Yorkshire Meatball

Yorkshire Meatball

Not much in the fridge today. Found a frozen "Aunt Bessie's" Yorkshire pudding, half a pound of ground beef and one potato in the spud drawer and thought I'd have a little fun with them.

I thought, "what would a modern English gastro-pub serve on their menu". In England the traditional pub is quickly going the way of the dodo bird. According to this article on the BBC site, pubs are disappearing at a rate of 36 per week. A shame really because not only do pubs offer locals a nice comfortable environment to get s-faced, they often pull double duty serving as meeting halls, a source for community gossip, and an occasional refuge from irate spouses.

Let's band together and increase our efforts to keep the institution of the English pub around for generations to come. I propose our first step should be to fancy up the traditional pub menu. I'm a fan of pub grub. Standard fair is unpretentious, usually inexpensive, traditional, satisfying, down to earth food that washes down quite nicely with a frosty pint of lager. What we need to offer instead, is ostentatious, over-priced, conspicuously modern cuisine to accompany ostentatious, over-priced, conspicuously modern beverages with names like "the Harvey Corn-wall Banger", the "Birmingham Vomitini" or the "Bishop's Regret". We should address the market demands of the changing demographic by catering to the too well off for frugality, too young to know they're being taken advantage of, twenty-somethings with disposable income. By cheerfully separating said twenty-somethings from their hard earned cash we may someday be able to cross off the noble English pub from the endangered species list.

Here's an example of a dish that could possibly find it's way onto a beleaguered pub's menu near you. "The Yorkshire Meatball".

The description might read something like this: A half pound of prime Oxfordshire, herbed ground sirloin gently formed by hand into a meatball and roasted to perfection, nestled in a fluffy Yorkshire pudding atop rosti potatoes with sage au jus. 18.00 pounds.

Sell enough of these and the English pub will be in danger of disappearing no more.

Coronation Chicken Club Sandwich

Coronation Chicken Club Sandwich

There's a popular sandwich in England called a coronation chicken sandwich. The coronation chicken recipe is basically a curried chicken salad that was originally invented as a special dish to commemorate the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II back in 1953. Today, you can find this dish or variations of it in the form of a tasty sandwich filling in pubs, restaurants and butty bars (sandwich shops) across the U.K.

I was thinking about the flavors of coronation chicken when making this sandwich. My simplified take on the recipe includes leftover roasted chicken, mayo, some diced red pepper, some diced celery and some curry powder. It's quite paired down from the more elaborate original recipe which calls for red wine and canned apricot halves among other things but I stayed true to the curry flavor. To embellish it a little, I decided to turn it into a club with the addition of a few strips of crispy bacon and some balsamic dressed mache or lambs lettuce.

Crown Me

The curry and mayo flavors really define this chicken salad. I think the sandwich turned out pretty good.

Christmas Treats from Across the Pond

Christmas Treats

We got a visit from the UPS man today. "Santa in brown" delivered a BIG box from a place called Shakespeare's Corner Shoppe in San Diego. What a surprise! We pondered over who might be the mastermind behind this thoughtful gift as we tore into it and proceeded to unwrap what seemed like an endless procession of British holiday treats. The box was filled with old favorites like Heinz beans and spaghetti, Devon custard, (great as a topping on pies and tarts), lemon curd (nice on toast), chocolates, biscuits and toffee, as well as seasonal items that only make their appearance around this time of year; mince pies, sticky toffee pudding, a Cadbury's selection box and Christmas crackers (the two gold tubes).

Halfway through the box I found a card. It was from T1's dear friend back in England. She selected all the items and placed her order on-line and arranged for delivery from the specialty store down in San Diego. Amazing what one can accomplish on this "interweb" thing. Who knows, it just might catch on:)

Thank you D & J. Hope you had a Happy Holiday! We did.

Cranberry Scones

Hot Cranberry Scones

I'm admittedly not much of a baker. Unlike stove top cooking, baking is more of a science, demanding precision and perfect timing for best results. I always end up taking a peek and letting all the heat out of the oven, sabotaging the outcome. My baking repertoire is limited to recipes that come with pre-measured ingredients packaged in a handy box. "just add wet ingredients to form a dough. Don't overmix". That much I can manage.

I've never eaten a scone until I met T1. Come to think of it, I don't think I even knew what one was. After she turned me on to them, I was hooked. They're usually pretty dense, fluffy on the inside, crumbly-even crunchy on the outside with just enough sweetness.

For some reason I was craving scones this morning. We didn't have any scones in the house but we did have a package of scone mix my Mom sent to us with an excellent personal review. I read the back of the package and all it required was a cup of milk and some melted margarine or butter. That much we had. Just to be fancy, I tipped in a bag of dried cranberries (craisins) in the mix and 20 minutes later, I had 10 hot, fluffy scones.

Straight out of the oven

The best way to eat scones is hot with a dollop of English clotted cream, a sort of halfway between cream and butter, and jam. We usually get jars of clotted cream from the Continental Shop British store in Santa Monica and sometimes find it at Cost Plus World Market. Today, Kerrygold Irish butter stood in for the clotted cream. Luckily, we had a fresh jar of Hartley's Best Blackberry Jam "proper English stuff!".

Cranberry Scone with Butter and Jam

If you find yourself in the mood for hot scones, see if you can find Ivy Cottage Original Scone Mix. It lived up to my Mom's recommendation and is so easy to make even a baking challenged guy like me can manage to crank them out with convincing results. Craving satisfied!