Kitchen
Martyrdom and Oven Fixation
With Some Recipes
for Christmas Leftovers
The big
Aussie cookery database, BestRecipes, provided a list in December 2018 of “Top
20 Christmas leftover recipes”, with the note “Use up your delicious
Christmas leftovers with these simple, fuss-free recipes.”
Oops. Nearly all of the recipes—all very
tasty-sounding and if not rateable as “easy”, as most of their authors claim, certainly
attainable by the average home cook—are examples, in fact exemplars, of that
old Antipodean syndrome, Kitchen Martyrdom. It occurs in the female of the species
at any time of year but especially at Christmas, and is closely linked to the other
malady suffered by the home cooks of Australia and New Zealand for over a
century: the Oven Fixation.
The combination of Kitchen Martyrdom and
Oven Fixation means that you have to
use your oven, never mind if the climate is totally unsuited to it (it’s SUMMER
at Christmas in the Antipodes). In many places in Australia the temperature during
the week after Christmas will normally be over 35° C. It’s bushfire weather.
But
okay, let’s rush into our kitchens and turn our ovens on, meanwhile we’re running
the ducted air-con full blast throughout the house and complaining bitterly
about the electricity bills—which often run into many thousands of dollars
annually, no kidding.
Post-Christmas martyrdom
You want to
slave over yet more hot oven-baked dishes after the marathon of Christmas Day?
Go on, martyr yourself.
I’m not exaggerating. These fourteen dishes
from the “Top 20 Christmas leftover recipes” all need to be cooked in the oven.
Many also require some pre-cooking on the stove top:
(1) Beef and
Guinness Pie (does not use leftovers)
(2) Chicken,
Leek and Corn Pie
(3) Chicken
Mornay Bake (pasta and chicken casserole)
(4) Ham and
Cheese Puff (an unusual dish with ham, eggs, cheese and bread)
(5) Ham and
Pineapple Pinwheels (savouries, with pastry)
(6) Ham and
Vegetable Slice (with eggs)
(7) Leftover
Lamb Shepherd’s Pie
(8) Shepherd’s
Pie with Turkey
(9) Silverbeet
and Ham Puff Pastry Pie
(10) Slow
Cooker Pea and Ham Soup (in summer?)
(11) Turkey
and Cranberry Mini Quiches (savouries)
(12) Turkey
and Pumpkin Lasagne
(13) Vegetable,
Ham and Noodle Cups (with eggs)
(14) Vegetable,
Rice and Cranberry Salad (requires roasting sweet potatoes & onions)
Five more are stove-top recipes which require
quite a lot of standing over a hot stove:
(1) Easy
Mexican Rice with Barbecue Chicken (a Mexican-style pilaf)
(2) Fried
Rice (Asian-style pilaf—does not use leftovers)
(3) Leftover
Roast Fritters (using leftover roast beef)
(4) Paella (a
well-explained version which received very favourable comments)
(5) Turkey
Rissoles (Asian flavours: a new touch)
There
was only one recipe in the list which didn’t need the oven or the stove and would
be more suited to the Australian summer for which the recipes are intended:
(1) Cranberry
and Herb Couscous with Grilled Chicken (chicken salad; leftover turkey or chicken
may be used, without grilling)
Oven Fixation, by the way, is far from confined to
one side of the Tasman: the New Zealand cookbooks also suffer from it to an
advanced degree: as I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog article, “Can This Be Cauli?”, the
hugely popular New Zealand cookbook, the Edmonds
Cookery Book, typifies the attitudes of its time towards “cooking”, in which
baking dominated the scene. In the 1968 reprint of the “De Luxe” 1955 edition, 52
of the 120 pages of recipes are devoted to baked goods. “Desserts”, often also needing
the oven, get 27 pages. Meat, fish, soups, vegetables, pickles, preserves, jams
& jellies, salads, sauces and sweets all had to be fitted in as well.
