Cornwall --- The Cornish Recipes at Cornish-Links --- Cornwall

Cornwall is world famous for the traditional "Cornish Pasty", but is less known for some of the other dishes served up over the years. We have put together a collection of traditional recipes for all to try. Please select from the menu below.

2 lbs young nettles

1 1/4 lbs spinach

1 1/2 pints good stock

Cold milk

4 cold cooked sausages

3 tbsps sour cream

3 tbsps flour

Seasoning

Gather the tips of young stinging nettles, wearing gloves. (No kidding!)

Wash and blanch the nettles. Wash the spinach. Boil the stock and pour this over the nettles and the spinach. Season and simmer for about three quarters of an hour, adding further stock if required. Pass the liquid through a sieve, then add the flour blended to a cream with a little cold milk. Boil up to thicken, add the sausages chopped up into small rounds and, just before serving, the sour cream

3 1/2 lbs ground pork

3/4 cup dried bread crumbs

1/2 tsp pepper

3/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/8 tsp ground cumin

1/8 tsp celery powder

1/8 tsp ground oregano

1/2 tsp onion powder

sausage sized casings

Place ingredients in a large bowl and mix. Stuff casings with the mixture( a great deal of work) tie the bottom when you have the amount that you want, and repeat until all the mixture is used, cut and boil until done. Yum, yum.

4 medium potatoes

a little milk

4 oz plain flour

2 oz margarine

salt

white pepper

Peel the potatoes, chop into 1" cubes, and boil until soft in lightly salted water. Drain potatoes, mash with a little milk and season with salt and white pepper. Leave to cool.

In a bowl, rub the margarine into the flour, until it looks like breadcrumbs. Add the (cool) mashed potatoes, and mix well.

With floury hands, form the mixture into patty shapes the size of burgers, and fry in a little butter in a frying pan, turning halfway through. Delicious served with a little butter on top.

(These can be frozen easily after forming into patty shapes. Flash freeze on trays, then gather up into bags later. Easy to make a lot in advance and then just pull out whenever you want a fry up.)

(makes about 8)

4 pilchards, herring or mackerel

juice and rind of 1 lemon

2 sliced hard-boiled eggs

6 oz. flaky pastry

1 tablespoon chopped parsley

1 chopped Spanish onion

4 tablespoons fine breadcrumbs

1 rasher bacon

freshly ground sea salt and pepper

1/4 pint white wine

Clean and gut the fish but leave the heads on. Soak the breadcrumbs in milk to make them swell. Add the lemon peel, half the onion and lemon juice, and the parsley. Stuff each fish with this mixture, fold and place in a pie dish, with the heads hanging over the edge. Cover with the chopped eggs and bacon, the seasoning and the rest of the onion and lemon juice, then pour over the quarter pint of white wine. Roll the pastry out to size and cover, leaving the fish heads outside.

Bake at 220 degreesC/425 degrees F/Gas Mark 7 for 20 minutes, then for a further 10 minutes at 180 degrees C/350 degrees F/Gas Mark 4.

6oz (1 cup) margarine

1 oz Cornish butter

8oz (1 cup) sugar (caster/superfine is best)

2 tablespoons golden syrup (sugar syrup in US?)

16oz (3 3/4 cups) flour (plain/all-purpose)

1 tablespoon baking powder

6oz chopped-up chocolate

4 oz glace cherries, chopped

Preheat oven to 220C (425F, GM7). Grease baking trays lightly.

Mix well together in a large bowl the margarine, sugar and syrup. Add the flour, baking powder, cherries and chocolate chips. Mix thoroughly.

The dough should be slightly crumbly and just holding together when you squeeze it. Press walnut-sized balls onto baking trays, and bake in the oven for 8 minutes (until just starting to turn brown).

(makes approximately 70)

2 oz Trex (or lard)

1 lb white flour

1 tsp salt

1 oz yeast

1 tsp caster sugar

1/2 pint milk

Warm the milk. Cream together the sugar and the yeast, and mix with the milk. Sieve the flour and salt together, rub in the Trex, and add to the liquid mixture to form a soft dough. Knead thoroughly and leave in a warm place to rise.

