Chow Down to Eurovision 2013 - United Kingdom

Love, shine a light it's time for the United Kingdom to plate up their offering to the Chow Down to Eurovision 2013.
If you have been on this journey with me from Austria or if you followed this blog before the Chow Down, firstly I love you! And secondly you may have noticed I can be a bit odd, some dress it up as quirky but I'm happy with plain old odd.

My good friend and hairdresser tells me I'm simple, but as English is his second language I don't think I should feel hurt, it just means I'm no fuss....I think.

Anyway the point of this story, and yes there is one is to talk about travel souvenirs.
Most people end up with postcards, trinkets, or statues but I seek out recipe books.
I love food magazines but my favourites are the free ones from supermarkets or in newspaper lift out as they are a bit like a time capsule.
Only available for that particular time when I happened to be in a certain place, you can't see them on line or order them from amazon.
Are we still in the territory of quirky odd or have with hit down right weird??

Today's recipe comes from a Waitrose winter cookbook  I picked up the last time I was in London. I think it is a supersized memory trigger for all the senses as not only do you get the enjoyment of imaging cooking and tasting the recipes but you remember back to the place and scene where you found it.

Don't play that Song Again was the UK entry in 2000, a risky title in a song contest and resulted in Nikki French placing 16th which was the UK's worst result till the off key Jemini. (dead last with nul points) Nikki shares a link with this year's contestant Bonnie Tyler as they both had top 5 hits with Total Eclipse of the Heart.

Luxury Salmon and Caper Pie based on Waitrose winter cookbook
Ingredients

• 500g piece of salmon fillet/s
• 350ml milk
• 150g butter
• 50g plain flour
• 150ml white wine
• 110g baby capers
• 400g green prawns
• 1kg of potatoes for mash

Method

• Add potatoes to a boiler of cold water and boil till tender (peeled or unpeeled)
• In a deep frypan cover the salmon with the milk
• Simmer on low for 7-10 minutes
• Remove the fish but reserve the milk
• In a saucepan melt 50g of butter and add the flour to make a roux
• Add the wine and the milk and whisk to avoid lumps
• Continue to heat and whisk the sauce as it thickens about 2-3 minutes
• Remove from the heat and add the capers and prawns and stir through
• Break up the salmon and add it too the sauce
• Mash the potatoes with 100g of butter, a splash of milk and salt to taste
• Pour sauce into a baking or pie dish and cover with the mash potato
• You can go fancy old school and pipe it or just spoon it on
• Bake in a 200°C oven for about half an hour.
• Doesn't photograph well but is the ultimate in loving comfort food, get me a blankie and a spoon toot sweet!

 

Believe in Me is Bonnie Tyler's plea for Malmö, will she do as well as Nikki or Jemini?

Good Luck!

 

 

Amazingly with the power of the internet I was able to locate a rough demo first draft of Bonnie's Eurovision song, this may have been a better option?

Pie eyed

This morning I woke up feeling like my I’d partied like it was 1999. The thing that annoys me most of all is that all I’d drunk was blood orange soft-drink, not the 8 bottles my head was carrying on like. I tried water to relieve it, the pressure point hippy method and then resorted to pills. As I lay on the lounge dying as only a bloke can, all I could think about was bacon and eggs. There is something strange about the way the body craves salt and grease after it has rejected anything else you consumed prior.

In my state there was no way I was going to be about to leave the lounge long enough to stand at the stove to make bacon and eggs (I know a whole 10 minutes), so I made a pie. An old favourite the egg and bacon pie or fancier pizza rustica as it is known in Italy. There was nothing fancy about my pie; it could have been on an anti-binge drinking commercial, “how will you feel tomorrow, if your baking looked like this?”

It was thrown together with what I had in the fridge. While nothing fancy it was dead simple and could be put together in ad breaks of the Ted Danson movie knights of the South Bronx, nothing better than an underdog movie when you are feeling poorly.

Ad break egg and bacon pie

·         400g bacon rind removed

·         2 red onions

·         A few sprigs of parsley

·         10 eggs

·         200ml cream

·         Salt and pepper to taste

·         Puff pastry 3-4 sheets (taken out of freezer in first ad break)

Method

·         Line greased cake tin with pastry (2 add breaks later, thawing time)

·         Put all remaining ingredients in the food processor and blend for 45 seconds. (3^rd ad break)

·         Pour into pastry lined cake tin

·         Cover with another a sheet of pastry, it doesn’t have to be pretty. It can be as rough as I felt.

·         Add a knob of butter to top and bake at 200 degrees for about 45-55 or till golden and firm, usually just before the underdogs come good and win the tournament.

You could do this all in one go without stopping to watch TV and it would probably take 5 minutes to prepare.

It hit the spot a treat and feeling much better for it.