Lockdown Edition Week 18: Prawns with Rice and Fennel

The book: Good Housekeeping New Step-by-Step Cookbook

The recipe: p136, "Prawns with Rice and Fennel"

We're back in reliable old Good Housekeeping territory, which usually translates to "nothing spectacular but nothing terrible either". The very worst kind of thing to blog about, in other words. Just what you want in the hottest week of the year when motivation is already at a sweat-drenched low to begin with. Hurrah!

Last time round, at least there was the novelty of me having to handle duck for the first time. Here, even that kind of pleasure is spared: I already have a bit of a thing for fennel, not least thanks to the devil's fennel recipe from The Silver Spoon that I've mentioned about twenty million times already, while prawns are a rare-ish but by no means unprecedented treat in this household. And as for rice... well, I make this the fifth Random Kitchen selection in the last eight weeks to involve it in one form or another. (Six if you include the teaspoon of rice that Madhur bizarrely got me to add as seasoning to her noodles a few weeks ago.)

Still, random.org will have its way - and for all a recipe name like "Prawns with Rice and Fennel" sounds unambitious, I'm certainly not against any of the concepts involved - so it's off to the shops I go...

The prep: Straight away, I have a decision to make and a compromise to contemplate. The recipe wants me to buy shell-on prawns, peeling, beheading and de-veining them before using them in the recipe with their tails still on. Not only would this be a right old faff (as if Lewisham Asda is going to give me "real" prawns to work with anyway), there's nothing in the method to suggest any benefit to doing it this way, so I take the lazy/easy route and buy some raw peeled ones.

Asda isn't exactly known for its high-grade fennel either - seriously, just look at the reviews - and indeed, what I encounter in-store is fairly pitiful in size and quality. I've had significantly better in a £1-a-scoop bargain haul from the market in front of the Lewisham shopping centre, and I end up buying two weedy Asda specimens just to hit the "1 large bulb" requirement of the recipe - but as I keep on saying, I'm still very much in a "minimal unnecessary journeys" mindset at the minute, so the fact I've found fennel there at all (and dill too!) is good enough for me. Beggars can't be choosers.

The recipe also calls for two large courgettes (we've all had nights like that). As it turns out, this week's veg box delivery has given me these slightly battered big bois that need using up. Imperfectly perfect!

The making: For once, we have a recipe in which the order of the instructions makes good sense! I suppose that's the kind of crazily practical approach you get from Good Housekeeping as opposed to, ooh, let's say someone whose name rhymes with Bovelli.

What I mean specifically is that I start by cooking some brown rice as per the instructions, giving me exactly the time I need to prepare all the other ingredients: dicing the courgettes, "thinly slicing" the fennel (I don't really have the patience to do this with any degree of elegance, but my haphazard slices are good enough for the purpose), crushing some garlic, measuring out some butter and some vegetable stock, and chopping "2 tbsp" of dill. Obviously that means more like 4 tbsp because I'm half-Swedish and dill is awesome.

 

The recipe wants me to cook the rice for "about 30 minutes until tender". I reckon it's basically done enough after 22 minutes or so - even for brown rice, doing it for longer would seem excessive since it's going to be cooked a little more at the end of proceedings.

Here's the tender coming

Next up, then, it's time to get my wok-slash-frying pan heated to a high old temperature before adding oil. The prawns are thrown in and stir-fried very briefly until they turn pink, then they're removed and set aside.

I then heat some more oil in the same pan and stir-fry the fennel slices for three minutes, then I add the diced courgette and give that a minute or two as well. This doesn't seem like an especially long time, and I also seem to have a lot of vegetable here for a dish that's meant to serve 4 people (which, as we've established, tends to correspond to "me and Sam with maybe half a portion left over")...

 

...but who am I to argue? Next, the rice (having been drained and rinsed) goes into the pan along with some seasoning. Then it's time to add back the prawns and the stock, which I "bring to the boil and cook gently for 3-4 minutes".