Knead again and shape into round buns. Lightly flour a baking tray, put the buns on the tray, and leave to rise for another hour. Bake for about 15 minutes at 400F.

Serve the splits hot and buttered, or cold, with clotted cream and jam.

A traditional Cornish recipe.

Ingredients:

4 oz butter
4 oz sugar
8 oz flour
4 tbsp golden syrup
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
2 tsp mixed spice
3 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cinnamon

Method:

Sieve together the flour, salt, spices, baking powder and bicarbonate of soda. Rub in the butter, and add the sugar. Spoon the syrup in to a cup, stand in shallow water in a pan and heat gently until soft.

Pour the liquid syrup onto the other ingredients and work in thoroughly. With floury hands, roll the mixture into small balls and place on a greased baking tray, well spaced out. Bake at 400F, moving the biscuits from the top to the bottom shelf of the oven the moment they being to brown.

Ingredients:

8 oz suet
1 lb flour
1 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
raisins
milk
sugar

'This is a traditional Cornish recipe. The "figs" refer to the Cornish common name for raisins.'

Method:

Mix together the suet, flour, salt and baking powder. Add water gradually, to form a dry elastic dough. Knead lightly, then roll out to about 1/2" thick. Sprinkle on two handfuls of raisins, roll them in lightly with a rolling pin. Fold up, like a jam suet pudding, sealing the ends. Criss-cross the top with a knife, brush with milk and sprinkle with sugar.

Bake at 350F for about 30 minutes. Serve hot.

8 oz flour with a pinch of salt (optional - I don't like it)

2 oz lard

3 oz sugar

6 oz currants

2-3 tbsps milk

2 oz butter

(Apparently so called because men would shout "heave" with each pull when hauling in the fishing nets on arrival at the village/port and when the wives heard this they knew the men would be home for tea soon)

Rub lard into flour. Add sugar and currants. Mix to a dough with currants.

Using a floured board, roll out to a long strip about 6 ins wide and 3 times as long. Dot half butter over the top two-thirds of the pastry. Fold the bottom third, without fat, upwards. Then fold the top third down over it. Give the pastry a half-turn so that folds are at sides. Roll out again into a thin strip and spread the rest of the butter as before, repeating the folding in the same way.

Glaze with milk and bake above the middle of a moderately hot oven 200'C for about 25-30 mins. Important to eat fresh.

1 pint of milk - the creamier the better

1 tablespoon sugar

2 tsps brandy or rum (optional)

1 teaspoon of rennet (don't ask! you don't want to know!! you might get it in

a chemist/pharmacy

Cinnamon

Grated nutmeg

Put milk in pan with sugar and warm gently till blood heat. Stir to dissolve sugar. Remove pan from heat, stir in brandy/rum and pour into a serving dish. Without delay stir in rennet and put dish aside to set at room temperature (1 half to 2 hours)

When set sprinkle on cinnamon and nutmeg then chill in fridge (optional)

Serve with sugar to taste and clotted cream (which is truly delicious too good to be wasted on junket really)

Ingredients:

2 cups sifted flour

1 lb. raisins

2 tsp. double-action baking powder1/2 lb. currants

1/2 tsp. salt

1/2 lb. candied fruit and citron

2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 lb. coarsley ground suet

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 lb. brown sugar

1/2 tsp. allspice

3/4 cup strong black coffee mixed

1/2 tsp. vanilla with 1/4 cup dark jelly

1 cup chopped nuts (optional)

Sift dry ingredients. Add fruit, nuts, and suet. Mix liquid with eggs and beat well. Pour into bowl of dry ingredients and stir until smooth. Fill pudding pan 2/3 full and cover with cloth (a piece of old sheet works well).

Steam 3 to 4 hrs.

(I've steamed 2 at a time in the granite water bath-type canner, or single ones in the 12 qt. stockpot. Screw-on type canning jar rings in the bottom keeps the pan off the bottom of the pot and it needs water at least an inch up the side of the container so it doesn't boil dry in the length of time the pudding requires to steam. Test for doneness with a toothpick, same as for cake. It used to be that the batter was put in a clean cloth salt sack and suspended over the water. I suppose that is how it came to be called a "son-of-a-gun in a sack".

