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:

Goodbye France, Hello Åland
A short film about loss, friendship and new adventures

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 fascinating nonetheless.

Miss Bellasis is currently reading:

British Food - An Extraodinary Thousand Years of History
Colin Spencer
Grub Street, 2002

Enlightening and inspiring, Miss Bellasis also recommends George Orwell's article In Defence of English Cooking.

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.

Pudding:
200ml soya milk
50g margarine
100g plain chocolate
200g light brown sugar
150g plain flour
2tsp baking powder

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 still finds it delightfully apt.

“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.  Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, Sir, just at present—at 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.

Miss. Kitty Chatine's Burlesque Cabaret

by
Miss Sarah Dobson & Mr Martin Colbourne, 2004