Except it's quite hard to bring 150ml of liquid to the boil when it instantly disappears into a huge mass of fennel, courgette and rice. Still, I keep cooking and stirring for the required time and everything seems to be basically heated through, so I guess that's good enough. Finally, right before serving, a knob of butter is stirred through along with the garlic and the dill, and we're ready to roll.

Speaking of serving, I decide it might be a nice idea to hold back a bit of dill to sprinkle on top of the finished dish. Unfortunately, this just makes it look like our dinner has gotten dangerously close to someone mowing the lawn. Oh well.

  

The eating: There's something missing here, and we can't quite work out what it is. The quantity and the crispness of the vegetables actually works well, despite my earlier reservations, and the prawns are nicely cooked for once (I'm a bugger for overdoing them out of paranoia). Not having to pick them up and remove the tails as we go is, if anything, a bonus. And even the slight excess of dill turns out to be just right. As a whole, though, this is... well, there's no escaping it: it's quite bland.

What with the prawns and the crunchy veg, Sam likens it to a Thai curry, only without any of the spice or flavour. My "yes, and" is to compare it to a risotto without the cheese (and hence most of the fun). In any case, the lack of ambition indicated by the recipe name is reflected in what comes out at the other end.

Between the ingredients and the general safeness, it feels a bit like eating the 1980s. It's not that the Good Housekeeping cookbook - published in 1993 and revised in 1998 - is so sturdy and reliable that it doesn't dare to feature any dishes you'd describe as contemporary even now; there's a fairly convincing-looking take on ceviche nearby, for example. But this? It's all a bit Findus Lean Cuisine.

Still, it's not bad at all - there are good and interesting ingredients in here, and plenty of flavours I like generally, so it was never going to be a total wipeout. It just could have been a whole lot more adventurous.

Two-word verdict: Ruggedly solid.

Lockdown Edition Week 17: Bacon Kebabs on Mushroom Rice

The book: 101 Cheap Eats (BBC Good Food)

The recipe: p30, "Bacon Kebabs on Mushroom Rice"

Kebabs again! And unlike last week, not the pseudo-burger variety but "actual" kebabs, by which I mean various bits and pieces threaded onto skewers!

Not that you'd know it from the title, which - in keeping with what we've previously encountered in this pair of compact BBC cookbooks - doesn't really tell the whole story. The skewers will also feature some vegetables and even sausages, it's just that they'll all be wrapped in bacon, hence that particular ingredient being promoted to the title.

Which is probably for the best, because the idea of a kebab consisting solely of bacon is a bit weird. Though I'd definitely try it.

The prep: The Random Kitchen week doesn't start well: just as I'm crossing Loampit Vale on the way to Asda, a bird shits on my head. I'm going to assume it's a seagull, since there's a lot of the loud bastards around at the minute despite Lewisham being quite clearly inland. Anyway, once my initial surprise and disgust have subsided, I figure I've probably done quite well to make it to 41 years of age without previously suffering this ignominy - and so, one extremely thorough clean-up session later, I try again. And they say it's a face covering you need to shop safely...

You won't be surprised to learn that this week's ingredients are all quite standard, since that goes hand in hand with the Cheap Eats ethos. The kebabs will involve herby (i.e. Lincolnshire) sausages, flat mushrooms and leeks, while the side dish requires long-grain rice, dried thyme, crème fraîche and - yes - more mushrooms. All are easily obtained.

I even have skewers to hand, since I keep several packs of wooden ones in the shed at all times. (I use them in our flower beds to keep the fucking squirrels off my plants.)

Worth the effort though

Funnily enough, the only issue I have is with the titular bacon. The recipe calls for streaky bacon (understandably enough, since we're using it to wrap stuff so it needs to be nice and stretchy), whereas all Lewisham Asda will give me on this particular Wednesday is thicker rashers of back bacon. In all kinds of quantities, smoked or unsmoked, posh or less posh, even located in two different parts of the store - but all back, no streaky.

I already know this is going to make a difference to how this week's dish turns out, but I'm also not about to go round every shop in the area looking for exactly the right kind of bacon, not least in case another seagull is lurking.

