Month: October 2017

A little lighter fare is on tap for today’s Tasty Tuesday recipe adaptation. Have you heard of Salmagundi? According to Dictionary.com, it is defined as “a mixed dish consisting usually of cubed poultry or fish, chopped meat, anchovies, eggs, onions, oil, etc., often served as a salad.” This is a recipe I’ve made out of Our Founding Foods by Jane Tennant, but her recipe was different from Hannah Glasse’s. Let’s start with Hannah’s take on this dish, and then I’ll talk about two other versions that I consulted before putting my own Salmagundi together.

To make Salmagundy

Mince two chickens, either boiled or roasted, very fine, or veal, if you please: also mince the yolks of hard eggs very small, and mince the whites very small by themselves; shred the pulp of two or three lemons very small, then lay in your dish a layer of mincemeat, and a layer of yolks of eggs, a layer of whites, a layer of anchovies, a layer of your shred lemon pulp, a layer of pickles, a layer of sorrel, a layer of spinach, and shallots shred small. When you have filled a dish with the ingredients, set an orange or lemon on the top; then garnish with horse-radish scraped, barberries, and sliced lemon. Beat up some oil with the juice of lemon, salt, and mustard, thick, and serve it up for a second course, side dish, or middle-dish, for supper.

Analyzing Hannah’s ingredients, I nixed several of her ideas since I didn’t think it would be pleasing to our taste buds. I didn’t use any lemons, for instance, though I did use a navel orange which added a delightful pop of citrus to the final dish.

Also, since I was making only enough for the two of us, I reduced the amount of chicken drastically. One chicken breast, to be exact. I figured that with the protein from the eggs would be adequate.

I also didn’t use anchovies, onions, or try to find sorrel. Instead, I used some tossed salad mix (iceberg lettuce, carrots, cabbage, etc.) and fresh spinach as my greens. Again this is based on our preferences. The fun thing about this dish is that it’s so adaptable!

Barberries sounded like something I’d like to try, but I didn’t have time to hunt them down. Instead, I used dried cranberries which added the tart taste that barberries are purported to have.

But what other options are there, you may be asking?

Jane Tennant’s book (which I’ve made several recipes out of, by the way) includes a recipe adapted from Mary Randolph’s The Virginia Housewife, 1824. The list of ingredients included lettuce leaves, green beans (cooked), cherry tomatoes, chicken, fresh green grapes, an orange, eggs, toasted almonds, raisins, anchovy fillets, radishes, spring onions, and gherkin pickles. The dressing is a blend of orange juice, orange zest, olive, oil, red wine vinegar, mustard, and salt and pepper. If you’d like the recipe, let me know and I’ll be happy to share it. I made this to take to a potluck luncheon at my Heart of Dixie chapter meeting one year. It’s good but rather complicated to put together and of course, it makes a lot of food!

I also checked what Virginia Elverson and Mary Ann McLanahan had to suggest in Revolutionary Cooking. They simply gave a list of possible ingredients and how to layer them. Here’s a snippet of what they had to say:

Arrange dishes of cold cooked vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, kidney beans, etc., which have been marinated in French dressing; other dishes of sliced sweet onions, sliced cucumbers, halved cherry tomatoes, thin-sliced celery, sliced radishes, chopped hard-cooked eggs, anchovies, croutons, Parmesan cheese, and a large bowl of lettuces.

Then they suggest letting each person build their own salad and top it with any kind of dressing you have available, and serve it with “cold sliced meats, herring, smoked salmon, lobster tails or crab claws.” They’re getting rather fancy, aren’t they? But they had some good ideas. Again, they’re apparently preparing a feast for a gathering. I, on the other hand, was simply trying to make dinner for me and my husband.

I chose a glass bowl that I estimated would hold enough salad for the two of us, maybe with a little leftover. But it wouldn’t be by much. Then I layered ingredients in quantities that I thought we’d manage for one meal.

