#anAWWyear - March 1948: Food

March has several themed food features, each with bright and attractive photographs, but the real winners this month were once again the reader recipes. 

It isn't simple or easy to transport picnic food, but it does look impressive.
Australian Women's Weekly, 27 March 1948, p 33

I was initially attracted to this picnic feature, as my four year old is extremely fond of picnics, but none of the recipes were going to work for me this month. I was intrigued by the 'salad croquettes' (more misuse of the word salad!) combining cold meat, veggies and mashed potato, but these are deep fried, and I don't have the set up for that. 

Australian Women's Weekly,  6 March 1948, p 33

Another feature is this one with a variety of chicken meals, none of which I tried as they were either salad/dainty style meals which my husband wouldn't eat, or were styles for which I already have favourite recipes.  But I do like the ramekin holder illustrated here holding individual serves of chicken a la king.

There was a reader recipe for carrot marmalade which sounded good

Four large carrots, 4 lemons, 4 pints water, 41b. sugar. Wash and scrub carrots, do not peel. Grate on coarse grater, place in large bowl. Wash and slice lemons thinly, remove seeds. Add to grated carrot. Cover with the water, stand overnight. Turn into preserving pan, cook quickly 1½ hours, or until lemons are quite tender. Add warmed sugar, cook quickly until it "jells" when tested on cold saucer - about 1 hour. Pour into hot, dry jars, seal and label when cold.

Sadly even if this turned out well, I knew I'd be the only one eating it!

In the end both recipes I made were from the same issue's reader recipes, one winning the first prize of £1 one a consolation price of 2/6.

I made the oatmeal gingerbread the first time when my son had a friend over, and they'd reached the not wanting to share toys stage and needed a distraction. As a result, a few  ingredients were skipped or substituted, a few things went awry, and while the end result wasn't amazing I felt it had the potential to be better if I made it again properly.

OATMEAL GINGERBREAD

Two cups flour, 1 cup oatmeal, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 teaspoon mixed spice, 1 teaspoon baking powder, pinch salt, 2oz. margarine or butter, 1 teaspoon grated lemon rind, 2 tablespoons sugar, 1 tablespoon golden syrup, 1 tablespoon treacle, 1 egg, good ½ cup milk.

Sift flour, ginger, spice, baking powder, and salt. Rub in margarine or butter, add oatmeal and lemon rind. Beat egg, add treacle, syrup, and milk, stir into dry ingredients, mixing well. Pour into greased slab tin. Bake in moderate oven (350 deg. F.) 40 to 50 minutes. Turn on to cake cooler, when cold top with vanilla-flavored warm icing. 

By a 'good' ½ cup milk, it means that plus another teaspoon or two to make it mix properly - I mixed the ½ cup in with the other wet ingredients, then added a tiny bit more at the end. It won't 'pour' into the tin - I ended up with a dough that I had to flatten out in the tin. I also found that I didn't need to bake it for as long as it suggested -mine only took 30 minutes to be cooked through.
I really like the texture given by the oatmeal, and I found that the children liked it. It isn't as heavy or spiced as proper gingerbread, and so is more of a "mild gingerbready slice". I used the lemon I'd grated the rind from to make a lemon icing which I thought went very well.

The second trial of the oatmeal gingerbread. 

The prize-winning recipe this month was Prune-stuffed steak, which I made for my husband and I. (The boy won't eat steak at all.)

PRUNE-STUFFED STEAK

Two pounds topside steak, cut in one thick piece with a pocket cut deeply into one side, 1¼ cups breadcrumbs, ¼ teaspoon mixed herbs, 1 egg, little margarine or butter, salt and pepper to taste, 1 teaspoon chopped parsley, good pinch grated lemon rind, pinch nutmeg, 1 lb. prunes, three rashers bacon.

Trim steak and wipe with damp cloth. Place a layer of stoned prunes on bottom of pocket. Mix all seasoning ingredients with melted margarine or butter and beaten egg. Press a layer of stuffing on top of prunes, and then arrange another layer of prunes on top. Fasten together with skewers or sew with strong cotton. Place in baking dish with hot fat, cook in moderate oven (350deg. F.) 1 hour, turning meat several times. Place rashers of bacon on top, cook another half hour or until meat is tender. Serve piping hot with vegetables and brown gravy. 

I was not going to cook one giant two pound steak, so I made this with two smaller steaks instead.
I made up the same amount of stuffing, and just didn't use it all. I did not use anywhere near a whole pound of prunes, and I obviously adjusted the cooking times to allow for the smaller size of the steaks.

