I like Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories (1994)
and Second Helpings of Roast Chicken
(2001) very much indeed. (See here and here.) Hopkinson penned
his first Roast Chicken offering with
Lindsey Bareham, a food writer with more than a few cookbooks under her belt.
While Hopkinson and Bareham worked on Roast
Chicken and Other Stories, they “began to reminisce about the hotel and
restaurant dishes they had grown up with and always loved….” Think Chicken
Kiev, Duck à l’Orange, Boeuf à la Bourguignonne, Trout with Almonds, Crêpes
Suzette and Pêche Flambee. This reverie led to The Prawn Cocktail Years, a collection of winsome dishes that have
fallen out of favor due to the ever-shifting sands of food trends. If you are
over a certain age, you’ll recognize these dishes from a bygone era of dining.
It is as you’ve picked up a vintage issue of the now defunct Gourmet Magazine.
But the thing is, these
dishes can taste delicious! Yes, many an ambivalent kitchen wreaked havoc upon
these foods, but that doesn’t mean the dish itself was bad in the first place. Thus,
the stated purpose of The Prawn Cocktail
Years: “…to redefine the Great British Meal and rescue other similarly
maligned classic dishes from years of abuse, restoring them to their former
status.” I dare say that when Bareham and Hopkinson wrote these words in 1997,
they were ahead of the culinary curve: Deviled Eggs and Angels on Horseback are
hot again.
Flipping through The Prawn Cocktail Years, I came across
a number of recipes I wanted to try, including Bareham and Hopkinson’s take on
Bread and Butter Pudding. Topped with orange marmalade, the dessert is easy to
make and tastes outstanding. Fine ingredients will produce the best results, so
go for the good stuff with this recipe.
Serves 4-6
400ml milk
1 vanilla pod
2 tbsp caster sugar
approximately 75g soft
butter
125g white bread, medium
sliced, crusts removed
75g sultanas
3 large eggs
freshly grated nutmeg
350g good quality
marmalade
200ml whipping cream.
Pre-heat the oven to
325ºF/160ºC/gas mark 3.
Bring the milk slowly to
the boil with the vanilla pod, giving it a good bashing to release the tiny
seeds, and simmer gently for 5 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in
the sugar until it dissolves, and cover with a lid to infuse while you deal
with the bread.
Butter a 1-litre shallow
ovenproof dish. Spread the bread with butter, cut it in half diagonally, then
into quarters. Arrange the slices in the dish and distribute the sultanas
between them.
Whisk the eggs in a bowl.
Remove the vanilla pod (which can be saved and re-used) and whisk in the milk
and whipping cream. Pour the eggy milk over the bread, making sure that all the
sultanas remain covered. Dust the surface with grated nutmeg and dot with any
remaining butter. Leave the dish to stand for 20 minutes.
Heat the marmalade in a
small pan until it turns liquid. Pour through a sieve to catch the peel. Using
a pastry brush or spoon, smear the top of the pudding with a generous glaze of
marmalade. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the custard has set and the top has
billowed and turned golden with crunchy bits where the bread has poked through
the custard. Allow it to settle and cool slightly. Serve the remaining strained
marmalade in a jug to be spooned over each helping, along with cold, thick
cream.
Note: You could, if you
wish, chop the strained peel and add it to the pudding with the sultanas;
alternatively the sultanas could be soaked in hot rum or whisky—or either
alcohol could be added to the marmalade sauce.
Some things to consider when
making this dish: If you use the sultanas (or chopped, thick-cut orange peel), do
make sure that they are well tucked in and buried between the slices of bread.
Otherwise you risk a dish topped with burnt and bitter bits of fruit.
If your marmalade is
chock-full of heavy, thick-cut peel, you will want to liquefy more than 350
grams; you want enough liquid jam to coat the soaked bread. And speaking of
bread, cut the crust off before weighting out 125 grams.
