Experiments with Gousto #5: Scandi-style Mackerel & Potato Salad with Spinach

The final recipe of the first new Gousto box didn't really require that much actual cooking, and yet I still managed to balls up one of the simpler tasks on my hob. This is partly due to the wonky timings in the recipe - something of a running theme, I'm finding - but mainly due to me splitting my attention between two small tasks that shouldn't have been attempted simultaneously. Nevertheless, this turned out to be a rather anticlimactic finale to my first foray into preparing evening meals for two again.

It probably would have been a lot simpler to break this up into two entirely separate tasks - the potato salad being one, with everything else in the second.  The potato salad is the most complicated task, in that the potatoes have to be chopped in half, then boiled for about a quarter of an hour, then drained and, ideally, allowed to cool. It's entirely possible, given the length of time it generally takes me to chop things, that the whole point of the recipe as it's presented is that you complete step 1 (cooking the potatoes) before even starting on step 2 (preparation of the spinach salad). However, since I wanted to ensure everything was ready ahead of time, I'd chopped the dill, the spring onions, the garlic and the potatoes as one task, a couple of hours earlier than necessary, and put the results back in the fridge till they were needed.

Then again, this particular recipe was a little 'pre-disastered' by the fact that the yoghurt container had apparently exploded in transit. It was in a small, sealed plastic pot - a miniature version of the average yoghurt pot you can buy in a supermarket - contained within a plastic bag of its own. When we unpacked the box all the ingredients came in, the inside of the plastic bag was coated with yoghurt, so the whole thing had to be thrown away. Thankfully we had a large, open container of essentially identical yoghurt already in our fridge, and we had more than the 80g worth required by this recipe. I was a little worried during the last stage of preparing the mustard dressing, in that it initially seemed as though the lemon juice was curdling the yoghurt. Thankfully a good stir sorted that out. The real problem - but still not the balls-up I mentioned at the start - was that the potatoes were still quite warm when I added them to the dressing, so it immediately got thinner and runnier than it should have been.

Where it went undeniably wrong, and mostly down to my mismanagement of the tasks, was with the almond toasting, believe it or not. It should only take about 2-3 minutes according to the recipe, but it was at this point that I realised I hadn't sorted out the mackeral, so I started to remove the skin and flake the fish while the almonds were still on the hob, resulting in a selection of flakes ranging from 'lightly brown and toasted' to 'utterly burnt'. Next time I do this - and there almost certainly will be a next time for such a simple and delicious meal - I'll make breaking up the mackerel one of the first tasks because, once flaked, it can be put back in the fridge till it's needed. I'll also be sure to boil the potatoes further ahead of time so they have a chance to properly cool, and possibly put them in the fridge at that stage, rather than just after chopping them. Everything else is quick and simple - preparing the entire meal is timed at about 20 minutes, after all - though I reckon a more generous portion of mackerel would improve it no end. The other issue is that the spinach salad seems like a bit of an afterthought - a plate-filler - compared to everything else. It's literally just baby spinach drizzled with olive oil, then seasoned with salt and pepper. A more complicated dressing may have helped but, obviously, you wouldn't want it to clash with the mustard dressing in the potato salad.

The next batch of Gousto recipes arrived yesterday, and I've prepared the first of them already... but expect a slight delay in posting about it as I'm trying to get other stuff done in the meantime.

I just hope I don't leave it too long, resulting in another batch of drafts that I can't finish...

Experiments with Gousto #4: Roasted Portobellos, Garlic Bean Mash & Chimichurri

In an attempt to get back into cooking while I'm not working, I ordered a box of four Gousto recipes but, due to a bunch of 'real life' issues leaving me a little frazzled the week they arrived, my girlfriend ended up having to cook the first two. For the third, since she was headed out around the time we'd normally be eating dinner, necessity dictated that I get my act together and do some proper cooking.

Now, the distinct lack of new posts on this blog over the last couple of years has been partly as a result of a distinct lack of cooking on my part. Lack of practice has left me feeling a little uncertain of myself in the kitchen - perhaps moreso than when I started this blog because, back then, I had the benefit of ignorance. Having done a fair bit of cooking back then, I learned a lot... and a lot of what I learned was how complicated some recipies are, even when they purport to be 'quick and simple'. Hell, when I left my job, one of my leaving gifts was Jamie Oliver's book '5 Ingredients'. Reading through this, it becomes quickly apparent that the five ingredients are normally supplemented by some sort of seasoning or oil that, in any other cookbook, would count as another ingredient. Sure, some can be considered kitchen staples, but I wouldn't think that red wine vinegar, for example, is quite as common as salt or pepper.

But I digress.

Interestingly, while both Gousto and Hello Fresh seemed to be operating a subscription model when I first used them, Gousto now has an additional 'dipping in' option, whereby you can simply pick a number of recipes - four being considered optimal - which will be delivered, along with all the required ingredients (bar kitchen staples like salt, pepper, olive oil, etc.), precisely measured and securely boxed.

Courtney and I picked four recipes more on the basis of how delicious they looked than anything else, but we did also keep an eye on the preparation times, aiming to keep to about 30 minutes, since that often equated to more like 50 minutes when I was doing the cooking.

By sheer coincidence, the first of the four recipes I cooked - since Courtney was working her usual hours today, with an appointment in the evening when we'd normally be having dinner - was centred on mushrooms, just like the first Gousto recipe I ever attempted. It didn't require any particularly fussy chopping, though it did require potatoes to be peeled, and it did require a couple of things to be on the go at the same time, with some fairly precise timing to get everything onto the plate while still warm.

The design of Gousto's recipe cards has changed quite a bit since 2015, with clearer and more detailed nutritional information on the front, along with the inclusion of allergen information, with the trade-off being even smaller images of the individual ingredients. The steps in the recipe, on the back, are now vertically sequential, rather than horizontally, but they're just as clearly numbered as before. I've yet to encounter a recipe that goes beyond eight steps, but I think that's largely down to the creative way they define a 'step' in each process. It's perfectly acceptable to group tasks that need to be done around the same time, and using a specific group of ingredients, but some of these recipes do resort to starting a new step "Meanwhile..." so it's imperative that one read through the full guide and assess the tasks logically, rather than attempting to follow the steps on the fly, which is my usual, carefree method. For example, with this one, I prepared the chimichurri several hours ahead of everything else, and stashed it in the fridge till it was needed. I also peeled and chopped the spuds and garlic well ahead of starting the oven so, technically, I followed the recipe by starting at step 4-5, then skipping back to the middle of step 1, and only really started at the beginning of step 1 when it was time to heat up the oven.

Considering how frazzled I've been of late, and how nervous I was of taking the reigns on an evening meal after relying on my girlfriend to prepare dinner for so long, this actually went really smoothly. It's certainly not the most complex recipe, but it does feature two "Meanwhile..." steps, and it's a little imprecise in some directions - "drizzle with olive oil", for example, is used for preparing the mushrooms on a baking tray and for preparing the potato/cannelli beans to be mashed. I suspect I should have 'drizzled' a little more olive oil into my mash but, to be honest, I'm more used to using butter and milk in mashed potato (when I'm not copping out and using instant mash, to the eternal horror of my girlfriend's family)... It ended up OK... not dry, but not properly creamy either. It's also tricky to judge seasoning, particularly when there's something like this chimichurri involved. I didn't want to add too much salt or pepper to the mash, even, but I could probably have added more than I did without any ill effects.

