Category: Local Recipes

Cherry Curds

Ok- this one is an odd recipe. My mum told me about this – when she was evacuated from Coventry during the war, she stayed with Mrs Harris in Cherrington, Shrops. Living the farm life she saw a some unusual recipes – very local, possibly lost now.

She talked about Cherry curds – possibly named for ‘Cherrington’ and nothing to do with cherries. its a baked custard made with Cow Colostrum. (Colostrum is a much richer ‘milk’, from cows that have given birth, before the regular milk starts. It is rich in vitamins, minerals, fats, carbohydrates)

So the recipe, as she remembers it is – get hold of fresh ‘first milk’, put it into aoven proof dish, sprinkle the top with nutmeg and cook slowly till set.

Got me thinking abourt the history of the dish

In the uk i t seems to be called a Beestings or beastings pudding (with the first milk being the beestings). The name seems to change accross the regions. References in wales to calf pudding (Pwdin llo bach). The favourings seem to change by region (or cook) – sometimes ginger, vanilla, nutmeg etc) Sometme cooked quick to caramelise, sometime slow to just set.

Around the world – different recies. In Iceland the pudding is called Ábrystir, and Norway – Kalvedans.

– can’t find any record of this in the uk – but looking further afield, I can find a recipe from Norway where they make KALVEDANS – (translates as Calf Dance) which is still made, and describes as Norways answer to a creme bruleé:

KALVEDANS

3 cups raw milk, mixed from the 1st and 2nd day
1 cup whole milk
4 tbsp sugar
vanilla extract
1 tsp ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 150ºc.

Combine all ingredients and pour into a deep ovenproof pan Fill a deep tray with hot water that reaches half way up the form, place in oven and bake for about 1 hour.  Check to see that the pudding is firm before removing from oven. Can be served hot, sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar. Many people serve it chilled topped with a raspberry or strawberry sauce. (from arcticgrub.com/ )

Westminster Fool

Ingredients

Sack – an antiquated wine term referring to white fortified wine imported from mainland Spain or the Canary Islands. Use Sweet sherry (Oloroso) as its closest neighbour.
Mace, which comes from the same tropical fruit that produces nutmeg, has a softer, fruitier flavour than nutmeg, and is one of the main flavours in a pork sausage. Comes ground or in a husk. try 1/4tsp for 1 blade.

Penny loaf – a medieval size of loaf. going to assume its a round bun about 7″ across.

‘To make a WESTMINSTER FOOL. Cut a penny loaf into thin dices, moisten them with sack, and lay them in the bottom of a dish ; then take a quart of cream, six eggs beaten up, two spoonfuls of rose-water, some grated nutmeg, and a blade of mace, with sugar enough to sweeten it

Put all these into a sauce-pan, set it over a slow fire, and keep it stirring all the time to prevent a curdling.

When it begins to be thick, pour it into the dish over the bread. Let it stand till it is cold.

Glengarry Flan

I found this recipe in an old 1930’s cookbook, and thought this is one to rescue.

Line a shallow pie plate (7 1/2 inches across) with sweet flan pastry. Filling:

 4 oz soft brown sugar
1 1/2 level tblspn cornflour
4 tblspn cold water
1/4 pint milk
2oz butter/marg
1 egg, separated
1/2 vanilla essence
1 1/2 caster sugar
mix brown sugar and cornflour in the water.
heat milk and butter, but do not boil. pour over the corn flour and sugar mix, and return to the pam. stir on a heat till thickened. Add the egg yolk and vanilla essence (careful not to curdle the egg as it adds to the hot mix). Pour into the pastry case. Bake for 30 mins at gams 6/ 400f. Remove and turn the oven down to 300f/ gasm2.
whisk the egg white stiffly and fold in the castor sugar. pipe the meringue mix in lines across the flan. bake till meringue is golden – c15 mins.

Old Edinburgh Tart

I found this recipe as a hand-written note in my Mum’s cookbook. She’s never made it, but had copied it from somewhere a long time ago. I’ve not made it yet either, but as I now live in Edinburgh, I thought I’d save the recipe for posterity.

