Salaric Cooking

My aunt gave us a rice cooker and I have to say that initially I was why do we need that? It’s just yet another applience I have to find a home for and I had been saying no to one for ages. But then I went to my cousins house where they were using the rice cooker she had given them and I thought wow – this is actaully really usefull especially for parties – shame we don’t have room for one.

Then we were presented with on and I was really excited as was my husband (yes I know we can’t help getting excited over mundane domestic things), we have been cooking at least once a week with it since – we have also used it to cater for our cub and scout group plus a few parties 🙂

It is really easy to use – the only thing I found slightly annoying is that it doesn’t have the lid clip thing for the serving spoon that my cousins one had and there’s was a black and silver one rather than white which would have fitted with the kitchen better as I’d been saying I didn’t see the point of one I was amazed to get one at all.

And on top of that it fitted easily onto the shelves so I did have space after all!

It’s apparently a Cooksworth rice cooker – what ever it is rice cookers are fantastic!

My little girl had an easter egg hunt for her friends and so we decided to put out a spread of food as well – I don’t have any specific easter table cloths so had to go with the brown and orange stripped one which has mostly been used to dress her daddy up as Joseph in a play (don’t ask). I put out the four little easter egg candles I had, these have pictures of butterflies and flowers on them embossed in white on the blue, green, pink and yellow of the candles.

I put these around the minature red rose I was given as a thankyou for hosting another party!

I then made a plater of cheese sandwitches – cut into triangles – the right size for small children – I grate the cheese as it goes furthur!

I also had platters of Easter egg biscuits, easter bunny biscuits and nutty choc cornflake nests that my little girl had helped creat!

We had bowls of grapes, carrot sticks, crisps and vegitable crisps – I’m afraid I cheated and just bought a bag of pre-chopped carrots!

Then i put out a plater of really bad colouring full marshmellow animals – all blue rabbits, yellow chicks in their eggs etc… and little minni chocolate swiss roll catipillars with white chocolate faces. The colouring full easter pals came from the Pound shop and the catipillars where bought by a friend at Marks & Sparks I think.

For the actual hunt there were egg shaped lollys as well as chocolate eggs! Oh and plastic toy eggs to try and reduce the number of sick children at the end off it all! We ended up rationing the amount of found chocolate the kids could eat. Sorry about the wonk on the photo!

Some of Jean’s easter decorations are on the table too – she made the invites for the events as well (ok with lots of help!).

The perants seemed to enjoy themselves as well as the kids 🙂 The easter bunny even appeared!

My little girl was having an easter egg hunt and so I thought it would be good if she had some imput into the food. We got a pack of pre-cooked ginger egg shaped biscuits complete with indented crack in them from the bakery in Morrisons. They came with some flower sprinkels and a writing icing plus some chocolate sprinkels. I also dug out the icing pen things we’ve got left from other such kits resulting in orange gloop, black, green, yellow, red and pink icing, Barbi sprinkles, purple sprinkles and icing hearts and flowers and sliver balls, hundreds and thousands and rice crispies. Not too mention some Disney princess rice paper edible sticker things – the little mermaid, sleeping buety etc…

I then basically let her and my dad loose on the buscuits – there were five of them but only four of them made it to completion – have no idea what happened to the fifth biscuit!

Dad did some interesting stuff by squeezing the icing into the intentation of the egg shell crack and then sprinkling hundreds and thousands onto it, he then shook it off – resulting in a rainbow crack in the egg!

FISH.–carp, chub, crabs, crayfish, dory, herrings, lobsters, mackerel, red and gray mullet, prawns, salmon, shad, smelts, soles, trout, turbot.

It turns out that chub is a name that can refer to mulitple varieties of blue ray fished as linked above but normal refers to the European Chub but can refer to alot of other fish not sure what Mrs Beeton was refering to!

MEAT.–Beef, lamb, mutton, veal.

POULTRY.–Chickens, ducklings, fowls, green geese, leverets, pullets, rabbits.

Never heared of ducklings being cooked before but if anyone knows any recipies or has tried it then please let me know! Also green geese needs a bit more information.

VEGETABLES.–Asparagus, beans, early cabbages, carrots, cauliflowers, creases, cucumbers, lettuces, pease, early potatoes, salads, sea-kale,–various herbs.

I have no idea what creases are either so if anyone knows please do tell!

Pease is just an old word for pea!

FRUIT.–Apples, green apricots, cherries, currants for tarts, gooseberries, melons, pears, rhubarb, strawberries.