The making: This is one of those crafty little recipes where some of the instructions are smuggled away in the ingredient list, so before we really get to the "making" part, I've already chopped two medium leeks into four pieces each, cut the bacon rashers into thinner strips, and halved four of the sausages vertically. (I'm also supposed to have melted some butter, but I figure I can do that when the time comes.)

Some heckin' chonkers

What I don't do is follow the very first instruction in the method, which is to blanch the leek pieces in boiling water for 3-4 minutes before draining them. Don't ask me why; I just overlook it completely for some reason. Instead, I skip to the part where I'm told to cut three of the flat mushrooms into quarters (Asda calls them "jumbo mushrooms", but they ain't that big, honey). The remaining mushroom is chopped up into small pieces - or rather the remaining three mushrooms, since I bought a pack of six and I love mushrooms so I figure putting more of them into the rice won't hurt.

Next up, I'm supposed to stretch the bacon with the back of a knife before wrapping it around the various chunks of mushroom, leek and sausage. As expected, not being streaky and hence not being stretchy, my bacon starts to break up as soon as I attempt to manipulate it in this way, so I just have to make do as best I can. This is initially OK - most of the vegetable and sausage pieces at least get "wrapped" to some extent, albeit not especially tidily - but by the time of the fourth and final kebab, I basically end up just wedging a bunch of bacon bits in between each of the other items. Hey, all ends up in the same place, right?

Stay classy

And yes... not having blanched the leeks does make it a tiny bit problematic when it comes to threading them onto wooden skewers. Wooden skewers that have been soaked in warm water to stop them from burning under the grill, no less. If you're imagining an equation that goes something like "bendy wooden skewers + raw leeks = splits, splinters and swearing", you'd be along the right lines. Still, for all the process is fiddly (and I can't blame the recipe, since it's my own fault for not softening the leeks), it's not too bad all in all.

Speaking of overlooking instructions, I almost miss the next one, too - which would be a real shame, because it involves melting that butter I mentioned, adding thyme and lemon juice, and brushing this mixture over the kebabs. As well as being a Good Thing in terms of flavour, this makes them look a whole lot more promising than they did just a minute ago, though they're still pretty messy.

According to the recipe, these would then go under the grill for ten minutes while I cook the rice. I know better than to expect that kind of optimistic timing to work, so I put the kebabs to one side and give the rice my undivided attention for a while. This means... well, yes, it first means cooking the rice as per the packet instructions and draining it. I then melt some more butter and add the mushrooms and thyme, cooking until the mushrooms are nicely softened. Finally, I add 200ml of crème fraîche before stirring through the drained rice. The end result is... predictably sticky.

We've had a lot of this kind of thing lately, haven't we? I'm talking about rice with things added that are inevitably going to make it claggy - e.g. Ainsley's creamed coconut (not a euphemism). I'm not sure I really get the appeal, but never mind.

Back to the kebabs, anyway. You know George Foreman grills, and how the entire point of them is they allow the fat and other bad stuff to run off, leaving you with a healthier meal? Well, we appear to own the one model of Foreman where the grill plates aren't tilted forward in any way, so instead the fat just pools underneath whatever it is you're cooking.

Lovely

As well as depriving me of the pan juices I'm meant to stir through the rice before serving, the added moisture slows down the grilling process somewhat, but eventually we reach a point where I'm happy enough with what's been produced. The bacon isn't crispy because it's the wrong kind of bacon, the leeks aren't especially soft because ahem anyway moving swiftly on, but everything has reached the point of plateupability (it's a word, I have decreed it) - so up-plate it I do.

I even go with the original portion sizes to start with: this is intended to serve four people, i.e. one skewer and one dollop of rice each, so I figure we'll try that first before laughing and having some more.

Bacon kebab "on" mushroom rice

The eating: I believe Aristotle is said to have originated the phrase "the whole is greater than the sum of its parts". Well, 'Stots, old buddy, if you're reading this then you might want to look away now.

