The Magic Bag of GORP

Off tomorrow to walk over some hills in north Wales for a few days. And - of course - it is the food that most concerns me!

Apparently this Expedition means that I ought to have been eating nothing but pasta, potatoes and bread since Tuesday. If only there were still hot cross buns to be had in the shops I might have had more luck with the Carb Loading. (Damn that delicious pollack and fennel supper! The yogurt! The pigeon soup!)

Well, I have failed on the Carb Loading front. So I am making amends by taking seriously the suggestions about snacking en route...

My contribution to the Excuse To Snack (sorry, Expedition):

- Half dozen boiled eggs (with a twist of Maldon salt and freshly ground black pepper)

- A bag of carrots

- A few crisp, red apples

- The Magic Bag of GORP!

Apparently GORP stands for "Good Old Raisins and Peanuts". Hmmm. Well. I have taken that theme and run with it. So, The Magic Bag of GORP actually contains: almonds; Brazil nuts; mini chocolate flapjack pieces; broken up chunks of good white chocolate; ditto of Green & Blacks 70% dark chocolate. A veritable powerhouse. But possibly not enough salt to replace what we will lose. Deeply tempted to add some Bombay mix, for that salted caramel effect.

Anyway, when we get back I will let you know whether The Magic Bag of GORP was enough to see us through. It's either going to be that or pretending that our poles are light sabres!

A Mere Trifle

I made this as a birthday present for my father, and it was a total hit. (Even with my mother, who usually hates puddings.) It turns out that you can make a Trifle that is not claggy, not just creamy, not just sweet. This is a sophisticated pudding. And it's open to adaptations: cherry and chocolate? Seville orange and Grand Marnier? The only rules are Cake - Custard - Fruit - Cream. I would encourage the Trifle-Sceptics among you to give Trifle a try.

THE CAKE
2 oz butter
2 oz caster sugar
1 egg
2 oz self raising flour

A week beforehand make the cake. (If you don't have this sort of time, skip this stage and bulk up on the amaretti biscuits.) Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Fold in the beaten egg and flour, a bit at a time. Cook in a 6 inch sandwich tin, 180 C/ Gas 4 for 25-30 minutes, when it will be golden. Leave to go stale. (And switch to metric measurements!)


THE REST OF IT
8 or so amaretti biscuits
240 ml fino or amontillado sherry (ie. not super sweet)
300ml milk
600ml Jersey cream (or at least double cream)
2 eggs and 2 extra yolks
1 tblsp sifted cornflour
2-4 tblsp caster sugar
2-4 tblsp vanilla extract (not essence)
160g blackberries (if you have frozen them, defrost gently in a pan and tip off any juice)
160g very good blackcurrant jam
1 lemon (and possibly a little extra juice)
2-4 tblsp icing sugar
100g slivered almonds

Assemble the Trifle the day before you want to eat him. Tear the stale cake into chunks at the bottom of a large bowl - ideally cut glass and very charity shop. (A 15-20cm diameter bowl would be ideal.) Crumble over the amaretti biscuits. Pour over them the first 140 ml of the sherry. Inhale deeply and smile.

In a separate bowl, sieve the cornflour onto the eggs and egg yolks. Mix a bit. In quite a large pan bring the milk and the first 300ml of cream to scalding point (ie. just below boiling), and pour over the egg mixture. Return to the pan and whisk over a low/medium heat, until it has thickened - about 5 or 10 minutes. (The cornflour means you can be a bit more gung-ho about the heat that with a usual custard.) Add the sugar and vanilla extract until it tastes right. Put the base of the pan into a sink of cold water to cool it down for a little bit, then pour it over the cake rubble.

Mix the fruit and the jam. It might need a little lemon juice if it is too sweet-tasting. Dollop over the cooled custard. You want a complete layer to the edge of the bowl.

Into yet another bowl go the juice of one lemon (NB. you may want to zest it before juicing, in which case wrap in plastic/cover it up until tomorrow or the zest will be horribly dry and toenail-y), the second 120ml of sherry and the icing sugar. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Add the second 300ml of cream. Whisk until thickened, but not stiff peaks. Dollop over the fruit layer. Leave in a fridge overnight for all the flavours to get friendly.

On Trifle Day, take the Trifle out of the fridge while you toast the flaked almonds (about 5 minutes in a hot oven, but watch them like a hawk). Leave the almonds to cool. Cover the top of the Trifle with the grated lemon zest. Then scatter the cooled almonds.

Eat up!

Stock-less Soup: Part 1

Now, we all know that a Good Soup starts with a Good Stock. And we all know that the Good Stock Cupboard is sometimes bare. The answer: stock-less soup. Truly. Some soups don't need stock.

