chapter 001 - welsh cakes

Dydd Dewi Sant 

Happy St David's Day! Today (March 01) is the Welsh national day. Everyone everywhere knows about and for some reason gets in on the act for St Patrick's Day, the Irish national day .... but today is St David's Day

As a child growing up in Wales, I would be sent to school either proudly supporting a daffodil or more likely than not, an artificial leek safety pinned to my shirt or jacket. This artificial leek had been made either by my mother or grandmother from green and white wool, the same home made leek would have also been worn by most of the kids of the school.

My sister's however would go to school in the Welsh national costume, as can be seen in the above picture. All the kids would take Welsh cakes, barabrith (meaning speckled bread) which is in fact a type of heavy fruit cake. If not these two, then other traditional food would be taken to enjoy throughout the day. Once at school we would have an eisteddfod; a festival, a celebration of Welsh music, language and literature.

Maybe one of the most well known Welsh songs, that you will hear us singing at rugby matches etc just so happens to be about cooking.; Sosban Fach (little saucepan). Translated it makes no real sense in English, but rhymes in Welsh. The music for which is as ingrained into Welsh Culture as Rule Brittania is in England. For those of you not familiar with the Welsh language it is a totally separate language, with no relation to English or to Latin. As can be seen in this verse from the song.

When we got home from school, for dinner you can guarantee there would be lamb cawl (stew) and more welsh cakes.

Welsh cakes

Welsh cakes were traditionally made on the large wood or coal burning stoves, onto which would be placed one of these large, thick solid iron plates or stones. This one pictured, I am happy and proud to say was my Grandmother's, that I know proudly own and use at least once a week. Not to just make Welsh cakes, as it is equally great for making real crepes, frying a breakfast on and all manner of cooking. It is an inch thick, takes ages to heat up but cooks beautifully and totally non stick. 

I shall of course be cooking a batch up today, which is just as well as I have friends visiting and my Welsh cake crazy sister coming to stay. Along with them, will be a big pot of beef cawl to ward of the winter chills.

The trick to a great welsh cake is to ensure they are cooked throughout without burning them, but at the same time, they should be more than just a light golden brown. A good dark golden brown is best, this imparts the true flavour to them. If they are too light in colour, the flavour can be rather bland.

recipe - welsh cakes
200 gm flour

½ tsp baking powder
¼ tsp mixed spice
050 gm butter
050 gm lard
075 gm castor sugar
050 gm currants
001 pc egg
030 ml milk

recipe - preparation method

sieve the flour, baking powder and mixed spice together. Rub in the lard and butter. Add the sugar and the currants, then the egg and sufficient milk to form into a firm paste. Roll out on a floured board to a thickness of 1cm and cut into rounds. Cook on a greased griddle or a heavy based frying pan for about 3 minutes on each side or until a golden brown. Cool and sprinkle with sugar if desired

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recipe - barabith
350 gm dried fruits
350 ml  cold tea
001 pc  egg (large)
250 gm brown sugar
600 gm self raising flour
001  tsp mixed spice

recipe - preparation method
Soak the fruits overnight in the tea (made extra strong). 

Pre-heat oven to 170C. Add the beaten eggs to the tea and fruit and combine. Add the sugar and combine. add the flour and mixed spice. Pour into a prepared loaf tin (greased and lined) Bake for approx 90 minutes (cover if required to prevent the top over browning)

Remove and allow to cool for 5 minutes before removing from the tin. Slice and serve with chilled butter, jam and slices of Welsh cheddar cheese.

chapter XXIV - holidays 03

My only other memories of any childhood holidays involves my father's brother; my Uncle Vic. He was an RAF Officer. As such he was posted all over the world; my cousins therefore I always considered to be very lucky as they were brought up all over the place. 

On a home posting though, I remember we visited them in either Hemel Hemstead or Shrewsbury. I remember that trip because it was there and then, that I had a few memorable culinary moments.

butter with peanuts in it?

Maybe the first morning of our stay, we were sat at the table with our toast and cereal and amongst all usual spreads and toppings for the toast was thing called peanut butter. Peanut butter? Quite a commonly seen product now, but in the late 60's it was quite 'exotic' and American; only seen in American TV shows and movies. What was it? What was peanut 'butter' was it butter with peanuts in? I had no idea, and I remember not wanting to ask be shown up in front of my cousins. So I just stuck to my jam and waited with baited breath, waited in hope one of my cousins would have this intriguing product. It was that very morning I fell in love with this yummy spread. Although I think it might have been years before I saw it again. 

a buffet by any other name

That was the introduction to our stay. Literally, the grand finale was just as memorable. For our final evening meal of that stay, my Aunty June put on a Mezze. Again, quite a common place thing now. But who the hell had heard of a buffet meal at home back then? What was the point of putting lots of different foods out on lots of plates, and just causing all that extra washing up? (he types hearing his mother's voice whispering out those very words) After all meals were just one plate, with all the food put onto it in the kitchen and put in front of you! 

Especially when it had an exotic, foreign name. And even more especially, when it had exotic, foreign foods in it. Foods like melon. There were no doubt other foods, but I re ember that meal for melon. Like peanut butter, I had never had melon before. Yellow skinned, large and soft fleshed; all cut into the wedges they sat there on the plate like little boats all afloat. 

But I still remember that first bite into it. The juiciness, the sweetness, the juice dribbling down my chin. The way after two more slices, the corners of my mouth became quite sore from the melon skin cutting into them.

malta 

In my early teens, my mother, myself and my younger sister went to Malta for 2 weeks. Again to visit my Uncle Vic, I am not sure but I suspect at the generousity of my Uncle, because I can't imagine my mother being able to afford the air fares. 

You would think given it was our first time flying, our first time going overseas I would remember it so vividly, that I would remember the flight minute by minute. Sad to say though, I only remember two things about the flight out and back. Firstly we hit some turbulence and while I thought it wildly exciting, my mother went as white as white with fear. Mind you this is the same lady that would wake us up at night if there was a thunderstorm, "to make sure we weren't scared" and to let us know we could sleep in with her if we wanted!

olives and green sweets

The second fond memory is that of a meal served. Amongst it all were these little round, green things stuffed with some other red stuff. Yes olives! My mother and sister hated them, I loved them. Actually I am torn now between whether I did actually like them, or whether it was just a case of "more free food for me". Whatever it was it started my love for olives. 