Another thing I kind of take issue with on these new recipe cards is their wishy-washy guidance on the seasoning, mashing and dressing. The phrase "this is your x" comes up alarmingly often. I get what they're trying to say - that one should make it according to one's own preferences - but I tend to think it's better to follow a recipe precisely the first time, and make alterations the next time based on how it turned out. For example, I've never even heard of a 'chimichurri' before, let alone made one, so telling me to "Season generously with salt and pepper - this is your chimichurri" doesn't seem very helpful. I don't know what it's supposed to taste like, nor do I know what effect salt/pepper will actually have on the end result.

Still, this was fairly simple - easing me back into the kitchen reasonably comfortably - and the end results were delicious. I'm not entirely certain of the merits of the tomato as a component of the meal (hell, it doesn't even rate a mention in the title!), and I think I'll aim to cut the coriander a little more finely next time (perhaps grinding it, and the shallots, a little longer with the mortar and pestle), but I'm broadly happy with what ended up on our plates...

Hopefully I'll be cooking the last of this batch over the weekend, and we have another box of four recipes arriving next week... Round two of my attempts at Gousto recipes is definitely off to a good start.

Morrisons Kitchen Made to Share Selection

Well, who'd have thought it? Another Thursday, another post about guilty pleasure foodstuffs. Generous readers might be tempted to credit me with foresight, or think I actually planned this.

Truth be told, when I picked out a selection of (reasonably) quick and easy things from the Made to Share range at my local Morrisons, my girlfriend did suggest I could write it up for this 'ere blog but, since the last choice in my "3 for £5" selection was their Smoky BBQ Mini Ribs, there seemed a strong chance I was in for a very disappointing meal and I'd basically decided there would be no write-up. After all, long-term readers if this humble blog will know that my experience with ribs in the UK has been decidedly mixed.

The full Made to Share snack dinner I cooked just for myself this evening, aside from the ribs, featured the amusingly alliterative BBQ Pulled Pork Pockets and the old favourite Loaded Potato Skins. Setting them all up to cook should have been very easy, but my attention lapsed on the final stage and, having timed everything carefully up to that point (25 minutes for the ribs on their own, adding the potato skins for two minutes, then finally adding the pockets for the remaining 13 minutes of the 40 minute total) I neglected to activate the kitchen timer and had to guess when the final 13 minutes had elapsed. If anything, it all stayed in the oven a little too long, though. On the upside, I did notice that the instructions for the ribs state that they should be allowed to stand for a minute before serving. I doubt that's where I've gone wrong in the past, but it's something I'll look out for in future.

As far as the Loaded Potato Skins go, there's really not much to say... They never work especially well when home-cooked, often sticking to the baking tray and splitting apart when removed. They're ultimately just slightly hollowed out thick slices of potato filled with cheese and bacon and, in the case of this package, supplied with a soured cream and garlic dip. This kind of this is good and filling, but never really outstanding in any way.

The BBQ Pulled Pork Pockets were something reasonably new... kind of like miniature Cornish pasties, but filled only with pulled pork. I can't say the BBQ aspect was particularly impressive, but the pockets were at least properly full... if rather small. Probably the most outstanding feature of the pack was that it contained nine pockets - I guess they're acknowledging that a pack of these might actually be bought as part of a selection to be shared between three people, rather than the more usual two or four...

And so we come to the ribs... which were actually pretty good. Each rib had a decent quantity of meat attached and I didn't find any large blobs of gristle or fat (though there were one or two bone fragments). The meat looked good - with none of the rubberiness, toughness or over-dryness that can occur with supermarket ribs - and, while it didn't actually melt off the bone, it tasted more or less as I'd expect pork ribs to taste. The sauce was even fairly impressive for a supermarket own-brand product - not the strong barbecue taste that I prefer, but certainly not the disappointing non-flavour that is so often applied to this kind of thing. It was possibly a little oversweet, given the lack of full-on smoky flavour, but it wasn't sickly. Had I actually set them out in a more sensible ovenproof container than the small, circular Pyrex bowl I pulled out of the cupboard, so that they were all laid out flat rather than jumbled up, and given equal access to the sauce, they might even have turned out the way they look on the packaging photograph. As it was, the sauce didn't have much of a chance to crisp up anywhere. It did actually adhere to the ribs fairly well, though, and I didn't have to scoop the sauce out of the bowl to drizzle it over any of the ribs.

So while I was expecting something bland and disappointing, what I got actually went some way towards restoring my faith in supermarket ribs... and, having tried Iceland's Jim Beam chicken tenders, I'm far more inclined to give the boozy-sauce-enhanced ribs a try than I was before this evening.

Experiments with Gousto #3: Honey-Soy Glazed Salmon & Summing Up

Regular readers of this blog will no doubt have come to the conclusion that I'm pretty fond of salmon (always assuming I haven't already outright stated that I am). I've also tried to do a glazed salmon on two previous occasions already, and it's never quite gone according to plan. For whatever reason - whether something I'm doing wrong, or perhaps some quirk of my fan-assisted oven - a glaze never actually glazes, it always remains a liquid of approximately the same viscosity as when it first went into the oven. I was hoping that, by following this recipe, I'd break my run of bad luck but, sadly, it was not to be. The Gousto honey-soy glaze, if anything, became less viscous while in the oven... though, on the upside, it worked very well as a marinade - the salmon soaked up more than I would have expected. It is clear from this recipe that something has always been lacking in my previous preparations of a glaze, but I'll have to keep trying and experimenting with other recipes, cooking methods and timings.

On that subject, it was also nice to have a timing for the oven which actually gave the correct result - salmon which was neither undercooked and still slightly raw inside, nor overcooked and dry. I'd have to say that this was the best bit of salmon I've ever cooked - utterly melt-in-the-mouth succulent, and with a subtle kick from the honey-soy sauce and its little chunks of ginger. I even broke my tradition of scraping off the skin and leaving it on the plate, largely due to having been pleasantly surprised, not too long ago, by crispy salmon skin nori at Yo! Sushi.

This is also the first time - in my life - that I've ever made mashed potatoes from scratch. It's actually a point of some amusement (not to say outright ridicule) among both my family and my girlfriend's that I generally rely on instant mash, despite the simplicity of making it fresh. I think I did reasonably well with all the vegetable peeling required by all of these recipes, but I was especially pleased by the way the mash turned out, despite not giving it my fullest attention all the way through.

I think the mash could probably have used some more of the wasabi paste - the half-pot I used certainly added some zing, but it wasn't consistent throughout the mash. To be honest, though, by that point I was a little rushed, and I found that some of the mash had started sticking to the saucepan. Further delays to mix in more of the wasabi would probably have ended up burning some of the mash and, seriously, what kind of muppet burns mashed potato?

Courgette seemed like quite a strange addition to this allegedly Japanese cuisine (that's what it claims on the front of the card), but it's certainly no stranger than a dollop of mashed potato, with or without added wasabi paste. The instructions for chopping it up seemed counterintuitive: quarter lengthways, then cut into 3cm pieces? The card suggests there's a tutorial on Gousto's YouTube account, but the only courgette video I found was how to make it into ribbons... Perhaps the chopping video will come along later.