Any information about green apricots would also be appreciated as the only reference I can find is not to pick green apricots as they will not rippen :/

|t’s spring time and the flowers are popping up all over the place and those who are ultra sensitive are already suffering the effects of hayfever.

The recommendation is to take a spoonful of local pollen enriched honey each morning through out the year and this will stop you being over sensitive to the pollen in your area. But local honey of this type is really expensive and hard to find – basically you are looking at only the farm shops and health food places – then when you look at it you realise that most of the honey avalible is not Bristish honey at all.

This is becuase there is a problem with the bees, something is very wronge and they are disappearing. A few thearies have been put forward but no one really knows whats going on. This is a global phonomina but the UK seems hardest hit. Bee keeping and honey collecting is an ancient pass time, with Roman hives being excavated but more than that they are locked into our whole ecology – they pollenate crops and flowers, and the honey itself provides a valuable food and medicial source.

I tend to use alot of honey in my recipies and with the impact on local bees it is even being suggested that we leave bees alone to build their strength back up. There is an interesting site that is a local project to me though they hope to expand globally – I thought that I should bring to everyones attention! I will link as soon as they go live!

Here is this months seasonal eating according to Mrs B!

FISH.–brill, carp, cockles, crabs, dory, flounders, ling, lobsters, red and gray mullet, mussels, oysters, perch, prawns, salmon (but rather scarce and expensive), shad, shrimps, skate, smelts, soles, tench, turbot, whiting.

Ok well – ling turns out to be quiet a few different fish – I have no idea which one she is actually refering to, if I find out I will let you all know.

Mullet turns out be a type of fish and not just a dire hair cut (which I happen to like) from the early 80’s :/

Shad turns out to be river herring.

MEAT.–Beef, lamb, mutton, veal.

I found another interesting article on the subject of veal. The site its self looks quiet interesting and I shall be looking at it in more depth.

POULTRY.–Chickens, ducklings, fowls, leverets, pigeons, pullets, rabbits.

Leverets doesn’t appear on wikipedia to my horror but unless I’m being very dyslexic (which I am!) then they are baby hares and no I don’t have a clue as to were you’d get them or what you’d do with them once you had them.

GAME.–Hares.

VEGETABLES.–Broccoli, celery, lettuces, young onions, parsnips, radishes, small salad, sea-kale, spinach, sprouts,–various herbs.

FRUIT.–Apples, nuts, pears, forced cherries, &e. for tarts, rhubarb, dried fruits, crystallized preserves.

I have no idea what the &e probably a typo – I can’t really see it being anything else to be honest.

The Southbank Centre are having a Chocolate Festival from Friday 3rd of April to Sunday the 5th of April. This appears to be a free event and stuff on the South Bank is normally lots of fun. Unfortunatly this clashes with my husbands 30th birthday party so I wont be able to make it 🙁

The scedule looks fantastic though with lots of workshops on how to make and creat with chocolate.

This also reminds me – I’ve been meaning to mention a chocolate shop that my husbands friend is involved with – they do the most fantastic chocolate though it is basically out of budget at the moment – Alaric got me some for Valentines day last year. It was sea salt dark chocolate and was unusual and lovely. It is called paul.a.young and I think there are actually now two shops – both based in London.

It is probably a very good job that I don’t have lots of money other wise I would eat far too much of their produce 🙂

My husbands aunt has several copies of Mrs Beeton some of which date from when around the time it was actually produced! Most of the recipies she has produced from Mrs Beeton havve been well not very nice but then this may have more to do with the cook economising and using far too stale bread and far too mouldy cheese and still living in the wartime mentality.

However it turns out that it is full of amazing stuff including lots of historical tipbits on how medieval and roman kitchens were supposed to be set out and herbal remedies. I was going to extract the information I thought most useful from it and put it on the blog – warning if you are doing this you need to check on copy right law and trade mark law specific to your country!

I was not however looking forward to typing up all of those recipies when I discovered via my husband that there is a project that is putting all the out of copywrite books onto a giant database so that the information is accessable to everybody!

It is called Project Gutenberg.

This is fantastic news for me and you – for a start the whole of the Mrs Beetons book is avalible on there – I would say that reading books like this is a bit of a headache and I still browse the actual book but it reduces the amount of work I have to do to bring the information to a wider audience – why am I still putting it on here rather than just linking? I want to make the information more usable and also bring it to bare on a modern setting. I want to actually do my own research on some of the articles and update things so that you have Mrs Beetons opinion and then mine/a modern interpretation.

This is exciting and I am hoping that there may be more of the really old cook books and almanaces on the project.

