Frikkadel - The Royal Hostess, 1955

Of my eight vintage cookbooks, The Royal Hostess is number 2 on my list of favourites, but the most beautiful in appearance of all of them.

The inside is loose from the cover, a number of pages are loose and/or folded and whoever owned it in its day hand wrote recipes on every open space in the entire book. It's precious.

Today I cooked the Frikkadel recipe. The only changes I made were using coriander instead of parsley as that's what I had. And by the sound of the recipe, it seemed a bit dry just to serve it with sides so I got the idea to bake it in a sauce from Sarie Kos (because let's be honest, just baking it in water sounded dreadfully boring), but made a moerby tomato sauce instead as that's what I was craving.

Now, let's see if I can remember what I did with the sauce....

Half a red onion (only half because there's already onion in the frikadelle)

1 clove garlic, crushed

1 can chopped and peeled tomatoes

Smoked paprika

1 packet tomato puree

Water

Salt and pepper

Sugar

A cream and mayonnaise mixture I made for a salad dressing not too long ago, probably 4 or 5 tablespoons' worth (used just so it doesn't go to waste)

Fry the onion and garlic until soft. Add the can of tomatoes, tomato puree, and all the other ingredients to taste and give it a few stirs then pour over the frikkadelle and bake.

I also didn't put the pats of butter on top each frikkadel as the onions and garlic were fried in lots of Pink 'n Pay margarine.

The sauce looked really good when it came out the oven and tasted 100 times better. Holy moley did it taste good. I can only hope the next time I make this again it will taste just half as good. And look at that beautiful crusty ring around the inside of the dish.

The final product served over mashed potatoes, lots of sauce and lots of shredded coriander. This one definitely earned its place in my personal recipe book.

And in keeping with the 1955 theme, enjoy one of my favourite songs from Bill Haley released in the same year.