I did forget to sprinkle on the toasted sesame seeds at the end but, let's face it, I've made at least one cock-up on both of the other recipes, so I'm just glad it was such a minor omission on this one! It also feels like a rather stupid mistake, considering the fun I had toasting them, and watching several sesame seeds make a bid for freedom from the frying pan. I'll probably be finding the damned things all over my kitchen for the next few weeks.

The last few steps of the recipe required some overlap, and splitting my attention between the frying courgette chunks, the boiling potato chunks (and, later, the mashing of said chunks), all while keeping an eye on the time for the salmon in the oven. While I've had to split my attention between several cooking tasks in the past, I'm neither comfortable nor confident in doing so... but, on this occasion, it didn't go too wrong.

In choosing this recipe, I'd made something that was wholly for me - my girlfriend had to fend for herself on Sunday evening, so this was also a test of how well we'd work together in the kitchen while engaged on entirely separate tasks... and I think we did rather well. It did take me rather longer than it should have - I think a little over an hour rather than the estimated 40 minutes - but I suspect my speed on certain tasks would improve with practice.

Third time lucky on photos? Although my presentation is perhaps a little lacking...

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So, summing up, I'd say my experience with Gousto was very positive. The step-by-step guide to each recipe was clear and easy to follow, even if some of the steps seemed to me to be out of their proper sequence. The results of each recipe are unquestionably excellent, and I'm very keen to try my hand at another set of recipes... though that'll probably have to wait until I have some time off work, because I've not once managed to keep to the estimated timing for the recipes, meaning I was eating later than usual on each occasion. Their setup - and the whole delivery angle - doesn't quite suit my current schedule/lifestyle, but I can see it being exceptionally useful to some folks, not least because it makes it so easy to break out of the rut of ready meals or excessive weekly repetition.

There were only two real problems with the three recipes I picked out for this experiment: on the very first recipe, a redundant ingredient was listed and supplied, and on that same recipe, a hole was punched in the card right in the middle of a block of text. As long as those sorts of problem are isolated incidents, Gousto is a service which is easy to recommend. Every other problem I had with the recipes was of my own making - the frequency with which I forgot to add things was a little ridiculous, and I wasn't quite prepared for some of the work required, in terms of both kitchen equipment and culinary experience.

As as aside, I may not have had a 'Fishy Friday' last week, but I had a very fishy weekend - trout for lunch and sushi (not home made) for dinner on Saturday, then salmon for dinner on Sunday. I possibly could have organised things for a bit more variety but the fishy recipes were the highlight of last week's batch from my point of view.

If you think you might fancy giving Gousto a try (and are within the UK mainland), please feel free to use my referral code GORDO45552 for an introductory discount. Yes, that also gets me a discount on my next order, but further deliveries are currently on hold while I complete this first set of recipes and consider how this system fits in with my current... erm... 'lifestyle'.

Fishcake Roundup

I have a funny relationship with fishcakes.

And when I say "funny", I mean either they're completely underwhelming or they make me unwell.

But, what's important here is that I don't let that put me off fishcakes. I keep trying them. And so, here's a post about a pair options from The Saucy Fish Co's new range of 'Saucy Centres' fishcakes!

Salmon and Hollandaise
Described as 'Succulent salmon and cod with a creamy Hollandaise sauce bound up with real mash in a crumbly golden coating', these weren't so much underwhelming as a clear disappointment. First off, the ratio of salmon to cod is very much in favour of the cod, almost to the point where it's pretty misleading to call them 'Salmon and Hollandaise Fishcakes'. Even the image on the box shows very little salmon in comparison to the rest of the filling. Worse than that, though, the cod plays second fiddle to the mash. Granted, that's par for the course with fishcakes these days - what was once included for binding purposes has become almost the main ingredient, simply because it makes them cheaper to produce.

The worst aspect of this fishcake is the Hollandaise sauce. I have to confess that I bought the two different kinds of fishcake listed here at the same time, and wasn't really paying attention when I decided to cook these ones first. I knew one had a cheesy sauce and, to be honest, when I was eating these, I assumed I was experiencing one of the most disappointing cheese sauces I've ever encountered. It was only later, when I looked at the packaging again, that I found I had experienced the most flavourless Hollandaise sauce I've ever encountered.

These are a great idea, but the lack of the alleged prime ingredient pretty much ruins the execution.

Smoked Haddock and Davidstow Cheddar
The moment I opened the package, I knew I was dealing with smoked haddock - the aroma is unmistakeable... and reminded me how much I enjoy smoked haddock. Just like the salmon version above, the packaging doesn't show off a mass of haddock pieces and, sadly, the photograph is accurate. Once cooked, the smell of haddock is dramatically reduced, and the flavour is all but overwhelmed by the mash.

When I wrote about The Saucy Fish Co's basic packaged smoked haddock fillet with Davistow cheddar sauce, I noted that the sauce was disappointingly light on apparent cheese flavour. There was some improvement in these fish cakes - the sauce does add to the experience, but it's still nothing special.

Again, it feels like these were made to fit a very strict budget, with mashed potato being the main constituent. It is great mash, but it should only be there to bind the fishcake together, not as a cheap filler.

My area doesn't offer a great range of Saucy Fish Co. products and, while none of the options I've tried have been outright terrible, some of them have been quite disappointing. I like the idea of a piece of fish coming packaged with its ideal accompanying sauce, but when that sauce is underwhelming, the whole product suffers. Their fish fillets can be a little on the small size, but the fish content of these fishcakes is shamefully low, and neither sauce really added a great deal to the experience.

There seems to be a bit of a trend at the moment of putting sauce inside a product (did it start with the likes of Gü puddings, or were similar things available before they sprang up? Could it perhaps be said that these fishcakes were inspired by jam doughnuts?) and, while I like the idea - because it generally means less mess when cooking, unless the product splits open - the end result never quite meets the expectation.

On the upside, neither of these fishcakes ended up making me ill, so they have restored a small measure of my faith in fishcakes...

Mojito Lime Quorn

This was a bit more experimental than some stuff I've done, but still on the simple side, because it used a ready-mixed Mojito Lime marinade, a ready-prepared salad, and ready-to-bake seasoned potato slices.

The marinade mix came from the Schwartz 'Grill Mates' line, but I chose not to follow the instructions completely (a) because this was Quorn, not meat, (b) because we didn't have all of the ingredients as listed and (c) because I'm like that, so there.

Note that these details are for the preparation of the Quorn fillets only, any accompaniment would be dealt with separately, according the the instructions on its own packaging.

Ingredients:

• 1 sachet Schwartz Grill Mates Mojito Lime Marinade Mix
• 50ml Oil (I used olive oil rather than plain cooking oil)
• 50ml White Rum 
• 2 tbs Balsamic Vinegar (original recipe specifies white wine vinegar)
• 2 Quorn Fillets

Preparation Time: about 30 minutes, including 15 minutes marinating time

Tools Required:

• Wide, shallow bowl
• Frying Pan
• Spoon (for mixing and basting)

The Process:
Pour the oil, rum and vinegar into your shallow bowl, then add the contents of the marinade mix sachet and stir thoroughly. Add Quorn fillets to the bowl, ensuring all surfaces are covered, spooning the mixture over the fillets where necessary, then leave for at least 15 minutes to marinate. I started with frozen fillets (all I could get my hands on at the time), and the marinating time allowed them to thaw slightly before being cooked, thus reducing their cooking time slightly.