Not that there's anything wrong with the dish at all - it just is its parts, no more, no less. It's some bits of grilled meat and vegetable, and a rice side where the constituent elements haven't really formed any kind of coherent whole - the mushrooms are only just about present even though I've used three times as much as the recipe called for, and you can actively taste the crème fraîche (and find yourself thinking "that's weird, this really tastes of crème fraîche") rather than it having come together with the rice to any extent.

As well as being undercooked (yes yes, my bad), the leek chunks are too big, and that's definitely down to the recipe (it calls for "medium" leeks and mine were firmly in that ballpark). The mushrooms work really nicely with the bacon, though - and would be even better with bacon that actually crisped up and didn't still look weirdly pink. In fact, I'd be tempted to say that you could eliminate the leeks altogether and just use more mushrooms, perhaps with a slice or two of onion interspersed for a bit of bite. Although the leeks do add some colour to proceedings, so maybe not.

Anyway, this is obviously perfectly decent - as Sam says, it's basically pigs in blankets (with some leeks and mushrooms that have snuck into bed along with the pigs), so you can't go too wrong. It's just, well, not very exciting.

Where it does score is on the "cheap" front. I went with "own-brand but not value-brand" ingredients, as I tend to do generally unless there's a good reason not to, and a fag-packet calculation tells me this one worked out at about £1.50 a portion. Which is pretty bargaintastic really. Obviously this is immediately undermined by the Marjorie Dawes logic we apply in this household - it's half the price, so you can eat twice as much! - but prepared as the "lazy Sunday brunch" for four people suggested by the recipe blurb, it probably is nicer than the price tag would indicate, and that's not bad going.

Two-word verdict: Plainly decent.

Lockdown Edition Week 16: Turkey Chappali Kebabs, Thin Rice Noodles with Brussels Sprouts, Peshawar Red Pepper Chutney, Thin Raw Onion Rings

The book: Curry Easy (Madhur Jaffrey)

The recipe: p101, "Turkey Chappali Kebabs"; p220, "Thin Rice Noodles with Brussels Sprouts"; p238, "Peshawar Red Pepper Chutney"; p236, "Thin Raw Onion Rings"

Blimey, that post title is a bit of a mouthful, isn't it? But there's method in the madness. Kind of.

You see, random.org does a perfectly good job this week in choosing "Curry Easy" - it's nice to be firmly back in Madhur territory, even if her rice did accompany a non-Madhur curry quite recently - but the recipe it then lands on, "Thin Rice Noodles with Brussels Sprouts", feels like a bit too much like a side dish to stand on its own two feet.

So we try a further spin of the wheel, which brings us to "Turkey Chappali Kebabs". (If you're as clueless as I am, Wikipedia is here to help.) I'm initially concerned that this may involve components that Lewisham Asda will struggle to furnish:

...but thankfully the leaves and sticks and lemons such are just a serving suggestion - or at least they're not mentioned anywhere in the recipe on the opposing page - so this one seems like a goer. I'm not sure it'll necessarily go with the noodle side dish, but hey, life's fun when you mix and match?

Speaking of what it might go with, on closer reading of Madhur's blurb for the turkey kebabs, I notice a recommendation that I serve them with two accompaniments: a spicy chutney and some prepared sliced onions. I've ignored Madhur's instructions on salt quantities often enough that I feel I owe her one, and so I find myself gearing up to make no fewer than four different things for this week's blog. Ho hum.

Not that they're all of equal difficulty. You'll enjoy the recipe for "Thin Raw Onion Rings", for example:

Well, I mean... sure? I probably didn't need that to take up a whole half-page of a book I paid good money for, but there we are.

The prep: Ingredient-wise, even with four dishes to juggle (well, three dishes and some onions), there's nothing too complex here. The various herbs and spices I don't already own can largely be procured from the aforementioned Asda; I end up sacrificing fresh curry leaves for dried (and, conversely, dried chillies for fresh), but that won't be a problem. No issues finding turkey mince, either, albeit I can't fulfil Madhur's request of "preferably a mixture of light and dark meat" - going by the fat content, at least, this is on the light side. Which is healthier, but also more likely to become dry when cooked in kebab form, I guess?

