The Forgotten Menu
Back to home

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.

Search by recipe name or ingredient.

Sort & filter226 recipes

85–96 of 226 recipes

  1. A smooth, deep red cranberry jelly turned out of a small fluted mold onto a white plate, with one wedge cut away to show it is clear of skins.
    Cranberry jelly

    Vegetables & Sides · 6 hr 30 min total

    Cranberry Jelly (1931) 

    Aunt Sammy’s cranberry jelly, 1931: cranberries cooked soft, pressed through a sieve, boiled briefly with sugar to the jelly point and set in a mold.

  2. A round cake of finely minced beef and potato with a deep brown crisp underside, turned out whole onto a warm white ironstone plate, one wedge cut away to show the soft minced inside.
    Beef hash

    Meat & Poultry · 45 min total

    Dry Beef Hash (1896) 

    Dry beef hash from the 1896 Manual for Army Cooks: cold cooked beef, potato and parboiled onion minced, moistened with stock and fried in dripping until brown underneath.

  3. A white porcelain salad bowl with a thin gilt rim holding matchsticks of pale green celery and black truffle in about equal amounts, lightly coated in a pale mustard mayonnaise.
    Salade d’Estrée

    Vegetables & Sides · 30 min total

    Estrées Salad (1903) 

    Escoffier’s Estrées salad of 1903: curled white celery and black truffle in equal parts, cut in matchsticks and dressed with a mustard mayonnaise and cayenne.

  4. Folded white fillets of sole on an oval silver platter under an ivory cream sauce, with a heap of poached oysters, small white button mushrooms, squares of pink lobster and thin black truffle slices in the center.
    Suprême de barbue à la normande

    Fish & Seafood · 1 hr 25 min total

    Fillets of Sole à la Normande (1894) 

    Agnes Marshall’s fillets of sole à la Normande, about 1894: cooked under buttered paper, in cream sauce made on a spiced fish stock, with oysters, mushrooms, lobster and truffle.

  5. A browned beef pot roast, partly sliced, on an oval white platter with a blue rim, with soft carrot pieces and a small jug of brown gravy beside it.
    Pot Roast

    Meat & Poultry · 9 hr 15 min total

    Fireless Cooker Pot Roast (1909) 

    A fireless cooker pot roast from The Fireless Cook Book, 1909: beef rump dredged in flour, browned, simmered with onion, carrot, bay and parsley, then cooked for hours on retained heat.

  8. A thick beef stew of large tender cubes of simmered beef with small pieces of potato, carrot and soft tomato in a thick red-brown gravy, in a wide brown stoneware dish with a pewter spoon.
    To stew fresh beef

    Meat & Poultry · 3 hr 30 min total

    Fresh Beef Stew (1896) 

    A fresh beef stew from the 1896 Manual for Army Cooks: stewing beef simmered two hours with bay, then an hour more with potatoes, tomatoes, onions and carrots, kept thick.

  9. Four glazed double-rib lamb cutlets arranged in a ring on a white platter, bones pointing up, around a mound of pale onion purée, with small whole white onions around the edge, each with a parsley sprig standing in its top.
    Côtelettes à la Soubise

    Meat & Poultry · 2 hr 50 min total

    Lamb Cutlets à la Soubise (1814) 

    Lamb cutlets à la Soubise from Beauvilliers’s L’Art du cuisinier, 1814: double-rib cutlets larded with ham, braised, glazed in their own reduced liquor and ringed around a white onion purée.

  10. Thick round slices of lobster tail with red-edged rims in a pale ivory cream sauce, in a shallow white porcelain serving dish.
    Homard au Sauternes

    Fish & Seafood · 45 min total

    Lobster with Sauternes (1907) 

    Lobster with Sauternes, after Escoffier’s lobster Newburg of 1907: slices of poached lobster warmed in butter, glazed with the wine and finished in a cream and egg-yolk sauce.

  11. Twelve small soft white marzipan stars, hearts and rounds laid out on a parchment-lined baking sheet, with a small blue-and-white bowl of blanched almonds and a rolling pin.
    Marzipan

    Desserts & Sweets · 3 hr 40 min total

    Lübeck Marzipan (1858) 

    Henriette Davidis’s Lübeck marzipan: almonds ground with orange flower water, stirred with sugar over low heat, rolled and cut into small soft white shapes.