Recipes from an Edwardian Country House is a book that was repackaged from an earlier book. Frankly, I hate it when publishers do this sort of thing, as I often have the first book and then end up with another copy of the same book .
For a long time my cable provider didn't provide a PBS station. It seemed weird, no PBS, but I learned to live it. After changing providers, I suddenly had PBS again.
We are suckers for collections of recipes by "famous" folk. So naturally, Favorite Recipes of Famous Men a 1949 cookbook collection by Roy Ald is a great one.
There is not a single member of Norma Jean and Carole Darden's family that you want to hang out with. While most of them are gone now, they live on in this delightful cookbook and memoir.
Recipes from an Edwardian Country House is a book that was repackaged from an earlier book. Frankly, I hate it when publishers do this sort of thing, as I often have
DOUGH
I found that these were easier to shape if you sit the 8" circle in a cereal bowl before you add the fillings (see above photo). Draw up the edges of the dough and pinch them together like this:
This dough is a dream to work with...it stretches without tearing and sticks together beautifully when it comes time to "pinch it shut".
I filled these with sweet Italian sausage and some thin strips of pepperoni. I fried both in a pan until it was very well done, then I drained it completely and blotted all of the grease I could get out of it...I highly recommend this step. Don't add any meat that has not had the fat rendered out of it (sausage, pepperoni etc.). If you do, the fat will make the sandwich greasy and leak out of the pinched seam. Once pinched shut (make sure you pinch it totally shut...place them pinched seam side down on a parchment paper lined baking sheet. They will look like this:
Cover with plastic wrap and let them sit for 20 minutes. Bake in pre-heated 350F oven for 20 minutes. When they come out of the oven, brush them with butter. Aren't they pretty? Be careful when you first bite into them...they are SO hot inside.
They are also GREAT with ham and cheese
NOTE: These sandwiches stay super hot for an unbelievable length of time, so they would be excellent for a potluck or picnic (they are also excellent at room temperature). This dough recipe makes 8 big sandwiches, but you could easily make them smaller for snack size.
3 large overripe bananas
Pour batter into prepared loaf pan. Bake about one hour (my oven took 70 minutes) or until toothpick tests clean. Cool in pan for 15 minutes then turn out onto rack.
Browned pork chops are baked on top of a taco seasoned rice. The flavor of the pork bakes down into the rice and just before serving, it's all topped with cheese. Oh so good!!.
6 pork chops (I used 3 thick ones)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil (for frying)
1½ cups water
¾ cup long grain rice
8 ounce can of tomato sauce
2½ tablespoons taco seasoning
1 medium green bell pepper chopped (I used red)
1 cup shredded cheese (I used cheddar)
.
Brown the pork chops well, and set aside. Mix the water, rice, tomato sauce and seasoning and put it into a greased 9x13 baking dish. Top with browned pork chops and the chopped bell pepper.
.
Cover tightly and bake in pre-heated 350F oven for 1 hour. Uncover and top with cheese. Return to the oven for 15 minutes.
NOTE: I seasoned the pork chops with the seasoning mix from my last post, (before I browned them). I used this same "taco seasoning" in the rice.
.
NOTE: I used chopped red bell pepper (instead of green pepper) because we like it better. I also mixed it into the rice (instead of putting it on top of the meat and rice). I also added a 15 ounce can of (rinsed and drained) black beans to the rice.
NOTE: Just before I serve this, next time, I'm going to sprinkle it with a little chopped avocado and cherry tomatoes.
Light and tender, buttery and sweet, these muffins are more like a delicious cake doughnut than a heavy dense muffin. Another delightful thing about this recipe is that it makes four dozen muffins, AND you can keep this uncooked batter in the fridge for up to three days, which gives you plenty of time to bake them all off!!To make cinnamon sugar, just mix 2 cups of white granulated sugar with a tablespoon of ground cinnamon. If you are a BIG cinnamon fan, use two tablespoons.
These muffins are extremely light and tender and taste like a very good cake doughnut.
Pasta with Rosemary Cream Sauce
1/2 pound penne pasta
1/8 cup fresh rosemary, minced
2 tablespoons olive oil
3/4 cup tomato purée
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
Cook the penne in water until al dente. In the meantime, sauté the rosemary in the oil in a saucepan over low heat for 3 minutes. Add the tomato purée. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer 15 minutes. Pour in the cream and Parmesan, stirring until heated through. Drain pasta and toss with cram sauce.
Oyster Purses
1/2 pound thinly sliced cooked turkey
1/2 pound thinly sliced cooked ham
1 tablespoon, Dijon-style mustard
6 scallions, long green tops set aside, white part finely chopped
24-shucked oysters
Top each slice of turkey with a slice of ham, brush lightly with mustard, and scatter finely chopped scallions over the top. Place an oyster in the center of each, bring the sides up to form a purse. Tie each purse with a long green strip of scallion. Place the oysters in a glass dish and microwave on High for one minute, or until heated through.
