Toad in the Hole with a Twist

On Sunday afternoon I wanted to wind down after an exciting Saturday afternoon playing cricket against a decidedly rough bunch of blokes and having a very early Sunday morning get up to some charity work. As there was a bit of rain in the air and the temperature was a little cooler than usual for this time of year I decided to make a traditional cooked dish eaten more commonly in winter.

I say 'traditional dish' but the Toad in the Hole I chose to make had one important difference; the sausages were Quorn ones which contained no meat whatsoever. The soundtrack for this part of today's cooking was the Grateful Dead's eponymous debut album which is far removed from the spaced out live jams they are known for and instead comprises of a short, sharp mix of blues, folk and garage rock.

I made the batter by making a well in a mixing bowl with four ounces of plain floor and then poured the contents of one egg into the middle of the well. I gradually added the flour to the egg whilst at the same time adding periodically half a pint of milk until I had a reasonably thick mixture.

As I always do with batter mixtures I left it to stand in the bowl for about an hour. After an hour I poured enough cooking oil into a 25cm wide and 5cm deep baking tray to just cover the bottom of the tray. I then added the batter mixture to the tray and spaced out evenly four vegetarian sausages in the tray.

I cooked the Toad in the Hole for twenty-five minutes at 210 degrees (220 for non-fan ovens) until the batter was golden brown and the sausages were a deep shade of ocher.

The resulting meal was every bit as tasty as a traditional Toad in the Hole as the batter was cooked enough not be sloppy but still moist enough not to be too crisp. The sausages had the same taste as normal meat ones but without the worry of having any fat or gristle to pick out. To complement the dish I served it with homemade onion gravy, mashed potato and boiled peas.

Out of the oven and ready to eat; I cooked it for just the right amount of time to avoid the sausages and batter burning. 

French Connection

It had been a weekend that could be described as being eventful and varied; the cricket team I play in had obtained a hard fought win to move out of the relegation zone, I had been to a chili and chess evening, I'd managed to play my best round of golf all year plus I had the prospect of a trip to watch some live Olympic sport to look forward to.

I realised that the best place to come and wind down between all the excitement was in the kitchen by making some French Onion Soup. The album of choice for preparation of the soup was the laid back ambient, synth-based rock of Neu 75 by Krautrockers Neu! The music on this record was shamelessly ripped off by David Bowie two years later for his, admittedly superb, albums Low and Heroes.

I took five large white onions and fried them on the hob on a medium heat in some olive oil in my Le Cresceut dish. In order to make sure they were the correct texture and soft enough for the soup I covered the dish with a lid and stirred the onions every five minutes or so to make sure they did not stick to the pan. I repeated this process for around thirty minutes until the onions were slightly transparent and a golden brown colour.

When the onions were properly cooked I took the leaves from four sprigs of thyme and mixed them with the onions together with some white pepper and two bay leafs. I cooked the mixture on a low heat for five minutes and then added a pint and a quarter of chicken stock.

If you like your soup to be a bit alcoholic, not mention giving it a much richer flavour, you can add a quarter of a pint of red wine to the mixture. However I chose not to on this occasion as I was also having a dish that contained half a pint of cider.

Not just like eating a bowl of gravy- the soup prior to the addition of the bread

Once the soup had cooked on a low heat for twenty minutes I poured it into individual serving bowls and placed half a slice of buttered bread on top of each bowl with a generous helping of grated Parmesan on each piece of bread. I then put the bowls under the heated grill for around two minutes to toast the bread. I should point out that you need to use bowls that are oven proof when you grill the bread on top of them. Once the bread was grilled the soup was ready.

The use of the thyme, Parmesan covered bread and bay leafs was enough to make this a worthwhile soup and stop it feeling like I was simply eating a large bowl of gravy. However next time I will definitely put some red wine into the mixture to give it a richer taste.  

The freshly toasted bread complete with melted Parmesan and butter  atop it

Transatlantic Fruit Salad

On a sunny March afternoon earlier this year as I prepared myself to head to a friend's house for an overdue catch up I decided I fancied making something suitably refreshing as a result of the un-seasonal summery sunshine.

