Katie's Toffee Cakes   Macaroni Cheese                                                                                           

 Spotted Dick Recipe     Homemade Ginger Beer       Jam Sandwiches In Batter

St George's Day-Steak And Kidney Pie      Fish For Tea Story-Pan Fried Trout   

At A loose End-Mackerel /Mustard Sauce              Caller Hearn-Baked Herring 

 Pease Pudding Hot, Pease Pudding Cold           TheTickler-Stuffed Trout                        

North Sea Herring In Oatmeal                         Sun,Sea And Stotty Cakes  

Pickling: Pickled Eggs            Easter; Hot Cross Buns 

Carlin Sunday - Carlins    Carlin Pea Fritters      Peter's Honey Biscuits           

Sunday Tea+Bacon and Egg Pie  Grandad's Pigeon Pie                 

Green Tomatoes + Green Tomato Chutney    Old Songs +Boiled Beef And Carrots

Macaroni Cheese

I was thinking about puddings the other day. Not about eating them you understand, being at least 2 ½ stone overweight, I am trying to keep off them. No it was more a case of reminiscing about school lunches and in particular the puddings served up by the dinner ladies. In those far off days school lunch used to consist of a soup and a cooked dinner followed by a pudding. I don’t know about other schools but at ours there were four that I remember and another that I’m not sure of, but think it might have been sago.

Anyway, we had a different pudding for each day of the five-day school week. On Mondays we had semolina with a spoonful of jam to stir in which wasn’t half bad. Tuesdays it was jam roll with custard, brilliant. Wednesday is the one I think was sago, if it was; I seem to remember sago as being ok. Thursdays it was the one that we call frogs spawn, tapioca. I remember it as being pretty bland, but I ate it anyway, probably because it was a boy thing, eating frogs’ spawn.

Now we come to Friday, the only day that the unheard of happened and I refused a pudding. I was never a fussy eater and I would eat everything put before me, except the pudding that was invariably on Friday’s menu, macaroni. I don’t know why but I just couldn’t eat a sweet Macaroni pudding, yet if my mother made macaroni cheese I would scoff the lot. So bearing the above in mind. here is the recipe for macaroni cheese.

Macaroni Cheese

Ingredients, to serve four

6 oz of macaroni

1½ oz of margarine

1½ oz of flour

½ a level teaspoon of ready-made mustard

Salt and pepper to taste

1¾ pints of milk

6 oz of grated cheese

2 tablespoons of white bread crumbs

Method

Break up macaroni sticks and cook in boiling salted water for 15 minutes. Drain well.

Melt margarine, stir in flour, cook for 2 minutes. Add mustard, salt and pepper. Stir in milk gradually. Bring to the boil and stir for 1 or 2 minutes as it thickens. Remove from heat and stir in 3½ oz of the grated cheese.

Add macaroni to the sauce; pour into a greased, ovenproof dish. Mix breadcrumbs with the remaining cheese and sprinkle over the top.

Temperatures, Measures And Weights

Liquid Measures                                                                                           

Teaspoon       1/3 rd tablespoon    1/6 th fluid oz         5 ml        

Tablespoon    3 teaspoons             ½ fluid oz              15ml         

Fluid oz          1/6th pint                 1 fluid oz               30ml       

Gill                 ¼ pint                      4 fluid oz             120ml       

¼ pint             8 tablespoons          4 fluid oz             120ml      

½ pint            16 tablespoons         8 fluid oz             240ml       

Cup                ½ pint                      8 fluid oz             240ml      

1 pint             32 tablespoons        16 fluid oz             480ml       

1 ¼ pint         5 gills                      20 fluid oz              600ml       

2 pints           1 quart                     32 fluid oz             960ml           

1 litre             4 ½ cups                 33 fluid oz            1000ml         

Gallon            4 quarts                  128 fluid oz           3840ml                

Oven Temperatures                                                                                                                                                              

300ºF          =  150ºC            = Gas mark 2                    

325ºF          =  160ºC            = Gas mark 3                     

350ºF          =  180ºC            = Gas mark 4                     

375ºF          =  190ºC            = Gas mark 5                      

425-450ºF   =  220-230ºC    = Gas mark 7–8                   

Katie’s Toffee Cakes

On Friday my youngest grandchild came to stay overnight. Katie is six, going on twenty-six and a lovely and loving child. She is bright as a button and full of energy, as they all are at that age. Unfortunately while her Grandma is for cuddling, her Granddad is her elected play pal. Not that I really mind, it can be and is very rewarding. But it is also exhausting, not physically but mentally. She is so energetic that you get tired just watching her, never mind joining in the games.

