SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE WELSH RECIPES
Broth
Leek and orange soup
Faggots
Glamorgan sausages
Welsh rarebit
Laver bread
Welsh cakes
Speckled bread
Lap cake
Lardy cake
Ginger beer
2 lb Welsh lamb (best end of neck)
½ lb carrots
½ lb swede
2 parsnips
1 lb potatoes
2 leeks
1 oz parsley
Salt & pepper
Remove fat from the meat and bring to the boil in a pan of water. Simmer for approx. 2 hrs. until the meat is cooked and falling off the bone.
Allow to cool completely (overnight is good) and skim off the fat.
Peel and cut up the vegetables and add to the pan. Simmer until the root vegetables are tender. (The leek can be added at the very end because they cook quicker). Add the chopped parsley. Serve in a big bowl with a plate at the side to put the meat on. Traditionally eaten on St. David's day in our house.
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Leek and orange soup (Welsh soup with a difference!!)
15g (½ oz) butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
300g (11oz) leek, finely sliced
900mls (1 ½ pts) vegetable stock
1 teaspoon lemon juice
Juice of 2 large oranges
75mls (3fl oz) milk
50ml (2 fl oz) single cream
Salt & freshly ground pepper
To garnish:
150 ml (¼ pt ) crème fraiche
2 tablespoons freshly chopped chives
Melt the butter and cook the onion until soft, without browning.
Add the leek and cook for 5 mins
Add the vegetable stock, lemon and orange juice.
Simmer until the vegetables are tender. Allow to cool a little.
Purée in a liquidiser with the milk and cream. Add seasoning to taste.
Serve hot or chilled, garnished with a swirl of crème fraiche and a sprinkling
of chopped chives. Preparation & cooking time: 30 mins. Serves 6.
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2 lb liver
4 oz breadcrumbs
2 oz suet
2 onions
1 teaspoon chopped herbs (usually sage)
Salt & pepper
Rinse and chop the liver. Add the chopped onion, suet, breadcrumbs and herbs and season to taste. Mix together and roll into balls. Put these in a baking dish, cover with a lid or some aluminium foil and cook at Mark 4 (350F) for 45 mins. Take off the lid and brown for a further 10 mins. (Serves 6)
Serve hot with gravy. A traditional supper dish was faggots and peas (mushy peas of course!) which, years ago, could be bought from fish-and-chip shops.
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Glamorgan sausages - Selsig Morgannwg
1 onion
1 leek (small)
1 oz butter
3 oz cheese (Caerphilly or Cheddar)
6 oz breadcrumbs
pinch dry mustard
black pepper for seasoning
parsley
1 egg, separated
2 tablespoons plain flour.
Fry the chopped onion and the leek in butter until soft, then add the mixed dry ingredients; cheese, breadcrumbs, mustard, pepper and parsley. Bind it all together with the egg yolk. Form this mixture into sausages, roll in flour and fry in a pan until golden brown. You can also coat the sausage in egg-white, then roll in more breadcrumbs before frying. (Serves 4)
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Welsh rarebit - Caws wedi pobi
4 thick slices of bread
¼ lb hard cheese, grated
1 teaspoon butter
1 teaspoon dry mustard powder
2 teaspoons Worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons flour
4 tablespoons beer
salt & pepper
Toast the bread on both sides. Grate the cheese into a pan and cook in the melted butter until soft. Add the rest of the ingredients. Spread the mixture on the toast and cook under the grill until golden brown.
Alternative method: Toast the bread. Mix together all the other ingredients and add just enough milk to make a spreadable consistency. Spread this on the toast and grill until golden brown. This was a much-enjoyed supper dish in our house.
(Serves 2)
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Laverbread is made from the seaweed porphyra laciniata by cooking in a pan for several hours, after which it is drained and chopped, seasoned, formed into balls and rolled in oatmeal. Women from Penclawdd would sell it in the markets of South Wales, usually with cockles. These were sold by the pint, while the laverbread was sold by the pound. It would have been fried in bacon fat and served with bacon for breakfast. Nowadays, it can be bought in a tin and is good as an accompaniment to seafood; shellfish or smoked salmon in particular.
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8 oz self-raising flour
4 oz butter / margarine
4 oz sugar
4 oz currants
2-4 tablespoons milk
Rub the fat into the sifted flour. Add the sugar and currants. Add enough milk to make a soft dough. Roll out to ¼" thickness and cut into rounds. Cook on a greased griddle for 4 mins. each side or until golden brown. Sprinkle with more sugar while still hot.
We used to call these "pics". In summer, my mother would have used up milk which was "on the turn" so as not to waste it. If you wish, you can add ½ teaspoon of mixed spice if you want them to taste like M&S' Welsh cakes (but then, if you wanted your Welsh cakes to taste like M&S' you would have bought them from there in the first place isn't it?)
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1 lb plain flour
4 oz brown sugar
4 oz lard or lard/margarine mixed
3 oz each of sultanas and currants
2 oz candied peel
1 egg
½ oz yeast
pinch of salt
warm milk
Mix yeast with the warm milk and leave in a warm place to ferment.
Rub the fat into the flour and mix in all the dry ingredients. Add the yeast mixture, the beaten egg and enough warm milk to make a soft dough. Cover and leave in a warm place until it has risen to double the size. Divide the mixture between two baking tins and leave to rise again for another ½ hour. Bake in a hot oven (450°F for 20 mins., then turn the heat down to 400°F and bake for another 2 hours. Serve sliced with butter. The dried fruit can be soaked in cold tea beforehand. Popular in North Wales.
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1 lb plain flour, containing
½ teaspoon baking powder
8 oz butter/margarine with a little lard
10 oz currants
1 cup sugar
2 eggs beaten in a little milk
Rub the fat into the flour and add the other dry ingredients. Mix in the beaten eggs and add more milk until the mixture is soft and moist. Bake in a greased shallow tin in a hot oven. In the kitchens of South Wales, this would have been cooked on an enamel plate in front of the fire and was put in miners' lunch boxes because it kept moist. (Hence the name llap=wet)
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8oz plain flour
4 oz butter/margarine
water
4 oz lard
4 oz sultanas
2 oz candied peel
2 oz sugar
Rub the margarine into the flour, add the water and knead the mixture into a dough. Lay it out on a well-floured board and roll into an oblong about 1" thick.
Divide the other ingredients into 4 equal parts. Taking one of these 'portions' spread the lard on to the dough and cover evenly with the sultanas, peel and sugar. Fold the dough over and roll again into an oblong of the same size as the original. Spread the next portion of lard and add the sultanas, peel and sugar as before. Fold again and roll. Do this twice more. Place the slab on a greased baking tray and bake in a fairly hot oven for 1 hr. Serve hot or cold spread with butter (yes - really! It's delicious). This cake was popular in Glamorganshire.
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1 gall water
1 quart of cold water
2 lbs sugar
root ginger
1 small lemon
a handful of dandelion leaves
a few blackcurrant leaves
½ cupful of live yeast
Boil the leaves, the cut up lemon and the (bruised) ginger in a quart of cold water for ½ hour. Cool and strain the liquid into a large pan. Boil the gallon of water, dissolve the sugar in it and add this to the strained liquid in the pan. Allow to cool to blood heat then add the yeast. Let it stand overnight, then strain and bottle.
This drink was made by Swansea wives for the tinplate workers of Gorseinon and Morlais. It was also made for the farm workers of Carmarthenshire, especially during harvest.
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