The biscuit-making process at Deptford victualling yard was on a grand scale, producing almost 25,000 pounds of biscuit a day from twelve ovens, each baking twenty batches a day, and being fed with raw biscuits by a team of seven men. To knead the dough they used a device called a horse; this consisted of a circular platform on which a big lump of flour and water dough was placed, and a wide lever mounted on a central pole which a man ‘rode’ like a hobby horse, jumping it up and down to knead the dough, working his way round the circle as many times as it took to bring the dough to the desired state. It was then passed, in sequence, to a series of men who cut the dough, moulded it into shape, stamped it, split it into two biscuits, arranged it on a peel and ‘shot’ it into the oven to bake.
Ships biscuit is easy to make by hand if you do not mind spending the time to knead the flour sufficiently. If you lack the time or the enthusiasm, you can either put the dough through a pasta machine as many times as it takes to achieve the desired silky texture, or put the ingredients into a bread-making machine and run the dough cycle, then roll the resultant dough by hand. Use white flour for the captain’s table, wholemeal for the mess decks. If intending to keep the biscuits for any length of time, it is best to omit the salt as this will attract moisture from the atmosphere.
1 lb (454 g) (5 cups) plain (all-purpose) white or wholemeal flour
1 teaspoon salt
approx ¾ pint (15 ml) (1 ½ cups) water
Put the flour and salt into a large bowl (or mixing machine), add the water, a little at a time (you may need more than given above) and mix until you can pull the whole together into a ball of dough. (Alternatively, put the flour, salt and most of the water into a bread machine and start the dough cycle with the lid open, adding water a little at a time if the dough appears too stiff, then close the lid and leave the machine to do the rest. Keep neck-ties and hair well away from the machine.) Sprinkle a little flour on a level work surface, turn the dough out and allow it to rest for 10 minutes. Flour your hands and knead the dough for as long as it takes to make it smooth and silky: about 30 minutes.
Turn on the oven to heat to 160°C/325°F/Mark 3. Roll the dough out until approximately ¼ inch (6 mm) thick. Cut it into 3-inch (7.5 cm) squares or rounds, prick the surface with a fork. Lay the biscuits out on a lightly greased baking sheet, not quite touching, and bake for about 60 minutes. They should not be too dark. Put them on a wire tray to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.
The Georgian recipes for salting beef included saltpetre, in a proportion of 2 oz saltpetre to 6 lbs of salt. The reason for adding saltpetre is mainly to give the meat an attractive deep pink colour, but it does tend to make the meat hard. It contributes nothing to the taste, and so can be happily omitted. Saltpetre is now virtually unobtainable in the UK, possibly because its cheaper version, ‘Chilean’ saltpetre (or sodium nitrate) is thought to create carcinogenic nitrosamines, but more probably because true saltpetre is one of the ingredients of gunpowder.
Beef for the Royal Navy was preserved with no more than salt (and saltpetre). For home use, sugar was often added (this helps prevent toughness) and there are many recipes for spiced salt beef. All use the same methods; try whichever takes your fancy.
2–3 lbs (1–1.5 kg) beef (rolled and tied silverside or brisket)
1 lb (450 g) sea salt (not ‘free-running’ table salt which contains
additives to make it run) plus another 2–3 lbs (1–1.5 kg) sea salt for the brine
4 oz (100 g) brown sugar
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
your choice of ground spices: ginger, coriander seeds, cloves, nutmeg
If using the sugar and/or spices, mix these into the first lot of salt. Rub some of the mixture (or plain salt) into one side of the beef, place it salt-side down in a large bowl or plastic bag and rub more mixture into the top surface of the beef. Close the container and leave it for a day. Next day, rub more of the mixture into both sides of the beef and put it back into the container with the liquid that it has generated. Continue to do this for two more days. Now drain off and throw away the liquid, put the beef back into the container and shake more salt over it, both sides. Leave it another day then drain it again.
Prepare a strong brine of water and sea salt. You will need about 2¼ lbs (1 kg) salt to 1 gallon (4.5 litres) water, but the real test is that when the brine is strong enough, the meat will float, so mix your brine in the tub you intend to store it in, stirring until all the salt has dissolved, then put the meat in and if it does not float, just add more salt until it does.