Set the hob to a medium heat, then transfer the fillets into a frying pan. Fry for about 5 minutes a side, generously spooning over more of the remaining marinade after turning. The oil in the marinade is sufficient, so no more need be added to the pan.

The seasoned potato slices I mentioned at the start were baked according to the instructions on the packaging, and were put into the oven at the beginning of the process... the salad, obviously, didn't need cooking.

The Results:
The instructions for the marinade suggest discarding all but two tablespoons of the marinade, which is used for basting halfway through the cooking time. This strikes me as rather wasteful... then again, frying the Quorn fillets made it far easier to pour on additional marinade during the cooking process, so I was probably a bit trigger-happy with it. What can I say, I like a good, thick coating on meat, so I figured it'd be especially important on Quorn, which has very little discernible flavour of its own.

The results would be very different on any kind of meat or seafood, with much of the eventual flavour coming from the meat, regardless of how long it's marinated. With Quorn you get a sweet, sharp coating that isn't quite 'mojito' because the rum doesn't come through very well - either it doesn't mix in well or it was just burnt off in the frying pan. It's possible that balsamic vinegar has too strong a flavour in its own right for this recipe, but it certainly did the finished product no harm.

It turned out very well for such a simple process, and I'm very likely to try this again using Quorn nuggets, or possibly using the alternative recipe, for 'Honey Lime Marinade', which switches the vinegar for lime juice and the rum for honey. At the very least, the next time I try this mix, I'll try leaving the Quorn to marinate overnight, so it absorbs more of the flavour. Quorn, being rather more porous than most meat, will most likely end up completely saturated... which shouldn't be a bad thing...

S&M Rodeo #9: Waitrose Succulent and Meaty British Beef Sausages with Dijon Mustard Mash

I've tried plenty of Waitrose's premium sausages for this ongoing S&M Rodeo of mine, but all of them so far have been comprised largely of some kind of pork.

Not so, this time. The moment I set eyes upon a pack of eight beef sausages, I knew they were something I'd have to try, not least to further my experimentation with beef.

To accompany this sausage, I decided to do my usual thing of playing about with instant mash, but had trouble deciding how to embellish it this time round. My first thought was to mix in some grated cheese and make a proper cheesy mash, but I'm not a massive cheese fan, and wasn't sure what I had in my fridge that would suit. The second idea was to make use of some of the large tub of crème fraîche I recently picked up for another purpose... But then, creamy mash is still just mash, so I still needed to pick something to add a bit of kick to it.

Rightly or wrongly, I chose the latter option and added two tablespoons of crème fraîche followed by one teaspoon of Dijon mustard.

In retrospect, I think maybe a wholegrain mustard would have been a better fit, but Dijon worked well enough... and, thinking about it, even getting grated cheese to melt in with instant mash could have been a bit of a stretch, so it was certainly the easier and surer option.

The sausages come packaged in some kind of faux waxed paper, as you might expect with Choicest Cuts of Beef from a butcher. Also just like choice cuts of beef from a butcher, it has that authentic gory seepage of a good steak. Undeterred by this, I planned to use my usual sausage-cooking method - grill at about 180C for a total of 24 minutes, rotating every 6 minutes (half turn, quarter turn, half turn), but completely failed because I forgot to start the timer after the first turn.

And then got distracted.

Because, y'know, if I'm cooking on a timer, I can happily get on and do other stuff until the alarm goes off.

Assuming the alarm goes off.

Thankfully, 6 minutes on one side, followed by who knows how long on the other, followed by another couple of minutes back on the first side seemed to do the job fairly well. The skin wasn't quite so evenly browned and crisped, but the sausages were thoroughly cooked.

What they weren't was particularly tasty. Succulent, yes. Meaty, certainly... but minced beef in sausage form seemed to have about as much flavour of its own as the average junk food burger. Granted, most of their flavour tends to come from the salt rather than the meat, but that just makes it all the more perplexing that beef sausages, particularly from Waitrose, should taste like generic dark meat of uncertain origin.

Perhaps it's one of those situations where some kind of herb addition to the meat would bring out the flavour better, but I was certainly glad that I hadn't decided to keep the mash plain and simple on this occasion. I may take the remaining sausages and fashion burgers out of them... Then, at least, I could add a slice of cheese (processed, natch), or some kind of pickle and slap the result in a bun.

S&M Rodeo #8: Wall's Microwave Sausages with Iceland Cheesy Mash

Well, if you thought Sausage & Mash couldn't get any easier, think again.

Quite some time ago, my mother introduced me to Wall's Microwave Sausages. It sounds like a terrible idea - everyone knows that microwaves are quick, but don't really cook anything in the traditional sense, none of the pleasant browning or crisping - but the good news is that Wall's have sensibly pre-cooked these freezable sausages, so it's really just a case of reheating them. Microwaves are ideally suited to that task, so the only concerns are whether or not it can sufficiently reheat sausages from frozen, and whether or not it can do so without drying out the sausages.

Same with the mash, really... It comes in a plastic sachet not unlike Uncle Ben's microwave rice but, very much unlike the rice, you're required to decant the contents into a microwave-safe bowl, which is then to be covered over with cling-film. Strangely, the film - which is there to trap as much moisture as possible to prevent the mash drying out - must be pierced so, naturally, what starts as fork-prick holes inevitably widen into gaping tears. I did wonder if it could be made to work by opening the sachet by about the same amount as an Uncle Ben's rice (2cm), but the instructions suggest stirring the mash halfway through, which would make leaving it in the sachet rather impractical.

Still, I hadn't actually read that part of the instructions, and so blasted my mash for the full 5-ish minutes in one hit.

The end result of all this fiesta of irradiation?

Well, my experience of the microwave sausages has always been good... I mean, they're Wall's, and they're good, simple pork sausages of the sort you'll have in your local greasy spoon's All-Day Breakfast. They are succulent, with a skin that's tough enough to hold together, without being overly chewy and rubbery. Also, the advantage to microwaving is that you don't have to time it all perfectly to get them cooked without burning the skin. They're exactly the kind of sausage I really like, and yet have a really hard time finding. My mother initially found them in her local Iceland, and tried to keep a good stock in her freezer. Some time ago, they suddenly disappeared from the shelves and, as far as I know, that local branch has never had them since. They've appeared elsewhere, so she's been able to get more once in a while, but it was only this last week that I found Wall's Microwave Sausages in my local Iceland, when they'd never been there before... it's almost as if Iceland is trialling them by rolling them out in different territories for a few months at a time.

The mash was a bit of a let-down. The quantity is good - probably enough for two, but I quite like lots of mash with my sausages, so I did use the whole lot in one go - but, for something described as 'Cheesy Mash', it really isn't very cheesy. I detected a subtly Cheddar-y note, but it's more 'creamy and smooth' than properly cheesy.

I'm no stranger to the concept of microwave mash - my mother regularly uses one that's frozen in little discs that you just load into a bowl and blast for a few minutes - and it's certainly far easier (not to mention less wasteful) than making it from scratch, though possibly not as good as mixing up some instant mash to one's own preferred consistency (and adding butter, milk, cream, etc. as required).

And considering my usual S&M Rodeo would have a sausage with added herbs, spices, veg or even other kinds of meat, the whole idea of this was to have completely plain sausages with a mash that was interesting and yet easy to prepare...

