How to Cook... Pancakes!

Ah Pancake Day, prince amongst special days in the public calendar. How I love thee. Unlike Roy Wood and Wizard I wish it could be Pancake Day everyday... Sadly Pancake Day doesn't seem to be quite as celebrated here in Australia as in the UK where each year local television stations would broadcast live from some local park or scout hut where a semi-famous local chef would teach half-wit news reporters and weather people how to toss pancakes whilst game members of the public would engage in pancake races, armed with comedy frying pans. At least they did back when I was a lad and this advert was telling us not to forget the pancakes on Jif Lemon day.

There are two magnificent things about pancakes. One - you can eat them with absolutely anything, sweet or savoury; and two - they are piss easy to make. Let it be proved thusly:

You will need

• 100g or 3/4 cup of plain flour
• an egg, beaten up
• a bit of salt
• 300 ml or 1 1/4 cups of milk
• some butter (for cooking in)
• a small frying pan (non stick)
• plus: whatever takes your pancakey filling fancy

Step 1: mix the flour, salt, egg and milk in a big bowl until it's a liquid. You should have enough for about 8-10 pancakes which should serve 4 but really you could eat them all yourself

Step 2: melt some butter in your frying pan on a medium heat. Swish it around the pan til there's a bit of grease everywhere. Remember, Grease is the word...

Step 3: ladle out a thin layer (better to go thin than fat or else they take ages to cook and are harder to fold) of mixture, making a pancake about 20cms across. If you get some holes in your pancake just swish the mixture about a bit and it should run into the gaps. Cook for about a minute then flip over. Don't try any funny stuff - you'll just made a tit of yourself... a spatula will do, thanks.

Step 4: Add your filling of choice to one side of the pancake. The above is a bog standard melty cheese, tomato mushroom and onion which isn't as exciting as it was tasty although when it came to dessert...

... this Chocolate Monkey was pretty awesome. I used Rolos for eyes because not only do you get melty chocolate goodness with your banana but the caramel middle goes all gooey too

Step 5: fold over the other half on top of your ingredients and seal it all in. Cook for another 30 seconds or so, checking to make sure both sides are done and your chocolate/cheese has melted.

Step 6: serve and enjoy. The key here is in tag teaming WWF-style so you can eat whilst someone else cooks and then vice versa to keep the pan in use and the food flowing. This adds a frisson of excitement akin to the stop clock in chess although it can lead to the very serious medical condition known as burny mouth. Beware.

OK, hope you all had a great Pancake Day and got what you wanted. If you didn't at least now you know how to do it yourself... and there's only your own lazy bum to blame. Tata!

How to Cook... Cheese Savoury

What is your favourite food? Your absolute favourite. The one you’d have request for your last meal. The food you’d choose if, as a result of some unlikely and disastrous gastric surgery your Doctor said you had to eat for the rest of your life? When push doesn’t so much come to shove as jizz in its face? When someone is indeed holding you down, with a gun to your head and screaming ‘tell me your favourite… just fucking tell me!’ You know - that kind of favourite food?

My favourite food is unquestionably sandwiches. I love sandwiches. I love cold sandwiches, bread sandwiches, sandwiches in rolls, toasted sandwiches, open sandwiches, pre-packaged sandwiches, crusts on, crusts off, white, brown, wholemeal, multigrain, sough dough, Turkish, club and baguette. I love picnic sandwiches, 24-hour garage sandwiches, buffet sandwiches and even limp working lunch sarnies with repetitive fillings and a dearth of pescatarian options. In France I was mocked daily for being an English ignoramus who cut his mopping up bread in half and filled it with fancy fare from my plate. I didn’t care. I love sandwiches.

As a sandwich lover, Newcastle-upon-Tyne is some kind of heaven for random food groups lovingly served up between two pieces of bread-related product. Whilst it’s hard to argue with the iconic Gregg’s Cheese and Onion Pastie as the north east food of choice, they are sadly only available at Gregg’s and so based on availability alone, the sandwich reigns supreme.

