What came first....the chicken or the egg?

 Let's just say 'murder suspect' may describe the day I had at work today (I can't even talk about it for safeguarding reasons - but trust me) Why on earth choose tonight to be another Mrs Beeton challenge? Perhaps it's time I saw a therapist. In the insane mean time, tonight's menu was Poulet a la Marengo followed by a sweet of Eufs a la Neige (Snow Eggs)! Chicken and eggs makes me remember my first two successes in the kitchen. Growing up, I had learnt how to make the odd meal or two from my parents - boil the mince - chuck in the tin tomatoes, add the 'Dolmio' sauce and voila - bolognaise. Poach an egg? - Put the eggs in the little plastic thing purchased from Grandma's  catalogue and put it in the microwave (seriously?!?) When it was time to fly the nest, I was determined that I would never own a microwave and that I would serve myself real poached eggs with my coffee for breakfast on Saturday mornings. Browsing the bookshelves at the local bookshop - hoping to find someone to help me, I was slightly overwhelmed by choice and so began to randomly pick books up and unashamedly started judging books by their cover.....  Jamie Oliver ..... too annoying! Delia Smith (hadn't I last seen her doing a tv show where she used tins? - That was mum's Xmas present sorted!) Nigella......porn for dad. Then I saw her - the Audrey Hepburn of chefs - Gizzi Erskine! To be honest I would have purchased the book even if she had dedicated it to microwave cooking - I was in love (dam being gay - a beehive and I am anyones!) Following her instructions the next morning I produced my first poached egg! The next day - I am making bouquet Garni's, throwing red wine into a casserole dish and making grown up adult dinner- Coq au Vin! Perhaps now that I am trying to learn a thing or two from Mrs B I anticipated that chicken and eggs would result in yet two more successes - Wrong.

Poulet a la Marengo

The chicken was just what I wanted - a nice warming casserole type dish on a winters night. Looking at the recipe I really did think it was going to be dull. The chicken is browned off in oil- flour is added, then in goes a pint of stock (home made might I add smugly) - a small amount of garlic, mushrooms and some sugar. However - the sauce does turn into something quite amazing.

The eggs on the other hand (egg  whites poached in milk - served on custard) - I am not sure if I made a mistake somewhere but the eggs were very soft and I won't be surprised if I get the belly ache from eating raw egg white - I will have to get it another go and let you know.) Mrs B sure does leave out a lot of detail though. Almost as if she were a university lecturer, 'Here, you can have a few lectures and a tutorial and that's ya lot!" - as a student of Beeton - you have to bounce back fast from disaster and not spend too long crying over the soggy egg whites (but take a leaf from my book and indulge your self in a little tantrum!) That said, it's true what they say - you never forget your first school teacher - God Bless you Gizzy!

A spoonful of sugar...

So after my victory over Everton toffee, I was ready for a new challenge. However, in a cheeky break from teacher training today I started looking up the history of this devishly sugary treat. I found a charming story of a Mary Cooper in 1810 Liverpool, whose home made Everton toffee reached national fame - someone even wrote the following poem: 

Everton Toffee! Ever dear to lass and lad:
More certain cure than balm of Gilead.
Come friends, come buy – your pennies give.
While you keep sucking you’ll be sure to live!

Sure to live? A shortcut to the dentist more like. However, even before her there was a Molly Bushell who used her doctors recipe to make extra money from home. So this suggests to me that the toffee recipe must have originally been used for medicinal purposes. Low and behold, who should I notice has a recipe for 'Butterscotch Cough Sweets'? Mrs Beeton (of course, was there anything this woman wasn't advising desperate housewives of the 1800's about?) 

So naturally, upon returning home from work I have rolled up my sleeves and am, under Mrs B's instructions, following the Everton Toffee recipe but substituting white sugar for brown and adding in powdered ginger. As I stir, I get that beautiful feeling that I am bringing life to something out of history as I did with the hot chocolate. I imagine strict buxom Governess' mixing these sweets up for poorly children - Nanny McPhee style. Even as I pour out the sweets into moulds I actually see myself in the back room of my very own Victorian sweet shop - 'Come friends, come buy - your pennies give, while you keep sucking you'll be sure to live" 

I came, I saw, I conquered!

So after my disaster with the apple soup, I want to go forwards with a new challenge. After a tiring day I am not sure if I have the ingredients ( or the energy) for a Mrs Beeton master piece. Flicking through the BoHM I find Everton Toffee. Sugar, water, butter and a few drops of lemon, everything I have in the cupboard and sounds simple......right?

1lb of sugar, 1 teacup of water, 1/4 butter and 6 drops of lemon essence.

The sugar and water go into a pan until the sugar dissolves. Beat the butter into a cream and then add it to the mixture on the stove and keep stirring till set. Ok, I seem to get by with the dissolving - I seemed to remember hearing from one of the many cooking shows on TV that this should not be stirred. I add the butter and stir for the best of 40 mins. (Mrs B says this should take 18-35) but my mixture just seems so bright and yellow and liquid - and my gut feeling is that it is wrong. Toffee surely should be light brown? My instinct is to want to turn the heat up but I am scared the sugar will burn and I will have something that tastes vile - not sure I could take another disaster this quickly. So I end up taking the mixture off the heat and backing away from it - beaten!