However, the meat must stay below the surface of the brine, so once the brine is strong enough, put a weight (in a plastic bag so it does not contaminate the brine) on the meat. Seal the tub and leave it in a cool place for as long as you feel inclined. The author has left some for 15 months and found it perfectly tender and edible (if a little on the salty side). But you should leave it for at least a couple of months for the authentic salt beef taste. Check it every week; if it has thrown a white deposit on to the surface of the brine, just skim this off and top up the brine mixture. Your nose will tell you if all is well.
When you are ready to eat the beef, take it out of the brine, rinse it off under a running tap and put it to steep in plain cold water. The longer it has been in the brine, the longer it should steep (say 1 hour steeping time for each month it has been kept) and the more times you should change the steeping water. Finally, put the beef and fresh water to cover it into a cooking pot (with a bay leaf if you wish, but no salt) bring it to the boil, skim if necessary, and simmer for 4–5 hours until tender. You could add some onions and carrots for the last half hour, or some dumplings (or both). Eat it hot with its gravy and accompaniments, or cold with a salad or in a sandwich (or with a ships biscuit).
The Royal Navy way of salting pork was exactly the same as for beef. The modern French way of curing petit salé is dry cure, although with keeping, the dry salt runs to brine anyway. This is an easier method for home use.
For the classic petit salé, start by making flavoured salt:
12 peppercorns
4 cloves
4 bay leaves
1 teaspoon juniper berries
1 oz (25 g) white sugar
the leaves from 2 sprigs of thyme
Crush the pepper, cloves, bay leaves and juniper berries and mix well into the salt with the sugar and thyme leaves. This gives sufficient for up to 12 lbs (6 kg) of pork. The classic French pork meat is belly, but if you think this will be too fatty for you, use chops.
Put several handfuls of the salt mix into the bottom of a large container. Rub more into the pork and layer it into the container with plenty of salt between the layers. Cover it and leave it in a cool place for at least a week, but for anything up to two months.
When you want to eat the pork, take out as much as you want, rinse it off and boil it in plenty of unsalted water for 40–60 minutes, depending on the thickness of the meat. Taste the water after 10 minutes; if it is over-salty, throw it away and refill the pan with fresh. If the pork has been in the salt for more than two months, steep it for a couple of hours in fresh water before changing the water and cooking it. Serve it hot with choucroute (ie sauerkraut) or cold with salad.
Sauerkraut is, quite simply, cabbage which has been preserved in salt. Start with a tight cabbage (the white or pale green sort), cut it into quarters and remove the thick centre core and any damaged outer leaves. Shred the cabbage thinly and pack it into a large container with plenty of sea salt between the layers, pressing each layer down well. Find a plate that fits the inside of the container, sterilise it by pouring boiling water over it and place it over the cabbage, adding a weight on top to keep the cabbage compressed. Cover the container but check it daily, skimming off any scum from the brine, then re-sterilising the plate and replacing it. The cabbage will ferment and the brine will bubble; when this stops (after about three weeks), the fermentation process has ended and you could eat the sauerkraut then. Most aficionados think it tastes better after another three to four weeks. Expect it to smell while fermenting and when you open the container to take some out.
When you want to eat some, remove sufficient from the container with a ladle or pasta straining-fork and rinse it well before boiling it in unsalted water. You might like to add a chopped apple and/or some caraway seeds.
You can cook dried pease in plain water, but the flavour will be better if the water has started its career by being used to cook a ham, as long as it is not too salty. The trick of cooking any of the dried pulses is not to add salt until they are tender, as early salting may prevent their ever becoming tender. Use split pease (green or yellow), which will be without their skins, rather than whole dried green pease, which have their skins. If you buy a packet of dried green pease which includes a soaking tablet, change the water after soaking and before cooking or ignore the soaking tablet all together.
