Four festive recipes from the Country Life Archive that have (thankfully) fallen out of favour

Festive fare has always been a feature of Country Life, though there are some seasonal ‘delights’ from the magazine’s formative years that have fallen out of favour.

Terrapin soup, I’m looking at you.

Plenty of the recipes I discovered as I trawled through Country Life’s extensive archive made me wince in sympathy with the poor cook. They were all authored by ‘Charlotte Russe’ — presumably a nom-de-plume because this was the name of a popular pudding in the early 19th century. Charlotte's recipes were always accompanied by an illustration of a world-weary chef presenting a dish to an apparently gout-ridden gentleman, by renowned pre-Raphaelite artist Eleanor Fortescue-Brickdale.

Without further ado, here are some of Charlotte’s ideas for the Christmas table. I suggest you read and do not try (unless you’re skilled in the art of de-prickling cardoons) — and be thankful that you are only cooking a turkey with all the trimmings this year.

Cardoons à la Poulette, December 2, 1899

Select six heads of white cardoons which are perfectly sound, and cut them into pieces from three to five inches in length and remove prickles.

Put the cardoons into a saucepan containing plenty of salted boiled water that has been slightly acidulated by the addition of a small quantity of white wine vinegar, and let them boil for a quarter of an hour, or until the skin can be removed, and place them in a basin of cold water.

When they are cool, scrape off the skin, tie the cardoons into bundles and put them into a stew pan with a slice of fat bacon, cover them with a vegetable broth made according to the following directions, and let them cook gently until they are done.

Put four ounces of the fat (it must be white) which has been taken from some meat stock into a stew pan, and when it has melted stir in an ounce of flour, then add three pints of water; let the latter boil up and put in six ounces of minced onions, a bouquet garni, half a lemon cut into thin slices, a teaspoonful of salt, and half the quantity of powdered sugar.

Let the broth simmer for half an hour, then strain it, and serve it with a poulette sauce made thus: Cook an ounce of butter and an ounce of flour together for a few minutes without letting them acquire any colour, then moisten them with a gill of chicken or veal stock and boiling cream; when the sauce is smooth and thick season it with pepper and salt, and a very little nutmeg, and add the yolks of two raw eggs that have been beaten up with a dessert-spoonful of lemon juice, and stir it quickly for a few second before removing from the pan from the stove.

Sweetbread Cream, December 6, 1902

Line a plain Charlotte mould with pale aspic jelly, and decorate it all over with diamond-shaped pieces of red, yellow and green chicken farce (forcemeat), placed point to point, with a tiny round slice of truffle between each.

Blanche and braise two large sweetbreads, and when they are cold pound them with an ounce of butter and pass them through a fine wire sieve.

Put half a pint of milk in a saucepan with a small shallot, a few pieces of celery, a blade of mace, a few thin strips of lemon-peel, and a slice of fat bacon. When the milk has boiled, draw the pan to the side of the stove and let it simmer for 20 minutes.

Melt an ounce of butter in a small saucepan and stir into it one ounce of flour, then strain the milk into the pan and stir it until it has boiled and thickened: season the sauce with salt, and mix it with the sieved sweetbread, and leave in a basin to cool.

Whip half a pint of cream, season it with celery salt and white pepper, and add by degrees half a pint of cool but liquid aspic jelly: then add the sweetbread mixture, and whisk all the ingredients together for a few minutes, and fill the prepared mould with the ‘cream’.

When set, turn the sweetbread out onto a socle (plinth) of rice ornamented with piped green butter, and garnish the dish with chervil.

A Christmas Pie, December 23, 1899

Take the meat from a pheasant, two partridges, and the back and thighs of a hare, and cut it up into neat pieces. Put a quarter of a pound of butter into a sauté pan with a minced shallot, and when the butter is hot add the meat, season it with black pepper, salt, and a dust of powdered mace, stir continuously to prevent burning, and at the end of twelve minutes remove from the pan, and put it aside until it is cold.

Pass one pound of lean fresh pork, half a pound of fat bacon, and the livers of the birds and that of the hare twice through the mincing machine; add salt, black pepper, cayenne, a little grated nutmeg and lemon peel, a tablespoonful of chopped parsley, and six truffles, minced.

Mix the farce thoroughly, and moisten it with a glass of Marsala and a beaten egg. Butter an ornament earthenware pie case, line it evenly with a coating of the farce, then put in a layer of hare, scatter over it some little pieces of tongue (or ham), some pate de foie gras cut into dice, and some button mushrooms: then add a layer of pheasant and cover with the forcemeat.

Over this, please some more pieces of hare, with tongue etc., as before, then a layer of partridge, and so on until the dish is closely packed. Butter a large piece of paper and place it over the pie, then put on the cover of the dish and let the contents cook in a moderate oven for three hours.

Have ready some meat jelly which has been boiled with the bones of the birds and the hare, melt it by a gentle heat, without making it hot, and add to it a glass of sherry and a small quantity of mushroom ketchup.

On taking the pie from the oven, remove the lid and the paper, and pour the liquid jelly into it gradually until the dish will contain no more; then put it in a cool place and leave until the following day.

Cover the pie with golden aspic jelly, and garnish it at the edge with clear red cranberry jelly cut into leaves.

Chartreuse of Apricots à la Cambridge, December 23, 1899

Dissolve a pint of Chivers (other brands are available) lemon-jelly in Chablis, and when it is cool, line a mould evenly with it. As soon as the jelly has set, decorate the mould with split apricots which have been preserved in syrup, and place a crystallised violet with a little leaf-shaped piece of Angelica here and there, setting the garnish with a little of the jelly.

Put a pint of cream into a stew pan with six ounces of caster sugar, and when it is hot, stir in two ounces of gelatine — previously soaked in a little cream — and when the latter has melted pour the cream into a basin and leave to cool.

Have ready eight ounces of pistachio nuts which have been blanched and pounded to a smooth paste with a small quantity of orange flower water; mix them with a pint of whipped cream, then stir the cool cream and colour it with a delicate green, add a small glass of sherry, and whisk the mixture until it shows signs of setting.

Then fill the lined mould with it, and put it in a cool larder until the pistachio cream is sufficiently firm to turn out. The cream is nicer if not too firm, therefore it is advisable not to place the chartreuse on ice.

The remainder of the jelly should be coloured red, and chopped and used as a garnish round the chartreuse.