White Vegetable Soup

Vegetable soups and clear bouillons make a regular appearance as the first course for dinner at Phryne's St Kilda mansion. 

The recipe for this "inexpensive and quickly-made white vegetable soup" is from Household Notes in the Sydney Morning Herald on 5 May 1928. I'm not sure about boiling the vegetables for 40 minutes and  thickening the finished product with flour though. Instead I've updated the cooking time to 20-30 minutes and enriched it with a little cream.

White Vegetable Soup

3 large potatoes

1 white turnip

1 parsnip

1 onion

1 small head celery

25g butter
4 cups water

1 small blade of mace

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon pepper

1 cup milk

50ml cream

Peel the vegetables and cut up in small pieces. Melt the butter in a saucepan; add vegetables, and cook, stirring, until all the butter is absorbed. Add salt, pepper, sugar, mace, and water; simmer till vegetables are soft enough to rub through a sieve (20-30 minutes cooking should be sufficient).  

Sieve (or puree) the soup; add milk and return to the saucepan. Add cream; let it come to the boil. Serve in a warmed tureen and bowls. Serves 6.

Episode 13 - Memses' Curse

The final episode of the series is not based on any Kerry Greenwood novel, but it will - presumably - complete the narrative arc of the introduced back-story of the abduction of Phryne's sister by the abominable Murdoch Foyle. 

The ABC-TV website gives this synopsis: "Murdoch Foyle is at large and has been connected with the mysterious death of Albert Monkton, antique dealer. In investigating the murder, Phryne discovers Murdoch Foyle’s involvement in a bizarre reincarnation cult, inspired by Ancient Egypt". 

Has Foyle mummified Phryne's missing sister? And does he plan to make a pair of matching female book-ends?

With no novel to provide menu ideas, tonight's dinner is white vegetable soup, tender young roast pork with sage and onion stuffing, apple sauce and gravy followed by a raspberry souffle. Apart from anything else, I want to use the leftover roast in a traditional Australian curried pork on Sunday night - complete with Keen's Curry Powder, apples and sultanas.

Venison Pie

The recipe for small mutton (or lamb) pies can be adapted for cold cooked venison. If there is insufficient sauce left over from the roast, redcurrant jelly can be added and heated gently until dissolved. No gelatine is needed.

This recipe is enough for two small individual pies. The pastry is one-quarter the quantity given for mutton (or lamb) pie and it worked so well I'm going to try it again with a full-size venison pie.

Venison Pie

200-250g cooked venison

1/2 onion, diced

salt, pepper

125g plain flour

30g butter

1/4 cup milk

salt

1 egg, beaten

1/4 cup rich gravy

Cut the venison into bite-size pieces, mix with onion; season with salt and pepper.

Sift the flour into a large bowl. In a small saucepan, melt the butter, add the milk and a dash of salt and heat until boiling. Pour milk and butter mixture onto sifted flour and work into a dough; knead well. Cut the dough into two pieces, two-thirds for the pie bases and one-third for the pie covers.

Cut the large piece of dough in two, roll out and line two small ramekins (or souffle dishes), greased with butter. Add venison mixture. Cut the smaller piece of dough in two, roll out the pie covers, cut a small hole in the centre of each and press onto the top of the pies. Brush with beaten egg yolk and pinch around the edges.

Bake pies in moderately hot oven for 30 minutes; remove from oven and pour gravy through the hole on top of each pie and cook a further 15 minutes. Allow to rest for 10 minutes. Serve with mashed potato and red cabbage. Enjoyable with Vintage Cellars Chalkboard Cabernet Sauvignon.

Roast Venison with Sauce Grand Veneur

In Boulestin's day venison was marinated to make the meat more tender and to remove excessive gaminess. He was dealing with wild deer; for farmed venison, marinating is more for flavour. Tender cuts such as fillet can be marinated for 6 hrs rather than the 12 -24 hrs for wild venison or tougher cuts of farmed meat.

Venison is served with a sharp sauce to contrast with the sweetness of the meat. Boulestin's Sauce Grand Veneur is made from the venison trimmings and flavourings cooked in vinegar, with cream and redcurrant jelly added at the end.

The meat is underdone, 9-10 minutes per 500g. Before roasting, drain off (and reserve) the marinade and pat the venison dry with kitchen towels. Boulestin's venison is larded or greased with butter before it goes in the oven, and well-basted. I pan-fried two fillets in butter, put them in the baking dish and poured the butter over.

For four people, 600g of venison fillets is sufficient.

Marinade

1 onion, sliced

1 carrot, sliced

1 French shallot, chopped

1 stalk celery, sliced

bouquet (bay leaf, parsley, thyme)

2 cloves

1 cup white wine vinegar

oil

Cook the onion, carrot, shallot and celery in a little oil for 1 minute; add the bouquet, cloves and vinegar, bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer for 15 minutes. Allow the marinade to cool. When cold, pass through a sieve and pour over the venison, previously seasoned with salt and pepper. Turn the venison once or twice while marinating.

