For the record, I have now completey moved over to wordpress. There won't be any recipes this month, because I'm still getting things straightened out coding wise, and I never did think of a theme anyway!
In a month or so, I will be deleting this blog. Everything on it is now on wordpress anyway, but I thought I'd give people a little time to notice the shift.
Saturday, May 23
Tuesday, May 12
If you're wondering why there's not even been an apology for lack of Foody Fridays, it's because I'm trying to set up on wordpress. It's going okay, but I can't make it import the posts from here. Any advice?
...Oh, and I never did think of a theme for this month's foody fridays!
...Oh, and I never did think of a theme for this month's foody fridays!
Saturday, April 25
Foody Friday: Egg Pies
I dreamt Riptide had accepted Exoticism, except they'd changed their name and used a completely different story of mine. One I wrote when I was about thirteen (if I could remember which, I'd dig it out again). Also, I was on a train that stopped at a wet adn grey seaside town, and there was some kind of mystery. Then I dreamt I missed my dentist appointment and he was very angry.
Mostly, though, I was disappointed that I only dreamt about the Riptide acceptance, and that it's going to be some weeks yet before I can even think about hearing back from them.
Anyway, this week I've got two recipes for Egg Pie from Court Cookery. It's a nice example of how period cookey books group recipes. Sometimes you'll get several near-identical versions of the same recipe, sometimes you'll get some completely different recipes under the same name. This is an example of the latter.
This isn't period accurate. Shortcrust is really quite recent. Medieval pies were made with a liquid lard dough that wasn't usually eaten; in fact, you often reused them. Georgian and later liked to use puff pastry, but I can't make that! So, it's a nice solid, edible, and quite delicious shortcrust instead. Leftovers can be used to make cheese straws!
Ingredients
100g plain white flour
50g butter
(or any variation, as long as you have twice as much flour as fat)
Cold water
Equipment
Sieve
Bowl
Knife
Instructions
Sieve your flour into the bowl
Cut your butter into small pieces
Get your fingers in there and rub the flour and butter into the consistency of breadcrumbs. Try lifting it high above the bowl and letting it fall as you rub; this gets more air into the pastry.
Add the cold water gradually, using a knife to bind the mixture together.
Use your fingers to roll the pastry into a ball. When you're done, you can roll it around the bowl without leaving any crumbs or smears stuck to the side.
Stick it in the fridge to cool which you make the pie contents.
Ingredients
5 eggs
250g of bone marrow or beef suet (failing both, you can probably get away with finely minced beef, but I've not tried it)
Mace, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Sugar, Salt, Lemon peel, Citron to season
More Citron and Biscuit Crumbs to top
Your Pastry
Milk
Equipment
Saucepan
Pie Dish
Bowl
Spoon
Fork
Pastry Brush
Instructions
I've quartered the original ingredients here, so instead of hard boiling 20 eggs, you only have to hard boil 5.
Allow to cool (or stick into a bowl of cold water) and peel the shells off. Mash with a fork. Add the marrow or suet.
Season with your many spices. From the lemon and citron, just use the zest.
Roll out your pastry Cut a circle a little too big for the base of the pie and line your pie dish. Prick some holes in the bottom and put into the oven.
Cook on a low heat until the base is crisp and beginning to turn golden (about ten minutes). If you see bubbles forming, poke them with your fork. It should shrink as it cooks (which is why you want it too big to start with)
Take out of the oven and add your filling. Roll our a top for the pie. Use the brush to spread milk around the edge of the pie crust before laying the top on. Press down on the edges with the fork to bind the top to the base. Cover it with milk, and prick or cut it to let the steam out.
Cook on a medium heat until golden. About half an hour, I find.
Ingredients
5 egg yolks
1/2 pint Custard (I already did pastry, so you can work our custard for yourself!)
Mace, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Sugar, Salt, Lemon, Citron to season
Your Pastry (less than the previous pie)
Milk
Equipment
Saucepan
Pie Dish
Bowl
Spoon
Fork
Pastry Brush
Instructions
I've quartered the original ingredients here, so instead of hard boiling 20 eggs, you only have to hard boil 5.
Allow to cool (or stick into a bowl of cold water) and peel the shells off. Cut open and remove the yolks.
Mash or grate the yolks. Season with your many spices. From the lemon and citron, just use the zest.