Still, for a quick S&M fix (we're talking under five minutes for four sausages, without any turning or fussing of any kind), this is probably ideal if you have easy access to a microwave, but no kettle and/or no inclination to go to the 'effort' of making up some instant mash, even though that might actually be quicker.

Is it just food... or is it a work of art? You decide...

JPw/ Cucumber & Onion in Minty Cream Cheese

The funny thing is - and I should stress there's no particular reason for this - I've never baked potatoes.

I guess, in a way, it's just too much hassle for only a small part of a dinner. Maybe if I was already doing a roast, it'd make sense... but it's honestly taken me this long to think "Hey... I could do a jacket potato and give it a topping... That's a great snack meal!"

And so, we have the first post in what may become a new series: JPw/


I'm sure it'll be just like Last Course, in that I only do a couple...

Naturally, I had to research how to bake a potato (and, yes, that became just as ridiculous as it sounds once I'd looked it up - it really is quite simple... if time consuming). Turns out, you just kind of whack them in the oven. Who'd have thought?

The complicated part - and I use the word 'complicated' loosely - is deciding what to put on it, and how to go about preparing that. This is where I tend to lose interest: give me something I can just dump onto the potato, or I'll have something else. That's why I normally go with the all-time classic, butter. Back when I lived with my folks, and the Sunday roast was a lamb joint, I would occasionally embellish my humble baked, buttered spud with mint sauce.

So... It seems that, merely by searching for 'potato baking', one can now find recipes for toppings as well. Being me, I had neither the ingredients nor the inclination to try anything precisely as I found it, so here's what happened for the inaugural JPw/ post:

Ingredients:

• 2 Large Baking Potatoes
• Olive Oil
• Cream Cheese (150g - about half an average tub)
• 1 Small Onion, chopped
• Cucumber - only about an inch worth, diced
• Salt & Pepper (to taste)
• Mint (fresh is best, but <movie_ref="Spaceballs">I used the Schwartz</movie_ref>
• Butter (as much as you like, basically)

Preparation Time: 1.5 hours baking time, plus a couple of minutes preparation either end

Tools Required:

• Sharp Kitchen Knife
• Bowl
• Spoon, for to scoop the cheese and stir

The Process:
Preheat your oven to 200C. Wash your spuds, dry them, and prick the skin a few times. One trick I learned from the interwebs was slathering the surface with olive oil all, then scattering over some salt. The theory is that it should stick to the oil but I'm sure you all know that salt likes to spread itself everywhere. Do the best you can, then just stick them directly onto an oven shelf for an hour and a half. While that's going, make a start on the topping...

First, cut a piece of cucumber, about an inch long, and dice it. I realise that's a tall order unless you're some kind of kitchen ninja - basically, all I mean is chop it into small, roughly cubic chunks. Maybe I should have just said that to start with... Next up, chop your onion. I should mention that this particular recipe is dealing with raw onion. If you have any objections, feel free to substitute with something else (peppers, maybe?), but it does work out, honest!

Scoop about 150g of cream cheese into your bowl. Full fat is always preferable and, just to make things easier, the average tub I found was 300g, so that's roughly half a tub used here. Dump in some salt and pepper, add some mint (I'm being deliberately vague with quantities here - I believe the common phrase is "to taste") and stir it all up. Add in your chopped veg and stir that in. Since this stage takes far less than an hour and a half, stick the mixture back into the fridge until the potato is ready.

Results:
First things first: Topped, baked jacket potatoes are not a quick snack. They take an hour and a half. Think carefully about making yourself a baked jacket potato if, like me, yesterday, you're only making a start on dinner after 7pm. I did this the stupid way, and made the topping up before even starting the potatoes, so I sat down to eat around 9pm. This also accounts for why there are no photos of this little dish either... I was just too darned hungry by the time the potatoes were ready.

I have to confess also that I was a little dubious of my choice to use chopped raw onion - it tends to have rather too much bite. Thankfully, the minty cream cheese and the cucumber took the edge off that quite nicely, giving the potatoes a cool, smooth-yet-crunchy topping that complemented both the crusty skin and the hot, light, fluffy innards.

Along with cheese on toast, baked jacket potatoes are a great way to make use of any silly leftovers you might have lurking in your fridge.

Classic Braised Steak with Mash by Sainsbury's

So here's the thing. Having discovered that I can actually digest beef without my stomach exacting a terrible revenge upon me, I've remained fairly cautious of which beef products I consume. Far too many of the cheap-and-cheerful options fail to meet 50% of the requirement, even those from higher-end stores. Sainsbury's Classic line impressed me with it's Bangers & Mash so, as part of one of their meal deals, I decided to pick up something different... Something with beef...

The problem with many beef dishes is that you end up with something tough and somewhat rubbery and, I'll be honest here, I wasn't expecting much from this. The packaging proclaims it "British braised steak in gravy with carrots, served with mashed potato" which, let's face it, covers everything you might want to know about the product. The image on the front is nothing special - frankly, it could feature just about any kind of meat, and it really doesn't 'sell' the contents. Based on my (still limited) experience of beef-in-gravy (largely pies, really), I predicted that the meat would be fairly chewy, and probably a little musty.

Also, let's face it, there were bound to be fatty bits.

And gristle.

At least.

Oh, gentle reader, how wrong I was.

For, you see, this doesn't use just any gravy... nor is it yer average beef gravy. Unless my taste-buds deceive me this is, in fact, something similar (though certainly not identical, going by the ingredients) to the onion gravy that featured with the aforementioned Classic Bangers & Mash... only with added chunky slices of carrot.

And the meat? Well, I'm clearly a terrible cynic when it comes to beef, because this was as close to melt-in-your-mouth as one would have any right to expect for the price. Moist and tender, I barely needed to use a knife because it basically fell apart at the merest touch from my fork... and there wasn't even a hint of mustiness.

To be honest, though, there wasn't a great deal of any flavour to the beef... it just seemed to have absorbed the flavour of the gravy. I'm sure there's meant to be a bit of give-and-take in the flavourings - the gravy picking up some of the beef flavour (it's actually made with beef stock, not that you'd notice), and the beef picking up some of the oniony goodness of the gravy. It's not all bad, though... since I'm not necessarily a big fan of the flavour of beef, it just meant I enjoyed this particular product all the more.

On the downside, it wasn't entirely wrong about the fatty bits though, in the whole meal, I only found a couple, and they were very small. There was a notable absence of gristle... which can only be a good thing.

Sainsbury's are also onto a serious winner with their mash. I'm not sure I noticed it so much with the Bangers & Mash, but the mash in this package is extremely buttery (also, it's made with double cream - "From Cows' Milk", no less), and the salt and pepper component is pitched just right for me.

The quantity is pretty much spot on for a single serving - while it's probably no more than equivalent to their Bangers & Mash (and probably less purely in terms of mass), the portion size feels sufficient: I wasn't left thinking "Y'know... I could do another round of that..." which is actually quite a common thought with me and ready meals.

S&M Rodeo #7: Waitrose Succulent and Tasty Pork Sausages with Fresh Leeks & Chives

One thing I've been doing almost invariably in my exploration of S&M is adding some herbs to the mash. Generally just a little Basil, or whatever else is close at hand. Partly, this has been because I've been using cheap-and-cheerful (or not-so-cheerful) instant mash rather than mashing fresh potatoes. Another part of it is that many of the sausages - embellished as they may be with their interesting herb/fruit/veg additives - are still predominantly pork and, as such, end up on the bland side unless you're really, really into the taste of pork.