You just weren’t a cook at this period if
you couldn’t use your oven to bake a proper cake—ranging from towering sponges
to giant fruity Christmas and wedding cakes—and produce a superb dessert, pavlova
being the type species but such delights as apple crumble, fruit pies, baked
custard, sponge pudding, rice pudding, and bread-and-butter pudding also being de rigeur in the repertoire.
It’s sad to see that the Kitchen Martyrdom and
Oven Fixation phenomena which afflicted our grandmothers and great-grandmothers
are still being encouraged in the 21st century.
I’ll give you
a few examples of combined Kitchen Martyrdom and Oven Fixation which really struck
me when I was looking at some old Australian cookery books dating from the very
early 1950s. But to spare your sensibilities, especially if you’re reading this
in summer, I’ll also provide some alternatives that won’t require you to turn your
oven on and send your power bill rocketing through the roof.
** Horrible
disguises: leftovers, circa 1949
In the Australian
Green and Gold Cookery Book of circa 1949
there are a lot of recipes for using up leftovers—mainly of roast beef or
mutton (lamb, it would be today). They mostly entail a lot of fiddling around,
and definitely the hot stove or oven. Here’s just one example that shows you clearly
that the desperate housewives of around 1949-1950 were, if possible, even more martyrs
to their kitchen stoves than today’s online viewers of BestRecipes:
Dresden Patties
cold fowl or any meat; stock or milk; slices
of stale bread; half cup cream; one tablespoon flour, one of butter.
Cut bread 2 in. [4 1/2 – 5 cm] thick into
rounds 2 in. Remove centre of each round half way through. Dip in cream, brush
with egg, when drained, sprinkle with crumbs.
Fry in hot fat. and fill centres with the
meat mixture, that has been stewed for five or ten minutes.
--M. Higginbottom.
(Green
and Gold Cookery Book: Containing Many Good and Proved Recipes. 15th ed. (rev.), Adelaide, R.M. Osborne, [1949?])
The book
gives this as a “luncheon” recipe, and it is certainly dainty enough not to be
for a mere lunch! Was Mr Higginbottom favoured with it, one wonders, or was it
reserved for those ladies’ luncheons when he was at work?
The use of the word “patties” is interesting.
The chicken or meat content would certainly have to be minced or finely shredded,
as one would for patties, which in Australia today are generally called “rissoles”,
but the end result is not modern patties. The recipe, in fact, is almost
verbatim Mrs Wicken's 1894 recipe for “Swiss Patés”
(Philip E. Muskett and Mrs H. Wicken. The
Art of Living in Australia, by Philip E. Muskett; Together With Three Hundred
Australian Cookery Recipes and Accessory Kitchen Information by Mrs. H. Wicken.
London, Eyre and Spottiswoode, [1894]) How they got from Switzerland to
Dresden, unclear! But “patés” might help to explain “patties”, yes. The original
is better: this one, typically of its period, drops the herbs that Mrs Wicken
included.
** Christmas ham
or turkey leftovers today
Personally, for
cold turkey I can’t go past the good old American traditional sandwich that we
had that delirious 1966/67 Christmas-New Year in Dallas, Texas:
Turkey, Cranberry Sauce & Mayo Sandwich
Makes 1:
2
slices bread of your choice;
1 thick slice cold leftover turkey meat;
1
tablespoon cranberry sauce or cranberry jelly;
mayonnaise
Optional:
salt & pepper to taste
(1) Spread the mayonnaise on each slice of
bread.
(2) Spread the cranberry sauce or jelly on 1
slice.
(3) Put the cold turkey on top of this.
(4) Add salt & pepper to taste; the mayo
has salt in it so you probably don't need any. My only change to the original
is that I like a good grinding of black peppercorns with it.
(5) Put the two slices together and enjoy the
best post-Christmas sandwich in the world!