Empty the water from the saucepan you used to boil them, and bung everything into the pan, along with the custard.
While this is cooking, roll out your pastry. Cut a circle a little too big for the base of the pie and line your pie dish. Prick some holes in the bottom and put into the oven.
Cook on a low heat until the base is crisp and beginning to turn golden (about ten minutes). If you see bubbles forming, poke them with your fork. It should shrink as it cooks (which is why you want it too big to start with)
Take out of the oven and add your filling. Bake in the oven for about thrity minutes, until it's golden brown and firm.
Take out, and sprinkle with citron zest, and add biscuit crumbs.
Court cookery: or, The compleat English cook
By Robert Smith
Edition: 2
Published 1725
Original from Oxford University
Digitized May 1, 2007
BTW, if you're in the UK, watch the Budget Report on BBC iPlayer. 27:03 minutes in. There was a competition...
Mostly, though, I was disappointed that I only dreamt about the Riptide acceptance, and that it's going to be some weeks yet before I can even think about hearing back from them.
Anyway, this week I've got two recipes for Egg Pie from Court Cookery. It's a nice example of how period cookey books group recipes. Sometimes you'll get several near-identical versions of the same recipe, sometimes you'll get some completely different recipes under the same name. This is an example of the latter.
First, a basic Shortcrust Pastry Recipe
This isn't period accurate. Shortcrust is really quite recent. Medieval pies were made with a liquid lard dough that wasn't usually eaten; in fact, you often reused them. Georgian and later liked to use puff pastry, but I can't make that! So, it's a nice solid, edible, and quite delicious shortcrust instead. Leftovers can be used to make cheese straws!
Ingredients
100g plain white flour
50g butter
(or any variation, as long as you have twice as much flour as fat)
Cold water
Equipment
Sieve
Bowl
Knife
Instructions
Sieve your flour into the bowl
Cut your butter into small pieces
Get your fingers in there and rub the flour and butter into the consistency of breadcrumbs. Try lifting it high above the bowl and letting it fall as you rub; this gets more air into the pastry.
Add the cold water gradually, using a knife to bind the mixture together.
Use your fingers to roll the pastry into a ball. When you're done, you can roll it around the bowl without leaving any crumbs or smears stuck to the side.
Stick it in the fridge to cool which you make the pie contents.
An Egg Pie
Ingredients
5 eggs
250g of bone marrow or beef suet (failing both, you can probably get away with finely minced beef, but I've not tried it)
Mace, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Sugar, Salt, Lemon peel, Citron to season
More Citron and Biscuit Crumbs to top
Your Pastry
Milk
Equipment
Saucepan
Pie Dish
Bowl
Spoon
Fork
Pastry Brush
Instructions
I've quartered the original ingredients here, so instead of hard boiling 20 eggs, you only have to hard boil 5.
Allow to cool (or stick into a bowl of cold water) and peel the shells off. Mash with a fork. Add the marrow or suet.
Season with your many spices. From the lemon and citron, just use the zest.
Roll out your pastry Cut a circle a little too big for the base of the pie and line your pie dish. Prick some holes in the bottom and put into the oven.
Cook on a low heat until the base is crisp and beginning to turn golden (about ten minutes). If you see bubbles forming, poke them with your fork. It should shrink as it cooks (which is why you want it too big to start with)
Take out of the oven and add your filling. Roll our a top for the pie. Use the brush to spread milk around the edge of the pie crust before laying the top on. Press down on the edges with the fork to bind the top to the base. Cover it with milk, and prick or cut it to let the steam out.
Cook on a medium heat until golden. About half an hour, I find.
An Egg Pie another Way
Ingredients
5 egg yolks
1/2 pint Custard (I already did pastry, so you can work our custard for yourself!)
Mace, Nutmeg, Cinnamon, Sugar, Salt, Lemon, Citron to season
Your Pastry (less than the previous pie)
Milk
Equipment
Saucepan
Pie Dish
Bowl
Spoon
Fork
Pastry Brush
Instructions
I've quartered the original ingredients here, so instead of hard boiling 20 eggs, you only have to hard boil 5.
Allow to cool (or stick into a bowl of cold water) and peel the shells off. Cut open and remove the yolks.
Mash or grate the yolks. Season with your many spices. From the lemon and citron, just use the zest.
Empty the water from the saucepan you used to boil them, and bung everything into the pan, along with the custard.
