|
|
 |
| |
Marrows: crying out to be stuffed with cheese |
Ace in the Hole for British Food Fortnight
In a festival celebrating Britain’s finest cuisine, Clare Latimer champions cheese and ‘toad’
WE are right in the middle of British Food Fortnight so I felt that I should write about truly home-grown produce.
But what should I choose? We have so many wonderful ingredients!
I have gone round and round in circles but eventually I have plumped for one meat dish – as we have some of the best animals in the world due to our superb grazing land which creates our stunning green landscape – and then I have chosen a cheese for the same reasons.
There are an unbelievable 700 British cheeses now produced, including Parmesan and Gruyere. We have even taken over from the French, but we’d better not tell them – rumour has it that if you ask a Frenchman if the British make cheese the usual answer is “Non”. Let’s show them!
Cheesy stuffed marrow
What could be more British than stuffed marrow? Many of you will have that overgrown courgette lying in the vegetable patch so here is the answer.
Ingredients
Serves 4
2 tbsp olive oil
1 red onion, peeled and chopped
1 large clove garlic, peeled and crushed
2 celery sticks, trimmed and chopped
1 pepper, cored, deseeded and chopped
50g button mushrooms
50g peas
50g fresh breadcrumbs
125g Cheshire cheese, crumbled or grated
1 tbsp chopped fresh chives or parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 marrow, cut in half lengthways
50g mature cheddar cheese, grated.
Method
Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F/gas 6.
Put the olive oil, onion and garlic in a large frying pan and cook gently for three minutes.
Add the celery, pepper and mushrooms and cook for a further few minutes or until softened.
Remove from the heat and stir in the peas. Reserve a couple of tablespoons of the breadcrumbs, then stir the rest into the vegetables with the Cheshire cheese and parsley. Season with salt and pepper.
Scoop out the marrow seeds and soft pulp using a dessert spoon and put both halves on a large baking tray.
Using a spoon, pile the vegetable mixture into the “troughs” of the marrow and sprinkle with the remaining breadcrumbs and grated cheddar cheese.
Cover with foil and bake for half an hour then remove the foil and cook for a further 15 minutes or until the marrow flesh is soft and the breadcrumbs are browning.
Toad in the Hole
This used to be a rather ordinary dish but now with all the fabulous sausages around it has become the Rolls-Royce of British dishes and if only it was served in restaurants it would fly on to the tables (Pigs with wings!).
On that note we have decided to serve it for a takeaway lunch in our shop on October 7, so put that in your diary.
Ingredients
Serves 6
225g flour
Salt
2 eggs
700ml milk
1 desp oil
450g sausages, any flavour.
For the onion gravy:
225g onions, peeled and sliced
1 desp olive oil
Little granulated
sugar
Splash Worcestershire sauce
Few drops Tabasco
1 teasp French mustard
1 desp flour
5fl oz vegetable stock, or water and red wine mix
Salt and freshly ground black pepper.
Method
Preheat the oven 220°C/ 425F/gas 7. To make the batter, put the flour, salt, eggs and milk into a blender and whiz on high for half a minute. Leave to stand for 30 minutes.
Heat the oil in a large baking tray, add the sausages and then cook in the hot oven for half an hour or until golden brown all over.
Arrange the sausages in the tin so they are spread out and then pour in the batter around them.
Cook in the oven for about 25 minutes or until the batter is well-risen. Serve immediately.
While the “toads” are cooking, fry the onions in a large frying pan with the oil until soft and slightly browning.
Add the sugar, Worcestershire sauce, tabasco and mustard and stir well. Sprinkle in the flour and stir into a paste. Gradually add the liquid, stirring all the time to prevent lumps appearing.
Make into a smooth sauce and then season with the salt and pepper.
Keep warm on a very low heat until the batter is cooked. |
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
