Reading through it I thought it must be from circa 1970, but a quick google tells me that it's actually from 1980. Incredibly disturbing as I suppose this is the sort of meal I might have been given had I not been born into the family that I was. It's a handy book if you want to make really tasty pancakes and various baked goods. A look through the "main dish" section does not really whet the appetite similarly. Main recurring ingredients include condensed soup of all sorts, mayonnaise and wieners. So should these recipes of the past stay in the past? Or are they ready for a rebirth? Only time will tell.
This week we made Deviled Fish Fillets and Tangy Mashed Sweet Potatoes. Thought we'd start simple since we're new to this kind of cookery. A couple of changes had to be made due to lack of availability of ingredients at our local supermarket. Canned sweet potatoes (EEWWW) were replaced with fresh and frozen onion rings were replaced with homemade. I imagine this has enhanced the flavour of both dishes immensely.
How to devil a fish fillet:
1. Mix up some sour cream, mayo, mustard, chopped onion and salt:
Wow, I'm hungry already.
2. Spread mixture over the fillets in greased baking dish:
Drool.
3. Bake in 400 degree oven for 15 minutes.
We put together the sweet potatoes at the same time. Pretty simple. Mash them up and add butter and marmalade. Throw in oven with the fish.
So after 15 agonizing minutes (and some fumbling around with the homemade onion rings...mmm...deep frying...), we opened the oven and were greeted with this:
The husband's first comment: "It looks like nuclear waste." I thought maybe just the lighting was weird in the oven.
Guess not. Ummm...eeeew? Oh well. Retro cookery is clearly not for the faint of heart. But at least we now know why they tell you to garnish with onion rings!
Hides the fish! Yay! It turned out to not be as bad as it looked. Basically it tasted like fish baked in tartar sauce. I definitely prefer my tartar sauce cold, but at this was at least somewhat edible, and incredibly filling. Think I put on five pounds just looking at it. I had higher hopes for the sweet potatoes, but found them to be extremely sweet. This reinforces my opinion that already sweet potatoes should probably not be combined with other sweet things. Like marshmallows. Who invented that anyways? Gross.
We did have one really happy customer though. Apparently toddlers who normally don't care much for fish are most pleased to eat it devilled.
See you next week! Looks like we're cooking with wieners! Woot!
*Note: I recently discovered that frozen onion rings are available at your local Walmart Supercenter. So you know, when I make this again I can be lazy. Or you can be lazy when you make it. I know you want to.
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