One pound of dried pease will be more than enough for four people. Start by soaking the pease overnight (which term actually means ‘for seven or eight hours’; there is nothing magical about night time in this context) in about three times their volume of water. Use a very large pot, as otherwise the swelling pease can end up spilling over the top of the pot. Rinse them, return them to the pot, add lots of water, bring this to the boil, then cover them and turn them down to simmer for a couple of hours or until tender. Once they are tender, drain them, add salt and pepper, plus butter, if desired, and eat as an accompaniment to pork or ham, with boiled potatoes and a white or parsley sauce.
1 lb (450 g) (2 good cups) dried split pease (preferably yellow)
2 oz (50 g) butter
1 large egg
salt and pepper
Start as above, soaking and then cooking the pease until just tender. Mash them with the butter, egg and seasoning and place the result in a muslin or fine sail-cloth bag with your mess number attached. Tie one end of the bag to the handle of a saucepan, either containing ham or salt pork, or plain water. Bring the liquid to the boil and cook for at least an hour. (You can also make pease pudding in a pudding basin – butter the basin, mash the ingredients and put them in the basin, cover it with foil, tie this down and steam for an hour.) Turn the pudding out onto a serving plate and serve in slices with the meat; alternatively, allow it to cool completely before slicing, when you can eat it from the hand, accompanied by a biscuit, while standing watch on a cold night.
Start as though making plain cooked pease, ideally in ham water, but use a larger saucepan. When the pease are tender, mash them and stir in a lot more water, bring them back to the boil and continue cooking until they have turned into a thick soup. Add some morsels of cooked ham or pork (or some crisply fried bacon crumbs) before serving. Expect any uneaten soup to set solid when cold. Reheat it carefully, adding a little more water to prevent it sticking and burning.
Duff, or suet pudding, in its simplest form consists of a mixture of flour and suet, boiled in a pudding bag (or basin) and eaten with meat. By adding various things and treating it in a slightly different way, it can be transformed into a jam roly-poly, spotted dog, plum duff or sea pie.
Best results come from the simple ‘half fat to flour’ proportion, but making this by volume rather than weight; use American cup measures if you have them, otherwise use English tea cups. Use self-raising (self-rising) flour and prepared suet, which comes in little pieces, like grains of rice. To make duff for four people:
2 cups of self-raising flour
1 cup suet
pinch salt
enough water to make a soft dough
Sift the flour into a mixing bowl, add the salt and suet and mix together with a fork. Add the water, a little at a time, mixing with a fork until it comes together in a sticky dough. Flour your hands, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and knead it very gently, sprinkling on a little more flour if necessary, until it can be formed into a ball or sausage shape. Pop this into a pudding cloth (it has been suggested that the nightcap of one of your fellow midshipmen will serve if the pudding bag has disappeared), tie the bag and boil the duff for about an hour. You could also pinch off little pieces of dough, form them into balls, and let them boil for fifteen minutes in with the beef.
To make Plum Duff, add half a pound (200 g) of raisins or currants to the mixture and proceed as before.
To make Spotted Dog, add half a pound (200 g) of raisins and 2 ounces (50 g) of sugar to the mixture.
To make Jam Roly-Poly, instead of forming the pudding into a ball or sausage, roll out to a rectangle, spread it thickly with jam (raspberry, strawberry or plum) and roll it up into a sausage before proceeding as before. Beware when eating – the jam will be very hot!
To make a savoury Roly-Poly, substitute a mixture of chopped bacon, fried onions and mushrooms, or onions and mussels, for the jam and proceed as above.
This can be made in a saucepan to cook on top of the stove, or in a casserole for the oven. It consists, quite simply, of a good rich stew with a suet pastry crust, so make your stew, and when it is almost cooked, make some suet pastry (ie basic duff mix) and roll it out to fit the inside of the saucepan/casserole. It should be about ½ inch (1 cm) thick. Fit it in on top of the stew, cover tightly and put it back on the heat for twenty to thirty minutes.
For a multi-decked sea pie, layer the stew and suet pastry as many times as you have room for, alternate the stew with fried onions, vegetables, or whatever you happen to have handy. The more layers, the longer the lower layers of pastry will take to cook, so check at intervals to make sure all is going well.
