Tuesday, 18 November 2014

Dorothy Hartley's Toad in the Hole

extra fluffy olde english batter
A rather unfocussed and confused week of eating this week. After the excesses of last week's party food we opted for safety on Monday and made Gino's Bolognese, then on tuesday my wife made a jerk chicken from Jamie 30 mins which was really nice and on wednesday made the wonky summer pasta form the same book, which we'd had last week as well. Then I realised I had, in planning the week's meals, chosen two different pasta and pesto recipes - there's one in Gino that has a potato in it. So instead of that, on thursday, we had toad in the hole, but I thought I'd try out a different recipe. Dorothy Hartley's magnificent Food in England has a recipe for a batter that can be used for a variety of purposes, mainly for the making of fruit puddings, but can also be used for toad in the hole. The main difference from other batters is that it uses four egg yolks, while the whites are beaten to meringue consistency and folded in, with a slightly lower proportion of milk so you end up with quite a thick oozy batter. This is then used in the toad in the normal way (bake sausages for 10 mins or so in roasting tray with fat before adding batter then bake for another 30 mins.) The result was pleasing, and strangely it rose in the centre rather than round the edges, and the batter had a more cakey consistency, with a crisp crust and soft underneath. Sometimes this batter can rise to completely envelope the sausages so they are hidden inside what looks like a giant cake, but it didn't quite do that for us. So this was our DISH OF THE WEEK. The next day was due to eat Gino's pasta and pesto with a potato but just didn't fancy it, so made the kofta curry from Jamie 15 instead, which used up the last of the curry paste which has been sitting in the fridge for about a year (with no ill effects). This is one of the best recipes in that book - puy lentiles and beef mince mixed together and shaped into fingers fried with a curry sauce made from blended tomatoes, coriander stalks, coconut milk, curry paste, turmeric, honey and spring onions. On saturday we had baked potatoes which I love at the moment for their autumnal colours and smells, with cheese, bacon, tuna, salad etc, we bought giant potatoes from the farm shop. Not that popular with daughter though. Then on Sunday I made a beef stew that was cooked slowly while we all went to see Interstellar in the cinema for 3 hours. Wonderful stew from the 4 ways book, which improves with the adding of a tablespoon of flour. Unfortunately I ate too much of it and too late, and was kept awake the following night with acidity.

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