Dinner and a Movie: Experiment Perilous

This fish dish from Mrs Beeton is made just like Wiener Schnitzel and, like Wiener Schnitzel, it's crisp and crunchy on the outside and juice on the inside. It creates a really perfectly-cooked fish. Use it for almost any white fish and serve with buttered potatoes and broccoli.

Happy 200th Birthday, Charles Dickens!

Feasts and Festivals: Burns Night

Robert Burns is considered to be Scotland's greatest-ever poet. He's honored every year on January 25th. Traditionally, the thing to do on Burns Night is to eat haggis and read aloud Robbie Burns's "To a Haggis." A couple of years ago, I had a rather disastrous haggis-making experience. I thought I'd have some genetic predisposition toward it, seeing as a huge chunk of my ancestry is from Scotland. No such luck. So, this year, I'm incorporating sheep in a different way--roasted and with some yummy vegetables.

According to Mrs. Beeton, roast shoulder of mutton should be served with baked potatoes and stewed onions. I have complied with her suggestion and added carrots, as well. Mutton really should be used this time of year, but it's impossible to find, so I've used a shoulder of lamb I bought at the westside farmers market this summer and have had in the freezer until now. It's amazing that I could have forgotten about seven pounds of lamb, but there you have it.