DUCK NOODLE SOUP

While you bring 1 pint water to the boil, add the following to it:

1 tsp duck fat (from cooking your duck breast)

1 tsp sesame oil

1 wine glass sweet white wine (eg. Vouvray, Gewurztraminer)

3 or 4 star anise

1 tsp toasted fennel seeds

1-3 chopped spring onions (NB. You will need another one later)

3 0r 4 fat cloves of garlic, sliced

1/4-1/2 lemon, zest and juice

1/4 tsp harissa paste (or a few drops of Tabasco)

1-2 tblsp soy sauce

Boil like hell, to reduce the liquid by about a half. Meanwhile, slice your duck breast and your extra spring onion. When the liquid is nearly done, cook your noodles. (I chose buckwheat, but brown rice would also work well.) Strain the liquid into a deep bowl. Drop in the noodles, duck and spring onions. Eat with chopsticks and a spoon. Serves one hungry person. Takes 20 minutes, tops.

My Grandmother's Funeral

For those of you who thought I had left you at the table in the restaurant and climbed out of the window in the Ladies' loo, this is the explanation for my recent silence. It comes with a side order of apologies.

PRAWN VOL AU VENTS

Before lunch at my grandparents' house, when they had guests, there would be heavy crystal glasses of gin and tonic. There would be small Chinese bowls of elderly peanuts. But above all there would be prawn vol au vents.

Before I knew that the words were French, certainly before I knew how to spell vol au vents, there they were - always prawn - a fixed feature in the landscape of my culinary life. In the car on the way to see my grandparents one of us would always say, "I do hope Granny has made vol au vents". And she always had.

As my grandmother's dementia progressed, vol au vents were one of the incidental losses. She had never used to eat that many vol au vents herself. Her pleasure in them had been that we all loved them so much. She used to laugh at our cries of delight when she brought a plate of them through into the drawing room. So as her dementia set in, none of us made vol au vents for her. And she had forgotten to make them for us.

When my grandmother died, I knew that there had to be vol au vents at her funeral. There was never a written recipe, but this is how they were made:

1. Defrost some frozen prawns in a dish. Reserve the liquid that comes off them. This may take some time. Overnight in the fridge is an option.
2. Later, cook the vol au vents cases in the oven.
3. Make a very thick white sauce: a bit of butter, about the same of flour, then some milk and the liquid from the prawns. After the prawn liquid it should be as thin as single cream.
4. Season the sauce with salt, pepper, a dash or two of anchovy essence and a pinch of paprika or cayenne.
5. Mix the defrosted prawns in to the sauce.
6. Teaspoon the prawn mixture into the vol au vent cases.
7. Serve on a plate with a Chinese pattern.

"Read, Wrote"...

January's book for Book Club was Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall'. This was supper.

• ROAST PHEASANT, WITH CIDER GRAVY, ROAST PARSNIPS, SAVOY CABBAGE
• FENNEL AND BLOOD ORANGE SALAD
• BAKED APPLES ON TOAST

THE FENNEL

Finely slice the fennel. A shallow bowl or plate. White ideally. Salt, pepper, walnut oil, mix. Skin the blood oranges. Finely slice the oranges in rounds. Neatly cover the dressed fennel with the rounds. Add any juice. Done. Simple.

THE APPLES

Double layer of foil on the roasting tin. Even if it is non-stick. Ideally the bread is wholemeal, the marmalade is orange, the cooking apples are Bramleys. But cooking apples are essential.

- Double layer the tin with foil

- Butter and marmalade each slice and put on the foil

- Core each apple and score round its middle and put on its bread

- Stuff each core with sultanas, packed tight

- Spoon a little caster sugar carefully on top of the sultanas

Leave the apples sitting quietly until the parsnips come out of the oven.

THE PHEASANT

Protect the breasts with bacon. A trivet is essential. An inch or so of cider underneath him. 30 minutes high; 20 minutes medium/low; 20 minutes resting in the warm. Or so. The skinny parsnips go into the hot goose fat when the pheasant comes out. Then boil the water. Link the cabbage's entry into the water with the time the parsnips need - the pheasant will be patient; the cabbage won't.

THE APPLES AGAIN

The apples have 30-60 minutes in a medium oven, which is about the time it takes to eat the rest of supper. Pluck off the top half of apple skin and the burned cap of sugar. Some will ask for cream. Humour them. Little do they know they are wrecking their toast.

Franco Manca

Best pizza in London? Franco Manca in Brixton easily lives up to the hype.

Organic sourdough pizza. Cooked in wood-fired ovens. And not five minutes from Brixton tube. You won't find pineapple or "Meat Feast" here. Franco Manca's great strength is its simplicity - plain, bold flavours, like today's special: finocchiona (fennel salami), aubergine and mozzarella. (Yes, no tomato on that one - get over it.)

But my favourite is No. 4 on their autumn menu: tomato, garlic, oregano, capers, olives, anchovy and mozzarella. Sounds complicated. They make it simple as.