If you don't like tallow in the roof of your mouth after eating the pudding cold, 1/2 lb. butter or butter-flavored shortening can be substituted for the suet, but margarine contains liquid now and that throws off the ratio of [fat/grease/oil] to other ingredients. I've never tried cooking oil. In substituting for suet, cream whatever you use with the brown sugar, then add the other liquid and beat it together to get it mixed well.

1/2 C Sugar

3 C Sifted flour

1 C Suet (chopped fine - I use a grater)

1 tsp. soda

1 1/2tsp. salt

1/2tsp.ginger

1/2tsp. cloves

1 1/2 C Milk

1/2tsp. nutmeg

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 C Molasses

1/2 C. chopped nuts

1 C. raisins (soaked overnight in whiskey)

Method:

Sift together dry ingredients. Add nuts and raisins. Add the milk to the molasses and suet. Combine the two mixtures. (I also add any of the whiskey left over from soaking.) Pour into mold (you may use jelly mold's or coffee cans, etc.), and steam for 3 hours. If not eaten immediately, soak a cloth in brandy and wrap pudding in a sealed container. (I don't use metal, as this combination will corrode some metals.) Serve with hard sauce or Hot Brandy Sauce.

HARD SAUCE

1/2 C. Butter

2tsp.vanilla (I make my own)

1/2tsp. Salt

2 1/2 C. powdered sugar

Beat until fluffy. Keep cool.

BRANDY SAUCE

1/4 C. Butter

1 C. confectioners sugar

2 egg yolks

4 Tbs. Brandy

1/2 C Milk

2 Egg Whites

Cream butter and sugar. Add beaten yolks. Add brandy slowly. Mix well. Add milk and cook over hot water until mixture coats a spoon. Pour over stiffly beaten whites. Serve hot.

"Saffron, the stigma of the crocus flower, has been used for hundreds of years in England's West Country to enhance bread, Some say saffron was brought to Cornwall and Devon by the Phoenicians when they arrived to operate tin mines. Whatever the facts of origin, it takes upwards of 85,000 flowers to make a pound of saffron, and cost is not surprisingly almost as out of sight as that of caviar. Fortunately, it takes only a few of the red gold threads to turn a basic white bread like this one into something that seems exotic. Each loaf you make will be infused with color and pungent flavor - the tiny red threads at the center of the deep yellow stains in the dough are sure signs of the real thing, not a substitute in powdered form that bears the saffron label."

Recipe No 1

1/2 tsp saffron threads

1/4 cup boiling water

1 tbsp active dry yeast

1 1/2 tbsp sugar

1/3 cup warm water

1 1/4 cups buttermilk

1 tbsp butter

2 tsp coarse salt or 1 tsp table salt

3-3 1/2 cups white flour, preferably unbleached

Softened butter

Steep the saffron in the boiling water and set aside to cool. In a medium sized bowl dissolve yeast and sugar in the warm water, and let stand until yeast starts to swell.

Warm half of the buttermilk with the butter and salt to dissolve; stir in the remaining buttermilk and the saffron and its marigold-colored liquid. Combine with yeast, mix well, and beat in 3 cups or more of flour until mixture is hard to stir. Turn out on floured surface and knead, adding a little more flour as necessary, until smooth and resilient.

Clean the mixing bowl and butter it. Put the dough in, turning to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise slowly in a cool place (even the refrigerator) until more than double in bulk - 2 hours or more (4 if refrigerated).

Punch down and form a loaf. Place in a buttered 9-inch loaf pan and let rise, covered loosely, at room temperature until double in volume. Bake in preheated 425F oven for 10 minutes, reduce heat to 350F, and bake 25 minutes more. Remove to a rack, and brush the top with soft butter.

Recipe No 2

3 lbs flour

1 1/2 lb lard

3/4 lb of butter

1 lb sugar

4 eggs

one and a half to 2 lb of dried fruit

4 packets of saffron (I use 1 to 2 packets)

4 oz yeast

warm milk

Cut up saffron, soak overnight in boiling water, about 1/4 pt. Rub the butter and lard in the flour, add the sugar, and the currants. Warm a little milk, pour it over the yeast and one teaspoonful of sugar in a basin. When the yeast rises, pour it into a well in the centre of the flour. Cover it with a sprinkling of the flour, and when the yeast rises through this flour and breaks it, mix by hand into a dough, adding milk as needed, and the saffron water. Knead and shape into rolls.