Before Prêt-a-Manger came along and baguette-ified everything, sandwiches in Newcastle were generally served in Stotties – flat, round bread buns unlike any other bread bun on Earth. Their size and shape make them highly conducive to stuffing with huge amounts of filling with minimum spillage. Amongst my pre-vegetarian Stottie favourites were chicken and sweetcorn; ham and pease pudding; chips and chilli sauce; tuna salad and egg and bacon rolls.

However, there is one sandwich filling that stands head and shoulders above the rest. It’s cheesy, it’s tangy, it’s crunchy, it’s very orange. It is Cheese Savoury and this is how you make it…

You Will Need:

• 250g of mature cheddar cheese
• A red onion
• 1 medium sized carrot
• Ranch dressing or Creamy Mayonnaise
• Salt and Pepper
• 1 box of tissues
• 1 pair of googly stick on eyes (optional)

Step 1: Grate cheese into a bowl. All of it. Use a proper grater - one that you can lose skin on; you need your cheese chunky.

Step 2: Grate the onion. Use tissues as required until eyesight returns. (Mint Custard endorses the 'Limited Edition' Wall-E tissues, still available from a well known purveyor of paper hankies who clearly overestimated how popular the movie would be amongst tissue users). Chuck grated onion in the bowl with cheese.

Step 3: Grate carrot. To make this more entertaining I applied googly eyes to the carrot. Whilst grating I made noises like Robert Shaw as he slid down the deck into the mouth of Jaws. This is optional. Place grated carrot in bowl. This is not optional.

Step 4: take a moment to remember your fallen carrot comrade.

Step 5: season your cheese, carrot and onion with salt and pepper. I'd go less salt than pepper.

Step 6: Add some ranch sauce. How much? Well, as all great minds know - moisture is the essence of wetness, and wetness is the essence of beauty. So go ape...

Step 7: I know what you're thinking; he ate it already and then did a sick. Not so. Mix the contents of the bowl and you too will have a fresh batch of tasty luminous orange vomit-impersonating cheese savoury. Yum!

Step 8: the Serving Suggestion. For nostalgia's sake I have tried to replicate the joys of a Gregg's Cheese Savoury Salad sandwich. Sadly we have no Stotties in Melbourne so naturally I have resorted to cheap innuendo and plumped for a lovely pair of baps.

So there you have it - tangy, tasty Cheese Savoury. Stick it in the fridge and it should stand you in good stead for a few days. The 250g worth of cheese I pimped lasted all week, including another bap, two toasties (with fresh tomato) and a veggie burger. Fromagic.

Look for other tasty English Cooking recipes elsewhere on Mint Custard.

How To Cook... Mint Custard

I think there comes a time in every ageing northerner's life when they turn to their friends, partners or dogs and say 'bloody hell, mint custard! I'd forgotten about that...' My own nostalgic epiphany happened in 2007 during the second series of Life on Mars...

Phillis: how's the treacle sponge, sir?
Sam Tyler: It's magnificent...
Phillis: ...mint custard?
Sam Tyler: Yes, it's a triumph

Cue predictable scenes of me over-enthusiastically explaining the joys of pale green, toothpaste-flavoured gloopy sugary cream poured indiscriminately over an assortment of chocolate puddings by plump school dinner ladies to the soon-to-be Mrs Custard. Naturally enough she was appalled.

And yet I am far from alone. Records show that on any given day at least one hopeful Googler will land on these pages eager to find out "how do I make mint custard" or (more likely given the Gen-X demographics involved) "where can I buy mint custard?" To those school dinner revivalists who have thus far slunk away disappointed I apologise, but hey, stick around for I am about to make amends...

But before we launch in, I should admit that I had no idea how to make mint custard and set out with more enthusiasm than actual cooking nous. What follows is a true account of what happens when basic culinary skills are mixed in a child-proof blender with equal parts nostalgia and a bottle of cheap wine.