Here’s a variation on the post-Chrissie sandwich
you may also enjoy; it takes advantage of the seasonal stone fruits in Australia
and New Zealand:
Stone Fruit & Christmas Leftovers Open Sandwich
Makes 2:
1 ripe peach or nectarine;
2 slices ham or turkey, each about the size
of a bread slice;
2-3 tablespoons ricotta or cottage cheese;
2 slices bread of your choice; honey; black
pepper
(1) Lightly toast bread slices.
(2) Halve the fruit, remove the stone, peel
peach if you prefer, and slice each half into 3 or 4.
(3) Cut the ham or turkey slices into small
pieces.
(4) Spoon about 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons
ricotta or cottage cheese onto each toasted slice and sprinkle liberally with freshly
ground black pepper.
(5) Add the pieces of ham or turkey, pressing
them lightly into the cheese, intersperse them with the fruit slices, and drizzle
lightly with honey.
(Adapted from the recipe “Peach, Prosciutto
& Ricotta Crostini” from Epicurious.com)
** Salad ideas
for leftovers (turkey, ham, chicken)
For a larger
meal, why not have a salad as your main dish? Of course if you insist on filling
the kitchen with raging hot steam you could do a potato salad as well, but here
are just a few unusual ideas for cold salad combos needing no cooking, in which
you can use leftover turkey, ham, or cold chicken:
* With a
Spanish touch: mix with finely sliced red capsicums, peas (fresh or
frozen, soaked in hot water 1/2 hour & drained well) or fresh snow peas, chopped
fresh herb, e.g. tarragon, coriander; mix with a mustardy vinaigrette, serve on
salad platter lined with lettuce.
(idea from “Carmen
Salad - Salade Carmen”, (M.J. Leto
and W.K.H. Bode. The Larder Chef.
London, Heinemann, 1969)
* With Asian flavours:
mix with fresh snow peas, finely sliced baby bok choy and cucumber, a little
slice red or green chilli to taste, a little grated fresh ginger, drizzle with
an Asian-style dressing.
(Idea from “Asian
Chicken Salad with Snap Peas and Bok Choy”, Epicurious.com)
* With English Christmas
flavours: mix with chopped celery, chopped bottled or tinned chestnuts,
finely sliced capsicum, serve with mayonnaise on salad platter lined with
lettuce.
(Idea from “English
Chicken Salad”, 365 Foreign Dishes: A
Foreign Dish for Every Day in the Year. Philadelphia, G.W. Jacobs &
Co., [1908])
As you can
see from the first and last of these, the ideas were around for a long time.
But the cooks of the Antipodes didn’t seem to jump on them. Jellied beetroot
was about the level (see earlier blog, Beetroot
Fixation, Or, Vini Vidi Vinegar Again).
They preferred to slave over a hot stove to
use up leftovers, preferably disguising them as something else entirely.
** Having your cake
and… having your cake?
Okay, the presents
have been unwrapped, the stomachs bloated and the crumpled wrapping paper all
tidied away. But don’t let’s be sensible and settle for the leftover Chrissie
cake that no-one could face on the day.
Why the demented editors of South Australia’s
Calendar of Cakes imagined that you’d
want to put your oven on again to whip up a cake two days after Christmas beats
me, but here it is:
Quick Crumb Coffee Cake
For December 27
1 lb. S.R. flour (4 cups), 1/2 level teaspoon
salt, 1/2 lb. sugar (1 cup), 1/2 lb. butter (1 cup), 4 eggs, 1 cup milk, and
flavouring.
Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Add sugar
and rub in butter until mixture is coarse and crumbly. Now measure out 2 cups
of this mixture and reserve it for the top of cake. To the remainder add the
well-beaten eggs, milk, and a few drops essence of lemon. (When eggs are scarce,
use 3 eggs and extra milk.) Mix lightly but thoroughly to the usual cake
batter, which will just drop from the spoon. Turn into a greased tin about 13
ins. x 10 ins.
Then sprinkle over this the reserved mixture,
to which is added 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon and a few chopped almonds. Press it in
lightly here and there, and bake in a moderate oven for about 45 minutes.
Halve all ingredients for a smaller cake, and
bake in tin about 8 ins. square.
