Cooking Alone

by Kathleen Le Riche

  “Pour the water off and feel the blob,” he said.

  “It isn’t a blob. It’s a stream.”

  “Then we must cook for five minutes more,” when they tested again.

  “The blob feels almost firm,” she said. “Rather like toffee when you’ve chewed it a bit.”

  “That means it’s done. Hurry up and rub the tin over with butter on a piece of its paper, and we can scoop it on.”

  They used the shallow grilling pan which was large enough, and smoothed the toffee over the top with a flexible knife dipped in hot water. When it had set just firmly enough, they lifted it en bloc with an egg slice and turned it upside down on to well-buttered paper. “When it’s nearly cool we can mark out the squares, and cut them through when it’s quite cold,” he said.

  “I’ll get the caramel papers which I’ve been saving up, and I’ll wrap them so that they’ll look like real caramels,” she said. “But, of course, to make them especially chewy we should have used liquid glucose instead of the syrup. I’ll buy some at the chemist, and hide it for the next chance we get.”

  “We forgot the flavouring,” he said. “But it didn’t matter since we had the butter. It’s nicer plain when it’s the real thing.”

  “We should have put the flavouring in at the very last stir, I know,” she said. “A dessertspoonful of vanilla essence, a teaspoonful of almond essence, a tablespoonful of coffee essence.”

  “I like the COFFEE powder, but it takes an ounce for all this amount of toffee; or two ounces of cocoa to make CHOCOLATE TOFFEE, only we have to sift it in in case of lumps.”

  “What about nuts? Remember when we put the COCONUT in? We put so little we hardly noticed it. We could have used up to four ounces. easily. Shouldn’t that be put in at the last stir, too?”

  “Yes, and any other chopped nuts. By the way, let’s crack some nuts and roast them. I’m strong in the wrist. You put the oven on.”

  And so she did, and when the nuts were cracked, the oven was hot enough to roast them. Lightly only, and with a number of shake-ups, to let the moisture evaporate. They were left to become cold before heaping them into paper bags and then into tins, so that they could be carried and stored cleanly for just that moment when nuts, almost more than anything else, can ward off that sinking feeling of hunger.

  “Do they feed you well in your digs?” he asked his student sister.

  “Not very. I always have to make up with oddments in my room. But I’m getting quite good at it. I have to have non-smelly things, though I keep cheese wrapped in silver paper, and I wrap the banana skins in newspaper until I get to a bin. I wallow in grapes, though.”

  “Oh, give me raisins every time; or sultanas. They’re scrumptious with nuts.”

  “Let’s make some FRUITY-NUTTY CAKES while we’ve got the oven,” she suggested. “We’ve got the nuts and there’s coconut in the cupboard, and condensed milk already opened.”

  “We won’t use the roasted nuts. There’s no need. I’ll crack some more and you can chop them. A cupful will do, with a cupful of coconut and the same of sultanas and currants.”

  “And grated orange peel,” she said, “it’s nicer than candied peel, I think.”

  So they mixed all these things in a bowl and poured in enough condensed milk to make them stick. Then they teaspooned off the sticky lumps on to a margarined baking tin, and set it in the hot oven until the grand smell announced that the fruities were browned and crisp. They slid them out on to a grilling mesh, where they dried off finally, and those that were still uneaten when they were quite cold, they stored in a tin for future pleasure.

  “I can make pikelets on my ring heater,” she announced, “and pancakes, and bakestone cakes. But you have to have a thick frying-pan for that.” And she showed him the recipes which guided her.

  PIKELETS

  Sift two heaped tablespoonfuls of flour into a basin. Add a large spoonful of fresh milk (though water will do) and stir until there are no lumps. Mix in another spoonful of milk, then a fresh egg and a good pinch of salt. Keep on beating this up with a fork until it is bubbly. This is batter, and it should be thick like clotted cream. Put the frying-pan on the heat and leave it until a nut of lard (or olive oil) in it is practically smoking hot. Pour a tablespoonful of the thick batter in the pan and watch it cook. In a few minutes, when it begins to bubble, lift the edge with a knife to see if it is brown underneath. If it is, turn it over and brown the other side. These can be eaten hot with butter, sugar and lemon juice; with honey, or with jam. If they are left to become cold, do toast them in front of the fire, both sides, before buttering them.

  PANCAKES

  Pancakes are mixed as the pikelets were, only the batter must run thinly. Only fresh milk should be used; enough to make it pour quickly. Powdered milk is no use; and it must all be kept stone cold. Margarine or butter sticks to the frying-pan, so nut-oil, olive oil or lard are the perfect things to fry pancakes in. Not too much, and it must be very hot or the batter will be grease-logged.

  When pouring in the batter, only cover half the pan and twirl the pan to let the batter run all over it. Turning the pancake over is rather more tricky than with pikelets, which are smaller and thicker. The edge of the pancake should be crisp and rather frilly. They should be eaten at once, from a hot plate, with lots of sugar shaken on and some lemon juice, and rolled up.