Dam her! Mrs B says nothing about colour, temperature or tells me what I should be seeing. I wonder if this is what modern celebrity chefs have done to me - a recipe follower - void of any real cooking knowledge! And surely this is the reason Mrs B appealed to me - she was going to be my hard arse teacher, was she not? But then it hits me - its the opening line of the book "As with the commander of an army, or the leader of an enterprise, so is it with the mistress of the house" - so in this case it's 'master' but the meaning is still so prominent and no wonder this is her opening sentence. Surely her message here is 'GROW A PAIR!' Commanders and leaders don't retreat like beaten dogs - they are brave and go forth and conquer! This is it - the toffee mixture is back on the heat - I am going to follow my gut instinct - the heat is wacked up! The pan transforms into a magical scene as a froth rises, and so does my heart - if this over flows or spits me in the face I am going to be scarred but I stir, fighting it back down - HAHA, suddenly I am George slaying a toffee dragon, I am William The Conquerer at the Battle of Hastings! Suddenly the melted butter goes from sunshine to a gold and it is then that I take it to dish to cool, and having scraped the last bit from the pan I can't help but get the urge to take it to my mouth - in the few short seconds it takes to get from pan to my face it already forms a hard shell and....OOOOOUUCH FUCK!!! Ok, blow it first..........and ......... wow, its hard, then chewy and buttery and .....and......and.....and then Mrs Beeton made me cum!

Disaster!

With no further delay - I officially declare 'The Nostalgic Kitchen' open!

Opening the fridge this morning, on what appears to be a very wet and miserably grey start to Saturday, I find some apples my boyfriend has left in the vegetable drawer. It's Guy Fawkes celebrations tonight and I am thinking about toffee apples. Except I don't like toffee apples! Then I start thinking about autumnal cozy-ness and curling up on the couch with something warm. Mrs Beeton's Apple soup with its cloves and ginger seems like the perfect place to start and what could start a weekend off better than a nice bit of cake?
Now Mrs Beeton was either cooking for a army or a family with 27 children, so it takes a little calculating so ensure that I don't end up with 7 gallons of soup (I am exaggerating here, its one of my flaws you will get to know very well) but once I have peeled, quartered and boiled the right amount of apples in some stock I can begin to push it through a sieve. I think I know why I love doing this - it reminds me that in bygone eras - nothing came quickly! And once I have it presented in true Victorian style - my nostalgic brain is screaming 'It was so worth it!"

Except, mathematics has never been my strong point, and I forgot to half the amount of cloves so whilst I pull a funny face after my first taste my housemate chirps ' I am sure it will do the digestion a world of good - its very medicinal!"

Not too sure how Caraway seed cake is sitting on my tongue either - and I begin to feel like this will be a disaster. This reminds me of a story - as a young boy I can remember my grandmother and I preparing a steamed pudding of some variety. However, being a war child my gran had strong values that cooking should be easy and fast, and is best when coming straight out of a tin or freezer packet. So it was no wonder this 'steamed' pudding went straight into a microwave! 20 mins later the kitchen was filled with a sickly smell and when gran pinged oped the oven door - the plastic container the pudding mixture (which was now black) had been put in had melted all over the place - looking like some kind of monster vomit! I stood in amazement as gran opened the kitchen window - hacked most of the burned pudding away from the molten mess and lobbed it into the back garden 'for the birds'! So, I am not going to be discouraged. Onwards and upwards - let the successes and disasters of the Nostalgic kitchen come thick and fast - because as for disaster, in the words of my Gran, are 'food for the bloody birds boy!'

Love Clarence!

Introduction

"My new healthy eating starts tomorrow" - These words that I uttered yesterday seem to be so easily pushed aside as I stir real lumps of chocolate into hot milk simmering on the stove. Only having tasted it once (OK, twice) I seem to have a craving for the hot chocolate that I had tasted in O'connell's during my weekend visit to Cork, Ireland. Having a mother who thought making hot chocolate was tearing open a sachet of cocoa powder into a mug of water from the kettle whilst she carefully tried not to lace it with the ash that hung on her cigarette, I don't mind admitting that tasting O'connell's, laden with real chocolate was...a little bit fucking sexy!...and since Sunday I had been left wanting! Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management however does have a recipe that doesn't even utter the word 'cocoa powder' and instead calls for 1/2 ounce of chocolate. Mmmm - there seems to be something powerfully rebellious about bypassing the kettle, and as I see the victorian recipe swirling away in the pan I also imagine the servants from 'Downtown Abbey' in their PJ's, sitting around the warm arga drinking this sweet treat before retiring to bed. Carrying the cup through to the armchair - I almost feel as though I am carrying something I just dug up from history, 'But it's just a cup of hot chocolate' I hear you shout. But actually it gives me an idea -  I am going to give into my sense of nostalgia and use my spare time recreating food the past - and my blogs will culminate into a 'nostalgic cookbook' - I think I even need a Victorian name?!