Sauce Grand Veneur

Venison trimmings

1 small carrot, finely diced

1 small onion, finely diced

1 French shallot, finely diced

50g butter

2 tablespoons white wine vinegar

2 tablespoons stock (or water)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
freshly ground black pepper

125 ml cream

1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly

Brown the trimmings, onion, carrot and shallot in butter. When brown, drain off the butter, add the vinegar, the stock and the same quanitity of the liquid in which the venison has marinated. Bring to the boil, skim, reduce heat and simmer until reduced by half.

Add a little mustard, lots of freshly ground black pepper, a little more marinade, and bring to the boil for 2 minutes. Pass through a sieve, stir in the cream, bring to the boil and reduce until the sauce has the consistency of thick cream.

The sauce can be served as it is (Sauce Poivade). For Sauce Grand Veneur, at the last minute stir in one tablespoon of redcurrant jelly, roughly chopped, and cook on a low heat until dissolved.

Roast Venison

600g venison, boned and trimmed

50g butter

Pan fry venison in butter until browned. Put the meat in baking dish, pour over the butter in which it has browned and roast 12-15 minutes in a hot oven. Allow to rest before carving. Boulestin's venison is served traditionally, with a puree of celery or chestnuts. Mine was served with thinly sliced roast potatoes and red cabbage. The wine was a Canobolis-Smith Alchemy from Orange.

Smoked Trout Salad with Fennel and Horseradish Cream

There was more to preserved fish than Norwegian smoked salmon in the 1920s. Australia also imported "Genuine Shetland Cod" as well as Kippers, Bloaters, Whiting Fillets, Findon Haddocks, Red Herrings, Pickled Herrings, Smoked Salmon and Dried Ling.

Homegrown smoked trout was also on the menu, with brown trout introduced into Tasmanian rivers in 1864. In 1925 the Hobart Mercury gave Tasmanian anglers instructions on How to Smoke Trout:

"Cut the fish at one side at right angles to its length through the meat in front of the tail; then split it all the way up the length of the back, including the head, and clean, leaving the belly untouched. 

Put it into brine for four or seven days, according to size - i.e. a mixture heavy enough to float an egg; then add to the brine raw sugar equal in bulk to one twentieth the salt (before immersing the fish). 

When sufficiently salted put the fish under fresh running water for one or two days, then hang up to dry in a muslin bag ("to keep flies off) in a dry place. 

When quite dry, put it to smoke in a shed with an opening in the roof for the smoke to escape, at least 12ft from the entrance where you put the sawdust for smoking. The smoke must be cold when it reaches the fish, which is hung over the opening in the roof. The sawdust should be thoroughly dry, and no resinous sawdust nor green bushes of leaves, should be put on the smoke fire."

This recipe uses Australian-produced smoked trout. Apart from smoked salmon, the only other homegrown smoked fish seems to be Brilliant Food's smoked kingfish - which I will use just as soon as golden beetroot is in season.

Smoked Trout Salad with Fennel and Horseradish Cream 

100g smoked trout

4 potatoes, preferably Nicola or Kipfer

1 bulb fennel

Rocket, watercress, upland cress and/or rinsed capers (all optional)

2 tablespoons fresh horseradish, grated

1 tbsp cream
2 teaspoons white wine vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Salt

Remove any bones from trout; break into small pieces and set aside.

Boil potatoes gently in their skins until just cooked; remove, peel and cut into rounds about 5mm thick.

Top and tail fennel, remove core and outer layer if tough. Cut the fennel bulb in half lengthways; thinly slice.

Mix grated horseradish, cream, vinegar and mustard. Add salt, to taste.

On four entree plates, arrange sliced potato, fennel and salad leaves; squeeze with lemon juice. Pile smoked trout in the middle of each salad, scatter with capers and top with a dessertspoon of horseradish cream. Serves 4.

Episode 12 - Murder in the Dark

From the preview on the ABC-TV website, this week's episode bears only a glancing resemblance to the novel.

In Murder in the Dark, Phryne attends a country house soiree held by wealthy, beautiful and decadent siblings, Isabelle and Gerald Templar, whose acolytes have gathered for the Last Best Party of 1928. Over four days the party-goers enjoy a version of Tantric sex, hash smoking, polo and deer hunting. 

Phryne wasn't sure she wanted to go, but anonymous notes warning her off changed her mind. And then Isabelle and Gerald's adopted orphans are separately abducted and someone is out to kill Gerald. There's also the matter of Lin Chung's cousin being chucked in the river to avenge. Dot, too good a girl to stay, visits every day or two to refresh Phryne's wardrobe.

The food, however, is excellent, and the cook has a new American refrigerator for her sherberts and ice-creams.

In honour of the deer that escapes the hounds and Phryne's dislike of beetroot, unless in aspic, this week's menu features smoked trout salad and roast venison in a classic French sauce with potatoes and red cabbage. The dessert may be some sort of ice-cream.

I admit that part of the reason for this is that I've just returned from a weekend that included dinner at Lolli Redini in Orange, in NSW's Central West, where the menu ran to beetroot-cured trout and venison in a rich red sauce with potatoes and red cabbage. Unfortunately, I'm not up to the dessert of honey and truffle bavarois with sable biscuits, fig leaf ice-cream and caramelised fig.

Episode 11 - Blood and Circuses