Lobscouse is an ancient dish known under various similar names throughout the northern world. In Lapland it is called lapskuis and the recipe includes walrus, in Germany it includes both meat and herrings, in Sweden it is called lapskijs and is still made with salt meat, in the USA it appears as ‘corned beef hash’, using the type of salt meat which they call ‘corned beef’ (as opposed to the tins of pink boiled beef which is known in Britain as corned beef). So lobscouse is simply a dish made by mixing small pieces of meat or fish with broken-up ships biscuit, onions or leeks and/or potatoes.
1 lb (450 g) salt beef or pork or fish or walrus (or a mixture of all or any of these), cut into similar sized pieces, say about ½ inch (1 cm) cubes, raw or pre-cooked. (Or a large tin of corned beef.)
2 large potatoes, peeled and cut into pieces the same size as the meat
1 large onion or 2 large leeks, roughly chopped
2 tablespoons slush, or beef dripping, or lard, or even olive oil 3–4 ships biscuits, crushed in a bag with a belaying pin (optional) salt and freshly ground black pepper
your choice of spices – cloves, nutmeg, mace, ginger (optional)
If using raw ingredients, start by boiling the meat or fish and the potatoes until almost done, then strain them. Slice the onions and fry them until golden brown. Put everything except the onions into a large frying pan (or casserole if you have an oven handy), pour the onions and their fat over the top and stir well. If frying, do so for 10–15 minutes, stirring regularly. If baking, add some hot water or some of the original cooking water, or beer, put a lid on the casserole and put in a hot oven for 30–45 minutes, or a medium cool oven for anything up to two hours. In either case, a fried egg is a good addition when serving.
Another variation on lobscouse is ‘crackerhash’, made by layering salt beef, cooked pease and crushed biscuit in a casserole, dotting the top with plenty of beef dripping or slush and baking it in the oven.
Burgoo is nothing other than oatmeal porridge. As with suet pastry, the mixture is two to one: two cupfuls of water to one cupful of porridge oats. This amount will serve four people. Start with the cold water in a saucepan and stir the oats into this gradually. Bring the mixture slowly to the boil, then turn it down to simmer for about fifteen minutes, stirring all the time. When the oats have changed into a smooth mass, serve it with sugar and cream, or butter and salt.
The original recipe is long, repetitive and rather cumbersome, so here it is paraphrased to give the essence (if readers will forgive the pun). Unfortunately it does not state quantities of meat nor the size of the boilers.
Fill eight boilers with flesh – three parts shanks and shins of beef, one part mutton, cover them with water and bring to the boil, then simmer for thirteen hours, skimming the fat as it rises and putting this into a barrel. As it settles, pour off the fat into another barrel and return the watery liquid to the meat boilers.
When the flesh is sufficiently cooked, remove it from the boilers, remove the bones, extract the marrow and return this to the boilers. Tear the flesh apart with forks, lay it on a sieve to drain, then put it into a press to extract the last of the broth. Prepare some tin buckets with hair sieves on top and pour the broth from the boilers through these into the buckets. Press the solid residue as above. Pour the liquid into evaporators and simmer, skimming as necessary, for about eight hours, until the soup becomes ‘like a thick syrup and when cool is as stiff as tripe’. Add the seasoning, leave it until the next day to cool, then cut it out of the evaporators, take it to the drying room, melt it into flat tin frames about ¼ inch thick. Leave to cool, cut it out of the frames and cut it into pieces just a little larger than the broad arrow and dry these on canvas frames at 70 – 80 degrees ‘of the thermometer’ [one assumes this means Fahrenheit].
The seasoning. take 6 lbs celery seed, 3 lbs black pepper, beaten fine, leave these to stand for two days in three gallons of spirits of wine with a very gentle heat in a tin balneum (bain marie) then sieve and press this through a hair bag. Wash out the press, retain the liquid, add 20 lbs well bruised garlic to the pressed celery and pepper and put it all back in the bain marie for three to four hours then let the fire go out. Press out the solids and add the liquid to the first lot of celery water. To this, add up to 6 teaspoonfuls of tincture of thyme, made by adding 2 oz fresh oil of thyme to 1½ pts spirit of wine.
