Crunchy Crust Raspberry Pie - 1960's

For the crust:

4 oz. Luxury margarine
2 oz. Castor sugar
2 level tablespoons of golden syrup
8 oz. crushed digestive biscuits

1. Dissolve margarine and golden syrup in a small saucepan and bring almost to the boil.
2. Add this to the crushed crumbs and castor sugar in a mixing bowl and mix thoroughly.
3. When slightly cooled, knead well and press into an 8-inch pie plate or flan ring.  Place in a refrigerator until firm and set.
4. Pile filling into crust just before serving and decorate with whole raspberries.

For the filling:

Half a pint of double cream
1 packet frozen raspberries or one small punnet of fresh raspberries, sweetened to taste.


Whisk the double cream until stuff and fold in the raspberries keeping back a few for decorations.

Keith Floyd's Queen of Puddings - 1980's

Keith describes this dish as a simple winter pudding that is inexpensive to make.  I'd agree with that.

1 pint (600ml) milk
1 oz (25g) butter
Grated rind of half a lemon
3 eggs, separated.
7 oz (210g) caster sugar
3 oz (75g) fresh white breadcrumbs
2 tablespoons of good quality raspberry jam.



1. Warm the milk in a pan with the butter and lemon rind.
2. Lightly whisk the egg yolks with 1 oz of the sugar and pour in the milk stirring well.
3. Strain the custard over the breadcrumbs in a greased 2 pint (1 litre) ovenproof dish and leave to stand for 15 mintes.
4. Bake at 375 degrees F, (170 celsius) for 25 minutes until lightly set.
5. Remove from the oven and spread the top with the warmed jam.
6. Whisk the egg whites until it is stiff, add half the sugar and whisk again until thick and glossy.
7. Fold in the remaining sugar with a metal spoon.  Pile the meringue on top of the pudding and bake at gas mark 4 (350 ferenheit, 180 celsius) until meringue is lightly browned

Keith Floyd's Apple Pie - 1980's

Image via Wikipedia

To make Keith Floyd's Apple Pie:

8 oz (250g) shortcrust pastry
1lb (500g) cooking apples (peeled, cored and sliced)
3 oz Granulated Sugar
3 Cloves

1. Divide pastry in two and roll out one half large enough to cover an 8 inch (20cm) ovenproof plate.

2. Put the apples onto the pastry-lined dish and sprinke on most of the sugar.

3. Position the 3 cloves strategically.

4. Brush the pastry edges with alittle cold water.

5. Roll out the remaining pastry and lift carefully over the apples.

6. Press the edges well together and trime away the excess.  With your thumb and finger push up the edges and pinch the top.

7. Make a cross in the centre to allow the steam to escape.

8. Decorate with trimmings optional, brush top with water and sprinkle on remaining sugar.

Bake at 190 celsius (375 F) for 40 to 50 minutes until golden brown. 

Image via Wikipedia

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Keith Floyd's Sauce for Cold Meat - 1980's

So its going to be New Years Day, and for some of us there is going to be MORE cold meat and turkey after some more big meals.  Keith Floyd has this wonderful recipe from Floyd on Britain and Ireland.  This makes 2 pints (1 litre).

3 lemons
1.5 ounce (40g) salt
1 ounce (25g) allspice
1 ounce (25g) mustard seed
1 ounce (25g) of white pepper
1 ounce (25g) grated horseradish 
half on ounce (15g) each mace, cayenne pepper and cloves
2 pints (1 litre) vinegar

1. Slice lemons, remove the pips and rub salt into the slices.

2. Mix the allspice , mustard seed, pepper, horseradish, mace, cayenne and cloves.

3. Put the lemons slices in layers in a jar and sprinkle the mixed spices between each layers

4. Pour over the vinegar at boiling point.

5.  Set aside for 24 hours, squeeze, strain and bottle.
Visit Keith's website http://www.floydonline.co.uk/ for more recipes and buy some books.

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Marrow Chutney - 1950's

A chutney recipe from Farmhouse Fare.

4 lbs marrow
1/2 lb pickling onions
6 cloves
1.5 lbs of loaf sugar
half ounce of tumeric
9 chillies
1.5 ounces ground ginger
1.5 ounces mustard
2 pints vinegar
Salt.