It was through this latter form of thinking that formed my love of all green sweets. Green sweets? Aye, well every kid loves the red or purple ones first and always the green one's (lemon/lime) last. Buying learning to like them, I always got free sweets! ;-)

The picture here is bit of "a had". Olives do not grown like grapes in various colours. They all start of black and from there it is basically a case of stages of ripeness (and to some degree processing). Did you know that they use caustic soda in the process?

tapenade
An olive puree by any other name would taste ..... But did you know the name is actually derived from an old French word for capers; tapenas?!? So, any good tapenade recipe must include capers, or it is just an olive puree not a tapenade. Great as a dip, as a spread or to form part of a stuffing or filling. If, like me, your an olive-itte, there is nothing better. For me, it has to be the purplish olives though, the stark black ones lack flavour and the flavour of the ripened green ones just do not cut it.

My recipe is a guideline only. Each ingredient is best adjusted to suit one's own taste buds.

recipe - tapenade
001 cup pitted olives  (purple)
002 tbs  capers
004 pc   anchovy fillets
001 pc   garlic clove   (large)
001 pc   lime 
              French mustard
              parsley
              e.v.olive oil

recipe - method of preparation
Chop the olives and capers to a chunky paste (or pulse in a food processor). Place into a bowl and add the chopped anchovy fillets and pureed garlic clove. Stir to combine thoroughly. Loosen up the mixture by vigorously stirring in some olive oil. Squeeze in a little lime juice to taste and a little mustard. Add some chopped parsley, taste and adjust with more lime juice and mustard if required. 

coca cola

In a previous chapter I blogged about what we tended to drink as kids, and how fizzy pop in our house was a rarity. None more rare that Coca Cola. I don't remembering encountering coke really until that trip to Malta. 

I remember how amazed and impressed I was, that in my Uncle Vic's fridge was not only bottles of coke, but also bottles of 7Up. Not only that they were in small individual bottles! Seems so strange now, but small bottles were a rarity in the UK, fizzy pop usually came in large 1 or 2 pint bottles. I remember how amazed and impressed I was ..... I remember further how lucky my cousins were to have fizzy pop like this whenever they wanted. 

There has always been this thing about how the British drink their beer warm. Compared to the USA, NZ and Aus, I suppose they do. In reality though, it's was not so much warm, as just not refrigerated or chilled to an inch of its life (just how I prefer my beer to be honest). The same can be said for the fizzy pop, no one in the UK kept it in the fridge, including the shops. So drinking ice cold coke and 7Up was quite a revelation to this young teenager. I remember when we went out in Malta how cheap it was too.

To this day, I am addicted to olives, peanut butter and coca cola.

Next week - I start my "cooking with mamon wellman" blog ......

chapter XXIII - school meal desserts 04

Amongst all the lovely desserts we were fed, there were always some that made us gag and probably still make us dry reach at the very thought of them. These were mine........

pink blancmange

A weird dish. What was this all about? Blancmange for the uninitiated is a cold dessert made from milk and sugar thickened with gelatin or cornflour. Typically white, hence the name, but often coloured pink as our school meal dessert was.

sago

Sago comes from various palm stems, its a starch from the pith. A plate of sloppy mess, (that we called frog spawn) served with a blob of jam in the middle. ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, yeeeeeeuck !!!!!!!!!! Enough said I think

tapioca

This is often confused with sago; it is similar but is a starch derived from the cassava plant. Which is its raw form is highly toxic

next week - summer holiday at the beach, picnics etc ......

chapter XXIII - school meal desserts 02

We Brits love our puddings; heavy, stodgy, sticky, sweet puddings. So much so, that we often refer to any dessert as pudding; the term "whats for pudding"? in the UK, means whats for dessert. 

It is therefore obvious that 'pudding' was always greatly looked forward to come school dinner time, well for the most part anyway. Here is another selection of some of the one's I remember ....

plain sponge squares

Quite simply a square of sponge cake, cut from a huge tray of it. Served with the infamous white as white, school custard, poured all over the top of it.

coconut sponge
Once in a while we would as a dessert be given a square of sponge, topped with a layer of buttercream? and coconut. I think I liked it. Memory is sketchy about it, apart from the fact that it was one of the desserts we constantly received.

steamed puddings

This was a love hate relationship. I loved certain ones, hated others. I can't remember which were which except for treacle pudding, loved it. Especially if you got the bit with masses of treacle on it. What always spoilt it though, was the infamous school dinner custard that came with it. Sometimes it was just a plain steamed pudding with custard, sometimes a treacle pudding, and other times it was a chocolate pudding served with chocolate custard and other times; good ole spotted dick.

spotted dick
A plain steamed pudding with currants in. The name is derived from the old English word for pudding;  'puddynk'. You can use my recipe below as a base for this; but switch the sugar to castor and the dates for currants. 

steamed sticky date pudding

Years later this little story came to light. One of my students, Glenn W went on to become the South Island Trainee of the Year, NZ Trainee of the Year and then NZ Chef of the Year. The latter title gave him automatic membership into the NZ Culinary Team and sending him off to work in France. The following story he releated to me after his year in France, when we met at the NZ salon Culinaire, while I was surrounded by what was then my current batch of students

One day his Head Chef there told him he would be making a sticky date pudding the next day and supplied him with a recipe, that the Chef then proceeded to absoloutly rave over. On reading the recipe Glenn inquired where the Chef had got it from, "oh from a chef website years ago, I tried it, loved it and use no other recipe now, it works everytime, its delicious etc etc". Glenn replied Not Chef Tallyrand's website was it Chef"? When confirmed it was, Glenn explained I was his Chef at college and he had cooked this pudding recipe as part of his final exam.