  BAKESTONE CAKES

  Measure about four ounces of self-raising flour and sift it into a mixing bowl. (You can use a big saucepan.) Cut into it with a fork about two ounces of margarine, and go on mixing it until it all looks like breadcrumbs. Sift in half a teaspoonful of salt and two heaped tablespoonfuls of fine sugar, and mix it up. Flop in an egg (if you have one) and mix it smooth, adding enough milk to make a rather stiff dough. Use all milk if you have no egg. Mix in a handful of currants or sultanas, or chopped nuts and some chopped glacé cherries if you have any. Otherwise the cakes will have to be plain.

  Flour a large plate, or a washable tray, and put a clump of the dough on it. Turn this over to flour the other side, and press it flat, to the thickness of not more than a quarter of an inch, with the back of a wooden spoon or a knife. Dip the edge of an inverted cup or glass into the flour and press it on the flattened dough to cut out ring shapes. Lift these on to a thick, hot, slightly-greased frying-pan, and let them become brown. Turn them over to become brown the other side. If the cakes are cut too thick, or the if pan is too hot, the insides will remain doughy—so you have been warned! Use up all the dough in this way, and each cake will be better than the last.

  FLOUR DREDGER

  One can make a simple flour dredger by punching small holes in the bottom of an empty cocoa tin, with a thin nail and a hammer. It stands upon its lid, therefore, which doesn’t shake off.

  *

  “All that looks terribly professional to me,” said her young brother, handing back her recipes unread.

  “A professional wouldn’t get far on that,” she said, “but it’s easy stuff for beginners, and it’s wholesome. Some day I’m going to be a real cook. When I marry.”

  FRY-PAN CAKES

  “I’ve just thought of something!” she exclaimed. “I think I can make proper cakes on a frying-pan.”

  “I’d like to see you do it,” he taunted.

  She took up the challenge, and did these things with great precision, getting two basins from the cupboard.

  The one basin she stood in a bowl of hot water. She put in it, to melt, two ounces of margarine and a heaped tablespoonful of fine sugar.

  The other basin she left quite cold and drained into it the white of an egg, whisking it until it was stiff.

  To the now melted margarine and sugar she added the egg yolk and mixed it up with a fork.

  Then she put the frying-pan over moderate heat, with a tiny nut of margarine, to become hot. Sifting two heaped tablespoonfuls of self-raising flour with a small saltspoonful of salt into the egg-cream, she mixed it with the fork, making a smooth dough. Next she
scooped into that the snowy white of egg, and mixed it lightly so as not to disintegrate the froth. There was no need of milk. The dough was just softly malleable, and so could be dropped, a forkful at a time, on to the hot, greased frying-pan, giving each blob a twirl with the fork to keep it round. Each little cake was about an inch and a half across.

  She turned the heat rather low, and in five minutes or so the cakes had risen (there were six), and by lifting the edge she could see the underneath was becoming brown. In another minute she turned over each cake and let it brown on the other side. After which she lifted them off on to a wire grill to let the moisture evaporate.

  When they had cooled a little, she bit one. It was crisp on the outside, of a fine airy texture inside, and cooked right through. Her brother watched her eat the whole cake, then tried one for himself. “Oh, I say! I’ll have another,” he was truly appreciative. “These are like fairy cakes, only softer; and lighter,” he said. “And do you know, it’s only half an hour since you first thought of it!”

  COCONUT CAKES

  Doing exactly the same thing again with the same measure of everything, she shook in, spreading it as she turned the fork, and at the last, just before the egg white, a dessertspoonful of desiccated coconut. These cakes rose at the first high heat of the pan, and became set as it was lowered, and then became brown on the other side when they were turned, as before.

  WALNUT CAKES

  Chopping up a few of the shelled walnuts, these were sprinkled on top of the cakes when they were just put on the pan. The moist softness of the dough held the nuts so that they settled. When the cakes were turned over, the nuts browned slightly with the cakes, and had that especially nice flavour of roasted nuts.

  SULTANA CAKES

  A level tablespoonful of cleaned and dried sultanas, mixed in, was another successful variation, which she tried later, as well as:

  ALMOND CAKES

  following the same basic method and measures, but mixing into the egg-cream a few spots of almond essence and a heaped dessertspoonful of ground almonds.

  SAUCEPAN CAKES

  She tried cooking the identical cakes in a hot saucepan, greased with a nut of margarine, as before. Putting the lid on kept the shape of the cakes more rounded, but they didn’t rise quite as much. The lid collected moisture, so that, when she peeped to see how they were doing, she needed to wipe away the brown steam, replacing the lid after turning the cakes. It wasn’t so easy to turn them in a deep pan, so, though the cakes were almost as good, they were a little less light than those done in the open frying-pan.

  SAUCEPAN CAKE

  “Now you’re baffled,” said her brother, and there was a taunting glint in his eye.

  “Not yet,” said she. “I’ll try it another way. I’ll mix a dough and put it in a tin in the saucepan. But it’s got to have air circulating around the tin—that much I know—if only I had a little trivet or a perforated stand….”

  “What about a tin lid, with holes punched in it?” he said, and did it at once.