1. Cut the marrow into small squares (half inch or so)

2. Lay on a dish and shake some salt over it leaving it overnight.

3. Drain it, then boil the other ingredients for 10 minutes

4. Now add the marrow and boil for half an hour, or until tender and put into jars.

For more information about making Chutney visit allotment.org.uk

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Chestnut Jam - 1950's

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Here is another entry from Farmhouse Fare, and one that I am quite keen to try out.  This might be even better with mixed nuts, hazelnuts and even peanuts?
2lbs of sweet chestnuts
1.5lbs of loaf sugar
1 teaspoon of vanilla essence
half a pint of water to make syrup
1. Cut a cross in the chestnuts then boil chestnuts until ready.  This should take between 20 minutes and half an hour
2. Peel and skin them then crush them through a wire sieve.
3. Make a syrup with the water, sugar and the vanilla essence.
4. When it is ready, put in the crushed chestnuts and cook gently until faily stiff.  Put in hot glass jars and cover. ru
If you want to cheat just use syrup from Tate & Lyle with added vanilla essence.  Also have a look at this interesting article about foraging for sweet chestnuts.

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Home-Made Cider

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Farmhouse Fare gives a recipe for home-made cider.  I have put a link to www.allotment.org.uk at the bottom as they go in to more detail about making your own cider and wine.

1. Take fallen apples (smaller ones are better for this recipe) and cut up then place in an earthenware jar.
2. Cover with cold water and protect with muslin and let it stand for 10 days giving it the occasional stir daily.

3. When fermentation has ceased strain and add 1 3/8 (624g) of sugar to each gallon.

4.  Add a slice of beetroot to the mixture to improve the colour.

5. Bottle and let stand uncorked for 14 days.  It should then almost cease working.

6. Cork securely and in two or three months time, you should have sparkling cider.

For a more scientific method, have a look at this.

 

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Cookbook Focus: Floyd on Britain & Ireland (1988)

Recipe Vintage is all about me sharing my favourite recipes with whoever gives a hoot, whether I have made them or not. So I can not start doing this without talking about the books that I read and why I love them. So here is my first one.

This is one of my favourite books in my collection.  Keith Floyd travels all over the country finding local recipes and giving them a bit of vavavoom but democratizing it at the same time. Beside a lot of eighties gourmet stuff is some quite nice traditional recipes.  It is well balanced in types of dishes with clear methods and good photos, however there is a lot gourmet recipes which require a lot of faffing and special ingredients.

I liked Keith Floyd and I was genuinely sad when he died.  His many adventures and television series where he cooked relatively complex dishes in remote locations with portable stove and bottle of wine in tow isn't matched these days by chef's staying to the comfortable confines of the television studio or even (heaven forbid) their own home kitchen.

I am going to present you with a few of the best recipes from this book, a lot of them are quite pretentious and detract from the parameters of this website (vintage, traditional, affordable, practical recipes) but some of them are spot on.

RIP Keith, you are sadly missed.

Fish in Dark Beer

Another dinner party favourite from the fifties.  This dish ripe for modification and some experimentation, try choosing different types of beer and vinegar to use.

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3 lbs of Fish (carp, pike or bass)
1 tablespoon of vinegar
2 chopped onions
4 tablespoons of butter
2 tablespoons of flour
2 tablespoons of brown sugar
5 whole peppers
2 ground cloves
1 teaspoon of Worcester Sauce
1 pint of Dark Beer (locally produced craft beer/real ale/stout maybe?)

1. Prepare the fish by cleaning it and scaling cutting it in to three inch slices.

2. Brown the onion in the butter, adding the flour and cook for three minutes.

3.  Add the beer and all other ingredients except the vinegar.

4.  Boil the sauce to the thickness of single cream.

5. Add the fish slices to the sauce, and continue boiling until the fish is well done.

6.  Finally add the vinegar and continue boiling for another two minutes.  Pour the sauce through a strainer and serve separately.

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Recipe Vintage: So far so good?

Recipe Vintage came out of a love of cooking, recipe's and the urge I have to share them with people.  So far, I think I am achieving this with my collection of Vintage recipe's and I hope that everyone is enjoying them as much I am, writing them and adapting them.

I have found some recipe's for home made cheeses and wine too which I will post up today, or tomorrow.  I urge you to have a go at anything that takes your fancy no matter how simple it might be, anything that doesn't work at all let me know and I can tweak them or even create a 'challenging recipe' category for those who want to take on the beefier bad-ass ones.

I am going to start posting some weirder older recipe's too and one that involves a Calf Head I found in Farmhouse Fare and a couple of other curiosities.