Traditional British Food: Marmalade Teabread

It was 2:00 on Friday afternoon and I hadn't decided what to make for tea.  I wanted something simple, not chocolate (we've had quite a bit lately), and something that didn't require softened butter, because it's February, I hadn't prepared, and I don't have a microwave.

The butter for Marmalade Teabread is rubbed in, like making a pie crust, which means it goes in cold--no softening required.  I also haven't been to the grocery store in almost a week now, because we've had so much snow, but this recipe only requires pantry ingredients.  I used Mackay's Dundee Marmalade, because the last time I attempted a marmalade cake, I used Frank Cooper's Original Oxford Marmalade and the cake was unpalatable in its bitterness.

Marmalade Teabread

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How about a movie set in a Scottish village to go with your teabread?  Cottage to Let (Anthony Asquith, 1941) is a fun thriller, in which any number of the village's new arrivals may or may not be Nazi spies.  You'll probably recognize John Mills, Alistair Sim and Leslie Banks in starring roles.  My favorite character, however, is Ronald Mittsby, a smart but aggravating evacuee played by George Cole.  Put the kettle on and enjoy--

Dinner and a Movie: Trouble in Paradise

Beginning of February section in A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband--the book was first published in 1917, but I have an edition with the 1932 illustrations.

Today's menu is from chapter 104 in the February section of A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband.

A Company Dinner for Bob:

Broiled Lamb Chops with Pineapple

Baked Potatoes

Creamed Cabbage

Egg Rolls with Currant Jelly

Date Bars

Lamb Chops with Pineapple

2 lamb loin chops (about 4 oz. each)
salt and pepper
2 pineapple rings
1 tablespoon butter

Season the loin chops with the salt and pepper. Set aside.

Over medium-high heat, heat the butter in a skillet until it bubbles. Add the lamb chops and cook three minutes per side (don’t overcook!). Set the lamb chops on a plate to rest.

Pour out all but about ½ tablespoon of fat from the skillet and add the pineapple rings. Cook a minute or two on each side then place one on top of each lamb chop.

Serves 2

Adapted from Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, “Broiled Lamb Chops and Pineapple Slices” in A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband: With Bettina’s Best Recipes, The Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping (New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1940), 365.

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Creamed Cabbage

¼ head of green cabbage
1 tablespoon butter
1 ½ tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup milk
½ tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons cracker crumbs

Preheat oven to 350˚ Fahrenheit.

Finely chop the cabbage and boil 5 minutes in salted water. Drain.

Meanwhile, make a roux by melting the tablespoon of butter over low heat and stirring in the flour and salt. Turn the heat up to high and stir in the milk. Cook two minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in the cabbage then pour mixture into a buttered small gratin dish.

Melt the ½ tablespoon of butter, add the cracker crumbs and toss to combine. Top cabbage with crumbs and place dish in the middle of the oven. Bake fifteen minutes.

Serves 2

Adapted from Louise Bennett Weaver and Helen Cowles LeCron, “Creamed Cabbage Baked” in A Thousand Ways to Please a Husband: With Bettina’s Best Recipes, The Romance of Cookery and Housekeeping (New York: Blue Ribbon Books, 1940), 432.

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I only made the lamb chops, baked potatoes* and creamed cabbage (we had already eaten chocolate cake for tea), so here are the recipes for egg rolls (not what you'd think) and date bars (from Google Books):






*The baked potatoes will take about an hour and fifteen minutes in a 350˚ oven.  Prick them with a fork, wrap them in tin foil and just place directly in the oven.  When they're ready, top them with salt, pepper, butter and sour cream (or whatever else you want to use).

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Fair-use image from Wikipedia

Trouble in Paradise (Ernst Lubitsch, 1932)

I love pre-code films, of which Trouble in Paradise is an excellent example.  The main characters are thieves, businessmen, and thief-businessmen, all enjoying the high life in Europe.  Charlie Ruggles and Edward Everett Horton battle each other and con man Herbert Marshall for the affections of perfume company owner Kay Francis.  Miriam Hopkins joins in the fun as Marshall's accomplice and girlfriend.

Trouble in Paradise is available on DVD.

Vintage Recipe Thursday: "--and when the pie is opened..."

Thanks to Mariana at Vintage Ads, who generously let me use this image on my blog!

I don't think the illustrator for this ad from 1924 had read the recipe--first off, the recipe makes a (delicious) biscuit topping; secondly, there are no carrots in the recipe; thirdly, there are peas in the recipe and not in the illustration! Oh, well! It's an awesome ad anyway. I adapted the recipe a bit to make it for two people and to add carrots. I also didn't use the cooked onion in the pie, even though I use an onion when I make my chicken stock. The carrots are from making the stock and the potatoes are from my roast chicken recipe.  You can follow this recipe for making chicken stock from a whole bird (or use scraps from a roast chicken). Just make sure you use 2 carrots per pie, instead of just one carrot.

I was really pleased to find this web site, because I was able to find out what size the 465 pudding dish was: 1 1/2 quarts (it's on the second page). I wish Pyrex still made all those items!

Pyrex Chicken Pie

Filling
1 cup chicken stock*
½ teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon flour
1 cup shredded cooked chicken
½ cup peas
¾ cup cooked potato, cut into bite-sized pieces
2 cooked carrots, sliced into bite-sized pieces

Biscuit Topping
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon salt
1 ½ teaspoons lard
2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 375˚ Fahrenheit.

Add the chicken stock and salt to a saucepan. Turn the heat to high and whisk the tablespoon of flour with a tablespoon of cold water, then whisk the mixture into the stock. Add the chicken, peas, potatoes and carrots to the stock and bring to a boil.