You can imagine the street cred, I received from then on, from my gob smacked, open mouthed students.

recipe - steamed date pudding
175 gm dates (pitted) 
125 ml  milk
001 tsp pure vanilla essence
1/2  tsp baking powder
001 tsp baking soda
001 tsp mixed spice
100 gm butter
075 gm brown sugar (muscavado) 
090 ml  golden syrup
090 ml  honey
002 pc  large eggs
180 gm flour

recipe - method of production
Prepare a large pudding bowl and lid by generously smearing with extra butter, ensuring it is thoroughly coated, especially the base and lid. Lightly sprinkle with some castor sugar. This will lightly caramelise as the pudding cooks and forms a light crust so it slips out of the mould easily. If a large pudding bowl is unavailable use 8 x 175ml ramekins)

Chop the dates, and combine with the water and vanilla essence, bring to a gentle simmer, remove from the heat and set aside to cool slightly. Add the baking soda, powder and the mixed spice

In a bowl, cream the butter, sugar, golden syrup and honet together and gradually incorporate the beaten eggs, stir in the flour to form a smooth batter. Combine the batter with the date and water mix. 

Pour into the prepared bowl, place on the tight fitting lid (if no lid is available use a triple layer of tinfoil, and secure with a rubber band), wrap the mould well with clingfilm (this ensures no steam enters the bowl) and steam for 1 hour and 45 minutes. 

note - alternatively; pour the mixture into a small, straight sided roasting tray, (approx 20cm x 20cm) lined with buttered baking paper and bake at 160C for approx 45 minutes. 

Carefully remove and allow to cool for 5 minutes before trying to remove from the mould. Remove the clingfilm, carefully remove the lid, run a small knife around the edges to loosen and invert onto a large plate. Allow to sit for 1 minute and gravity should most of the work. Serve with butterscotch sauce and liquid or clotted cream. Or if you must custard. 

jam roly poly

A British classic; no school meal repertoire would be complete without the king of stoginess; jam roly poly. This is another hate / love relationship I had. sometimes I loved it, sometimes not so much. We always got a generous helping and it seemed to sit in the stomach, like a lead balloon for hours and hours. 

recipe - jam roly poly

002 cup flour 

003 tsp  baking powder

050 gm butter 

075 gm shredded suet

150 ml  milk

150 gm jam of choice 

recipe - method of production

Pre-heat the oven to 200C. Place a sheet buttered greaseproof onto a sheet of tinfoil, both 50 x 40 cm and set aside. 

Sieve together the flour and baking powder. Rub the butter into the flour, mix in the suet. Add sufficient milk to form a soft, spongy but not sticky dough (a little more than the 150ml may be required). Place onto a floured work surface and roll out to approx 30 x 20cm rectangle (the 20cm side facing you) 

Spread out the jam (using more if you prefer) all over leaving a 2cm edge on the far short end. Sprinkle with sugar if preferred. Roll up tightly from the 30cm closest edge, lightly dab the jam clear edge with water and finish rolling. Carefully transfer to the prepared greaseproof with the seam side down. Roll to wrap (not too tightly), twist the ends in opposite directions to form a Christmas cracker like shape. Do not wrap or twist ends too tightly as the roly poly will expand as it cooks, too tight and it will explode open. 

Place onto your wire roasting rack, set on the roasting tray and half fill the roasting tray with water. Place in the oven and cook for 45 minutes. Remove and allow to cool slightly before unwrapping 

chapter XXIII - school meal desserts 01

school meal desserts

After suffering the mostly terrible main courses, you at least had the joy of a dessert to look forward to. Well with a few exceptions that is; like sago (frogspawn) and jam <shuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuder>

cheese and biscuits

This was my all time favourite; and remains so until this day. Give me a cheese platter over a sweet dessert anytime. A good blue veined cheese like Stilton, drizzled with a little bit of honey is pure heaven!

We used to have cheese and biscuits as a once in a blue moon treat, when I was a teenager at Tamar Secondary School, Plymouth. 

We would have a few Jacob's cream crackers, a slab of good old English cheddar, an apple and strange as it may seem these days; a jug of milky, sweet, hot coffee placed on our table. The coffee drunk from mutli coloured plastic beakers The jugs as I recall, were always coloured metalic one's, strange the things we remember. Maybe this is where my passion for all cheeses and all coffee was born, and in particular cheddar and latte. 

apple crumble

This is another one of those; hated it!... love it! When it was served to us in my primary school in Wales (Penguylan School) it used to make me dry reach, I disliked it so much. But yet again I have grown to adore this dessert. In school is was always apple crumble, but not only now do I worship any form of fruit crumble, but love using the crumble topping in or on many other desserts including ice cream.

So easy to make and a great standby dessert, when one is needed in a hurry. In days gone by or professionally we would use freshly made stewed fruits or compote. But it can so easily be made with tinned fruit or frozen berry mix. The tinned fruit is simply drained and placed in to the dish (with maybe some dried fruits; currants, dried cranberries etc), or the frozen berried placed directly into the dish (no defrosting required) and the crumble mixture placed on top.

It can be made as a large family dish, or made in small individual ceramic ramekins or similar. 

recipe - basic crumble recipe
200 gm flour, plain white
100 gm butter
050 gm castor sugar

recipe - method of production
Rub the flour and butter together to form a breadcrumb like mix and mix in the sugar, or place all ingredients into a food processor and blitz until a crumble like texture is achieved. 

