Hodge Podge
This is the best dish for the first vegetables of summer.
Tag: Vegetables
Matelotte of Large Onions
Large onions, in beef gravy, with seafood. I thought it might be one of those odd sounding dishes that are great – read on to find out!
California Beets
Another Wartime Recipe of the Maritimes, these interesting glazed beets were submitted to the Halifax Mail by a resident of PEI (which is quite far from California!). No idea what the name is about.
Ingredients
6 bunches small beets (I used cut up large beets) 1 tbsp butter 3 whole cloves 2 tbsp lemon juice 1 tbsp sugar salt and pepper
Instructions
Cut stems off and wash beets well. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil. Cook until tender. Drain and plunge beets into cold water for 3 minutes. Rub off skins. Melt butter in a frying pan. Add the cloves, sugar, lemon juice, salt and pepper. Add beets to the pan, and coat with the sauce. Heat through and serve hot.
These glazed beets were pretty easy to make!
I wasn’t super successful at removing the skins, but I actually don’t mind eating them.
The verdict
These glazed beets were great! The lemon and cloves gave them a bit of a different flavour from other glazed veggies. Next time, if I still had large beets, I would cut them into smaller chunks to distribute the glaze better (the glaze-to-beet ratio wasn’t quite right).
Any idea why these glazed beets are “Californian” (via PEI)? Tell us in the chat!
Stuffed Cabbage
Stuffing a cabbage with bologna – what wartime cooks came up with to use leftovers and feed families.
Carrots à la Portugaise
The only carrot recipe in From the Hearth is a glazed carrot dish with a touch of floral flavour from orange blossom water.
We made this dish for Thanksgiving this year, along with fillet of beef pâté, dessert cream, and tarts (plus some delicious compote with rhubarb from our garden).
Ingredients
1 lb carrots, cut in sticks For clarified sugar: 1 cup water 1 cup sugar 1 egg white, beaten (if desired - modern sugar is free from impurities and does not require this step) Cheesecloth 1 egg yolk 1/8 tsp orange flower water 2 tbsp double cream
Instructions
Partially cook carrots by boiling (~10 mins). Drain well. In a large saucepan, bring the water and sugar to a boil. Stir in the egg white. Skim the top of impurities. When the surface remains free, strain the syrup through the cheesecloth. Return the syrup to the saucepan. Continue to boil uncovered until thick and caramel-coloured. Stir in the partly-cooked carrots to coat evenly. Mix the egg yolk, orange blossom water, and cream together, then stir into the carrots. Serve warm. (Parsnips can be cooked in the same manner).
The verdict
These were very good! I put in a bit more orange flower water than the recipe suggests, which made them quite floral. Probably would go with the stated amount in future, but I’d make these again!
New peas (fresh peas in cream sauce)
Most of the vegetable dishes in From the Hearth are kinda over-the-top. Cabbage stuffed with meat. Cucumbers stuffed with meat. Turnips finished in cream. This pea dish is no exception.
Ingredients
2 lbs fresh peas 2 tbsp butter 2 cups water 1 tsp salt 1 head lettuce, cut in quarters Bouquet garni: 2 sprigs parsley 2 scallions Sauce: 1 tsp sugar 2 egg yolks 1/4 cup whipping cream (double cream)
Instructions
Shell peas. Place in pot with water, salt, butter, lettuce, and bouquet garni. Bring to a boil and simmer uncovered until peas are almost tender (about 10 minutes). Remove the herbs and add sugar. In a separate bowl mix the egg yolk and cream, and gradually blend in 3 tbsp of the hot water from the pot. Add the yolk and cream mixture to the peas, stirring gently until the sauce thickens. Adjust salt. Serve immediately, or place over hot water on a double boiler.
A lack of ingredients never stops me – we didn’t have lettuce, but we had kale. (Actually, sometimes in this recipe book, lettuce means “greens” more generally. Yeah, I’m going with that.)
New peas, freshly shelled, are wonderful things.
I was pretty proud of my bouquet garni (tied together with green onion).
Now, the original text from Menon suggests that the water will be almost all gone after cooking the peas. This … was not true. I tried adding the above egg yolks and cream to the pot, and it was really, really thin sauce. So, I dumped that out and re-added new cream and yolks. Then I got the sauce I’d been looking for.
I split the sauce, unfortunately (trying to cook other aspects of dinner and not paying enough attention to this), BUT it was delicious anyway.
The Verdict
Definitely will make this again. It was very tasty. Hard to go wrong with fresh peas and that much cream.
What do you like to do with fresh peas? Share in the comments!