An Unexpected Cookbook: The Unofficial Book of Hobbit Cookery (12 page)

Although none of the races of Middle Earth are overtly religious, Tolkien himself once described The Lord of the Rings as "a fundamentally religious and Catholic work." In the same way, there’s nothing intrinsically religious about warm, sweet bread stuffed with fruit and glazed with a couple lines of sugar, but Hot Cross Buns are a long standing Catholic tradition.

England had a long history of marking bread in special ways to ward off bad luck, evil spirits, and even spoiling. In the 17th century, adding a cross to everyday buns was considered “Popish” and went out of fashion among English Protestants. Bakeries put this bias aside at the Easter season, when Catholics and Protestants alike enjoyed Hot Cross Buns on Good Friday.

It’s heartbreaking to realize so many of the lush descriptions of food in the Shire were written during England’s darkest days of war rationing. During World War II, it wasn’t uncommon for English families to save up on their rations for weeks in order to make Hot Cross Buns as a special Good Friday treat. These days, they’re available in many bakeries through most of the month of April.

Dough:

½ c /120 ml warm milk

1 tbsp yeast

3 tbsp room temperature butter

½ c / 120 ml heavy cream

½ c / 100 g sugar + 1 tsp

1 egg, lightly beaten

1 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

⅓ tsp ginger

1 c / 200 g currants, sultanas (golden raisins) or a mix of both

3 ¼ - 3 ½ c / 425 - 450 g flour

1 tsp lemon zest

Glaze:

1 whole egg, beaten

1 egg white

2 tbsp milk

¼ c / 30 g powdered sugar

Completely dissolve the yeast and 1 tsp sugar in warm milk. Since these are normally cold weather treats, the sugar gives the yeast a little extra help getting started on a chilly day.

In 10 minutes, the yeast should be nice and foamy. Add the room temperature butter, heavy cream, sugar, and egg. Beat it all together until the sugar is mostly dissolved. Now add the salt, cinnamon, ginger, and lemon zest. Keep mixing for another minute or so until the spices are well integrated into the liquids.

Now add the flour, ½ cup at a time, until you achieve a dough that’s tacky, but not sticky. If you have a stand mixer, attach the dough hook, set it to low, and let the machine do all the work for the next 6-8 minutes. If you’re working by hand, spread a little flour on a clean surface and gently knead the dough for 8-10 minutes.

Once you’re satisfied with the dough, spread it into a rough rectangle. Add half the currants or sultanas. Fold the dough in half and add the rest. Fold it in half once more. If you mix them straight into the dough, you risk them rising to the surface and expanding into crazy little balloons. Folding them in like this helps keep the fruit anchored in the middle of the buns where it can add sweetness and texture without making the surface look weird.

Pull off golf ball shaped chunks of dough and roll them into a circle. Arrange the buns on a lightly buttered baking sheet, at least 3 inches / 7.5 cm apart so they won’t touch when they rise and bake.

Cover the buns with a light kitchen cloth and let them rise until nearly double in size, or about 60 minutes. On particularly cold days it might take a little longer.

Once the rolls have risen, beat an egg until light and frothy. Paint it on the surface of the buns so they’ll come out of the oven nice and shiny.

In Tolkien's day, it was traditional to snip a cross directly into the buns themselves. These days, a lot of people just paint an X on top. The cut buns make a nice effect, plus they’re a lot easier to pull apart and share. To make a cross in yours, simply use a pair of kitchen shears to snip two lines in the top right before baking.

Bake at 400F / 205C for 20 minutes, or until the tops are a toasty golden brown.

While they bake, prepare the simple icing. Just mix the egg white and milk together, then gradually add in the powdered sugar until the icing reaches your desired thickness.

Let the buns completely cool before painting on the crosses. Otherwise, the icing will melt off and dribble down the sides. The easiest way to paint on the icing is to squeeze it all into a plastic sandwich bag and snip off the very edge of one corner. You now have an instant, disposable pastry bag you can use to draw neat icing lines.

If you’re in the mood to start a rollicking argument without resorting to typical subjects like religion or politics, ask people to define the difference between supper and dinner. Whether you’re in the UK or the US, you’ll get five opinions for every four people (because at least one will have multiple definitions.)

This lack of distinction was just as strong in Tolkien’s day, which made including both supper and dinner in the list of a Hobbit’s daily meals even funnier. They didn’t pick between the two. They had both. It’s amusingly decadent now, but to readers trying to stretch their ration books, a world where everyone ate two hearty evening meals each night with plenty of meats and sweets would’ve been as fantastical as a world filled with elves and dwarves.

1 Frenched rack of lamb with 8 ribs

1 tbsp cooking oil

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves

1 tsp fresh thyme

1 tsp kosher salt

½ tsp fresh ground black pepper

1 tbsp sherry or brandy

½ tsp apple cider vinegar

½ tsp dark mustard

Mix everything but the lamb until you have a thick paste.

Trim the rack of lamb of excess fat. Leave a layer no more than 1 inch / 2.5 cm thick. Rub the spice paste all over the meat. You can now either let it rest on the counter for two hours until it reaches room temperature or wrap the whole thing in plastic and put it back in the fridge to marinate overnight. If you do, take it out two hours before you’re ready to bake. It’s important you let the meat return to room temperature before baking. If you don’t, you could end up with burned fat, a raw center and overall uneven badness.

