An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery (8 page)

It’s time to turn that rectangle into buns. Carefully roll it along the longest side until, instead of a flat rectangle, you have a long, round tube of dough filled with tasty sweets.

Cut the dough into 1 inch / 2.5 cm wide strips. Arrange them on a baking sheet with at least 3 inches / 7.5 cm of space between them so they won’t touch when they rise.

Once all of your rolls are cut and arranged, cover them with a light, clean kitchen towel and let them rise for another 45 minutes until nearly double in size (60-70 minutes on a particularly cold day. The warmer it is, the faster they rise.)

Bake at 400F / 205C for 20-25 minutes, or until the rolls are golden brown.

While they’re still hot, whisk the milk and powdered sugar together into a thin glaze and paint it on top of the steaming Chelsea Buns. If you want a little extra bit of sweetness, you can sprinkle the hot, glazed rolls with an additional ½ tsp coarse sanding sugar.

These are best eaten while still warm. Enjoy them with a smear of fresh butter and a nice cup of tea.

After cold meals for Second Breakfast and Elevenses, a hearty, warm Luncheon would hit the spot.

Food was much more expensive in Tolkien's day. While wealthy Victorian householders could afford fresh ingredients for every meal, cooks in country villages like those that inspired the Shire were well practiced in magically transforming leftovers over the course of many meals. You’ll see that reflected in these Luncheon recipes.

Leftover roast apples from last night’s dinner make decadently hearty bread for today’s luncheon, which can then be toasted or fried up for tomorrow’s breakfast. Last night’s mashed potatoes are used to make today’s potato cakes while Sunday’s roast chicken carcass is recycled into broth for today’s simple mushroom soup.

This hearty pub grub makes a perfect luncheon for anyone fresh back from a tiring morning adventure. Serve it alongside a hearty crust of country bread and a fresh picked salad and you won’t feel the least bit peckish until afternoon tea.

Scotch Eggs are traditionally a deep fried decadence. However, fat was often very expensive in rural communities, and even when it was available in excess, only wealthy households or taverns had the kitchen technology necessary to safely boil a whole pot of it. In honor of frugal hobbits, I present this more everyday baked version of the fried treat. If you’re feeling bold and decadent, you can certainly pop these into your deep fryer instead of baking them and enjoy delicious results.

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 ½ tbsp salt + 1 tsp salt

1 tbsp ground black pepper

3 1/2 tbsp paprika

1/3 tbsp fennel seed

1 tbsp savory (or rubbed sage)

1 tbsp rosemary

2 c / 300 g coarse breadcrumbs (or ground cornflakes if gluten free)

6 hard boiled eggs

1 raw egg

2 1/4 lbs / 1 kg ground beef, pork, or a mix of both

Mix the garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, fennel, savory and rosemary. Add 1 tbsp of the spice mix plus the extra 1 tsp salt to the breadcrumbs and set that aside.

Mix the raw egg and the rest of the spice blend into the ground beef to create a sticky dough. Divide the meat mix into six portions. Flatten them out then wrap the meat tightly around each hard boiled egg until you have six baseball sized meatwads.

In another bowl, whisk together the raw egg and 1 tbsp water.

Set up an assembly station. You want one bowl with the raw egg, another with the seasoned breadcrumbs, and an aluminum foil lined baking sheet with a meat rack on it at the end. Roll the meatballs in the beaten egg. Once they’re nice and sticky, roll them in the seasoned breadcrumbs.

Arrange the breaded scotch eggs on the meat rack. This keeps the Scotch Eggs from sitting in their own juices as they bake. If you don’t put them on a rack, they’ll end up somewhat greasy and the bottom crust will be soggy. Bake at 375F / 190C for 45 minutes, turning every 15 minutes.

If you’ve used properly fatty meat, you’ll have a nice pool of seasoned grease beneath your meat rack. Go ahead and sop some up with a hunk of crusty bread. It’s delicious.

Serve the Scotch Eggs cut in half with a sprinkle of pepper and a dab of hot mustard.

Savory pies were a staple of pub grub. Before the invention of modern restaurants, English taverns and inns traditionally offered set price menus promising all the meat, soup, and bread you could eat. A good, hearty pie not only let them stretch out the expensive meat, but also simplified serving so working men could fill up quickly during their brief lunches and cold, tired travelers could quickly get something warm in their belly after a long day on the road.

A pub pie this size could easily feed a party with a dozen hungry dwarves or four teenage boys. Feel free to cut the recipe in half if you’re feeding less ravenous hordes.

