A Composition

I think last night - with reference to the subject of the previous post - that I actually composed a dish, rather than conducted another person's recipe/score. Certainly I had no written source to work from, nor experience of eating a similar dish.

With some white and rather pappy hot dog buns to use up to make room in the freezer I decided to make a bread and butter pudding, but had none of the dried fruits or peels that would usually go in one. What I did have was plenty of walnuts, so I went with them.

Butter was mashed up with the walnut oil normally reserved for salad dressings, and two tbsps of Tia Maria (one of those things that seem to turn up in the drinks cabinet with nobody aware whence they came) to make it a coffee and walnut version. Walnuts broken into small nibs were put between the two layers of buttered bread, some of the liqueur poured on the upper layer of bread, a Tia Maria rich custard mix poured over the lot, and the top sprinkled with sugar and a bit more cinnamon. Cooked at 180C for 45 minutes it came out beautifully risen and browned.

The Dear Leader (may her enemies writhe in agony) was kind enough to say it was good, and after a pico second's persuassion graciously accepted a second helping. We'd only eaten a salad as the first part of the meal, so little or no guilt was suffered.

It would be (and will be) improved with a very strong expresso used to up the coffee flavour (like a tiramisu), and next time I make it I'll pound some walnuts to add to the custard (just milk, beaten eggs and some sugar with a tsp of cinnamon) and thus increase the walnut flavour too - what we ate last night was rather too genteel, but it was also extremely enjoyable: the texture of the slithery base contrasted as it should with a B&BP with the slightly crisp top, and the flavour was very coffee and walnut cake.

Conductor and composer. Where's my bloody knighthood? Maybe I need to work on my orgasm-while- smelling-a-fart face.

One Day a Year - and Quite a Few Others

It's not exactly a national scandal that pancakes now seem to be ghettoised to their own Tuesday and nothing else. But it is bloody silly.

I love them. Cheap, tasty, light or substantial, sweet or savoury, American or crepes (will someone tell me how to do accents?), innumerable fillings opening up gastronomic potential. What's not to love?

We had the thin French-ish ones as a makeshift pud last night. I regularly do the fluffy American version taught me by a US-based friend for breakfast.

When I said to my son they were something I had to teach him before he flies the nest he joked about buying ready-made mix. Apparently hanging 17-year-olds upside-down from an upper floor is frowned on by the authorities.

You hear blokes boasting about being able to do their 'signature dish,' quite often a green Thai curry. As intelligent as saying you have got your time for sex down below a minute. Rather than learn one fancy dish to be repeated for friends ad nauseam, between times re-heating ready meals, it seems far more intelligent to learn a few core dishes. Pancakes - certainly the thin ones - should be one of those.

I don't bother to measure the ingredients these days, blending an egg, flour and milk (with a big pinch of salt, sometimes a tsp or two of sugar, and a slick of melted butter) with an electric mixer until the consistency of single cream. It's best left in the bowl for 30 minutes or more (I am not sure of the science, but it works) before frying in a non-stick pan greased with butter.

It made me wonder what are the other 'core' dishes or similar? A stew I guess. A simple soup. A curry (green Thai or otherwise). Salad dressing. Roast chicken. A tomato-based sauce for pasta. Chops various (technique same but degree of cooking different depending on meat). Work a few variations for each and you won't have to live on ready-meals. And gentlemen should never boast about sex - though I have my time up to over a minute. Cue old Woody Allen joke for fans of his earlier films.

One Flame Pudding II - Something in Toast

Having finished Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book I have moved on to Gervase Markham, more or less contemporary with her. Early in the book Panperdy (Pain Perdu) features, which prompted me to cook a version of that treat for breakfast today - French toast in other words.

For such a simple dish it has many sides. It is something we know was popular in late medieval times if not earlier, the cinnamon and sugar used in it almost ubiquitous then, for the well-to-do at least. The way some Americans eat it, accompanying a meat element like bacon, is reminiscent of such days too. It is for the economical cook a way of using bread heading towards staleness, though as this morning I used four eggs (albeit two were tiny ones from our newest hen) it is stretching things to call it an austerity dish. And it is both a breakfast classic and a quickly made pudding as the case arises.

The secrets for me of decent French toast, and everyone has their own version, are: stretch the eggs with a splash of milk, which helps the beaten mix soak better into the bread; sugar and cinnamon (and a tiny pinch of salt) to be added with that mix and the first two sprinkled on the surface again after cooking; cut white bread into quite thin slices; allow at least five minutes for the bread to soak up the eggy stuff, turning it so both sides are coated; use unsalted butter and not too much for the frying; and a low-ish heat for the cooking. I don't toast the bread as some do, so my version is probably more accurately called eggy bread.

With a small glug of sweet sherry (sweet Vermouth, Marsala or Madeira would probably work too) added to the fluid this becomes the beautifully-named Poor Knights of Windsor, a pretty pudding that looks best if the bread is cut into fingers - soldiers perhaps the apposite term.

Like most cooking the worst thing to do is rush it - unless the egg mix has reached the centre of the bread it isn't right.

The Markham book is one of the excellent Penguin Great Food series, an extract from the original volume The English Huswife.

One Flame Pudding - Cheap and Cheerful

November is when I start to feel the need for a pudding to finish an evening meal, and not something like a pastry or a blob of ice cream either, it needs to be sweet and starchy. I put it down to the failing light - yesterday it felt as if the day were ending about 3:30, and when we ate at 6:30 (it would have been 7:30 in spring and summer) the world had closed around us, cold, dark, unwelcoming. The body craves supplies to get it through the winter.

Earlier we had warmed and cheered ourselves - and rewarded, as we'd just chopped down an unproductive tree at the allotment and dug several beds over - with my favourite winter-warmer, hot buttered rum. A measure of rum (Kraken spiced rum the first bottle to hand) pinch of cinnamon and mace, tsp of sugar, and three measures of boiling water in which a tsp of unsalted butter is melted and vigorously stirred. Cake in a mug. Toddy or pudding (and pudding), damp cold weather has its compensations.

Only having thought of the need for a pud as the main course neared readiness possibilities were limited, pancakes the obvious choice.

Everyone loves pancakes, and everyone should be able to make them. For student bedsits for example it seems the ideal standby, minimal ingredients, quickly done, and informal - they are best eaten hot from the pan rather than batched up to eat together, so traffic and conversation flows in and out of the kitchen.

Why in Britain many people don't eat them other than on Pancake Tuesday is beyond me. For a few pence you have something that carries savoury or sweet fillings, is rapidly made, and tastes great.

Plain flour, an egg, and milk are whisked until a single cream consistency is arrived at, a pinch of salt added, and for pudding ones a tsp or three of sugar. Non-stick pan barely greased and heated, just enough batter to thinly coat its surface is poured in (it's a big mistake to make fatter versions, they take longer to cook, and the middle ends up doughy while the surfaces overdo), and tossing or flipping with a spatula the pancake is cooked in a couple of minutes. As with all cooking, a decent pan - with a heavy base - makes life easier, but pancakes are more forgiving of thin pans than most things.

We had most of ours with ice cream and chocolate sauce, one with maple syrup. A couple last night were eaten as they were. Sometimes a squeeze of lemon or orange juice and sugar is preferable, sometimes butter and sugar. We all felt better for them.