Louise Marley

Some readers of The Horsemistress Saga and their beautiful horses

Back to The Horsemistress Saga

At Deeping Farm, the Uplands, regional foods include a homely pottage, a buttery cookie called a crook, and other country dishes.

The following are some of Larkyn Hamley’s recipes.

• Pottage
• Crooks
• Bloodbeet Casserole

---

Pottage

1 large onion, diced
1 cup baby carrots
2 ribs celery, sliced
2 large peeled potatoes
2 cloves garlic, peeled
2 tablespoons oil
1 pound stew meat
1 quart chicken broth
Salt and pepper and herbs to taste

1. Saute onion, carrots, and celery in oil. Dice garlic and add to oil. Cook briefly, then add chicken broth and about a cup of water. Simmer, with the pot lid not quite closed, until vegetables are soft. Remove most of the vegetables with a ladle and cool slightly. Mash to a nice thick consistency and return to the broth. Season broth to taste. Dice and add potatoes, and simmer for half an hour.
2. In a separate pan, brown stew meat in a little bit of oil, and simmer, uncovered, in water. Cook until tender, about an hour. Cool and skim off fat.
3. Add stew meat to vegetable mixture and simmer gently, with the pot lid askew, for another half hour to blend flavors. Give the pottage a good swipe with the Tarn, and serve in thick pottery bowls, the older and more battered the better.

Crooks

1/2 cup freshly churned butter
3 quarters cup sugar
2 eggs laid the same day
1 teaspoon vanilla shipped from Klee
2 cups freshly ground flour from the Willakeep mill
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1. Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Sift flour and baking powder and salt together and add to the creamed mixture, stirring till blended. Divide dough in half. On greased and floured baking sheet pat into two logs about one half inch high and one and a half inches wide, about fourteen inches long. Space them two inches apart. Twirl the Tarn over them before baking.
2. Make sure the close stove is good and hot, about 325 degrees, and bake the crooks for 25 minutes. Let cool on a rack for five minutes, and then place on a cutting board. Slice with a serrated knife diagonally on an angle, each crook to be about one half inch thick. Put them back on the baking sheet and return to the oven for about eight minutes longer to dry slightly. Cool again on the rack, and store in a tightly covered container.
3. Serve with Deeping Farm’s strong black tea.

Bloodbeet Casserole

3 pounds bloodbeets
(If bloodbeets are unavailable, use sweet potatoes)
6 tablespoons softened fresh butter
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup raw cows’ milk cheese
(Outside of the Uplands, this can be Gruyere)
2 tablespoons light brown sugar
1 teaspoon chopped thyme from Lark’s garden
Salt and pepper
3 freshly-laid eggs from Lark’s chicken coop

1. Preheat the close stove to 350 degrees. Bake the bloodbeets (or sweet potatoes) for one and a half hours, or until tender. Add more wood to raise the stove temperature to 425 degrees.
2. Peel the bloodbeets or sweet potatoes and mash with butter. Beat in the cream, the cows’ milk cheese, the sugar, and the thyme; season with salt and pepper. Beat in the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.
3. Pour mixture into buttered 8- x 11-inch baking dish, then give the souffle a good spin of the Tarn. Now bake for fifteen minutes. Reduce temperature to 400 degrees and bake for thirty more minutes, until puffy and browned. Let casserole rest for ten minutes before serving.

Back to The Horsemistress Saga