Last night's main course made me think about what things are the absolute store-cupboard necessities in this household. That was because I was making fish pie, one component of which for me has to be smoked fish, tinned kippers the easiest way of doing that (cheap, no bones worthy of note, bags of flavour).
Tins of anchovies would have to be up there too: to make my own pizza or add to bought-in; in fish soups to give background; used in a stuffing for veg like peppers; and with discretion in salads. Baked beans another: tonight we are having a rib-fest, so a tin of Heinz with some spice and BBQ sauce will fill out the meal, but they are great added to stews at the end of cooking to sweeten and bulk out, and have numerous other uses though please not the 1970s thing of serving them cold as a salad. Bleaugh. Green lentils in a tin, however, do make a fine salad with some not very delicate slices of onion, a load of crushed garlic, and if to hand some tomato and cucumber, the lot doused in a mustardy vinaigrette.
And no cupboard of mine would ever be without pasta and rice, both the basis of rapid and good meals. In fact I have at least three of each so the changes can be rung.
Ah! and tinned tomatoes, how could I forget? The sauce (with a bit of fiddling) for that pasta, an enhancement to stews and curries, a topping (once reduced) for a pizza...
Some look down on tinned food, and of course fresh is very desirable. But on a wet Thursday when you have forgotten your fridge was nearly empty they are a godsend.
What would you not be without in the larder?
Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1970s. Show all posts
Thursday, 21 February 2013
Monday, 18 February 2013
Like 1973 All Over Again
We just got back from a weekend in Scotland - not all of it at once of course, merely a little bit of Dumfries and Galloway. As the cottage we had booked was not near even a pub we took our food for the duration. With a three hour car journey this meant most of it was tins. And nothing wrong with that, if you go for the right stuff. On no account buy tinned carrots, ever - unless they are for someone you despise.
This took me back to our family holidays in the 1970s. It fits the austerity bill too, as my family was far from well off, my mother a teacher, my father a local government officer. The upside to those jobs, once my father had long tenure anyway, was that we had three week holidays generally spent abroad. In pre-credit card days, for them at least, that meant careful budgeting with the cash and travellers' cheques taken with us, and our caravan being packed with tins and dried foods that would last the trip.
For a couple of months before we left my mother would put away a few tins and packets every week. There were always a couple of tins of M&S chicken in white sauce; lots of pasta; the epitome of 70s supermarket cuisine Vesta curries and paella (curry good, paella awful); and tins of mince that would become a spag bol with a single onion and a tin of toms.
What was not spent out of the daily budget went into a fund for treats, which included the occasional meal out. We had great holidays.
I am not sure whether my choice of chicken in white sauce (from Sainsbury's this time) to take with us to the cottage was bought because of that heritage or not. But it worked as well as the stuff my mother used to make for us. Sunday's main meal was boil in the bag rice with a curry comprising that chicken, a tin of Bombay Potatoes, and another of vegetable curry, with a concession to fresh veg in the form of onion and lots of garlic fried before the rest was added and heated through. It was not at all hot spicy, and far from authentic, but like those meals in Interlaken and elsewhere in the dim and distant it was what we needed after a longer than expected walk (in the 70s that would have been a day on the lake in a blow-up boat, table tennis, and riding foldy-up bikes): it was moist, filling, tasty and nutritious. So you can more than get by on tins (and a bit of fresh veg).
Best not to do that every day, though I recall the story of an arctic adventurer who had to spend a winter in a hut somewhere in the frozen wastes. His food, other than what he could shoot or catch, was tinned. A flood of his store washed all the labels off these tins, and, no gourmet it seems, he then for simplicity and perhaps variety determined to simply take three tins at random and heat them in the same pan. Thus he enjoyed the likes of custard and mince and prunes on occasion. Which maybe puts my makeshift curry in a better light, if it needed to be. Which it didn't.
This took me back to our family holidays in the 1970s. It fits the austerity bill too, as my family was far from well off, my mother a teacher, my father a local government officer. The upside to those jobs, once my father had long tenure anyway, was that we had three week holidays generally spent abroad. In pre-credit card days, for them at least, that meant careful budgeting with the cash and travellers' cheques taken with us, and our caravan being packed with tins and dried foods that would last the trip.
For a couple of months before we left my mother would put away a few tins and packets every week. There were always a couple of tins of M&S chicken in white sauce; lots of pasta; the epitome of 70s supermarket cuisine Vesta curries and paella (curry good, paella awful); and tins of mince that would become a spag bol with a single onion and a tin of toms.
What was not spent out of the daily budget went into a fund for treats, which included the occasional meal out. We had great holidays.
I am not sure whether my choice of chicken in white sauce (from Sainsbury's this time) to take with us to the cottage was bought because of that heritage or not. But it worked as well as the stuff my mother used to make for us. Sunday's main meal was boil in the bag rice with a curry comprising that chicken, a tin of Bombay Potatoes, and another of vegetable curry, with a concession to fresh veg in the form of onion and lots of garlic fried before the rest was added and heated through. It was not at all hot spicy, and far from authentic, but like those meals in Interlaken and elsewhere in the dim and distant it was what we needed after a longer than expected walk (in the 70s that would have been a day on the lake in a blow-up boat, table tennis, and riding foldy-up bikes): it was moist, filling, tasty and nutritious. So you can more than get by on tins (and a bit of fresh veg).
Best not to do that every day, though I recall the story of an arctic adventurer who had to spend a winter in a hut somewhere in the frozen wastes. His food, other than what he could shoot or catch, was tinned. A flood of his store washed all the labels off these tins, and, no gourmet it seems, he then for simplicity and perhaps variety determined to simply take three tins at random and heat them in the same pan. Thus he enjoyed the likes of custard and mince and prunes on occasion. Which maybe puts my makeshift curry in a better light, if it needed to be. Which it didn't.