Pastry-
8oz plain flour,
5oz butter,
pinch of salt
cold water to mix

filling –
4oz butter
4oz caster sugar
4oz raisins
4oz mixed chopped peel
2oz glacé cherries
3 eggs
1-2 tblspn whisky

Breadcrumb the butter into the flour and add the salt. Add enough water to the crumb to make a firm pastry (takes 4-5tblspn of water).
Line a 9″ flan tin.

Place butter, sugar, raisins, minced peel, and cherries and heat until butter has melted and sugar dissolved. Leave to cool.

beat eggs and whisky together. Mix into main mixture and put into the lined tin. If there is spare pastry, decorate the top with a lattice.

Bake in a hot oven (400f) for 25 to 30 minutes.

Cornish Pasty

For 4 good sized Cornish Pasties

500g strong bread flour
120g lard
25g cake margarine
5 gms salt
175 gms cold water

Pastry
Mix fat lightly into flour until it resembles breadcrumbs.
Add water and mix until pastry clears and becomes elastic.

Leave to rest for 3 hours in a refrigerator

FILLING

450g good quality beef skirt
450g potatoes ( a firm waxy potato such as Maris piper.)
250g Swede
200g onion
Salt & pepper
butter

slice the filling finely then add to the rolled out circles of pastry raw. Layer the vegetables and meat adding plenty of seasoning. Put a knob of butter on top.

Cooking time – 165c for about 40 mins

Everton Toffee

4 tablespoons water
100g/4oz butter
300g/12oz Demerara sugar
2 level tablespoons golden syrup
1 level tablespoon black treacle
Put all ingrediants into pan, heat slowly, stirring, until butter melts and sugar dissolves.

Bring to the boil, cover pan and boil gently for 2 minutes.

Uncover, continue to boil, stirring occasionally for 10/ 15 mins (or until a little of the mixture dropped into a cup of cold water separates into hard and brittle threads.)

Poor into a buttered tin and leave until hard.

Irish Stew (Lamb)

I never tried this until meeting Deird & Denise. Denise used to cook a bucket of this at a time. Denise likes this cooked down, so that the potatoes are mushed in to the juices. I like it a little less cooked, with a thin ‘gravy’ and firmish potatoes. To get it right, stew the lamb for an hour or so before the veg goes in.

1/2 Leg of lamb

2lb potatoes

1lb carrots

a handful of rosemary

Cut the meat from the bone, and dice.  brown the meat a little in a big pan

Add water to cover, and simmer gently for an hour

Add the potatoes and carrots to the pot

cook till the potatoes are cooked, and falling apart.

salt, to taste

Yorkshire Puddings

There are two schools of thought on Yorkshire puddings- those who prefer the small individual puff-balls of puddings that blow up to be the size of tennis balls, and the those who prefer the single monster big pudding that you slice up and serve. The big puddings rise just as well in the oven, but fall back flat once they’re out, leaving a fluffy and crisp edge, and a flat and dense middle. The big pudding thinkers prefer the contrast of light and fluffy at the edge, contrasting with the flat and dense in the middle. The small pudding thinkers just like the crisp lightness of the puffballs.

Personally, I sit in the middle- I like both. Although, I can’t stand the pre-made or Frozen yorkshires- they’re all dry, and lose their texture and elasticity. BTW- never use self raising flour to make these- the texture is all wrong. Yorkshire Puddings rise because when they go into a hot oven, a skin forms on the batter, and the middle bit boils up and needs to expand- so you end up with a big hollow space inside a crisp skin.

Rules of the Yorkshire Pudding:

  • Put Yorkshires into the top of the hottest oven you can so they rise
  • Pre-heat the dish, with the oil already in it
  • Don’t pour the batter too thick into the dish- otherwise it all heats up too slowly and won’t puff up
  • Don’t open the oven whilst they’re cooking, or it all goes flat.

The batter recipe:
3 eggs
115g/4oz Plain flour
275ml/½ pint milk
beef dripping if you have it, veg oil if you don’t
salt

Mix it all up so that you have a smooth batter, put into the pre-heated dish and slap into the oven.