I like experimenting with many crumble recipes, and straying from the basic recipe; replacing 50% of the flour with toasted rolled oats, using wholemeal flour, adding different chopped nuts (my favourite of which has to  be a toss up between pistachios and macadamias) adding ground a ground spice like cinnamon or nutmeg or ginger. Or making a flap jack recipe, layering it very thin, baking it and then blitzing it in a food processor once cool.


caramal slice
Somewhere at sometime, one school used to serve a caramel slice for dessert. It had a biscuit like base, and one or three other layers that included some type of caramel toffee. That caramel was similar to the one found in a commercial chocolate bar, who's name escapes me; it was a light caramel coloured chocolate that made or may not have had a soft centre. Both that chocolate bar and the slice I did not care for anyway.

cornflake pudding, cake or slice
I cannot remember for the life of me what the dessert was. But I have recollections of something with cornflakes on it or in it and possibly toffee?

chapter XXIII - school meal desserts 03

custard

Who can forget school custard? It was either water thin and tasteless, too thick to pour (and tasteless), had a thick skin on it or was full of lumps. Either way, it was more designed for laying down and avoiding or using for hand to hand combat, rather than eating. Given it was made from a simple pre-made powder and milk/water mix, how could they get it so wrong everytime? I swear they sat around debating how they were going to ruin it for us that day. Of course the skin of the custard was the bane of many kids lives, some fought over wanting it, while for some it was the worse day of their lives if they were given it. I was in the latter group.


Freshly made custard on the other hand is an absoloute joy, and mastering its production can lead to so many other culinary delights like; creme patisserie for filling a fruit tart, profiteroles or eclairs, as a base for ice creams and so many other desserts. As such, I always feel its a very important dish that every student of the culinary must learn. Besides the previous reasons, it also teaches them so much about cooking with eggs, using egg yolks as a thickening agent, heat control, syneresis and opens their minds to why cooking is as much a chemistry as it is an art form.

recipe - creme anglaise
1/2  pc vanilla pod
500 ml milk
005 pc egg yolks
050 gm sugar 
025 pc flour

recipe - method of production
Split the vanilla pod in half, scrape out the seeds and place seeds and pod into the milk, place over a gentle heat and warm through to a simmer. Remove from the heat and allow to sit for 10 minutes to infuse the flavour. 

Place the egg yolks and sugar together into a bowl and whisk until the mixture does not feel grainy (never leave sugar and egg yolks sitting together without whisking them together, the sugar will react with the yolks and form small hard lumps) Whisk in the flour, which is used to stablise the mixture, the egg yolks are the main thickening agent. 

Bring the milk back to the boil, remove from heat and remove the pod. Slowly add the milk into the egg mixture, while whisking (too much milk, too quickly and the eggs will scramble) Once all has been added, pour into a clean, thick bottom saucepan and place over a medium heat and stir thoroughly and constantly with a rubber spatula until it starts to thicken, remove from the heat immediately, strain into a clean bowl and stir for a few minutes to encourage cooling or stir over a bowl of iced water. 

notes - the mixture will start to thicken when the mixture reaches approx 65C, as this is the temperature that egg yolks start to coagulate. Too high a temperature will cause uneven coagulation and the mixture will end up looking like scrambled eggs. So the immediate cooling process can be very important. Any re-heating of fresh egg custard, must be completed very carefully. 

A creme pattiserie, uses the smae recipe and method, but doubles the egg yolks and flour for a very thick consistency. 

pink 'custard'

In other words, custard with a touch of red food colour in it

white 'custard'

In other words, thickened milk with sugar in it.

banana custard
Sliced banana, served in custard, That is all! ;-)

stewed prunes and custard
I remember not minding these too much. A plate of cold stewed prunes served with hot custard, finding a prune with a stone still in it was always a bonus, because they served as great missiles to squeeze between you thumb and fore finger and launch across the dining hall. Or for the times there was more stones than not, you would line up and recite "tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggerman, thief" to find out what you would be when you grew up or "lady, baby, gypsy, queen' to see who you would marry.

chapter XXIII - school dinners 03

Here are some more of those memories of my school meal days; in this case the ones I dreaded. I will blog my memories of the desserts (or afters or puddings as we called them) With recipes that would have made life so much tastier if they had used my recipes .....

By the way, the photo on the right is one of my junior school in Plymouth (Salisbury Road) and the one on the left is my Secondary School (Tamar Secondary for Boys)

I found this little gem of a poster while trawling the net researching, it comes from a kids comic from the 70's I think. The idea was, kids forwarded thier ideas and the comic's artists turned it into a wanted poster. The kid as can be seen was rewarded with a £1, if their idea was used.

So here are some of the, not so fondly remembered dishes, but with my upgraded, love it now recipes.

note - I would love to hear of your stories and memories of school meals, feel free to add comments etc below.

steamed cabbage

The bane of most school kids, school meal lives. Grey or colourless hunks of cabbage, placed in large trays with holes and bulk steamed. Steamed until it no longer resembled anything earthly. No seasoning, no taste and all the vitamins cooked out of it. Mind you it did make for great smelly farts afterwards in the classroom!

I can't remember if I loved or hated it. But I do remember strongly disliking the strong stench that pervaded the whole dining hall when it was being served. My little sister however loved it. She had a great little scheme going with the cabbage. As we could not leave the table until we had eaten everything on our plate (or risk detention or lines) she would eat everyone's cabbage, but in return they had to give her some of their dessert. What a right con artist!

recipe - cheffies steamed cabbage
001 pc cabbage
001 pc small onion
001 pc garlic clove
004 pc streaky back rashers
025 gm butter

recipe - method of production
Cut the cabbage in half through the stalk, clean thoroughly and shake away any excess water. Finely shred. Finely slice the onion and crush the garlic. Cut the bacon into thin strips. 

