Good Things in England - A Practical Cookery Book for Everyday Use, Containing Traditional and Regional Recipes Suited to Modern Tastes. Florence White
INGREDIENTS: Cold cooked meat minced about 1/4 lb.; bread-crumbs 3 ordinary tablespoonfuls; chopped parsley 1 ordinary teaspoonful; chopped onion 1 teaspoonful; dried herbs 1/2 teaspoonful; pepper and salt; a little egg. Rashers of Bacon about 8 cut thin; square pieces of toast or fried bread 8.
TIME: 15 minutes in a moderate oven.
METHOD
1.Trim the rashers of bacon with a pair of scissors.
2.Cut each rasher across into halves.
3.Mix all the other ingredients, except the toast, together, to make a stuffing or forcemeat.
4.Spread some of this on each piece of bacon.
5.Roll up and put on a baking tin.
6.Bake 15 minutes in a moderate oven.
7.Meantime make square pieces of toast or fried bread large enough to hold two of the bacon olives.
8.Serve up two olives on each piece of toast.
Bacon Rolls
This simple but excellent way of using up cold cooked porridge is exactly the kind that is useful in a collection of English cookery recipes, as it proves English housekeepers and cooks are still economical and clever in spite of the sneers to which they have been subjected recently. It was sent in 1931 by Mrs. Lester of Eastbourne College, Sussex.
INGREDIENTS: Cold cooked porridge; some chopped parsley; some mixed herbs; bread-crumbs; pepper; salt; rashers of bacon.
The quantities of the seasoning, etc., depend on the amount of cold porridge to be used up.
TIME: about 10 to 15 minutes.
METHOD
1.Chop the parsley and powder the herbs.
2.Mix them with the cold porridge.
3.Add enough bread-crumbs to stiffen the porridge.
4.Season with salt and pepper.
5.Spread on a rasher of bacon.
6.Roll them up.
7.Fry till the bacon is cooked.
8.Serve very hot on squares of fried wholemeal bread or toast.
Potato Bread fried with Bacon
A North of Ireland dish Miss C. Clarke
Potato bread fried with bacon is a favourite dish in the North of Ireland.
Bacon Fraize or Froise
1826
This is a very old English dish. It is made with streaky bacon cut into strips or dice and cooked gently in a frying-pan; a good pancake batter is then poured over the hot bacon and when cooked on one side is turned over and cooked on the other.
It is served, folded over flat or rolled as a pancake according to its thickness.
Sausage meat can be done in the same way; also flaked fish or fruit.
Apple Fraize or Froise
1845
1. Make some batter with 1 egg, 4 oz. flour and 1/2 pint milk.
2. Pare, core, quarter and slice some apples thinly and fry them for a few minutes in a little butter. Take out and keep hot.
3. Put 1/2 oz. butter or lard into a frying-pan — make it hot; it must just well grease the pan all over.
4. Pour in enough batter to cover the pan thinly.
5. On this place some of the slices of apple, sprinkle with sugar.
6. Cover with more batter and cook gently.
7. When brown on one side, turn over and brown on the other.
Delicious English Sausages
Dr. Kitchiner says ‘Sausages are best when quite fresh made.’ The secret of frying sausages is:
1. To let them get hot very gradually, then they will not burst if they are quite fresh.
2. Do not prick them with a fork because this lets all their gravy out.
3. Dredge them lightly with flour, rubbing it smooth and discarding the loose flour.
4. Put a bit of butter or clarified dripping into a clean frying-pan.
5. As soon as it is melted (and before it gets hot) put in the sausages.
6. Shake the pan for a minute, and keep turning them but be careful not to prick or break them in so doing.
7. Fry them over a very slow fire till they are nicely browned all over.
N.B. ‘Some over-economical cooks’ Dr. Kitchiner says, ‘insist that no butter or lard is required; the fat of the sausages being sufficient to fry them. We have tried it, — the sausages were partially scorched and had that pie-bald appearance that fried things have when sufficient fat is not allowed.’
(Poached eggs, pease-pudding, and mashed potatoes are agreeable accompaniments to sausages, and sausages are as welcome with boiled or roasted poultry or veal or boiled tripe, and are a convenient, easily digested and invigorating food for old folk and those whose teeth are not strong.)
Savoury Balls, Cakes or Sausages
1857
1. Mince any cooked meat or fish very fine; season it.
2. Then reduce (by boiling) some white (or brown) sauce according to whether you are using white meat or fish or otherwise, to a thick consistency. If necessary you may add the yolk of one or more eggs, and heat up the mixture till it thickens.
3. Add the mince to the sauce, let it boil, taste, and if necessary add a little more seasoning.
4. Spread the mixture on a dish; when cold it should be stiff.
5. Make up into balls, or shape as sausages, or small pears (with a bit of baked pastry stuck in for the stalk) or in the case of fish into round flat cakes 3/4 inch thick.
6. Egg and bread-crumb and leave to dry for one hour. If this is done the frying is more satisfactory.
7. Egg and bread-crumb again; dry again and fry in deep fat till a golden brown.
To Make Very Good Oxford Sausages
Miss Wettin’s manuscript book, 18th century Lent by Lady Gomme
INGREDIENTS: Pork and veal equal quantities; good beef suet half as much; pepper, salt, nutmeg, sage and thyme; eggs, 1 or more; a little water as required; a little flour.
METHOD
1.Free the pork and veal from all sinews and skin.
2.Chop the meat very small.
3.Chop the suet and add that.
4.And chop all together till very fine.
5.Then season with pepper, salt, nutmeg, and the sage, and thyme minced small.
6.Then work it up with one or more eggs and a little water as you see good.
7.Make it up into the shape of sausages by rolling it with floured hands on a floured board, and fry.
Skinless Sausages
Miss Rogers writes