“any woman who is out to turn a young man’s fancy would do well to master this pastoral art. Fortunately, even the most cautious of city-bred male finds it virtually impossible to resist the charms of a pretty girl with a basketful of food…”
Boiled Lobster
Since this is virtually all you are going to eat and salt air makes for hearty appetites, I’d suggest you take four 1-pound lobsters along with you. To cook them, plunge them head fist into a big potful of rapidly boiling salted water flavored with an onion, a stalk of celery with leaves, a slice of lemon, 3 or 4 peppercorns and a sprig of parsley. Cover and let the lobsters boil for about 15 minutes; turn off the flame and cool them in their cooking water.
Refrigerate until you are ready to pack them. Wrap in foil, place in insulated hamper, and do not split them until you are ready to eat.
CAKE
Bake at 350F for 35 to 45 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in center of cake comes out clean. Remove from oven and let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Invert on a serving plate and peel off the parchment paper. Cool.
Happy Valentines Day!!
We have been stuck, stranded, bored, without electricity, Direct TV, internet, and sun shine.
BEER BATTER HALIBUT
2 cups all purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt & ½ tsp. black pepper
¼ teaspoon cayenne pepper
pinch of Old Bay seasoning
12 ounce bottle of COLD beer
.
Whisk everything together until it is very smooth and free of any lumps; cover and let this sit in the fridge for at least 20 minutes (or up to an hour).
.
In a deep, heavy bottomed pan, preheat cooking oil to 350F. Cut the halibut into 1½ to 2" chunks and roll them in corn starch before dipping into batter. Fry in hot oil until the fish is golden brown. Drain well and keep warm in the oven.
(TWICE FRIED) FRENCH FRIES
For years, I made french fries that were limp, greasy and soggy. We still ate (and enjoyed) them, but they were never, what I would call, "company worthy". Then, this past year, I noticed that several of the shows on the food channel were frying their potatoes twice, so I thought I would give it a try. I was amazed at the difference this pre-cooking step made. If you haven't tried it yet, you will be very pleasantly surprised. As you can see in the above photo, my fries are now "company worthy".
Peel and slice 4 large Russet potatoes into ¼" thick french fries (Alaska potatoes do not work well for this because their water content is too high). Soak the cut potatoes in cold water for half hour (see note). Remove from water and pat dry.
Working in batches, so you don't overcrowd the pot, fry the potatoes in 325F cooking oil for two or three minutes, or just until they turn pale and a little limp. Remove from the oil and drain well on paper towels and cool the potatoes to room temperature. Make sure you let the oil heat back up to 325F between batches in this first-cook step.
For the second-fry, increase the cooking oil temperature to 375F and fry the potatoes again, this time for about 2-3 minutes or until they turn golden brown. Remove from oil and drain on fresh paper towels and salt immediately.
NOTE: Most cooking shows call for frying in peanut oil, which I never seem to have. I fry in canola oil, but any good cooking oil would work well.
NOTE: If you don't have the time to soak the cut, raw potatoes in cold water, don't worry about it. This step does help, but it is not absolutely necessary.
4 pound beef chuck roast (about 2" thick)
After the meat has nice crusty brown edges, remove it from the pan and set aside. In the same pan, saute a medium (diced) onion (about a cup). If you used a non-Teflon pan, there should (hopefully) be bits of browned beef stuck to the bottom of the pan. The moisture of the onions, will help de-glaze these little crusty treasures (where a lot of the flavor comes from). Keep cooking the onions until they turn soft. They should look like this (brown from the meat).
When the onions are soft, add the beef broth and stir to loosen everything in the pan. 
Seal the pan tightly with foil and put into a pre-heated 300F oven for three hours. The meat will be extremely tender and moist and there will be enough broth to make a gravy (or we like the broth just spooned over the meat and potatoes); just make sure you have lots of crusty bread to dip in the broth.
NOTE: If you use a teflon pan, your meat will not leave those wonderful browned bits in the bottom of the pan, thats why I like to use a non-teflon pan to brown.
Put an un-greased cupcake or muffin pan into a pre-heated 400F oven (to let it get good and hot). When the pan is very hot, increase your oven temperature to 450F and remove the pan. Working quickly, spray the pan with a little vegetable spray and line each muffin cup with a slice of thin sliced deli ham (see note). Crack an egg into each ham lined cup and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Bake in the 450F oven for about 10 minutes or until the eggs are set. 
Remove from oven and use a spoon to help you lift the eggs and ham out of the pan (they come out easy). I left my eggs in the oven for 10 minutes, then shut off the oven and let them sit in there for another two minutes; it gave me a soft set egg like this:
My kids used to call eggs cooked to this degree "dipping eggs" because they were just right for dipping toast. If you like your eggs cooked more, just leave them in the oven for another minute. The eggs pick up the flavor of the ham and they are delicious and kind of "cute", don't you think?
Posts
All Comments
