Run Rabbit, Run (but not too fast!)

Day five in the 1943 kitchen and the haybox slowcooker is out again.

This time it's rabbit stew. So far I have avoided using rabbit, even though we have a considerable number invading our garden and eating the veg patch every night, because it seemed like cheating to have meat that was extra to the rations. But it's now week three so I think we have shown that we can stick to the allotted amount, and our 1940s counterparts would have had no hesitation in shooting the rabbits and saving the veg from all those tiny teeth!

Actually, I did cheat a bit here. We have a local butcher who sells rabbit (the other customers always look at me strangely when I buy it for some reason) but I forgot about half day closing and he was shut when I went to get one. I suppose I should have reacted as a wartime housewife would have and come up with a meatless meal but I kind of wanted to include rabbit this week, for something different to talk about if nothing else! So I used the next best thing, chicken thigh. Some people think it's indistinguishable from rabbit, personally I disagree. But it is close enough.

There were lots of interesting recipes for rabbit, depending partly on it's age (apparently you can judge that by squeezing the skull to see if it's soft - not for the squeamish). Boiling was good for an older animal and you could then take your boiled meat and put it in dumplings, make potted meat, or just serve with parsley sauce. I went for a simple stew with vegetables, parsley, salt and pepper and stock, served with dumplings (brown ones, that wheatmeal flour gets into everything!)

After dinner we had hot cocoa. Interestingly the British Restaurants always served a hot drink but there was only one option, either tea, coffee (made with extract) or cocoa. Can you imagine your average working man being told that the only available drink with lunch was chocolate? I'm not really sure how well that would go down now, but then it was a good way to get people to have lots of nutritious milk. Being pregnant in 1943 means I'm meant to have 10 pints of milk a week so I have decided to adopt the same policy. There have to be some advantages, right?

How breadcrumbs can make a meal

It's amazing the things you can make a meal out of really.

During the 40s with cheese in such short supply housewives were advised never to serve cheese with bread or biscuits. Something like that wouldn't be much more than a snack, or perhaps a teatime meal that could easily be replaced with something else. Instead the cheese ration was viewed more along the lines of a different type of meat, something to be made into a tasty main meal. Today we had cheese pudding, which obviously had quite a lot of cheese in it, the majority of our weekly ration in fact, but the rest of the pudding was quite interesting.

Basically it was made from stale bread. It was meant to be breadcrumbs but I just tore the bread into small pieces, let those out to dry for a while and used them as they were. You pour hot milk over the bread with some seasoning and leave it to sit for half an hour, by which time it will have gone rather porridgey. Because my bread was in lumps rather than crumbs I gave it a stir with a wooden spoon and it soon went smooth. Then you mix in the grated cheese, a beaten egg (or reconstituted dried egg) and a little margarine, put the whole soggy mess in a greased pudding basin or pie dish and bake it in the oven. I stirred some chives in as well since the garden is full of them and put some chopped tomato on top.

I honestly had no idea how this one would turn out, would it just be a stodgy, soggy mess with all the "wheatmeal" bread and milk? Would it be a sort of bread sauce with no texture? Or taste a bit like a cheese toasty? I handed RAF man his plate a bit apologetically and hoped it would prove edible!

It turned out to be really nice! I'll admit it isn't my new favourite food or anything but I would be more than happy to make it again. It was quick, easy, tasty (the crispy bits round the edges were especially good!) and a great dish to have up your sleeve when it seems like there is nothing in the house. I definitely suggest that you give it a go!

PS
If anybody is wondering where RAF man got his name, or where you can see him in action, do go and check out The Tail End Charlies.

Time for a curry?

Day three, the week is going surprisingly fast.

Lunch today was a British restaurant dish that we also used in week two, vegetable curry. Looking through my various books and leaflets I actually have at least four different recipes for curries, and one wartime cookbook even has a whole section of curry recipes! That surprised me really because I would have imagined that imported spices would be in short supply, yet they seem to be plentiful enough that even mass catering can include curries and I have never seen spices on the lists of things needing points coupons either. Perhaps the fact that you only need a little made it easier to bring in the quantity needed, where bulkier things like rice and sultanas were in shorter supply? I would love to know more, so please leave a comment if you are a spice expert!

The recipe we tried last time was just curry powder, stock and flour to thicken the sauce. All of the recipes are a bit like that, generic curry powder rather than individual spices and no Korma or Masala, just "curry." This time I did use a recipe that was a little bit more complicated, from a ministry of food booklet on different things to do with potatoes. It had a few extra spices, cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, a spoonful of chutney and extra vinegar and sugar. I also found a recipe that used marmalade and golden syrup - perhaps next time I'll give that a go!

As it turned out I didn't get to eat my curry, I was out for lunch and had a ploughmans instead. Salad, brown bread, pickles and a bit of ham were all within my rations and I didn't eat too much of the cheese or pork pie! Sometimes the modern world does tempt you with lovely things, but I just do the best I can and move on, no harm done. Actually I find the hardest thing about the whole experiment is the fact that nobody else is doing the same. I have to choose not to get certain foods in the supermarket, even though I could, and walking past a bakery or seeing other people having cake in a tea shop is a real test. I don't miss those things when I don't see them though!