Leave in a warm place to rise for a while.

Bake in med oven till golden brown

(I use this recipe but I use butter instead of lard and have cut the butter down).

This is a traditional Cornish recipe. Saffron colours the cake bright yellow, and gives it its distinctive flavour. Saffron comes from the autumn-flowering crocus sativus and is expensive to buy - the saffron is the stigmata of the crocus, and over 4000 blooms are required to give one ounce of saffron.

Ingredients:

a pinch of saffron (1 32th of an ounce, actually)
2 lbs flour
1 lb butter
2 oz candied peel
pinch of salt
4 oz sugar
1 lb currants
1 oz yeast
warm milk

Method:

Cut up the saffron and soak overnight by adding a little boiling water, which it will flavour and stain a bright orange.

Rub the butter in the flour, add the salt, sugar, finely chopped peel and the currants. Warm a little milk and pour it over the yeast and one teaspoonful of sugar in a basin. When the yeast rises, pour it into a well in the centre of the flour. Cover it with a sprinkling of the flour, and when the yeast rises through this and breaks it, mix by hand into a dough, adding milk as needed, as well as the saffron water. Leave in a warm place to rise for a while.

Bake in a cake tin for about 1 hour at 350F.

This recipe helped to use up sour milk which everyone had around at the time. Now, of course, our milk is so pasteurized and homogenized that sour milk is harder to come by. you may need to add a tsp of vinegar to the 3/4 cup of milk and let it sit overnight.

Cream together:

3/4 c. butter

1-1/2 c. sugar

Add 2 eggs and beat well.

Mix together:

3-1/2 c. flour

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. nutmeg

1/4 tsp. cloves

Add to creamed mixture alternately with 3/4 c. sour milk + 1 tsp. baking soda in the sour milk

Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes on a greased cookie sheet.

1 gallon of rich, creamy milk makes 1lb clotted cream.) Put fresh milk in a shallow bowl and leave at room temperature (55oF) for 12 to 24 hours until cream rises to top.

Stand bowl over a pan of boiling water till a crust forms on top of milk. Do not let water touch bowl (this takes about 1 hour).

Leave bowl in cool place till next day.

Skim off thick creamy top. Underneath the scalded mild is what we would call skimmed milk and can be used in sauces, soups and puddings, etc.

Cornish Cream - or the inferior 'Devon' variety :-) can be made as follows.

Choose a wide, shallow earthenware pan. Strain very fresh whole milk into this and leave to stand, overnight if summertime or for 24 hours in cold weather. Then slowly, and without simmering, raise the temperature of the milk over a low heat until a solid ring starts to form around the edge. Without shaking the pan, very carefully remove it from the heat and leave overnight, or a little longer, in a cool place. The thick crust of cream can then be skimmed off the surface with a large spoon or similar - thus the description 'clotted'. Clotted cream contains far more fat than virtually all other types of cream - approx 55% fat (two thirds of which is saturated)

6 Eggs, separated (separate cold, then let whites warm to room temp.)

3/4 C. Sugar

1 qt. whole milk (I usually use raw Jersey milk)

1 Tablespoon (yes, that's right) Vanilla (we make our own, yum)

1 pint whipping cream (chill the bowl and beaters)

Beat whites until foamy. Gradually add sugar and beat until whites hold soft, shiny peaks. Scoop out into your largest nog bowl. Whip cream until stiff (the cream, not your arm) and add to the whites in the large bowl. You may whip the cream in the same mixing bowl as the whites without having to wash the bowl first. (I usually add a bit of sugar to the cream, to taste). Beat yolks until thick and lemon coloured. Gradually add milk and vanilla (and I add a bit of sugar to this too, to taste - OK, I have a sweet tooth). You may add more milk than the quart if you add some sugar to preserve the sweetness.