Creme Anglaise a la Menthe (Mint Custard)
You will need:

• 1 packet of custard powder
• Peppermint essence
• Green food colouring
• 1 tablespoon of white sugar
• 2.5 cups (625 ml) full cream milk
• 1 chocolate pudding (optional... you probably should though, unless you fancy drinking half a litre of custard on its own)
  

Step 1: Pour 1/2 cup (125 ml) of milk into a bowl. Add 1 tablespoon (20ml) of sugar, 2 tablespoons (40ml) of custard powder and stir up good. Be amazed at the concrete-like adhesive properties of custard powder which will stick your fork to the bowl if you don't keep guard. Set to one side.




Step 2: Pour the rest of the milk (500ml) into a saucepan and heat slowly. DO NOT LET THE MILK BOIL. Come on... everyone knows that. (The keen eyed amongst you will have noticed my top quality boil-in-the-tin chocolate pudding simmering nicely in the background. Custard or not, there will be cake tonight my lovelies.)


Step 3: time for a bit of Muppets-style kitchen experimentation: Bunsen and Beaker meet the English Swedish Chef... how much peppermint essence maketh the mint custard? I plumped for a 1/4 teaspoon (1.25ml) which I tipped into the bowl with the custard powder and cold milk. And wouldn't you flurdy burdy burg - it worked...! You may disagree and want something mintier but I would start with 1/4 teaspoon and see how you go...



Step 4: now you gotta get you some green. Put about 4 or 5 drops of the green food colouring in your custard mixture. It should be enough to get you a gentle minty-coloured green going on. Any more and you've got mouthwash-coloured custard and no one wants that.



Step 5: stop staring at the pretty ink blot patterns and whizz it all up with your fork. You should now have 125ml of pale green mint flavoured custard concentrate... liquid gold!


Step 6 (optional): at this point I accidentally spilt custard powder all over the floor. It's up to you if you want to do this. I don't think it affected the recipe... although it is still all over the soles of my slippers.



Step 7: Pour the concentrate into the milk heating up on the hob. Don't spill any on the hob. It burns and 'tis a bastard to clean. Believe me.

Step 8: stirring constantly, mix the concentrate with the milk and simmer for about a minute and a half. To help pass the time (and to celebrate the end of winter in Australia) why not watch the Undertones performing Here Comes the Summer from 1979 - a golden period for school dinners. I bet Fergal Sharkey loves mint custard.

Step 9: pour the contents of the pan into a serving jug and set aside whilst you get your pudding ready. Admit to yourself that that if you could start again you would have added another spoonful of custard powder at Step 1 to make the custard a bit thicker. They suggested it on the box but you ignored them because you know best. You now regret this arrogance and vow to warn others so that they don't make the same schoolboy error.

Step 10: Pour and enjoy. Your mint custard can be served hot or cold but I would suggest that however you take it, make sure it accompanies some form of chocolate pudding. Chocolate concrete was popular at school, as was chocolate sponge. Unlike DI Sam Tyler I would not recommend mint custard and treacle pudding, but each to their nostalgic own I suppose.

And there you have it. I would definitely have made it thicker with another spoonful of custard powder had I known, but the colour and the flavour were pretty much spot on. Your own preferences will depend on how the Eileens, Veras and Gwens at your school mixed up their vast cauldrons of gloopy mint custard for your post-dinner sugary delight, but this should at least set you on your way... Look out for more English Cooking elsewhere in these here pages.

How to Cook... Mushy Peas

It’s time for another in our ongoing series focussing on the joys of English Cooking and with spring finally here, what better way to start the new season than a recipe for some delicious and healthy vegetables.

English food doesn’t have the best reputation in France but this doesn’t prevent a curious fascination with what passes for food Outre-Manche. In particular I recall my old French friends gazing in wonder at the humble British pea, captivated by what they called les petits pois verts fluos (fluorescent green peas). It had never occurred to me that the Brits might have souped up the colour of peas, but it’s true that their French equivalents are far more sombre in appearance. They are also often cooked with lardons (little bits of fatty bacon) which go unannounced on restaurant menus and reveal the inner contempt that French chefs have for vegetarians.

