The Lost Recipes

A glorious endeavour - Nigella Lawson

Over 90 rediscovered and revived Australian classics - thrifty, no-waste recipes from a time that honoured seasonal, locally grown ingredients and truly understood the value of food as comfort. Nostalgic, yes, but completely relevant to today's kitchens.

Chef and bestselling cookbook author Ross Dobson has a hobby: scouring old journals, newspapers and books for Australia's 'forgotten' recipes. While his research has revealed some shockers not worth repeating, he has come across many more worthy dishes that are missing from the repertoire of modern-day cooks. In The Lost Recipes, he sets about righting this culinary injustice by presenting a selection of bygone gems, savoury and sweet, dating from the Victorian era through to the 1950s - all of them rescued, researched, tested and updated by Ross.

Threaded throughout are handy tips (celery leaves dried in the oven and then ground with salt make a seasoning with endless uses - especially good on roasted potatoes) and insights into old-fashioned cooking techniques and ingredients deserving of revival.

Among these once-forgotten recipes you will find:

• mushroom ketchup (1886)
• hot slaugh (1876)
• olive & anchovy salad (1921)
• devilled whitebait (1938)
• Sunday Chinese chicken (1949)
• brisket with macaroni (1915)
• golden billy bread (1925)
• pumpkin brownies (1939)
• cream lilies (1954)
• green tomato & pineapple jam (1933)

There isn't one recipe in this book that wasn't, in essence, once a lovely idea. It has been a privilege and joy to bring them back to life - and in a workable condition. - Ross Dobson