At the moment Katie is having swimming lessons after school and then after tea, my daughter Clare brings her over to ours. Inevitable Katie comes bounding into the kitchen with big smiled on her face and after giving us a hug says, ‘Will you watch a DVD with me Granddad?’

I generally reply, ‘Yes, when I finish my cup of coffee.’

Mollified for the moment, she tells us about her swimming and then before I have managed to get half of my coffee drunk, ‘Can we watch the DVD now Granddad?’

‘In a minute, I’ve nearly finished. What are we going to watch anyway?’

‘Aquamarina.’

‘Oh, is it about painting?’ I ask.

‘No Granddad,’ she explains as if to a child. ‘It is about a beautiful mermaid.’

All Katie’s DVD’s are about beautiful mermaids or princesses. I finish my coffee, put the DVD in the player and we settle back on the settee in the lounge to watch Aquamarina. This is the easy part but it won’t last long. Five minutes into the film. ‘Granddad I’m hungry and thirsty too.’

‘Go and ask Grandma what you can have.’

I sit watching the mermaid film on my own until she returns with one of those lunch boxes in one hand – you know, the one’s, little slices of ham and cheese with little biscuits to put them on – and a purple Fruit Shoot in the other.

Ten minute later she jumps up and dances around to the music on the DVD. After a few minutes of this she decides to show me the new moves she has learnt at her cheerleading class. By now the DVD is forgotten and she wants me to play X Factor. I switch the DVD off and settle back down on the settee. The game goes as follows, Katie goes behind the bookcase under the stairs and then walks out to the centre of the floor and I have to say, ‘Hello, what is your name?’

‘Katie.’

Katie sings, she has a nice little voice, makes up the words as she goes and the songs sound very Disney like. I clap, whistle and stamp my feet when she finishes and she takes a little bow. Now I have to be all three judges and vote for her to go on to the next round. This game goes on for another three quarters of an hour with Katie taking the part of different singers and dancers before she becomes bored.

Next she calls her Grandma in and we play schools, Katie is the teacher, Grandma is the good little girl and Granddad is the cheeky boy who gets sent to the naughty corner. Katie always starts the game the same way. ‘Today children we are going to…’

Half an hour later she is looking for something else to do, She decides that she would like to draw and colour in. I get the paper and pencils go to the bookcase and take out, ‘The World Of Beatrix Potter Treasury’ and we draw and colour in Peter Rabbit, Jemima Puddle-duck and Mrs Tiggy-Winkle.

After an hour or so of this Grandma decides it is time for bed, but Katie begs us to play just one more game before she goes. We have recently introduced her to dominoes and she loves it. After six games, she and Grandma go up to bed and I am left to tidy up. I used to go up and read her a bedtime story, but now she says that she is a big girl now and she takes her own book to bed with her.

By eight thirty on Saturday morning Katie is up and raring to go. We have a couple of games of ‘Where is Tinker bell?’ before breakfast and after breakfast we go into the garden to check how her plants are doing. Back indoors she asks what we can do next and after checking the cupboards I suggest we make toffee cakes. My wife Ann is not pleased; she hates me messing up the kitchen. I tell Katie what we need, butter, sugar, vinegar and treacle and she get them from the cupboards. Taking down a pan I stand her on a chair and let her put in all the ingredients. She is not allowed near the stove, so while the toffee is bubbling in the pan I get her to grease the bun tins with a little butter. When the toffee is ready I test it in water and then pour it into the bun tins and place the tins on the windowsill to cool. (I used a twelve-bun tin and filled each just over half way).

Toffee Cake Just Like Katie’s

Ingredients

4 oz of butter

8 oz of granulated sugar

2 tablespoons of vinegar

2 level tablespoons of golden syrup

Method.

Use a heavy pan.

Place butter in the pan over a low heat to begin melting. Add the other ingredients and stir until the sugar is melted.

Bring to the boil a boil briskly, stirring occasionally , until mixture turns a golden brown.

When you feel that it is ready test a small drop by dropping it into a saucer of cold water you want it to set so that when feel it between your fingers and thumb it is hard but chewy.