Furthermore, when presented with sausages which contain added leeks and chives, I was expecting something quite boring.

And, considering some of the other Waitrose sausage 6-pack have been, while not disappointing, rather lighter on flavour than I might have expected, one could easily be forgiven for predicting much the same from these.

However, I'm pleased (and surprised) to report that the additional flavour of the leeks - if not the chives, which I'm not sure I'd recognise anyway - is quite a powerful note in these bangers. Rather than being a slight hint of leek in each mouthful of sausage, it's almost as if it's a helping of sausage and a helping of leek... just without the crunchiness of the latter. Considering the ingredients list the leek content at a mere 10%, that's quite an achievement. Even some of the most heavily seasoned sausages I've tried recently pale beside the well-balanced meaty/leeky flavour of these, so my personal recommendation would be to serve them with plain, buttery mash and, if gravy is a requirement in your own S&M journey, make it as light as possible.

As an aside, I'm also continuing to improve my sausage-grilling technique/timing, so I can almost always get a nice, crisp, browned skin (that hasn't split) while leaving the innards as succulent and juicy as the name of this particular product suggests it should be.

S&M Rodeo #6: Waitrose Fruity and Warming Pork Sausages with Apricot, Ginger and Thyme

Using a different kind of instant mash this time - that old family favourite, Smash. I can remember the ads that ran for Smash in my distant youth... or, more accurately, I can remember the saucer-headed robots that featured in those ads. I also remember that they eventually turned those robots into toys, and I believe I had one... or my sister did... or maybe we had one each. They were wind-up toys that would dash forward, mouths opening and closing all the while.

They have nothing to do with this write-up, though.

It's worth mentioning that, while eating anything - whether it's something I've had before or not - I have a nasty habit of stalling if I find something in my mouth of an unexpected texture. Frequently, with sausages, that would just be an extra-tough or extra-rubbery skin on the sausages, that proves impossible to adequately chew, and so forms a nasty mass that I end up spitting out. With other things, it can be lumps of bone or gristle.

And yet, even though I was expecting apricot in these sausages, I was surprised to find it appearing as fairly large lumps within each mouthful. My first instinct, upon detecting these strange, rather tough lumps, was that I'd managed to pick up a duff pack, and that there were lumps of something nasty in my sausages... but no. While Waitrose Tolouse sausages and Tesco's Pork & Caramelised Red Onion sausages contained very thoroughly mangled pieces of not-sausage, blended in with the meat, the pieces of (dried) apricot in these are very substantial, and rather crunchy, despite a fair amount of time under the grill.

I'm not certain they add a great deal to the flavour of the sausages and I certainly didn't detect even a hint of ginger, but then this could be one of those times when the mashed potato dulled the flavour. Taken on its own, a chunk of apricot had the sort of flavour I'd expect from a chunk of dried apricot that had been cooked alongside large amounts of pork, but it's never going to be the strongest of flavours in that situation. However, the pork is good quality stuff, and the sausages are very tasty. The overall effect is not necessarily 'warming', but these will certainly be added to my list of Waitrose sausages to buy again.

Classic Shepherd's Pie by Sainsbury's

Shepherd's pie is one of those things that I've spent most of my life accepting as one thing, but which turns out to be something else entirely. Like many of my acquaintance, I've always thought it was a dish made with minced beef - occasionally with some veg - in a rich gravy, topped with mashed potato. Turns out, shepherd's pie uses lamb, not beef, but is essentially otherwise the same. The beef version is apparently called cottage pie.

Here's my confusion: A shepherd is one who looks after a flock of sheep... surely he wouldn't be wanting a pie made out of one of his flock, or to be in a position where, at the barest hint of a rumbling tummy, his flock transform before his eyes into a buffet of tasty meals?

Perhaps logic should never be involved when naming foodstuffs.

Anyway. Here we have the second of three "Classic... by Sainsbury's" products I recently picked up for a mere £5. It's a decent-sized single-portion package that just needs to be cooked for 25 minutes (45 minutes from frozen). The package describes it as 'Braised minced New Zealand lamb in gravy with carrots topped with fresh buttery Maris Piper potato'. There's one small thing missing from that description - other than punctuation, that is - and that's onion, listed in the ingredients as 7% of the whole, making it slightly more substantial than the carrot (5%).

Now, New Zealand lamb is roundly regarded as good quality stuff, but even the best quality meat is going to lose a certain something when transported over 11,000 miles. No matter how much money one spends on lamb, by the time it's reached the UK high streets, it's generally become a little musty. I'm not sure if the whole 'gravy and veg' thing is meant to disguise this small fact, but it doesn't... certainly not in the case of this shepherd's pie.

Each mouthful is certainly richly flavoured, the potato is creamy and smooth, but the aftertaste borders on vile, and lingers for quite some time. Even after a drink and a sweet dessert, I could still detect hints of the minced lamb on my palate.

Then again, broadly speaking, this has been my experience of lamb in almost any form in recent years. Perhaps I should just accept that I don't much like lamb, and just avoid it entirely... and admit that this is probably not the fairest review in this blog... or at least suggest that shepherd's pie is probably best made fresh...

(Pre-Packaged) S&M Rodeo #5: Classic Bangers & Mash by Sainsbury's

Hey, come on - if it's available, I have to try it, right? Anyway, I was in the mood for another S&M Rodeo, but didn't fancy doing it from scratch (not that I've ever done the mash from scratch so far!), so this seemed like a good compromise.

The packaging bills it simply as "2 British pork sausages with onion gravy and mashed potato" - a nice, clear and unpretentious description. Cooking is a very simple process of just plonking it into the oven for 25 minutes (40 minutes from frozen), and then dumping it out onto a plate. While I'd prefer to be making stuff and trying new recipes, you just can't argue with this kind of simplicity.

While the description is quite meagre, the list of ingredients for the onion gravy alone makes very interesting reading (you can hear those cogs in my brain a-whirring already, can't you?) - onion, chicken and beef stocks, 'red onion chutney' (What? They used a ready-made chutney? I don't know if that's cheeky or inspired!), red wine and red wine vinegar, and of course cornflour, the one ingredient I forgot all about when I made an onion gravy from scratch. Curses!

Naturally, I'm going to compare it to my Sparky Onion Gravy, because I was quite proud of my own concoction, despite its flaws. In terms of flavour, this Sainsbury's Classic is much more strongly onion - quite a surprise, considering the melange of different stocks and the red wine, but I guess the use of a red onion chutney as a major component would have been a great help. Perhaps for my next attempt, I'll make a chutney, then incorporate it into a gravy...

But I digress...

I'm not trying to suggest that the gravy just tasted like onion - far from it. It's a rich, warm flavour that hints at a heavier, more extensive seasoning than the ingredients would suggest. Just the plain gravy would be nice enough, but the chopped onion adds to the texture, and the whole is very tasty complement for sausages which would otherwise be rather unremarkable (despite featuring their own seasoning - salt, white pepper, mace, ginger, nutmeg, parsley and sage), while the mash is a nice, smooth portion of creamy stodge to bind it all together.

As far as the portion size goes, I'm in two minds. At first glance, it appeared to have quite a miserly portion of mash, but it does go a long way. The sausages are nice and fat but, when I make my own sausages and mash, I'll cook at least three sausages, occasionally four if I'm really hungry. Corpulent though they are, the mere two supplied in this package just weren't enough, and the amount of gravy supplied could easily accommodate a third sausage.