The prunes and stuffing in the pockets. Looks strangely like I've put oreos in the steak.

The final cooked steak. 

It was really nice and we enjoyed it, although we both decided that it needed some extra flavour in the stuffing.  We made it again the next week, adding some mustard to the stuffing mix, and trying this time with chicken breasts. I liked this version too, but somehow the prunes and chicken seem a more expected pairing? The prunes and the steak together are still the winner for me.

#anAWWyear - September 1947 Recipes: A Taste of Spring

I'm sure in many parts of the world, even in the magazines of the 1940s, there is a 'back to school' focus in September, but Australia avoids this by lining up the school year with the calendar year. September for us is the end of winter and the start of spring, so in the recipe features of this month we start to see the shift to lighter, cooler meals, including salads.

This is raw vegetable salad (in the lettuce cups) with an unidentified other dish.
Australian Women's Weekly, Sep 27 1947, p46

I tried one recipe from this "Taste of Spring" feature, the Glazed Lamb Slices.

The glazed lamb recipe.
Australian Women's Weekly, Sep 27 1947, p46

Not a great reproduction, but the recipe is simple: put two tablespoons of mint jelly in a saucepan, and when heated and runny, add 1/2 tspn gelatine powder and stir until it is dissolved. Then add 1 teaspoon melted butter, 1 teaspoon vinegar (I used white wine vinegar, you could probably use apple cider vinegar too. I don't know if I'd use a dark coloured one with the mint jelly. If I were to use the currant jelly as suggested as an option then obviously you could.), and the spices, It says 'celery, salt and pepper' - I used just salt and pepper as that's what I had and I wasn't sure it was meant to be 'celery salt' or something else. As you continue to stir it will start to thicken. At that point, spread it onto slices of lamb roast that you have leftover from last night. I covered 6 slices easily with this. It sets very quickly.

I loved this. It seemed strange to re-gelatine jelly but the added ingredients really made a difference and it tasted divine. My husband took one bite and announced 'this is cold.' I wasn't sure why he was surprised - I had never said the lamb would be hot - but he doesn't appreciate cold meats. He heated it in the microwave and the glaze held up well - I was expecting it to melt off but it was fine, just got a bit squishier but stayed on the lamb. The three year old refused to touch it, or the plain lamb, and ate ham instead. 

I don't have a photo of the finished dish because green jelly glaze on slices of meat is not very photogenic. I took several photos and they all looked unappetising. It might take a professional food stylist to make this look great. In person it looked a bit strange but not awful, and it tasted great. I'm definitely keeping this as an option for leftover roast. 

There were quite a few interesting savoury dishes this month. If you have a hankering for a meat loaf variant, another feature has several, including the pictured jellied veal and ham loaf, and a curried rabbit and vegetable loaf which I would absolutely try if I could find a decent source of rabbit. 

Jellied meat, jellied dessert and salad. Must be Spring
Australian Women's Weekly, Sep 13, p42

Another theme for this month was cakes and other tea-time recipes. One page featured a few interesting savoury options including cheese loaf sandwiches and bread rolls, hollowed out, stuffed with a mix of finely chopped hard-boiled egg, cold white sauce and curry powder, allowed to firm and then sliced to serve.  I tried something from a selection of cake, pudding and biscuit recipes all starting from the same basic mixture. While it makes that claim, it does actually change the basic batter for the different categories, and gives ways to change that basic mix to make things cheaper.

So many variants.
Australian Women's Weekly, Sep 6 1947, p49

The one I opted for was in the baked pudding category and named 'Australian Layer Pudding'. 

You start with the basic batter recipe: 

Cream 4oz butter and 4oz sugar well. Beat in 2-3 eggs one at a time. (I used 2, as modern eggs run slightly larger) Add the flavoring. (I used 1/2 tspn vanilla, one of the listed options)  Fold in 8oz sifted flour and 2 teaspoons baking powder alternately with 1 cup milk.

Then you split the batter in half and colour one half pink. Into the pie dish (I used a Pyrex casserole dish, but next time I would use an actual pie dish I think) you place alternating spoonfuls of the pink and white in a piedish. On top of each you place a teaspoonful of jam (I used strawberry, as it was in the fridge). I baked for about 40 mins at 180. If I made it again, I'd only do one depth of dollop or bake for maybe 5-10 mins more (although my oven is being hinky.) The recipe recommended serving hot with custard. So I did.