Betty’s Salmagundi for 2

Ingredients

1 large boneless, skinless chicken breast

2 T Italian dressing

2 eggs, hard-boiled and chopped

2 cups salad mix

1 cup fresh spinach leaves

¼ cup shredded cheese

1 navel orange, peeled and cut into bite-sized pieces

¼ cup dried cranberries

2 Roma tomatoes, cut into bite-sized pieces

½ cucumber, chopped

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Place the chicken into a shallow pan. Pour Italian dressing to coat and then cover the pan before putting into the oven for 40 minutes or until cooked through and tender. Let cool before cutting into bite-sized pieces.

In a bowl, layer the salad, spinach, chicken, and the remaining ingredients.

Serve as is, with dressings on the side, or drizzle Italian dressing over the salad before serving.

Of course, if you have leftover cold meats, say after your Thanksgiving dinner, then this could be a great way to use up some of them. We particularly enjoyed the orange mixed into the salad. I think I might try it with marinated artichoke hearts next time, to add a bit more bite to the combination.

This recipe is more of a concept and subject to variation each time I make it. I like that it’s scalable, too. It’s a refreshing contribution to a pitch-in dinner, as well. What do you think? Will you be trying your own Salmagundi? I hope so! Enjoy!

Betty

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In 1782, the fight for independence becomes personal…

Midwife and healer, Samantha McAlester returns from the front lines to find Charles Town under British siege and the town’s new doctor at war with its citizens.

Dr. Trent Cunningham intends to build a hospital staffed solely with educated doctors. What he doesn’t need is a raven-haired charlatan spooning out herbs and false promises to his patients, while tempting him at every turn.

Then a mutual friend develops a mysterious infection. Trenton is stumped. Samantha suspects the cure but knows treatment will expose her long-guarded secret, risking all she holds dear… including Trenton.

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For a change of pace, here’s a breakfast recipe for today’s Tasty Tuesday post. At least, that’s when we enjoyed it, for a Sunday morning breakfast. I’ll let Mrs. Glasse introduce this new-to-me concept of fixing breakfast…

Collops and Eggs

Cut either bacon, pickled beef, or hung mutton, into thin slices, broil them nicely, lay them in a dish before the fire, have ready a stew-pan of water boiling, break as many eggs as you have collops, break them one by one in a cup, and pour them into the stew-pan. When the whites of the eggs begin to harden, and all look of a clear white, take them up one by one in an egg-slice, and lay them on the collops.

So my obvious choice was bacon, because I’m not a fan of beef or lamb for breakfast. If I were to make this as a dinner, then perhaps that would work. But feel free to choose whichever meet you’d like to broil.

It took me a little while to understand why she wants me to put all the eggs into one cup. That way all the eggs cook at the same time, so they’re all done at the same time and ready to serve. By the way, an “egg-slice” is simply a slotted spatula or turner. Because the eggs are rather slick from the boiled water, I think a slotted spoon makes it easier to lift them out without having them end up on the floor. But perhaps that’s just me…

The other thing “new” to me, besides boiling eggs in water without their shells on, was broiling bacon. Only after hubby and I were eating the results did I remember that my family also used a broiler to cook bacon for larger groups. Just like those 18th-century cooks with their large families and frequent visitors, my parents had five children and often we had friends or other family members visiting. Hubby’s aunt also used a broiler to do bacon when she needed to feed a family gathering after a funeral. So it’s really not new, just overlooked on my part. But I don’t have such a large group to feed, and hubby typically cooks the bacon on a flat griddle. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it…

Anyway, here’s my adaptation of this recipe…

Betty’s Bacon Collops and Eggs

Ingredients

4 slices bacon, cut into halves or quarters

4 eggs

Instructions

Heat broiler on high. Arrange bacon on broiler pan and broil until desired crispness, turning occasionally.

Meanwhile, start a pot of water boiling.