Pour into nog bowl and spoon mixture gently together. Add a dusting of Nutmeg and enjoy. A few glugs of rum or brandy make it taste good too.

Makes 1 gallon

3lbs Honey

2ozs. Root Ginger

3teaspoons Citric Acid

1tablespoon Stewed Tea

A good Mead yeast

yeast nutrient

Cold Water

As is usual for all brewing - make sure all your equipment is thoroughly sterilized.

First of all, you have to put the honey into a large saucepan with around 4 pints of the water, and bring it up to boiling point, but don't let it go into a rolling boil. Simmer it, and you'll notice scum from the honey rising to the surface, which you have to skim off. Keep skimming until no more scum is rising, and turn off the heat. Allow to cool. Pour into a 1 gallon demijohn, add the citric acid and tea. Cut up and bruise the ginger, put it into a muslin bag and squeeze it into the demijohn with a string attached to it for retrieval later on.

Add the water up to about 3/4 of the demijohn, add the yeast and nutrient when the temperature is around 20 deg. Celsius. Fit an airlock to the demijohn. Ferment it out in a warm place for around 6-9 days, topping up with water up to the gallon mark after 2 days.

Syphon the liquid off of the sediment into a clean demijohn, add a crushed Campden Tablet to kill the yeast, and put it into a cold place for a few weeks to settle until it's as clear as a bell. You could also add wine finings if you want. When it is clear, bottle it. It's better if you can manage to leave it for 6 months, and keeps improving up to around 3 years. It never lasts that long though!

(Swanky was always made by the Cornish about 6 weeks before Xmas and was ready for drinking only when the cork was forced out of the bottle)

Boil five gallons of water and add 8 oz hops, 4 lb brown sugar, 8 oz ground ginger, 4 oz raisins and an ounce of salt.

Boil for 45 minutes, then empty into a vessel and let stand until nearly cold. Then add two tablespoons of fresh yeast and allow to stand for 15-18 hours. Strain off the liquor and allow it to stand for at least 24 hours before bottling, making sure the bottles are clean and dry. Into each bottle put one fresh raisin (to prime the swanky) - then fill and cork, making sure that each cork is securely tied down.

Swanky is a great "worker" so leave enough room for its head to form. It is ready for drinking when the head is about to force the cork out of the bottle.

1/2 lb. flour

1/2 lb. bread crumbs

1 lb. suet

1 lb. brown sugar

3.4 lb. sultanas

1/2 lb. raisins

1 lb. candied peel

1 teacupful orange marmalade

1/4 lb. currants

1/4 lb. almonds, blanched & chopped

1/4 lb. glace cherries

grated rind of 1 lemons

juice of 1 lemon

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon salt

6 large eggs

1 glass stout

1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate soda

Mix will together all the ingredients, except the stout and bicarb of soda and leave covered overnight. Stir again next day very thoroughly.

Heat the stout and soda together in a small saucepan and add to the mixture while still frothy. The mixture must be stiff and not too moist.

Place in buttered basins and cover with buttered paper and foil. The mixture is sufficient to three-quarter fill three 2-pint pudding basins.

Put each pudding into a saucepan with sufficient water to come halfway up the basin and boil for 8 hours, topping up the water as necessary.

Reboil for 2 hours on the day the pudding is to be eaten. Serve with clotted cream.

This mixture makes 2 x 2 pint basins,

(or 4 x 1pint basin).

8 oz shredded suet

1 tsp mixed spice

half tsp nutmeg

quarter tsp cinnamon

4oz of self raising flour

1 lb soft brown sugar

8 oz white breadcrumbs grated from a stale loaf

8 oz sultanas

8 oz raisins

1 lb currants

4 oz glace cherries

2oz mixed peel (can died peel)

2 oz almonds, chopped

the grated rind of 1 orange and 1 lemon

1 apple peeled, cored and chopped

4 medium size eggs

10 fl oz stout (Guinness - milk stout or similar or use barley wine)

4 tbsp rum

Put suet, flour, breadcrumbs, spices and sugar in bowl and mix thoroughly. Then mix in all fruit, peel and nuts followed by apple then orange and lemon rinds.