The soundtrack was the Rolling Stones' somewhat lethargic live double album Love You Live from 1977 which, although it contains a lot of unfocused playing in large stadiums, redeems itself with four excellent blues and rock 'n' roll songs recorded on stage in a very small and intimate club.

The dish I made was a Pear, Cinnamon and Pomegranate Fruit Salad which is recipe that is popular across the Atlantic in North America. The recipe itself is pretty straightforward but consuming the finished product is a slightly different matter.

I first took three pears, peeled them and then cut them into baton shapes before placing them into a glass serving bowl. It's true to say that pears have a reputation as being very sloppy and therefore after preparing them I made sure that I cleaned my hands thoroughly.

The next task was even more messy; preparing a pomegranate. I first removed the skin with a peeler and then ripped out the cardboard membrane with my bare hands to leave lots of red and magenta seeds that were very juicy. I added the seeds to the pear batons in the bowl and mixed them well together.

I followed up by taking a lemon and squeezing half of its juice over the pomegranate seeds and the pear pieces. I then found a separate bowl and added two tablespoons of brown sugar, quarter of a teaspoon of nutmeg and half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon to the bowl and stirred them all together. I then added this fine smelling mixture of seasoning to the bowl of fruit and mixed it in until the fruit turned a muddy colour.

This New World fruit salad was now ready, but what would it taste like? I have to say I am not usually a fan of English fruit salads as they are usually a banal mixture of oranges, strawberry, banana and kiwi fruit- food that in my view should never be seen dead in the same bowl. However this fruit salad was a revelation; the cinnamon, sugar and nutmeg elevated the taste of the pears and the pomegranate juice into something special. I felt that I had been transported three months forward into mid-summer so much did the taste evoke  sunny Sunday afternoons sitting in the garden. The only downside to the dish is that each of the pomegranate seeds needs chewing individually to get the goodness out of it and then the husk needs to be thrown away as it cannot be eaten safely. Still as the fruit salad's taste is top quality this tedious job is well worth it for such a rewarding meal.

In the serving bowl and ready to eat- but be ready to pick through those Pomegranate seeds

Lemon and Lime Cake

Today I was feeling slightly tired as I had spent the previous day partying hard in Sheffield for the wedding of two good friends I had known since school. I therefore decided to make something that was quite light and also refreshing bearing in mind how dehydrated I was from consuming champagne the previous day.

The soundtrack for the cooking of the lemon and lime cake was the Who's 1973 double album Quadrophenia, a record that was often on my cassette player during some of the most memorable moments I had shared at school with the two friends who had just married.

I started by greasing a 25cm wide and 10cm deep baking tin with margarine and a dusting of plain flour in order to prevent the cake from sticking to it. I then grated the zest of a lemon into a bowl and mixed it with a tablespoon of vanilla extract, 8 ounces of caster sugar and 8 ounces of margarine.

After I had mixed these ingredients together so that the sugar disappeared into the margarine I beat four eggs together in a separate bowl and then added a quarter of egg mixture to the bowl of ingredients. I then measured out 8 ounces of self-raising flour and added a quarter of the flour to the bowl. I mixed the eggs and flour thoroughly into the other ingredients. I then repeated this process with the remainder of the eggs and the flour until they were completely integrated into the other ingredients.

The Sponge Mixture prior to cooking, it's pretty runny as this is a light cake. 

After this I poured the mixture into the baking tin and baked it in the oven at 160 degrees in my fanned oven (or 180 degrees if you have a regular oven) for around fifty-five minutes. I knew the cake was ready as when I put a skewer through it none of the mixture was attached to it.

I left the cake to cool down for an hour or so and then cut it in half width ways. I spread half a jar of lime curd in the centre of the bottom half of the cake and then placed top half of the cake onto the bottom half to form a sandwich. I finished the cake by sprinkling a dusting of icing sugar on the top it.

The cake lived up to expectations when I had a piece as its light sponge and the lime curd were the perfect refresher after the excitement of the previous day.  

Dusted with icing sugar and ready to eat. 

The Lime Curd in the middle of the cake. 

Tasting the Future?