Remove bacon from broiler pan to a serving platter and keep warm.

Crack each egg into a small to medium mixing bowl.

Add all eggs at once to boiling water, stirring gently to separate whites as they cook.

When the whites are bright white and the yolks done enough, carefully use a slotted spoon to remove each from the water and arrange on the bacon. Serve hot.

When I made this, I left the slices whole but I discovered it made it rather tricky to serve the bacon and eggs. So next time I’d cut the slices into halves or better into quarters so you have an easier time choosing one egg instead of multiples at one time.

I served this with toasted English muffins and orange juice since I had both on hand. It made for a nice Sunday morning breakfast.

What do you enjoy for breakfast? What meat would you use if you were to make this recipe?

Betty

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In 1782, the fight for independence becomes personal…

When Amy Abernathy’s childhood sweetheart, Benjamin Hanson, leaves to fight in the American War for Independence without a word of goodbye, Amy picks up the pieces of her heart and chooses independence. When Benjamin returns unexpectedly, Amy flees to the country to help her pregnant sister and protect her heart.

Benjamin Hanson knows he hurt Amy, but he also knows he can make it up to her after he completes his mission. Then he learns that Amy has been captured by renegade soldiers. Now Benjamin faces his own choice: free the sassy yet obstinate woman he’s never stopped loving or protect Charles Town from the vengeful British occupation.

 

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This week’s Tasty Tuesday recipe was a delicious challenge to make. I’ve only ever roasted a duckling once before and that was a long time ago. Which is why I added it to my schedule of recipes to adapt. This one ended up being done very differently from the method used by Hannah Glasse. Here’s what she recommended as a method of cooking duckling dressed with green peas.

To dress a Duck with green peas

Put a deep stew-pan over the fire, with a piece of fresh butter; singe your duck and flour it, turn it in the pan two or three minutes, then pour out all the fat, but let the duck remain in the pan: put to it a pint of good gravy, a pint of peas, two lettuces cut small, a small bundle of sweet herbs, a little pepper and salt, cover them close, and let them stew for half an hour, now and then give the pan a shake; when they are just done, grate in a little nutmeg, and put in a very little beaten mace, and thicken it either with apiece of butter rolled in flour, or the yolk of an egg beat up with two or three spoonfuls of cream; shake it all together for three or four minutes, take out the sweet herbs lay the duck in the dish, and pour the sauce over it. You may garnish with boiled mint chopped, or let it alone.

Let’s look at the steps and ingredients involved here and bring them into the 21^st century. First, the deep stew-pan over the fire. I don’t have a pot big enough to hold a 6-pound duckling, so that was my first stumbling point with this recipe. And I’m not using an open flame to cook anything, so I had to decide what to use. I considered using my crock pot, thinking it would be good for ensuring the bird was done through and stayed moist and tender. I could add the ingredients for the peas sauce to the pot and let it simmer.

Before I did, I pulled out my trusty Joy of Cooking cookbook and consulted it on how they recommended roasting duckling. They mentioned that duckling has a high fat content and thus should be roasted on a rack and pricked to release the fat into the roasting pan. I finally decided to do that and make the sauce separately. Unlike Hannah, I seasoned the duckling itself and put it into the oven.

For the sauce then, I waited until the duckling was nearly done before I gathered the ingredients. I did not use the “pint of good gravy” she recommended. Instead, I dissolved some low-sodium chicken bouillon cubes into hot water and used that as my “gravy.” I’ve mentioned before my dislike of mace, so I used seasonings that I know we like.

When I started analyzing the original recipe I questioned using lettuce in the sauce. This was another new concept to me. I did a quick online search and found not only a discussion on why you’d want to cook lettuce but also a cool list of 10 ways to eat lettuce, some of which I hadn’t considered so thought I’d share that with you too. I cut up one small head of Italian lettuce I picked up at my local grocery store, making the pieces fairly small – perhaps one inch squares, give or take. Given that I was not sure we’d like the peas with lettuce mixed together, I decided to serve the sauce on the side so my hubby and son could add as much or as little as they’d like.