Then again, I picked this up as part of an "Any 3 for £5" deal at my local Sainsbury's, and that's an excellent deal however you look at it.

S&M Rodeo #4: Waitrose Richly Flavoured Toulouse Sausages with Smoked Bacon, Red Wine and Garlic

I suspect that, every so often, my S&M Rodeo subheading will introduce me to a new sausage experience that is both unexpected and instantly enjoyable.

And that's always going to sound like a massive double entendre, so let's just run with it.

This entry from Waitrose is just one such experience. I've never before tried Toulouse sausages and - just for a change - Waitrose seems to have nailed the recipe, and kept to the simple origins - little has been added beyond that which is listed in the name, and most of that is the now-ubiquitous preservatives and antioxidants.

Straight from the pack, the smell is quite distinctive - the pork content is immediately obvious, but so is the bacon and the garlic. Cooking provides an interesting contrast, because the predominant flavours - other than the pork - are the bacon and the red wine. This was quite a pleasant surprise, as I had feared that the bacon would play second fiddle to the pork but, despite a much lower proportional content (11%, compared to 77% pork!) the rich, smokey flavour of the bacon holds its own. The strength of the wine flavour is rather surprising considering it seems to be without any additional flavouring or flavour enhancers. It's subtle, but it's definitely there - a distinct, warm, musty red wine undertone - which struck me particularly because I can't drink red wine without developing a migraine, so it's nice to know that it's safe enough as a food additive.

These proved slightly trickier to grill successfully - my usual timings had to be extended quite a bit - and I ended up playing it safe to avoid the possibility of burning them. Then, when I first cut into the sausage, I was initially shocked to see so much pink in the middle. It took me a few moments to realise that they were not, in fact, undercooked, I was looking at fairly large chunks of bacon which, coincidentally, appeared roughly central in that particular cross-section of sausage.

One point confuses me: the packaging claims at one point that these sausages are "made with 86% pork from prime cuts", while the ingredients - as previously mentioned - give a pork content of 77%. I can only guess that 86% of that 77% pork is 'from prime cuts' and the remaining 14% is not 'from prime cuts'. Seems like a strange way of detailing it, but what do I know? I just eat the things...

I'm also more than a little nonplussed by the pack's assertion that the pork used is "Prime British pork from pigs born outdoors and reared in airy, straw-bedded barns". I mean, I know folks these days like their 'ethical farming practices', and are keen to ensure that animal have comfortable, 'happy' lives before they are slaughtered for our consumption but, really, what's next? Biographies?

"Percy was born on a lovely, sunny July day with a fresh, sou'wester bringing the scents of daisies, heather and wild strawberries over the farm. He loved to run and frolic in his pen, muddying himself up and generally behaving like a porky rascal. Farmer Bloggs had to work extra hard to scrub the mud and swill from Percy's plump body before he was led away, killed with a bolt to the brain, and then carved up with care and precision."

See? It just doesn't work, does it?

S&M Rodeo #3: Tesco Finest British Pork & Caramelised Red Onion Sausages

I must confess that it's taken me not quite this long to figure out how best to cook most sausages under my grill. Packaging tends to suggest that mythical 'medium grill heat', and anywhere between 12 and 20 minutes cooking time. The only constant, which should come as no surprise, is that one should "turn occasionally".

For my purposes, the grill is set to somewhere in the region of 175-180C, and I turn every five minutes (1/2 turn, 1/4 turn, 1/2 turn) for a total of 20 minutes cooking. Depending on the sausage, this can result in a dinner that is either cooked to perfection, or burnt to a crisp on the outside, but still succulent within. Particularly if I don't start my 5-minute countdown, then go off and do something for a while before realising I haven't heard the alarm yet.

And so it came to pass that, on this night, I decided to cook myself three of these interesting-sounding Tesco Finest sausages. As a general rule, I find plain sausages quite bland, and some of the embellished recipes can be little better... or outright vile. What could I expect from a simple pork and red onion sausage?

Well, the first sign that I was on to a winner was the scent of the raw sausages when I first opened the packet. That red onion aroma was very strong and sweet - far more so than I would have expected from a meat-and-onion mixture contained within what the packaging describes as "natural pork casings". If a sausage smells that good raw, chances are it'll taste amazing...

...And, dear reader, amazing it most certainly was.

To accompany these sausages, I mixed up some rather bland instant mash (Mr. Mash, supposedly "99% real potato", but I'd guess that the missing 1% is flavour - certainly not an instant mash that I can recommend!) livened up by a dash of basil, and served with some frozen mixed veg (as always, blasted in the microwave). This system has served me well in the past, and I'd say that the blandness of the mash was easily countered by the flavour bursting from the sausages. If these sausages are anything to go by, caramelised red onion must be one of the best accompaniments to pork, its sweetness counterpointing the savoury pork in every bite.

The ingredients list for the caramelised onion lists sugar, cider vinegar, cinnamon and clove alongside the onion, suggesting that it begins its life as something akin to a red onion jam, and is mixed in with the minced pork. Looking at a cross-section of a sausage doesn't bear this out, however, so I guess the onions are fried in a kind of sweet marinade.

The sausages do also contain other seasoning - sea salt, white pepper, marjoram, nutmeg and parsley - but it's the red onion that takes centre stage, in what is surely going to become one of my favourite sausages for a quick S&M fix.

Ginger-Glazed Salmon & Wasabi Mash

No idea from whence this idea was sprung, but it occurred to me only today. Naturally, the Wasabi mash part is a previously documented idea, and I'm no stranger to sticking a salmon steak in the oven so, really, the defining element is the ginger 'glaze'.

I should possibly mention that, when I prepared the Sparky Onion Gravy at my parents' house recently, there were several differences in the ingredients and the process - namely, normal onion, mild chilli powder, cornflour and a ready-made ginger paste. The end result was an entirely different gravy (normal onions being far sweeter, mild chilli powder kinda defeating the object of the recipe), but it turned out rather well, and the recipe will now stand as a milder variation on the original, for those times when a head-explodingly spicy onion gravy is not wholly appropriate.

But I digress.

The ginger paste is really what got the ball rolling on this idea. I have a stack of salmon steaks in the freezer compartment of my fridge and, since they're no use for sushi or the Teriyaki stir-fry due to being heavily waterlogged, I tend to bake them. While I was last out food shopping, I saw all these pre-prepared 'such-and-such with thingumy glaze' main courses, and thought to myself that the ginger paste should be able to make a no-brainer ginger glaze for salmon... But was I right..?

Ingredients:

• Instant Mash (Sainsbury's - half a sachet per person)
• Clearspring Wasabi powder (2 teaspoons should be sufficient, possibly per serving)
• Salmon steak (1 per person)
• 'Very Lazy' Ginger Paste (1 sachet per steak)

Preparation Time: About 10-12 minutes

Tools Required:

• Bowl
• Stirring Implement
• Baking Tray
• Foil
• Kettle

The Process:
Preheat your oven to something in the region of 180degrees Centigrade. Open the sachet(s) of ginger paste and spread the contents over the top of the salmon steak(s). Wrap loosely in foil, place on a baking tray and into the oven for about 10 minutes. Towards the end of this time, stir the Wasabi powder into the instant mash powder, ensuring it's all lump-free before adding the appropriate amount of hot water. Stir until the instant mash is ready.