Using an extra large saucepan, fry the bacon in a tiny amount of olive oil over a medium heat until nicely brown and crisp, add the garlic and onions and cook gently without colour until softened. Add the butter and the cabbage and cook gently while stirring until it starts to wilt, place on a tight fitting lid and cook gently until cabbage is nicely wilted (approx 5 minutes). Remove from the heat, taste and season with maldon sea salt, lots of freshly milled pepper and a hint of freshly grated nutmeg. 

note - try the same recipe but add some freshly chopped pineapple in there 

mince and vegetables
another dish served with the infamous mashed potatoes. This culinary delight, was minced cooked in a gravy, that always had peas and diced carrot in. No prizes for guessing what we called this dish!

liver and onions

This I would class under the heading; 'no more for me chef, i'm full'. The liver was overcooked, dry and usually a grey/green colour, cooked in a thin gravy with bits of bacon and sliced onions. The liver was almost impossibly hard, no knife would ever cut it and it usually bounced when 'accidentally' dropped on the floor. This culinary delight was usually served with mashed potatoes that always had hard lumps of un-cooked potato still in them. My recipes for liver and onions can be found in the earlier blog chapter. 

spam salad
"Spam, spam, spam, spam ..... wonderful spam, glorious spam", well according to Monty Python that is. For me growing up in the 60's we often got a spam salad for our school dinner. Limp, slightly browned lettuce, tomato and cucumber slices, grated carrot, slices of, or was it cubes of spam and (usually half boiled) potatoes, if my memory serves me right? Oh and there was always peanuts in amongst the salad for some reason.

steamed carrots

Hated them! Do what you would, I hated carrots for years and all due to school meals. They were never seasoned, they were simply sliced and bulk steamed cooked in trays. What made me hate them more was when after lining up to have your meal dished up, the dinner lady would remove the lid and I would get blasted by an intense carrot infused steam .... yeeeeeeuck! 

But as life would have it, I was then taught how to cook them properly and now I love 'em! This recipe is especially good for those winter carrots, that lack flavour and sweetness. 

recipe - cheffie's glazed carrots 

002 cup sliced carrots - sliced very thinly

002 tsp  honey

002 tsp  sugar

001 tbs  butter

recipe - method of production

Place all ingredients into a large saucepan; you want a large surface area. Add enough water until it comes just below the top of the carrots. Do not panic here and add too much, as the carrots cook they soften and will fall below the level of the water. Simmer the carrots gently until the carrots are cooked, as they cook the sugar, honey and butter will combine to form a nice caramelised glaze and should all but disappear. If the carrots cook and there is lots of water remaining, crank up the heat and evaporate the water away. 

next blog - yummy school desserts ......

chapter XXIII - school dinners 02

When I first thought about this school meal blog, I hit the world wide web to do some research to see other people's memories. What I discovered suprised me. It seems no matter where you were in the country, we were all fed virtually the same meals. We all seem to love and hate mostly the same meals. I never considered the fact that the dishes, the recipes were centralised. But it seems they must of been.  

We all had our favourite school meals and we all had dishes that filled us with dread when we knew they were being served. But oh how happy I was, when a kid who had been in and our before me, told me that one of my favourites was on offer. 

These are some of those favourite meals, well mine anyway ....

fish and chips

These were the days when fish was always served on a Friday. Catholic or not, we got fish on a Friday.

Sometimes simply steamed fillet, sometimes battered fish and chips. Sometimes served with normal garden peas, sometimes mushy peas and sometimes baked beans. While the latter was always eagerly looked forward to, the batter on the fish and the chips were more than likely on the soggy side, due to being kept hot in steam laden bain maries.

Ever have a battered fish that is coated with something more akin to a thick cake mix? Usually it means the batter has been made with eggs in it, apart from the Japanese tempura batter, eggs should never be used if you want a light crisp batter

recipe - fish batter
1/2  cup flour            (plain)
1/2  cup cornflour
001 cup soda water  (well chilled) or beer
002 tsp  baking powder
              yellow food colour

recipe - method of preparation
Sieve together the flour and baking powder, add a pinch of salt. At this stage you can add other flavourings if desired, e.g. garlic powder, onion salt, chopped parsley etc. Add the soda water (this is best chilled to the point of ice crystals forming) and quickly mix to a batter. Do not over mix the batter, if a few lumps of flour remain, all the better for a little better batter! Quickly stir through a few drops of yellow food colour. Use within 10 minutes of production. 

note - for best results, ensure the food your coating is small enough to cook within minutes and ensure your fat is fresh, clean and hot; 180 - 200C). Some chefs like to coat the food with flour before battering, I prefer not to as this encourages the batter to thicken. If you like your fish well battered, when the fish goes into the hot oil, take a spoon and drizzle some extra batter back and forth onto the cooking fish. 

chicken pie

Definately two thumbs up on this one. One of the main courses I got excited about when I saw it was the choice of the day. Well when I say choice, our choice was simple; like it or lump it. It was simply; boneless pre-cooked chicken meat, pre-cooked peas mixed in a light gravy, that was topped by a crumbly, short pastry. Usually served with boiled potatoes and vegetables of some description.

corn beef fritters
A 'speciality' of my mother's at home (the recipe for which I will blog in a later chapter. But also a familiar favourite with school dinners; slices of tinned corned beef, dipped in batter and deep fried. But if you can't wait, use my batter recipe above and go for it!

curried eggs
I don't remember how these were served, as in what they were served with. I can't imagine in the 60's it was with rice; rice was something we made rice pudding with only. But I do remember it was served; half boiled eggs with a curry sauce, that had sultanas in it. 

potato and cheese pie

Usually served, as I remember with steamed cabbage. This dish was basically what is known as gratin dauphinoise. Except our slices of potato, were baked with milk I think (not cream) with grated cheese, because the liquid was always thin (curdled) and with fatty lumps of cheese.

Not particularly pleasant as I recall. But gratin Dauphinois however ....

recipe - gratin Dauphinoise
001 kg potatoes
250 ml cream
001 tsp chopped garlic
100 gm grated cheddar 

recipe - method of production
Wash, peel and wash the potatoes. Slice thinly and combine with salt and pepper, place into a buttered roasting tray or similar. Combine the cream, cheese and garlic and heat gently. Pour over the potatoes and place into a preheated oven (170C) and cook until the potatoes are soft and the sauce has thickened. remove. Sprinkle with extra cheese and gratinee under the grill until golden brown. 


bangers and mash
Great sausages, even if they were over cooked and hard, some so so gravy, and always served with mashed potatoes that were unseasoned and full of uncooked lumps of potato. And how was the mashed potato served? With a ice cream scoop of course! That way, each kid was 'punished' with exactly the same amount each; two scoopfuls.