Meanwhile, make the biscuit topping. In a mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder and salt. Work in the lard with your fingers until the mixture resembles sand. Then, add the milk, a bit at a time (you may not need all of it) until dough comes together. Shape into a disc that is ½” thick. Set aside.

When the filling has come to a boil, pour into a one-quart capacity ovenproof dish that has been placed on a baking sheet. Top with the biscuit topping and bake, in the middle of the oven, 30 to 35 minutes, or until topping starts to brown.

2 servings

*Homemade is best--be sure to use unsalted stock. If that isn’t possible, adjust the amount of salt as required.

Download and print

*****

Here are two 1924 movies from Internet Archive, which is an internet home for public domain media. Felix Goes West is a short cartoon in which everyone's favorite smart-aleck bipedal cat goes (you guessed it) West. Be prepared for a serious lack of political correctness. Sherlock, Jr. is a cute Buster Keaton film that only runs 44 minutes. In it, an inept movie projectionist (Keaton), who wants to be a detective, is wrongly accused of stealing a pocket watch.  

Felix Goes West (Pat Sullivan, 1924)


Sherlock Jr. (Buster Keaton, 1924)

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Dinner and Dance Music: The Harry Hudson Orchestra

More snow!

Happy Groundhog Day/Candlemas/St. Brigid's Day/Imbolc/whatever-you-may-call-it.  February 2nd has been a holiday for centuries, symbolizing the return of light and the coming of Spring.*  If you feel like celebrating, Kerry Apple Cake is a traditional Irish dish for St. Brigid's Day.

Fat Rascals

How about some homey English fare for a cold night?  The Nutty Baked Cabbage and Cider Pears are traditional dishes from Dorset, while the Fat Rascals (isn't that a fun name?) are from Yorkshire.  You don't have to use lard in them; vegetable shortening or butter will work.

For your listening pleasure--a playlist from Internet Archive of the Harry Hudson Orchestra, a British dance band from the 1920s.

Cider Baked Pears

Nutty Baked Cabbage

Nutty Baked Cabbage

1 green cabbage
2 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 cup grated sharp cheddar
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/3 cup blanched almonds

Serves 4 to 6.

Preheat oven to 425˚ Fahrenheit. Grease a shallow 1-quart baking dish and set aside.

Quarter the cabbage, remove the core and roughly chop. Boil in a large pot filled with salted water for 5 minutes. Drain.

Meanwhile, melt the butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Stir in the flour and cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Slowly pour in the milk, stirring, and keep stirring until the milk is amalgamated. Bring sauce up to a boil, then remove from heat and stir in the cheddar.

Combine the cabbage, sauce and nuts in a mixing bowl and season to taste with salt and pepper. Pour into the prepared baking dish and bake in the center of the oven, 20 to 30 minutes or until browned. Serve immediately.

Adapted from Amanda Persey, ed., “Nutty Baked Cabbage” in Favourite Dorset Recipes (Sevenoaks: J. Salmon, Ltd.), 38.

Print

Fat Rascals

Cider Baked Pears

*See Ronald Hutton, "Brigid's Night" and "Candlemas" in The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996).

Contest: We Have Winners!

First Prize- organ not included!

We have two winners!  Rebecca is the first prize winner and she'll receive two jars each of Bonne Maman Apricot Preserves and Redcurrant Jelly, as well as copies of The Cooking of Germany and Russian Cooking, from the Foods of the World series, to add to her collection.  Rebecca has served as an unofficial blog recipe tester for quite some time now and has been instrumental in helping me feel like I'm not wasting my time posting all these eccentric recipes.  We've known each other for almost six years and I couldn't ask for a better friend.

Rebecca's Sachertorte

The second prize goes to Laura from Pragmatic Attic, whom I've just "met" through our blogs.  Laura's joconde imprime was fabulous, by the way, you should take a look at it.  Laura will receive a jar of Bonne Maman Apricot Preserves and Redcurrant Jelly.  Bonne Maman is a high-fructose-corn-syrup-free brand from France.  I actually ordered the Apricot Preserves and Redcurrant Jelly online from World Finer Foods, because I couldn't find either here in Wichita, so I'm sharing the wealth!  I'll post some recipes using both in the coming months.  Laura- If you would just leave a comment with your shipping address, I get your prize mailed out to you.  I'll leave the comment unposted so your address isn't all over the internet.

I would like to extend a huge thank you to both Rebecca and Laura who took the time out of their busy schedules to participate.  It means the world to me.

I also need to thank Laura for giving me a Stylish Blogger Award.  It's my first blog award to go with my first contest!  I'm supposed to talk about myself and pass the award on to other bloggers.  I haven't decided yet, but I wanted to go ahead and thank Laura and direct all you dear readers to her blog.

The King's Speech

I finally got to see The King's Speech Saturday and it was just amazing! I can't recommend it highly enough--it's definitely worth the $10. Colin Firth, Helena Bonham Carter and Geoffrey Rush are fabulous and the entire cast is outstanding. The actors include: Anthony Andrews, David Bamber, Claire Bloom, Jennifer Ehle, Michael Gambon, Derek Jacobi, Guy Pearce, and Timothy Spall. I kept leaning over to Paul and whispering, "It's Lizzie!" or "It's Mr. Collins!" or "It's Sir Percy!" I was very excited, to say the least. You should just go see it.

We actually convinced a few friends to go with us and everyone came back to the house for tea and cake. They were also forced to admire my collection of coronation commemorative pieces. Appropriately enough, I have a George VI (and Elizabeth) egg cup that I found here in Wichita:

Here's a photo of the tea table (more about the cake next Monday):