As a young lady Miss Bellasis was fascinated by
the drawer entitled 'sundries' in her grandparent's towering walnut
veneered wardrobe. The fascination lay not in what this
drawer contained (hair grips, a pencil, a half full powder compact,
three buttons, a single stocking, an odd sock, a 100 Franc chip
from a casino in Monaco and a screwdriver) but rather in the possibilites
of what it could contain. What exactly were sundries? Would
everybodys sundries be the same or could anything be your sundry
if you chose it to be? Miss Bellasis imagines the answer
to this last question is a resounding yes and thus has endeavored
to recreate the general impression of that sundries drawer here.
It may not have the evocative smell of face powder but below you
will find, over time, a miscellanea of articles and oddments,
items assorted and various, things diverse and several....
A colleague of the archaeological variety pointed
out that this re-creation of a sundries drawer was stratigraphically
incorrect, thus it has been re-ordered and new items will now
appear at the top of the page. More recently, an archive
minded friend remarked that an index would be useful. Whilst
Miss Bellasis agrees that thorough indexing is essential in many
cases, sundries drawers and shelves are by nature somewhat chaotic
and thus lend themselves to rummaging rather than ordered retrieval.
A different system may be introduced in the future, if this
ones becomes unworkable.
Having, with a sense of sadness, just finished
Harry Potter Deathly Hallows Miss Bellasis is currently
reading:
The Crimean War: Queen Victoria's War
with the Russian Tsars
Hugh Small
Tempus, 2007
Surprisingly readable.
And Miss Bellasis wonders why on earth she
never publicised her film debut in:
The sundries page has been rather ignored
of late; indeed probably for about the last year so it's
about time for a new reading recommendation:
An Intimate Affair; Women
Lingerie and Sexuality
Jill Fields
University of California Press, 2007
Rather dense but rather fascinating.
Miss Bellasis has been
rather busy but she is managing to find time to struggle
through Peter Cheney's The Urgent Hangman, Fontana
Books, 1938; an English take on Raymond Chandler which
is proving heavy going, to say the least, though interesting
as a historical document.
Miss Bellasis is currently
reading:
British Food - An Extraodinary Thousand
Years of History
Colin Spencer
Grub Street, 2002
Enlightening, and rather inspiring too.
Chocolate
Turinois
This utterly delicious creation
is just right for the season. You could, of course,
brace yourself against the October winds and go gathering
chestnuts but, if you are lucky enough to find any, they
are perhaps better roasted upon your return home - and enjoyed
in front of a blazing fire with a peaty single malt and
the heavenly smell of damp tweed...
Again Miss Bellasis would
like to offer her apologies for presenting this recipe solely
in the metric form, she was rather forced into this due
to the disappearance of 15½ oz tins of chestnut puree.
430g tin of unsweetened chestnut
puree (Miss Bellasis rather favours the one with the little
chap in the green trousers and prickly looking anorak)
170g soya margarine (or similar)
170g icing sugar
280g plain chocolate
2tbsp Grand Marnier or Cointreau
the zest of an orange
Beat together the chestnut puree and the
sugar, then beat in the margarine and Grand marnier or Cointreau.
Melt the chocolate and mix into the above.
Pour into a loaf tin lined with baking paper, then
put it in the fridge for an hour or more.
Sprinkle the zest artistically on top before
serving. Could be served with oat cream or similar,
or rather good as an accompaniment to a simple pear tart.
Miss Bellasis is currently
reading:
Hariette Wilson's Memoirs - The Greatest
Courtesan of her Age
Edited and introduced by Lesley Blanch
Phoenix Press, 2003
Marvellously entertaining and throughly
recommended
Self Saucing Chocolate
Pudding
This is especially effective
if you prepare it in front of you dinner guests in a flamboyant
Fanny Cradock manner. Watch their looks of consternation
as you through the water over the pudding; return these
looks with an arched eyebrow and then place the pudding
in the oven with élan.
Miss Bellasis would like to offer her apologies
for presenting this recipe solely in the metric form.