I'm a little concerned that sourcing Brussels sprouts in July will be troublesome (not that it's a deal-breaker, since Madhur notes that shredded cabbage is fine too), but nope: all present and correct at Asda, albeit about five times more expensive than when they're being flogged as a loss leader in the run-up to Christmas.

The only potential sticking point is the thin rice noodles, or "dried rice sticks" as the ingredient list calls them, adding the warning: "(from Thai grocers)". We don't specifically have one of those nearby, but I figure the pan-Asian shop down the Lee High Road will surely come up trumps if necessary. No need, though - the exotic aisle at Asda offers not one but three different types of rice stick for me to choose from. Being rather inexpert in the genre (I've eaten them before, but never made anything with them myself), I plump for the cheapest, because it's as good a criterion as any.

The making: A bit of planning is required here, god forbid. I actually start the night before, since the recipe for the turkey kebabs suggests that letting the flavours mingle for "as long as 24 hours" could be beneficial. Those flavours are yoghurt ("strained", the recipe says; the Greek yoghurt I'm using does not require this treatment, or at least refuses to respond to any efforts to impose it), lightly crushed coriander and cumin seeds, finely chopped fresh mint, crushed red chilli flakes, peeled and grated fresh ginger, and - wait for it - "¾ teaspoon salt, or to taste".

"Or to taste"! It's a Madhur miracle. Quite why this recipe gives me the option of not overloading the dish with salt when nothing else in this book does is beyond me, but I gladly take the opportunity to reduce the quantity by half without risking opprobrium. Anyway, all of the above having been mixed in with the turkey mince, it's time to cover it up and let it sit in the fridge overnight. After which time it looks predictably delightful.

The actual cooking part begins with the cold components, which means thinly slicing an onion and plunging it into a bowl of icy water (read: literally some water with ice cubes in it) for half an hour.

These half-rings of onion will later be drained and squeezed dry, which you're going to have to imagine for yourself without photographic evidence. I suspect you'll manage.

I then make the chutney, which is a fairly straightforward matter. Red pepper, mint leaves, lemon juice, roughly chopped garlic, cayenne pepper, salt and black pepper are put into a blender "in the order listed", Madhur insists for some reason. She doesn't say that I should blend them as I add them, though, so:

Only now am I told to blend it all, still none the wiser as to what the order was all about, before adding some slivered almonds and blending again. "Until smooth", Madhur says. This is a bit of a problem for my old Kenwood, whose blade isn't really made for tasks like this. Still, I'm good with a chunky chutney, so I complete the last step - stirring through some chopped fresh dill, because apparently that couldn't possibly have been thrown in the food processor with everything else - and the end result looks... well, chunky, yes, but certainly flavoursome.

I then return to the kebabs - or the turkey burgers, as they basically are. I say that because the next step involves taking my meat mixture and dividing it into six flattened patties before frying them on each side. So, yeah - pretty burger-like. The recipe requires them to be cooked entirely in the frying pan, but I need to get my noodles going too and multi-tasking seems like a terrible idea, so I brown them a little...

...then pop them into the oven on a low-to-medium heat to slowly cook while I get to work on my self-imposed side dish.

It's the description of the noodles as a "south Indian-style dish" that makes me finally twig that Madhur is essentially replicating the idiyappam or "string hoppers" you sometimes get at the mighty Everest Curry King, just without the need for obscure ingredients. The Thai rice sticks are longer and thicker than their Sri Lankan/south Indian counterparts, admittedly, but this is partially resolved in a rudimentary manner: by soaking them in water then using kitchen scissors to "snip the noodles into manageable lengths".

Manageable enough, I guess?

The Brussels sprouts are then trimmed, cut in half lengthways, then cut crossways into thin-ish shreds. If you're finding that hard to imagine, boy, do I have the picture for you!

