Egg and Bacon Flan - 1960's

This is one for beginners.  It makes a really nice alternative breakfast or a quick fix for a baking urge.  making shortcrust pastry is pretty easy and it gets even easier when you buy pre-made, pre-rolled stuff.
So have a go at this classic recipe, it isn't a 'typical' sixties recipe as it still lives in today.  Flans are not exactly in fashion at the moment, but they're still pretty popular.


5 - 6 oz short crust pastry
4 - 6 oz bacon, diced.
3 to 4 eggs.
seasoning.

1. Line the flan tin with pastry and bake for about 10 minutes to set, but not cook, the pastry.
2. Fry the diced bacon until just crisp.
3. Add this to the well-beaten and seasoned eggs.
4. Pour the mixture into the flan case.
5. Set a further 25 minutes in a moderately hot oven.

Roast Pigeons - 1930's

You have to hand it to our previous generation, they really knew how to live off the land.  This recipe is probably a lot older than the 1930's but as it is from a cookbook of that period it is being cataloged as such.  The assumption made here is that the cook knows how to pluck and gut a pigeon, if you're not entirely au-fais with it then buy one from a butcher.

This recipe is a challange as it requires the pigeon to be continually basted in butter.

3 pigeons
3 slices of fat bacon
3 oz. butter
Pepper and Salt
3 slices of buttered sauce
Garnish of fried parsley

1. Singe and draw three pigeons.  Put about three-quarters of an ounce of butter inside each pigeon and season them with pepper and salt.
2. Truss them for roasting with a slice of fat bacon tied over the breast of each.
3. Toast the slice of bread, butter them, and stand one pigeon on each.  Roast them, in front of a brisk fire or in a gas oven, for 20 minutes, basting them continually with butter.
4. When pigeons are cooked, remove the strings and the bacon, or, if liked, the bacon can be left on the breasts.  Place the pigeons and toasts on a hot dish and garnish with bunches of fried parsley.

Braised Beef With Prunes and Wine

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This will serve between two and four people.

2 lb, piece of lean beef (either a flank, rib or chunk)
1 large piece of bacon rind or lean scraps of bacon
1 oz. fat
8 oz. onions
8 oz. carrots
8 oz. prunes, cooked
half a level teaspoon of salt
quarter a level teaspoon of pepper
half a pint of red wine
8 oz. noodles
Grated parmesan cheese

1. Chop the onion and carrots.  Wash the bacon rind.

2. Melt the fat in a deep saucepan or enamelled cast iron casserole.  Fry the meat in it until golden brown all over.

3.  Remove the meat and put the bacon rind in the bottom covering it with the vegetables.

4.  Add the seasoning  and wine, returning the meat.

5. Cover and cook gently in a slow oven for 2.5 to 3 hours or until the meat is tender.

6. Just before dishing up time, boil the noodles in salted water; drain and arrange round the edge of the platter.

7. Carve the meat and arrange slices in the middles of the noodles and put the vegetables, prunes and sauce around it.  Sprinkle noodles with cheese and serve with peas, green beans or spinach.

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