Welcome to the blog for adventurous young chefs! I have had many requests from my students to make some “retro recipes” from the 50′s, 60′s and 70′s — everything from “pigs in blankets” to Steak Diane. In today’s after-school cooking class, we whipped up our first three dishes: deviled eggs, pigs in blankets and cherries jubilee, the dish that was reportedly made for Queen Victoria by the famed Chef Escoffier near the turn of the century. We put on some tunes from the past, including Sarah Vaughn and Count Basie, and got cooking…
White Asparagus with Beurre Blanc
I almost forgot our favorite recipe from last week… What could be more retro than white asparagus with beurre blanc? Or anything with beurre blanc, for that matter? My LFIK students not only loved this dish, they BEGGED for more. Luckly, I sent them home with the recipe. You can find it on the RECIPES page of this site. But I digress… it was time to make Pigs In Blankets, American Style.
We made these little piggies with both turkey dogs and all beef hot dogs, but of course, you could make them vegetarian if you wanted to… the truth is, they seem to be everyone’s guilty pleasure, and we served them with honey mustard and of course, ketchup. If we had been in London, we would have served them with HP Sauce!
Meanwhile, our eggs were boiled and ready to be deviled…
making deviled eggs
Deviled Eggs
Need I tell you how delicious they were? We topped half of them with fresh dill – the others, with smoky paprika.
Last, but definitely not least was our Cherries Jubilee (thank you, Escoffier) — only this recipe was straight out of the 50′s, with Bing cherries straight from the CAN. We flambeed our cherries with Kirsch…
… then spooned it over vanilla ice cream and topped it with whipped cream. In the end, we agreed that we would much prefer to create our own version with fresh cherries, sugar and butter… Escoffier’s authentic version, to be sure. In any case, the jubilee was a hit with both the cooking students and the parents at pickup.
We are looking forward to next week’s dishes… we’re thinking chicken pot pie, bananas flambee…. or perhaps deviled crab and baked Alaska… what are your favorite retro recipes?
February 23, 2011 at 9:58 pm
Chicken and dumplings; pork roast with noodles and of course meatloaf and mashed potatoes are a few of the dishes my mother prepared in the 50`s. Oh! almost forgot homemade biscuits. Desserts were chocolate fudge cake with homemade fudge icing and a variety of creme pies (chocolate; lemon; coconut creme) piled high with clouds of meringue! What fun to take a little step back in time…
February 25, 2011 at 12:37 am
Coconut creme pie! You just reminded me of my childhood — my Grammy Olga used to make it all the time… and yes, the meringue, the meringue! Chicken and dumplings is still of my favorite dishes, so I will definitely add that to the class schedule – thank you so much for your post!
February 24, 2011 at 4:42 pm
I want the pigs in the blanket recipe!
February 25, 2011 at 12:40 am
Too simple — almost embarrassingly so. Get your dogs… chicken, turkey or beef (or tofu, of course!), cut them in half. Get a roll of Pillsbury Crescent Rolls (I use the reduced fat), and cut each triangle in half to make 16 small triangles. You will now have 16 mini dogs & 16 triangles. Have your child roll them up, then bake them for about 10-12 minutes, until golden brown, in a 375 degrees oven. Serve w/honey mustard, Dijon or… ketchup, depending on the age of your diners
For a more gourmet version, do these with chicken, apple & fennel sausages, or whatever your favorite sausages are… delicious!