Porter Cake

When I was a child one of my friends was not allowed to read Enid Blyton. I was an avid reader and I used to lend the books to her surreptitiously. She then read them by torchlight in bed underneath her covers. To this day I never knew why she wasn't allowed read them. But then she and her siblings were only really allowed to play with us and not the other children living on the road.

Her mother was a big, very grand Donegal woman who could talk for Ireland, lowering her tone when a child was in earshot (usually a very nosy me). Her husband was (I think) a senior civil servant in the Department of Foreign Affairs. I know now she had very influential contacts and she used to entertain at length at home. She was a great cook and her dinner party preparations usually involved a lot of whispering and lowering of tone whilst talking to my mother.

She gave this recipe to my mother years ago and my mother had it stuck in her copy of Full and Plenty. I was always asking mum if I could have it. She eventually gave it to me the other day.

I made the first cake yesterday (pictured above) and now I have wrapped it up in baking parchment and tin foil and it is stored in a tin for a month to mature. For this reason I can't show a picture of it cut.

I followed the first recipe almost exactly until I got to the dried fruit but I had different fruit and no candied peel. I also used 330ml of Guinness Foreign Extra. Well actually I didn't even pour it all over the cake, thinking it would make a very soggy cake, so I poured some into me instead.

Lady Iveagh's Porter Cake Recipe
225g softened butter
225g muscovado sugar
4 eggs
500g mixed dried fruit (I used sultanas, cranberries, raisins, dates and prunes)
100g walnuts
300g flour
330ml bottle of Guinness
1 teaspoon of mixed spice

Cream the butter and sugar well. Add in one egg at a time and a tablespoon of sieved flour to prevent curdling. Stir in the dried fruit, walnuts, spice and 4 tablespoons of the Guinness. Sieve the flour and add it in bit by bit (I use Spelt so you may need more or less). Transfer into a suitable tin lined or greased. I baked it at 130C for 2 hours. Check a skewer comes out clean to make sure it is baked in centre. Allow to cool. And here is the bit that confused me. It says in recipe to pour the remainder of the Guinness over the base of the cooled cake (after skewering a few holes in it). I was sure that this would make a very soggy cake and most of it was running through cake onto my counter top. I decided to pour it in several stages in small amounts and drank the rest. I left it out overnight and next morning it didn't seem remotely soggy.

I looked up a few recipes for Porter cake and none of them say to do this so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

I couldn't even wait a month. I can confirm it's sublime with the taste of Guinness not obliterated by heat but instead infusing the fruit with the most unbelievable tang. This is the way to make a porter cake!

I intend making the Lady Killanin recipe next. But I need a couple of months to mature this one and eat it (being on a diet like).

Off the Pig's Back

Warm potato salad with a yoghurt mustard dressing

I hesitated writing this post. Why? Because the following dishes were cooked using ingredients that were dumped. I get black sacks of old fruit and vegetables for my pigs from a small green grocer in my local town. It's a pretty good green grocer in that you can get virtually anything you could want (in season and completely out of season). In this respect it often has a better selection than the local supermarkets. For this reason it does really well.

A lot of the stuff is pretty shook but quite edible for pigs. And other times I fish stuff out and really wonder why? I have microscopically examined stuff and for the life of me couldn't find a thing wrong with it. In fact I would have been happy to pay full price for it.

There is so much about food waste in the media that I wonder how someone running any business can be so casual about what is in effect throwing away money. I have never gone by use by/sell by dates in my life. I use my nose, my eyes and my cop on to decide if something is safe to eat. I came from a family that never wasted food. Not because of financial constraints, but because we were educated to believe it was wrong to waste. Even when I had more money than sense, I never would have dreamed of throwing away a chicken carcass. In fact my (ex) husband used to joke I put stuff in the fridge and let it grow whiskers. Then and only then I dumped it.

The dish pictured above is made from a bag of salad potatoes and bunches of scallions that I found in the black sack. I made a dressing using Greek yoghurt, grainy Dijon mustard and some lime juice (from a lime also dumped.) The salad potatoes had a few eyes which was maybe why they had been dumped and the scallions a few yellowing outer leaves.

cock-a-leekie soup

This cock-a-leekie soup was made using potatoes and leeks that were dumped.

I had boned out a chicken carcass as I was using breasts in one dish and the legs and wings in a stew with haricot beans. I browned off the carcass and then made stock with it. When it had cooled I flaked off the remaining chicken and added it to the soup.

Melanzane alla Parmigiana

The aubergines in this dish were also dumped. It was really, really delicious. In fact so good that the chef who normally doesn't like "tomatoey" stuff told me he really enjoyed it.

The recipe is in the previous post here.

I make this sweet spicy pepper relish at least once every two weeks with peppers that are in the black sacks. Very often I use packets of chillies that are also dumped to add to it. When I get a large quantity of chillies I make Jerk seasoning, recipe here.

Fennel and Mushroom Ragout

This fennel and mushroom pasta dish was made using three massive and completely perfect fennel bulbs. I usually only buy fennel in summer from the farmers' market I go to. But when I discovered them in the black bag I couldn't bear to dump them in my compost heap. And the pigs won't touch them. Recipe here






I have made orange curd in the past and used it in a luscious chocolate cake but since I am off sugar at the moment I just put them in the compost as the pigs don't eat any citrus fruits. Check it out here. In fact it is on the list of my most popular posts on the blog.

The reason I hesitated about his post is that so many people are so squeamish about food. I know many who would be absolutely horrified I used ingredients that were dumped to cook with, a lot of this is due sadly to food safety concerns and indeed food safety bodies, but I think if you look at the pictures you will agree that the food looks delicious. And you will have to take my word for it that it was and we have not been sick or poisoned.

It's food for thought. What do you think you would do?

Melanzane alla Parmigiana

The weather is improving. It's time to start thinking hoping to be able to dine outside. This is a great dish to prepare in advance and then heat and serve outside. 

I had two lovely big plump aubergines and had made this before but topped the dish with mozzarella. I found a recipe on the BBC Good Food website saying to top with beaten egg. I changed this slightly and added Greek yoghurt.

I used passata instead of chopped tinned tomatoes but either would work.


Melanzane alla Parmigiana Recipe

2 aubergines
1 red onion finely diced
1 clove of garlic crushed
1 carton of passata or 2 tins of chopped tomatoes
a sprig of rosemary chopped
salt and pepper
1 large egg
2 heaped tablespoons of Greek yoghurt
100g of coarsely grated Parmesan
Rapeseed oil and olive oil

Using a large frying/griddle pan, add a tablespoon of rapeseed oil and one of olive oil. Add slices of aubergine and batch fry for about 4 minutes each side until softened and beginning to yield back the oil onto the pan.

In a separate saucepan saute the onions and garlic until softened. Add the tomatoes/passata and season. Finally add the finely chopped rosemary leaves only. Simmer ten minutes.

Layer up aubergines and tomato sauce in an oven proof dish. Grate some Parmesan over each layer.

Finally whisk the egg and yoghurt together and pour over the top of the dish. Finish off with remaining grated Parmesan.

Put in oven 180C for 25 minutes or until golden and bubbling. Cool and serve thick wedges.

Can be served as a main or as a vegetable side. It's really good with crusty bread. Perfect for spring or summer dining.