 

Note also that Hannah called for a “bundle of sweet herbs” which I assume means fresh herbs from the garden tied together and dropped into the pot and then taken out. Instead, I used dried herbs from bottles in my pantry, but I can’t remove them, so I didn’t use a lot.

 

Here’s my recipe then for duckling with peas.

Betty’s Roasted Duck with Peas

Ingredients

1 6-pound duck, thawed completely

1 T minced garlic

½ T thyme leaves

½ T rosemary leaves, crushed

1 cup hot water

2 chicken bouillon cubes (I used low sodium cubes)

1 small lettuce, cut up into small pieces

1 10-ounce bag of frozen green peas

1 T Italian seasoning

½ tsp black pepper

1 T butter rolled in flour

Instructions

Preheat oven to 450°F.

Place thawed duck on a rack in a shallow roasting pan. Be sure to remove all giblets from neck cavity.

Combine garlic, thyme, and rosemary. Spread over duck.

Put the pan in the oven and immediately reduce the temperature to 350°F. Roast the duck for 20-25 minutes per pound, or 2-2½ hours, or until internal temperature measured with a thermometer at the thigh reaches 185°F. Be sure the thermometer doesn’t touch the bone though.

As the duck nears being done, combine the hot water and bouillon cubes in a saucepan and stir until the cubes are dissolved completely.

Add the peas, lettuce, Italian seasoning and pepper, stirring to combine well.

Cook on medium heat until the lettuce reduces and the peas are tender. Add the butter rolled in flour and simmer until the sauce thickens.

Remove the duck from the oven when done and carve it into slices and pieces. Serve hot with the sauce on the side or you can pour the sauce over the meat if you’d prefer.

I thawed my duckling in the refrigerator. The package says to do so “overnight” which I did for two days. But apparently, that wasn’t quite long enough. When I pulled it out to cook it, there were still ice crystals on it. I had to run hot water over it and inside it to thaw it enough to remove the packet of orange sauce it came with. I didn’t see that there were giblets inside, too, so those got cooked along with the duck. I don’t think it hurt anything, though. But be sure to allow plenty of time for the bird to thaw completely and double-check for giblets.

I think if I were to make the peas sauce again, I might use fresh spinach leaves (not the stalks) instead of lettuce to boost the nutritional value. The sauce wasn’t as thick as I expected, so I might also tinker with the fluid quantity to make it saucier.

Overall, we really enjoyed the duckling alone and with the sauce. The meat was tender and flavorful, and the sweetness of the green peas complemented it well and made it look pretty, too. I was glad that the sauce wasn’t a heavy, rich one as I’m not a fan, so that was a pleasant surprise.

Next week I’m going to do what I think of as a breakfast receipt but I imagine it could be used for brunch or even supper. Until next time, I hope you have good meals and good reads, too!

Betty

P.S. If you haven’t already, please consider signing up for my newsletter, which I only send out when there is news to share. News like new covers, new releases, and upcoming appearances where I love to meet my readers. Thanks and happy reading!

Visit my Website for more on my books and upcoming events.

In 1782, the fight for independence becomes personal in the port city Charles Town, South Carolina.

Midwife and healer, Samantha McAlester returns from the front lines to find Charles Town under British siege and the town’s new doctor at war with its citizens.

Dr. Trent Cunningham intends to build a hospital staffed solely with educated doctors. What he doesn’t need is a raven-haired charlatan spooning out herbs and false promises to his patients, while tempting him at every turn.

Then a mutual friend develops a mysterious infection. Trenton is stumped. Samantha suspects the cure but knows treatment will expose her long-guarded secret, risking all she holds dear… including Trenton.