Tonight we tried a recipe designed to use dried eggs (although we used fresh), bacon and egg pie. This being the forties it did of course have to contain potatoes and the first thing was to make potato pastry, with less flour and fat than normal pastry. You line a pie dish with the pastry and fill it with a mixture of mashed potato, egg and bits of cooked bacon. We had one egg and one rasher of bacon each and it was certainly a filling pie, so a good way to stretch things and very nice with some veg and a spoonful of chutney. It was rather like a slightly less eggy quiche, and I imagine you could add other things to it, like cheese or herbs, to vary it a bit. Not a bad find!

We followed that with a syrup sponge pudding and custard, and when I was making the pudding I discovered to my astonishment that there was only a spoonful of golden syrup left in the tin. I don't think I have ever actually emptied a tin of syrup before, they are just semi magical things that hang about staying strangely half full for all eternity!

Mince in the Hole and Potato Skin Mash

Day two in the 1943 kitchen began with porridge. Not only is porridge hot and filling, but oats are also cheap, nutritious and can be grown in England. They were unrationed and you were encouraged to eat them often. Having said that porridge wasn't the quick and easy meal it is now, when you can zap a bowl in the microwave in no time at all. A 1943 housewife in the country may well have been off the grid, which means no electric cooker. She may have still had a wood fired range which would need to be lit and built up first thing, taking a while to heat up. One way to save time in the morning, and save fuel too, would be to use a haybox. Essentially like a slowcooker the hay insulates the pan and keeps the porridge hot while it cooks away overnight. So a hot breakfast is waiting as soon as you wake up. Of course it probably wouldn't be cooked with milk, but the traditional Scottish way with water and a little salt then served with a little milk, which makes the milk ration stretch much further.

 

Lunch today was cream of vegetable soup with national loaf and a sponge pudding for dessert. I made the soup yesterday but when I came to pack it ready for RAF man to take to work it really didn't look like very much at all. So I gave him my portion as well. 

I had been thinking that I would make some more for me but I had that leftover vegetable cutlet with some home made pickled beetroot (from our vegetable garden too) and a couple of slices of toast. That filled me up and I totally forgot to eat my sponge pudding!

For tea we had "mince in the hole", basically toad in the hole but with meatballs instead of sausages. You could use either raw mince or minced leftovers and roll it into meatballs with seasoning and a few herbs, then cook with a Yorkshire pudding type batter. A really good way to make a little bit of leftover Sunday roast feed a lot of people! We actually used fresh mince and had lamb meatballs with a bit of mint from the garden, served with veg and mashed potatoes. Of course the potatoes were mashed with the skins still on, since nothing was to be peeled in the war against waste. Not really to my taste, but not bad at all. 

"Those who have the will to win,

Cook potatoes in their skin,

Knowing that the sight of peelings,

Deeply hurts Lord Woolton's feelings."

Extra rations!

Back in the 1940s kitchen, time to dig all the books back out again! It was really difficult to find out what the rations were this time round, but I did manage to find one reference. It seems they haven't really changed too much, but I am assuming that actual access to things might be a bit more restricted as the war progresses. On the plus side, as an expectant mother I get extras! An extra half ration of meat, a pint of milk a day, extra eggs and various supplements. Of course all of the advice stresses how important it is for the mother to be sure to eat all of these herself, that not doing so potentially deprives her baby and will also leave her weak and unable to care for her family. In reality I can't see too many wartime housewives serving themselves 1 1/2 times as much meat as her husband got! I have decided to just throw the extra meat into the family pot but have most of the milk myself.

So, day 1 in 1943 began with toast for breakfast. Although a cooked breakfast was expected there are lots of recipes for things like wheaties (dry bread cubes served with milk as a breakfast cereal) that suggest most people weren't having the breakfast they would have liked. This week we will be sticking with either porridge from the hay box or scrambled eggs on toast. Since we would have hens we are lucky enough to have plenty of eggs.

Lunch was vegetable cutlets with chutney. Mashed potato mixed with flour, a little cheese and vegetables (I used carrot) then dipped into batter and fried. Crispy, golden outsides and melty on the inside, yum! One potato made three cutlets and two was plenty for lunch so I have one left over. Since batter is basically the same for many things (and has egg in it) I saved the leftovers to make Yorkshire puddings later on.

Sunday means Sunday dinner, and that means a roast! Of course meat for roasting would have been in short supply so I took a big piece of stewing beef, rolled up, and stewed it slowly in gravy. It came out beautifully, good flavour and so tender it just fell apart. Some was served up this evening and the rest saved for other dishes. We also had roast potatoes (lots), veg and Yorkshire puddings, which came out a little flat and dark since they were made from wholemeal flour but tasted good. Followed, as ever, by something with custard. "Something" in this case being apple charlotte, a great way of using up stale breadcrumbs and stretching a small amount of apple a long way.

Week three is off to a good start!