Sauce:
75g dark brown soft sugar
80g golden caster sugar
3tbs cocoa
250ml water
Melt the margerine and chocolate in the milk. Mix in the
dry ingredients. Pour into a lasagne type dish (one large
enough hold at least 2 litres of liquid). Sprinkle the dry
sauce ingredients over, and then pour the water over . DO
NOT STIR.
Bake at 170 degrees centigrade or Gas Mark
3 for 45 minutes or so, until the pudding springs back lightly
when pressed. You should have a wonderfully light chocolate
sponge with a creamy chocolate sauce underneath. If there
is not a sauce but a gooey underside to the cake, do not
cook for quite as long next time.
If you have whisky soaked blackberries
to use up (see below: Country Liquers), line the pudding
bowl with them before adding the pudding mix. Rum
or brandy soaked cherries do the trick quite nicely too.
Miss Bellasis found the following
quotation from Alice in Wonderland scrawled in a
rather childish hand whilst sorting out some photographs
the other day; she imagines she must have copied it down
in some years ago years and, indeed, still finds it delightfully
apt.
Who are you? said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.
Alice replied, rather shyly, II hardly
know, Sir, just at presentat least I know who I was
when I got up this morning, but I think I must have changed
several times since then.
Jelabies
In fact, having had such
fun this Saturday afternoon making jelabies, Miss Bellasis
has decided to present this recipe instead of that for Gulab
Jamun:
This dessert could be described as ' dough,
fried, then soaked in syrup', but as such it sounds relatively
unappetising. Perhaps it might sound more, how can
one put it, more 'restaurantese' if one wrote 'spiral cardamon
beignets couched in a rose scented syrup' or something similar.
You will need some sort of piping bag for this recipe.
Ingredients For the 'beignets':
4 cups plain flour
1 tsp baking powder
Seeds from 2 cardamom pods, ground
A pinch of salt
Water
Vegetable or sunflower oil for deep frying (the oil needs
to be at least 3cm deep)
For the syrup:
1 cup sugar
1 cup water
Rosewater (to taste)
Shredded fragrant rose petals for decorative
effect.
Method To make the syrup:
Heat water and sugar until all of the sugar is dissolved
and boil for 5 minutes. Add the rose water. Leave to cool.
To make the beignets: Mix the flour, baking powder,
cardomom and salt into a thick batter. Heat the
oil over a medium heat until it is really quite hot (drop
a small cube of bread in, it should fry within a few seconds).
Holding the piping bag about 6" (15cm) above the oil,
pipe the batter into the hot fat making small spirals. Fry
until golden brown then remove from the fat and soak in
the syrup for the time it takes the next batch to fry.
Serve warm or cold, pouring the remainder of syrup over
the jelabies and throwing shredded rose petals on at the
last minute for effect.
Champagne and Brandy
Miss Bellasis wouldn't like
to give the impression that she is some sort of lush, but
reading The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler led to the following
experiments. They might already be cocktails indeed,
and one might just be re-inventing, and re-naming the wheel.
Ginger Pop
Starting with General Sternwood's third of
a glass of brandy, top up with chilled champagne add freshly
juiced ginger to taste.
Rosy Cheeks
Start with a third of a glass of brandy and
champagne again but instead of the ginger add as much rose
syrup as you like (recipe below).
During our tests the exact temperature of
the brandy and the champagne, and the choice of glass and
decoration appeared to be an entirely personal matter.
To make your own rose syrup dissolve sugar - of an unrefined,
organic and fairly traded variety - in water at a ratio
of 1:1, toss in some rose water - about a teaspoonful to
each pint of water - and boil for 5 minutes. Leave it to
cool and store in your fridge or larder. You
could add some crushed dried rose petals for effect if you
wish.
This Rose Syrup can be used for the delicious
Indian dessert that is Gulab Jamun, the recipe for which
will follow shortly.
One apologises for being less than specific
over measurements and instruction, but at Verbena House
we rather favour the cavalier school of cookery.