Mind you, what else would kids do with inedible mash potatoes but have a food fight with them! Flicking it off a spoon like a medieval, castle invading, rock launcher at your best friend, oh what fun. Unless you got caught at it of course and then frog marched to the head master's office.

recipe - cheffie's ultimate mashed potatoes

001 kg potatoes
300 gm butter
050 ml hot milk

recipe - method of production

Wash the even sized potatoes well, place onto a baking tray and place into a pre-heated oven (200C) and bake until soft and cooked. Remove and allow to cool slightly, cut in half and scoop out the pulp. Push through a fine sieve. Beat through the butter and sufficient milk to form a smooth mash/puree. Taste and season with Maldon sea salt (pepper and freshly grated nutmeg can also be added) 

note - the baked skins can be cut up, re-heated and served with sour cream, thai sweet chilli sauce, salsa or similar. 

roast lamb
Every so often we would have a "roast dinner". Usually some nasty semi warm grey roast lamb, with roast potatoes that had got soggy from the steam hot box, sliced carrots or peas. The lamb was invariable barely edible with so much grissle in it, it was more like chewing bubble gum. That even after major chewing, it still had to be swallowed as a whole piece. The whole meal, stank from that oh so familiar mutton stench from the fat of the mutton.

Sounds horrible? It was, but for some reason I still remember it with fond memories. Maybe because I just like a good roast dinner, pity it wasn't a good roast dinner!

xmas dinner
The last school dinner before the Christmas term break was the most eagerly awaited dinner of the year. A  roast chicken/turkey dinner with Xmas pudding and custard for dessert. The latter never seemed to be enough, because I know a few times the last few kids had to go without. This never happened with any other meal.

next blog - the school dinners that I dreaded .......

chapter XXIII - school dinners 01

Here in the UK, every school child was from 1944 onwards all schools were required to be supply each child with a full cooked meal at lunchtimes. In the UK these were known as school dinners (not lunches) Usually they were composed of a main course and a dessert. Some extra tasty, some not so much. Some we loved, some we hated.

A lot has been said and written of late about school meals, especially about their nutritional value. I doubt, given the way ours were cooked were of tremendous nutritional value. But that wasn't the point, well not the main point. What did matter however, was ensuring every kid got a good, square meal a day. I was suprised to learn that they were initially introduced in the mid 19th century, but were not made compulsory until the Education Act was passed in 1944.

But even more suprising, I have just found out that a reader of this blog had a Great Aunty who was awarded an MBE for her participation in helping introduce these compulsory meals!

Trawling the net, doing some research, I happened upon this menu that was used in Norfolk schools in the 50's. Could be the same menu as was served to us in Plymouth in the 60's, as all the dishes look very familiar! During my research I also discovered that the menu could easily be relavent to evreyone, everywhere, as everyone around the country seems to have memories of the same dishes as I do

For these meals we had purpose built kitchens and dining halls. Some schools like my senior school cooked their own, but some like my junior school had them delivered in large hot boxes from other main school kitchens and literally just dished them out to the kids. Those that dished them out were known as dinner ladies, one of whom was my mother who worked at my junior school at Salisbury Road. 

This photo was taken in the late 70's, of my mother and the team of dinner ladies  (mum is pictured far right)

Every Monday parents would give you money in an envelope; it was either 1s 3d or 2s 6d total I think. Making it 3d or 6d a day (that's 1 or 2p decimal a day), that you handed over to your teacher in the morning when they took 'the register' or the roll call was made. Then there were some kids like myself who were from single parent families, or those who's dad was out of work received free school meals. After collecting the money from 'the rich kids', the teacher would then call out the names of all of us getting free meals. Why, we were put through that humiliation is beyond me

At 12 o clock the school bell would go and off we would head to the school dining room, to see what delight was waiting for us. The main meals were typically meals of any average UK household, meals like steak and kidney pie, fish and chips, stew and braised steak. We would all queue up with a wooden tray and one by one had our food slip, slopped and slapped onto the plates. Always finished off at the end by the dinner lady with a large jug of tasteless, insipid gravy. That while tasteless, always had a familiar fatty aroma to it.

Then you went and found a seat, hopefully at a table with your best friend. The table was a big long tressle one with a bench type seat on either side. Once seated we all had to say grace before eating, "for what we are about the receive, may the Lord make us truelly thankful', Amen" You then ate silently, no elbows on tables, and sat there until you had finished. All the while being monitored by a school meal monitor (a hired grey haired lady thug), who would excuse you once you had put your hand up and she could see a clean plate. You were then free to take your dishes etc to the clean up area, stack it neatly and then leave to go out to play.

school milk

But before school dinners, there was school milk. Started in 1944, every school child was given 1/3 of a pint of milk at school. It came in small glass bottles, sealed with a silver foil top. This was finally stopped in 1971 under Margaret Thatcher's ministrial regime. From this she earned the moniker; Thatcher, Thatcher, the Milk Snatcher. In all fairness though we were apparently spending double the amount on milk than we were on books!

The memory of school milk for me is of drinking room (read warm) temperature milk through a straw. Warm because the crate was invariably left near a radiator! I remember we had milk monitor's; who's responsibility it was to pass out the milk to the class. Usually we were given it to drink late morning. Sometime during the morning (usually during the time the register was being taken), the milk monitor would often take the foil top off in readiness. The trouble with that was the milk crate often got left under the blackboard, meaning it got 'contaminated' with a layer of white chalk (a purpose ploy, like the radiator? by an evil teacher, to make it even more unbearable?)

school dinner water
Anyone else remember that on the table when you got there with your school dinner, was some old battered, bruised, badly dented, strange coloured stainless steel water jugs, normally with a pile of well scratched, coloured, plastic 'see through' beakers? I remember that the water, once poured, always seemed to have spme strange 'floaters' of some kind in it. The beakers were all numbered on the base, and the higher number you got, the better you were than your mates. ;-)

follow my next chapters on all the meals we had (with recipes) .....

chapter XXII - valentines day

Happy Valentine's Day to one and all. 

I hope you are spending it with a loved one or loved ones. A day to celebrate love, not just of your lucky partner but also I always think, of the love we have for family and friends. 