There are a number of variables that influence the British public’s food purchasing habits, with quality of food running a poor third to how cheap something is (‘look, these beans are only 7 pence!’) and more importantly how much fun it is. Adding fun to food will always make us pay more attention. Ask any of your British friends about Cheesy Peas as invented by the Fast Show and I’ll bet they secretly wish they were real…



So it’s no wonder that when it comes to peas we’ll always choose the brightest of the bright green ones because they make us feel happy just looking at them. The best peas of all are, of course, Mushy Peas (pronounced mashy if you are from the South, mooshy if you hail from the North).

Mushy Peas are unique in that they sit comfortably within both of English cooking’s most famous dishes: fish and chips and the Sunday Roast. Yorkshire Puddings filled with mushy peas and gravy are a real treat, whilst there isn’t a piece of battered haddock on the planet that cannot be made tastier with the addition of a polystyrene tub of mushy peas ladled fresh from a chip shop bain-marie. The truth is that any meal can be enhanced with a bit of mushy pea action and here, dear reader, is how you do it:

Purée de petits pois [verte fluoe] – Fluorescent Green Mushy Peas

You Will Need:

1 x tin of Mushy Peas (sometimes referred to as ‘Chip Shop style’)
1 x tin opener
1 x small saucepan
Some form of cooking device (I’m going to be using an electric hob, but you may want to use gas. I’m sure you could use a microwave too, but we don’t have one).

Step 1: Open tin of mushy peas with a tin opener. All good? Let’s move on…

Step 2: Tip peas into small saucepan. They don’t make a dedicated pea-pan sadly, unless you count bedpans. Technically they would be pee-pans, so don’t count. That said they should never be brought into the kitchen environment (unless someone is in the loo and you’re desperate in which case go ahead but please clean the sink at some point afterwards)

Step 3: turn on your hob to a ‘medium’ heat. I’m not sure what this is specifically in Celsius or Fahrenheit – it’s basically not so hot that everything bubbles straight away and not so cold that this takes hours… Your already mushy peas will become mushier.

Step 4: Pour and serve. Mushy peas basically go hand-in-oven-glove with all potato products, so don’t be afraid of spuddy experimentation. They also compliment most battered and crumbed fish products very well. Normally I’d have a fish finger or five with my peas, but here I’ve gone a bit posh to show off and had fish cakes. La di da me. Note molten lava-flow effect as a serving suggestion.

And there you have it. Bon appétit kids as they say round our way. Keep a look out for more Mint Custard English Cooking in future posts.

How to Cook: Cheese and Pickled Onion Hedgehog

Today is Neil Armstrong’s 79th birthday. No doubt Mr I-Don’t-Want-To-Talk-To-You will be celebrating on his own in a dark room with a sensible dinner covering all the food groups and a pleasant cup of cocoa before bed.

This is a shame. If Neil was my friend I would have organised a surprise party for him with all manner of frivolous and exciting treats from my culinary repertoire and maybe even a cake with a picture of the moon on it. However, in the hope that Neil’s friends and family might be reading this and thinking of knocking him up something nice as a surprise I’ve prepared another recipe showcasing more of the best of British cooking.

Hérisson au Fromage et Oignon au Vinaigre
(Cheese and Pickled Onion Hedgehog)

Ingredients:
· 400g of mature cheddar cheese (not so mature as to be crumbly)
· 1 small jar of silverskin pickled onions
· 1 large raw potato (washed)
· A pack of cocktail sticks
· Aluminium Foil (Optional - depending on whether you’re making it for an astronaut)

Step 1: Chop cheese into something approximating 2cm cubes. Cheese fiends who ignored my earlier advice about buying cheese that’s too mature will have to stop at this point, eat the crumbly pile of cheese you’ve just created and then go back to the shop to buy something a bit more robust. Everyone else can move to stage two.

Step 2: Take your potato and, with care and respect for its potatoey ways, chop its little bottom off. This will convert your spud from a Weeble into a solid foundation for your art sculpture/ cheesy-oniony comestible.

Step 3: Skewering Time! Yes, you and your cocktail sticks are an improbable golden spaceship driven by Flash Gordon, whilst the cheese and pickled onions are the evil Emperor Ming the Merciless – stabbed right through the middle with a maniacal laugh. Repeat until the Earth is saved or all the onions are gone.