Having read the preface to Mrs Beeton I think that this blog maybe actually turning into the mordern equvilent of her book – which is scary. There is obviously years of work here so don’t expect it all next week.

This year you are pretty much only getting the seasonal foods as this is important from an budget and environmental point of view.

I also do not think unlike my husbands aunt that Mrs Beeton has the definative anser to everything. Foods come in and out of fashion, medical science has stormed ahead in the past century and nutrition is better under stood. Foods and cooking tequnics that were not avalible to Mrs Beeton are common place. Having said that we on the brink of the tecnologicala age are in danger of loosing lots of old tecnics and knowledge that if we are going to live long and healthy lives we need to maintain. I know I have a copy of serval books dating from centuries ago that contian recipies and the like. Add in the wartime stuff and I think we are going to be rocking and rolling – any other information people have would also be greatly appreciated.

I would even like to investigate the diets of say the Romans and maybe even neolithic man. Again this is a big project but one I hope I can chip away at steadily.

I am starting with Mrs Beetona but she is by no means the end!

Of course I shall continue my own experiments and post the resulting recipies or simple do’s and don’ts. And hopefully at some point soon I will link this blog up with the gardening salaric which is woefully in need of attention. I manly concentrate on growing food so feel that it would be highly relevent to this blog!

Wish me luck!

Seasonal eating is very much in vogue for a number of reasons therefore this month I again give you Mrs Beeton’s food listings for what should be eaten in this month. Again this includes some imported food but as part of the reason for eating seasonally is to reduce our carbon emmisions this could be seen as counter productive!

FISH.–Barbel, brill, carp, crabs, crayfish, dace, eels, flounders, haddocks, herrings, lampreys, lobsters, mussels, oysters, perch, pike, plaice, prawns, shrimps, skate, smelts, soles, sprats, sturgeon, tench, thornback, turbot, whiting.

MEAT.–Beef, house lamb, mutton, pork, veal.

As I said in Febuary there is apparently Pink or Rose Veal which is ok to eat ethically as the calves are treated in a nice. I’ve found alink about it so here it is and I’ll try do a dedicated post at some future date.

POULTRY.–Capons, chickens, ducklings, tame and wild pigeons, pullets with eggs, turkeys, wild-fowl, though now not in full season.

GAME.–Grouse, hares, partridges, pheasants, snipes, woodcock.

VEGETABLES.–Beetroot, broccoli (purple and white), Brussels sprouts, cabbages, carrots, celery, chervil, cresses, cucumbers (forced), endive, kidney-beans, lettuces, parsnips, potatoes, savoys, sea-kale, spinach, turnips,–various herbs.

FRUIT.–Apples (golden and Dutch pippins), grapes, medlars, nuts, oranges, pears (Bon Chrétien), walnuts, dried fruits (foreign), such as almonds and raisins; French and Spanish plums; prunes, figs, dates, crystallized preserves.

1 egg

cup full of flour

2 cups of milk

Mix together untill you have a runny but slightly thicker than milk batter – warning if you use an electric whisk you will froth the mix and have to wait for it to settle again! The amount of flour added can be varied depending on taste.

I normally do a minimium of four eggs. The eggs can be replaced with egg replacer for vegans and Hindus, the milk can be replaced with either goats milk (infact the ones in the photos are made with goats milk), water or orange juice depending on taste or dietry needs.

I use a small frying pan which takes about half a ladle full of batter. Place the frying pan on a medium heat – it is easy to burn them so this lower heat is actually quiet important – We find the best results come from putting a little bit of vegitable oil in the pan for the first pancake – through this redures it uneatable as it is horribly oily but it prevents subsequent pancakes from sticking.

My friend Seth insists that egg replacer is vile and says he makes pancakes by:

i use flour, milk, baking soda (or baking powder), pinch of salt, butter in frying pan (he is a fantastic cook)

Staking the cooked pancakes one on top of the other keeps them warm:

We then put them out on the table with a selection of toppings – this year these were: Banoffee suace Chocolate suace Toffee source Strewberry source Maple syrip Lemon juice Limes cut in half Oranges cut in half Demerara sugar Soft brown muscovado suga Bean sprouts (grown under the kitchen sink!) Grated cheese Marshmellows Nutella Condensed Milk Chopped Bannana

I let Jean pick her own toppings: Marshmellow Banoffee sourcce bean sprouts Cheese – she liked it and yes it was all in one pancake!

I personally discovered that my slightly peppery bean sprouts tasted great with condensed milk!