Strangest recipe ever?

[PAULW]

DDL
I thought you had gone there for sunday dinner, rook pie followed by rook ice cream and cheese and rook biscuits and coffee.

[dexterdoglancashire]

DDL
I thought you had gone there for sunday dinner, rook pie followed by rook ice cream and cheese and rook biscuits and coffee.

sounds delish!

[PAULW]

BRANCHER PIE (Young Rooks in May)

Ingredients : 6 young rooks, pepper and salt, 3 hard boiled eggs, ½ lb of rough puff pastry , 1 pint warm water, 1 oz butter, 1 lb steak, 1/2pt beef stock, 1 oz flour, gelatine.

Method : Wash rooks well, taking care to remove the livers and backbones. Cut into neat joints and the steak into pieces, toss in flour, pepper and salt. Fry the rooks in hot butter and put onto plate, brown the steak, add warm water and simmer 1 hour. Put the rooks into the mixture and simmer for 1 hour longer. Boil eggs, remove shells and cut into quarters. Put the rooks, meat and eggs into a pie dish, pour gravy over gelatine and stir till dissolved. Pour over rooks and when cold, cover with pastry, decorate, brush with a beaten egg and bake ½ an hour. Pour in the gravy and serve cold. cook on gas mark 6.

[allotmentlady]

Well.... they didn't waste anything. In those books is a wealth of info. Sheep's tails are docked when they are lambs to fatten the sheep and stop all the fat being stored in the tail. With the waste not want not attitude, wakes perfect sense. Growing up oxtail was a family favourite. So stands to reason lambs tail would be good too. The tail is after all covered in skin etc. Where I grew up mopane worms were a delicacy Gonimbrasia belina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

i feel sick now!

[Hilary B]

Rook pie was one of those 'waste not want not' recipes. The young rooks were shot to keep numbers down (not many predators) and it would have been wasteful to just throw the carcases away!
Some recipes only use the breast meat, but since there isn't much meat on the rest, not so wasteful.
I once had neighbours who, when finances were really tight, cooked 'little birdie pie'. Anything they could shoot or trap, from sparrows to curlews, under a flour-pastry lid.
This was in the days before Family Income Supplement and similar assistance to small farmers (or when FIS was only for those with children), and if the unsaleable lambs ran out before the next ones were ready to sell, they had to survive on what was in the cupboard or could be got for free.

[ohbeary]

Gazelle With Mangoes & Cashews and Spiced Bear.

Oy!! less of the Bear cooking, I'm very sensitive about that sort of thing, dont mind hangin out with Gazelles theyre cute "all the nice Gazelles love a sailor(bear)"

[Hilary B]

OK Strange recipe, probably one of these myths (like an Urban Legend, but in the wrong place).
Eskimos were at one time reputed to prepare a special wedding meal, by stuffing a seal with assorted sea birds, then burying the whole thing in the ground, just on top of the permafrost, for the summer. The feast was at the start of winter when the 'food' was dug up.
I don't think I believe the person who told me about it.....

[kirsty b]

Very strange and very vile - Balut Egg - description below....

A balut is a fertilized duck (or chicken) egg with a nearly-developed embryo inside that is boiled and eaten in the shell.

If you Wiki this you wil see how vile it is. Think it may have been one of Keith Floyd's progs where I first came across this. Now I must stop writing/thinking about it or I'll be si.......too late!

EWwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!! Saw this on a prog '100 things to do before you die' type thing. I won't feel I've missed out if I never try it. Had to turn over as it made me retch.

We are fans of Angelsey Eggs

Mashed spuds with softened leeks mixed in and spread on the bottom of a greased dish, some hard boiled eggs sliced in half and placed flat sidedown on top and then covered with a nice cheesey sauce. Bake in oven till browned and serve. We were sceptical at first, but its really tasty - even the kids like it!