Grilled Garfish with Creamed Celery and Boiled Potatoes

Mullet is an unattractive fish, so I decided on garfish, cleaned but with the heads on, brushed with a mix of melted butter and oil and grilled a few minutes each side.
"Steamed celery" didn't sound that enticing either, but it could have been a misprint for "creamed celery", which was popular in the 1920s, and not only at Melbourne's only exclusively vegetarian restaurant, the Sanitarium Health Food Co.'s Vegetarian Cafe in Little Collins Street. Boulestin gives a recipe for croquettes de celeri, which involves stirring finely chopped cooked celery into a white sauce thickened with the yolks of one or two eggs. The mixture is then cooled, rolled into croquettes, dipped in beaten egg, coated with breadcrumbs and fried. I've taken his preparation and joined it with bits of a recipe from the Capricornian (Rockhampton). The Capricornian's writer notes that "the addition of the yolks of two eggs makes a richer dish, and a more nourishing one if it is to be served as a separate course".

Creamed Celery

1 head of celery, washed and cleaned
30g butter
1 level tbsp plain flour
1 breakfastcup milk
2 tbsps cream
2 egg yolks (optional)
salt, pepper, nutmeg, parsley

Parboil the celery in salted boiling water for 10 to 15 minutes. Drain well and chop finely. Make a roux with butter and flour, add the milk, season with salt and pepper, and simmer until thickened. Add the celery and cook a little longer, then stir in two tablespoons of cream, the egg yolks, if desired, and sprinkle with nutmeg.

The celery can also be served in a dish, with the sauce poured over and garnished with parsley.

Episode 5 - Raisins and Almonds

I haven't been to the Italian Society Restaurant where Phyrne has dinner with her lover in this week's episode, but I have been to similar places in Sydney and Wollongong. The International Club in Wollongong shared a menu if not an ambiance with the Society. But in East Sydney in the early 1980s there was a restaurant that could have been its pup. No Come Skinnys got its name from the proprietor's description of his attempt to lose weight. Others, apparently, called it The Hole in the Wall. It may have been the original No Names; it certainly didn't have a name, and when I knew it the entrance was through a door opening onto a back lane somewhere near the corner of Stanley and Palmer Streets. Before that the place may have been in Francis Street, one street up from Stanley, closer to College St. Or it may not have moved at all, the location depending where you started from.

No Come Skinny's had maybe a dozen tables, with carafes of red and white wine on red-and-white checked plastic tablecloths and beautiful surly children who looked like they'd been booted into the room to act as waiters when they'd rather be labouring over their homework. "What d'ya want pig trotters for? You already got 'em." The mother was Irish. The wine was included.

The Italian Society Restaurant also poured drinks for free, but at the cost of frequent appearances before the licensing court. In February 1926 Guiseppe Codognotto, the proprietor, gave evidence that he collected money from club members and, when food was served, provided the wine at no extra charge. The Society's president, a M. Genova, got off for lack of evidence, but a singer, Ricardo Torre, was fined a quid for "having consumed liquor on unlicensed premises during prohibited hours".

Phyrne is such a Society regular she leaves it to the waiter to decide her order. He brings a bottle of "wicker-clad chianti", fettucine puttanesca, mullet with steamed celery and boiled potatoes and, to finish, zabaglione and cafe negro.