For me it has two extra significances; it was on this day in 1957 that my parents got married out in Gibralter, where my father was posted with the Royal Navy, ahhhhhhhhhhhh. It is also the day in history of course of the famous St Valentine's Day massacre; an infamous day in American 30's gangster history. 

To tie those two thoughts together, there is nothing my mother loved more than a massacred steak. Cooked to within an inch of its life, black charred and dry. But, a well done steak was her favourite meal. 

On her many visits to me when I was out in New Zealand, it became a tradition that her last meal before flying home was steak, eggs and chips. That tradition soon became extended, as I would cook her steak every day for virtually the last week. Starting with a braised type steak, then moving onto a rump steak, followed by a sirloin steak, T-bone the next, scotch fillet (rib eye) the next and culminating in a well done fillet steak on her last night. And yes, all cooked well done! Even a dedicated Chef like myself must bow down to his own mother, swallow my culinary pride and massacre a steak. After all, as she often told me, I was not too big or old enough that she couldn't still give me a thick ear! 

I did partially get my own back on her one year though by cooking her one of the best steaks she had ever had, so she told me. "That was delicious dear, and so tender. What type of steak was it?" ...... hmmmm, should I tell her? Should I dare admit it was venison? I dared !! She always made sure, I swore it was beef before cooking it, after that! 

degrees of cooking a steak
How do you know when a steak is cooked? Poke it! A rare steak has a spongy feel like your cheek, a medium steak has a spring to it like your chin, a well done steak has a hard resilience like your forehead. Easy!

best steak for the best job
But bare in mind, that the type of steak is best taken into major consideration. Everyone likes their steaks differently and who's to say who is right or wrong? But for the best results:

• a rump steak is best cooked a little slower and a minimum of medium, or it is likely to be very chewy
• a sirloin and a scotch fillet is best cooked no more than medium or it will become dry and chewy
• a fillet steak is best when cooked no more than medium rare

If you want to make this extra special for Valentines Day, make sure you serve some fresh, well chilled oysters with fresh lemon as your appetiser, use garlic butter for basting the steak, serve it with champagne and finish the meal with something chocolately! I suggest some nice strawberries, with a pot of melted chocolate for dipping, that you can share (=[:-D

But keep it all light, nothing ruins romance more than being overfull and bloated

recipe - the perfect steak?

There are many factors or tricks to ensuring a great steak. We all have our own ways, here is mine

• ensure the steak is of the highest quality. Preferably properly aged and dried (nothing worse than a wet, steak, still oozing blood. It should be dark red in colour and no visible signs of blood. 
• ensure the steak has minimal external fat, but is well marbled with internal fat. This marbled fat, will render down when cooked, but ensure it stays moist. 
• prior to cooking, remove from the fridge, cover and allow to come to room temperature for an hour
• pre-heat the pan so it is quite hot, the steak must really sizzle when place into the pan
• never oil the pan, always oil the steak; drizzle a little oil on both sides just prior to cooking and rub it all over with the hands
• always lightly season the steak seconds before it goes into the pan, never minutes before as the salt will draw out moisture
• place the steak into the hot pan and allow to cook undisturbed for 1 minute, turn it over and cook for another minute. Keep turning it every minute; this defined time allows the heat to penetrate evenly and the steak to cook evenly. 
• Just before the steak is cooked to your liking, add some butter (plain or garlic) to the pan and spoon it constantly over the steak (baste it)
• remove the steak from the pan, place onto a spare warm (but not hot) plate and pour over the butter
• allow the steak to rest for 2 minutes before before serving. This resting time allows the tensed, cooked structure of the meat to relax (making it more tender when cut and chewed) and allows the internal juices to evenly spread throughout the steak. 
• serve and enjoy

chapter XXI - pancake day

Shrove Tuesday, or Mardi Gras (fat Tuesday) in the UK is also known as pancake day. Today we will all be making pancakes, tossing pancakes, eating pancakes and even having pancake races.

Pancake Day, is the day before Ash Wednesday. The day that 40 days of fasting is supposed to begin for Lent. It's date changes every year, depending on when Easter falls.

As a child we would be eager to get home from school as we knew we would be having pancakes for tea. Mum would be making them when we got in the door, and as fast as they came out of the pan we would devour them. Devour them with a sprinkling of sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice. Never fresh lemons but always a squeeze of Jif lemon juice, a UK commercially available lemon juice, that comes in a plastic representation of a lemon.


recipe - pancakes
220 gm flour (plain)
220 ml  milk
002 pc eggs  (large)
004 tbs melted butter

recipe - method of preparation
Sieve the flour into a large bowl and beat the eggs together in a cup or small bowl. Add the beaten eggs to the flour with just over half the milk and the butter, beat to a smooth batter. Add the remaining milk and beat until smooth (it is best to leave the mix to rest for 30 minutes, best but not essential) 

Heat a non stick pan over a medium high heat and allow to heat thoroughly, the pan must be hot. Dip a paper towel in some cooking oil and wipe out the pan. Pour in sufficient batter to thinly coat the base of the pan, if the batter seems too much gently tip back into the bowl (the cooked mixture will stick to the pan) cook until golden brown, gently shake the pan to loosen or use a spatula and gently turn the pancake over.

OR - loosen pancake from the pan by gently tapping pan or using a spatula .... ensure the pancake is free from the pan and 1-2-3 .... toss it in the air to turn it over. Watch that ceiling and be careful it's not tossed too high! 

Cook for a further minute until golden brown. Remove from pan and serve while still hot. 

