In our two latest radio shows for EGH Media, Matthew discussed Richard III (including his own meeting with the king) and other monarchs or heads of state whose remains have no known resting place, including Alfred the Great.

If you missed either show, you can listen to them below. 

Don't forget to tune in on April 23 for our special St George's Day show.

Last month, Matthew attended the press conference we all wanted to be at ... where the answer to the question 'is it Richard?' was revealed. Not only that, but he found himself face to face with the man himself. Matthew related his unforgettable experience to the Birmingham Post. 

You can find out more about Richard III, and other missing monarchs, in Matthew's next radio show for EGH Media, to be broadcast live next Tuesday 19 March from 8.00pm. Put your questions to Matthew via @HistoryNeedsYou at Twitter.

Cullen skink is a hearty Scottish fish soup or stew from a wee place called Cullen in NE Scotland.

There are loads of variants on this traditional dish so here is the version that I am cooking today.

Ingredients
Smoked haddock
Milk
Cream
Potatoes
Shallots
Herbs and seasoning

Pour the milk into a pan and bring it to a simmer. Add the smoked haddock and seasoning. I leave the skin on so that it stays together. Poach for a few minutes then remove the fish and place to one side.
Add cubed potatoes and chopped shallots to the milk and poach until they are soft.
Add cream and herbs. Place fish on top and warm through again.

Serve with oat bread and some veg. I have served it with string beans today.

Enjoy!

This gingerbread recipe is from A Daily Exercise for Ladies and Gentlewomen, 1617.

'To make red Ginger-bread, commonly called Leach-lumbar.'

'Grate and dry two stale Manchets, either by the fire, or in an Ouen, sift them through a Sieve, and put to it Cinamon, Ginger, Sugar, Liquorice, Anis-seed: when you haue mingled all this together, boile a pint of red wine, and stirre it, that it be as thick as a Hastie-pudding; then take it out, and coole it, and mould it with Cinamon, Ginger, Liquorice, and Anise-seede, and rowle it thinne, and print it with your mould, and dry it in a warme Ouen.'

In simple terms, add grated and sieved white breadcrumbs to mulled wine, or alcohol-free equivalent. Blend it to a thick paste, like a biscuit mixture. Either roll out and cut into shapes or use a gingerbread mold to create shapes. Dry them in front of the fire or in a cool oven. They should be dried, not baked.

When dried they can be decorated with edible gold to make culinary bling!

This recipe for 'The Best Pancake' is from
The English Husewife by Gervase Markham, published in 1615.

''To make the best pancake, take two or three eggs, and break them into a dish, and beat them well; then add a pretty quantity of fair running water, and beat all well together; then put in cloves, mace, cinnamon, and nutmeg, and season it with salt; which done, make it as thick as you think good with fine wheat flour; then fry the cakes as thin as may be with sweet butter, or sweet seam, and make them brown, and so serve them up with sugar strewed upon them. There be some which mix pancakes with new milk or cream, but that makes them tough, cloying, and not crisp, pleasant and savoury as running water.''

Ingredients
2-3 eggs
Plain wheat flour - about 8oz
Water - about a pint (or replace some or all of it with milk and/or cream)
Salt
Ground spices: mace, cinnamon, cloves nutmeg

Mix the dry ingredients together, mix in the egg then gradually add the liquid. Beat well and let it stand for a while. Fry in a good heavy frying pan using a little butter or suet.

Serve with sugar or with fruits preserved in brandy.

Enjoy, because the Lentern fast begins tomorrow!

This fruit cake recipe is from Gervase Markham, top-selling food author of the C17th. For Twelfth Night the tradition was to bake a bean into the cake. Whoever found the bean was the Bean King, Lord of Misrule, leader of merriment and mirth.

"To make a very good Banbury Cake, take foure pounds of Currants, & wash and pick them very cleane, and drie them in a cloth: then take three egges and put away one yelke, and beate them, and strayne them with barme [yeast], putting thereto Cloves, Mace, Cinamon and Nutmegges, then take a pint of Creame, and as much mornings milke and set it on the fire till the cold be taken away: then take flower and put in a good store of cold butter and sugar, then put in your egges, barme, and meale and worke them all together an houre or more: then save a part of the paste, & the rest breake in peeces and worke in your Currants: which done, mold your Cake of what quantity you please: and then with what that paste which hath not any Currants cover it very thinne both underneath and a loft. And so bake it according to the bignesse."

Roast beef and roast duck, stuffings x three and vegetables x lots..

Galantine sauce (red) - juice from the roast beef, claret, red wine vinegar, herbs, spices, onions, garlic, breadcrumbs.

Sauce for the duck (top) - juices from the roast, white wine, onions, garlic and apricots.

Syllabub made with whipped cream, brandy, fruit preserved in brandy and a touch of fruit syrup. Syllabub with roast meat is an Elizabethan and Jacobean tradition but proved very popular today.

My starter for Christmas dinner 2012. The fruit is anointed with raspberry vinegar and ginger, topped with fresh coriander.

Wash your tatties and cut into orange segments. Do not peel them as the skin is full of nutritious goodness.
Put them in a bowl and slather them with dark soy sauce. Leave them for a while, stirring occasionally.
Place them on a baking tray, skin down, with shallots and garlic cloves - they need a bit of olive oil.

Roast until they are nicely cooked. They will be brown and crisp with fluffy interiors - a bit like me.

I have prepped the duck, stuffed it and trussed it. It is now roasting very slowly on a bed of onion, garlic and white wine in an earthenware crock.