NB. The original recipe does not state what happened to the pressed meat – perhaps it went to a pie-maker?
This is the author’s version of the original recipe, tested and approved by her official taster (ie husband). The quantities given will produce sufficient to reconstitute into four generous bowls of soup. Note that you should not add any salt during the preparation stage, as this will make it difficult to dry the concentrate properly and thus invite deterioration. Salt should not be added until the soup has been reconstituted for immediate eating. Do not be tempted to use a different cut of beef, as shin has generous quantities of the connective tissue which breaks down into jelly.
3 lbs (1.5 kg) of beef shin meat, cut into chunks about 1 inch (2–3 cm) square
1 lb (500 g) stewing lamb, say neck, chopped into chunks 8–10 sprigs of fresh thyme (or 1 tablespoon of dried)
8 garlic cloves, crushed (or a generous squirt of garlic paste)
16–20 black peppercorns, crushed (or several good grindings from a peppermill)
1 teaspoon celery seed (or 6–8 stalks of fresh celery, chopped)
At the beginning, you will need two separate saucepans, as cooking the lamb separately will allow easier removal of the fat and also give you the two meats separately to do something else with after straining. The beef will produce virtually no fat.
Put the meat into the saucepans, add cold water until the meat is well covered and bring it to the boil, skimming off the scum as it rises. Then turn the heat down, cover the pans and simmer the meat for twelve hours. Check it at intervals to make sure the meat is still covered with liquid, adding more if necessary. When the meat is done, strain it, keeping the two types of broth separate. You can use this meat to make pies or whatever. Leave the liquid to cool completely, when you can remove the fat, which will now have set.
Put the two liquids together in a large saucepan and bring back to the boil. Add the seasonings and simmer for an hour, take the soup off the heat and let it cool a little before putting it through a fine sieve or jelly bag. Press well to get all the juice out and discard the solids. Now put the soup back into the cooking pot, having first wiped out any solid residue, and bring it back to simmering temperature, stirring to prevent it sticking, then leave it to simmer, uncovered, for as long as it takes to reduce by three-quarters, checking it at intervals to make sure it has not gone too far. Take it off the heat, let it cool for about half an hour before pouring it into a square or rectangular cake tin lined with baking parchment (fold this at the corners rather than cut it, so there are no holes). Leave it to cool completely, cut it into squares, and put these in a very cool oven for several hours to finish drying out. Once dry, wrap each square in parchment and store in a tin until needed. Alternatively, freeze it.
When you need soup, put one or more squares into half a pint of hot water, melt over gentle heat, and add more boiling water to adjust the thickness. Now you can add salt.
Many punch recipes call for the juice and zest of a lemon. Always use unwaxed and preferably organically-grown (ie unsprayed) lemons. Do not be tempted to squeeze the lemon and drop the remains in the punch if intending to leave it for any length of time, as the lemon rind will impart a bitter taste. If adding lemon slices, do so at the last minute for the same reason. An easy way to get the zest from a lemon when making punch is to use lump sugar and rub the lumps over the fruit hard enough to break the zest capsules on the skin. Calculate 5–6 lumps to a tablespoonful of sugar.
Negus was one of the most popular punches of the Georgian era. It was usually served hot, but can be chilled and served with ice cubes.
juice and grated zest of 1 lemon
2 tablespoons sugar
1 pint (600 ml) (2 cups) boiling water
1 pint (600 ml) (2 cups) medium-dry sherry nutmeg
Put the sugar, lemon juice and zest into a large jug and pour in the boiling water. Stir until the sugar has dissolved, then add the sherry and stir again. Grate some nutmeg on top of the mixture just before serving.
You will need a large saucepan with a tightly-fitting lid and a calm sea for this recipe.