For other lovely fillings try the following

• thin down some peanut butter with milk, spread over pancake and roll up with some sliced banana
• blitz a crunchie bar in a  food processor to break into up, or simply bash it while still in its packet with a rolling pin, spread pancake with nutella and roll with some broken crunchie bar 
• roll with some mincemeat; the fruit kind used for Christmas mince pies
• spread with home made jam and clotted cream. For an easy 'home made jam', defrost some frozen mixed berries and stir through some commercial jam
• roll with sliced strawberries and lightly whipped cream
• roll and sprinkle with raspberries, maple syrup and cream
• roll with some cheese spread, chopped tomatoes and onions
• roll and drizzle with a cheese sauce and extra grated cheese
• roll with some shredded lettuce, crisp bacon and grated cheese
• use the pancakes like a tortilla and roll it with whatever savoury filling floats your boat

Next blog - Valentine's Day .....

chapter XX - putting on the ritz?

it wasnt the Ritz but .....
The closets we got to the Ritz was a cheese cracker by the same name. Because of the lack of finances and eating out was not such a popular sport as it is these days, we very rarely ate out. But what a treat it was when we did. Nothing fancy, but a meal out is a meal out, even if it was a take out of some kind. 

ivor dewdney's pasties
A staple of any Cornishman's diet is the pasty, as it is for anyone from Devon. My mother made the best pasties, the recipe for which I will post later in my blog. But for a quick meal, pasties from Ivor Dewdney's was the bees knees growing up. 

A company that started in 1930 and is not only still going strong (with shops now all over the South West) but also still baking and selling out of the same establishment in Plymouth's city centre. 

omelets - al fresco style

Along from Dewdney's shop on the opposite side of the road was a Greek restaurant/cafe called Al Fresco's. My older sister; Michelle, as a teenager got a part time job there waitressing and washing dishes. From time to time, we got a rare treat of going in there for lunch on a weekend (I suspect because we got a huge staff discount). We only ever had one thing, one dish; cheese omelet (for another budgetry reason me thinks, it was the cheapest thing on the menu) ........ not that we cared. We got a huge oval plate piled with chips and an immense omelet, filled with a lava of molten, melted cheese. AMAZING!! 

perilla's fish & chips

Fish and chips again? Get over it, they are much a staple of the British diet as a curry is to Indians and a hot dog is to Americans, and trust me they are likely to pop up again at some stage!

Perilla's (pronounced purr-rel-ees) was an iconic fish and chip cafe in Plymouth, and for good reason, they were cheap, had the best fish & chips in town and the cafe was immaculate. We would be taken there for a treat from time to time, either on a Saturday or during the holidays when mum went into town shopping. A child's portion of fish, chips and peas and a bottle of pop (soda). Great! 

Long before sports drinks, in the UK we had Lucozade, a glucose based drink often given to the sick. We always wanted some when we visited Perilla's, but more often than not were left dissapointed because they didn't have any. This clear, orange coloured drink came in a bottle wrapped in orange cellophane twisted at the top, heaven knows why, it just did. 

cawardines coffee
Caradine's Coffee on Cornwall Street. I am sure this place holds special memories for most Plymouthians. Who could forget approaching it or walking away from it? Each time your nostrils getting violently atatcked by that all too familiar deep aroma of roasting coffee beans. Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

supermarket restaurants
I don't remember eating in these much, apart from the occasional visit to the Woolworth's cafe. All supermarkets and major stores; BHS, Co-op, Debenhams, Woolworth's and the likes all had their own in house cafes. All serving pretty much the same fare as each other. Having returned to the UK, 30+ years on, I find the same menu on offer as when I first left I think.

Not that, that is a bad thing because it means you can still get good ole British fare; as opposed to all these restaurants where the Chef has created some monstrosity composed of just about every unusual ingredient known to man on one plate. with no rhyme or reason or thought to its flavour combination.

This unusual looking cafe, was situated up on Plymouth Hoe. I don't ever remember going in there. Always longed to, but never did as I recall. My younger sister however worked there for a summer season.

kentucky fried chicken

The Colonel came to Plymouth circa 1973, they opened a small outlet in Union Street. An infamous street in Plymouth's history as it was for decades the red light district. It was also the road that held nightclubs, disco's and bingo halls, small wonder then that KFC chose to open there. It was the first American franchise to open in the Plymouth and of course it was a massive hit. The original outlet is still there plying the chicken with the secret herbs and spices to the masses.

Once every few months when mum was feeling flush, she would send me in on my bicycle to get some for dinner. Of course KFC then still used the original recipe, it was tasty, it had a good hit of spiciness of chilli, the current version seems to a diluted version of the Colonel's original recipe. And who can forget their famous moist towelletes; infused with a hint of lemon as I recall? Famous? Well no one else did them.

That was a cycle trip was a four mile round cycle trip, that I did without a blink of any eye. I was a young teenager, loved to cycle, loved Kentucky Fried Chicken (as it was known then, not KFC) and maybe more to the point, I did as I was told and back then cycling and walking everywhere were the norm. Mum loved KFC, well up until she had a bad experience with it in the 1990's. After getting food poisoning from an outlet in Paignton, Devon, I don't think she ever ate it again.


king wa's
Just down the road from where we lived in Plymouth, sometime in the early 70's (maybe late 60's) a Chinese takeaway opened. King Wa's was a real eye opener for me in regards to foods. I had never experienced Chinese foods before. It was something though I had to wait until I was earning my own pocket money to buy though. For one it was too expensive for mum, and secondly she never did like foreign foods. Well not until maybe the last couple of years of her life when she discovered spare ribs.

King Wa's opened my taste buds up to new dishes and new foods; bamboo shoots, bean sprouts, water chestnuts to name a few. Dishes like sweet and sour, chop suey, kung pow chicken, Asian currys and egg foo yung. From there on in, I have always had a passion for Chinese foods and spent many a memorable time in Hing Kong and mainland China indulging in that passion. Often wondering if I was ever walking passed, sitting with relations of the owners of King Wa.


wimpy
Wimpy's must surely have been the first franchise restaurant chain in the UK? I don't actually remember ever going to Wimpy's as a child, I know we did, but I don't actually recall a trip. I am almost sure it here I was introduced to the infamous knickerbockerglory (see chapter on  XIIII - 'Ice Treats')


But I do remember the food, or to be more precise the Wimpy sausage. It was a frankfurter style, with a lovely smokey flavour that was scored so that it curled when it was cooked.

I have recently rediscovered Wimpy, as in discovered they are still around and 'treated'? my good lady to a trip down memory lane by going there for lunch. Some memories are best left as memories ....