The Forgotten Menu
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Recipes

Dishes from history’s famous tables, from the old menus and cookbooks. Each one names its source and scales to the size of your table.

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109–120 of 226 recipes

  1. A rolled and tied roast sirloin of beef with a browned crust, partly carved into pink slices, on a large oval pewter platter, with a small jug of thin dark meat juices beside it.
    Roast Beef à l’Anglaise

    Meat & Poultry · 1 hr 55 min total

    Roast Sirloin of Beef (1868) 

    Jules Gouffé’s roast sirloin of beef, 1868: a tied joint roasted plain, with no seasoning before it cooks, and its own juices poured over at the table.

  2. A venison roast larded with pork fat and studded with cloves on a pewter platter, three slices cut in front, in a brown sauce flecked with breadcrumbs.
    Fiue Deere

    Meat & Poultry · 2 hr 10 min total

    Roast Venison with Vinegar Sauce (1623) 

    Roast venison with vinegar sauce after Gervase Markham’s book of 1623: the meat studded with cloves, larded with pork fat and served on a sweet-sour sauce of vinegar, crumbs and its own juices.

  4. A pointed mound of salad on a round white porcelain dish, with small balls of carrot and turnip, diamonds of green bean, pieces of asparagus and diced chicken, partridge and pink salmon, topped with a spoonful of black caviar and ringed by pink prawns, green olives and small gherkins.
    Salade russe

    Fish & Seafood · 1 hr 15 min total

    Russian Salad (1868) 

    Gouffé’s 1868 Russian salad: chicken, partridge, salmon and anchovy with small carrots, turnips, asparagus and beans in oil, vinegar and herbs.

  5. A wide bowl of thick barley soup with soft diced carrot and turnip, beside a plate of pieces of stewed lamb shoulder cut from the bone.
    Semi-Stewed Mutton and Barley

    Soups & Broths · 3 hr 40 min total

    Semi-Stewed Mutton and Barley (1857) 

    Semi-stewed mutton and barley, Alexis Soyer’s hospital soup from Scutari: mutton or lamb simmered whole with barley, vegetables, salt, sugar and pepper, then thickened with a flour batter.

  6. Thick white strained curd heaped in a turned wooden bowl, with a wooden spoon resting in it, beside a cheesecloth-lined colander draining into a pale earthenware bowl on a weathered plank bench.

    Side dish · 18 hr 55 min total

    Skyr-Style Fresh Curd 

    A skyr-style fresh curd after the dairy farms of Viking Age Iceland: skimmed milk set with store-bought skyr and a little rennet, then drained overnight until thick and sour.

  7. A brown-glazed earthenware bowl of thick pale yellow cornmeal soup with small soft cubes of unpeeled potato and a few dice of turnip, on a plain gray-blue painted board.
    Receipt No. 3

    Soups & Broths · 2 hr 50 min total

    Soyer’s Potato Soup No. 3 (1857) 

    Soyer’s Potato Soup No. 3: his maize flour soup with a pound of diced potatoes boiled in for the last twenty minutes, written for famine families who could get potatoes once a week.

  8. A plain white bowl of pale soup thick with soft swollen pearl barley, sliced leek, chopped celery leaf and two small cubes of beef, beside a worn tin spoon on a bare scrubbed board.
    Receipt No. 1

    Soups & Broths · 3 hr 55 min total

    Soyer’s Soup No. 1 (1857) 

    Soyer’s Soup No. 1, his famine soup reprinted in 1857: a little beef fried with onion and vegetable trimmings, thickened with flour and pearl barley and simmered three hours.

  9. A plain gray enamel bowl of thick, smooth pale yellow cornmeal soup with a few dice of turnip, one small cube of beef and a scatter of black pepper, on a worn gray stone flag.
    No. 2

    Soups & Broths · 2 hr 45 min total

    Soyer’s Soup No. 2 (1857) 

    Soyer’s Soup No. 2, his second receipt for the needy, printed in 1857: maize flour boiled two hours with a little beef and diced turnip, seasoned with garlic, mint and celery.

  10. A thick brown soup of beef, split peas and barley in a plain earthenware bowl, with a hunk of toasted bread broken into it.
    Good Meat Soup

    Soups & Broths · 5 hr 20 min total

    Spitalfields Meat Soup (1799) 

    Spitalfields meat soup, the penny-a-quart soup of the Spitalfields soup house, 1799: beef and shin simmered for hours with split peas, Scotch barley, onion, salt and black pepper.

  11. A dented enamel camp kettle of stew with thick slices of soft potato and onion in a thin pale broth, chunks of pale shredding canned beef through it, beside a tin plate with a serving.
    Stew, with canned meats

    Meat & Poultry · 45 min total

    Stew with Canned Meat (1896) 

    A stew with canned meat from the 1896 Manual for Army Cooks: sliced potatoes and onions stewed soft in a covered pot, then canned beef cut up and simmered in for ten minutes.

  12. Soft, whole stewed peach halves in a thin amber syrup in a white enamel bowl with a dark blue rim, with a tin spoon beside the bowl.
    Dried peaches

    Desserts & Sweets · 15 hr 10 min total

    Stewed Dried Peaches (1896) 

    Stewed dried peaches from the War Department’s Manual for Army Cooks, 1896: soaked overnight, simmered under a lid, sweetened at the end and served cold.