By this point, the salmon steak(s) should also be ready, so serve everything up... and enjoy...

The Results:
Well... Try to enjoy, anyway. This was not a roaring success, except inasmuch as the Wasabi mash was pretty good (probably far better suited to the sausage and mash idea, frankly), and the salmon was not half bad, considering how soggy it was when thawed (seriously, I had to wring it out before I could even think about slapping that thing in the oven!). The failures were that the ginger didn't glaze - I suspect grilling would have been the better option, and it's certainly what I shall try next time - and the salmon and ginger just didn't connect with the Wasabi mash... in fact, it clashed quite horribly.

It wasn't completely inedible - far from it - but, rather than being "a party on my tongue" (yes, sorry, I like those jokes almost as much as the S&M 'pun'), it was more like a 3am brawl in the pouring rain outside a club in west London. The mash was creamy, but bitter and spicy. The ginger-topped salmon was cooked to perfection (if I do say so myself - moist, but not soggy, and it came apart delightfully) and the sweet, ginger kick would probably have been truly awesome if it had actually turned into the glaze I was hoping for. Maybe grilling would do it, maybe I'd need to add something to the ginger paste to help it along... Who knows?

Further experimentation is called for...

S&M Rodeo #2: Wasabi Mash

I should say to begin this posting that I've not actually tried this... yet. Having woken up this morning feeling nauseous, I've barely eaten all day, but this idea had occurred to me a while back as another variation on the Sausage and Mash theme.

The drawback to this suggestion is that it would be far more difficult to achieve with freshly made mash because, with instant, you're basically mixing two powders, then adding hot water or milk. Working with real potatoes, you'd have to get the mash ready before you even add the wasabi, which would just increase preparation time and lead to the mash being cooler or overcooked, and so possibly not quite so appetising when it's served.

So. In theory, then...

Ingredients:

• Instant Mash of choice (I'll be using Sainsbury's, as before)
• Clearspring wasabi powder (1 heaped teaspoon should be plenty!)

Preparation Time: Mere moments!

Tools Required:

• Bowl
• Stirring implement

Process:
Mix up one serving/sachet/whatever of the instant mash, and the teaspoon of wasabi powder in a bowl, then add water or milk as directed in the instructions. Stir till you have the required texture of mash.

That's really it.

Now, I obviously can't do the traditional 'The Results:' bit because I haven't tried it... but I will make a couple of recommendations in lieu:

1. Use plain pork sausages, as per S&M Rodeo #1
2. Use a plain vegetable stock gravy

The reason for this is that any kind of seasoning in either the sausages or the gravy would play havoc with the flavour - not to mention the kick - of the wasabi mash. The mixture of potato and Japanese horseradish alone will season up you pork sausages quite nicely, I'd imagine... With any luck, if my stomach has cleared up tomorrow, I might risk giving it a try...

S&M Rodeo #1: Sparky Red Onion Gravy & Mustard Mash

There are two reasons this Blog is called snacks & the single man:

1. It's a cool name, and no-one else had got there first
2. I'm shit at first dates

Is this relevant? Who knows? Suffice it to say that, while this little experiment is all my own, the recipe is derived from something else, and the idea came from someone else. More specifically, from the overpriced, underwhelming Sausage & Mash served to them by a well-know London Bar/Restaurant.

I'll focus here on the gravy, since that's the complicated part and, to be honest, I didn't get it quite right on this run-through. The mustard mash was accomplished using Sainsbury's instant mash with a teaspoon of wholegrain mustard (Maille) and a small knob of butter. When I'm a bit more confident in the kitchen, I'll make the mash from scratch, too. Timings for each part will, by necessity, overlap somewhat... and I tend to get a bit skittish if I start thinking I need to to more than one thing at a time. Bad enough that I was cooking the pork sausages in the oven (Sainsbury's Taste the Difference 'Ultimate Outdoor Bred') while working on the gravy. That, and making the mash from scratch would have been... troublesome.

Ingredients:

• Red Onion (either one small one, or half a large one)
• Coriander Powder (2 teaspoons)
• Chilli Powder (1 teaspoon)
• Turmeric Powder (1/2 teaspoon)
• Ginger (reasonably sized blob)
• Garlic (2 decent-sized cloves)
• Vegetable Stock (Knorr Stockpot this time)
• 250ml Water

Preparation time: about 45 minutes, at a guess. More experimentation needed...

Tools Required:

• Chopping Board
• Knife (for chopping onion, ginger and garlic)
• Small/Medium Saucepan

Process:
I suspect a useful 'Step 1' would be to actually have some proper cooking lessons... or at least spend some time researching gravy before stepping into the breach and doing something as crazy as this.

Ah well.

So, start by chopping the onion. It's going to come apart, so chop according to your preferences - either slicing it or chopping it into fractions (quarters, sixths, eighths, depending on the size of the onion) then separating it into its layers - then dump it into the saucepan. Peel and finely chop the ginger, then add to the saucepan. Same for the garlic, as it happens. Makes it all seem really easy, doesn't it? Add the coriander, chilli and turmeric powders, then stir together in 250ml of water. Bring to the boil, then stir in the vegetable stock. Allow it all to simmer nicely, and hopefully thicken up.

The Results:
Now, bearing in mind that I used about twice as much water as I really needed (500ml! what was I thinking?) and also couldn't decide whether the saucepan should be on a high, medium or low heat (I suspect 'high' to begin with, then lowering to keep it warm once it's thickened up), so the end result was... rather runny... it actually turned out not bad at all... Again, largely due to the quantity of water involved (but also perhaps the amount of other ingredients), I ended up with at least twice as much gravy as I needed, which is a bit of a waste, but hey.

The recipe I based this on actually called for garlic and ginger paste... which might also have helped. Possibly I could have pulped, rather than slicing, the fresh stuff, but perhaps next time I'll follow the recommendations

The gravy itself was not half bad... very hot and spicy... and it certainly went well with the sausages. Though I do wonder in retrospect if it wouldn't have been better to add the onion later in the process. I'm sure it was in there somewhere, but it wasn't the most apparent flavour in there. It had certainly lost all of its crispness which, to be frank, is not what I was aiming for. Perhaps the idea would be to pressure-cook everything to begin with, then add extra onion to the end result and let it simmer for a while?

Addendum 9/2/11 - Forgot to mention that the recipe from which this is derived actually called for the wholegrain mustard to be part of the gravy. The idea of turning my plain old instant mash into Mustard Mash came from a recent S&M experience of my own (sorry, I will probably be milking that particular double entendre for all it's worth and more) while out on a day trip. I'm not completely certain I added enough mustard, or whether the sheer spiciness of the gravy overpowered it completely, but I suspect those little wholegrains would have been overloaded wherever they were, unless I'd made a mustard mash that was approximately 65% wholegrain mustard... and that would just be silly.

Sillier than everything else in this blog, that is.

The pork sausages didn't quite cook according to plan... or it could just be that I don't know what I'm looking at when it comes to cooking the blasted things in the oven. Normally, I'd fry them... but with a saucepan on the hob, I didn't fancy trying to balance it all with a frying pan as well. Of the three I cooked, one wasn't completely done within the time specified on the packaging, so I may have to rethink time and temperature next time.

Overall, though, for a complete novice like me, this experiment turned out reasonably well... And no signs of food poisoning yet...