--MRS. N. NESS (Mount Hope).
(Calendar
of Cakes. [4th ed.], Adelaide, South Australian Country Women's Association,
[1951?])
The name is
misleading: it’s a cake for eating with
your coffee. The technique of topping the cake in this way would reappear later
in the century, offered with considerable enthusiasm as an exotic new way of making
a cinnamon cake. It is a lovely cake, but on December 27?
Mrs N. Ness’s cake was far from the only contender.
There’s a cake a day, geddit? Keep ’em
chained to it, that’s the attitude. Well, heck, we don’t wanna be shamed if the
rellies unexpectedly pop over to see us and we’ve got nothing but water crackers
and Vegemite to offer them for afternoon tea, do we?
** Searching
for sense…
In the
companion volume, the Calendar of Puddings, one or two valiant home
cooks offered recipes which would be far more sensible for the Antipodean
summer. Coincidentally, the one for December 27 is the complete antithesis to
Mrs Ness’s cake. It’s got coffee in the name, it does contain coffee, and it
doesn’t require baking. You’re gonna be making cups of coffee anyway, so why
not give a coffee jelly a go?
Spiced Coffee Jelly
For December 27
Simmer 3 cups strong black coffee for 10
minutes with 2 cloves and a small piece of stick cinnamon. Strain, and add 1/2
cup sugar and 1 1/2 level tablespoons gelatine which has been dissolved in
1/3rd cup hot water. Stir till both are dissolved.
Chill until the jelly begins to set, and then
stir in 1 dessertspoon finely chopped preserved ginger and a few chopped nuts. Chill
till well set in mould.
Serve with ice cream or rich custard. May be
broken with fork and served in individual dishes.
--MRS. C. E. DOLLING (Deputy State President).
(Calendar
of Puddings: A Pudding a Day for the Whole Year. [5th ed.], [Adelaide, S. Aust.], South Australian Country
Women's Association, [1952?])
** Dotty with desserts
Apart from Mrs
Dolling’s shining example, most of the summer desserts are just as dotty as the
cakes, alas. Again, it’s one a day, and they nearly all require baking and/or
stove-top cooking. I’ve just picked out a few.
* Lemons on
January 7:
Creamy Lemon Tart
For January 7
8 ozs. S.R. flour, 4 ozs. butter 3 ozs.
sugar, 1 egg, a pinch of salt.
Sift flour and salt, add sugar, and rub in
butter. Mix to a stiff dough with egg and a little milk. Roll out and line two
9-in. tins or deep tart plates. Bake in moderate oven until cooked (about 25
minutes).
When cold, mix this filling: 1 tin condensed
milk, 2 yolks eggs, rind 1 1/2 lemons, 1/4 pint lemon juice. Stir all together
and pour on cooked pastry cases. Beat the 2 egg whites stiffly, beat in 3 dessertspoons
sugar, and pile on lemon filling. Bake a golden brown in slow oven (about 20
minutes).
—MRS. E. G. PEARSON (Ungarra), MRS. H.
GRIFFITHS (Smithfield), and MRS. K. FEIGE (Monash).
(Calendar
of Puddings: A Pudding a Day for the Whole Year. [5th ed.], [Adelaide, S. Aust.], South Australian Country
Women's Association, [1952?])
Lemons are not
actually in season in Australia in January—however. As with many of its contemporaries
there is no indication as to whether we eat this hot or cold. Given that the
oven's been on and on 7th January it’s probably 35°C in the shade, who would care? Have a cold beer and give the
whole thing away.
The recipe is a version of the ever-popular “Lemon
Meringue Pie” (or “Lemon Chiffon Pie” in America), which has remained an Antipodean
favourite for many decades. Three ladies sent in this same recipe, as you can
see, and there are two other versions in the Calendar of Puddings: “Canadian Lemon Pie”, from two contributors, for
February 25, and “Lemon Pie”, from two contributors, for March 17. Likewise,
the Green and Gold Cookery Book (15th
ed. (rev.), Adelaide, R.M. Osborne) gives us three versions, circa 1949.
