Strawberry-fritters

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Strawberry-fritters

Strawberry-fritters is one of the recipes that we made at an open hearth cooking class that I taught at Nelles Manor Museum last summer. This class featured scrumptious seasonal recipes made with garden produce and recipes from the late 1700s, when the home was newly built by the Nelles family.

I learned when I made Apple Frazes that adding a bit of alcohol to your batter is a good idea, so I made a batch for a socially distanced outdoor Canada Day gathering. They taste like fried strawberries and white wine and I liked them so much that I wanted to make the recipe again here on this blog and share it with all of you!

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Oeufs au fromage

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Oeufs au fromage

Oeufs au fromage (Eggs with Cheese) is probably the most delicious scrambled egg recipe I’ve ever made! The flavours of the Gruyere cheese, parsley, green onions, nutmeg and white wine combine beautifully and the recipe itself is simple to pull off. I found this recipe in the 1825 edition of La cuisinière bourgeoise, which was the first cookbook to be published in Canada and this is also my first bilingual post in both English and French.

Oeufs au fromage est probablement la plus délicieuse recette d’œufs brouillés que j’ai jamais préparée! Les saveurs du gruyère, du persil, des oignons verts, de la muscade et du vin blanc se marient à merveille et la recette est simple à réaliser. J'ai trouvé cette recette dans l'édition de 1825 de La cuisinière bourgeoise, le premier livre de recettes publié au Canada. C’est aussi mon premier poste bilingue en anglais et en français.

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Chicken with Chili

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Chicken with Chili

If you ask me over to your house to babysit, I will snoop in your kitchen while your baby sleeps and search for old cookbooks. That’s where I found The Hundred Menu Chicken Cookbook from 1972, which has the tagline “One-pot chicken recipes that are easy-to-make and a treat to serve” and boasts that it contains recipes from over 20 countries.


Chicken with Chili is a warming full-flavoured chicken dish that would be an excellent slow-cooker recipe. I was intrigued by Chicken with Chili because it claimed to be an Ethiopian recipe and I was skeptical about how accurate it would be, but it turns out that it is reasonably similar to Doro Wat! A couple of ingredients that are typically served in Doro Wat are missing and the traditional spices have been substituted for spices that would have been found in the kitchens of most American families in 1972. What you end up with Chicken with Chili is an echo of Doro Wat without the spicy heat.

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Cawdel of Almaund Mylk

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Cawdel of Almaund Mylk

Cawdel of Almaund Mylk is a rather boozy and thick warm beverage that is slightly silty, made with white wine, ground almonds, sugar and ginger. This is a drink that you'll want to sip and be prepared for a strong alcohol taste, but if you are vegan and miss drinking eggnog, this is a recipe that you may want to try out.

So far, Cawdel of Almaund Mylk is the oldest recipe I've ever made on this blog. It is found in The Forme of Cury, which is a scroll of recipes written by the Master-Cooks of King Richard II in the 1390s. This is my first foray into Medieval Cookery, so I was surprised that many of its recipes contain almond milk! I did some research and found out that almond milk was a favourite of the British upper class in that era because there were many days in the Christian calendar when eating dairy was forbidden.

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Apple Frazes

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Apple Frazes

Apple Frazes are a tasty apple pancake from the 18th-century classic: The art of cookery made plain and easy by Hannah Glasse. Through making this recipe, I've learned that adding little bit of sherry to your pancake batter is a very good idea!

I had the pleasure of frying my Apple Frazes over an open hearth built in the 1780s at Nelles Manor Museum, where I'll be teaching Open Hearth Cooking Classes. The September Classes have sold out, but we've added a third class on November 4th at 1:00. At this class we'll be making the same Autumn recipes as the classes in September, only at the end of the Fall season rather than the beginning.

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