A classic Swedish starter found on olivemagazine.com
This simple prawn starter is courtesy of executive chef Henrik Ritzén at Nordic restaurant Aquavit, London. If you can’t get fresh horseradish, use 1 tbsp of horseradish sauce instead.
Category Archives: Toasts
The Search for the Perfect Toast
An article found on British Food: A History
Hot buttered toast must be the most popular British breakfast item, whether eaten on the run to the bus stop, or served up with a full English breakfast or posh scrambled eggs and smoked salmon on a Sunday. Elizabeth David described it as a ‘peculiarly English…delicacy’.
It is true that the wafting smell of freshly made toast combined with the sight of the slow melting of a good covering of salted butter is so comforting. Indeed, the first thing offered up to you after you’ve come round from an operation on the NHS (and I unfortunately have had many times) is tea and toast. (Digressing slightly, the first thing offered up to you after an operation in the USA is the similarly comforting cookies and milk.)
Most toast today is, of course, made from flabby processed white sliced loaf, which produces quite depressingly poor ‘wangy’ toast. Proper toast requires proper bread; bread that has gone a slightly stale. Perfect toast is in the eye of the beholder: thick, thin, crisp throughout, soft in the centre, pale, dark, a scraping of butter or lashings of it.
Making toast was a way of using up stale bread, of course, so toast shouldn’t even be required now that we have the invention of Chorleywood processed bread. It’s ironic that our love of toast means we, on the whole, now make it with a product unsuitable for making it.
It won’t surprise you that there are some very detailed descriptions in old cookbooks as to the best way for making toast.
The earliest official piece of toasting equipment was the toasting fork. Here’s the flamboyant Victorian chef Alexis Soyer’s instructions from A Shilling Cookery for the People from 1854:
How to Toast Bread – Procure a nice square loaf that had been baked one or two days previously, then with a sharp knife cut off the bottom crust evenly, and then as many sliced you require, about a quarter of an inch in thickness. Contrive to have a clear fire: place a slice of the bread upon a toasting-fork, about an inch from one of the sides, hold it a minute before the fire, then turn it, hold it another minute, by which time the bread will be thoroughly hot, then begin to move it gradually to and fro until the whole surface has assumed a yellowish-brown colour, then turn it again, toasting the other side in the same manner; lay it then upon a hot plate, have some fresh or salt butter (which must not be too hard, as pressing it upon the roast would make it heavy),spread a piece, rather less than an ounce, over, and cut the toast into four or six pieces. You will then have toast made to perfection.
Next rung up on the evolutionary ladder of toast-making was the invention of the toast plate, a cast iron rack that could sit in front of coal-powered range cooker.
You can buy plates that lay over a gas burner on the stove top that would achieve a flavour closest to the ones found on the coal ranges. Elizabeth David owned one (from English Bread and Yeast Cookery, 1977):
Part of the charm of the toast produced on this device is that every piece is different, and differently marked, irregularly chequered with the marks of the grill, charred here and there, flecked with brown and gold and black.
At home, the best way to make toast is by using a grill, preferably a gas grill; it produces a much more even heat and therefore even toasting than an electric grill. I love the flecked toast that David described, but an electric grill has hot spots that produce slices well done in one patch and hardly coloured in another.
NOTE: When the toasts are done, a toast rack is an essential. Just stacking them on top of each other is simply not the done thing.
Homemade Baked Beans with Grilled Cheese / Hjemmelagde Bakte Bønner med Grillet Ost
A snack recipe found in “Healthy Recipes with Dairy Food”
a free E-book published by Dairy Australia
British Fry-Up / Britisk Fry-Up
A real classic British breakfast recipe found in a booklet published by gilde.no
It was somewhat strange to find such an utter British dish in a booklet from a Norwegian meat supplier, but so what. I’m a real sucker for a solid breakfast and always go for the full english when in Britiain. Continental is for sissies – Ted 😉
Toast Place Concorde
A delicious toast recipe found in “Matglede Som Aldri Før”
(Joy of Food Like Never Before) published by
Skaninavisk Press as in 1977
Cornwall Toast / Cornwalltoast
A delicious toast recipe found in “Matglede Som Aldri Før”
(Joy of Food Like Never Before) published by
Skaninavisk Press as in 1977
Lyle’s Banana, Pecan and Cinnamon French Toast / Lyles Arme Riddere med Banan, Pekannøtter og Kanel
A delicious French Toast recipe found on lylesgoldensyrup.com
This sweet sandwich with sliced banana, chopped pecans and Lyle’s Golden Syrup is perfect for a morning treat. Tastes even better with a side of yoghurt!
Smoked Salmon on Mustard-Chive and Dill Butter Toasts / Røkt Laks på Sennep,Gressløk og Dillsmør Toasts
A great snack or starter found on food52.com
Cheese’n Bean Grill / Varmt Ostesmørbrød med Tomatbønner
A snack recipe from an ad for Kraft published in 1967
The recipe says to grill the sandwiches till the cheese has melted, but the cheese on the pictures looks only slightly out of shape to me. Melted cheddar tastes great, lukewarm cheddar on the other hand… – Ted
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Pear and Stilton toast / Pære Og Stilton Toast
A recipe found on dinmat.no – Source: Stavanger Aftenblad
Pears and blue cheese is an excellent combination. What about a tasty little sandwich, you can grill walnut bread or country-style bread. Dress bread with crispy salads and top it with pear and blue cheese au gratin. The blue cheese can be English Stilton as here, or you can use a local variant.
See this and other delicious recipes on: 
RecipeReminiscing 