Recipes
fera_festiva is very fond of telling me a story about a Mills and Boon book that she once read in which the protagonists made a chocolate cake and then proceeded to have sex using this chocolate cake as a prop. At the end of this book, for any that would like to feel like the events portrayed within the novel were not completely out of their reach, the author had kindly included the recipe that the characters had used and enjoyed. This could even be seen as the 'money shot' of the book, and tells us certain things about the way in which Mills and boon is marketed.
Now, while I know that the 'novel with recipes' format has been used by a number of different writers in a number of different styles, from South American magic realism to East End WW2 family saga, I wanted to bring this particular novel to your attention as a sort of marker, a gauge to see just where I'm aiming in my intentions as a purveyor of prose.
Yeah, I did once make an ill-fated attempt to get the submissions guidelines for Mills and Boon, but I'm not really good enough for even them.
Anyway, as you might have guessed from all of this preamble, at the beginning of the week I did it, I actually made a brisket loaf, and ate it for dinner, and it was lovely. I like brisket, see, as well as being unhealthily obsessed with it, I also think that it is a very nice, very underrated cut of meat. I buy it pre-rolled from my butcher and make sat beef out of it and it is some of the best salt beef you might eat. If I do say so myself. And add to that my new meat grinder that I got for christmas and, well, a certain kind of meatloaf had to be made...
This makes a small loaf, for two people:
1lb brisket, ground
4 slices graubrot (that's the only word I know for it, but it's a soft, white rye bread),left to go stale and then turned into breadcrumbs
1 onion, chopped and fried
ground herbs and spices to taste: juniper berries, caraway seed, coriander seed, black pepper, oregano
a splash of Kirsch
a squeeze of tomato puree
1 egg
In true meatloaf style, all you do is squidge the whole lot together in a mixing bowl and then pack it into a loaf tin, and if you're me, then you can always hide a layer of cheese inside, and bake it at 375F or gas 5 for 45 mins. Have it with homemade apple sauce, it's top notch.
And when you have eaten it you too can enjoy god-like powers... or maybe not. Possibly on account of not having it with spuds on the side, I actually felt quite hungry later in the evening. Oh dear. Don't let anyone else know...
Beef:
'Grinding their bones into the dust of the past'*
Snape savours his creation and the promise of immortality that it offers:
*Manowar: Brothers of Metal pt.1
Now, while I know that the 'novel with recipes' format has been used by a number of different writers in a number of different styles, from South American magic realism to East End WW2 family saga, I wanted to bring this particular novel to your attention as a sort of marker, a gauge to see just where I'm aiming in my intentions as a purveyor of prose.
Yeah, I did once make an ill-fated attempt to get the submissions guidelines for Mills and Boon, but I'm not really good enough for even them.
Anyway, as you might have guessed from all of this preamble, at the beginning of the week I did it, I actually made a brisket loaf, and ate it for dinner, and it was lovely. I like brisket, see, as well as being unhealthily obsessed with it, I also think that it is a very nice, very underrated cut of meat. I buy it pre-rolled from my butcher and make sat beef out of it and it is some of the best salt beef you might eat. If I do say so myself. And add to that my new meat grinder that I got for christmas and, well, a certain kind of meatloaf had to be made...
This makes a small loaf, for two people:
1lb brisket, ground
4 slices graubrot (that's the only word I know for it, but it's a soft, white rye bread),left to go stale and then turned into breadcrumbs
1 onion, chopped and fried
ground herbs and spices to taste: juniper berries, caraway seed, coriander seed, black pepper, oregano
a splash of Kirsch
a squeeze of tomato puree
1 egg
In true meatloaf style, all you do is squidge the whole lot together in a mixing bowl and then pack it into a loaf tin, and if you're me, then you can always hide a layer of cheese inside, and bake it at 375F or gas 5 for 45 mins. Have it with homemade apple sauce, it's top notch.
And when you have eaten it you too can enjoy god-like powers... or maybe not. Possibly on account of not having it with spuds on the side, I actually felt quite hungry later in the evening. Oh dear. Don't let anyone else know...
Beef:
'Grinding their bones into the dust of the past'*
Snape savours his creation and the promise of immortality that it offers:
*Manowar: Brothers of Metal pt.1