Bread and butter boards seem to be the latest food fad. Dipping bread in oils at the restaurant table is being overtaken by “butter boards”: whipped butter spread and piped with different flavourings (salts, edible flowers, smoke, chicken crackling and more). None of it really works for blind diners. I’d have needed the oil container right under my chin to avoid dribbles and sweeping crusty bread across soft butter risks the same mess. Perhaps these are ideas best tried within the privacy of one’s own home (probably the bathroom).
Another on-line cooking demo this week: the frangipane puddings that were postponed due to the Queen’s funeral. Delightful to have another three people cooking live with me in their own homes and doing their own variations of the pudding: different fruits and even using calorie-free stevia in place of sugar. The most enthusiastic are the crowd of students from Farnborough College who watch via their interactive screen. Next time (14 November at 1030) I’ll be making their requested dishes: a heart-warming butternut squash soup and a super ginger cake. The days are moving towards winter fare!
Meanwhile. Try this economic Thai fish curry. Our local fish & chip shop sells bags of frozen cod pieces. Just 75p for 750g. Most people probably feed them to the cat but they also make a superb and very low cost Thai curry that will feed 10 people. It is also a great way of using up any of last week’s vegetables (such as the broccoli stalk) which also keeps the cost down. I add some flavours from my time cooking in Thailand but the basic version is just as good and even the vegetables alone make a great curry.
Writing this recipe, I compared the size of the sliced vegetables with matchsticks and then realised that few people may still have them and some will never have held a box of matches. I’m one of those sad people who still has a cover for a match box on the mantelpiece!