Fish and chips

Posted on July 22, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Batter, Comfort food, crispy bits, dailyprompt, dailyprompt-2005, Eating, Fish and chips, fried, hot meal6 Comments

What’s your go-to comfort food?

I couldn’t find a photo of a battered fish and chips but this was the best I could get off WordPress free photo library.

If its comfort food you want I don’t think there is anything better. The fish needs to be fried in thin batter, the chips soft on the inside crispy but not hard on the outside. Not too oily. Lashings (did I really write that? ) of salt and vinegar. Wrapped in greaseproof paper then newspaper for preference.

Why? It was a treat when I was a child. The chips and batter used to be orange coloured because they used food colouring where I came from. If you couldn’t afford fish you had “crispy bits” which were bits of batter that had come loose off the fish and were floating seperatly in the frying fat. In those days I think they used lard or beef fat to cook in.

So that’s my comfort food, my go to meal. I don’t have it very often, but when I do I really enjoy it.

Toad in the hole from scratch

Posted on April 16, 2023April 16, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Batter, BBC Good housekeeping magazine, Broccoli, carrots, Cooking, Eggs, Evening meal, Flour, Food, from scratch, gravy, Milk, Oil, onions, Potatoes, Recipe, Sausages2 Comments

I followed BBC Good housekeeping magazines recipe for this. Vegetarians and vegans forgive me, you could use vegetarian sausages, but the batter needed eggs….

I used seven frozen sausages

2 eggs

1 small onion, sliced

Accompanying vegetables, potato, carrot and broccoli.

140 grams of self raising flour (I didn’t check which sort I needed)

Milk to add to the batter mix.

I oiled a dish and baked the sausages with some sliced onion for twenty minutes. In the meantime I put the flour in a bowl, made a dent in it and added the eggs stirring with a fork till it was all mixed together. Then I slowly poured in and mixed milk into the batter so it was like thick double cream.

I poured the batter over the part cooked sausages, and returned them to the oven on gas mark 8 because my cooker does not get very hot. I checked them over the next twenty minutes but I still managed to burn the batter a bit. I also think I should have added more milk so that it would have been moister. I chopped the vegetables up small so I boiled them on the hob for twenty minutes. Finally I added gravy granules to some of the vegetable water to pour over the meal.

I’ve never made this before, but it was something my mother made for our evening meals. I’m glad I tried. I will try and remember to make this again.

I forgot pancake day…

Posted on February 22, 2023 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Batter, Food, fried, Hot, Lemon juice, Memory, Pancake, pancake day, shrove Tuesday, Snow, Sugar, Sweetner, TastyLeave a comment

I was busy yesterday doing some paperwork and by the time I remembered it was really too late to cook. So for tea today I made pancakes. They are a traditional food for Shrove Tuesday. You can look up the meaning of Shrove Tuesday on the Internet, and part of the tradition is eating pancakes.

How do you make them? (this is how I do it, it’s very vague! 😂). Put a couple of large cups of flour in a bowl. Mix in two or three eggs to make a thick paste then add milk to thin the paste down to a thickish batter (I prefer that as too much makes it runny) not too thick though. Maybe a 1/3 of a pint of milk? Beat it up with a fork till its a smooth batter. I think you are supposed to let it rest, I don’t!

Memories flood back as I remember my mom cooking them. She used to use half milk and half water I think? As winter was colder then it often snowed, she would use snow water as she said it was fresher than tap water.

Now your batter has rested…. Heat a frying pan on a high heat and add oil so its hot. Make sure the pan is hot but not smoking. Pour some batter into the pan and tip it so it spreads out across the base. You can see the batter drying out on the top as the bottom of the pancake cooks. Flip it with a spatula. It might break up but that’s better than trying to toss it and it landing on the floor! When it’s cooked lift or slide it onto a plate.

This recipe will make six to eight large pancakes. Try and make them equal sizes and as you put them on a plate sprinkle sugar or powdered sweetner plus lemon juice on them and fold them in half or roll them up. The last one always ends up too small or too thick depending on how much the batter is shared out.

The results are like thin, eggy, floury omelettes! Delicious. You can basically use different toppings, maybe stewed apple or banana slices or ice cream? We enjoyed them a lot. Good for a cold day.

Strawberries and cream on pancakes

Posted on June 8, 2022June 9, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Batter, Cooking, Cream, Dessert, Food, frying pan, Pancakes, Strawberry, Sweetener, TastyLeave a comment

I had some strawberries in the fridge but they started to go mouldy so I cut off the bad bits and chopped them up. I made pancakes with two cups of self raising flour, three eggs and milk to make a thickish batter. I let it rest in the fridge and whipped some cream.

If you heat a frying pan with oil in it till its hot you get better pancakes. Pour off any excess oil to reuse after cooking your first pancake. Swirl the batter round the pan to get it level. If you watch, as the batter cooks the top of it will start to bubble and dry out. You can see its setting as it cooks. I use a spatula to turn it over. When cooked add cream and chopped strawberries. I used sweetner rather than sugar and would have used lemon juice if I had any in.

First pancake

Posted on March 1, 2022March 2, 2022 Posted in UncategorizedTagged Batter, Cookery, Dessert, Eggs, Flour, Food, Lemon juice, Milk, Self raising flour, Sugar, SweetnerLeave a comment

Mix flour (I use self raising flour), eggs and milk to a liquid the consistency of double (heavy) cream. (I suggest put in the flour first, then add eggs till its a softish mix, then add milk to make it more like double cream.) (this is the pancake batter) let it rest for a while then heat fat in a pan (butter or oil) so it coats the pan but pour off any excess. Make sure the oil is good and hot but not burning. Pour the batter in to cover the base of the pan, pour out any excess. Cook over the heat, you will see the batter bubble and dry out. When it’s dry use a spatula to turn it over. It should hold together and look like the photo. Tip out on a plate, add sugar or sweetener and lemon juice squeezed over the top. Make sure you don’t allow the oil to burn while transferring the pancake, add a bit more fat then pour in more batter. Cook again. Keep going and stacking till the batter runs out. Enjoy. (you can also add banana or chocolate). Amounts of ingredients vary depending on how many pancakes you want to eat.

Mallaband-Brown

Tag: Batter