Kitchen Essential

There’s nothing better than getting home after a hard day’s work (or any day of work) and pouring yourself a drink.

If you’re going to stock a bar at home, or more realistically a kitchen cupboard, cover your bases by buying the six main types of spirits.

BRANDY

More brandy is consumed locally than any other spirits. Generally acceptable mixes are Coke, soda water, water or orange juice. Continue Reading »

Omelette

The secrets of a successful omelette were recently revealed by a friend of ours who showed us a somewhat unconventional but foolproof technique.

Use three large eggs per omelette (never mind the cholesterol problem), a tablespoonful of milk and a small pinch of baking powder. Whisk until fluffy adding any seasoning just before cooking. Heat some butter in a pan and pour in the egg mixture. A moderate heat setting and a little patience will give you a good start. Cover the pan and leave the omelette to set. It normally takes 3-5 minutes depending on your stove, but keep checking it. Once most of the egg has set, place the omelette under a hot grill for about 30 seconds without removing it from the pan. This will set any runny egg at the top as well as brown the omelette. Then add cheese or any other topping of your choice before placing the omelette under the grill again. When sufficiently browned, fold it over and serve. Continue Reading »

Eat your vegetables! This little sentence was drummed into all our heads when we least wanted to hear it. But as the universe is strange, when you move from your mother’s home you suddenly start eating vegetables by choice and you may even become a vegetarian! Most veggies are really easy to prepare, and depending on how you prepare them, they are healthy.

Steaming Vegetables

It is almost always better to steam your vegetables as it is the healthiest method for the tastiest vegetables (you taste the vegetable instead of what’s been added to it). Now if you own a microwave there should be no reason for you to ever steam, boil or cook vegetables on the stove. Most vegetables are quickly and easily cooked in the microwave. Consult your manual — it probably has a very useful table giving you preparation and timing details. Continue Reading »

Basic Needs

Now for the stores required:

Flour—plain is essential; self-raising highly desirable; wholemeal a slight “extra,” but it makes wonderful scones. Baking powder and cornflour, which is used in many cake and biscuit recipes and also for fillings.

Bicarbonate of soda has its place in many scone and other recipes, and cream of tartar is often wanted for scones, too, and also for some toffees and sweets. Continue Reading »

The herring, which of course is what the kipper is before it is processed, is seldom the quarry of the sea angler in Britain. The Swedes and the Norwegians traditionally fish for herrings with hand lines from small boats at the mouths of their fjords, often making good catches, particularly when night fishing. Nevertheless, although as a British home smoker you are unlikely to catch your own herrings, if you live close to a port where these fish are landed, you may well decide to smoke your own kippers. If so, you will be able to make certain that you only obtain the freshest of fish. Continue Reading »

Shrimps can either be cold smoked whole or as peeled meats. For the former method, the shrimps should have the heads removed and are then washed and drained for 30 minutes. They are then brined for 30 - 60 minutes (according to preference) in 40% brine (1 lb 3 oz salt to 1 gallon water), then boiled in the brine or in plain water, again according to taste, for 30 minutes. The shrimps are then allowed to air dry on racks for 2 hours.

Smoking

The shrimps are then placed in the kiln and smoking is carried out for 1 - 1¹/2 hours at a temperature of 80^° F. The yield of smoked meats after shelling is approximately 36% of the whole raw shrimp weight. Continue Reading »

Ham is thicker than bacon, so penetration by either sweet pickle or dry cure takes longer: 3 days per lb should be allowed. If the brine cure is used, it is a good idea to inj_ectaround the bone with the brine pump before the ham i_stotally immersed in the pickle, after which it should be tur_nedevery 2 days and the brine must be stirred. The rule applies about temperature as in all protracted cures, namely that it is far safer to keep it around 35^° F. After the curing period, the ham should be washed and hung up to drain at a: and 38° F for 48 hours. Continue Reading »

Razor clams should first be steamed for 10 minutes to open them. The meats should be shaken out and the clams should be cleaned by removing the stomachs and splitting open the necks. They should then be washed and cut into sections. The clams should be soaked in 60% brine (1 lb 14 oz salt to 1 gallon of water) for 5 minutes, then rinsed in cold water and drained on racks for 15 minutes. Continue Reading »

The traditional Scottish recipe for this, the largest of the British and Scandinavian game birds, states that as soon as possible after the bird has been killed, the crop should be removed, the feet cut off and the bird then buried for a fortnight, by which time one should have forgotten where the bird has been buried. This implies that the caper is pretty ghastly fare, but this is an exaggeration, and similar defamatory statements are often made about the black grouse and its female counterpart, the grey hen, which I and many others consider excellent eating. Continue Reading »

Hamburgers

Equal quantities of good quality beef and pork should be minced and bound with egg yolk and basic seasoning to form cakes. These should be placed on a wire rack, with a dripping tin underneath, in a smoke oven pre-heated to 200 - 225^° F. There should be plenty of dense smoke as the hamburgers will only be in the oven for about 30 minutes. They can either be left in the same position for the whole process, or can be turned halfway through. Continue Reading »

The traditional smoked foods of Britain and Europe are not normally eaten straight from the smoker. In all cases it is usual to allow the food to ‘mature’ for at least 24 hours after smoking, so that the best possible flavour can be enjoyed. Hot smoked foods are almost invariably eaten cold, as are some cold smoked delicacies such as salmon, cod roes and fillets of beef. Others, like kippers, cold smoked mackerel or finnan haddocks, not to mention ordinary smoked bacon, are cooked before eating, but even these products are not used straight from the smoker. Continue Reading »

Notes on measurement

Two ordinary mercury-in-glass thermometers are required with a range of about 50-100° F. They must be inserted through holes in the wall of the kiln a few inches apart so that the bulbs project well into the smoke stream. One of the thermometers (the ‘wet bulb‘) has a muslin bag or sleeve tied round the bottom inch or two of the stem, so that it completely surrounds the mercury bulb.

Before a reading is taken, this bag is moistened by dipping in clean water, preferably distilled water, and after putting back in position, the reading of the thermometer is taken when it is steady after about half a minute. The ordinary temperature of the dry bulb should be read on the other thermometer at the same time as that of the wet bulb. The smoke should not pass over the wet bulb immediately before the dry bulb in case the air gets cooled by evaporation before affecting the dry bulb. Continue Reading »

At its most basic, the kitchen is the engine room that drives the long food processing chain. This stretches from the farmlands and oceans that produce our food to the landfills, rivers, and seas that take the eventual wastes and rubbish. But the chain does not start with the food growers and processors — it starts with you. For it is what each individual consumer decides to buy that ultimately determines the produce — and the price — from the growers and the food industry. The purse is very influential and we, as consumers, have both power and responsibility for making choices. Continue Reading »

The kitchen is the heart of the house, the centre of consumption, the hub of daily life. It is the place where family and friends gather to eat, drink, and chat, share their joys, or solve their problems. It is the base of all domestic operations and the one place where we can “act locally”, and play an active part in protecting the health of ourselves and that of the wider environment.

The kitchen of childhood dreams is a place full of appetizing and tantalizing smells, a farmhouse kitchen, perhaps, hung with polished copper pots and pans and warmed by a glowing fire. However, behind that dream lay the reality for the housewife of long hours of tiring work stoking fires, heating water, hand-washing and ironing, scrubbing and polishing, and cooking. Continue Reading »

Dishwasher

This is one of the most complicated pieces of machinery in the house. Regular servicing and maintenance are advisable. Most manufacturers recommend the detergent and softener. Daily maintenance is confined to keeping filters clean. Continue Reading »