Resolute like it is 1899, dear fellow (Part 2)

Let's taste test this stuff. 

(For background on the cookbooks I used, visit part 1 of this post.) 

Skansen open-air museum in Stockholm, where many episodes of Historieätarna were filmed.

     One of my very favorite TV shows is a Swedish series called Historieätarna, which is based on a British show called The Supersizers.... (If you speak Swedish, you can check it out here.) Lotta Lundgren and Erik Haag devote one week to living from a period in Swedish history. They go whole hog - clothes, drink (which means they are drunk a lot), activities, work, and food. Their professional chef cooks mostly what seem like bizarre, but historically accurate, meals from the past. 

    The last post was about those Victorian cookbooks, and this one is about becoming a history eater in just a tiny way and testing some of those recipes. ​(But warning, I'm not a food blogger... don't let anyone every tell you that's easy....) 

     The first recipe came from New Vegetarian Dishes, and seemed straightforward and simple, although problems did arise...  
     Step one was to get a bunch of turnips. I didn't know what a bunch constituted, so I got four large turnips. I actually more than quartered them, put them in a pot of water, brought it to a boil and cooked for about twenty minutes until they were tender. 

     I then drained the water, but boiling them did cause them to be very watery. I pressed out the water as much as I could without totally washing all the turnip mash down the drain. TIP ONE: It might actually be better to roast them in the oven instead. 
     I added butter to the pot and turned it on low to allow the butter to melt. I then added the turnips back in and mashed them. I added a little bit more salt and petter. 

     The turnips went into a regular old pie dish (sorry, I don't have an ornamental pie dish!!), I cracked four eggs on top, and then added the watercress. And I just realized I used WAY more watercress than the recipe called for. Oops. Guess that's why I found it a little strange to cook all that watercress in the oven... It's much better raw... 
     I let it bake for about 20-30 minutes until the turnips had just started to brown, but then the eggs were actually more than poached. Hence, the roasting of the turnips might have helped again. 

     Our side to the turnip dish was a cucumber salad from Meat Substitutes by Isabel Goodhue (I didn't actually review this one in the last blog post, but I liked the recipe...). 
     The immediate problem was that there are no measurements. I guessed. 

     I cut a long, European cucumber in half and scooped out the seeds (but not all the way to the edge so it is like a little canoe). I didn't peel it since these cucumbers have pretty thin skin, but I would have it was a regular cuc. I also settled on one celery stalk, 1/4 cup onion, 1/4 almonds (instead of pecans), a tablespoon parsley, and one peeled and seeded roma tomato. I finely chopped all the ingredients, and then did something bad....

     I noticed in the recipe that there was nothing except vegetables in this mix. That didn't seem too awesome, so I added about a tablespoon of white modena vinegar and probably 1/4 teaspoon of salt. I realize I wasn't getting the complete history-eating experience if we are assuming the food was supposed to be bland, but hey, a real cook always adds to recipes no matter what the time period, right? 

Both recipes got two thumbs up from my taste tester... and honestly, most of the recipes look totally doable and probably pretty good.