Good Things in England - A Practical Cookery Book for Everyday Use, Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes Suited to Modern Tastes. Florence White
2.Skim clear.
3.When cold put in the beef or tongues.
4.Keep them well-covered with the liquor 8 or 9 days; they will then be fit for use but may be kept longer if wished.
N.B.—The liquor can be boiled and skimmed once a month, and used again and again, fresh being added to it when necessary.
Mrs. Barton’s Recipe for Potting Char
1807
An Ulverston friend sends this receipt. Mrs. Barton was the wife of the Rector of Windermere at this period. ‘Char is a fish chiefly remarkable for its scarceness,’ writes Bickerdyke, sometime Angling Editor of The Field. ‘He is a lake fish — much resembles trout, but is redder on the belly and has smaller scales — and generally more gorgeous in colouring. They are found in many lakes of the United Kingdom — in Loch Doon, Ayrshire; Loch Achilty, Ross-shire; Loch Knockie, Inverness-shire; The Tarff, Kircudbrightshire; Corry Lair; and in Lochs Dochart, Ericht and Fruchie. They are found in a number of lakes, large and small, in Ireland—in Lough Cona (for example); in Wales, and in the Cumberland and Westmorland lakes; in Goats Water, and Hawes Water as well as Windermere, Buttermere and Crummock. The American brook trout is a beautiful char.’
The fish are excellent eating, and potted char is a well-known delicacy. The friend to whom we owe the recipe says it is equally good for trout.
INGREDIENTS: Char or trout 7 1/2 lb. or 1 dozen fish; black pepper and salt; white pepper 1 1/4 oz.; cloves 6 drams; ground mace 2 drams clarified butter 2 lb.; cayenne pepper.
TIME: 12 hours to salt; 4 hours to bake.
METHOD
1.Clean your fish, head and tail them, lay them 12 hours in black pepper and salt, sprinkle inside and out.
2.Then season inside and out with the white pepper, cloves and mace.
3.Lay them in a baking dish one by one and barely cover with clarified butter.
4.Bake 4 hours very slowly.
5.When cooked lay them open one by one.
6.Take out the backbone and scrape with a knife point the thickest of the seasoning from the inside of them, and
7.Dredge a little cayenne pepper in them.
8.Have your pots dry, lay the fish in on their backs, side by side, head and tail.
9.Fill up the ends with small fish, and press all tightly down with your hands.
10.Then barely cover them with clarified butter and when it has well soaked in, quite cover them.
N.B. — 7 1/2 lb. fish is called a dozen, and 2 lb. of butter is required for covering this quantity. Some people clean, and lay in the bottom of the baking dish, the heads and tails as they keep the fish from burning; they are good to eat with the bones, but not to pot.
Watercress
Watercress in England is very good, and is specially cultivated for sale. It is most excellent for breakfast; the Greeks esteem it good for the brain. It contains iodine, iron phosphates, potash and other mineral salts.
One precaution must be observed: do not eat watercress gathered from a stream which runs by a meadow where sheep graze; it is not wholesome.
Fresh Tomatoes
It may not be generally known that one good-sized fresh uncooked tomato or orange a day will give a man as much vitamin C as he requires to keep in good health.
Honey and Marmalade
Serve in Michael Cardew Pottery, Winchcombe, Gloucestershire, as at the Lygon Arms, Broadway, Worcestershire.
Fresh Fruit for Breakfast
Grapefruit, oranges, bananas and apples can now be obtained in England all the year round.
Apricots, peaches, nectarines and plums in January, February and March from South Africa.
Cox’s Orange pippins, October, November, December, January and February.
Pears and grapes from South Africa in February and March, and from New Zealand also in April and May.
Strawberries in June and July.
English cherries and raspberries in July and August.
English peaches and nectarines in July and August.
Mulberries in September.
Ripe English green figs in September, near the sea in Kent, Sussex and South Devon.
South African pineapples in August.
English greengages in August.
English melons in June, July, August, September and October.
II
HOME-MADE BREAD, CURRANT AND SPICE BREAD, TEA-CAKES, HOT AND COLD SCONES, WHIGS, HUFFKINS, MUFFINS, PIKELETS.
MANY of the old recipes require ale yeast, but this has been translated into its equivalent in compressed yeast, or what used to be called German yeast, and those who live in ‘out of the way’ places of the Empire may be glad to know that ‘Royal Yeast Cakes’ (a Canadian product) can be sent anywhere, properly packed for tropical and semi-tropical climates, by the Army and Navy Stores, 105 Victoria Street, London, S.W.i. General equivalents of both compressed yeast and yeast cakes will be found on page 63. It must always be remembered when using yeast that the flour and milk and everything employed must be lukewarm but not on any account too warm; both cold and heat kill yeast.
Anyone who wants first-hand up-to-date practical and scientific information on yeast foods and on chemical aerating agents such as soda, pearlash, baking powders, etc., cannot do better than consult Mr. Kirkland’s Modern Baker, Confectioner and Caterer (1924). Mr. John Kirkland was for years Lecturer and Teacher of Bread-making, National Bakery School, London, and what he does not know on this subject is not worth knowing.
Baking powders are comparatively modern means of aeration. Mr. Kirkland says: ‘It is safe to say about 80 years ago no chemicals except pearlash and ammonia were used by the baker as aerating agent.’
Pure cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda combine better and are more convenient for this purpose than any other chemical, for the simple reason that ‘when treated with water cream of tartar does not quickly enter into action with the soda; but when the goods are brought into the oven, the increased temperature facilitates the solution of the acid salt, and causes a rapid evolution of gas just at the time it is most necessary. Tartaric acid acts very quickly, and the bread, scones, etc., made with it must be put in the oven at once.’ For this reason I generally use cream of tartar bought at a chemist’s and bicarbonate of soda instead of baking powder.
For the same reason self-raising flour in which cream of tartar is an ingredient, is preferable to one in which tartaric acid or any cheaper agent is used. I know the formula employed by the Civil Service Supply Association is quite sound and their self-raising flour can be recommended because it is made with cream of tartar, not tartaric acid. Self-raising flour is simply plain flour to which chemical raising-agents are added. A word of warning is necessary here: unless otherwise stated, plain household flour is meant in all the recipes given, and to this any raising agent can be added; whereas none should be added to self-raising flour unless definitely stated in the recipe.
A complaint is frequently made that so many eggs are required in good English cookery and that these are expensive; but this is quite a wrong idea, the result of ignorance