As we get toward the end of the year, the age-old question of ‘what do I cook for Christmas’ comes to mind. Perhaps King Edwards can come to the rescue?
The first place I looked for a recipe was ‘King Edward’s Cookery Book’ by Florence A George, who was appointed Cookery Mistress at KEHS in 1894. Ms George viewed cooking as a science which all girls should study and published the book in 1901 as a text-book for all. I challenged myself to re-create one of the recipes in my kitchen at home, and if you’re feeling brave you can too!
Rather than start with something simple or traditional (which in hindsight might have been a sensible course of action) I decided to try something I had never heard of before: kromeskies. I had no idea what these were, but the general definition seems to be a croquette consisting of a piece of bacon wrapped around cooked meat and fried. Sounds quite tasty!
Ingredients:
For the Kromeskies:
- 6 Streaky bacon rashers (or 1 packet so you have enough left over for a sneaky bacon sandwich)
- 375g Sausage meat (or 1 packet)
- 2 large potatoes, boiled then mashed
- 1 piece of bread made into breadcrumbs
- 1 chopped onion
For the batter:
- 125g plain flour
- 55g baking powder
- 240ml water (or half water/half milk)
- Fat (for frying) – I used vegetable oil
- Before starting I made the plain mash potato and turned the bread into crumbs. While the mash was cooling, I made the batter by whisking together the ingredients with a pinch of salt in a bowl until smooth. I then placed the batter in the fridge so I could work on the kromeskies.
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First I lightly fried the chopped onion until starting to pick up colour. Then thoroughly mixed the sausage meat, potato mash, breadcrumbs and onion together and seasoned. I divided the mixture into croquette shapes (this made about 16), wrapped around each a piece of streaky bacon and placed 8 in the refrigerator for at least an hour to set, the other 8 into the freezer for another day (I had no idea there were would be so much mixture!)
- After an hour it was time for the frying – as I don’t have a deep fat fryer I used my trusty saucepan quarter filled with oil. I dipped each Kromeskie into the batter and drop into the hot oil to fry for 10 minutes.
Unfortunately my frying skills were fairly terrible and most of the batter fell off! While what resulted was quite tasty, I think perhaps in future I shall stick to archiving and a traditional roast at Christmas!
Charlotte Gallant, Foundation Archivist