While this is cooking, roll out your pastry. Cut a circle a little too big for the base of the pie and line your pie dish. Prick some holes in the bottom and put into the oven.
Cook on a low heat until the base is crisp and beginning to turn golden (about ten minutes). If you see bubbles forming, poke them with your fork. It should shrink as it cooks (which is why you want it too big to start with)
Take out of the oven and add your filling. Bake in the oven for about thrity minutes, until it's golden brown and firm.
Take out, and sprinkle with citron zest, and add biscuit crumbs.
Court cookery: or, The compleat English cook
By Robert Smith
Edition: 2
Published 1725
Original from Oxford University
Digitized May 1, 2007
BTW, if you're in the UK, watch the Budget Report on BBC iPlayer. 27:03 minutes in. There was a competition...
Sunday, April 19
Foody Friday: Poached Eggs
Again, not a Friday. This week's excuse is that I was in Birmingham, watching P!nk to her funhouse show. It was actual my first ever concert (I saw Sandi Thom live before she was big, in an arts centre theatre; there were little round tables and glass of wine and candles and it was all incredibly civilised). Brilliant. She is unexpectedly small to contain such a large voice, and very acrobatic. Raygun opened, who were very good, and whose frontman apparently wants to be Mick Jagger when he grows up.
Next week, I'm going to see Chicago, so it'll be a late post, and the week after that it's The History Boys. I seem to have developed not so much a social life as a culture life.
Anyway, back to eggs.
My favourite way to do eggs is poached. Like many foods, this is partly because I didn't have poached eggs until quite late on - I think I was 16. This isn't true - I had poached eggs before then, I know, because my mother has an egg poacher - but it's the first time I remember, and I associate them with deep indulgence. As a final family holiday, we'd managed to get cheap tickets on a cruise, and Eggs Benedict was one of the breakfast options. Addicted. Yum.
Poaching eggs is a bit of an art, especially if you don't own an egg poacher. I've had to experiment a lot, and I still don't get them perfect each time.
Ingredients
1 Egg
1 English Muffin (or, if you're english like me, just a plain muffin!)
2 Rashes of bacon or slices of good ham (not processed yuk)
Hollandaise Sauce (1 yolk, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, 5 teaspoons clarified butter)
Equipment
2 Saucepans
1 glass or pyrex bowl
1 Toaster or grill
slotted spoon
Instructions
This is a multitasking madness recipe. Honestly, I tend to buy hollandaise sauce, which makes life so much easier, but no cheating here.
Start with the hollandaise. Beat your egg yolk with a little seasoning.
Beat the lemon juice into the yolk, making sure it's incorporated really well.
Clarify some butter! Put in in a saucepan, melt it, and skim off hte white stuff that appears on top.
Fill the other saucepan with hot water and keep it simmering. Float the bowl in it. This'll make it warm, but not over heat it.
At this point, stick your bacon on the grill. If you're grilling your muffin, stick that on too, otherwise hold off a little.
Add the clarified butter a little at a time. Stir constantly. Once it starts to thicken you can add it more quickly. Keep going until it's completely smooth.
If you're toasting your muffin, stick it in the toaster now.
Take your hollandaise out of the saucepan. Add a little vinegar to the water and stir vigorously.
You can break your egg for poaching into a ramekin or dish, or straight into the water. The trick is to get the water swirling as fast as you can. Break the egg (or pour it from the ramekin) low over the water. You may need three hands.
Your muffin should be done, and your bacon as well. While you're waiting for the egg stick the muffin on a plate and the bacon on top.
As soon as the white of the egg turns solid fish it out with a slotted spoon. you can rest it on a bit of kitchen roll, or just shake the excess water off.
Rest it on top of the bacon. Pour the hollandaise on top.
Ta-dah!
For a veggie version, use spinach instead of bacon.
Beeton, Isabella; Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management; mrsbeeton.com; 2007
And Wikipedia!
Next week, I'm going to see Chicago, so it'll be a late post, and the week after that it's The History Boys. I seem to have developed not so much a social life as a culture life.
Anyway, back to eggs.
My favourite way to do eggs is poached. Like many foods, this is partly because I didn't have poached eggs until quite late on - I think I was 16. This isn't true - I had poached eggs before then, I know, because my mother has an egg poacher - but it's the first time I remember, and I associate them with deep indulgence. As a final family holiday, we'd managed to get cheap tickets on a cruise, and Eggs Benedict was one of the breakfast options. Addicted. Yum.
