A Collection Of English Recipes

BAKED BLACK PUDDING

Blood from 1 pig, 2 lb (1kg) groats ( groats are the hulled grains of various cereals, such as oats, wheat, and barley), 3 lb (1.5kg) fat, marjoram, mint, sage, small bunches of each, 1 quart (1.1 L) milk, 1 dessert spoonful pepper and clove, 1 teaspoonful black pepper and cayenne, handful salt.

Day before making: Cook groats in pan until tender. Leave in pan all night. Cut up the fat into small pieces. Stir blood until cold and leave in cold place.

Next day: Boil milk, add the cold groats. Add milk and groats to the blood (strained). Add seasoning and fat. Put into roasting tins and bake in moderate oven until black. Leave until cool. Cut into squares and fry in fat or grill.

DOUBLE DECKER PUDDING

Pastry: 1/2 lb (250g) four, 4 oz (115g) fat, pinch salt.

Filling: 10 oz (285g) currants, 1/4 lb (125g) moist brown sugar, candied peel, butter.

Rub fat into flour and make into paste with water. Cut pastry into three equal parts and roll each out thinly to fit plate 10 inches across. Put one layer of pastry on the plate, Put half the currants onto this and sprinkle with sugar and grated candied peel. Dot with pieces of butter. Wet edges of pastry. Cover with remainder of currants, sugar and peel and utter. Damp edges of pastry and cover with remainder of pastry. Press edges well down with a form. Trim edges of pastry with sharp knife and prick top of pastry with a fork. Bake in a moderate oven 350F (180C) until nicely browned.

APPLE TANSIE

Take 1 quart (1.1L) cream, one manchet grated (a manchet is a home made fine white bread). The yolks of 10 eggs and 4 whites. A little salt, Some sugar and a little spice. Then cut your apples in round thin slices and lay them in your frying-pan in order. Your batter being hot when your are fried, pour in your batter and fry it on one side. then turn it on a pie plate and slide it into the pan again and fry it. Then put it on the pie plate again and squeeze the juice of a lemon over it and strew it with fine sugar and serve it at table.

LANCASHIRE HOT POT

2 lb (1kg) best end neck of mutton, 3 sheep’s kidneys, 12 small oysters, 2lb (1kg) potatoes, 1 large onion, salt, pepper, 1/2 pint (300ml) gravy, 1 oz (30g) butter, 1/2 pint (300ml) stock.

Divide meat into neat cutlets. Trim off the skin and greater part of the fat. Put the rib bones, the lean trimmings of the meat, the beards of the oysters and a small onion into a stew-pan. Cover with cold water and boil down for gravy.

Grease a fireproof baking dish, put in a deep layer of sliced potato. On top of them arrange the cutlets to slightly overlap each other and on each place 1 or 2 slices of kidney and an oyster. Season well, put in remainder of potatoes, but let the top layer consist of small potatoes cut in halves and arranged to improve the appearance of the dish. Pour down the side of the dish 1/2 pint hot stock or water seasoned with salt and pepper. Brush the upper layer of potatoes with warm butter, cover with a buttered paper and bake for 2 hours in a moderate oven 350F (180C). Remove the paper, the latter part of the time, to allow potatoes to become crisp and brown.

When ready to serve, pour in a little gravy and send the rest to the table in a tureen. Hot pot is served in the dish in which it is baked.

POTATO PIE

Swede and turnips, boiled and mashed, with a little cream or butter is the ideal accompaniment. It is usually made in a deep, glazed dish and I use the 10 inch (25cm) size, 5 inches (12cm) deep, for 3 or 6 people. The ingredients are:

3/4 lb (375g) potted pork, 4 onion, sliced carrots if liked, peeled and sliced potatoes to fill the dish, 1 dessert spoonful salt, pepper to taste.

Fill with water to an inch from the top. Cover with an old dinner plate and cook gently for about 2 hours after coming to the boil. About 3/4 hour before it is required, remove the plate, test for seasoning, see that there is enough liquid in the dish. If too much, ladle some out and keep hot to add later and put on a pastry crust. Return to the oven and cook till the crust is nicely browned. The pie will be almost as good if the remains of cold roast pork, including the bones, is used. In that case some left-over gravy or a dissolved meat cube should be added when the crust is put on.

CHEESE AND ONION FEAST

1/2 lb (250g) cheese, 3/4 lb (375g) onions, 1 pint (600ml) milk, 1 or 2 eggs, pepper, salt and butter to taste.

Slice the onions ad stew them gently in the milk until cooked, then add the grated cheese with pepper, salt and butter. Let it cook until the cheese is soft, but don’t let the milk boil after the cheese is added. Add 1 or 2 beaten eggs and stir quickly for a few seconds. Serve on toast on hot plates.

APPLE FLORENTINE PIE

Ingredients: 4 good cooking apples, 2 tablespoonfuls sugar or golden syrup, 1 Lemon, grated lemon peel, short pastry, 1 Pint (560ml) of hot spiced ale (see below)

Core the apples, wash them, and place in a deep pie dish. Put sugar over, add lemon peel and cover with short pastry. Bake in moderate oven for 30 minutes. Remove the pastry, pour over hot spiced ale, cut pastry into required pieces and put back in dish. Serve hot.

For The Hot Spiced Ale

1 pint ale (560ml), a little grated nutmeg and ground cinnamon, 1 whole clove, 1 tablespoonful sugar. Spiced ale should be heated very gently with spices and sugar. Do not boil.