Country Liqueurs
Many people know the recipe
for sloe gin but here are some other, rather wonderful,
'country liquers', the recipes for which Miss Bellasis obtained
from the delightfully adventurous Mrs Gennery-Taylor. Miss
Bellasis prefers to leave the liquers unsugared for the
most part, though it really is a matter of taste and experimentation;
if unsure add sugar after straining the liquer.
Beech Leaf Gin (April)
Miss Bellasis defies anyone not to fall in
love with this delicate pale green liquer. Pick the
beech leaves when they are just unfurled and presenting
themselves coquettishly to the spring sunshine. Pack
the jar half full, throw in a couple of pinches of sugar
and top up with gin, and seal. One must wait until
the beech leaves burst forth again before this wonderful
liquer is ready to be strained and re-bottled, ready for
drinking. Vodka can be substituted for the gin and this
'liquer' really is best served ice cold straight from the
freezer.
Further information (and a variation on
the recipe) has come to light on the above, from Richard
Mabey's marvellous book Food for Free (Collins Natural
History series, 1996 edition). He suggests the recipe originated
in the Chilterns where large planations of beech trees were
established in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for
the chair making trade. In his recipe for 'Beech Leaf
Noyau'one packs a jar 9/10ths full of the new leaves,
tops it up with gin and leaves it to steep for two weeks.
Then strain off the gin and to every pint add 3/4 lb sugar
(350g in 'new money') dissolved in half a pint (284ml) boiling
water, and a dash of brandy. Mix well and then bottle
when cold.
Hawthorn or 'Mayflower' Brandy
(May - June)
Gather the hawthorn flowers on a dry warm
day. The lull between afternoon tea and dinner is
ideal for this activity. Loosely fill a jar with the flowers
then top up with brandy (Miss Bellasis prefers to use a
fine Spanish brandy above all). Seal and store in
your pantry or cellar for 12 months or until the hawthorn
blossoms again, then strain, re-bottle and enjoy. Rather
nice chilled.
Blackberry Whisky
(August - October)
Gather the blackberries when they are at
their plumpest. Half fill a jar with them then top
up with whisky and seal. Miss Bellasis has so far
only used a blended scotch of the cheaper variety but there
is certainly room for experiment. As with the liquers
above, leave a year before straining and re-bottling. The
remains of the blackberries can, if you so desire, be used
in almost any recipe with a fruit element such as a trifle,
or the chocolate pudding recipe further up this page. They
are equally at home in deliciously tipsy chocolate 'truffles'.
This liquer is delightful chilled, but also rather
nice at room temperature as a 'winter warmer'.
Elderberry Sherry (August - October)
Gather the elderberries on a dry day (folklore
dictates you ask permission of 'Mother Elder' first). Half
pack a jar with the elderberries, removing the berries from
the stems by 'combing' with a fork. Top up the jar
with a sweet sherry and seal. Leave for a full year
then strain and rebottle. You will now have something
that resembles a fine port, in depth if not in taste. It
is possible to make a small amount of rather potent wine
with the remains of the elderberries - just follow a standard
elderberry wine recipe.
The Perfect Bloody Mary
Wonderfully reviving for Sunday mornings
before a brisk walk and lunch in a local hostelry.
Place some ice cubes in the bottom of a
stout glass. Toss in a pinch of celery salt. Add
two measures of one's preferred vodka and squeeze in a slice
of lemon. Top up with tomato juice, add a quarter
measure of a fine amontillado, a dash of Tabasco and a grind
of black pepper. Marvellous.
Miss Kristina Penn of Lewisham came up with
an original but equally refreshing version using freshly
juiced carrots and radishes. Make as above, substituing
juice made from carrots and radishes (the proportions of
which are entirely up to you) for the tomato juice. Omit
the celery salt. This variation is delightful pick-me-up
for those Saturday mornings when one wakes up feeling rather
shabby.
Miss Bellasis wonders whether fresh beetroot
juice with orange substituted for the lemon wouldn't be
rather delightful too.