Step 4: the tricky bit. Starting at one end of the spud (so you don’t run out of room) take your cheese and onion-laden poles and push the pointy bit into the potato. This is harder than it looks if your cocktail sticks are pointy at both ends so practice beforehand on a fake potato (perhaps an apple painted brown). Keep on stabbing like Dexter until your potato is covered.

Step 5: Create a surrounding moat with any additional pieces of cheese that you haven’t eaten, then carefully place your completed masterpiece on the party table. Stand back and wait for applause.

Optional Stage for friends or family of noted astronauts: For extra showbiz pizzazz why not pre-wrap you potato in aluminium foil? Not only will it evoke memories of space exploration but you can chuck it on the fire after use and enjoy a nice baked potato long after your guests have gone. (Note too-mature crumbly cheese in this picture and learn from my shame...)


Anyway, happy birthday Mr Armstrong. Enjoy your cocoa, sir.

How to Cook...Pickled Eggs

Happy Bastille Day everyone - I hope you've all had coffee and croissants for breakfast and a protest march for lunch. In celebration of all things French I've decided to start what will be an irregularly regular series of posts sharing the joys of English cuisine.

Rightly or wrongly we English cop our fair share of abuse for our cooking - or "heating up" as is perhaps more accurate (not least from the French who fondly refer to us as les Rosbifs in the same apparently friendly but quietly patronising way that they are called frogs). Perhaps as a result we've seen Jamie, Nigella, Gordon and a whole celebrity army of British chefs marching around the world, all desperate to prove that there's more to the British than than sunday roasts, fish, chips, curry and crisps.

Well, I'm here to tell you that they're wrong. There may be a few more wagyu beef fillets and ladies fingers in some British shopping baskets but I'm proud to report that the frozen food aisles are still bigger than the fresh fruit aisles in all the UK supermarkets I've ever been in. The British may no longer rule the waves but Captain Birdseye does a fine job in their stead. Despite what you may think, this is a great thing - especially when you can only be arsed to go shopping once a month.

So I plead with you to ignore those attention-grabbing celebrity chefs and their warped international vision of British kitchens and ask you to place your faith in Mint Custard to tell you the truth about the real joys of British food. Let us begin with my favourite - the humble pickled egg.

Celebrated in song by the All Seeing Eye, pickled eggs are the perfect accompaniment to fish and chips and a pint of bitter. You can't get them in Australia (Mrs Custard has gamely tried on my behalf only to be laughed out of many a deli) so your only option is to make them yourself. This is easier than you'd think, as my step by step guide will show...

Oeufs au vinaigre (Pickled Eggs)

You will need:

• Six eggs (from a chicken - none of your posh eggs)
• A bottle of white vinegar
• An old jar of pasta sauce emptied and cleaned with boiling water

1. Boil six eggs for six minutes. This is about the length of Blur's Coffee and TV which has a very cute video about milk so maybe watch it on YouTube instead of using a conventional timer.

2. Peel all your eggs. Set aside, have a cup of tea and allow to cool (the eggs, not the tea - unless it's really very hot indeed in which case let that cool down a bit too).

3. Place eggs in clean jar. Be surprised that they all fit in. I was.

4. Pour white vinegar into jar until eggs are covered / drowned.

5. Put lid on tightly. Really tightly. Then put away in a dark cupboard for a month. This is about the same time as it takes for the moon to orbit the Earth. I wouldn't suggest you spend the whole time looking at the moon, but maybe spare a few minutes thinking about how ace it must have been to be Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin 40 years ago this week and how that even though Neil might have been the first man on the moon and destined to be famous for all eternity, at least Aldrin had Buzz Lightyear named after him and that's much cooler.

I should warn you I got this 'recipe' from my mum over the phone and it's the first time I've tried it. Other peoples' recipes on the net seem to vary and a fair few add salt. I'll keep you posted on my pickling progress in August. It could be terrible...

*****

Eggilogue: Success! - see full story here