** Cool lemon alternatives:
Supposing you’ve
got lemons in summer, try these; they’re my 3 favourite desserts using lemons.
The first merely uses lemon to set the filling:
Ruth's Cream Cheese Cake
An uncooked cream cheesecake with a readymade
pastry base.
8
oz [about 250g] cream cheese;
1
tin sweetened condensed milk;
1/2
teaspoon vanilla; 1/2 cup (or more)
lemon juice;
short
pastry shell/s;
blackcurrant
jam or grape jelly for topping
Beat cream cheese till smooth; beat in
condensed milk, add vanilla and stir.
Add lemon juice slowly, stirring - this thickens
it. (It may need more than 1/2 cup).
Fill pastry shell/s and put in refrigerator
(it will thicken further).
Top with blackcurrant jam or grape jelly.
(From Ruth Baker, circa 1969/1970)
There are many
versions of this cheesecake nowadays, but this genuine early one is really easy
if you want a yummy, fancy-looking solider dessert with no hot cooking.
* Seduced by lemon
granita
The next
recipe is from an English book of really delightful recipes. If you follow the author’s
instructions (I’ve reformatted them slightly but it is his recipe), you’ll succeed
in making a frozen water ice which is a million times more refreshing than any
bought ice cream:
Lemon Sherbet (Granita)
An easy water-ice for 2 that requires no churning;
but be careful: the timing is crucial!
1
cup lemon juice; 1 cup sugar; 2 cups
water
grated
rind of 1/2 Lisbon lemon (not a Mayer)
1. Mix 1 cup sugar with 2 cups water, boil
for 5 mins and cool.
2. Add a cup of strained lemon juice and the
grated rind of 1/2 lemon, stir quickly and pour into a metal refrigerator dish.
3. Freeze for 1 1/2 hrs, not longer. It will
be ready to eat after 1 1/2 hours but too hard after that. Rake it with a fork
once it starts to freeze (after about an hour).
To serve, spoon into 2 sherbet glasses. If
liked, top each with a whole strawberry and two mint leaves.
(James Chatto. The Seducer’s Cookbook. Newton Abbot, David & Charles, [1981])
* Jelly from
way back
The next recipe
is for a lemon jelly. I use 1 lemon and 2 packets of gelatine (20g total) to
about 3 cups of water, for a mild jelly, but here’s a genuine early recipe for
you. If you’ve got a nice Lisbon lemon or similar, you could add a little
grated zest:
Lemon Jelly
1/2 Box of Gelatine; 1/2 Cupful of Cold Water;
1-1/2
Cupfuls of Boiling Water; 1
Cupful of Sugar; 3 Lemons
Soak gelatine in the cold water for half an hour.
Add boiling water, sugar and juice of lemons.
Stir well and strain into mould or small
cups.
(Lydia Maria Gurney. The Things Mother Used To Make: A Collection of Old Time Recipes, Some
Nearly One Hundred Years Old and Never Published Before. New York, Frank A.
Arnold, 1914)
** Apricots on
January 23:
I’d recommend
this for midwinter, not midsummer! You could use tinned apricots:
Apricot Delight
For January 23
Beat 1/4 cup butter and 1/4 cup sugar to a
cream. Add 1 beaten egg, 1 tablespoon milk, then 1 1/2 cups S.R. flour. Roll
out 1 in. thick. Place in greased sandwich tin.
Spread stewed apricots (dried or fresh) over.
Must be well drained and almost dry. Beat 1 egg and 1 cup sugar with 1 cup desiccated
cocoanut, and spread on top of apricots with a fork. Bake in moderately hot
oven 15 to 20 minutes. This is a delicious sweet.
--MRS. K. W. BRUCE (Riverton).
(Calendar
of Puddings: A Pudding a Day for the Whole Year. [5th ed.], [Adelaide, S. Aust.], South Australian
Country Women's Association, [1952?])