Jam Sandwiches In Batter.

My father used to sometimes cook breakfast on a Sunday morning and his idea of a good start to the day was the great British fry up. Bacon, sausage, black pudding, egg, beans or tomatoes and a slice of crispy fried bread. Full of calories I know but it smelt and tasted great and we loved it. Now and again, and it was now and again, because he would sooner be at the pub playing darts, he made Sunday lunch. But his speciality in the kitchen and the only other thing I remember him making – apart from him once making ice cream. But that’s another story – was a favourite of my brother’s and mine. It was jam sandwiches in batter. I know it sounds a bit weird, but believe it or not they really are very nice. They’re easy to make so why not have a go.

Jam Sandwiches In Batter

Ingredients for Batter

2 oz of plain flour

Pinch of salt

2 teaspoons of salad oil

4 tablespoons warm water

1 egg white

For sandwiches

Slices of thin white bread

Butter

Strawberry jam

Oil for frying

Caster sugar

Method

Sift flour and salt into a basin, make a well in the centre and add half the water.

Beat well and then gradually beat in the rest of the water

Cut the crusts off the bread, make your sandwiches and cut into triangles.

Whisk the egg white until stiff and fold into the batter mixture

Dip sandwiches into the batter and then fry in hot oil until brown

Homemade Ginger Beer

Do you remember when your mother and probably your friends mothers as well, had a ginger beer plant in the pantry? If you do congratulations, you can now travel anywhere you like in England with your free bus pass.

If you aren’t one of us in the know, you will be wondering what on earth I am talking about. Strictly speaking a ginger beer plant isn’t what we think of when we imagine a plant. It has neither root nor branch and you can’t buy one at a garden centre. At least not at any garden centre that I have heard of. I shall endeavour to explain. A ginger beer plant is yeast, water, a little sugar and a little ginger in a jar that if you feed for seven days will form the basis for a gallon (4.5 litres) of delicious home made ginger beer.

Ginger Beer originated in England in the mid 1700’s. Up until 1835 ginger beer had been brewed and consumed locally. But with the introduction of an improved Bristol Glaze, it could be poured into glazed stoneware bottles, suitably corked, and safely exported all over the world.

Your Ginger Beer Plant.

½ oz of dried yeast

½ a pint of water

Sugar

Ground ginger

The juice of two lemons

Method

Put yeast, water, 2 level teaspoons of sugar, 2 level teaspoons of ginger into a jar and mix together.

Cover jar with a sheet of polythene, held in place by an elastic band.

Each day for the next 7 days, add 1 level teaspoon of sugar and 1 level teaspoon of ginger.

Strain the mixture through a piece of muslin and add the lemon juice to the liquid.

(Keep the sediment to one side, it can be used again; see bottom)

You are now ready to make your Ginger Beer. But please follow the instructions carefully so as not to be at risk of bursting bottles and flying glass.

Sweet Still Ginger Beer.

Ingedients

The juice from the plant

1 lb of sugar

1 pint of water

Method

Put all of the ingredients into a pan and stir until the sugar dissolves.

Bring to the boil and simmer for five minutes, to kill the yeast.

Make up to 1 gallon with cold water.

Bottle the ginger beer and cork tightly. Keep for a few days before drinking.

Dry Sparkling Ginger Beer.

Ingredients

The juice from your plant

2 oz of sugar

Water

Method

Add sugar to your juice and make up to 1 gallon with cold water, stir to dissolve the sugar.

Pour into screw cap bottles making sure the caps a screwed tight. Keep for 7 to 10 days when the ginger beer will be sparkling and ready to drink.

Spotted Dick

As a lad one of my favourite Puddings – I say one of, because I had many favourites – was ‘Spotted Dick’ a sweet, steamed suet pudding with currants and raisins that is served with lashings of custard.

This sweet treat has been around for a long time. The earliest recipe comes from 1847, but where did it get its name?  Someone has suggested the theory that Pudding became Puddink, from there it became Puddick and then simply Dick. There are other theories, even one relating ‘Spotted Dick’ to ‘Spotted Dog’ (another version of the pudding) and then to Dalmatians as they are spotted too. Wherever the name came from, it has been changed at least once.

