Commonplace Vol. 4 Issue 6

Hello! It appears to be a time of year for answering questions in newsletters, because that’s what I did in the most recent Gentle Decline as well. And as I already said over there: if you’re inclined to use the Ko-fi button or to sign up for Patreon, now would be an excellent time. One of my major clients has closed down during the latter end of the year, and while I have a few new things possibly coming up, none of them will be live until into the New Year. If you’d normally consider a Christmas card or a pint over the season, well, as the meme says, I’m really into utilities this year.

(Mince Pies, from my old and battered copy of Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management; see below for some discussion.)

I’ve had various bits of email, requests in other media, and general conversations about food lately. My SCA food research is currently centred around early Irish cereal use, which turns out to be mostly porridge. The fermented porridge is of particular interest there, I feel, but probably wasn’t the most frequently eaten. And I’ve decided that my favourite form of porridge is one part rolled oats to two parts buttermilk, with a good handful of frozen raspberries dropped in while cooking, topped with honey. Unfortunately, this makes experimenting with other forms a bit more difficult, because especially on cold mornings, that is the one I want and no other.

Anyway. Those emails and other queries.

“Can we get you to provide some of your own recipes? Not necessarily historic ones, just those you use on a day to day basis.”

I frequently do not write down the things I cook, because they’re extemporised according to what was available on the day, spiced according to my mood (and current obsession in spices; smoked paprika right now) and served up with whatever sides or carbs I have to to hand. Here, however, are two recipes that I’ve worked over a few times and have been keeping notes on. Quantities are very approximate, and I’ve used “sauté” where I’d say “fry” myself, since I’ve discovered what Americans understand “fry” as.

Chicken-and-Orzo Soup

450g chicken thighs, chopped in rough cubes300g celery, chopped400g frozen green beans1 can (~400g) of sweetcorn250g of orzo pasta2 tablespoons of garlic powder2 tablespoons of Italian herb mix Some salt and black pepper2l of vegetable stockA good double handful of chopped kale2 tablespoons lemon juiceSome butter

Take a deep saucepan (I use an enameled cast iron one). Sauté the chicken pieces in some butter, and set aside. Then sauté the chopped celery, frozen green beans, and sweetcorn. Add the garlic powder and Italian herbs, with salt and pepper to taste. Add the vegetable stock, and when it comes to the boil, add the orzo. Cook until the orzo is soft - stirring frequently, because the orzo will stick! - then put back in the chicken and the kale. Cook a bit more, until the kale has thoroughly wilted, then add the lemon juice. Stir in, and serve.

(The “Italian herb mix” is oregano, basil, red pepper flakes, marjoram, thyme, rosemary, sage, and parsley; you can get it from Tesco or Lidl here.)

Beef & Beans800g stewing beef (in 2cm cubes or so)200g celery6 cloves of garlic300g frozen green beans~1l beef stock1 tablespoon smoked paprika1 tablespoon ras al hanout

Chop the celery and garlic, and sauté them in butter in a large frying pan which can be covered. Add the beef, and sauté until it’s browned well. Add the frozen green beans, and cook until they’re defrosted, then pour in beef stock to just over the level of the meat and vegetables. Cover the pan and cook for about 25 minutes, so that the beef can get towards being soft. Uncover, add the smoked paprika and ras al hanout, and then cook down, stirring frequently, until most of the liquid has evaporated and you have a thick sauce remaining. Serve over rice.

“What cooking programmes on television would you recommend?”

I really don’t watch enough TV to have any idea of this. What I do recommend is going to YouTube, and putting in a two or three word phrase about the kind of cooking you’re interested in, and seeing what’s out there. I’ve recently (thanks to Kate) discovered that there are parts of YouTube I can watch (video essays drive me to distraction), and that they are videos of people methodically cooking, making things, or drawing, start to finish. So a search for “Persian Cooking” has brought up all manner of stuff about the modern descendants of the medieval dishes I work with in al-Warraq, for instance, and some of the techniques and methods are still very similar.

“Tell me about mince pies with actual meat in them!”

So, for those unfamiliar, the modern mince pie has dried fruit as its principal filling, with suet (sometimes) and an alcohol, usually brandy. They're usually sold commercially as individual pies, about the width of a cupcake, and maybe an inch and a half deep at most. They are a very traditional English (and by consequence, Irish) Christmas thing. In olden days, though, they had actual meat in them.

There’s evidence going back to the Tudor period of this, but the recipe I’ve tried this year is from Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management, first published in 1861. It goes like this:

Now, this is for a vast quantity of mincemeat. And it also involves leaving raw meat, with only the intervention of brandy, in a jar for two weeks before putting it in pies, and honestly, I have not yet been down with trying that.

I ran through this recipe at a recent Dun in Mara Arts & Sciences day, with the following changes. First, I reduced the quantity of apples by a lot. The recipe wants a pottle, which is a measure of volume, and therefore not very clear as a quantity. Depending on the size of the apples, and whether this is the whole apple or the chopped one, it could be anywhere between twenty and a hundred. I used four. It also wants vast quantities of other stuff, all of which I reduced (more or less in even proportions, where I could work them out). The nutmeg I just left out; the guess-at-proportional reduction was down to such a tiny amount that it wasn’t going to have any effect at all.

Second, the dried fruits you get in modern supermarkets don’t need stoning or cleaning. Indeed, the idea of stoning raisins seems like madness. And I didn’t use raw beef; I used roast beef from earlier in the week, chopped fairly fine (4-5mm cubes, in the end). It didn’t rest for a fortnight, either, or indeed any real length of time, but went into the pastry after maybe half an hour of sitting there.

The end result tasted good, and was rich and strong as it should be. There was, however, far more liquid in the bottom of the pie than I had expected, or than I’d seen in previous versions of this. Previous versions, however, have used minced beef (ground beef, for those in the US), and have been pre-cooked with the fruit and everything else in, in a large frying pan. My best guess here is that there were more apples in this version than I’ve usually used, and that the dried fruit hadn’t time to soak up the extra juice. I’ll be making another next week, I think, so I’ll try my more usual make-it-up-in-progress version with the minced beef.

That’s it for the questions. I’d like to point you at a very fine piece of food writing over at Fox Holler Almanac called Darkness & Vernacular Salami, and otherwise, enjoy the holidays!

[Support Drew’s writing via Patreon, and see some of the general background of life! Or throw a coin in the hat via Ko-Fi.]