See

That done, I fire up a heavy-bottomed wok and heat some oil. The first ingredient to go in is an unexpected one. "You will notice that a little raw rice is used here as a seasoning", Madhur says. I do notice that, and I find it a bit odd. Still, it's supposed to add a bit of nuttiness to the dish, and after five seconds in hot oil it just looks like any other spice or seed really. That's when I add mustard seeds and some fresh whole green chillies that I've slit lengthways, followed by the dried curry leaves and the chopped-up sprouts. These are stir-fried for five mnutes or until "lightly browned".

Browning in progress

I then add 120ml of water, lower the heat and cook everything for a minute, before adding the drained rice noodles and - yes! - a whole teaspoon of salt. (Madhur, never change.) This all gets stir-fried for a few minutes before yet more water is added, even though the noodles are already pretty soft from being soaked for hours. Hmm. It feels like this might all end up being quite claggy, but then maybe that's the point, I'm not sure? (Oh, I should mention that I've discarded the chillies by this point, since they've served their purpose flavour-wise and no one needs the unexpected surprise of biting into one.)

Either way, once all of that water is more or less absorbed/evaporated and the wok is full of a sticky but pleasant-smelling mess, the kebabs come back out of the oven and I'm ready to serve up! 

The eating: "You may even put this kebab in a hamburger bun, along with the onion rings and either a good squirt of lemon juice or some tomato ketchup," Madhur says. Since I may, I do. Or rather, I've discovered two brutally cheap white burger buns in the freezer - so I give us one bebunned kebab and one non-bebunned kebab each, as that also seems like a fair way of finding out which works best.

Oh, and rather than ketchup or lemon juice, I put some of the red pepper chutney that I've made into the burger bun, because otherwise what was the point of recommending that I make it? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The rest of the chutney and the surplus onions are served on the side (i.e. they're not pictured here; you'll have to use your imagination again).

Now, obviously that's not exactly a hugely elegant plate - the bun/non-bun combo makes it look rather lopsided, and the soggy noodles (you can practically hear how they splatted onto the plate, can't you?) aren't exactly the obvious companion for the more fast food-y turkey kebabs. You'll have to forgive me.

Don't waste too much of your forgiveness, though, because the meal itself is lovely. I mean, just really, really good. The 24 hours in the fridge have done the turkey kebabs the world of good; the flavours are deep and pleasing, and the addition of some yoghurt prevents the meat from being too dry, even after being finished off slowly in the oven. Meanwhile, the noodles are flavourful without being overly spicy, with the nuttiness of the Brussels sprouts and the almost buttery slipperiness of the rice sticks combining to fine effect.

The chutney has a nice kick to it and a complex flavour; nothing outstanding as such, but that might be because I didn't blend it smoothly enough. It's a good addition either way, though.

The only thing that's a bit pointless is the onions, which don't really taste any less sharp than, well, normal unsoaked onions. So that wasn't especially worth the bother. Still, no harm done (other than to the tea towel I had to squeeze them in).

But generally speaking, it's two thumbs up for Madhur this time round. Not only would I happily make the turkey kebabs and the sprouty noodles again, I actually already have done the noodles a second time, using up the rest of the packet of rice sticks with some cabbage that was still in the fridge from last week's veg box. (It didn't work quite as well; cabbage is less flavourful and more watery in the first place, which I think may have been the main issue. Either that or there just wasn't the surprise element of it actually tasting nice...)

In any case, I'm calling this one a bit of a triumph. And I managed to publish this entire post without Blogger deciding to delete it for no good reason. Celebrate!

Two-word verdict: Spot on.

Lockdown Edition Week 15: Baked Custard with Macerated Fruit

Thursday and still no Random Kitchen post? Well, therein lies a tale.

I'd written the text as usual and was just adding some photos, I hit ctrl-Z to undo a photo I'd put in the wrong place, for some reason that deleted the entire blog text too... and then Blogger decided to choose precisely that moment to execute a non-recoverable autosave.

Which is not just a source of deep frustration, but a pity too.

If Blogger hadn't decided to delete my post, I'd have told you all about the recipe for "Baked Custard with Macerated Blackcurrants" from the Riverford Farm Cook Book, which you can also read online. I'd have detailed my suspicions about the term "baked custard" (much like "grilled cheese", it feels like it's missing something) - and, of course, the word "macerated", which just sounds a bit grim.