Peter Kay once said "Garlic Bread, I've tasted it; it's the future," an amusing quote but someone should have told him that garlic bread has been a staple part of many people's diet years before he came up with it. It was with this quote at the back of my mind that I decided to cook my own Garlic bread yesterday. I had been picked for two cricket matches, however both were cancelled due to the third rate, damp June weather  leaving the wickets looking like Irish Peat Bogs so the next best thing was to do some cooking.

I looked to the web to find some inspiration but found that most recipes involved taking a prepared baguette, stuffing it with garlic, chives and butter and then cooking it. For me this was all too easy and frankly pretty boring.

The soundtrack for the day's cooking was Elvis Costello and the Attractions' 1981 effort Trust an album which contains songs about working men's clubs, relationships and fish and chip paper and spans the genres of post punk, singer-songwriter, ska, soul pop, country, hard rock, rock and roll and rockabilly in a touch over half an hour.  

I poured twelve ounces of white bread flour into a bowl with one sachet of yeast (available from most supermarkets) and an ounce of margarine. I mixed these together with a metal spoon until the margarine disappeared into the drier ingredients. Next I made a well in the middle of the bowl and poured in a beaten egg and a quarter of a pint of milk. I stirred them into the dry mixture until they made a soft dough.

At this stage the dough was too soft and sticky to knead properly so I added three tablespoonfuls of white bread flour into the bowl and kneaded the dough into the floor to make it lose its stickiness. Following this I punched the dough hard for about five minutes to remove any air pockets from it and left it on my window sill to rise for an hour.

In the meantime I made the filling. I cut up five cloves of garlic into the smallest pieces possible together with five heads of parsley. I then fried them on a low heat for five minutes in olive oil and then left them to cool.

Frying the garlic and parsley in olive oil. 

After the dough had risen I sprinkled some flour on the work surface and rolled the dough out until it was about a foot long and half a foot wide. I then spread the garlic and parsley evenly on top of the dough together with 100 grams of margarine.

The dough was then folded so the filling was covered and the dough resembled a square parcel. I brushed the top of the dough with milk and then cut some slits in the top to let the air out while it cooked.

I greased a high sided baking tray and put the dough into it. I cooked the dough in the oven for half an hour at 165 degrees (175 degrees if you have no fanned oven).

Freshly baked and ready to eat- in this case with homemade lasagne.

When I removed the dough from the oven the smell of cooked garlic and melted margarine was the first thing I smelled. The bread itself had a soft inside which included just the right amount of garlic to give it taste but not so much that it was overwhelming. Through the cooking the 100 grams of margarine had sunk to the bottom of the bread and soaked into the base to make it crisp and very tasty.

Cross section of the bread with the melted margarine sunk to the bottom. 

Rapid Pasta

On the weekend of the 12th and 13th March I had an exciting and strenuous weekend playing cricket at Denby and an enjoyable walk with the dog in the hills. That said I wanted to cook something that was quick and easy to make which would fill me up after all the energy I had expended.

I decided to make Pappardelle with tomatoes, peas and broad beans. The soundtrack to the preparation of the meal was Elvis Costello's 1978 effort This Year's Model; an album that contains aggressive guitar, carnivalesque organ riffs and fiercely literate lyrics. I hadn't tuned to his frequency for a while and hearing the album helped me recall the summer term of my fresher's year at University when I had first bought the album.

The first task to undertake was to take eight ounces of peas and broad beans and steam them for five minutes. I had to use frozen peas and broad beans as their fresh counterparts were not quite in season at this stage in the  year. Once the peas and broad beans had been steamed I left them to one side.

I then took fifteen ounces of Pappardelle and added them to a pan of boiling water. The best type to use for this recipe is the dried stuff that's available from Sainsburys. I boiled the Pappardelle for fifteen minutes, drained it and left in the colander. In order to enhance the taste I added an ounce of margarine and a quarter of a teaspoon of black pepper and mixed these thoroughly into the pasta.

I next prepared four plum tomatoes by cutting out their hard tops and then slicing them length ways. To help them retain their taste I decided not to peel them. I then took my Le Cresceut dish and poured olive oil into the bottom of it before putting it on a low heat.