In a different bowl beat eggs, mix in rum and stout/barley wine. Put this into the dry ingredients - stir, stir, stir really well (it is traditional to make a wish while stirring and for all the family to take part and do so).

Pudding should end up a good "dropping" consistency (add a little more stout if necessary).

Leave overnight - next day grease basins and pack the mixture in tightly right to the top. This is when you push in a silver coin (wrapped in aluminium foil) if you want it so that someone can find it on Christmas Day - that person is excused clearing up duty in this house (I never find it in my dish though :o(. Cover each basin with a square of greaseproof paper and a square of cloth/muslin (old pillowslip in this house!). Tie these round the rim with string then tie the corners of the cloth together on top.

Steam puddings for 8 hours. When cooked and cooled remove paper and cloths and replace with a fresh lot. Store in a cool, dry place. On Christmas Day steam for 2 hours serve with rum sauce:- melt 1 and half oz of butter stir in 2 level tbsp plain flour until smooth add milk stirring well until you have a nice creamy sauce (about 3 quarters of pint milk in all). Stir in 1and half tbsp caster sugar (fine sugar) and simmer gently for 10 minutes or so stirring to prevent sticking. Then add 2 or 3 tbsps dark rum.

Now on Christmas Day when pudding is steamed and ready, warm a little dark rum, set fire to it and carefully pour over the pud (while still burning).

Turn out lights and serve at the table still burning. Now, don't do this if you are worried about it, it is ONLY to make it look pretty and serves no vital purpose I think - and please don't sue me if you burn the house down - you do this at your own risk!

half pound of butter (unsalted would be good)

half pound of soft brown sugar

6 eggs

12 oz plain flour

4oz ground almonds

1 lb currants

1lb sultanas

1lb raisins

half pound glace cherries

2 oz mixed peel (candied orange and lemon peel)

2 oz glace pinapple (or more mixed peel if you can't get this)

1 tbsp black treacle

4 tbsps dark rum or brandy

Cream sugar and butter. Add eggs and flour and beat until creamy. Add remaining ingredients. Press mixture into lined 8" square tin or 9" round tin and place in cold oven. Turn oven to 275 oF/ 140 oC and bake for 4-5 hours until a skewer put into the middle comes out clean and not gooey. Let cake cool in oven. Make a month before needed. Every week make holes in bottom of cake with skewer and pour in rum or brandy (I prefer rum). 2 weeks before needed put marzipan/almond paste on top and sides or just top and leave in cool dry place uncovered. 1 week before needed ice/frost the cake. It is very difficult to give a recipe for icing/frosting used here because basically you take an egg white and mix sieved icing sugar (this is a sugar that is so fine and bright white that it looks like talcum powder - what do you call this? frosting sugar?) until it is stiff ie when you stick a knife into the mixture and pull it out quick it leaves behind a peak that doesn't lose shape. Anyway, you put this icing on the top (and sides) and you can make it look like snow by making peaks like you did to test the mixture or else you can put it on smooth (like plastering a wall) leave it for a day or 2 to dry and then make some more icing add food colour (red probably) and write Happy Christmas with an piping set.

Ingredients.

1 Cup Sugar

4 Large Eggs

1 Cup Butter

3 Cups dried Fruit

1 Cup of Nuts

1/2 Cup Plain Flour

Juice of 1 Orange,

Juice of 1 Lemon

1tsp Baking Powder

1 Large Bottle Whiskey

Method.

Take 1 large bowl, and sample the whiskey for quality, Turn on the electric mixer, Pour 1 level cup of whiskey, and check at regular intervals to be absolutely sure of the quality. Beat 1 cup of butter in a large fluffy bowl, Add 1 tsp sugar and beat again, check the whiskey, Murm off the trixer and cry another tup, Break 2 eggs add to the bowl if posbable Chuck in the druit and mix on the turnerer, Check the wallity of the quiskey, and sift 2 cups of salt.........................who cares, If the fried druit gets buck in the steaters pry loose with a drewscriver, sample the whiskey for tonsistencity, sift the juice and strain the nuts, add the sugar and check the whiskey, ...............whatever, Grease the oven and turn the cake into 350 degrees,