Thursday, 3 January 2013
New Year and Using Stuff Up
The usual suspect Christmas leftovers are long gone - a turkey crown means that the meat is a memory well before it becomes a recurring nightmare, and what was left of our sirloin transformed into the traditional cold cuts on Boxing Day, fabulous butties the next, and a stir fry and Chinese soup another. Others remain, or remained, yesterday's main meal a determined effort to make the best of them.
Thus a chicken carcase (am using the alternative spelling in the hope a friend keen to help me mend the error of my orthographical ways will correct it - curses, think she may spot that trap now) sitting in the fridge after a weekend festive meal with mates became stock yesterday afternoon that then made minestrone in the evening (the rest for tonight's risotto). And the dog-ends of cheese, some of it rather fine cheese, flavoured a sauce that helped stretch the tinned salmon (how very 1970s again) and kippers in a fish pie topped with mash from same weekend repast.
When the good-housekeeper stuff of using up Christmas bits before they are only fit for the bin is done I will turn to my foodie New Year's resolution, which is to have at least two vegetarian evening meals a week, and one based on fish. The inspirations behind this are several: environmental guilt about using too much meat and meat-farming using too many of the earth's resources; economy; health matters; and stretching my culinary abilities and repertoire - it is too easy to fall into the routine of planning a meal around a slab of bloody protein.
Thus a chicken carcase (am using the alternative spelling in the hope a friend keen to help me mend the error of my orthographical ways will correct it - curses, think she may spot that trap now) sitting in the fridge after a weekend festive meal with mates became stock yesterday afternoon that then made minestrone in the evening (the rest for tonight's risotto). And the dog-ends of cheese, some of it rather fine cheese, flavoured a sauce that helped stretch the tinned salmon (how very 1970s again) and kippers in a fish pie topped with mash from same weekend repast.
When the good-housekeeper stuff of using up Christmas bits before they are only fit for the bin is done I will turn to my foodie New Year's resolution, which is to have at least two vegetarian evening meals a week, and one based on fish. The inspirations behind this are several: environmental guilt about using too much meat and meat-farming using too many of the earth's resources; economy; health matters; and stretching my culinary abilities and repertoire - it is too easy to fall into the routine of planning a meal around a slab of bloody protein.
Tuesday, 25 December 2012
Secret Service Santa Stuff VIII
Yet another letter thanking Santa, written by a celebrity chef rendered anonymous. And I am willing to bet that it has the best pun on the words of a 15th century French poet that you have read all day. The worst too.
Dear Santa,
At this time of year with the last sad
leaf clutching the rimed twigs I love to remember Christmases past as I look
upon my little garden that produces miraculous quantities of different
vegetables. Our quick lunch was Caramac, my favourite comfort food at this time
of year, and those oh so 1970s tinned peas I still secretly adore. They are my favourite
comfort food, the label promising the scents of summers long gone. We finished
with some cheese from a shop that at this time of year only sells to you if you
provide references. Cheese at this time of year is my favourite comfort food,
especially on mashed potatoes. Mash is my favourite. Comfort food. Thanks for
the hair-trimmers, their steely blades catching the glint of the sun. Low. In the
sky. At this time of year I really needed them. I peeked coyly through my fringe and the frost
bedecked window when you visited, but your reindeer no longer make a sound as
they did in my childhood. Où sont les neighs d’antan? Reindeer are my favourite comfort food. At this time of year.
Yours ever,
Wednesday, 19 December 2012
The Monetary Value of Time
That title one for the accountants and MBAs out there - a sort of pun on the time value of money - my how they didn't laugh. Net present value and all that. Never mind.
This post comes out of last night's meal, something very simple but I am sure hugely improved by the time factor involved. It was spaghetti with meat ragu, or as we called it in the 1970s spag bol. Too often it is something done rapidly, a standby that can with practice be on the table in edible form in 20 minutes. But the rapid version doesn't have the smoothness or the depth of something simmered for an hour or more, and food should be more than just edible.
Time is the magical factor in transforming mince (admittedly here Aberdeen Angus mince from the most excellent Henry Rowntree) from something a bit grainy into a tender and toothsome pleasure. Likewise in taking tinned tomatoes and rounding off their tartness, combining with the sweetness of the chopped onions to make a mellow vegetable (yes the tom is a fruit, don't care) base that can be called a sauce.
I cooked the ragu for about 90 minutes, on very low heat, and it was so much better for the extra time. Even before that simmer time played its part - the meat allowed to brown properly, caramelize in places, instead of being merely turned in a hot pan then moved hastily on.
This post comes out of last night's meal, something very simple but I am sure hugely improved by the time factor involved. It was spaghetti with meat ragu, or as we called it in the 1970s spag bol. Too often it is something done rapidly, a standby that can with practice be on the table in edible form in 20 minutes. But the rapid version doesn't have the smoothness or the depth of something simmered for an hour or more, and food should be more than just edible.
Time is the magical factor in transforming mince (admittedly here Aberdeen Angus mince from the most excellent Henry Rowntree) from something a bit grainy into a tender and toothsome pleasure. Likewise in taking tinned tomatoes and rounding off their tartness, combining with the sweetness of the chopped onions to make a mellow vegetable (yes the tom is a fruit, don't care) base that can be called a sauce.
I cooked the ragu for about 90 minutes, on very low heat, and it was so much better for the extra time. Even before that simmer time played its part - the meat allowed to brown properly, caramelize in places, instead of being merely turned in a hot pan then moved hastily on.
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