The next task was to add the peas and broad beans and warm them through for about a minute. I then added the tomatoes together with a pinch of white pepper and a generous helping of fresh basil. I followed up by adding the Pappardelle and then stirred everything together to avoid it sticking to the bottom of the dish.

In order to help enhance the taste further I added four heaped tablespoons of Mascarpone Cheese to it. The dish was now ready to serve.

The results were completely first rate; the fresh basil and tomato gave the dish a flavour that simply wouldn't have been possible if i'd used dried basil from a jar. The Mascarpone Cheese helped to give a richness that wasn't enough to make things too sickly while the Pappardelle gave plenty of protein.

Oddly enough the meal took exactly thirty-two minutes to prepare; the same length of time as the album I was listening to.

The Mascarpone, tomatoes and basil were what made the dish  top quality.

Bank Holiday Battenberg

On the Monday of the Queen's Jubilee Bank Holiday I decided to make a suitably Jubilee themed cake whose name is of course the German translation of Mountbatten; the surname of the always politically correct Duke of Edinburgh.

The music on the playlist for the weekend's Bank Holiday revelry included the Smiths' 1986 masterpiece the Queen is Dead and God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols (good for comedy value). However the soundtrack for the cooking a preparation of the Battenberg itself was Shaun Ryder's obscure 2003 solo effort Amateur Night in the Big Top which sounded like a slightly more blue version of a chill out dance compilation album. It also displayed a refreshingly DIY approach to music making that caused me to think that if myself and a few of my mates got our hands on some beers and a copy of DJ Hero we could probably make as good an album.

I first measured into a bowl fifty grams of margarine and fifty grams of caster sugar. I stirred them together with a wooden spoon until the sugar had disappeared into the margarine. I then poured the contents of an egg into the bowl and added fifty grams of self-raising flour. Next it was time to try and use my limited upper body strength to bind these ingredients together. I stirred them thoroughly by pushing the wooden spoon deep into the mixture and moving it rapidly in a clockwise direction over and over again until the ingredients were properly blended.

I prepared a 25cm long loaf tin that was around 10cm and 5cm wide. I greased it with margarine and sprinkled flour in the bottom of it. I then poured the mixture into it and spread it evenly over the bottom of the tin.Next I covered the mixture with grease proof paper and left the tin to one side.

It was now time to make the other part of the mixture. In order to do this I simply repeated the process outlined above with the same amount of ingredients apart from that I added a quarter of a teaspoon of red food colouring. I then poured this mixture onto the top of the grease proof paper and spread it out evenly.

I cooked the mixture in a fanned oven at 170 degrees (180 for non-fanned ovens) for thirty minutes, then waited for the ingredients to cool and turned the two pieces of sponge out onto a wire rack. I was left with a yellow piece of sponge and a pink piece of sponge. I then cut the two pieces length ways down the middle and left them to cool.

In the meantime I made almond icing. I decided not to play safe and use ready made icing and instead made it from scratch. I took fifty grams of ground almonds, seventy five grams of icing sugar, seventy five grams of caster sugar, a quarter of a teaspoon of almond essence and one beaten egg. I then stirred the ingredients together thoroughly in a bowl until they formed a sticky paste.

I then turned my attention to the sponge and stuck the pieces together so the pink and yellow parts were at diagonals to each other; which made the end of the cake look like a psychedelic chess board. In order to help the sponge stick together I used mango and lime curd which I spread along the sides of the four pieces of sponge.

There are better looking cakes available for sure but few that are tastier.

After this I coated the pieces of sponge with the almond paste and left the newly constructed Battenburg to set.

So what were the results? Well this cake was very much one where taste outshone aesthetics. The sponge had come out a little wonky in the tin and the ends of it were more of a golden colour then a vivid contrast between yellow and pink. Also the recipe for the paste was perhaps a touch runnier than was ideal. However when the cake was cut into the contrast between the pink and yellow became apparent and the mango and lemon curd complimented the extreme sweetness of the almond paste. It may not have looked perfect but with taste of the quality described I wasn't too bothered- happy Jubilee Bank Holiday.

Like a psychedelic chess board- a cross section of the cake.