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Kobo: http://bit.ly/1HkamyG

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iBooks: http://apple.co/1BOdiiB

Google: http://bit.ly/1Dqj7tF

I have a funny story along with a foolproof recipe for Tasty Tuesday! Today we’re going to find out about how to stew chickens for dinner. Not chicken stew, but stewed chicken. As usual, I’ll let Hannah Glasse tell us in a bit more detail what we’re aiming for.

A pretty Way of stewing Chickens

Take two fine chickens, half boil them, then take them up in a pewter or silver dish, if you have one, cut up your fowls, and separate all the joint bones one from another, and then take out the breast-bones. If there is not liquor enough from the fowls, add a few spoonfuls of the water they were boiled in, put in a blade of mace, and a little salt; cover it close with another dish, set it over a stove or chafing dish of coals, let it stew till the chickens are enough, and then send them hot to the table in the same dish they were stewed in.

Note, This is a very pretty dish for any sick person, or for a lying in lady. For change, it is better than butter, and the sauce is very agreeable and pretty.

N.B. You may do rabbits, partridges, or moor-game, this way.

So, essentially she wants us to cook the chickens twice: once in boiling water, and then over coals. She’s wise, let me tell you. In fact, my funny story is about making Cornish hens for New Year’s Eve dinner one year. I stuffed their little chest cavities with long grain and wild rice and put them in the oven. Their skin turned all golden brown, but the flesh would not cook. Not even in the microwave, which I finally grew desperate enough to try. I think we ended up eating pizza… And my family will never let me forget it, either. So I was overjoyed to find this method of cooking them!

I didn’t have to make many adjustments to this recipe. After all, there are not many ingredients to begin with. Instead of using two whole chickens, since again I’m adapting these to dinner for two as much as possible, I used Cornish hens. If you were feeding a larger crowd though, you might want to adjust up to two whole chickens. And instead of mace and salt, I used my old standbys of garlic powder, Italian seasoning, and black pepper.

I also had to have my hubby do the separation of the hens’ joints because while I’m recovering from my shoulder surgery, I’m not strong enough to do that yet. Even he had a bit of difficulty with locating the joint to cut through it on the small-boned birds.

So here’s my take on making stewed chicken…

Betty’s Stewed Cornish Hens

Ingredients

2 Cornish hens, thawed

Garlic powder, to taste

Italian seasoning, to taste

Black pepper, to taste

Instructions

Preheat oven to 350°F.

In a large pot of boiling water, parboil the hens. Carefully remove them (as their skin/flesh is very tender) to a large cutting board.

Separate the joints and lay the breasts and pieces in a covered casserole dish.

Sprinkle with seasonings; cover and place in the oven for 45-60 minutes or until done.

I steamed some broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots, and boiled up some small honey gold potatoes to add to the dish before serving it. It did make a nice presentation and tasted even better than it looked. We had enough for two meals out of it. The best part is that they were cooked through without any snide remarks…

I’ve also had success with cooking Cornish hens in my crockpot. That’s easier than having to cut up the birds, too. Have you found a fool-proof way to stew chicken or hens?

Betty

P.S. If you haven’t already, please consider signing up for my newsletter, which I only send out when there is news to share. News like new covers, new releases, and upcoming appearances where I love to meet my readers. Thanks and happy reading!

Visit my Website for more on my books and upcoming events.

Emily Sullivan’s greatest fear is dying in childbirth, as did her twin sister and their mother. Then she’s thrown in a loyalist prison for her privateering father’s raids on the British, and her accuser–a former beau–promises to recant if she will marry him.

Frank Thomson always loved Emily despite her refusal to return his affections. A patriot spy posing as a loyalist officer, when Frank learns of Emily’s plight, he challenges her accuser to a duel.

Freed from prison, Emily ponders returning the affections of her rescuer–the only man she’s ever loved and who married her twin to save the Sullivan family’s reputation. But Frank cannot afford to be discovered. For the sake of young America, he must deliver his secrets.

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