You'd have heard about my inability to locate blackcurrants in the Lewisham/Deptford area and my decision to go with a vaguely cobbled-together alternative that would probably work okay despite not really being the same thing at all:

I mean, purple fruit is purple fruit, right?

I'd have told you about the other compromises I made along the way, including substituting the required "crème de cassis or brandy" for some fairly potent Alcohol Of Some Description that a friend brought back from Kosovo...

Ainsley pictured for scale

...and, erm, accidentally using granulated sugar instead of caster sugar. Not so much a compromise as a cock-up, that one.

Managed to fish out about 40% of the granulated and replace it with caster though, so, you know. Could be worse.

I'd have told you how pleased I was to realise I owned a roasting tin big enough to serve as a bain marie for a "23cm gratin dish":

And I'd have shown you the epic old-school ruler I used to make sure the water in my mahoosive bain marie was deep enough.

Eddie, this one's for you

I'd definitely have shared the pleasant sight of curds being strained out of the custard.

(Also those bubbles can't be ideal)

You'd have enjoyed my growing scepticism about the 50-minute oven time prescribed by the recipe; then again, it specifically says the custard should be cooked "until just set", with nothing about it being brown on top or anything else, so I can only assume that this:

...and this:

...are how it was supposed to be, as unappealing as it looked.

Then I'd have talked about the berries and how I macerated them two ways (one with Kosovo grog, one without):

And we'd have ended up with some badly-presented slop in a bowl, because that never ever happens in the Random Kitchen.

You might have been puzzled to learn that Riverford's visitors "often tell us this the best thing they have ever eaten", given that it's just some overly creamy, barely set custard with some slightly soggy fruit on top. I certainly was. It tasted nice, of course, but it was hardly luxurious.

So much so, in fact, that the next day I popped the leftovers into the oven for an extra half an hour at a higher heat.

That's a bit more like it

As well as looking more attractive, the baked custard, now being actually baked to some extent, also held its shape when being served up this time. Speaking of serving, I just used unmacerated fruit second time round - we didn't feel like the alcohol added anything much to proceedings (though that might be because I was using the wrong berries and some freaking weird alcohol).

And as if that wasn't enough, I could have told you all about the third attempt I made. (There were ingredients left over and I don't have much use for double cream, despite Novelli's best efforts.)

This time I decided to use individual ramekins (well, Gü dessert jars) in the hope this might lead to a more set dessert. They still required the full 50 minutes to look vaguely done, and even then, my oven conspired to cook them unequally - thinking about it, this may go some way to explaining some of my less successful baking efforts...

As for the congratulations and macerations, to quote the recipe, "It also works with ... raspberries as well." That's fortunate, because I was all out of purple berries by this stage. Instead, I warmed some raspberries with some sugar and let them get squishy as per the recipe, and they did indeed work rather well on top as a tangy counterpoint to the rich custard.

(Looks a bit like I've just poured a tin of chopped tomatoes over the whole thing, but what can you do?)

The flavour was still a bit meh, to be honest - I think I'm learning that I just prefer sugar to cream, perhaps because I'm northern and cheap - but this was definitely the most successful execution of the three and made for a perfectly satisfactory dessert.

And so it would have been nice to tell you all about it.

But I can't, because Blogger swallowed my post whole.

Three-word verdict: Screw you, Blogger.

Lockdown Edition Week 14: Pancakes

The book: How To Boil An Egg (Jan Arkless)

The recipe: p183, "Pancakes"

Yes, just "Pancakes".

Here's the thing about randomness. It doesn't care whether you're in the mood for something exciting, something exotic, something Italian involving seafood that's still alive at the point of purchase. If the wheel of fortune wants to land on How To Boil An Egg, and if, within that, it chooses to avoid the old-fashioned but more involved propositions on the surrounding pages (case in point: the "Crunchy Cream Pie" involving Angel Delight and crushed digestive biscuits) in favour of "Pancakes"... well, then all I can do is endeavour to turn it into bloggable content. Somehow.

