A Collection Of English Recipes

KENT HUFFKINS

1 1/2 lb (750g) plain flour, 1/2 oz (15g) yeast, 1 teaspoonful castor sugar, 1 1/2 teaspoonfuls salt, 2 oz (60g) lard, 3/4 pint (400ml) tepid liquid (cold milk and warm water, or parsnip wine and warm water).

Make a bread dough from the flour, yeast, caster sugar, salt and liquid.  Leave to rise.  When it has risen rub in the lard, and let it rise again.  Divide the dough into pieces the size of unleavened buns, put on a baking tray and allow to rise once more.  Cook in a hot oven 420C (210C) for about 10 minutes or until brown.  Eat hot with plenty of butter.

 

KENTISH PUDDING PIES

The Pastry: 1/2 lb (250g) plain flour, 3 oz (85g) lard, 2oz (60g) butter, pinch of salt, 1 teaspoonful baking powder, water to mix.

The Filling:  1 pint (600ml) fresh milk, 2 tablespoonfuls ground rice, 2 oz (60g) butter, 2 oz (60g) white sugar, 1 egg, pinch of mixed spice, 2 bay leaves, a few currants.

Rub the fat into the flour, baking powder and salt sifted together, and mix with a very little cold water.  Roll out thinly and fit to a shallow basin.  Trim the edges, prick the bottom to prevent it rising and cook it ‘blind’ i.e. cover the pastry with greased paper and fill in the bread or beans to stop the bottom rising.  Raising the edges of the pastry slightly from the basin will help it to fluff up in cooking.

For the filling, warm the milk, moisten the ground rice with a little of the warmed milk, and add to the milk.  Add spice and bay leaves and cook very slowly, stirring carefully, to the boil and boil for 3 minutes.  Remove the bay leaves and stir in fat and sugar.  Allow this milk mixture to cool slightly, then add the lightly beaten egg.  Remove the bread and paper from the cooked pastry.  Put in the filling.  Sprinkle over a few currants previously washed in warm water and dried, and put in a hot oven to brown.  This Kentish pudding pie or Lenten pie, may be eaten hot or cold.

 

KENTISH WELL PUDDING

Make a suet crust with 8 oz (225g) plain flour, 4 oz (115g) grated English beef suet and a good pinch of salt.  Roll out and line a well-greased pudding basin.  Half fill with brown moist sugar  and a few knobs of butter.  Put a thin layer of crust through the centre and fill up with more sugar and more butter knobs and a final layer of crust.  Cover with greaseproof paper and tie the pudding cloth securely.  Boil for 2 hours.  Turn onto a hot dish and serve.

 

LENT PIE

1 dozen eggs   1 dozen apples   2lb (1kg) stoned raisins   2lb (1kg) currants  1lb (500g) sugar, tablespoon each of cinnamon, nutmeg, beaten mace, juice of 3 ripe lemons  1/2 lb (250g) citron cut into strips, 1 pint (600ml) brandy or rose water or ratafia, 1 pint (600ml) white wine

Hard boil the eggs and chop the yolks fine.  Mix all the ingredients together and cover with short pastry as you do mince pies 350F (180C) 35 mins.

 

FRUMENTY

1 teacupful clean new wheat,  1/4 lb (125g) mixed fruit (currants, sultanas etc.) 2 oz (60g) flour for thickening, 1 quart (1.1 Litres) milk, 2 oz (60g) brown sugar, nutmeg

Slowly cook wheat in a stew-jar with 1 quart water about 6 hours.  Transfer to saucepan, add milk, fruit, sugar and a little grated nutmeg.  Thicken with flour mixed with milk and bring to the boil slowly.  Serve hot.  Can be used for any meal.

 

CAMBRIDGESHIRE CHEESE

This is usually made in rectangular moulds. 1½ gallons of milk will make two cheeses.

Heat the milk to 90 degrees F.   Mix in the rennet in the proportion of 1 drachm (1 teaspoon) to 1 1/2 gallons (7 litres) of Cambridgeshire milk.  Do not top-stir, as a creamy top is traditional for this cheese.  Leave in a covered bucket till coagulation occurs.  The curd should be firm enough to split over the finger cleanly.  Have ready the sterilized utensils and the moulds on a straw mat in a tray.

Mark the shape of the ‘top’ with a mould on the curd, then slice two of these off very thinly and put on one side.  Next ladle out thin slices of the curd into the mould, then slide on the ‘tops’ and leave to drain again.  Do not turn the moulds and do not add any salt as this cheese is traditionally not salted.  It will take 2-3 days to drain.

 

FILLET OF PORK DUMPLING

Pastry (suet or short crust rolled out thinly to a square large enough for family requirements) fillet of pork, sage and onion stuffing, seasoning.

Roll out pastry to roughly 12 inches square.  Carefully place this on pudding cloth.  Place the fillet of park carefully on pastry.  Spread sage-and-onion stuffing on well-seasoned meat.  Fold edges of pastry together (like Dick Whittington’s famous kerchief).  Do similarly with cloth, tying corners together tightly to keep pudding in good shape.  Place in boiling water and simmer very gently for as long as possible.  Four hours is not too long.  This is delicious eaten hot or cold.  The water in which the pudding is cooked can be used as the foundation for gravy.  Serve with apple sauce.

 

HUNTINGDON FIDGET PIE

1lb (500g) cooking apples, 1.2 lb (600g) onions, 3.4 lb (2kg) streaky bacon, seasoning, pastry.

Put a layer of apples at the bottom of a pie-dish, a layer of sliced onion on top and a layer of diced bacon on top of that.  Repeat until dish is full seasoning each layer.  Add a very little water, cover with pastry and bake in a moderate oven 320F (160C) for 2 hours.

 

AVON SCONES

1/2 lb (225g) flour, 4 oz (115g) lard, 2 oz (60g) soft brown sugar, 2 oz (60g) currants, 1 teaspoonful baking powder, 1/2 teaspoonful salt, milk

Add salt and baking powder to flour.  Rub in fat, add sugar and fruit, and moisten with milk to make a dough.  Form into rounds and cut across with knife.  Bake in hot oven for 15 minutes.

 

MEAT LOAF

Mince up 1 lb (500g) cold meat with 3 or 4 small onions or shallots. Make 1 pint (600ml) of gravy with stock, and soak the inside of a small brown loaf with the gravy, beat it well, mix with the mince and beat again, season, and beat in 2 eggs.  Put the mixture in a greased pudding basin and cover with greaseproof paper and tie down with string.  Bake for 30 to 40 minutes 400F (200C) and serve with brown sauce.

 

BROWN SAUCE

Fry 2 sliced onions and 1 finely-sliced carrot and 1 skinned tomato in a little dripping. When the onions are brown add a heaped teaspoonful of flour. Cook till brown, add (off the fire) 1 pint (600ml) of stock or gravy, and a bunch of herbs. Return to the fire, stirring all the time, bring to the boil. Add salt and pepper and simmer for 1/2 hour. Remove herbs before serving.

 

PORK PLUGGA

Water, 4 oz (115g) suet, 8 oz (225g) plain flour, chopped sage and onion, pepper and salt, dices of streaky pork.

Make a suet crust from the suet, flour and water and roll out.  Spread with layers of diced pork, onion and sage, and season.  Wet the edges of the crust, then roll up.  Wrap the roll in greaseproof paper brushed over with melted fat, twisting the ends of the paper like a sausage, and put the roll in a pudding cloth.  Boil in boiling water for 1 1/2 hours or steam for 2 to 2 1/2 hours.  Make a gravy from the pork trimmings and serve pork plugga hot with gravy.

 

AUDLEY END SAUCE

1 pint (600ml) boiling milk, 1/2 gill (75ml) cream, 1 1/2 oz (45g) white sugar, 2 oz (60g) butter, 2 oz (60g) cornflour, 1 beaten egg, 1 tablespoonful moist brown sugar.

Mix the cornflour to a paste with a little of the milk then stir this paste into the boiling milk; add butter and sugar and boil for 4 or 5 minutes.  Beat up the egg with the cream and add it very slowly indeed to the thickened mixture which you must allow to cool a little otherwise the egg will curdle.  Beat up the mixture with an egg whisk, pour into a buttered dish, sprinkle brown sugar on top and caramelize under a hot grill.

 

VEAL KIDNEY PIE

Mince two veal kidneys with some of their fat.  Season with herbs, cloves, a grated nutmeg, a little chopped celery, pepper and salt.  Put in a pie dish with 4 sliced hard-boiled eggs, 1/2 cupful of breadcrumbs and a wineglassful of white wine and some stock to cover.  Cover with short crust pastry 1/2 lb (250g) flour and bake in a moderate oven 320F (160C).

 

HASTY-BATTER

Take a pint (600ml) of new milk, 3 bay leaves, a little of the rind of a lemon (no pith) cook till the milk is well flavoured and, with well- sieved flour, make it into a thick pudding mixture.  Stir in 3/4 lb (375g) soft butter, 2 oz (60g) sugar crushed, the yolks of 4 eggs, and their whites well beaten separately.  Whip all lightly together and bake in a deep pastry-lined dish for 20 minutes in a hot oven 450F (230C).

 

FOWL PIE

Prepare an old fowl.  Cut into neat pieces and put into a saucepan with 2 chopped onions, a stick of celery, 1/2 lb (225g) of ham cut small, a muslin bag containing a blade of mace, a little thyme and a few peppercorns.  Cover with cold water, bring to the boil and simmer till tender/  Turn out and leave until cold.  /Remove the fat and the seasoning bag.  Have ready three hard-boiled eggs and some chopped parsley.  Put a layer of fowl in a pie-dish with some of the gravy and a layer of eggs and parsley alternatively with the meat until the dish is filled.  Cover with a god pastry crust and bake in a good oven350F (180C)  till the pastry is nicely browned.

 

BADMINTON EGGS

3 new laid eggs, fried breadcrumbs, 6 pickled mushrooms, butter, rolled in flour, 2 good-sized truffles, wineglass full of stock from truffles, ketchup, salt, pepper, 1 tablespoonful port wine.

Boil the eggs quite hard, remove shells and cut in halves lengthways.  Take out yolks and chop finely with the mushrooms and truffles.  Put in stew-pan with stock, ketchup, pepper, salt and port wine. Simmer for 10 minutes and thicken with a little fresh butter that has been rolled in flour.  Lay the whites of eggs on a dish and fill with fried breadcrumbs, dust over with cayenne and pour over them the mixture from the saucepan.

 

GLOUCESTER CHEESE AND ALE

Cut some Gloucester cheese into thin flakes, without rind.  Put in baking dish, spread with mustard and cover with strong ale.  Cook until the cheese is dissolved and tender.  Have ready some thick slices of brown toast, and pour hot ale over to moisten it, and the cheese.  The hotter it is served the better.

 

SAFFRON CAKE

3 1/2 lb (1.5kg) plain four, 1 1/2 lb (750g) salted butter, 1 1/2 lb (750g) lard, rub well together then add 1 dessert spoonful salt, 1 lb (500g) currants, 1 lb (500g) sultanas, 1/4 lb (125g) peel mixed.

Cream three penny-worth of yeast (20g) with flour, sugar and warm water made in bowl of above mixture.  Take a dry packet of saffron, crumble up in paper, put in a mug with warm water to draw out on stove.  Add a little milk to saffron.  Add to mixture.  Moisten with sufficient tepid water coloured weakly with milk to get right consistency.  Put to plum (Cornish for rise), covered with a butter paper, then a tea-towel.  When risen, take enough to make saffron buns, well rounded with no currants, etc. showing on surface of bun.  Bake in hot oven. Half fill warm cake tins with remaining mixture. Put on side of stove until mixture has risen again.  Cook in fairly hot oven400F (200C).