My 'Australian Layer Pudding'

It was tasty - everyone in the house ate this. I feel as though the colour contrast wasn't that great, so maybe the pink needed to be more bright.  Texturally it was very similar to cake - I couldn't tell what made this a baked pudding and not a cake.

#anAWWyear - August 1947 Food: Eggless Apple Cake and more

I have long had an interest in the history of domestic technology and food, and indeed have written on the history of food as part of an Australian Christmas. As a result I ended up looking at and absolutely adoring many 19th and early 20th century recipe books and household advice manuals. (Project Gutenberg has a great selection to get you started for free - I will do a post reviewing some of my favourites from there soon.)  I have recipe types which I particularly look for because I like them - I adore 'themed' menu plans and I'm always looking for cake and cookie recipes. There are also those I search out because of the 'wtf' factor - the many, many ways in which the word 'salad' is abused probably tops my list. I've been looking forward to the recipe side of this challenge.

Recipes in the Australian Women's Weekly come in three main categories - the featured recipes in each issue, the recipes sent in by readers for prize consideration, and recipes which feature in advertisements. The format of many Kraft advertisements from this year was an 'advertorial' style recipe column which gives recipes, general cooking advice and some household tips - all linking back to Kraft products. The one in the August 2nd issue is giving fish recipes for a 'couponless' meal plan, a reminder that there was still food rationing in force in 1947. I was particularly struck by the recipe for Mock Mushroom soup, as that seems like a strange thing to mock up.

I cannot imagine being so desperate for vague taste of mushroom that I would serve this.
Still, never say never. Australian Women's Weekly, Aug 2 1947, p12.

Rationing also gives us recipes from readers to get around the need for particular ingredients, such as this reader-submitted recipe for Eggless Apple Cake.

Didn't win the first prize at the time, but it was the best of the issue's recipes from my point of view.
Australian Women's Weekly, Aug 9 1947, p54.

This produces a lovely, delicately spiced chocolate apple cake.

Delicious cake, ready to be eaten with afternoon tea. 

 Notes for the recipe as written: while the recipe says to cream the butter and sugar, the amounts given just don't 'cream' together as one is used to in other recipes. No matter how long I mixed, it stayed quite grainy and separate and I was convinced I'd either misread the recipe (did it in fact say 3/4 cup of sugar? Maybe 1/4 cup? something else entirely?) or the original recipe was wrong. But once the warm apple pulp is mixed in everything dissolves and melts in anyway. (Which I didn't sieve, btw. I just smushed it up in the saucepan. I got the cup from 4 apples with some left over.)

The apple cake before icing.

It also says to cover it in 'warm' chocolate icing - icing can be a very personal preference. I used a glaze style (sifted icing sugar and cocoa with some boiling water). A heavier buttercream might be too much!

After adding the glaze. 

Because this recipe is already excluding eggs, and only has the one tablespoon of butter, I decided to try to make a vegan version (for the Tuesday night gaming group, one of whom is vegan). I substituted one tablespoon of vegetable oil (I used sunflower but I know many vegan recipes suggest canola) and reduced the sugar to 1/2 cup and it worked beautifully. The texture was a tiny bit denser, which I'd expect with an oil substitution, but hardly noticeable.

Sadly not all food can be awesome cake. I also tried out two savoury recipes.
The first was another reader recipe, this time one that won the first prize for that week - Savory Steak Snacks.  You make a savoury mince mix up into balls, make a cheese pastry, and combine into cute parcels which are baked. In theory anyway.

Less than cute snacks.

The pastry tasted great. I enjoyed the meat, but my husband didn't, and the three year old ate a small amount of cheese pastry with enjoyment but entirely refused to even try the centre. If I were going to try these again I'd chill the pastry for a while before rolling it out, and make sure it was thinner and even. I'd also make the mince into smaller balls.

The next recipe I tried I didn't even attempt to serve to the men in my life - I made it as lunch for myself on a work day when my son is at preschool. 'Creamed Eggs and Celery' was one of the magazine's own recipes for a feature titled Speedy Luncheons. 

Australian Women's Weekly, Aug 9 1947, p53

It is meant to be a luncheon dish for guests (the recipe as written serves 4-5) so I obviously reduced all the quantities.

It was tasty (the smooth white sauce and hard boiled egg contrasting nicely with the softened yet still substantial celery and red capsicum and the crunchy toast), and I can see how it would be a perfectly pleasant, warm lunch meal but I don't think it will enter my regular go-to solo lunches.

There were easily half a dozen other recipes I could have tried, but I had to limit myself in anticipation of September!