Apricots are
in season in South Australia in January. They grow extremely well there. Nevertheless
it’s too hot to have your oven on—as well as the stove top for stewing the fruit,
too!
** Cool down
with apricot jelly
Here’s a Middle
Eastern alternative which is much, much more sensible in summer:
Apricot Pudding
3 lb [1 1/2 kg] dessert apricots; juice 2 oranges;
3/4 oz. [20 g] gelatine; juice 1/2 lemon; caster sugar;
1/4 pint hot water; whipped double cream (optional)
few halved apricots and chopped almonds or
pistachio nuts to decorate
Turn the apricots into a puree by rubbing
through to sieve or by putting in electric blender with orange and lemon juice.
(Add caster sugar if required, depending on the sweetness of the fruit.)
Stir gelatine in a little hot water or fruit juice
till completely dissolved. Add to puree. Sieve the mixture and whisk it, or
blend again, till smooth and creamy.
Pour into a wetted mould and chill for 3-4
hrs. It should set very firmly.
To unmould, dip the mould for a few seconds
in very hot water and turn out immediately onto a cold serving dish.
Decorate with whipped cream if liked, and
with a few halved apricots and a sprinkling of chipped almonds or pistachios.
(Claudia Roden. A Book of Middle Eastern Food. Harmondsworth, England, Penguin,
1970.)
I’ve read a modern
version of this which used tinned “apricot nectar”, but to me the nectar always
tastes slightly tinny.
** Peaches on February
1:
Upside-down
cakes were popular from about this period, the standard being pineapple
upside-down cake. The author calls this a pie but she makes a “cake batter”.
Upside-Down Peach Pie
For February 1
(Uses Fresh or Preserved Peaches)
Cream 1/4 cup butter with 2/3rds cup sugar.
Beat in 1 egg, well beaten. Sift 2 1/4 cups plain flour with 3 teaspoons baking
powder and a pinch of salt. Add this alternately with about 1 cup milk to make
a cake batter. Melt 2 or 3 tablespoons butter in a 10-in. cake tin. Spread 3
tablespoons brown sugar evenly over this. Then place half peaches (or sliced
peaches) in a pattern on the sugar. Pour cake mixture over all. Bake in a
moderately hot oven 30 to 40 minutes. When cooked, turn upside-down on a large
plate. Serve with cream or custard sauce. Family-sized dessert.
--MRS. R. P. BAILEY (Yongala).
(Calendar
of Puddings: A Pudding a Day for the Whole Year. [5th ed.], [Adelaide, S.
Aust.], South Australian Country Women's Association, [1952?])
True, peaches
are in season in South Australia at this time, but must you put your oven on,
Mrs Bailey? It could well be 43°
C!
** Very cool
(hic!) peaches
Try this slightly
tipsy alternative instead:
Peaches With Fresh Raspberry Sauce
4
ripe peaches; 250g (1 punnet)
raspberries;
4
tablespoons icing sugar; 1 tablespoon
kirsch;
1
tablespoon orange flavoured liqueur
Peel the peaches and split each in two. Place
upside down in individual bowls.
Mash raspberries with remaining ingredients,
either with a fork or in a blender/food processor.
Pour over peaches. –Serves 4.
(David Burton. Delectable Fruits Cookery for New Zealanders. Auckland, Reed Methuen,
1985)
Well, there it is. Kitchen Martyrdom and
Oven Fixation are real phenomena. But If you don’t want to martyr yourself in traditional
fashion, or spend a fortune on electricity, that’s given you a few alternatives—if
you can be bothered making anything fancier than a simple lettuce and tomato salad
to eat with your sliced cold turkey or ham, or a fruit salad with bought ice
cream!
We’ve got refrigeration; we can have fresh
food (or at the very least, frozen) all year round. Why do we still indulge in martyring
ourselves in the kitchen over summer?
Wishing
you a very Merry Christmas 2019—and if possible, a cool one!
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