A BBC news article from the 10^th of September 2002 reported that the Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust had put the name ‘Spotted Dick’ back on the menu. The name had previously been changed to ‘Spotted Richard’ in the mistaken belief that patients might have felt uncomfortable having to order Spotted Dick. Snippets like this may be interesting, but wherever the name came from, the pud is still good, as far as I’m concerned. If you haven’t tried it why don’t you give it a go, it really is a sweet treat.

F Watson

Spotted Dick

Ingredients

8 oz of self-raising flour

6 oz of suet

Pinch of salt

1 oz of caster sugar

6 oz breadcrumbs (white)

2 oz of currants

2 oz of seedless raisins

5 to 8 tablespoons of milk

Method

Mix salt, suet, currants, raisins, breadcrumbs and flour together

Mixing with a fork add milk gradually until the mixture binds together.

Knead until the dough is slightly sticky

Roll dough into a cylinder

Wrap in a single layer of foil that has been brushed with butter and seal

(My mother used to wrap her pudding in a cloth to steam it, but these days it is easier to use foil)

Fish For Tea story – Pan Fried Trout Recipe

It was a lovely day and Peter the friendly elf fancied some fish for his tea. Picking up his fishing basket and his fishing rod, he left his neat little, white painted, house at one end of the village of Trimble and went to call on his friend Pod, ‘Hi, Pod,’ said Peter, ‘It’s such a nice day I thought I would go fishing, would you like to come?’

Pod was busy weeding his garden, but at the mention of fishing his ears pricked up and he said, ‘Ooo! I do like fish for my tea, if you wait until I put my trowel away and get my fishing rod, I will certainly come with you.’

‘OK,’ said Peter, and he sat on the little wooden bench in Pod’s front garden, relaxing in the warm sunshine, while he waited.

Ten minutes later Pod came out of his cottage with his fishing basket over his shoulder, his fishing rod in one hand and another much larger basket in the other.

‘What’s in the big basket, Pod? Peter asked.

‘Well it is such a sunny day,’ said Pod, ‘that I thought we could have a picnic on the river bank, while we fish.’

Peter smiled, what a kind and clever friend Pod was, I never even thought of taking a picnic, ‘Great,’ he said, ‘Let’s go.’

The river Nid lay outside the village, it was small as rivers go, not much more that a large stream really and the best fishing was on the far side. Peter and Pod crossed the wooden bridge and followed the path along the riverbank. It took them fifteen minutes to reach the best spot, only to find that Kronk was already sitting there fishing. Kronk who lived in a grubby old house at the opposite end of the village to Peter, was the meanest and most unfriendly old gnome, you could ever meet.

Excuse me, Mr Kronk, said Peter, ‘There is plenty room on the riverbank, so would it be OK, if Pod and I sat here to fish?’

‘No it wouldn’t, now clear off,’ Growled Kronk

‘But that’s not fair, said Peter.

‘And you don’t own the riverbank,’ cried Pod.

‘No I don’t,’ said Kronk with a nasty grin, ‘but I’m bigger than you both and if you don’t clear off, I’ll throw you in the water.’

There was nothing they could do, he was bigger and meaner than them, so they walked just a little further on, to another spot that Peter knew. It wasn’t as good as the first spot, but Peter had caught a fish there once. After casting their lines into the water they propped their rods on sticks and waited, and waited, all morning they waited. But they didn’t even get one fish. Still it was a nice sunny day and they enjoyed their picnic.

After lunch, they tried for another hour, but when there were still no fish, they decided to pack up and go home. It was while they were putting the plates back into the basket that peter spotted something shining in the grass. He bent down and picked it up, it was a small, shiny, gold coin. He showed it to Pod and they hunted around on their hands and knees, looking for more but there were none, ‘Never mind, said Pod, ‘thanks to Kronk we didn’t catch any fish, but we might be able to use the coin to buy some cakes on the way home.’

‘I don’t think so,’ said Peter, ‘we’ll be lucky if we get one cake between us, I’ve got a better idea.’

On their way home, they were talking loudly as they passed Kronk, who was still fishing even though his basket was already full of fish.

‘That was lucky, finding all that gold,’ said Peter.

‘Yes,’ said Pod, ‘we’d better hurry home and get a barrow to carry it all in.’

Kronk who was listening, chuckled to himself, did they think he was stupid. Whoever heard of gold lying on the riverbank? Just then he saw something fall from Peters pocket. He waited until they were out of sight and then went over to see what it was and got a big surprise, it was a small shiny gold coin. His eyes shone with greed, he tipped all his fish onto the grass and ran off to fill his pockets and the fishing basket with gold, before Peter and Pod could get back with the barrow.