2 tablespoons sugar
1 lemon
½ pint (300 ml) (1 cup) rum
⅛ pint (75ml) (¼ cup) brandy
1 pint (600 ml) (2 cups) boiling water
Put the sugar and lemon zest into the saucepan with the rum and brandy. Warm the mixture over medium heat until the sugar has melted, turn off the heat and set light to the mixture. Let it burn for 2 minutes, then cover the saucepan to extinguish the flame. Squeeze the juice from the lemon and add it to the mixture with the boiling water. Stir well, cover and leave to stand for 5–10 minutes. Taste and add more sugar if deemed necessary before serving.
juice and grated zest of 1 lemon or 1 orange
2 tablespoons sugar
1 pint (600 ml) (2 cups) rum
Mix all together and bottle. Leave it for at least a week before serving with boiling water in the proportion three parts water to one part shrub.
1 unwaxed lemon
6 lumps of sugar
1 × 75 cl bottle of claret
2 fl oz (50 ml) (⅓ cup) brandy
10 fl oz (280 ml) (1¼ cups) soda water
1 orange, sliced
a handful of borage (Borago officinalis) leaves, crushed ice, if available
Rub the sugar lumps over the lemon to extract the oil and drop them into your punch bowl. Halve and squeeze the lemon juice over the sugar. Add the claret, brandy and soda water, stir to dissolve the sugar. Lightly crush the borage leaves and drop them in, float the orange slices on top and add ice if available.
Lemon pepper is not pepper at all, but the zest of lemons dried in the oven and ground to powder. Use a sharp knife or sharp vegetable peeler to remove the zest, avoiding the bitter pith underneath. Spread the pieces out on kitchen paper on a baking tray and bake in a very cool oven (ie 100°C/200°F/Mark ¼) until brittle but not discoloured. This could take a couple of hours, but check it at regular intervals so it does not scorch. Let it cool completely, break it into small pieces with your fingers and grind it to coarse powder in a coffee grinder. Transfer it to an airtight container for storage.
Use the ‘pepper’ to sprinkle over cooked chicken or fish, or on top of a syllabub.
If, like Admiral de Saumarez, you have a Guernsey cow on board, you can give your guests syllabub for dessert. This is one of the quickest and easiest of all desserts to make. All the classic version requires is good cream – either double (heavy) or the sort labelled ‘whipping’ cream – white wine or cider, sugar and nutmeg, and perhaps crystallised violets or rose petals for decoration. Modern variations include substituting yoghurt for up to half the cream, using orange or lemon juice with orange or lemon liqueur such as Grand Marnier for the wine, or substituting elderflower syrup for the sugar.
The trick, whether making the classic or new versions, is to start by whipping the cream until it starts to thicken, then adding the other ingredients in small increments, whipping in between additions, tasting until it seems right, then continuing to whip it to the ‘soft peaks’ stage. Then pour it into the serving dish, decorate it and serve it with sponge finger biscuits.
For three to four people, you will need:
½ pint (300 ml) (1¼ cups) double or whipping cream
1 wine glass white wine or cider
2–4 tablespoons caster sugar (depending on the sweetness of the wine) a generous grating of nutmeg
some crystallised violets or rose petals for decoration (optional). Place these at the last minute, or they will bleed colour into the syllabub
If using the variation ingredients, halve the quantity of wine for liqueur and use the juice of 1 large lemon or 1 small orange.
The diet-conscious can substitute yoghurt for up to half the cream, but whip the cream first, then add the yoghurt in small increments.
These little almond biscuits (cookies) are ideal to nibble with a glass of Madeira or sherry when fellow officers pay a call.
This recipe will make 20–24 macaroons.
the whites of 4 eggs
1lb (450g) (4½ cups) caster sugar
1lb (450g) (4½ cups) of ground almonds
1–2 tablespoons orange flower water
4–5 sheets of ‘rice’ paper (edible paper)
20–24 blanched almonds
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F/Mark 4. Beat the egg whites to the ‘stiff peak’ stage, adding the sugar in small increments as you go. Fold this gently into the ground almond, using the orange flower water to moisten the mixture if it becomes too stiff to work. Lay the rice paper in single sheets on baking trays and drop dessertspoons of the mixture onto it, leaving room for the macaroons to expand. Lightly push a whole almond into the centre of each macaroon. Bake for 20–30 minutes, until the macaroons are crisp and light brown. Allow them to cool completely on the baking tray, tear or cut the paper from round their edges, leaving a layer under the macaroon, and store them in an airtight tin until needed.