Poaching eggs is a bit of an art, especially if you don't own an egg poacher. I've had to experiment a lot, and I still don't get them perfect each time.
Eggs Benedict
Ingredients
1 Egg
1 English Muffin (or, if you're english like me, just a plain muffin!)
2 Rashes of bacon or slices of good ham (not processed yuk)
Hollandaise Sauce (1 yolk, 1 teaspoon lemon juice, 5 teaspoons clarified butter)
Equipment
2 Saucepans
1 glass or pyrex bowl
1 Toaster or grill
slotted spoon
Instructions
This is a multitasking madness recipe. Honestly, I tend to buy hollandaise sauce, which makes life so much easier, but no cheating here.
Start with the hollandaise. Beat your egg yolk with a little seasoning.
Beat the lemon juice into the yolk, making sure it's incorporated really well.
Clarify some butter! Put in in a saucepan, melt it, and skim off hte white stuff that appears on top.
Fill the other saucepan with hot water and keep it simmering. Float the bowl in it. This'll make it warm, but not over heat it.
At this point, stick your bacon on the grill. If you're grilling your muffin, stick that on too, otherwise hold off a little.
Add the clarified butter a little at a time. Stir constantly. Once it starts to thicken you can add it more quickly. Keep going until it's completely smooth.
If you're toasting your muffin, stick it in the toaster now.
Take your hollandaise out of the saucepan. Add a little vinegar to the water and stir vigorously.
You can break your egg for poaching into a ramekin or dish, or straight into the water. The trick is to get the water swirling as fast as you can. Break the egg (or pour it from the ramekin) low over the water. You may need three hands.
Your muffin should be done, and your bacon as well. While you're waiting for the egg stick the muffin on a plate and the bacon on top.
As soon as the white of the egg turns solid fish it out with a slotted spoon. you can rest it on a bit of kitchen roll, or just shake the excess water off.
Rest it on top of the bacon. Pour the hollandaise on top.
Ta-dah!
For a veggie version, use spinach instead of bacon.
Beeton, Isabella; Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management; mrsbeeton.com; 2007
And Wikipedia!
Monday, April 13
Amazon Rank
Amazon Rank
Adding to the Google Bomb. For those who don't know, Amazon has delisted (nearly)* all GLBT books, fictional and non-fictional, from its ranks because it's declared them Adult.
I read the blogs of several agents and publishers, many of whom have already picked this up. I think that's going to be what makes the difference, really; authors whose books have disappeared. Books have been disappearing since February, but there seems to have been a mass pull recently. I'm thinking Amazon has been pulling books in response to complaints for a while, and have decided it'd be quicker to just pull everything tagged Erotica and GLBT, which means they've overlooked things like Playboy books and homophobic manuals that wouldn't use the term GLBT while accidentally picking up kids non-fiction and fairly tame romance novels.
If you're looking for an alternative online bookstore, can I point you towards Better World Books, which sells new and secondhand books, supports literacy charities in the third world, and is even carbon neutral. There's a postage charge outside of the US, but otherwise is does everything bookwise that Amazon does.
*Heather Has Two Mommies has gone, but not A Parent's Guide To Preventing Homosexuality. Hmm...
Adding to the Google Bomb. For those who don't know, Amazon has delisted (nearly)* all GLBT books, fictional and non-fictional, from its ranks because it's declared them Adult.
I read the blogs of several agents and publishers, many of whom have already picked this up. I think that's going to be what makes the difference, really; authors whose books have disappeared. Books have been disappearing since February, but there seems to have been a mass pull recently. I'm thinking Amazon has been pulling books in response to complaints for a while, and have decided it'd be quicker to just pull everything tagged Erotica and GLBT, which means they've overlooked things like Playboy books and homophobic manuals that wouldn't use the term GLBT while accidentally picking up kids non-fiction and fairly tame romance novels.
If you're looking for an alternative online bookstore, can I point you towards Better World Books, which sells new and secondhand books, supports literacy charities in the third world, and is even carbon neutral. There's a postage charge outside of the US, but otherwise is does everything bookwise that Amazon does.
*Heather Has Two Mommies has gone, but not A Parent's Guide To Preventing Homosexuality. Hmm...
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