In defence of Ms. Arkless, I'm pretty sure I've referred to exactly this page when making pancakes in the past. Her book remains a useful starting point for the absolute kitchen novice, as it did when I first wrote about it, and it's hardly her fault if page 183 is lacking on the excitement front.

Besides, it could have been worse.

(Perhaps I was too quick to defend Ms. Arkless after all.)

Anyway, the pancake "recipe" mentions the obligatory lemon and sugar topping, but it also points us in the direction of the "Omelette and Pancake Fillings" section on pages 30-31.

This seems like a good opportunity to spice things up a little (not literally, of course; spices would be far too exotic for Jan) and select one savoury filling and one sweet filling at random.

Even here, the finger of fate lets us down: we could be enjoying asparagus, cheese, honey and walnut, bramble jelly (or, erm, "herbs" - thrilling), but instead we end up with "Tomato" from the left-hand page and "Fruit" from the right-hand page. Cheers, random.org.

Fine. Let's just get on with it, shall we?

The prep: Jan says we can use fresh fruit, but for that full 1986 effect, I'm using a tin of peaches that's been sat in the cupboard since the last no-deal Brexit supermarket stockpile (which reminds me, must get in the queue for a November delivery slot).

Eggs are in plentiful supply because I've been on a bit of a Swedish baking kick lately, while the tomatoes come from this week's veg box and are probably too good for this purpose - but hey, a bit of luxury never hurt anyone. (Gout sufferers may disagree.)

The making: Are you expecting me to actually tell you how to make pancake batter? It's flour, milk and an egg, you whisk it, it remains lump-free (ideally). Jan even spares us the pinch of salt you find in many other pancake recipes. Why go crazy?

Preparing the fillings at least requires a little more effort, but only a little. The tomatoes and peaches are sliced...

...and then I follow Jan's detailed instructions by frying the tomatoes "in a little oil or fat" and keeping them hot until required.

This being done, it's time to make some pancakes! Jan wants me to grease the pan with "oil or lard - not butter". You won't be surprised to learn that I go for the first option. (I did consider buying some lard for sheer old-school authenticity, but I would have had absolutely no use for it beyond this recipe and that seems a bit wasteful, so there we go. Isn't it a pleasing word to say out loud though? Lard. Larrrrrrrrrd.)

The frying and tossing process is complicated by an ancient IKEA fish slice losing its remaining structural integrity partway through...

...but we get there eventually, and Miniature Ainsley is delighted.

Fillings are added in turn and... nope, I just can't conjure up any more words to describe making pancakes and rolling them up with stuff inside them. Sorry.

The eating: This is what it comes down to, right? We all know how to make pancakes and slice up a few basic ingredients, but how do the minimalist (to the point of frugal) fillings suggested by How To Boil An Egg stack up in terms of actual enjoyment?

The fried tomato variant, while simple, is OK. It'd benefit from some cheese, of course (as most things would), but at no point does Jan suggest actually combining her suggested fillings, so plain tomato it is. And yeah. It's fine. Sam even goes so far as to venture that most glowing of praise, "it doesn't not work...?".

Miniature Ainsley can scarcely conceal his excitement

The tinned peach variant, however, is a big ol' lumpy pile of "meh". In hindsight, following the tomato approach and heating the peach slices first to activate the sugars a bit might have been an idea (albeit an idea Jan failed to mention) - at room temperature inside a warm pancake, it's just a bit underwhelming and tasteless.

Which was to be expected, I suppose: there's no ambition here beyond "equip your home-leaver with the skills to make basic food without burning down the kitchen in their student halls", and in that respect at least, it's a case of "job done". From looking at Amazon, it seems like the updated edition of How To Be An Egg does aim a little higher in places - witness the mentions of such concepts as "hoisin" and "tabbouleh"! - but a search within the pages shows that the "Tomato" and "Fruit" fillings still use exactly the same wording as they did in 1986. I suppose it's reassuring that some things never change.

There's enough batter for two more pancakes. We do them with ham and cheese. They're much better.

Two-word verdict: Brutally rudimentary.