Apple shape and baked beans
7 November 2021 05:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeI had a sudden craving for sausages and baked beans after watching Sims help themselves to "franks 'n beans" :-D
And thanks to half a tin of tomatoes left over in the fridge and some crab eye beans I'd frozen in their cooking water, about five hours later I did in fact achieve a reasonable facsimile of the tinned article, although I had to add an extra teaspoon of treacle and half-teaspoon of salt at the end to get it to taste right (demonstrating all the claims about baked beans being high in sugar and salt!)
I think the success was due to the fact that I used pre-cooked beans instead of trying to imitate the 'Boston Baked Beans' process of cooking them together with the sauce, which has never yielded very satisfactory results. I also started off by frying the onion in beef dripping with celery and scraps of pepper and grated carrot, to make up for the absence of chorizo and chicken stock. (I don't even know what chipotle paste is, but it's not mentioned at the actual instruction stage so it didn't go in! I did add about a quarter of a small chilli, though.)
https://www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk/homemade-spicy-baked-beans/
I simmered the beans for a *lot* more than 15-20 minutes, since I was using whole tomatoes instead of purée and I wanted the beans to absorb the flavour. And then I left it in a haybox for a couple of hours and warmed it up again while I was preparing the rest of the meal. But it was still much better than the recipes I've tried which tell you to put the soaked but uncooked beans in a slow oven for four hours or so...
I also made an Apple Shape from my 1930s cookery leaflet (under the Cold Sweets heading). It is basically simply cooking apples boiled up with sugar and spices into what amounts in practice to a dish of apple marmalade; 2lb of sugar to 3lb of apples boiled for a measured 50 minutes, with a muslin bag of cinnamon, cloves and lemon rind.
It does set in a most convincing fashion without any need for gelatine, and turns out beautifully (although as the sugar content was so high I ended up setting individual 'shapes' in the bottom of glass bowls, which ended up coming out as little flat saucers rather than elaborate moulded desserts!)
Mine caramelised while I wasn't looking, so I'm not sure if it was intended to be that colour -- very tasty, though!
(And then I couldn't get any replacement sugar, so I shan't be doing anything quite so extravagant again for a while...)
And thanks to half a tin of tomatoes left over in the fridge and some crab eye beans I'd frozen in their cooking water, about five hours later I did in fact achieve a reasonable facsimile of the tinned article, although I had to add an extra teaspoon of treacle and half-teaspoon of salt at the end to get it to taste right (demonstrating all the claims about baked beans being high in sugar and salt!)
I think the success was due to the fact that I used pre-cooked beans instead of trying to imitate the 'Boston Baked Beans' process of cooking them together with the sauce, which has never yielded very satisfactory results. I also started off by frying the onion in beef dripping with celery and scraps of pepper and grated carrot, to make up for the absence of chorizo and chicken stock. (I don't even know what chipotle paste is, but it's not mentioned at the actual instruction stage so it didn't go in! I did add about a quarter of a small chilli, though.)
https://www.dontgobaconmyheart.co.uk/homemade-spicy-baked-beans/
I simmered the beans for a *lot* more than 15-20 minutes, since I was using whole tomatoes instead of purée and I wanted the beans to absorb the flavour. And then I left it in a haybox for a couple of hours and warmed it up again while I was preparing the rest of the meal. But it was still much better than the recipes I've tried which tell you to put the soaked but uncooked beans in a slow oven for four hours or so...
I also made an Apple Shape from my 1930s cookery leaflet (under the Cold Sweets heading). It is basically simply cooking apples boiled up with sugar and spices into what amounts in practice to a dish of apple marmalade; 2lb of sugar to 3lb of apples boiled for a measured 50 minutes, with a muslin bag of cinnamon, cloves and lemon rind.
It does set in a most convincing fashion without any need for gelatine, and turns out beautifully (although as the sugar content was so high I ended up setting individual 'shapes' in the bottom of glass bowls, which ended up coming out as little flat saucers rather than elaborate moulded desserts!)
Mine caramelised while I wasn't looking, so I'm not sure if it was intended to be that colour -- very tasty, though!
(And then I couldn't get any replacement sugar, so I shan't be doing anything quite so extravagant again for a while...)
no subject
Date: 2021-11-07 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-07 07:33 pm (UTC)This is more like set marmalade, or sweet jelly with fruit in it.
no subject
Date: 2021-11-08 07:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-11-09 01:41 am (UTC)(I was rather puzzled by 'mac and cheese', which I eventually realised was what we call 'macaroni cheese'...)