When your nicely crusted lamb is at room temperature, preheat your oven to 400F / 205C.

Put a roasting rack in the bottom of a pan that’s not too much bigger than the rack itself. Arrange the rack of lamb fat side up/bone side down in the middle of the pan. Since you probably have less practice roasting a lamb than most Victorian cooks, you might want to insert a meat thermometer into the thickest part of the meat so you’ll know when your lamb is done.

Roast the lamb for 7-8 minutes then reduce the temperature to 300F / 150C. Cook for another 7-15 minutes, depending on how done you like it. For rare lamb, pull it out when the internal temperature reaches 125F / 52C. If you prefer medium rare, let it cook until it reaches 135F / 57C. You don’t want to leave it in much past that or else instead of a lovely juicy cut of meat, you’ll end up needing a hacksaw to get through it all.

Residual heat will keep cooking the meat, so seriously, don’t leave it in the oven for more than 22 minutes total. As soon as you take the rack out of the oven, baste it in its juices. Remove the rack to a plate and wrap it in foil (or, if you want to be more period, put it on the counter, flip over a clean pan, and put it over the lamb to keep it warm. Let the meat rest for 20 minutes.

While the lamb rests, put the roasting pan over your oven burners. (If you didn’t use a burner-safe pan, do your best to scrape all the juices and lovely crunchy bits out of the pan and into a skillet.)

Over a medium heat, deglaze the roasting pan with your sherry. Stir frequently to get up all the good bits. Add the cider vinegar and dark mustard and keep stirring until you have a thick, gloriously fatty gravy.

Once the lamb has rested for 20 minutes, cut it into four thick chops if you’re feeling generous or eight smaller chops if you’re hosting unexpected company.

Lamb chops make especially delicious broth, so when you’re cleaning up the plates after dinner, make sure to save the bones.

8 leftover lamb rib bones

any leftover fat and meat

2 carrots

2 celery sticks

2 sprigs of rosemary

1 onion

1 bay leaf

1 tsp coarse salt

2 tbsp apple cider vinegar

enough water to fill ¾ of your stockpot

You can just throw the bones and fat into a big pot of boiling water with some carrots, celery, onion, and kitchen herbs. However, if you really want to get the most flavor, you want to roast the bones themselves.

If your guests didn’t pick the bones clean, go ahead and try to get as much meat off the leftovers as possible. Save that to use in tomorrow’s Mushroom and Beef Hand Pies (pg 31) for Elevenses (subbing in leftover lamb is delicious) or set it aside as a Boxty topping (pg 125) for dinner.

Preheat your oven to 375F / 190C. Once it’s warmed up, arrange the bones in a single layer on a large baking sheet and roast them for 15 minutes. Flip the bones, then roast them for another 15, for a total of 30 minutes. This may seem pointless since you’ve already fully cooked the meat, but that extra step adds an amazing amount of flavor to the final broth.

Meanwhile, fill a large crockpot ¾ of the way with hot water. No, this isn’t an authentic period technique. Your roasted bone broth needs a good 24 hours of simmering to really leach out all the flavor. If you’re comfortable leaving a pot on the stove for that long then you probably spend a lot of time in the kitchen and know how to properly look after it. For most people, though, crockpots are a miraculous safety invention that lets them use low and slow heat without fear of their house burning down while they’re at work. If it helps, name your crockpot George and pretend it’s a dutiful member of the family patiently watching the pot for you.

While the bones are roasting, cut your carrots, celery, and onions into quarters and add those to the crockpot. Leave on the onion skin. While you’re at it, throw in the bay leaf, rosemary, and salt. Put the lid on and leave it on high while the bones roast.

Once your bones are done roasting, they should be a beautiful dark golden brown. This and the onion skin add a lot of the color to your final broth. Dump your bones into the crockpot, splash them with the apple cider vinegar, and fill the pot ¾ full of water. Make sure to leave an inch or two at the top so it doesn’t bubble over.

Give it all a good stir, put a lid on the crockpot, and reduce the heat to low.

Now for the hard part - leave it alone for at least a day. Every time you open the crockpot, you add to the total necessary cook time. Just let it simmer away.

Once you can’t take the glorious scent anymore (try to hold out for at least a day) line a colander with 4 layers of cheesecloth and strain out all the solids. Go ahead and throw the solids away. You’ve reached all the flavor left in them.

You should have a dark, fragrant broth that smells divine. In Tolkien's time, the elderly, injured, and ill would frequently be given cup of warm bone broth as a restorative. It’s full of protein, some tasty fat, and valuable minerals. You can drink it on its own or use it as a base for soups and stews. If you don’t have an immediate use for it, let it cool overnight in the refrigerator then freeze it in usable sized chunks.

Due to its cost, asparagus was often called the king of vegetables and the vegetable of kings. If you’ve ever thought it looks a lot like a line of trees marching across your plate, you’re right. Asparagus is actually a fast growing shrub that needs to be harvested twice a year while the shoots are still small. Otherwise, the shrub will overtake your garden and transform from a tasty vegetable into a woody menace. However, the woody fibers make it a great vegetable for roasting. It can stand a lot of heat and a fair amount of moisture without breaking down, which means you can add it to a hot oven without it turning into a gross, mushy paste.