Filling:

2 1/4 lbs / 1 kg stewing beef, trimmed and cubed

½ lb / 250g button mushrooms, quartered

½ lb / 250 g carrots, peeled and cut into 1 inch / 2.5 cm chunks

2 c / 475ml ale

2 ¼ c / 500ml beef stock

4 tbsp / 60 g butter

¼ lb / 100g bacon

2 medium onions, peeled and sliced

4 garlic cloves, chopped

1 large sprig / 1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves

½ tbsp thyme leaves

2 bay leaves

1 tsp coarse salt

1 tsp fresh ground black pepper

2 tbsp flour

¼ c / 60 ml cold water

Crust:

2 c / 225 g all purpose flour

½ c / 120 g softened butter

¼ tsp coarse salt

1 egg, beaten

1 tbsp cold water

To make the filling, start by frying the bacon in a large skillet until it’s crispy. Set the bacon aside on a plate. You now have a pan full of delicious bacon grease. Add the cubes of beef and brown them on all sides. You’ll probably need to do this in 3-4 batches to keep from overcrowding the pan. As each batch of beef is browned up, add it to a Dutch oven.

Once your beef is all browned, melt the butter in your skillet. Add the sliced onions and let them cook over a medium-high heat for 3-4 minutes, or until they start to soften. Toss in the chopped garlic cloves and keep cooking for another 3-4 minutes or until the garlic just barely starts to brown. Add the sprig of rosemary leaves, thyme, and fresh ground pepper. Keep cooking for another 1-2 minutes to release the flavor of the herbs.

You know, that beef looks lonely sitting by itself. Scrape your onion mix into the Dutch oven to keep it company. While you’re at it, add in the carrots, ale, and beef stock.

Bring the mix to a boil. Put a lid on it, reduce the heat down to medium-low, and let it simmer for about an hour and a half, or until the carrots are cooked through and the steak is tender.

While the steak is cooking, mix up your pastry crust. This simple, dense crust adds amazing flavor - mostly because everything tastes better when drowned in butter. Mix the flour and salt. Now use your fingers to knead the flour into the butter until it resembles coarse gravel. Moisten that up by adding the beaten egg and 1 tbsp cold water. Keep mixing until you achieve a dense dough, then knead that a few times for good measure.

Divide your dough in half. Roll half of it until it’s just large enough to cover the bottom of a well greased casserole dish or cake pan. Use a fork to poke a few holes in the bottom.

After a good 90 minute simmer, whisk together 2 tbsp flour and ¼ c cold water until you have no lumps. Gradually stir that into the stew to help thicken it.

After staring at that fried bacon for the last hour and a half, it’s finally time to crumble it all up into the stew. Give the stew a hearty stir, then start ladling it into the casserole dish. Fill it ¾ of the way up. Any more than that and you risk it boiling over and spilling out the side of your dish. If you have any left over, save it for individual pot pies.

Roll the remaining crust into a rectangle. Lay it on top of your casserole dish and pinch the edges closed. Trim off any excess.

Since you already went to all this effort, go ahead and knead the excess trimmed dough back into a ball. Roll it flat and use a small cookie cutter to cut out some attractive shapes. Use the extra dough to decorate the surface of your pie.

Whisk together an egg and 1 tbsp of water. Use a pastry brush to paint the egg wash on the surface of your pie crust. This will give it a lovely golden brown sheen.

Bake the pie at 400F / 205C for 30-35 minutes, or until the top crust is a dark, golden brown.

If you prefer, you can make this a gluten free period stew by simply leaving out the flour thickener and serving it directly in bowls with no pastry crust.

VEGETARIAN VARIATION

Butter is such an integral flavor that this doesn’t transition well into vegan limitations, but you can easily make it vegetarian. Omit the bacon and replace the bacon grease with more butter. Replace the beef broth with vegetable broth and replace the beef itself with more root vegetables. In addition to the potatoes and carrots, try adding some peeled and diced turnips and rutabaga (also known as swede.) When meat was scarce, the only beef in the steak and ale pie might be in the form of broth, so this vegetarian variation isn’t far off from what people in Tolkien's youth actually ate.

Until very recently, rabbits were a common source of protein. Before refrigeration, their small size made one rabbit the perfect amount of meat for a single family’s meal with no worry about waste or spoilage. It wasn’t uncommon for country families to keep chickens and rabbits as both pets and food. Their wild cousins were incredible pests, and many a farmer who’d had his crops eaten away by the fluffy menace felt vindicated sitting down to a nice supper of stewed hare.