Pigs in Clover
For this wholesome and economical dish you will need 6 medium, well-scrubbed potatoes, 6 skinned sausages and some cabbage. With an apple corer, remove a center core lengthways from each potato and stuff the cavity with sausage meat. Bake the potatoes in the usual way and serve on a bed of lightly chopped, cooked cabbage.
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Try These For a Change
CABBAGE. All sorts of additions may be made to steam-boiled cabbage. A few bacon rinds chopped small; or a few teaspoons of vinegar and a sprinkle of nutmeg or a shake of caraway seeds, and you have something novel and nice.
TOPS. Broccoli tops, turnip tops, and beetroot tops are all excellent if cooked as described above.
Honey Oatmeal Buns
These nourishing buns are extremely popular in most homes. Try them on your family. This recipe makes 18 medium-sized or 12 larger buns.
Sift 4 oz white flour, 1 heaped teaspoon baking powder and some salt. Then rub in 2 1/2 oz margarine or clarified cooking fat. When evenly mixed, add 4 oz fine oatmeal and a level teaspoon ground ginger. Mix a little beaten-up egg with 3 dessertspoons honey (loosened by slight warming if necessary) and mix to a stiff consistency with a fork. You may need a little milk here. Divide the mixture into roughly piled heaps. Bake in a hot oven for quick rising, then reduce the heat slightly for crisp, even browning. The whole baking should take about 20 minutes.
Verdict:
Pigs in Clover: In the absence of an apple corer, I bored a hole through the middle of each potato with a paring knife and stuffed with bulk sausage. I should really get an apple corer. Extremely useful for baked apples, which are delicious. Anyway, this was... good! Basically a baked potato with a vein of sausage in it. The sausage lends some flavor to the potato around it, and baked potatoes are nice anyway. The taste was improved further with some ketchup. This is an excellent way to stretch a small amount of meat a looooooooong way, and might well be a good freezer meal for lunches. Additionally, it is sort of cute. At least if you squint and use some imagination. Or Photoshop.
Look how winsome!
In place of cabbage, I used swiss chard (otherwise known as silverbeet). Swiss chard and beets are actually pretty much the same plant; chard is just bred for the tops where beets are bred for the roots. I put some nutmeg on top, as recommended, but it just made it taste weird. I don't know why I planted it, because I hate chard. I think I was lured by the pretty colors. It was in hopes that it would finally die that I harvested such a huge pile of it, but to no avail. (Oops! Aw, I guess I accidentally hacked so much off, it just couldn't carry on! Alas, now we won't be able to eat even one more single meal with it. Shucks! Oh I could just kick myself.) It continues lush and verdant... even perky. Husband offered to make an assassination attempt of his own, with guaranteed results.
I feel Baby most appropriately expressed her feelings towards the "clover":
Honey Oatmeal Buns: If you think of these as a dessert, they are not very good. If you think of them as a biscuit (the American kind, o confused Brits), they are just fine. Little bit crumbly. Not bad though. Benefits from some jam.
Scones to us Brits then :-)
ReplyDeleteI quite like the sound of the potatoes.
I think I'd serve chutney with them too. And I'm sure you could stick bits on so it looked just like a pig a la Annabel Karmel. My children would have to use their imagination I think.
Hazel, is there a direct British equivalent of American type biscuits? These honey oatmeal buns are indeed scone-ish, I am just curious.
ReplyDeleteChutney might be quite nice. And perhaps one could draw on piggy bits with mustard...
I would call them scones. British scones may be sweet or savoury, but they are always buttered or filled. Anything else baking powder/soda raised is soda bread, or a griddle cake if it's cooked (not surprisingly!) on a griddle.
ReplyDeleteA biscuit here is a cookie- 'biscuits and gravy' just doesn't sound right to me!
Good information. I have limited knowledge of scones. Biscuits and gravy are marvelous. It may interest you to know that in parts of the Midwest, a scone is made by stretching bread dough very thin, then deep fat frying. It is then topped with honey and butter, and is delicious.
ReplyDeleteThe way to a future of cross cultural bridge building will clearly be built on the sharing of baked goods.
There is also apparently such a thing as chocolate gravy in the south.
Chocolate gravy. Hmm.
ReplyDeleteAnd the Midwestern scones- I'm not sure what I would call that, but it does sound delicious.
You may learn all you ever wanted to know about British scones in this article I found.
For what it's worth, I use cream of tartar and bicarbonate of soda to raise my scones, and instead of buttermilk I add a bit of lemon or vinegar to the milk, or use 50/50 plain yogurt and milk. Mostly I make plain scones, occasionally with some dried fruit but my most frequent variation is to add some grated cheese plus some cooked chopped ham or bacon, or chopped chives or watercress. I use them in school packed lunches or serve with soup.
Oh, and I say 'skoan' because I'm a southerner. DH's mum was from 'up north' so he still says 'skon'.
There you are- more than you ever needed to know about scones!
Wonderful! And that sounds delicious.
ReplyDeleteI think your baby is brilliant, as is the cute photoshopping !!!
ReplyDeleteThank you. She is the cleverest of girls.
ReplyDeleteWe are in a CSA and I have huge guilt but we all loathe greens, beet greens, turnip greens, collard greens, KALE. I tried to sell my kids on rainbow chard by telling them it was unicorn chow but nope. NOPE. I don't even take it, I just edge past my enormous allotment of greens because NO.
ReplyDeleteHA HA. No. Nice try, though. Your children are obviously not gullible enough.
ReplyDelete