Yesterday's Bread IMBB # 25

I thought this month's IMBB from Derrick of An obsession with food was a brilliant one as I always have the end of a loaf going solid in my bread bin. But what to cook? I pondered serveral ideas for a while but thought better of bread and butter pudding. So I called in reinforcements in the shape of my great grandmother's recipes. My Mum has an old red exercise book filled with the family's inherited recipes, with additions of her own. She provided Nana Davies's Queen of Puddings, which Mum cooks on occasion, and one I had never had before: Ginger Pudding. Luckily I had most of the ingredeints in the cupboard and fridge, although I didn't have any suet as required for the Ginger Pudding so I thought I'd use vegetable fat, which is supposed to be for pastry but did the job nevertheless.
But, with all this sweetness I required something savory to make a whole feast from yeserday's bread. A little bit more thinking and I came up with crunchy lemony scallops with a lemony caper butter sauce and watercress, rocket and spinach salad - what a dinner!




Crunchy lemony scallops with a lemony caper butter sauce

For 2 people
6 scallops
4cm lemongrass, finely chopped
zest and juice of one lemon
handfull of breadcrumbs
1 egg, beaten
100g butter
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 tablespoons capers, roughly chopped
1 tablespoon olive oil

watercress, rocket and spinach salad - I bought a ready prepared bag, but you could easily mix up your own

Melt the butter very gently and add the crushed garlic. Leave to gently cook for 5min. Then add the lemon juice and the capers. Mix tohether the lemongrass, lemon zest and breadcrumbs. Dunk the scallops in the beaten egg and then into the breadcrumb mix. Fry in the olive oil until cooked through, though still moist. Then pile on top of the salad. Spoon over a little of the butter sauce and use the rest to dress the plate rather than the leaves.


Nana Davies's Queen of Puddings
1/2 pint milk
1 oz butter
2 oz sugar
4 oz breadcrumbs
2 eggs
2 tablespoons jam (I used rhubarb but raspberry seems to be more tradional)
grated rind of a lemon

Heat the milk and butter together. Then pour over breadcrumbs and half the sugar. Add egg yolks and grated lemon rind and mix well. Pour into buttered pie dish. Cook until set in a moderate oven. Spread the top with jam. Then top this with meringue, made from the egg white and half the sugar. Bake until meringue is set.

As Mum says "Nana presumed we knew what she was talking about and didn't spell things out!!" So this recipe serves about 4 people and a moderate oven is about 180°C, it took about 30min to set the bottom and then 15min to cook the meringue.

Nana Davies's Ginger Pudding
3 oz self-raising flour
3 oz suet
1 1/2 oz breadcrumbs
4 oz warmed golden syrup
1 teaspoon ground ginger

Add dry ingredients together in bowl,add warm syrup and pour into buttered basin. Steam for 2 hrs. This was incredibly easy to make and very moist and yummy, though I guess not for the calorie conscious.

I served it with a dollop of Greek yoghurt, which cut through the sweetness very nicely.