For The Short Pastry

300g plain flour (sifted), 1/2 tsp of sea salt, 75g unsalted butter (softened and diced), 75g lard (softened and diced), 2-3 tbsp cold water

Sieve the flour into a large mixing bowl and sprinkle in the sea salt. Rub in the softened, diced butter and lard until the mixture resembles fine breadcrumbs (you could do this in a food processor). Add the cold water to the flour mixture a little at a time, (you might not need all of it) and, using a knife, mix the water into the flour, using your fingers at the end to firm up the pastry mixture. The pastry should be of an even colour, firm (but not tough) and at a consistency for easy rolling. Put the pastry in the fridge for 20 minutes wrapped in cling film.

BAKED ONION BUTTER

Ingredients: 1 onion (medium-sized), 4oz. (115g) butter.

Take all the juice from the onion and stir into the butter in a saucepan. Brown the butter and serve hot.

CATHERINE CAKES (or Kattern Cakes or Catterning Cakes)

Called after Catherine of Aragon, who used to live at Ampthill Castle. Specially made for the 25th November, St. Catherine’s Day.

Ingredients: 2lb. (900g) Bread dough, 2oz. (60g) butter, 2oz. (60g) sugar, 1 egg, a few caraway seeds.

Dough made with yeast, as for bread (see below). Knead well with butter, caraway seeds, sugar and egg. Leave to rise in a warm place for 2 hours. Place on floured baking tin and bake in a moderate oven for 2 to 3 hours.

For The Bread Dough

800g plain white bread flour – unbleached stoneground (plus extra for dusting etc.)
1tsp of salt (sea salt ground)
600ml of warm water (1 part boiling, 2 parts cold)

Raising Agent

either – 24g of dried yeast & 1 tsp sugar (make up according to instructions)
or – 50g of fresh yeast & 1 tsp of sugar (make up according to instructions)

Dried Yeast: If using dried yeast as a raising agent – in a small bowl or jug pour in half the warm water, (300ml) dissolve in the sugar, and sprinkle in the yeast and whisk it thoroughly. Leave to sit for 10 minutes in a warm place to allow the yeast to start to work. Check to see if the yeast is rising. After about 4–5 minutes, it will have a creamy and slightly frothy appearance on top. Do not allow the yeast to sit longer than 12 minutes before using, leaving it too long will exhaust the yeast before it is in the dough. When ready, stir and pour in all the remaining warm water 300ml.

Fresh Yeast: If using fresh yeast you need twice as much fresh yeast as dried yeast and you must use it in half the time after activating it. Make in exactly the same way as above.

Make The Bread Dough

Into a large mixing bowl sift in the flour and sprinkle over the ground sea salt, (mix the ground salt in well with the flour, so it does not interfere with the yeast when added) then make a well in the centre. Add the yeast water into the well and bring the flour and water together into a dough with a knife, wooden spoon, or your fingertips

Add some more plain white bread flour (if needed) until you form a firm dough which you can knead, it should still be on the ’sticky’ side, but not so that it is difficult to remove from the bowl. You are looking for it to be springy and elastic. Take the dough out of the bowl and onto a flat floured work surface.

Start kneading the dough to make your Bread for 7 minutes (kneading dough is a ‘push-pull’ technique to break the gluten and starches down in the flour). If sticking to the work surface sprinkle over a little extra flour, it will probably need a few casts of extra flour over the 7 minutes, but do not over do it. When ready it will become satiny and when pressed with a finger tip the indentation in the dough will rise back out. Then use in the Catherine Cakes as directed above.

BACON DUMPLING

Ingredients: 500g of plain flour, 200g shredded suet, 3 tbsp water, 12 rashers of rind-less bacon (diced small), 2 Onions (finely chopped, sweated in butter till golden in a frying pan), 2 Potatoes (peeled and grated), a little chopped fresh sage, sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to season.

Make a stiff paste with the flour, shredded suet, a pinch of salt and water – add more flour if a little sticky. Knead it with your hands for a minute or two so that it becomes silky. Then roll out the paste to 3cm thick in a large rectangle on a floured work surface. Cover the whole area with the diced bacon, the sweated and chopped onions, grated potato and sprinkle over the sage and seasoning. Moisten the edges and roll up the pastry, seal the ends. Then roll in a double thickness of greaseproof paper and secure at both ends, wrap up in clean cloth, secure with string or safety-pins, and boil or steam for 2 to 3 hours. Unwrap and cut up to serve thick slices.

CHERRY TURNOVERS

Ingredients: Cherries, Brown Sugar, 500g self raising flour, 200g lard, pinch salt, cold water to mix

Cut lard into small pieces, then rub lightly into flour. Mix to a stiff paste with water. Roll out once to 1 cm thickness. Cut out rounds with a medium sized saucer. Stalk and wash the cherries. Put about a dozen on one half of pastry round, cover liberally with soft brown sugar, leaving a margin of 2cm, which is moistened with cold water. Turn over the other half of pastry and pinch edges together firmly. Brush with egg, milk or water, dredge with castor sugar. Put on greased tin and bake in hot oven for 20 or 30 minutes. Eat hot or cold.

STOKENCHURCH PIE

Ingredients: 500g of plain flour, 800g meat (any cooked meat like lamb or beef chopped small), 100ml Beef stock, 200g lard, 3 hard-boiled eggs, 100g dried pasta, a little salt, a little water.

Mince or cut up the cooked meat and add to a little thickened beef stock. Boil the dried pasta in salt water until tender, cut up small and mix with the meat. Cut up the hard-boiled eggs. Make pastry with the flour and lard, (rub in the soft lard to the flour until it makes bread-crumbs and then add one or two tablespoons of water to bind) roll out and line a well-greased pie tin. Put in half the meat, the eggs, and then the rest of the meat on top. Cover with pastry. Make a hole in the centre, and brush over the top crust with milk. Bake in a hot oven for 30 minutes.