Moving On

I'm going to try and actually do this properly, so I've moved over to treaclestodge.wordpress.com

Here's to posts more than once a year!

In which I face failure with a remarkable lack of grace.

http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Biblio/Detail.aspx?blogId=1065

In which I make Marshmallow Teacakes to rival Tunnock's

http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Biblio/Detail.aspx?blogId=1034

The French would probably have something to say about it, but Croissant avec Fry-Up is very good.

Not quite the Best Sandwich Ever

I'd never heard of a Shooter's Sandwich until I read about it here - two steaks, a pile of mushrooms and shallots, a good dollop of mustard and horseradish, all stuffed inside a loaf and squashed under weights overnight - but I loved the idea of a) a stuffed loaf, with all its delicious/disgusting Elvisish connotations, and b) a sandwich that has to be prepared 24 hours in advance. If it requires that much effort it really must be the Best Sandwich Ever.

And it was ... ok. It looks beautiful and cutting into it is an extremely satisfying experience. And it is delicious - just a bit on the soggy side. Is it meant to be that way? I don't imagine it's possible to cook mushrooms until all the moisture is gone, and the juices from the steak are always going to seap into the bread, but a cold, soggy crust just isn't that nice. The title of Best Sandwich Ever is still up for grabs.

A Simple Supper

Nigel Slater is always banging on about pea and broad bean salads. Generally, I skip these bits of his cookbooks and move on to the bits where he's roasting joints of meat, slathering stuff in cream, etc, but after a week of eating far too many delicious-but-bowel-cancer-inducing pork products, I thought I'd give it a go. It turns out he's on to something. A salad of freshly podded peas, broad beans, pea shoots and shavings of raw courgette, a few fresh mint and parsley leaves, dressed with a simple lemon and oil dressing and topped off with some crumbly, creamy goats' cheese. Delicious. And it involves popping broad beans from their little grey skins, which makes me deliriously happy. Win-win.

Banoffee, King of Pies

Yesterday, I put an end to a lengthy Banoffee drought. When I first dicovered how easy they are to make, I was on several a month - not a healthy way to live, but definitely a delicious one. The combination of being simple to make and UNBELIEVABLY DELICIOUS is a dangerous one, but who cares? Here's my way of doing things:

Make a biscuit crumb base. I use dark chocolate Hob-Nobs. Crush them, mix with melted butter and pack into the bottom of a flan tin (ideally with removable sides). Put it in the fridge to harden up.

The next layer is the toffee. This process seemed utterly magical to me when I first did it, but it's probably very simple. Get a can of condensed milk, put it unopened in a big pan of boiling water, cover and leave it simmering for two hours. THAT'S IT. I don't understand how but when you open it, it will have turned into unbelievably tasty toffee-like-stuff. Oh, also, apparently this process is extremely dangerous and MAY RESULT IN DEATH. I'm not sure that this has ever actually happened, but every recipe I've read for Banoffee pie has come with this warning, so I thought I better pass it on. I think if you make sure the pan doesn't boil dry and open the tin at arm's length, you should probably survive the process. Assuming you have, spread the toffee over the biscuit base.

Layer slices of banana on top of the toffee, then whipped cream on top of that.

And that's it. There's lots of variations - in fact, the place where it was invented goes for a shortcrust pastry base rather than biscuit - but the above will make a pretty delicious pie. It tastes even better after the layers have been mingling together for a couple of days, so try not to eat it all in one sitting.