  She had beginner’s luck. She couldn’t find a suitable tin, so used an ovenware basin; greased it well and floured it; poured in the cake mixture which reached two-thirds up the basin; which she stood on top of the perforated lid in the middle of the saucepan which was now quite hot. Putting the lid on the saucepan she turned the heat to moderate and didn’t peep at it until fifteen minutes had elapsed. The cake had risen right over the top of the basin, but was still rather moist, so she wiped the lid and replaced it, leaving the cake to continue cooking for another five minutes.

  The cake was very light and spongy. It was released from the basin by running a knife around it and letting it slide out on to a wire tray to evaporate.

  It was only later she learned that a thin cake tin would have allowed the bottom of the cake to cook too quickly, and so become burnt before the top was cooked.

  “We must let the saucepan cool itself gradually,” he cautioned, “and the basin! Cold water on them at this moment would buckle the saucepan and split the glass. That’s a scientific fact.” So they didn’t try to prove it.

  SAUCEPAN BREAD

  “Couldn’t you make bread like that?” he said. “Then if you’re short of bread one night…”

  So she set about it at once. Sifting three ounces of self-raising flour into a basin with half a teaspoonful of salt, she sifted it again into another basin, adding to it a small teacupful of milk, mixing it into a soft but not soppy dough until it was perfectly smooth. Greasing the first basin well with margarine and dredging it lightly with flour, she scooped the dough into it, and left it to rise in the warmth while the saucepan became quite hot over moderate heat. She put in it the lid with the holes, and stood the basin on that, fitting the lid on the saucepan as before. In fifteen minutes the bread was nearly cooked, so she turned off the heat and left it to become light brown and crisp before taking it out, lifting it from its basin and standing it on an airy rack to evaporate. She was more proud of her little milk loaf than of her cakes, curiously enough.

  “I feel equipped”, she told herself, “for emergencies,” and she felt, in a way, independent.

  “Sister Anne, Sister Anne! Is there anybody coming?” he quoted from “Bluebeard”. “Keep watch at the window while I get started, clearing up this Awful Mess before They come home.”

  “They won’t be home for another hour,” she said, looking at the clock. “But I’m starving. I need meat. Let’s raid the pantry!”

  “I’ll tell you what I could do with, and that’s Port Flip!”

  “What on earth …?”

  “One of the boys says his family have it before they go shooting. They keep going for hours on it. It’s port wine and egg.”

  “Shouldn’t think they could shoot very straight on that.”

  “Worth trying, though, while the old man is out.”

  So they tiptoed (as if they could be heard) to the sideboard cupboard and got out the bottle. Then he beat up a fresh egg in a tumbler with a fork. “Better strain it,” he said, pouring it through the tea-strainer into two tumblers—half each—and then poured port wine into each, stirring it well with the fork to make it slightly frothy. Putting the bottle safely away, they drank. “Rather queer!” they said to each other. But it produced a new sensation. “Watch me do the scissors step,” he said. “I don’t know if I’m light-headed or light-hearted,” she said, but they both giggled a lot at nothing much and felt rather gloriously reckless.

  X

  THE LONELY MOTHER

  (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.)

  “They have gone!”

  Every day of the week she felt that pang—one-third regret, one-third anxiety and one-third relief—as the children ran off down the hill to school. There they got their midday meal and would not be back for eight hours! One look at the kitchen piled high with used breakfast dishes was enough to dispel the pangs whatever they were. Her resolute attention was demanded.

  Having had only a cup of tea to awaken her to the hustling activities of getting the children fed and away, her hunger mounted as the pile of dishes diminished, and she began to imagine the kind of breakfast she would cook for herself. While the washed dishes were dripping on their racks she would cook and eat calmly without developing the gnawing indigestion which comes from mental agitation.

  She thought she would make a toasted snack, and, as the toaster-griller took nearly five minutes to become red-hot, she turned it on, began cutting the bread and looked in the larder to see what there was to choose from to grill over the bread when it was toasted.

  COFFEE

  Then she began to prepare her coffee. Putting the kettle to boil with a pint of water, she ground a heaped dessertspoonful of coffee and put it into a small, wide jug which was being kept hot over the grilling plate. When the kettle was just boiling, she took it from the heat, filled a large breakfast cup with the boiling water, fitted in it a fine mesh strainer, putting a saucer over the top to keep everything hot. As the water now was just at
the boil she poured a small cupful over the coffee grounds in the jug, stirred it briskly, and covered it with a lid. In one minute she stirred in the grounds floating on the top, gave it another brisk stir, and left it to settle for three or four minutes. Meantime she put on a half cupful of milk to become hot in a saucepan.

  Emptying the hot water from the cup she poured the coffee into it through the strainer, and added the milk. As she sipped and inhaled the full-bodied flavour and aroma of the coffee, she told herself again, as so often before, that the care and precision of making coffee just right is well worth while.

  CHEESE ON TOAST

  Her bread was now toasted, and this day she had chosen a very simple mixture to be grilled over it, since she had a jar of breadcrumbs and a jar of grated cheese, which she had grated during odd intervals while she was cooking, and which she kept open to the air to avoid bluemould.

  Mixing a spoonful of each in a basin with a pinch of dry mustard, a little salt and a drop of milk, she spread it over the toast and grilled it brown in half a minute.