Our Loose Blogging consortium includes:- Anu, Ashok, Conrad, Gaelikaa, Ginger, Grannymar, Helen, Judy, Magpie 11, Maria, & Ramana.
Our topic today was chosen by Magpie 11
Potatoes and beans…..
This topic takes me full circle. Let me explain. A few years ago I left a spontaneous comment on a fellow Irishman’s blog. It was: “Just give them three jumps at the cupboard door!”** – You don’t need to know all the details as the story might lose the flavour in the retelling.
Some months, if not a year later a certain gentleman was searching for the origin of said phrase and landed up on my blog. At times he may rue that day because he has never been allowed to leave. Not alone has he stayed, but listened to my nagging, and started a blog of his own. Today he is a very well respected member of the LBC and responsible for the choice of topic today.
Over the past couple of weeks I have had fun dipping back into some old cookery books that came from my childhood home. One book in particular was a Thirty-Seventh Edition, printed in 1950. The first was in 1927. On several occasions there were revised and enlarged editions half way through a year.
On page 194 the heading for the chapter was Sauces, Dressings and Stuffings (Including Batters and some Miscellaneous Recipes). Sauce recipes covered eight pages, I lost count of the actual number of individual recipes and intend returning to this at a later date.
The sauce ‘To serve with Butter Beans‘ nicely fulfils the criteria for our topic today and I will reprint it verbatim. 😀
Ingredients:-
1 saltspoonful of French mustard*
¼-½ teaspoonful salt
⅛ teaspoonful pepper
1 dessertspoonful creamed potato
4 tablespoons salad oil
1 tablespoon white vinegar
A few drops of Worcester sauce
Milk
Mix the mustard, salt, pepper and potato and gradually add the oil, mixing well with a fork or small wooden spoon. If the oil is added too quickly and not absorbed, add a little extra potato. Stir in the vinegar and Worcester sauce. Add sufficient milk to thin to the required consistency.
I assume you pour the sauce over the cooked butter beans. There is no mention of cooking, heating either the sauce or the beans.
* Does anybody use a saltspoon these days?
Now had our canny Magpie 11 chosen Brains instead of the vegetables, I found a recipe in there for Brain sauce! 🙄 Anyone want to bequeath their brain so we can try it?
** The phrase ‘Three jumps at the cupboard door’ was the reply given by my late mother-in-law then a very young Jack asked “What’s for dinner?” In translation it means if you don’t get out from under my feet there will be no dinner, and you will have to jump up to the cupboard and see what you can find!
My mammy’s version of the above phrase was ‘Potatoes and point‘, it translated as ‘You will be lucky if you get boiled potatoes and you can point at what ever you fancy and imaging you are eating it’!
