 20 minutes until almost set (slightly wobbly in the centre).
Remove from the oven and allow to cool to room temperature.
(Optional) Sprinkle with caster sugar (or brulée sugar) and brulee with either blowtorch or grill.

Soda Bread

19th century, Bread

I was surprised to read recently that Soda Bread is considered to have migrated from the US, based on a notion that the early settlers used potash to improve their baking. Amelia Simmons (1796) uses potash in some of her gingerbread recipes and Mary Randolph includes a recipe for Soda Cake in her 1824 book The Virginia Housewife.

These notwithstanding, the earliest Soda Bread recipe that I have been able to find in print is a letter published in the Newry Telegraph, dated September 2nd 1836. The correspondant, who signs him/herself “M.D.” gives the following recipe:

Having tried a fair few soda bread recipes over the years, I was struck by how minimalistic this recipe is – literally four ingredients: flour, salt, baking soda, buttermilk. Over the years, modern recipes have managed to sneak in a myriad of embellishments – white flour, sugar, honey, egg, butter, cream of tartar…. but this, this appears to be soda bread in its earliest and purest form. I had to try it. And I was not disappointed.

I followed MD’s recipe as written as closely as possible, and the first batch was fine, but not, in my opinion, the best it could be. The mixing of the soda in water was, for the time, an acceptable way to remove lumps, but it meant for an uneven distribution of soda throughout the flour, which resulted in blotches of yellow crumb amongst the wholemeal. Sieving the soda into the flour with the salt was a much better approach. In addition, buttermilk is not as freely available nowadays as it once was, so my solution was to mix equal quantities of whole milk and low-fat, plain yogurt. Lastly, as the recipe stated that the buttermilk should be very sour (which is what reacts with the soda to give the rise), I stirred in two teaspoons of vinegar.

Halving the batch made two mini loaves of dimensions 14cm x 8cm, which took, rather surprisingly, almost an hour to bake. If you wish to make the full batch, or bake in larger tins, you will need to increase the baking time accordingly.

The result is delicious. The crust bakes to a browned, knobbly crispness and the crumb inside is close-textured, but not claggy. Just warm from the oven and lightly spread with, as MD suggests, some fresh, salted butter, it is delicious with no further adornment. If, like me, you have occasionally read accounts of 19th century afternoon teas where guests are served ‘brown bread and butter’ and been rather puzzled at the plainness of the fare, having tasted this bread with butter, it all makes sense now.

If you’re a fan of modern soda bread recipes, this might not be to your tastes, but I would urge you to try it just once to enjoy the simple pleasure of this diamond in the rough, craggy crust.

Soda Bread

These litte loaves will almost double their size during baking, but only if you get them into the oven promptly. The soda will start reacting as soon as the liquids are added, so be sure the oven is at temperature before mixing wet and dry together.

340g stoneground wholemeal flour
1 level teaspoon of salt
1 level teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
150ml whole milk
150ml low-fat, plain yogurt
2tsp white wine vinegar

a little milk (maybe)

Preheat the oven to 200°C, 180°C Fan.
Grease and line two mini loaf tins (14cm x 8cm) with baking parchment. Grease the parchment.
Sieve the flour, salt and soda together twice (to spread the soda evenly).
Mix the milk, yogurt and vinegar until smooth.
When the oven is hot, add the liquids to the flour mixture and mix into a soft dough. You may need a little extra milk.
Put half of the dough into each prepared loaf tin and smooth over.
Using a sharp knife, cut a deep slit down the centre of each loaf.
Place in the oven and bake for 30 minutes.
Turn the tins around and bake for another 15 minutes.
Remove the loaves from the tins and place them back in the oven on a rack to crisp up the crust – a final 5-10 minutes.
Set to cool on a wire rack.
Enjoy just warm on the day of baking, or toast the following day for breakfast.

Wholemeal Oat Bread

19th century, Yeast

For a number of years, my favourite brown bread has been the Grant Loaf, partly due to the almost ridiculously easy method of preparation, and partly due to its deliciousness, especially when either freshly baked, or lightly toasted.

However, even the most ardent of fans will admit that it is not a light loaf. It has certain brick-like qualities not limited solely to its shape. So the discovery of this loaf, which not only uses wholemeal flour, but adds oatmeal to it as well, and which results in a light and airy loaf, is a bit of a revelation. You’d think that mixing heavy, stoneground wholemeal with heavy oatmeal would be a recipe for a loaf of leaden qualities, but no – it’s almost as if these two ‘wrongs’ make a ‘right’. Fickle as I am, this is now my new favourite wholemeal loaf.

Like the Grant Loaf, it also takes advantage of the initial vigorousness of the yeast by being proofed only for two short intervals, making it much quicker than traditional bread.

The second difference is the shape in which it is baked. The recipe’s author, Sir Henry Thompson, was most famous for his expertise in the fields of medicine and surgery. However, as a recognised polymath, he was also knowledgeable in a number of other areas, including nutrition, exemplified by his book “Food and Feeding” (1879) in which he noted (on the subject of wholemeal flour)

it does not readily produce light agreeable bread when made in the form of ordinary loaves : a solid mass of this meal being a bad conductor of heat, will have a hard flinty crust if baked sufficiently to cook the interior ; or it will have a soft dough-like interior, if the baking is checked when the crust is properly done. Consequently the form of a flat cake, resembling that of the ordinary tea-cake, is preferable, since it admits of the right amount of heat operating equally throughout the mass.

4th Edition, p40.

The first edition of Sir Henry’s book suggested a mixture of wholemeal flour and fine flour. Later editions changed this to a recommendation of oatmeal – fine if using baking powder and medium if using yeast. I’ve tried both combinations and much refer the yeast version, as the baking powder version seemed to develop a sour taste quite quickly, although that might have been due to me using Sir Henry’s own version of baking powder which reversed the proportions we use nowadays, i.e. 1 part cream of tartar to 2 parts bicarbonate of soda.

This recipe can be baked in two Victoria Sandwich tins and produces deliciously airy bread, ideal for sandwiches. You can cut slices across the loaf, as in the photo, or cut it into quarters for a simpler, but less elegant, wedge.

You can make this bread with ordinary wholemeal flour, but bread flour gives the better result. If you’d like to try the baking powder version, the quantity recommended for this recipe is 15g.

You can download a free copy of Sir Henry’s book, “Food and Feeding” (4th edition) here.

Wholemeal Oat Bread

450g stoneground wholemeal bread flour
115g medium oatmeal
20g fresh yeast or 1 sachet fast action yeast
5g salt
30g unsalted butter
400ml-ish half milk, half water, warmed

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and knead together for 10 minutes on slow using a dough hook, or by hand.
If using a dough hook, at the end of the 10 minutes, switch the speed to High for 2 minutes to bring the dough into a ball.
Allow to rise for 20 minutes.
Divide the dough in half, and mould each piece into a ball.
Press the dough into two greased, Victoria sandwich tins (20cm diameter).
Set to rise for another 20 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 220°C, 200°C Fan. Depending on how quickly your oven heats, you might want to do this as you set the bread for its second rise, or after it has been rising 10 minutes.
Bake for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down by 20 degrees and bake for a further 15 minutes.
To crisp up the bottom crust, tip the bread out of the tins and return the loaves to the oven to bake for a final 5 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack.