A Collection Of English Recipes

MULLET PIE

To keep a mullet, leave in  a sandy condition, do not wash or gut for 4 days.

Wash and scale the mullet, cut in 1½ inch chunks.  Place in dish, add milk to cover and parsley.  Bake in oven 350F (180C).  A good ordinary pie-crust can be placed on this if liked.

 

CORNISH PASTIES

Good rich pastry, not too damp, good beef-chuck steak or similar, potatoes, onion, salt pepper.

Cut raw meat in very thin pieces. Slice raw onion quire finely. ‘Shrip’ potatoes into thin pieces (like wood shavings) with very sharp knife.  Roll pastry out moderately thick but not too coarsely.  Cut a round, using large plate as guide.  In middle of round of pastry place handful or two of ‘shripped’ potatoes, onion if liked (makes better flavour)  Place meat all over evenly.  Season well with salt and pepper. Draw edges of two sides to middle, pinching together.  Pressing together with left thumb towards you, turn pastry over left thumb, pinching or crimping as you go, making traditional pasty pattern and working from right to left.  Brush with beaten egg.  Place on piece of greased paper and lay on tin.  Cook in good oven 350F (180C) till pastry is set and light brown.  Finish in lower part of oven till all meat and vegetables are tender – about 45 to 50 minutes.

 

SENNEN COVE CONGER STEW

Pare 1/2 saucepan of potatoes cut to medium size.  Add milk, 1/2 (300ml) pint residue water for liquid, add parsley.

Wash conger and cut into finger-size strips, heaps of them.  Place on potatoes with another sprinkling of parsley and salt. Cover and simmer.

 

 DEVON SPLITS

Scone Mixture:  8 oz (225g) Self Raising Flour, 2 oz (60g) fat (butter or lard), 2oz (60g) sugar, pinch salt, milk

Filling:  Clotted or whipped cream strawberry jam.

Sift flour and salt and rub in fat.  Add sugar, mix with milk to consistency of short pastry.  Roll out 1/2 inch thick.  Cut into rounds.  Bake 20 minutes in a hot oven 400F (200C) until golden brown.  Split and spread with strawberry jam and whipped cream.

 

DEVONSHIRE PORK PIE

1 lb (500g) pork chops, 1 lb (500g) cooking apples, 2 teaspoonfuls sugar, small pinch ground allspice, 2 large onions, salt and pepper to taste, 1/2 pint (300ml) stock.

Trim the chops short.  Peel and core the apples. Chop the onions small. Place a layer of sliced apples in the bottom of a pie-dish, sprinkle with half the sugar and spice, then half the chopped onion.  Next half the meat.  Season with the salt and pepper.  Repeat these layers once more, then add the stock.  Make about 1/2 lb short pastry.  Roll it out about an inch larger that the dish top.  Cut a strip and place on the greased rim of dish: moisten with water and lay pastry cover on top.  Make a large hole in the top for the steam to escape. Bake in hot oven 400F (200C) until pastry is risen and pale brown; lower the heat and bake for a further 1 1/2 hours.  This is also very nice cooked in a large saucepan very slowly for 3 to 4 hours, with a suet crust over the top cooked for the last 30 minutes.

 

DEVONSHIRE POTATO CAKE

1/2 lb (225g) warm freshly mashed potatoes 8 oz (225g) self-raising flour, 6 oz (170g) chopped suet (beef) 6 oz (170g) large raisins (stoned) 1 good teaspoonful salt 1 tablespoon sugar

Put all the ingredients into a bowl and mix well with the fingers, rubbing the potato in.  Add enough milk or milk and water to make a soft dough, turn it into a pie-dish.  Make sections for easy cutting and bake until nicely browned top and bottom, about 1 1/2 hours.  Serve hot.

 

MATRIMONY CAKE

Take a shallow tin and line with pastry.  Core about 4 large sour apples and cut them in thin rings and lay on pastry, jut overlapping each other.  Fill the core holes with currants.  Sprinkle sugar over all and a pinch of ground nutmeg ( my mother puts a slice of lemon in the middle of the cake).  Then cover with a thin layer of pastry.  Bake in a hot oven and cut in fingers and eat hot for tea with Devonshire cream.

 

LAMB’S TAIL PIE

Good, rich pastry – short or flaky; lambs’ tails properly scalded and skinned, parsley, thyme, lemon, salt, pepper, 2 or 3 hard boiled eggs, several rashers of bacon.

Arrange lambs’ tails, bacon, sliced eggs in layers, sprinkling layers with the fresh herbs, lemon rind grated, salt and pepper. Add sufficient stock to nearly fill the dish.  Cover with rich pastry.  Brush the top with beaten egg after suitably fluting edges and decorating as seems appropriate.  Eat hot or cold.

 

MOLLAG (MANX HAGGIS)

2 lb (1kg) potatoes, 1 lb (500g) onions, 1/2 lb (250g) liver, 1/2 lb (250g) leaf lard, 1/4 lb (125g) groats, seasoning, one pig’s stomach.

Stew liver and mince.  Dice the potatoes and onions, render leaf lard and use the crackling.  Add gravy from the liver, groats, seasoning and mix all together.  Prepare the pig’s stomach, fill, and sew up and boil for 4 hours.  What I had was cut from the cold mollag.  I sliced it and fried it – delicious.

 

BUNLOAF

1 lb (500g) plain flour, 1/2 lb (250g) lard. 1/2 lb (250g) brown sugar, 1 lb (500g) sultanas, 1 lb (500g) currants 1/2 lb (250g) raisins, 2 oz (60g) mixed peel, 1/2 teaspoonful bicarbonate of soda, 1 tablespoonful black treacle, 2 cupfuls (480ml) buttermilk.

Rub fat into flour, sugar and spices.  Add fruit and mix with buttermilk.  Bake in a moderate oven.  This makes two 1 lb bunloaves.

 

KIDNEY IN THE ONION

Take 4 big round onions, large enough to hold a sheep’s kidney.  Peel them carefully and slice off the top of each for a lid.  Hollow out the onions until the kidneys will go exactly into each and put the ‘hollowings’ into a casserole.  Place the onions, with kidney inside and lid on the top, carefully in the casserole, and put good stock in the casserole about halfway up the onions.  Simmer for 2 hours.  twenty minutes before the time is up pour in a glass of rum.  The whole should be well cooked in 2 hours, with the kidneys soft enough to be eaten with a spoon.

 

VECTIS PUDDING

8 oz (225g) S.R. Flour, pinch salt, 3 oz (85g) fat, 3 tablespoonfuls water, 2 oz (60g) currants, a chopped apple, 1 big tablespoonful golden syrup, 2 oz (60g) sugar, grated rind of 1/2 lemon, 1/2 level teaspoonful mixed spice.

Sieve the flour and salt, rub in the fat, Add the cold water to form a stiff dough.  Roll out thinly and spread with a mixture of the apple, golden syrup. currants, sugar, spice and lemon.  Damp along the sides and one end and roll up like a Swiss roll, closing the ends firmly.  Wrap in a floured cloth and steam over fast boiling-water for 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

 

GURNSEY BEAN JAR

1 pig’s trotter or piece of shin beef  1lb (500g) small dried beans, 1 onion, parsley, salt to taste, meat stock.

Soak the beans overnight and then cook until tender.  Strain Place all ingredients in a stone jar or earthenware dish.  Add 1 pint (600ml) slightly thickened stock, cover tightly and bake in a slow oven for 4 or 5 hours.  Serve in same dish.

 

CONGER SOUP

1-2 lb (500g-1kg) conger eel, 2 shallots, 1 cabbage, 1 pint (600ml glass) fresh garden peas, 1/2 (300ml) pint milk. 1 dessertspoonful flour, 1 dessertspoonful vinegar, 6 borage leaves, 12 marigold petals, salt and pepper, parsley, thyme, butter, lemon.

Wash the fish and put it in a saucepan with a quart of water, salt and pepper, parsley and thyme.  Simmer for 30 or 40 minutes.  Strain the liquid and put it into another saucepan.  Wash and shred cabbage, chop the shallots and borage.  Add these, with the peas, to the boiling liquid and cook till tender.  Mix the flour with a little milk and thicken the soup with this and cook for 5 minutes.  Add the rest of the milk and a small piece of fresh butter, and serve the soup with the marigold petals floating on it.  The conger can be eaten as a separate dish.

 

STUFFED PIG’S CHINE

Steep a pig’s chine in cold water for 12 hours to take out some of the salt, then cut into ridges from bone to rind about 1/2 in (2cm)  wide.  Prepare stuffing by taking 1 cabbage, 3 heads of lettuce, 3 bunches of sage, 3 bunches of parsley, 2 bunches of spring onions, a few sprigs of thyme, a few young blackcurrant leaves.  Pick thyme, sage and parsley from stems, then wash all thoroughly in cold water and drain.  Put through mincer, add a little pepper, the put between ridges cut in the chine, tie up in a cloth and boil for about 4 hours.

 

LINCOLNSHIRE PLUM BREAD

3 1/2 lb (1.75 Kg) flour; 2 lb (1 Kg) mixed fruit (currants and sultanas); 1 oz (30g) yeast; 1/2 lb (250g) sugar; 1/2 lb (250g) lard; pinch of salt

Place flour and salt in a warm mixing bowl. Rub in the lard. Add the prepared fruit and the sugar and mix.  Put yeast into basin, add and mix until liquid with a teaspoonful of sugar.  Add lukewarm water to the yeast, pour into hollow in flour mixture.  Work in the flour etc. gradually add lukewarm water and knead into a stiff dough.  Put to rise in a warm place free from draughts and cover with a clean cloth.  Leave to rise at least 1 hour.  Grease well bread tins and put enough dough into each tin to half fill it.  Cover again and leave to rise another hour.  Bake in a fairly hot oven 450F (230C) for 1 to 1 and 1/2 hours.

 

ROAST SUCKLING PIG

A suckling pig not more than 3 weeks old, butter to baste with, add onion forcemeat

Make the chopped onion/minced pork forcemeat, put this inside the pig and close the opening by means of a trussing needle and string.  Brush the entire surface of the pig with warmed butter, wrap it in several folds of well greased paper.  Draw the legs well back, tie into shape and roast for 2 1/2 to 3 hours, according to size.  It should be thoroughly basted, and about 1/2 hour before time for serving the paper should be removed and the pig brushed over with thick cream to improve the colour and crisp the surface.  Before serving, cut off the head and split down the centre of the back, lay the two halves on a dish, divide the head and place half at each end of the dish.  The usual accompaniments are bacon and apple sauce, and sometimes hot currants; the latter should be prepared the day before.  To make them plump, they must be scalded and then thoroughly dried.  Re-heat in the oven before serving.

 

ROAST HARE

First take your hare.  Many consider that a coursed hare eats better than a shot hare. Opinions vary on how long a hare should hang.  Some like it after a day or two, others prefer it to be hung for as much as a week.  The hare must be young.  To test this, tear the ear.  If it tears easily the hare is young enough to roast.  Skin it first from head to tail.  take out the innards and wash thoroughly.  Rinse at least six times in cold water.  then set the hare up as if lying in form.  This is done with the help of skewers and string.  In form the head should be up, the ears pricked, front legs straight forward and back legs tucked underneath at the sides. Cover the ears with butter paper to prevent burning.  Cover all over with slices of fat bacon and cook in a hot oven for 2 hours.  Baste thoroughly from time to time.  About 1/2 hour before the hare is cooked take off the bacon and brown the meat.  Traditionally the hare is served in the middle of a large dish.  Surround it with forcemeat balls, rolled fried bacon and roast potatoes.  Other accompaniments are a rich thick brown gravy (made with heart and liver of the hare), bread sauce and redcurrant jelly.