As soon as he had gone Peter and Pod came out from where they had been hiding, collected all the fish and went home to have fish for their tea.

Mean old Kronk didn’t find any gold and when he got back, he didn’t find any fish either. I think that serves him right for being greedy, don’t you?’

Copyright Fred Watson April 2008

A Recipe For Pan Fried Trout

Ingredients

Four trout

1 cup of stone less prunes, chopped fine.

1cup of fresh breadcrumbs

1 tablespoon of sweet sherry

salt and pepper to season

1 lemon

1 teaspoon of chopped parsley

1 teaspoon of chopped dill

2 teaspoons of cooking oil

Method.

Place in a bowl, the prunes, breadcrumbs, sherry, parsley and dill,

season with salt and pepper, then mix together.

Stuff the mixture into the trout cavities and secure with wooden toothpicks

or small skewers.

Heat oil in pan to a medium heat and cook trout 3 to 4 minutes each side.

St George’s Day – Steak and Kidney Pie.

St George is the patron saint of England and the 23^rd of April is St George’s Day. He is also patron saint of: Canada, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Malta, Moldova, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Montenegro and Ethiopia plus a few more.

Christian belief is that he was born in what is now Turkey, became a soldier in the Roman Army and died for his belief. When orders were received from Emperor Dioletian to persecute other Christians, he refused and after being tortured on the wheel of swords he was beheaded.

The English adopted the red cross of St George on a white background during the crusades and it was probably those same crusaders who brought back a story of St George and the dragon.

The original tale is roughly as follows. A dragon decides to nest in the spring belonging to the city of Silene, (In Libia?) and the only way the city folks could draw water was to lure the dragon away by making him a sacrifice of a fair maid. To be fair the maids were picked a random and none were exempt. Then one day it was the king’s daughter who was picked to be the dragon’s dinner. Luckily for her St George was riding by on his charger and he killed the dragon and rescued the princess.

Many places in England lay claim to a dragon that was killed by St George and one of the most fanciful is that St George was a son of Lord Albert and he was born in Caludan Castle, Coventry and not Turkey. According to the tale, St George, while abroad in Egypt saved a princess from a dragon. The princess and St George were married and he sailed back to England with his bride. Shortly after setting up home in Coventry St George saved the city, by killing another dragon that had taken up residence beneath the city streets. Unfortunately he died soon afterwards, poisoned by the dragon’s blood.

Steak And Kidney Pie – with potato pastry crust (serves 4)

Ingredients

1oz of beef dripping

4oz of chopped onions

1lb of lean beef

4oz of kidney (trim and cut a little smaller than the beef)

1 level tablespoon of flour seasoned with ½ a teaspoon of salt and ½ a teaspoon of pepper.

¾ pint of water

2 teaspoons of Worcestershire sauce

4oz of mushrooms

Method

Melt dripping in pan, cook onions for 1 minute

Coat beef and kidney with seasoned flour, add to pan and stir to seal

Add Worcestershire sauce and water, stir until boiling

Cover and simmer, stir occasionally, until meat is tender, about 2 ½ hours

Place meat in 1 ¼ pint pie dish adding 4 tablespoons of the gravy and leave to cool

(Keep the rest of the gravy; you can warm it up later to serve with the pie.)

When meat is cold cover it with sliced mushrooms

Brush edges of pie dish with water, cover with pastry lid, flute edges with a fork and brush top with milk.

Preheat oven, bake pie at Gas, 7, 425ºF 220ºC until golden, about twenty minutes.

Reduce heat to Gas5, 375ºF, 190ºC for another 15 minutes

Potato Pastry

6oz of self-raising flour

½ teaspoon of salt

4oz of lard

6 oz of cold dry mashed potato

Method

Mix flour and salt, rub in lard

Work in potato using fork or hands

(Do not add any water)

Pease pudding hot, Pease Pudding cold

Pease pudding hot, Pease pudding cold

Pease pudding in the pot – nine days old

Some like it hot, some like it cold

Some like it in the pot – nine days old

Pease Pudding, made from dried yellow split peas, has always been a favourite in the Northeast of England. Traditionally it is served with boiled ham, either on a plate with v